MUSIC

Sacred flutes are blown ("Windim Mambu'') to make the cries of spirits by adult men in the Madang region of Papua New Guinea. Pairs of long bamboo male and female flutes are played for ceremonies in the coastal villages near the Ramu River. The Ravoi Flutes from Bak are accompanied by two garamut carved wooden slit gongs. The Waudang Flutes from Manam Island are accompanied by two large and two small slit gongs and six singers. The Jarvan Flutes from Awar are accompanied by a shell rattle. The Mo-mo resonating tubes were recorded in the Finisterre Range. There are the cries of six different pairs of flutes and one pair of conch shells from the Ramu coast, two pairs of Waudang Flutes from Manam Island with singing and Mo-mo resonating tubes from the Finisterre Range. Occasional percussion is provided by wooden slit gongs and hand drums. These recordings were made in 1976. Originally released on LP 1977 as !Quartz 001 & 1979 as !Quartz 002, Quartz Publications by David Toop with the assistance of Sue Steward, Evan Parker, Robert Wyatt and Alfreda Benge. Re-released on CD 1999 as Rounder Records 5154 & 5155.
ぜひお聞きください。

The explorer Walter Maioli makes his most amazing adventure, the journey to the center of the Earth. Retracing the exploits of the Platonic demiurge, he identifies in the cave the deepest meaning of myth. Primordial sounds, not shadows, are at the center of this magical path straddling geology and Paleolithic polyphony. The recordings between 1985 and 2002 capture the sonic imperceptibility of the great subterranean womb, investigate the secret dialogue between the trickling of pond waters and the faint percussive reverberation of stalactites and stalagtites. Rocky sediments are played as tubular organs, glockenspiels, xylophones or stone marimbas. Crystalline timbral variations and subtle microtonal passages recall the chimes of Tibetan gongs and bells, of the scales of Java and Bali. Amidst muffled pauses and silences, trills and rings, echoes and tremolos, hisses and pops of vibration, Maioli builds his most imaginative niche of sound, a magnetic and telluric chant that is pure symphony and archetypal synaesthesia. Co-produced with Holidays Records.

Nigerian percussionist Gasper Lawal’s groundbreaking debut Ajomasé, originally self-released in 1980 on his own CAP label, finally sees an official reissue via the esteemed Strut imprint. Having honed his craft through collaborations with giants like Stephen Stills, Funkadelic, and Vangelis, Lawal crystallized his vision using hand-built instruments and meticulous multi-tracking to create a work of singular depth. Merging Afro-rhythmic intensity with experimental sensibilities, the album garnered international recognition after airplay from John Peel and others. A historic masterpiece where West African shamanism collides with Fourth World psychedelia, deep-rooted funk, spiritual resonance, and an avant-garde ethnomusicological spirit. Fully remastered from the original tapes.

Japan’s KAKUHAN deliver a futureshock jolt on their incred debut album ‘Metal Zone’ - deploying drum machine syncopations around bowed cello and angular electronics that sound like the square root of Photek’s ‘Ni Ten Ichi Ryu’, Arthur Russell’s ‘World of Echo’, Beatrice Dillon’s ‘Workaround’ and Mica Levi’s ‘Under The Skin’ - or something like T++ and Errorsmith dissecting Laurie Anderson’s ‘Home Of The Brave’, her electric violin panned and bounced relentlessly around the stereo field. It really is that good - basically all the things we love, in multiples. While "Metal Zone" might be their debut, KAKUHAN are hardly newcomers. Koshiri Hino is a member of goat (jp), releasing a run of records under the YPY moniker, and heading up the NAKID label, while Yuki Nakagawa is a well known cellist and sound artist who has worked with Eli Keszler and Joe Talia among many others. Together, they make a sound that’s considerably more than the sum of its parts - as obsessively tweaked, cybernetic and jerky as Mark Fell, frothing with the same gritted, algorithmic intensity as Autechre's total-darkness sets, stripped to the bone and carved with ritualistic symbolism. The album’s most startling and unexpected moments come when KAKUHAN follow their 'nuum inclinations, snatching grimey bursts and staccato South London shakes and matching them with dissonant excoriations that shuttle the mind into a completely different place. It's not a collision we expected, but it's one that's completely melted us - welding obsessive rhythmic futurism onto bloodcurdling horror orchestration - the most appropriate soundtrack we can imagine for the contemporary era. By the album's final track, we're presented with South Asian microtonal blasts that suddenly make sense of the rest of the album; Nakagawa erupts into Arthur Russell-style clouded psychedelia, while wavering flutes guide bio-mechanical ritual musick formations. It’s the perfect closer for the album’s series of taut, viscous, and relentless gelling of meter and tone in sinuous tangles, weaving across East/West perceptions in spirals toward a distinctive conception of rhythmic euphoria with a sense of precision, dexterity and purpose that nods to classical court or chamber music as much as contemporary experimental digressions. Easily one of the most startling and deadly debuts we’ve heard in 2022; the louder we’ve played it, the more it’s realigned our perception of where experimental and club modes converge - meditative, jerky, flailing genius from the outerzone. Basically - an AOTY level Tip.

Now on the cusp of his third solo album, Norwegian saxophonist Bendik Giske knows himself well. With his new, self-titled record, he is in his prime as an artist: confident in his voice and abilities, buoyed by critical acclaim from all corners – including two Norwegian Grammy nominations – and a surge in audiences everywhere. With the intriguing choice of Beatrice Dillon as album producer – clearly the British electronic musician is a fellow traveler in the practice of original aesthetic expression – her influence is immediate and keenly felt. Together, they strip away a layer of melodicism, honing in on pattern and rhythm to bring out a different dimension of his mesmerizing sound. While again working with single-take recordings, no overdubs, only saxophone and his body, gone is the reverberant space and mellifluous glamor. Giske finds the result akin to musical full-frontal nudity – every detail, every huff and puff audible, no obscuring, no aestheticizing. People may look away when it’s not as pretty, but what’s left feels more present and potent. Confrontational, it demands greater attention, but through its physicality – you can hear and feel his body in the music – it takes you to a flow state, somewhere between ecstasy, elation, and spiritual awakening. Intensely human, there’s stark tension there, too – there always will be when fighting for existence and validity – elegantly illustrated by Florian Hetz’s striking photographs of the artist on the covers of the release. In part, Giske is inspired by Judith Halberstam’s The Queer Art of Failure. As much as he has benefitted from his training and participation in the environment of the jazz conservatory, his path took him far outside its confines. Working these new explorations with his instrument has been a ten-year process of peeling away what he knew ultimately didn’t fit, finding the sonic territory of his lived experience. What emerged were systems that allowed for studies of tempo and proportion, a starting point for an immersive improvisatory approach, mapping years of musical probing. It’s the sound of social emancipation through the meditative pulse and velocity of circular breathing and the dance of the body, especially fingers, tongue, and lips. Giske knows that music can be a powerful tool in bringing people together to find ideas, and the longevity of his project is at its utmost a call for care, togetherness, storytelling, and the ability to gather for a shared cause. In all earnestness, Bendik Giske is a proposal for truthfulness and existence, a space for one to express their most profound self.

Latency present És pregunta, the second album from Catalan vocal duo Tarta Relena. Founded by Helena Ros Redon and Marta Torrella i Martínez, Tarta Relena explores the rich vocal traditions of the Mediterranean, singing in languages such as Classical Greek, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Catalan, Ladino, and more. Their music blends sacred and secular influences, drawing inspiration from flamenco, lyrical song, traditional music, and electronic experimentation.

És pregunta dives into themes of tragic contemplation, portraying the tension between natural and human forces grappling with mysterious and inevitable consequences. The album is a conceptual journey through fate, knowledge, and the struggle to reconcile our future selves with present realities. Influenced by Mediterranean folk, Georgian laments, and the mystic works of 12th-century visionary Hildegard von Bingen, Tarta Relena crafts a vibrant sonic world where the past and future converge.

Renowned for their captivating live performances, Tarta Relena has enchanted audiences at festivals like Sónar, Le Guess Who?, Mutek, Big Ears, and Primavera Sound. Their stage presence is enriched by subtle electronics and rhythmic patterns played on a ceramic amphora, creating a unique texture to their vocal artistry. Collaborations with artists such as Marina Herlop and Maria Arnal i Marcel Bagés have further pushed the duo to explore new dimensions of contemporary folk music. For Tarta Relena, folk is a living tradition – deeply rooted in the past but always evolving.

Tarta Relena will debut És pregunta live at Unsound on October 2, 2024.

« Time and distance collapse in the music of Tarta Relena. With little more than their two voices, Helena Ros and Marta Torrella connect the far corners of the Mediterranean, drawing on traditions stretching back more than a thousand years. This is music of primal essence and unnameable

longing, full of frequencies that seem to tap an ancient ache in one’s bones.» – Pitchfork

Latency present És pregunta, the second album from Catalan vocal duo Tarta Relena. Founded by Helena Ros Redon and Marta Torrella i Martínez, Tarta Relena explores the rich vocal traditions of the Mediterranean, singing in languages such as Classical Greek, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Catalan, Ladino, and more. Their music blends sacred and secular influences, drawing inspiration from flamenco, lyrical song, traditional music, and electronic experimentation.

És pregunta dives into themes of tragic contemplation, portraying the tension between natural and human forces grappling with mysterious and inevitable consequences. The album is a conceptual journey through fate, knowledge, and the struggle to reconcile our future selves with present realities. Influenced by Mediterranean folk, Georgian laments, and the mystic works of 12th-century visionary Hildegard von Bingen, Tarta Relena crafts a vibrant sonic world where the past and future converge.

Renowned for their captivating live performances, Tarta Relena has enchanted audiences at festivals like Sónar, Le Guess Who?, Mutek, Big Ears, and Primavera Sound. Their stage presence is enriched by subtle electronics and rhythmic patterns played on a ceramic amphora, creating a unique texture to their vocal artistry. Collaborations with artists such as Marina Herlop and Maria Arnal i Marcel Bagés have further pushed the duo to explore new dimensions of contemporary folk music. For Tarta Relena, folk is a living tradition – deeply rooted in the past but always evolving.

Tarta Relena will debut És pregunta live at Unsound on October 2, 2024.

« Time and distance collapse in the music of Tarta Relena. With little more than their two voices, Helena Ros and Marta Torrella connect the far corners of the Mediterranean, drawing on traditions stretching back more than a thousand years. This is music of primal essence and unnameable

longing, full of frequencies that seem to tap an ancient ache in one’s bones.» – Pitchfork

First LP by the legendary Ali Farka Toure and one of 5 LPs being reissued for the first time ever. It comes with a replica of the original cover. Label design has been recreated based on the original release. Vinyl pressing company derived from runouts.

Fourth LP by the legendary Ali Farka Toure and one of 5 LPs being reissued for the first time ever.

Second LP by the legendary Ali Farka Toure and one of 5 LPs being reissued for the first time ever. Vinyl pressing company derived from runouts.

Vinyl pressing company derived from runouts. Fifth LP by the legendary Ali Farka Toure and one of 5 LPs being reissued for the first time ever.

〈Honest Jon's〉が60年代に南米エクアドル・キトで活動していた知られざるスイートスポット的レーベル〈Caife〉に残された魅力的なカタログを紐解いたシリーズから新たな発掘音源が登場！アフリカ先住民の伝統と豊かな音楽の伝統が融合した、エクアドル北端エスメラルダス州のユニークなアフリカ系エクアドル文化の素晴らしい記録を収めたアルバム『Juyungo』がアナログ・リリース。マリンバを中心に、コール&レスポンスのチャント、アンデスのギターのフィンガースタイル、パンパイプなどによる深い没入感に溢れる音楽作品を余すところなく収録。ゲートフォールド・スリーヴ仕様。洞察に満ちたメモと貴重写真が満載のブックレット(16ページ)が付属。

Novisad’s second album Seleya, originally released by Tomlab in 2001, is reissued by Keplar with a previously unheard bonus track from 2004 and a fresh cut by LUPO. Produced by Kristian Peters, these thirteen loop-based miniatures evoke a sense of early-2000s digital experimentation—crafted with the rudimentary tools, quirks and limitations of pre-Ableton software and repurposed equipment. Aliased tones, subtle dissonances and quietly colliding loops form a delicate, melancholic atmosphere that’s both intimate and exploratory. Untethered from convention, Seleya documents a moment of sonic curiosity and invention, where imperfection and unpredictability add emotional depth to its fragile beauty.

The long-awaited CD version of the album includes two newly remastered bonus tracks that were only included on the cassette tape version! Japan’s KAKUHAN deliver a futureshock jolt on their incred debut album ‘Metal Zone’ - deploying drum machine syncopations around bowed cello and angular electronics that sound like the square root of Photek’s ‘Ni Ten Ichi Ryu’, Arthur Russell’s ‘World of Echo’, Beatrice Dillon’s ‘Workaround’ and Mica Levi’s ‘Under The Skin’ - or something like T++ and Errorsmith dissecting Laurie Anderson’s ‘Home Of The Brave’, her electric violin panned and bounced relentlessly around the stereo field. It really is that good - basically all the things we love, in multiples. While "Metal Zone" might be their debut, KAKUHAN are hardly newcomers. Koshiri Hino is a member of goat (jp), releasing a run of records under the YPY moniker, and heading up the NAKID label, while Yuki Nakagawa is a well known cellist and sound artist who has worked with Eli Keszler and Joe Talia among many others. Together, they make a sound that’s considerably more than the sum of its parts - as obsessively tweaked, cybernetic and jerky as Mark Fell, frothing with the same gritted, algorithmic intensity as Autechre's total-darkness sets, stripped to the bone and carved with ritualistic symbolism. The album’s most startling and unexpected moments come when KAKUHAN follow their 'nuum inclinations, snatching grimey bursts and staccato South London shakes and matching them with dissonant excoriations that shuttle the mind into a completely different place. It's not a collision we expected, but it's one that's completely melted us - welding obsessive rhythmic futurism onto bloodcurdling horror orchestration - the most appropriate soundtrack we can imagine for the contemporary era. By the album's final track, we're presented with South Asian microtonal blasts that suddenly make sense of the rest of the album; Nakagawa erupts into Arthur Russell-style clouded psychedelia, while wavering flutes guide bio-mechanical ritual musick formations. It’s the perfect closer for the album’s series of taut, viscous, and relentless gelling of meter and tone in sinuous tangles, weaving across East/West perceptions in spirals toward a distinctive conception of rhythmic euphoria with a sense of precision, dexterity and purpose that nods to classical court or chamber music as much as contemporary experimental digressions. Easily one of the most startling and deadly debuts we’ve heard in 2022; the louder we’ve played it, the more it’s realigned our perception of where experimental and club modes converge - meditative, jerky, flailing genius from the outerzone. Basically - an AOTY level Tip.

Prolific Portuguese musician and visual artist Jonathan Uliel Saldanha - of HHY & The Macumbas/The Kampala Unit - might be best known for his noisy, experimental excursions, but he's long been fascinated by the possibilities offered by the human voice. He's already composed a slew of choral pieces, such as 'Khōrus Anima', 'Del' and 'Plethora', and his last, 'Santa Viscera Tua', was an ambitious project for 150 voices. On 'Kembo', he builds on these experiences significantly, examining the commonality and shared spirituality of vocal music alongside the Kingdom Ulfame Choir, a seven-piece Uganda-based group of Congolese singers. The collaboration began at Nyege Nyege's Kampala studio, where Saldanha and the choir took the time to figure out their direction, singing together in an imagined language concocted from elements of Lingala, Swahili, Kikongo and French. Considering pre-linguistic communication, liturgical music and glossolalia (better known as speaking in tongues), their improvisations evolved into trances, with Saldanha's discreet electronic augmentations used only to accent the melodies and harmonies.

This process stands out immediately on opening track 'Boya Kotala' when the group trade poignant solos over Saldanha's aerated choral drones and ominous synthesized bass. The voices are suspended in time, cautiously referencing sacred music but disregarding the expected tropes, leaving hypnotic vapors that gust through the entire suite. 'Tokumisa Nzambe' is remarkably different, adding a brittle electro-acoustic pulse to the choir's tangled phrases that are ornamented with rhythmic chants and layered melodic outbursts. "Hallelujah," they repeat on 'Hosana', reaching back to familiar praise songs and building to a jubilant crescendo of voices. And later, on 'Nzambe Bolingo', the group's impassioned recitations are threaded through chopped, percussive vocalizations and exhalations. Taking a brief breather, Kingdom Molongi's words coalesce into a calming lullaby on the hushed 'Emanuel', and their appreciation of classic soul and gospel fizzes to the surface on 'Maloba ya Motema Nangai' with virtuosic wordless phrases that speak to the roots of the music, not its contemporary application.

'Kembo' is an album that investigates not just the mutability of language itself, but time, wondering how words and themes are reshaped as they tumble through history, picking up influences from various folk traditions, idiosyncratic pop forms and diverse quasi-religious expressions. Most of all though, Kingdom Molongi manage to highlight the enduring relationship between the voice and the spirit, and the transformative power of choral music.

Awa Poulo is a singer of Peulh origin from Dilly commune, Mali, near the border with Mauritania. Largely pastoral and often nomadic, Peulh- (or Fula-)speaking peoples are found from Senegal to Ethiopia but predominate in the Sahel region of West Africa. Awesome Tapes From Africa is proud to release Poulo’s newest recording of highly virtuosic folk-pop, fresh from the studio, broadcasting her vision of Peulh music beyond the grazing grounds and central markets of her remote home region in southwestern Mali. 

It’s not very common to find a female singer performing publicly among the Peulh. But Poulo’s mother’s co-wife is Inna Baba Coulibaly, who is a celebrated singer most Malian music fans know. Coulibaly herself was brought into music by forces outside her control when a regional music contest required an entry from her village and she was chosen to be a singer. So, set in motion by a surprising series of events, young Poulo’s entree into the music world was auspicious as she gained popularity across the region. After several locally released tapes and CDs, this record is Poulo’s first internationally-distributed record. 

On Poulo Warali, she and her band combine the hallmarks of Peulh music―warm flute floating over cross-rhythmic n’goni (lute) riffs and resonant calabash gourd hand percussion―with broader Malian sounds like lightly-distorted guitar and a heavier, rollicking inertia. Shape-shifting layers of rhythm and woody overtones match Poulo’s commanding voice in a jocular yet deliberate dance. 

This is a relatively rare example of Malian Peulh music played in a modern, cosmopolitan context, reflecting the mixed society of Dilly, where Bambara, Soninke and Peulh-speaking people live among each other. 
Poulo’s conscious lyrics about community concerns speak to the distinctive identity of her broadly-flung people. While Peulh represents less than 10% of Mali’s melting pot of languages, the dynamic music here powerfully resonates well beyond the linguistic borders.

„The record tells of oases of trust.“ (Viola Klein) Viola Klein’s records are supremely earthy and astrally inclined. In her DJ sets, she navigates with harmonies through a music selection that combines experimental house from the US Midwest, West African polyrhythms, and music in the tradition of Can from Cologne. Klein was invited to shape the sound of a club night alongside Kampire and Nídia. She has collaborated with Unity Fellowship Church New York, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Ndongo Samba Sylla, the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center in Detroit, Julion De’Angelo, and Whodat. For her own party series, originally called Bring Your Ass and later No Adoration, No Humiliation, she invited artists such as Aaron Carl, K15, and Kyle Hall when he was just 18 years old. Her latest solo release, Confidant, offers a fresh approach to deepness.

A key document of the late ’70s experimental music scene in Kansai, Japan, R.N.A. Organism’s R.N.A.O Meets P.O.P.O (first released by legendary Osaka label Vanity Records in 1980) is a hallucinatory trip of dubby bass, churning guitars, sputtering rhythm boxes, twisted vocals and unidentifiable sound effects. With the vinyl out of print for decades now, Mesh-Key is honored to present this deluxe, fully authorized reissue, sourced from the miraculously well-preserved, original reel-to-reel tapes. Carefully remastered by Stephan Mathieu, this album has never sounded better.

NTS presents European Primitive Guitar, a compilation of instrumental guitar compositions, mapping out European analogues of the American Primitive Guitar movement, spearheaded by John Fahey in the 1950s. European Primitive Guitar spans works directly influenced by and responding to Fahey’s approach to composition, alongside works by artists that arrived at similar conclusions independently. The music is, at once, both starkly traditional and contemporary. This is no more evident than with the opening song on the compilation, Spanish guitarist Albert Giménez’s 1982 composition Conte Xinès. The song draws on numerous idioms of music - flamenco, jazz, ambient music, and guitar soli - within its shimmering arpeggios, culminating as a decidedly Spanish music that has collected the ephemera of the guitar’s travels before returning home. The compilation also explores wider ideas around experimentalism happening in Europe during the time of this anthology. German composer Hans Reichel not only developed new ways of playing the instrument, but also new ways of building guitars - pushing the boundary of what a guitar could be and how it could sound. Ahead of its full release, listen/download material from Maurizio Angeletti (Italy, 1983), Albert Giménez (Spain, 1982) and Peter Finger (Germany, 1974). The physical release is accompanied by an extended essay from The Hum’s Bradford Bailey.

A split CD commemorating the Japan tour by MARK FELL, RIAN TREANOR, and KAKUHAN in September and October 2023 is now available!

Known as a giant of electronic or experimental techno music since the 90's, they have released many works on labels such as Mille Plateaux, Line, Mego, and Raster Noton. In recent years, Mark Fell has been going beyond the boundaries of "techno" to offer a truly "modern" sound.
In 2023, NYEGE NYEGE TAPES will release "Saccades," a collaboration with Ugandan/Acholi fiddle player Ocen James, and RIAN FELL is creating music at the intersection of club culture, experimental art, and computer music, with new deconstructions and linkages. RIAN TREANOR creates music that involves new deconstruction and interlocking from the intersection of club culture, experimental art, and computer music.
KAKUHAN (Koshiro Hino and Hiroki Nakagawa), who started his activities in 2022 after various collaborations, "stirs" as the name implies, the poles/tunes possessed by various types of music such as "electronic music/strings," "contemporary music/club music," "composition/ improvisation," etc. that the unit is equipped with.
This 9-song split CD, which includes completely new compositions by these three artists, is not a mere "split (mish-mash)," but rather an approach that transcends and melds the boundaries of "physical/metaphysical" on the periphery of music after techno music is evident in each of the compositions. The ongoing attitude of the three artists toward music is truly and casually expressed in this work, which should be listened to beyond genres.

Kakuhan, a unit of Hino and Hiroki Nakagawa, has released a self-released CD, which has been sold exclusively at live venues, on "Nakid," a hot label run by Koshiro Hino, who is also well known for his activities with goat and YPY and for running "birdFriend," and has released such powerful artists as Keith Fullerton Whitman and Mark Fell & Will Guthrie. The CD is a self-released CD by Kakuhan, a unit consisting of Hino and Hiroki Nakagawa, which has been sold exclusively at live venues and has won critical acclaim!

The CD includes a live performance by KAKUHAN, a unit consisting of YPY, Hino Koshiro, and cellist Nakagawa Hiroki, at the "Feldman meets freq 2022" event held at Kyushu University in February 2022.
KAKUHAN's first album "Metalzone", released at the end of 2022, was voted the 5th best release of 2022 by Boomkat and the 5th best album of the year by Music Magazine in the best electronic music category. The CD contains a total of six songs, including the previous night's "Prototype," a song from the same album, and includes a song that can only be heard on this CD.
As the unit name suggests, the various elements of both artists' activities-"electronic music/strings," "contemporary/club music," "traditional/contemporary," "physical/metaphysical," "composition/improvisation"-are literally "stirred" in the performance. It is highly recommended to listen to it together with "Metalzone"!

Lamin Fofana has been killing it over the past few years with ace records on Hundebiss, Avian, Peak Oil and The Trilogy Tapes to name but a few. Here he unites with The Doudou Ndiaye Rose Family (check their Twenty​-​One Sabar Rhythms), respectfully and sensitively applying his electronic magic to the mesmerizing mbalax drumming, taking things even further into cosmic realms - somewhere between Mark Ernestus Ndagga project, T++, Jon Hassell and Popol Vuh.

In 2018, Rian Treanor left his home in Rotherham, UK, and headed to Kampala for a residency at Nyege Nyege's villa studio. The mind-expanding experience inspired his critically acclaimed 2020 full-length "File Under UK Metaplasm", but that wasn't the end of the story. Treanor also spent time working alongside Acholi fiddle player Ocen James, developing an improvisation-heavy collaboration that would push both musicians' idiosyncrasies into completely new places. Treanor wanted this collaboration to be as tactile and reactive as a live performance with traditional instruments, so he set about working on a digital process that would synchronize with James' approach. Using physical modelling techniques, Treanor created an instrument that explored the tunings and sounds of the a'dungu, an arched harp, and the nah or nag. With Ocen playing his rigi rigi, a single string violin, they intuitively experimented with the spectral properties of sound, using texture and acoustic contours as their structural framework. They were able to develop a sound together that was unconventionally rooted in traditional Ugandan culture, but shuttled into different dimensions of noise, computer music and radical UK rave. "Saccades" is the buffer between two vastly different sonic universes, united in respect and sprightly curiosity. Treanor's hyperactive computer-controlled rhythms are immediately identifiable on opening track 'Bunga Bule', but the sound palette is distinct: it's more flexible and less digital. James' expressionistic fiddle strokes are a revelation, contorted into hoarse squeals and rough vibrations that rub and flex off Treanor's tin can shuffle. The fertile back and forth continues through the ruff DSP tumble of 'As It Happens', before James cracks open the melodic core of his instrument on 'The Dead Centre', allowing Treanor to dispense with rhythm and meet his fiddle strokes with heavenly drones. Each track steps down a different avenue for the two artists, from the nightmarish microtonal twang of 'Memory Pressure' to the 4AM inverted sci-fi club pressure of 'Naasaccade' and the folky dancefloor swing of 'Rigi Rigi'. And when the album closes on a cacophonous remix from Vienna laptop noise pioneers Farmers Manual it's an unexpected gift that makes perfect sense. "Saccades" is a cross-cultural collaboration that swerves simplicity but refuses to over-complicate itself - it's about interaction, improvisation and passion.

Composed and performed by Valentina Magaletti Recorded by Thomas Poli at Impersonal Studio - February 5th and 6th 2021 (Rennes - FR) Mixed and edited by Leon Marks and Valentina Magaletti at Abbey Road (London - UK) Mastered by Brice Kartmann (Tours - FR) Published by Mute Song.