MUSIC

The second LP by Tokyo ambient conceptualists UNKNOWN ME began as a commission for historic Japanese cosmetic conglomerate Shiseido, conjuring audio approximations of seasons and scents, but soon flowered into its own refracted environment: Bitokagaku. Translated as “beauty and science,” the album is the foursome’s first composed solely with software, reflecting the collection’s utopian, laboratorial muse.

From levitational electronica (“A Rainbow in Meditative Air”) and vaporous downtempo (“Dancing Leaves”) to planetarium reverie (“Kitsune No Yomeiri”) and A.I. IDM (“Retreat Beats”), the music moves like weather patterns in a bio-dome: dazzling, microcosmic, and delicately calibrated. Percolating synths crossfade with field recordings from Shiseido’s research division; the sound of streams and distant birds blur into a processed haze; clinical voices read lists of precious stones. It’s a vision of new age as soft robotics, of serenity streamlined by sentient systems.

UM’s team of engineers (Yakenohara, P-RUFF, H. Takahashi, and Osawa Yudai) cite an eclectic swath of inspirations behind Bitokagaku – molecules, stars, Kenji Miyazawa, Akira Kurosawa, even “the sparkle of rainbows” – but their guiding artistic principle is as ancient as it is eternal: “beauty.”

In 1987, RAFAEL TORAL began making his own compositions and solo recordings. 30 years later, these recordings sound remarkably prescient and perfectly timeless—almost fresher today than when they were first released. Rafael has spent the time since then developing his conceptions, with continued explorations in the many records that have followed. On the 30th anniversary of his start, Drag City is reissuing Sound Mind Sound Body and Wave Field, his first two long out-of-print albums, on vinyl for the first time. Sound Mind Sound Body was partly inspired by exploring some of the working principles of Brian Eno and Robert Fripp, extrapolated by Rafael via a unique signal path leading out of his guitar. He paid notice to the massive impact of discreet gestures, creating slow-moving tones and spacious orchestral resonances, drifting and droning with glacial majesty, hardly recognizable as guitar much of the time. The first of these pieces were recorded in 1987, and in 1994, they were released on Portugal’s AnAnAnA, with material evolved in the years between, producing a remarkable equilibrium over an hour’s listening. Further evidence of the necessity for gradual development exists in subsequent reissues: for the 1998 Moikai reissue, “AE 1” was recorded, and for this edition, “AER 7 E” was rerecorded and the material for “AE 2” was recorded for the first time ever—all from original processes as noted, and none of which will cause the listener to notice a change in the otherworldly atmosphere.

Minecraft - Volume Alpha is the work of German composer and musician Daniel Rosenfeld. Using C418 as his moniker, Rosenfeld crafted the sweeping soundtrack and vibrant sound design which helped breathe life into Minecraft's voxel-based universe. Fans and critics were universally enamored with his beatless, nuanced electronic pieces upon release. Popular gaming site Kotaku named it among The Best Game Music of 2011, calling the music "remarkably soothing," and The Guardian has compared Rosenfeld's delicate piano and sparse ambient motifs to legendary artists Erik Satie and Brian Eno. In an interview feature with C418, Polygon distilled Volume Alpha to its essence: "It's not bound by the retro aesthetic of Minecraft's graphics. It transcends them. The album is an attempt to uplift the combined game/music experience into the sublime."

"Nuno Canavarro's Plux Quba hails from three decades in the past, yet the simple profile of its abstract/ambient/cutup collage makes it a record that sits quite comfortably in our IDM-informed future. In 1988, Plux Quba was a primal dark horse in the world of pants-forward electronic music -- an obscurity issued with little explanation from the laid-back west coast of Europe: Portugal, of all places! -- though the casual listener could hardly know that from an examination of the LP jacket. The vanguard of electronics in late-80s Europe was being pushed by organizations like Nurse With Wound, The Hafler Trio, HNAS -- and yet, when Christoph Heemann came across this recording, it struck his ears and the ears of fellow listeners like nothing before. Plux Quba was handed around between the principles of the early '90s A-Musik scene: Jan St. Werner, C-Schulz, Frank Dommert, Georg Odijk, plus interested fellow travelers like Jim O'Rourke, to the intense curiosity of all. To ears that were already saturated with all things kraut, the dark corners of prog and the frontline of experimental and improvised music, it proved elusive. Not simply in how it sounded and how that sound was achieved, but in where it was coming from -- like later Robert Ashley at times; certain stretches of melody recalled some of Eno's ambient pieces -- but mostly, it was a completely alien soundscape! And who was it? Was the band called Plux Quba? The record? The label? These sorts of mysteries are at the heart of records that require close listening and re-listening. As it was absorbed, it grew to be an influence on the Köln sound -- Mouse On Mars, Lithops, and Heemann's many and varied projects -- as well as O'Rourke, Fennesz and many others. Music and sound of this nature have for many years been made available by bands like Autechre, labels like Mille Plateaux -- but for the first ten years of its existence, Plux Quba was rarely heard. O'Rourke reissued it as the first record on his Moikai label in 1998, and it had a good run through around 2005 before the last of the print parts were filled. It's been almost a decade since Plux Quba was available, which is way too long considering that we live in an era where it is necessary to have an LP of this on hand for your contemporary listening distractions. And so, Drag City has stepped in to reissue the Moikai reissue of Nuno Canavarro's classic Plux Quba."

Shadows Lifted from Invisible Hands is an autobiographical record, comprised of four songs that Hoff refers to as ambient media. Each track is composed from sources drawn from his own involuntary aural landscape, specifically musical earworms and tinnitus frequencies. Neither sound nor a daydream, the earworm (or stuck song) emblematizes music as a commercial form—immediate, ubiquitous, and persistent. Likewise, tinnitus is inaudible and unscrupulous, manifesting across a spectrum of frequencies at will. The cognitive swirling of these phenomena provides an ambivalent, internal soundtrack that scores a person’s movement through the world. Those suffering from tinnitus or those who have grown accustomed to the “Tinnitus Effect” in movies will likely recognize the buzzing pitches on the record, but will likely not recognize the songs. Distorted and distilled, Shadows Lifted from Invisible Hands features altered versions of four commercial pop songs: Blondie’s “Heart of Glass,” David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” Madonna’s “Into the Groove,” and Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day.” Having been haunted by these songs on and off for years, Hoff tweaks the tracks, transposing and recomposing them for orchestral instrumentation. Speaking back to these involuntary echoes, these tracks go to great lengths to obfuscate their sources; to be sure not to simply re-introduce each earworm, as though they were samples. Otherwise, what’s the point? No one needs another stream. Besides, earworms are not music, although we perceive them as such. They are non-cochlear and exist as an affective force that is neither subjective nor objective, which is to say they are an invasive—and alien—phenomenon. Like tinnitus, they are aggravated by economic, social, and environmental forces as well as emotional states, mental health, and aging. Hoff doesn’t underplay his own struggles with mental health in discussing the record—noting a long history of depression and its acuteness over the last few years, which serve as the backdrop to the composition of this record. Scratch any pop song hard enough and you’ll find sadness underneath it. Subdermal, the songs on this record evoke a type of ephemeral weariness and despair. By recasting the original songs through their shadowy doubles, Hoff provides a window into the dark core of pop music. At the center of which lies capitalism’s desperate attempt to replicate itself through a cheap high built on echoing refrains. Just below the surface the listener finds a hangover of shadows dancing through the mind. — James Hoff is an artist living and working in New York. His work encompasses a variety of media, including sound, video, painting, and publishing. Hoff’s multidisciplinary approach begins at the user level—the level at which we interact with consumer technologies, media, and data. He has worked with computer viruses, inaudible data signals, ear worms, culture bound illnesses, dead zones, and hacked google maps as tools and framing devices for works that reimagine and expand the creative potential of digital and cultural networks beyond their economic and corporate-engineered use value. By exploiting and manufacturing technological and cognitive glitches, Hoff illuminates the social, political, and historical context of the software and media that we interact with on a daily basis. Hoff co-founded Primary Information in 2006 to publish historical and contemporary artists’ books. The organization has published hundreds of titles, including facsimile editions of Art-Rite, Broken Music, Black Art Notes, Cornelius Cardew’s Stockhausen Serves Imperialism, Godzilla: Asian American Art Network, The New Woman’s Survival Catalog, and Womens Work as well as new works by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, DeForrest Brown Jr, Tony Conrad, Dara Birnbaum, Constance DeJong, Alexandro Segade, Martine Syms, and Flora Yin-Wong, among many others. He has exhibited and performed at Artists Space, Bergen Kunsthall, the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard, Contemporary Arts Center (New Orleans), The Centre d’Art Contemporain (Geneva), Hessel Museum of Art, ICA London, The Kitchen, Kunsthall Oslo, The Royal Theatre of La Monnaie, MassMOCA, MoMA/PS1, Museum of Contemporary Art (Denver), and the Onassis Cultural Center, among many others.

‘2 Sim’ is a phrase the references mobile phones with two sim cards to describe people of mixed heritage, dual nationality or multiple residences. After being called a 2 Sim in conversation with a stranger whilst on a walk through Freetown (a recording of this moment features on the record), Duval began to explore what the 2 Sim experience is in contemporary West-Africa. 2 Sim was created from 2 months of field recordings and interviews with family, friends and peers in Freetown Sierra Leone. These site specific recordings are collaged with solo piano recordings and production recorded in Sierra Leone and the UK. The EP is accompanied by a short film/ music video of the same name which Duval shot and Directed whilst making the record. 2 Sim EP is the second release from Carrying Colour which follows on from 2017’s ‘Sen Am’

TRACE is a collection of 11 unreleased tracks produced by Yutaka Hirose during the Sound Process Design sessions, right after the release of his classic Soundscape series album Nova. Sound Process Design was Satoshi Ashikawa's label, home of his Wave Notation trilogy (Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Music For Nine Postcards, Satsuki Shibano's Erik Satie 1866-1925 and Satoshi Ashikawa's Still Way). Following Wave Notation, Sound Process Design worked with museums, cafes and bars to create site-specific soundscapes, starting with the sound design of the Kushiro Museum. Yutaka Hirose was called to work on sound for these spaces.

Rather than simply providing pre-recorded compositions, Hirose sought to create a "sound scenery". To achieve this, he participated in the conception of the space and paid particular attention to the accidental combination of sounds by placing the speakers and using a multi-sound source, and following the concept of "sculpturing time through sound".

The composer explains: "sculpturing time through sound means that the time, the space itself, the sound played in it, and the audience all become one sculpture. It is close to the idea of a Japanese tea ceremony where you use all of your 5 (or 6) senses to taste the tea."

TRACE: Sound Design Works 1986-1989 is divided into two parts. "Reflection" is based on an ambient soundscape. It narrates "a sleep that starts with the sound of water droplets at dawn and slowly disappears into darkness" and feels like a natural and soothing progression of Nova. It was played at entrances of spaces, at events, in cafes and bars. "Voice from Past Technology" expresses the dream world born out of that sleep and is based on what Yukata Hirose calls hardcore ambient, environmental music with a noise approach. It was played in museums and science centers.

All in all, TRACE is a crucial addition to every Japanese environmental music fan’s collection, alongside Midori Takada’s Through The Looking Glass, Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Green, Satoshi Ishikawa’s Still Way, Motohiko Hamase’s Notes of Forestry, Inoyamaland’s Danzindan-Pojidon, and Yutaka Hirose’s very own Nova.

‘Halos of Perception’ releases on November 3, 2023 with a hyperreal film in collaboration with Chinese-Malaysian Australian video artist Tristan Jalleh. Drawing from Lerkenfeldt's field work and electroacoustic practices, piano, cello and tape loop arrangements light up lost chambers and underground histories in a patchwork of reflective musique concrète, instrumental composition and surreal cinema. The artist's sophomore LP on Shelter Press spotlights underground networks opening questions of reality, virtuality and perception through oral traditions, experimental AV composition and diary-like vignettes.

One of Poland’s most innovative and singular electronic producers, Hatti Vatti, lands on Belgian giant R&S Records with a new instrumental album filled with unparalleled and experimental jazz electronica. Having released three other full-length albums, most recently 2017’s ‘Szum’, Hatti Vatti aka Piotr Kaliński returns with the breathtaking freeform sounds of ‘Zeit’. Featuring Rafał Dutkiewicz on drums, Paweł Stachowiak on bass and Piotr Chęcki on saxophone, the nine-track long player brings together a collection of eclectic compositions that defies genre classifications, with echoes of the Japanese ambient scene, krautrock, jazz and dubby UK-bass. Prepare to be dazzled with this collection of absorbing and left of centre productions from the label that brought the likes of Aphex Twin, James Blake and Gabriels to international acclaim.

When the world's chatter is hushed to a whisper and emptiness replaces clutter, time falls away completely, exposing a vast, open canvas for the imagination fill with reflection, contemplation and abstraction. On their first collaborative album, released via Caterina Barbieri's light-years label, Grand River and Abul Mogard gaze longingly into the abyss, capturing atemporality, splendour and tranquility with confident, impressionistic sonic strokes. Dynamic and poignant, 'In uno spazio immenso' balances on a knife-edge between booming, operatic grandeur and soft-focus simplicity, casting as much light on the subtle outlines and illusory rhythms as it does its dense, almost overpowering textures. Berlin-based Dutch-Italian composer and sound designer Aimée Portioli, aka Grand River, has been evolving her unique musical language since she released 'Crescente' on Donato Dozzy and Neel's Spazio Disponibile imprint in 2017. A trained linguist, she uses her instrumentation and advanced processes to challenge cultural perceptions, portraying emotions and moods rather than fixed, visual images. Abul Mogard meanwhile is just one of veteran Italian producer Guido Zen's many aliases, and over a series of acclaimed albums for labels like Ecstatic, Houndstooth and VCO, he's muddled fiction with stark reality, shaking kosmische synth fantasies into post-industrial ambience and blissful shoegaze memories. Working together, Portioli and Zen find unity in intensity, freezing their discrete concepts and techniques into a glacial emotional expanse. On opening track 'Dissolvi', they peer out hand-in-hand over a colossal, reverberant landscape, conducting booming basses, evaporating voices and brassy synthetic swells that pick out the formidable topography. Beatless but not without rhythm, the composition moves at its own pace, twisting time and form to suggest the duo's obliquely hypnagogic narrative. And with each action, there's inevitably a reaction: 'Frantumi di luce' is a hushed refraction that simmers with intrigue, decorating its subtle, flickering pulse and dazzling rays of thoughtful ambience, while 'Altrove, lontano' transports listeners into a different locale entirely, cloistering its meditative mood with angelic choral echoes and evocative strings. The album's most devastating track, 'Archi' is an apex of sorts, a collision of widescreen electroid oscillations and overdriven drones that careens into a grinding industrial beat, and 'Sulle barcane' is its serene inverse, a breathy exhalation fashioned from cryptic environmental recordings, static washes and weightless pads. But 'In uno spazio immenso' isn't a story about Portioli and Zen, exactly, it's an invitation to listen to an inner voice that's different for each listener. Space is whatever we want it to be, and how we decide to fill it is a choice that's dependent on the depth of the imagination.

Shuttle358 Optimal.LP is the much-anticipated debut release from californian dan abrams, and the first release in a series of artists featured on 12k's .aiff compilation. Dan Abrams' music is a self-replicating ecosystem that grows and unfolds with the movement of sonic particles and binary rhythm. Optimal.LP plays on the juxtaposition of ambient drones and delicate melodies with layers of digital static, lo-fi rumblings, and distressed microscopic sounds. this contrast in elements makes "optimal.lp" a very engaging and sophisticated body of work; tense, jarring, and oddly soothing.

Flowing water is an essential element of Earthly existence, a living force, a process of nature, a path-making which combines infinite sources mixing imperceptibly into a singular energy. It’s also a potent metaphor. A childlike wonder at flowing water’s presence and power, all the impressions it makes and creative neurons that it fires, happens to be a personality trait shared by Evan Shornstein (aka Photay) and Carlos Niño. The two producers/musical connectors may have grown up and reside a continent and daily realities apart — Photay in the forest serenity of New York’s Hudson Valley, Niño on Los Angeles’s ocean-adjacent west side — yet this magnetic power of fluidity, its sound, its meaning, what it can teach us about art and circulation, mesmerizes them both. Water is the spiritual center of their first album-length collaboration, the vast and deep An Offering — from the visual on the cover, to the first sound you hear on the opening “Prelude,” to the underlying themes and images espoused by the poet-philosopher Iasos on the closing “Existence.” More importantly, the image of water-like flow is a continuous reflection of how these two musicians have come to work together and apart, of the way they made An Offering, and how they’re continuing to create, without a beginning and (hopefully) with no end in sight. An infinite flow of sound, from and to every direction. Some of this work directly reflects the relationship between the two men, and of where/how Photay’s electronic, often-dancefloor-oriented tracks found Niño’s far-reaching world of ambient spirituality and improvised soundscaping. The meeting point is precise: Laraaji, the new age zither legend with whom Niño regularly collaborates, including at a June 2016 show in New York City which Niño played and Shornstein attended. The connection initiated immediately after that performance did not simply find the pair participating in each other’s recording projects — Photay remixing a Niño-produced Laraaji track and involved in Niño & Friends sessions; Carlos showing up on multiple songs of Photay’s 2020 album, Waking Hours, some of which was recorded at Niño’s studio—but in a broad exchange of ideas. Niño long ago established himself as one of Los Angeles’ great musical conduits, constructing environments that facilitate partnerships between far-flung artists, perpetuating the freedom of working in the present, outside expectations, trusting the work’s destination. When the younger Shornstein met Niño, his own creative process was ”almost too precious, and it was always my goal to break out of that.” Adapting Carlos’ pacing and free-flowing strategies — scenarios such as sharing recorded stems, bringing in old recordings to serendipitously fit new tracks, or mixing organic improvisations with stylized, post-produced rhythms — transformed Evan’s perspective. It made him rethink ideas like “finished,” shedding pressurized over-analysis for a process he calls “fluid” and “healthy.” It also made Shornstein reconsider some music they’d recorded but originally left off Waking Hours, “microscopic moments that were more expansive in my mind — there was so much honesty there.” What may not have made sense within the composed, hyper-stylized beauty of Hours, “felt really good” outside that context. Niño, who describes himself as “very album-oriented,” agreed, suggesting they create a unified body of work to match those moments — but not overthink it, make it quick, easy, productive, present. Which is how the re-imagining of pieces of music that became “Change” and “Exist,” sprung Photay and Carlos Niño into collaborating even more closely, and brought An Offering to the world. The sounds they gathered into an intentional, meditative whole, were made together and apart, and sourced from all over. The two producers made connections between new music and recordings they already had: Shornstein found hours of tape featuring solo playing by Upstate New York harpist Mikaela Davis, which became a central adornment on multiple tracks. Niño sent Shornstein a quartet improvisation he made with tenor saxophonist Aaron Shaw, keyboardist Diego Gaeta and synth-guitarist Nate Mercereau, which became the basis of “Honor.” They brought in trusted partners. The atmospheric blowing of LA-based tenor saxophonist Randal Fisher is a focal point throughout, at times processed by Photay’s machines. Photay’s trombone player Nathaneal Ranson, and Niño’s long-standing LA-based collaborator, vocalist Mia Doi Todd, float in-and-out of the mix. When Niño makes a record, another original “new age” legend, Iasos, is bound to be around, and his strong summation on “Existence” are the only words An Offering submits. The healing energy of Peterskill, a short rocky State Park waterway that ebbs through New York’s Ulster County (and across from Shornstein’s home — “a real environmental inspiration”), flows throughout. “Creating with no constructs,” is how Shornstein describes the process of bringing these elements together. “It was just a feeling, which maybe is what music or creating should always be.” Peterskill was also the source for a long extra track/outro when An Offering debuted as a Bandcamp-exclusive cassette in October 2021 — and quickly sold out. (A gorgeous Shornstein-directed film accompanied the release as well.) The notion of this music as “offering” came to life in its immediacy (the tape was released only a month and half after the idea for it was seeded) and in its gift-like nature (you can still get the digital version at a price of your own choosing). Scott McNiece of International Anthem found it, and instantly connected with its natural essence, a sound that accompanies one’s movements through difficult moments, the motion of instinctive change, a way to mark the radical period of our time with incremental alterations. Like flowing water affecting an ancient landscape. International Anthem offered to give An Offering a full vinyl release, which is why you are reading this one-sheet right now. And like any current, the interconnectedness between Photay and Carlos Niño, their symbiotic way of informing and influencing each other’s sounds, continues to naturally move forward and shapeshift. They are working on multiple projects together at the moment, and have already completed More Offerings. Flow on! - Piotr Orlov, August 2022

Nairobi-born Berlin-based sound artist Joseph Kamaru, aka KMRU, shares his new work Stupor on the new Helsinki-based label Other Power. Commissioned by the Helsinki curatorial and commissioning agency PUBLICS, Stupor is comprised of three original long form tracks. The tracks on the album are speculative notes to social architectures and environments the artist has traversed. As Bhavisha Panchia, a curator and researcher, writes in her liner notes: “A musical alchemist, KMRU places his listeners’ ear into a sonic-spatial matrix in which he transmutes his trans-local experience of place into elevated sonic dimensions that demand a kind of listening that you need to surrender to. If listening positions you inside an event – into a relational, social and cultural act that also positions us in the world – then listening to this album projects you inside an indeterminate unfolding, thick with tensions of movement and transitions. The artist’s pursuit of sounding out and responding to the world is undertaken through a creative mode of listening, recording and production, in which his ‘voice’ reverberates in his compositional arrangements – that mediate, translate, imagine and re-encode. As he engages with the environments he encounters, KMRU ‘renders sound negotiable, thinkable’. His signature emerges through electro-acoustic forms as he configures spatial and temporal imaginaries still tethered to the experiences of the places his ear encountered. The tracks on this album, Stupor, are speculative notes to social architectures and environments the artist has traversed. His orchestrated compositions and arrangements levitate us and turn our ears towards places and times beyond our reach, propelling us into a future anticipated but ungraspable. It is exactly the physical and psychological space that KMRU forges from his recordings and digital processes that stretch and transform them into prolific sound ‘events’. We could think of Nairobi and Berlin as instruments in KMRU’s compositions, where the east African city is the place from which KMRU’s listening has been nurtured, while the west European is the city to which his ear has been attuned. The artist’s relationship with Nairobi’s diverse neighbourhoods – from Kariokor flats in the Eastlands where he grew up, to the suburbs in Rongai – has shaped his approach. His ongoing recordings of the city are crucial to his process of working and become historical records that capture it in time. They could be thought of as aural archives of a postcolonial place, undergoing numerous planned and unplanned infrastructural as well as economic changes. He treats these sonic documents of a rapidly expanding postcolonial environment – alongside globalisation, hyper-capitalism and increasing economic disparity across the globe – as the foundations from which he creates. Stupor reminds us that we are intrinsically spatial and temporal beings who contribute to the social construction of our worlds. Importantly, this album is a reminder of the capability of sound to carve out space and its potential to open spatial and temporal dimensions. Sound is movement. Sound is space. As Brandon LaBelle points out, “sound is both a thing of the past and a signal of the future”, pulling us forwards and pointing us back. The signals KMRU points us towards are indefinite, indeterminate and uncertain. They lean towards a future, yet never fully arrive there. For Joseph Kamaru, sound is a sensorial medium through which social, material and conceptual interpretations are manifested in his works. KMRU carries with him a repository of listening experiences from Nairobi and beyond expanding his sonic practices, bringing an awareness of surroundings through creative compositions, installations and performances. KMRU has carved out a serious and definitive space on the list of essential authors in ambient experimental music - one of the most prolific and innovative artists in his field.

Ambient craftsman Tomokazu Fujimoto aka Multi-Surface describes the 11 tracks on his 2nd album for NNF as “nap-like” – vignettes of FM synths and smeared melody, looping across lost hours of the afternoon. Recorded throughout a year of intermittent sessions at his home studio in the Japanese countryside, the music moves in soft-focus swells and glistening arcs, gently swaying like paper lanterns. A few outliers expand the palette – kosmische percussion voyager “I'll float a boat on those clouds,” churning lo-fi whirlpool “Through the forest,” jittery gamelan edit “One rat” – but otherwise the mood skews opaque and oblique, chiming hazes half-heard on the breeze. Fujimoto’s muse is inward but attuned, reflecting on “the paths one has taken” and, in fleeting dreams, “visiting those places again.”

Abul Mogard and Rafael Anton Irisarri’s partnership unfolded serendipitously at the sold-out opening of the SoundSet Series at Madrid's Condeduque cultural center in 2023 - a program that featured performances by legends such as Autechre and younger artists like Caterina Barbieri and KMRU. The duo's encore that evening, recorded for Spain's Radio 3, resonated deeply with the audience, igniting a creative spark that propelled them to work remotely in their respective studios. At the heart of their effort lies a delicate balance of restraint and innovation, evident in the live concert track "Waking Up Dizzy on a Bastion." This piece, inspired by their musical sensibilities, serves as a testament to their shared vision and mutual respect. Utilizing a familiar parallel chord progression, the track builds from a simple melodic motif played live on synths that transforms into a call-and-response interplay between Mogard's synth lines and Irisarri's bowed guitar loops, creating a dialogue-like interaction between the musicians. As the piece moves forward, we are greeted by melting guitar patterns (recalling Kevin Shields most lysergic moments on Loveless), followed by an intense subsonic full body massage - the visceral physicality of the Ampeg bass amps and cabinets stacks on full display. Building upon the energy of that live performance, Mogard and Irisarri crafted "Place of Forever," a companion piece that combines Mogard's Farfisa organ and modular synthesizers with Irisarri's signature guitar tones and looping techniques at his Black Knoll studio in New York. Starting with a somber and minimal tone, the track gradually evolves, unfurling layers of deep bass tonalities draped in blissful gauze as it progresses during its 17-plus minute duration. The resulting album exudes a profound sense of alchemy, effortlessly weaving intricate soundscapes that feel simultaneously faraway and intimate. The cover artwork, by Marja de Sanctis, depicts a vase sculpture made of unfired clay. Created and photographed by herself, it reflects lights and shadows of fragility. The rawness of the material mirrors the purity and the delicate nature of the improvised duet’s performance. Daniel Castrejón’s design responds to the image transforming the shape of the vase into lines and empty spaces. His typography on the vinyl jacket features a spot varnish, creating a tactile reflection. Through these joint pieces, Mogard and Irisarri have created a work that encapsulates the dichotomy inherent in its title: impossibly distant, impossibly close.

After a two-decade interlude, Jim O’Rourke’s Moikai returns with Spectral Evolution, a major new work by Rafael Toral. Making his name in the mid-1990s with influential guitar drone platters like "Sound Mind Sound Body" and "Wave Field" (both reissued by Drag City in recent years), Toral has never been one to rest on his laurels repeating his past glories. In the early years of the 21st century, Toral laid the guitar aside, along with the focus on extended tones that had defined much of his music until that point. He began his ‘Space Program’, a thirteen-year investigation of the performance possibilities of an ever-expanding set of custom electronic instruments, played with a fluid phrasing and rhythmic flexibility inspired by jazz. Dedicated to honing his skills on these idiosyncratic instruments, Toral has performed with them extensively both solo and in many collaborations, including in his Space Quartet, where his mini-amplifier feedback integrates seamlessly into the frontline of a classic post-free jazz quartet rounded out with saxophone, double bass, and drums. Since 2017, Toral’s work has been entering a new phase, often still centred around the arsenal of self-built instruments developed in the Space Program, but with a renewed interest in the long tones and almost static textures of his earlier work; he has also, after more than a decade, returned to the electric guitar. Spectral Evolution is undoubtedly Toral’s most sophisticated work to date, bringing together seemingly incompatible threads from his entire career into a powerful new synthesis, both wildly experimental and emotionally affecting. The record begins with a brief ‘Intro’ that sets the stage for the unique sound world explored throughout the remainder of its duration: over sparkling clean guitar figures, Toral stages a duet between two streams of modulated feedback, seeming less electronic than like mutant takes on a muted trumpet and an ocarina. This segues seamlessly into the stunning ‘Changes’, where a dense array of Space instruments solo with wild abandon over a thick carpet of slowly moving chords, growing increasingly chaotic over the course of eight minutes yet always fastened to the lush harmonic foundation. On these and many other moments on the record, Toral manages the almost miraculous feat of having his self-built electronic instruments (which in the past he had seen as ‘inadequate to play any music based on the Western system’) play in tune. In an unexpected sidestep away from any of his previous work, the chord changes that underpin many of the episodes on Spectral Evolution are derived from classic jazz harmony, including takes on the archetypal Gershwin ‘Rhythm changes’ and Ellington-Strayhorn’s ‘Take the “A” Train’, albeit slowed to such an extent that each chord becomes a kind of environment in its own right. Threading together twelve distinct episodes into a flowing whole, "Spectral Evolution" alternates moments of airy instrumental interplay with dense sonic mass, breaking up the pieces based on chord changes with ambient ‘Spaces’. At points reduced to almost a whisper, at other moments Toral’s electronics wail, squelch, and squeak like David Tudor’s live-electronic rainforest. Similarly, his use of the guitar encompasses an enormous dynamic and textural range, from chiming chords to expansive drones, from crystal clarity to fuzzy grit: on the beautiful ‘Your Goodbye’, his filtered, distorted soloing recalls Loren Connors in its emotive depth and wandering melodic sensibility. The product of three years of experimentation and recording, and synthesizing the insights of more than thirty years of musical research, "Spectral Evolution" is the quintessential album of guitar music from Rafael Toral.

“A sultry haze of shimmering ambient electronics and sparkling, effects-heavy guitar. Just what the ambient doctor ordered." - Electronic Sound

"Consumed in its entirety Late Spring is a soothing breeze, teleporting you directly to a grassy field in the sunshine – as transfixing as any record released thus far in 2021." - The Vinyl Factory

"The record sounds exactly like what you would expect with a name like Late Spring; it is a meditative, hypnotic look at the human condition and its emotional spectrum, as it attempts to grasp undefinable." - Far Out Magazine

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Japanese musician Chihei Hatakeyama is set to release his new album ‘Late Spring’ on 9th April 2021. An album of a humble nature, ‘Late Spring’ gently unfolds as a shared journeying experience through a series of rich and outstanding encounters.

An extract from the liner notes by Nick Luscombe:

"For an artist who typically works quickly, Hatakeyama considers Late Spring to be one of the more time-intensive records of his career – he started working on it in 2018, and completed it towards the end of 2020. For Late Spring, Hatakeyama re-examined his approach to musical performance, using a new amplifier and microphone set-up to playback and record his guitar and synthesisers. From the cathedral organ-like opener Breaking Dawn with its sub-aqua resonances, to the subtle drift of the closing track Twilight Sea, this record is a masterpiece of dense and beatific melodies. Drawn from evolving synthesised sounds and shimmering slow motion guitars, it combines these with occasional sonic elements that are best described as evoking computer code running through the veins of the machines like artificial blood."

Chihei Hatakeyama is a sound artist, mastering engineer, and record label founder who was born in 1978 and lives in Tokyo. He has performed for years under his given name and also as one half of the electroacoustic duo Opitope alongside Tomoyoshi Date. From his first full-length album ‘Minima Moralia’ (“Excellent” 8.1 Pitchfork) in 2006, through the subsequent 70+ albums that followed, Hatakeyama has created a mighty canon of work. His catalogue is spread across a number of highly-regarded labels, including Kranky, Room40 and his own White Paddy Mountain imprint. His release rate is unquestionably impressive, but what is even more striking is the continual high quality of each alluring album.

ヴェイパーウェイヴ史上に残る伝説的名作が待望の再来！当初ジャンルの標榜したアイロニカルなコンセプトが自分たちのジャンルの氾濫に溺れ、2012年に一度ジャンルの死を宣言されたVaporwave。それ以降の流れの中で現れた世代の作家として最大の特異点的人物であり、今も熱狂的なファンを増やし続けるオハイオ発のレジェンド、ドリームパンクのパイオニア、t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者が、〈Dream Catalogue〉や〈Orange Milk Records〉〈AMDISCS〉などから作品を発表してきた実験的作家Nmeshと共に全盛期の〈Dream Catalogue〉から2015年に発表したスプリット・アルバムにして、同ジャンルのクラシック『ロストエデンへのパス』が待望の3LP化再発！テレパシー能力者関連の作品としても『現実を超えて』や『アンタラ通信』『星間性交』などといったこのジャンルの古典的名作と並んで断トツに評価の高いマスターピースが遂にアナログ・リリース。「ロ​ス​ト​エ​デ​ン​」と表題に冠されている通り、その後のHKEとの2814『新しい日の誕生』が頭をよぎる、東洋的異都憧憬の入り混じったサイバーパンク的な混沌とした世界観、シュルレアリスム、亜熱帯的な湿度と民族的な繰り返しのリズムが織り合い、孤独で鎮静的な孤高の雰囲気を作り上げています。

Praxis “Can you hear it now?” she asked, her eyes reflecting the undulating ocean waves. I cupped my hands behind my ears to aid their search for her elusive sound. “I hear nothing. I’m trying my best, I swear.” We sat cross-legged on the highest rock we could find overlooking the tireless sea. This was the third time the mysterious woman had invited me to this place. Together we’d spent countless hours absorbing the whispers of the tides, searching for meaning in the mists as water leapt into proud standing stones along the shore. I’d never even asked her name. Somehow, that all seemed unimportant to what we had together, not that I could describe it in words. We just both knew without need for explanation. I think that’s why I continued to return. The woman smiled as she often did, yet managed to look anything but happy. She tucked locks of hair behind her ears, the color of dust and faint shadows. Her vibrant dress fluttered in the salty air. Tucking my legs under me, I rocked back and forth. To be truthful, I hadn’t any idea what drew me to her in the first place. Something about the way she’d offered her slender hand, inviting but not obligatory. The way her hips swayed with the ocean undercurrent as she walked. Her hazel eyes, always searching. The woman’s smile grew. “You’ll hear it one day,” she said. “I know you will. I can’t be the only one. Maybe if I described the sound to you.” “You’ve tried,” I told her. “I only hear the wind and the waves. I hear the gulls calling above. I hear the cars passing by, the crickets and toads. I hear all that there is to hear.” She sighed, and then remained silent for a long moment. “Do you trust me?” she asked. I opened my mouth to answer but held myself back. We’d hardly spoken a word between us, her and I. I didn’t even know her name. But I was about to tell her with confidence that yes, I trusted her. Again, she smirked without joy. “I want you to follow me.” Before I could reply, she stood and offered her wanting hand. I clasped her fingers in mind and joined her on a stroll through stone and sand. We traversed the landscape along the beach, further from town than I’d ever been. The sun faded further into the pastel sky. Like a dream, time ceased to exist. By final breath of sunset, we’d reached a cavern of rock cut into the cliff side. The woman’s dress reflected the oranges and pinks of the sun peeking over the horizon. Her form glowed within the vastness of the dark cave. I stopped. “Where are you taking me?” Her eyes flickered with a purposeful blink. “Do you trust me?” she asked me again. I thought hard about it this time. The answer had seemed so clear, watching the beauty of the sea from above. Yet here in the mouth of darkness, my mind raced for reasons to answer no. Holding out her hand, she smiled like an overcast sky. I took a deep breath and looked into her eyes, now more green than hazel. They were filled with a sense of longing and a hint of sadness. I realized that I did trust her, despite not knowing anything about her. Without further hesitation, I took her hand and followed her into the cave. As we walked deeper, the darkness enveloped us. I couldn't see much beyond the faint light coming from the entrance. I could hear the echo of our footsteps and water dripping from the cave ceiling. The air grew colder and damper. I could feel a chill running down my spine. We walked for what felt like hours. I was about to ask her where we were going again and why, but she suddenly stopped. She let go of my hand and walked a few steps forward. I could see a faint light coming from further inside. I followed her, and as we approached, the light grew brighter and brighter. We finally reached the end of the cave. It opened up into a large chamber, and the light was coming from a small pond in the center. The water was crystal clear and the walls of the chamber were adorned with intricate carvings and paintings. I couldn't believe my eyes. The woman turned to me and smiled. "This is where you'll hear the sound," she said. "It's the sound of the ocean. The real sound of the ocean. The water in this pond is connected to the sea and it brings the sound with it." I listened carefully and sure enough, I could hear the new sound of the ocean. It was faint, but it was there. I was amazed. The longer I listened, the more I realized that it resembled music, more than nature. It fell into perfect rhythm with the beating of my heart. "How did you know about this place?" I asked her. She looked at me like falling rain. "This place has been a part of my life for a long time. I come here to listen to the sound of the ocean and find peace. But now it's time for me to move on." I didn't understand what she meant. "What do you mean, move on?" She watched me carefully. "I have to leave this place. I can't stay here forever. Nobody can. But I wanted to share this place with you before I go. I wanted to show you that there's more to life than what we

WRWTFWW Records is proud to announce the worldwide reissue of Midori Takada’s solo album from 1999, Tree of Life, available on vinyl for the first time ever in a new audiophile mix by the Japanese percussionist herself, and in full half-speed-mastered glory. The 180g LP comes in a heavy sleeve with a beautiful design by Kohei Sugiura. Tree of Life is also available in CD (digipack) and digital formats. Originally recorded in September 1998 at legendary Ginza (Tokyo) studio Onkio Haus (founded in 1974 and where Ryuichi Sakamoto’s "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" and many more were recorded) and released on CD only for the Japan market in 1999, Tree of Life is Midori Takada’s best kept secret, a lost gem of minimalism and percussive ambient. The album is separated in two parts, the first one finds Takada exploring her trademark environmental soundscapes with precise mastery of marimba, drums, and bells, notably on the magnificent fan-favorite "Love Song Of Urfa". The second half is a collaboration with Chinese virtuoso Erhu player Jiang Jian Hua, allowing Midori Takada to unveil new layers of her artistic mind with a slightly more theatrical approach and a beautiful crystallization of complex simplicity. The entire album was given a fresh new audiophile mix by Midori Takada herself and was mastered at Emil Berliner Studios, with half speed cutting for the vinyl version, to ensure an audio presentation aligned with the Japanese pioneer’s vision. This Tree of Life reissue follows two newly recorded Midori Takada albums, Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter and You Who Are Leaving To Nirvana, both available on WRWTFWW Records, along with her 1983 masterpiece, Through The Looking Glass.

Following its release in the winter of 2018, "Landmarks", a collaboration between veteran ambient artists Celer and Forest Management, initially drew quiet accolades and a steadfast listenership that has since swelled to unimagined proportions (~20 Mil. streams), resonating with listeners perhaps now more than ever and cementing its status as an experimental classic. Inspired by Paul Theroux's novel "The Mosquito Coast" and Peter Weir's 1986 film adaptation of that book, "Landmarks" sets out 14 tracks in a "stunning hour of music" (The Quietus) that creates a "general sense of foreboding, critique of romantic retreat into individualism and colonialism" (A Closer Listen). The album is now offered on vinyl for the first time (originally out on cassette tape), newly remastered by Stephan Mathieu to enhance the depth and richness of this oneiric soundscape. Both Americans, Celer (Will Long) resides in Tokyo, Japan and Forest Management (John Daniel) in Chicago, USA. "Landmarks" was born of their months-long collaboration, trading music back and forth and reshaping each other's work using a series of patches, tape looping, and electronic manipulation. As a throughline in each piece we hear their distinct voices and cultural contexts blend to unique, often otherworldly effect, conjuring a dreamlike tension that refuses easy resolution. We are hooked by a mood that captured listeners back in 2018 and continues to hold us today in the context of current events, related disquietudes, and a nostalgic longing for solutions that may be more imaginary than real.

Ever unpredictable, Drumm this time takes the fellow time-traveller through what sounds like an electronic field recording, a journey through an electronic soundscape of luminescent textures that invites immersive listening.

Recorded in sessions spanning eighteen months, Magnificent Little Dudes Vol.1 is full of obscure beats and samples, ethereal droning synth lines, and drumming that lifts and drive the record into new territory. The duo are also joined by Japanese guest vocal performer Hatis Noit (Erased Tapes) in the penultimate track “M4”, which his released today as the first single.

“M4” perfectly exemplifies the album’s atmospheric and subtly intricate makeup, combining

mellifluous guitar lines with memory-evoking, slaloming electronics, while Ishiwaka’s drums ruminate in the background of the track and Noit’s otherworldly vocals add an element of wistful drama.

Speaking on the recording process, Hatakeyama says “No overdubbing was done. I like the 70's style of recording and wanted to give it an old-time jazz feel.” Speaking about his influences when writing the album, he goes on to say “It may not sound like much, but it's free jazz, spiritual jazz. I love Alice Coltrane and Sun Ra. Conceptually, we didn’t prepare anything in advance, but chose to take inspiration from the place, the studio, the venue, the weather, the temperature of the day, and so on – the album is full of short improvisations. I love Les Rallizes Dénudés, Keiji Haino, and My Bloody Valentine as well, so that's where a lot the guitar-based influence comes from”

Klara Lewis and Yuki Tsuji's collaboration builds on Tsuji's singular guitar playing and Lewis's resolutely explorative soundscapes. Salt Water is their debut album. Klara Lewis is a sound sculptor and loop finder. She has spent the last decade creating albums equally tender and brutal for Editions Mego as well as in collaborations with Nik Colk Void, Peder Mannerfelt and now Yuki Tsujii. Lewis has presented her audiovisual work at festivals such as Sonar, Mutek, Dark Mofo and Atonal. Yuki Tsujii is a guitarist from Japan-via-London, now based in Stockholm. In the last 15 years, as a member of Bo Ningen, Tsujii has performed extensively across the world in festivals such as Coachella, Glastonbury, and Yoko Ono’s Meltdown and collaborated with artists across different disciplines such as Faust, Lydia Lunch, Keiji Haino, Alexander McQueen and Juergen Teller.