MUSIC

“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.

Picnic is collabolation unit of ju ca & mdo. Nostalgic ambient electronica masterpiece!!

Finally reuniting all the music Marutti spontaneously created in a short period during the very first Amon recording sessions, and bringing it to vinyl for the first time, Akh is a ticket for a trip back in time, a musical universe rich with impenetrable scenarios, a driving, grey space of ever-increasing numbness resounding all around and inside the listener. In Ancient Egypt, Akh was most often used to mean a complete person, whether living or dead. While living, the Akh was composed of all five elements -- The Body, Ba (the personality: humor, warmth, charm), Ka (the life force unique to every person) which stayed, The Name, and The Shadow. When dead, the Akh referred to the reunion of the Ba and the Ka, which they also believed happened each night. In death and every night too, Akh is the reunion of the self. Mostly lacking any flash of light, the tracks featured on this collection open a subtly esoteric universe, which rises up out of the desert, leading through a profound and introspective path with their sonic stimuli, plumbing the depths of the unconscious with a hypnotic, mystical and arcane flavor. Perfect to listen to during the late hours when distracting factors are few and the music may join forces with the night itself. Will appeal to fans of Roland Kayn, Thomas Köner, Éliane Radigue, deep listening, minimalism, and isolationism alike. Edition of 250.

Icelandic musician Gunnar Jónsson Collider debuts on A Strangely Isolated Place with an expansive trip through six fictional environments, brought further to life through an accompanying video by artist Arna Beth. Inviting escapism through detailed, glacial textures, S.W.I.M. elevates a traditional beatless spectrum into a first-person narrative, moving across burning wastelands, miles-high sundown, a dizzying night sky, subterranean exploration, and more beautiful, natural phenomena. Subtle changes in tone and texture across each of the six environments provide a signal of the destination’s energy and the intended perception of the traveler. At times, elated and dwarfed by nature’s surrounding grandeur. Other times, bestowing a sense of apprehension and unknowing. Best absorbed through the accompanying visual album by fellow Icelandic digital artist Arna Beth, S.W.I.M. is an immersive jump into a majestic sci-fi world, placing you front and center in both sound and visual. After appearing on numerous well-respected electronic labels in recent years such as Móatún 7, Möller Records and Vertex, S.W.I.M represents Gunnar’s most horizontal output to date. Mastered by Franceso Fabris, and featuring artwork by Noah M / Keep Adding, based on Arna Beth's visuals, S.W.I.M., will be available on limited edition Blue Smoke 12” and digital.

German musician Mary Yalex debuts on A Strangely Isolated Place depicting a storied transition from our recognizable surroundings, into a vision of the future. With releases and music styles across a variety of labels over the years, it has been Yalex’s more experimental ambient work that has stood out amongst her catalog, and in Fantasy Zone, we find Mary fine-tuning this sound to reflect the work of a true architect of storytelling, mood and atmosphere. Drawing influences from her day-to-day surroundings, Fantasy Zone begins with more vivid pieces; softer melodies and clearer instrumentation, represented as much in song titles such as Air, After Rain Comes Sun, and Half Light of Dawn. The second half of the album transitions into a future state, as Yalex draws on darker manifestations - perhaps intrinsically influenced by the state of the world, and in particular her love of nature, we play witness to more storied, haunting atmospheres, distant voices and slowly shifting gravitational chord movements. Dystopian-bound or pure fantasy, Yalex depicts a future that mirrors some of the more poignant, thought-provoking work of great synthesizer soundtracks of the past.

Claudio PRC’s upcoming ambient album is a sonic journey through ethereal landscapes and intimate atmospheres. Drawing inspiration from the waves and their movement, “Unda” (in Sardinian native tongue “wave”) evokes a sense of calmness and introspection. Throughout the whole piece, Claudio PRC creates a blend of meticulously crafted organic and synthetic elements that seamlessly integrates together, showcasing his versatility as an artist and his commitment to exploring all facets of electronic music. With its textured layers, this work offers a soothing and reflective musical experience, inviting the listener to escape into a world of contemplation and meditation.

Written, composed and produced by Claudio Porceddu, between Sardinia and Berlin, 2021-2022. Original performed at Up To Date Festival, Białystok, Poland, September 2022. Mixed and mastered at Artefacts Mastering. Artwork by Liam Costar. Design by Basstation. Video directed by Diego Vicinanza. Special thanks to Blazej Malinowski, Fabio Caria, Eliana Patanè, Ario, Pierre Nesi aka Owl and Jong-min Lee.

Sunergy brings together synthesists Suzanne Ciani and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith for the thirteenth installment of FRKWYS, RVNG Intl.’s intergenerational collaboration series. Revisited and expanded for a radiant, radical 2023 edition, the Pacific Coast’s panorama provides the place and head space for a musical appreciation and consideration of the ocean’s life-giving form, vast and volatile with change. Sunergy brings together synthesists Suzanne Ciani and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith for the thirteenth installment of FRKWYS, RVNG Intl.'s intergenerational collaboration series. For this expanded edition, a panorama of the Pacific Coast provides the place and head space for exploratory Buchla synthesizer passages that meditate on a life-giving form vast and volatile with change. This Pacific Blue color edition includes bonus track "Retrograde" and a printed insert with photographs and artist essays.

Japan's composer and sound artist Yui Onodera and Grammy-nominated Takashi Kokubo are visionaries who are celebrated for their ability to cook up immersive soundscapes that captivate your attention despite their minimalist designs. Kokubo's traditional Japanese instrumentation defines the work as it sweeps you up and transports you to someone that is serene and introspective. Across four pieces here they do just that - each one unhurried and vast in sci, with delicate keys tinkling above yawning chords and spring day energies on 'Thousand Bells 1'. The second piece is a little warmer, with synth smears and distant breezes bring in all manner of elegant percussive sounds. Side two continues the exploration of the Far Eastern countryside on a sunny day in mesmerising and soothing fashion.

As well as releasing post-classical music as Goldmund stretching back nearly two decades, American composer Keith Kenniff also uses the alias Helios to create ambient electronica. ‘Espera’ is Kenniff’s twelfth such album, and introduces a more panoramic and dynamic iteration of Helios, the woozy, hazy compositions taking on the structures and grandeur of post-rock in places.

Sacramento, CA duo Blank Gloss’s third album, Cornered, is an exquisite statement of pop ambient starkness, an album that oscillates between lush beauty and spare melancholy. It follows from their 2021 debut for Kompakt, Melt, an album that saw Morgan Fox (piano, synths) and Patrick Hills (guitar) aligned, loosely, with the cosmic pastorale of the ‘ambient Americana’ movement. Cornered feels like a significant step forward, though – by peeling back the layers of their music, they’ve revealed both its restful core and its solemn gravitas. It is unendingly lovely, but with something disquieting at its centre. Cornered was recorded quickly, over two days in December 2020. There’s nothing rushed or haphazard about the album, though; everything has its place, with each sonic element contributing profoundly to these nine miniature dioramas. It signals change, quietly but perceptibly, through the way the duo sculpts their material, building out of loose improvisations that morphed into songs. While there was no plan in mind when Blank Gloss settled into the studio, Fox recalls that “right away we realised that things were sounding and feeling a bit different than any of the sessions we had previously.” That difference can be heard in the increased amount of space Blank Gloss gift to their sound sources. Some of the most moving moments on Cornered come when Fox and Hills strip everything back – see, for example, “Crossing”, which sets pensive piano across a shyly humming drone and quiet arcs of guitar, recalling the driftworks of Roger Eno. Curiously, the album’s distinctive shape and mood develops, at least in part, from a change in instrumentation, with Hills using a MIDI pick-up on his guitar. “This resulted in making things happen a lot quicker,” Fox says. “It also helped create what I think is a bit more sombre, dark feeling to some of the songs.” Elsewhere, on songs like “Salt”, the piano tussles with flecks of guitar, single tones sent out to mingle with the stars, like Morricone at 16 RPM, while Cornered’s centrepiece, the eleven-minute “No Appetite”, lets long arcs of electronic texture breathe and sigh, tangling together in a cat’s cradle of bliss. Throughout, it feels as though the music is blossoming as you hear it, like watching time-lapse footage of flora in bloom. But perhaps the most seductive thing about Cornered is the sense you get, listening, that the music was something unexpected, a visitation. “It almost felt like we weren’t dictating where the music went and how it sounded,” Fox agrees. “We were just there in a room together in December and these sounds were happening, and we were lucky enough to be recording the process.”

Rod Modell presents "Lanterns" - an epic journey through an evolving sonic landscape propelled by the churning momentum of reverb-soaked percussion. Red Lantern is an ode to the eerie red glow that once beckoned sailors to the port of Amsterdam - on one side, the gentle thud of a bass drum rolls beneath haunting yet uplifting pads whilst on the reverse, bubbling bass underpins echoes of a shoreline that shifts in and out of focus. Blue Lantern merges dub techno and ambient experimentation, showcasing Modell's impressive talents in sound design and the diverse influences that span his 25-year career as a musician. Warm, thunderous kicks rumble beneath restrained hints of percussion, creating an immersive soundscape allowing for music and space to envelop the listener, with the result both enticing and unsettling in equal measures. Words by Martin Gould.

With ‘Terrain,’ Joachim Spieth presents the fourth long player on his Affin imprint. The follow-up album to ‘Ousia’ (2021), ‘Terrain,’ reflects on the human relationship with nature. The album title is a reference to a musical language that layers Spieth’s music production practices and intimacy with nature. ‘Terrain’ was forged in deep solitude.“ It’s an interplay of euphoric flashes and introspection” – says Spieth. The eight compositions take the listener into a captivating cascade of sonic textures resembling internal states fluctuations and emotional release. The tension between the organic warmth and static curves broads tones into liquified roars and empty spaces. Unlike Spieth’s previous albums, ‘Terrain’ holds more intimate gestures and emotional sensibility. Soothing frequencies here are intended to create a state of awareness in the listener. It is a work of conceptual and emotional beauty, evoking a form of spatial imagery that is as grounding as elevating.

The Kyoto-based musician Yusaku Arai is known for his production work in the avant-garde scenes of Japanese hip-hop and R&B. On this solo album, though, he offers more lengthy, piano-centric meditations that use the techniques of musique concrète. Arai’s compositions on the A-side emerged out of a reflection on the corporeal and interwoven relationship between his own body and things he encountered in the world—the ocean, a flower petal, a plastic sheet, a hand. His intent is to represent a process in which colors gently well up in inside of an object, pass through its entirety—and eventually permeate into the body itself. The B-side consists mostly of a long composition, which is about an unavoidable surplus that crops up in communication, whether of gestures or of language. This narrative work describes humans as beings torn between enthusiasm and emptiness. ***The titles on jacket and label are intentionally different by artist's will. The album’s artwork is by photographer Azusa Yamaguchi and designer Heijiro Yagi. Mastering by Sean McCann of Recital. A 18x24 inch poster is included.

Substrata was the third studio album by the Norwegian electronic artist Biosphere, released 25 years ago by All Saints Records in London. In 2016, Pitchfork ranked it at number 38 on its list of the 50 Best Ambient Albums of All Time. Here are ten alternative versions picked from the Substrata recordings sessions that took place between 1995 and 1996. David Stubbs´review of the original album in Melody Maker ,July 12th 1997: Biosphere, aka Norwegian Geir Jenssen, is transmitting from a cold, polar outpost of the imagination. "Substrata" is the best ambient album I've heard in an ice age, an album of terrifying, desolate and all-enveloping beauty, the music of a man who's stared too long and too hard at the Northern lights, a music of distant rumbles, tremors underfoot, stray radio signals, yawning chasms and indistinct, grainy images in the half-light when the mind begins to play tricks. "Poa Alpina" reminds me of recent, frightening TV footage of vast chunks of iceberg cracking and falling away into the sea under the duress of global warming. As for "The Things I Tell You", imagine what Oasis would have sounded like had they been born Eskimos. "Sphere Of No Form" is shot through with a frantic peal like the Mayday song of the world's last whale and, best of all, "Kobresia" looms with a vast, mournful, symphonic motif, like the ghost of the Titanic. Chill out has never been this chilling.

Substrata was the third studio album by the Norwegian electronic artist Biosphere, released 25 years ago by All Saints Records in London. In 2016, Pitchfork ranked it at number 38 on its list of the 50 Best Ambient Albums of All Time. Here are ten alternative versions picked from the Substrata recordings sessions that took place between 1995 and 1996. David Stubbs´review of the original album in Melody Maker ,July 12th 1997: Biosphere, aka Norwegian Geir Jenssen, is transmitting from a cold, polar outpost of the imagination. "Substrata" is the best ambient album I've heard in an ice age, an album of terrifying, desolate and all-enveloping beauty, the music of a man who's stared too long and too hard at the Northern lights, a music of distant rumbles, tremors underfoot, stray radio signals, yawning chasms and indistinct, grainy images in the half-light when the mind begins to play tricks. "Poa Alpina" reminds me of recent, frightening TV footage of vast chunks of iceberg cracking and falling away into the sea under the duress of global warming. As for "The Things I Tell You", imagine what Oasis would have sounded like had they been born Eskimos. "Sphere Of No Form" is shot through with a frantic peal like the Mayday song of the world's last whale and, best of all, "Kobresia" looms with a vast, mournful, symphonic motif, like the ghost of the Titanic. Chill out has never been this chilling.

Sacramento, CA duo Blank Gloss’s third album, Cornered, is an exquisite statement of pop ambient starkness, an album that oscillates between lush beauty and spare melancholy. It follows from their 2021 debut for Kompakt, Melt, an album that saw Morgan Fox (piano, synths) and Patrick Hills (guitar) aligned, loosely, with the cosmic pastorale of the ‘ambient Americana’ movement. Cornered feels like a significant step forward, though – by peeling back the layers of their music, they’ve revealed both its restful core and its solemn gravitas. It is unendingly lovely, but with something disquieting at its centre. Cornered was recorded quickly, over two days in December 2020. There’s nothing rushed or haphazard about the album, though; everything has its place, with each sonic element contributing profoundly to these nine miniature dioramas. It signals change, quietly but perceptibly, through the way the duo sculpts their material, building out of loose improvisations that morphed into songs. While there was no plan in mind when Blank Gloss settled into the studio, Fox recalls that “right away we realised that things were sounding and feeling a bit different than any of the sessions we had previously.” That difference can be heard in the increased amount of space Blank Gloss gift to their sound sources. Some of the most moving moments on Cornered come when Fox and Hills strip everything back – see, for example, “Crossing”, which sets pensive piano across a shyly humming drone and quiet arcs of guitar, recalling the driftworks of Roger Eno. Curiously, the album’s distinctive shape and mood develops, at least in part, from a change in instrumentation, with Hills using a MIDI pick-up on his guitar. “This resulted in making things happen a lot quicker,” Fox says. “It also helped create what I think is a bit more sombre, dark feeling to some of the songs.” Elsewhere, on songs like “Salt”, the piano tussles with flecks of guitar, single tones sent out to mingle with the stars, like Morricone at 16 RPM, while Cornered’s centrepiece, the eleven-minute “No Appetite”, lets long arcs of electronic texture breathe and sigh, tangling together in a cat’s cradle of bliss. Throughout, it feels as though the music is blossoming as you hear it, like watching time-lapse footage of flora in bloom. But perhaps the most seductive thing about Cornered is the sense you get, listening, that the music was something unexpected, a visitation. “It almost felt like we weren’t dictating where the music went and how it sounded,” Fox agrees. “We were just there in a room together in December and these sounds were happening, and we were lucky enough to be recording the process.”

Constructive are proud to announce the release of the original soundtrack for the British film 'Surge' by Tujiko Noriko and Paul Davies. Directed by Aneil Karia and starring Ben Whishaw, the film is set in London over twenty-four hours and is a stripped back thriller about Joseph. A man who goes on a bold and reckless journey of self-liberation.The album consists of sixteen tracks and presents the soundtrack in a non-conventional form. Sound design and composition are presented side by side as equal components in the score. The album consists of sixteen tracks and presents the soundtrack in a non-conventional form. Sound design and composition are presented side by side as equal components in the score. The album starts with Davies’ piece ‘TV Dinner’ where shifting plates of aqueous white noise finally give way to a hint of tonality. Tujiko on ‘Broken Glass’ develops the tonality further adding bells, sliding tones and slithers of brass. This alternating of sound design and composition and the blurring of its source material continues throughout the album. Except for the three tracks where they both collaborate on the writing, as on the delicate ‘Empty Rooms’. The music conveys polar extremes at the same time. Ethereal and urban, delicate yet powerful, juxtaposing the internal landscapes of the film's protagonist against the environmental sounds of a city. Highlights include the unconventional beauty of ‘Children’, the deconstructed jazz of ‘And then to Home’ by Tujiko and the powerful Deathprod-like tectonic plates of sound by Davies on ‘In Street after First Robbery’. An album of music and sound that works alone away from the film and rewards with repeated attention and deep listening.

Atoris is the live electronic trio of H.Takahashi, Kohei Oyamada and Yudai Osawa from Tokyo. The group began as the duo of Takahashi (owner of Kankyō Records) and graphic designer Osawa who knew each other from their experimental ambient quartet UNKNOWN ME. Soon after, their mutual friend Oyamada was added to round out the trio and record their self-titled debut, released in 2020 on JJ Funhouse in Belgium. For their sophomore followup, “Sea & Forest”, the group focused their bubbling, organic sound on imaginary ocean vistas and woodland creatures to inform their abstract landscapes - subtly drifting between sunrise on the plateau and dusk in the marsh. The two sidelongs contain understated rhythmic elements of dance awash in otherworldly electronic shimmer. They consistently evolve in a minimalistic way; with ideas and fragments ever-changing across their twenty minutes resulting in a unique ambient dynamism that’s both melodically beautiful and reliably captivating.

The Gerogerigegege, the Japanese avant-blues music that has been attracting noise music lovers all over the world, is now available on long-awaited vinyl from The Trilogy Tapes, a limited edition cassette released last year by the popular fashion brand CAV EMPT.

This summer, I read Kenji Miyazawa's children's story (illustrated by Takeshi Motai), "Gauche the Cellist" (1934, illustrated by Takeshi Motai, 1956). Just a few days before I made this recording, I was on stage. As a result, I had to be in the same state of mind as Gauche at the beginning of the story. It was not a good feeling, but I knew it was not a coincidence that this book was in my possession, so I read it again and again, looked at Mr. Motai's picture of the raccoon boy again and again, and headed for the park before dawn. The only instrument I used was a Hapidrum, and the sticks were mallets that looked just like the ones the raccoon boy was holding...Juntaro Yamanouchi

Arovane's acclaimed 2004 album »Lilies« has been out of print on vinyl for nearly 2 decades now. It finally gets a well-deserved reissue through the Berlin based Keplar label. The new version has been remastered by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering and comes with a brand new cover artwork. *2023 remaster* "Lilies" was a follow-up to "Tides" in every sense, exploring a trip to Japan and drawing on shimmering textures and the sort of melodies that you might need some time to recover from. There's a hugely evocative sense to these tracks, emotionally driven, free of complexity or conceit, piano melodies providing the central focus for a twilight cascade of light that seems perfect for the Tokyo skyline - just as the sun sets. It's an album that radiates warmth and vulnerability, fusing the technological might at the heart of each track (and at the heart of the city) with an age-old understanding that certain echoes of sound, small melodic changes and cushioned lullabies can imprint sounds on your mind like childhood memories - remembered forever. Like a dreamlike score, or maybe even an alternate soundtrack to "Lost in Translation" - the sort of music that intertwines with images and stays in your mind indefinately. After coming back from Tokyo and completing the production of "Lilies", Uwe Zahn disassembled his studio in the big flat in an old building in Berlin's Prenzlauerberg district and stored it away in boxes. He needed a break from making music. "Lilies" was the last album prior to a nine-year hiatus for Arovane, ending in 2013 with the release of "Ve Palor".

The 3rd album "Mujo" (meaning "transience" in Japanese) by the Japanese sound artist Kazuya Matsumoto.

The album was made from 2014 to 2022. It is an album of improvisation and recording simultaneously, using non-instrument objects along with the sounds that occur from a frosted lake and drifting ice, and recordings made by affecting the environment itself.

This album is comprised of 2 discs. Disc 1 features performing and interaction with sounds that occurs above the ice. Disc 2 features performing and interaction with sounds that occurs below the ice using hydrophones.

It is an album opposed to his first album "Mizu No Katachi (Shape of Water)" confronting the harsh and ever changing environment and he recalls those recording days as "transience", also expressing his feeling towards the never ending explorations.

The recording captures the dynamic and delicate sounds of the ice and nature as well as his soul put into the 9 years. Includes 32 pages full color booklet with photography of the ice and nature taken by Matsumoto at the time of the recordings.

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

Aclod is the first fruit of the telekinetic long distance collaboration between Juho Toivonen and Loren Chasse. The artists shared environmental recordings from Coyote Wall, Washington and Pori, Finland to create music for an implied landscape that is located neither here nor there. Toivonen and Chasse began working together in 2021 after Toivonen reissued Chasse`s seminal field-recording based album “Synthesis Of Neglected Places” on his label Akti. Working on the reissue, the artists noticed that they shared a similar interest towards the microscopic details of sound and that they both actively listened and immersed themselved in the everyday sonic experience of their surroundings. One thing soon led to another and they realized that they had created a new 30-minute piece, Aclod. Hive Mind are excited to present this deeply immersive work which seemlessly blurs environmental and natural sound from the two outdoor recording locations with ephemeral whispers of melody recorded on melodeon, metalophone, gong, guitar, Juno synth, water bowls and pebbles. * * * * Loren Chasse is based in Portland, Oregon and has a long history in the underground and experimental music scene having been a a key figure in the Jewelled Antler Collective. Central to his practice is an interest in listening in the moment and a deep and reverential attention to the sound-worlds of our immediate surroundings. Juho Toivonen is from Pori, Finland and currently runs the Akti Label as well as performing in Free Tala and improvisational collective, Vahvistusharha. His recent solo releases on Ikuisuus and C/Site have been garnering some well-deserved attention over the past couple of years.

NTS DJ, label boss and fabled collector Howard Williams lands on DDS with an etheric communique under his Japan Blues moniker, inspired by early C.20th Min'yō folk and avant-dub, richly spirited with field recordings and ghostly ephemera. Six years since his debut Japan Blues album ‘Sells His Record Collection’, Williams is back - and it’s been worth the wait. Based around enka and minyo recordings made with London based singer Akari Mochizuki and Tsugaru shamisen master Hibiki Ichikawa at London’s Earthworks studio back in 2018, Williams adds field recordings made while traveling through Japan, inviting The Dengie Hundred to co-produce, bringing his own sound worlds into the mix. The two spent several months shuttling ideas back and forth, processing mixes and adding environmental recordings, like snatched penny whistle melodies or the familiar whirr of an extractor fan. Singer Tamami Pearl is the final piece of the puzzle, providing an almost imperceptibly breathy aura to proceedings. The obsessively researched archivist’s resolve is still very much present, but the processing style and overall sound here is more faded than the Japan Blues of yore, transmuting discernible sounds into magickal textures that boil and bubble until all that’s left is vapour. On 'Sazanka, Hokkai Bon Uta', Japanese vocals are dubbed into bare syllables, juxtaposed with flute improvisations and muddy whirrs. Eventually, the instrumental elements turn to noise, like some shortwave radio transmission slowly falling out of range. Environmental sounds become uneven, clunking percussive currents offer a sort of dream logic, morphing into faint choirs. In the final third, Williams pulls away the veil almost entirely. The album's most compelling section is the side-long 'Soran, AIzu Bandai-San, Shimabara Lullaby'. If you've heard Robert Turman's 1981 album "Flux" - a reel-to-reel recorded slo-mo kalimba and piano masterpiece - you'll have an idea of how this one rolls. Williams and The Dengie Hundred work into the source material like modelling clay, dubbing and distorting shamisen twangs and echoing vocals into half-speed, dissociated dream visions. It's not Ambient by any means, but there are undoubtedly traces of Brian Eno's earliest, most crucial experiments. It's not Folk music either, but Williams' deep obsession with Japanese traditions allows him to integrate sounds holistically, provoking a conversation rather than simply cherry picking aesthetic decorations. He works like a dedicated DJ, giving The Dengie Hundred room to tweak the spaces in-between. Together, they create an atmosphere that's fiendishly hard to put into words, and even harder to forget. If you're into tape-damaged industrial experiments (think Skaters, Spencer Clark, Aaron Dilloway et al), the surrealist global exploration of labels like Stroom, or simply after a new perspective on Japanese folkways, "Japan Blues Meets The Dengie Hundred" is unmissable.