MUSIC

These tracks are far more than just the initial glimpses of an upcoming collaboration between I-TIST and TOROKI.

They represent the beginnings of a deep human connection, an ever-growing artistic and spiritual synergy that has flourished since our first meeting in 2022 in our Bordeaux Dub School sessions.

And this is just the beginning... WAY MORE TO COME !!

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Ces tracks sont bien plus que de simples aperçus d'une future collaboration entre I-TIST et TOROKI.

Ils représentent les prémices d'une connexion humaine profonde, d'une synergie artistique et spirituelle en constante évolution, qui s'épanouit depuis notre première rencontre en 2022 lors de nos sessions à la Bordeaux Dub School.

Et ce n'est que le début... LE MEILLEUR RESTE À VENIR !!

Isle of Jura presents ‘Archipelago – Cosmic Fusion Gems from France (1978–1988)’, a deep dive into overlooked corners of the French musical landscape, compiled by French digger and DJ Arnaud Simetiére aka Switch Groove.

Drawn from years of early-morning flea market hunts and second-hand record store hauls, Archipelago unearths a hidden layer of French music that maps an alternate France including music from Francis Bebey, Cécilia Angeles, Carla Music Orchestra and a Dub remix from Dennis Bovell.

From the French Caribbean to the outer suburbs of Paris during the ‘Sono Mondiale’ era, these tracks capture a time when musicians embraced new freedoms and electronic tools—synthesizers, drum machines, home studios—to create boundary-blurring, genre-defying music. The result is a cosmic, hybrid sound that’s both distinctly French and radically global.

“These records shaped a new map of French music for me,” explains Switch Groove. “They’re treasures that emerged not from the mainstream, but from the crates—lost in plain sight, waiting to be found.” Archipelago is an invitation to explore that map: a crate-digger’s dreamscape of fusion, funk, and far-out frequencies from 1978 to 1988. The album also includes two Ambient soundscape tools.

Production and Co-licensing by Kevin Griffiths. Pressed on 180g Heavyweight Vinyl with full sleeve jacket design by Bradley Pinkerton.

PLEASE NOTE THE DIGITAL DOWNLOAD OF THIS ALBUM DOES NOT CONTAIN CARLA MUSIC ORCHESTRA DUE TO LICENSING RESTRICTIONS.

In Kasimyn's own words, the phrase "BUNYI BUNYI TUMBAL" signifies a "Synthetic Feeling for Anonymous Sacrifice," encompassing the emotions born out of a deep dive into the Indonesian war archives. These archives include a trove of photographs documenting the era of Dutch rule, captured through the lens of the colonizers themselves. It is from this point of departure that the project HULUBALANG was born.

HULUBALANG's gaze is drawn to the peripheral figures populating these historical records. These secondary characters, devoid of individual significance, bear no names, receive no recognition, and serve as props in the broader narrative of history. Simultaneously, they become indispensable instruments in acquiring "lessons learned" from the perspectives of both the victors and the vanquished. Within this framework, the notion of TUMBAL, the non-belligerent "sacrifice," assumes a weight surpassing its translation. TUMBAL neither acts as a victim nor martyrs itself for its cause. It hauntingly reminds us of the systemic curse perpetually engendering disillusionment.

BUNYI BUNYI TUMBAL is a personal act of catharsis stemming from a long lineage of anger. It stands as a tribute to a village whose ritualistic dance, one night, was disrupted by external forces, causing the tune to shatter and leaving the dance caught in a space between innocence and pain.

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Kusnah berjalan lamban di tepi gumuk pasir, di sebrang pesisir pantai. Di sini lebih aman pikirnya. Di garis horizon dia melihat hamparan fata morgana. Di pikirannya fata morgana jauh lebih baik sebagai tujuan ketimbang dia harus diam dan menetap di desa: tubuhnya diperlukan untuk persembahan, mungkin buat para dewa-dewa yang haus akan anatomi dan spirit dari human being atau buat pembangunan yang dibangun oleh darah dan konstruksi tulang-tulang. Mungkin juga sebagai tumbal politik. Pikirnya, di tempat dimana politik berkelindan dengan nyawa, disitu dunia betul-betul sedang bekerja.

Sambil menatap nanar tumpukan tiram di pesisir pantai, di kepalanya terdengar musik-musik pesta dengan dentuman nakal dan dawai berantakan. Sebuah umwelt. Lagu-lagu kemenangan yang sering ia putar keras-keras dipikirannya ketika ia merasa kalah. Bukan kalah, tapi mengalah. Dalam hidupnya, terlalu banyak waktu dia bagi untuk mengalah. Dia melihat tumpukan tiram dengan miris. Dia berpikir keras mengapa manusia melihat tiram sebagai makhluk rendahan dibandingkan species lebih advance seperti manusia, oh lebih tepatnya, dia mengingat perkataan Plato bahwa manusia hedonist sama saja dengan seekor tiram. Hidup hanya dalam momen hari ini dan saat ini.

Tapi Kusnah merasa ia adalah manusia hedonist. Dia hidup untuk hari ini dan saat ini. Dia hidup bukan untuk progress. Persetan dengan progress dan pembangunan pikirnya. Dia hidup untuk menikmati waktu. Dia hidup untuk bersenang-senang. Jadi baginya, Plato ada benarnya. Sambil melihat lagi si tiram dengan sangat teliti, lagu-lagu di kepalanya terdengar semakin nyaring. Dia bertanya pada dirinya sendiri: sebagai hewan hedonist yang hanya diam dan menikmati deburan ombak, apakah para tiram ini juga memiliki musik yang berputar dalam tubuhnya dan membuat merasa menang diantara lautan kekalahan?

Tatapan Kusnah semakin intense. Dari belakang terdengar bunyi suara langkah manusia-manusia berlari bergerombolan. Satu, dua, tiga, empat bunyi familiar sepatu lars. Lima, enam, tujuh bunyi derap sendal jepit. Fata morgana di gumuk pasir buyar seketika diterobos gerombolan haus darah. Semakin lama semakin ia dengar samar-samar suara teriakan. “Itu dia orangnya!” terdengar sayup-sayup tapi mengeras. Langkah-langkah itu semakin kencang. Musik di kepala Kusnah pun semakin kencang terdengar. Tak butuh waktu lama hingga ia mulai menari. Seperti orang kesurupan kalau kata banyak orang. Tapi dia tidak kesurupan, dia hanya menikmati musik yang berputar dikepalanya. Berpuluh-puluh orang mulai terlihat secara high-definition ketika Kusnah membuka kelopak matanya.

“Akan kami persembahkan kamu kepada para dewa pembangunan!” teriak para lelaki dengan parang dan golok ditangannya. Kusnah menari seperti kerasukan. “Ayo! Tangkap dia” para lelaki itu bergegas mendatangi Kusnah, membawa tali tambang untuk mengikat dirinya. Kusnah tersenyum lebar, sambil tidak bisa berhenti menari.

“Ambil tubuhku, tapi aku tidak akan pernah membagikan hulubalang yang mengaum di dipikiranku!”

Kepala Kusnah terpisah dari badannya, persis setelah dia meneriakkan kalimat tersebut.

Riar Rizaldi

Ditulis ketika mendengarkan album pertama dari Hulubalang.

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Aditya Surya Taruna (aka Kasimyn) is one half of the Indonesian electronic duo Gabbar Modus Operandi known for their acclaimed records PUXXXIMAXXX and HOXXXYA (out via Yes No Wave and SVBKVLT, respectively) and overwhelming, hyper-active and unprecedented live experiences which have made them a popular act on several festivals of experimental music. In 2022, Kasimyn contributed with beats on Björk's latest album, Fossora, featured on three tracks: "Atopos", "Trölla-Gabba", and "Fossora”, and appears in two of the album’s music videos Atopos and Fossora. After joining Björk on her Cornucopia tour in Japan, Kasimyn is announcing his solo album on Drowned by Locals under his new project HULUBALANG.

For many bands, having all their gear stolen would be catastrophic. For Third Ear Band, this unfortunate 1968 incident opened a portal to beneficial change that would ultimately define one of British experimental music's most singular statements. Now, Antarctica Starts Here presents the first-time vinyl reissue of the group's self-titled 1970 sophomore album - often called Elements due to its elemental track titles - complete with new liner notes by Dave Segal that illuminate this remarkable chapter in acoustic psychedelia's evolution. Leader and percussionist Glen Sweeney viewed the theft as a sign to alter Third Ear Band's approach entirely, switching to exclusively acoustic instruments just as electrified psychedelia reached full bloom. Alongside Paul Minns (oboe, recorder, whistles, flutes) and Richard Coff (violin, viola), Sweeney struck out on an individualistic path that blended Indian raga with chamber music - without plugging in. Following their powerful 1969 debut Alchemy, which established them as a solemn force in the global underground, Third Ear Band's self-titled album represented the full flowering of their alchemical vision. The four tracks - "Air," "Earth," "Fire," and "Water" - correspond to the basic components of medieval European alchemists' doctrines, creating what Dave Segal describes as "epic, trance-inducing jams that suggested secret knowledge of infinity." What distinguished Third Ear Band from their contemporaries was their peculiar estrangement from the counterculture on a sonic level. As Segal notes, "Even outré contemporaries such as Comus and Jan Dukes De Grey sounded like pop groups compared to TEB." Having no traditional front person or electric instruments, the group forged a path that flowered most vividly on this album. The methodology was deceptively simple yet profoundly effective: "Sweeney laid down a steady pulse on hand drums, while Minns and Coff wove in melismatic patterns on oboe, recorder, violin and viola." This approach created what Segal describes as "a communal transcendence in sound – a hypnotic swirl that doesn't swing, but rather wafts and undulates with cloistered beauty." The album's four elemental compositions exist in what Segal calls "an eternal now, a perpetual wow. It is an ouroboros of organic textures, seemingly magicked into the air spontaneously, yet possessing a rigor that suggests long hours in the lab." Without electricity, Third Ear Band somehow "burrowed deeper into your consciousness" than their amplified contemporaries. Originally released on Harvest in 1970, this album has remained out of print on vinyl for decades, making ASH Records' reissue a significant event for collectors of British experimental music. The influence of Third Ear Band's acoustic approach can be traced through subsequent generations of artists from Popol Vuh to Trad, Gras Och Stenar and beyond - groups that understood how acoustic instruments could achieve psychedelic transcendence without electronic amplification. This reissue preserves the album's original four-part structure while presenting it with the sonic clarity that reveals the intricate interplay between Sweeney's rhythmic foundation and the melodic explorations of Minns and Coff. The inclusion of Dave Segal's comprehensive liner notes provides crucial context for understanding Third Ear Band's unique position within the experimental music landscape.

“Everything Is Being Recorded All The Time” is the debut album of Troubadours, a tentacular collective composed of Laura Lippie, Kim Khan, Dr. Winzo, Vahan Soghomonian, Diane Barbé and many others. Shaped over the course of three years between Lyon, Abbecourt, Berlin and Denpasar, the Troubadours wove together orphic sounds from both ancient and high tech instruments – machines cold to the touch which warm as electrical and sonic currents awaken them,. What the Troubadours create is not just music, each track is in itself a world where aural narratives roil with tribulation, stillness remembers chaos and fleeting emotion finds enduring form. These moments pulse with singularity – they are the nights we try to hold onto, the feelings we’re afraid we won’t feel again, triggers, honesty, freedom – and are the things that the Troubadours capture through their improvised riffs and hours-long studio jams, synthesizing purity. “Everything Is Being Recorded All The Time” is but one chapter in their story, where they have documented their recent past and the multiplicity of selves they house within. Though each track is profoundly personal, the themes explored speak to what it means to be alive today. Troubadours are happy to welcome you on board for their journey : whether you find it nerve-racking or soul-soothing is no longer their responsibility. Expect the unexpected.

Ten years. Ten years of listening, searching, digging, sharing. Ten years of putting out records we felt mattered—because they told a story. Of a place, a moment, an impulse. Ten years of believing that music, especially the kind that doesn’t fit into any box, deserves more than just attention: it deserves care, time, and deep listening.

Bongo Joe started in Geneva, in a shop that became a label, in a city far more complex than it first appears. Beneath its polished banking façade, Geneva is layered and unpredictable. Beneath the luxury storefronts, the UN buildings, and the watch boutiques, thrives a unique scene shaped by migration, cultural collisions, political struggle, and dissonant sound. It’s here that we learned to improvise, adapt, and stay independent.

This is where the label was born—above all, to put music back at the center, in a time when everything moves too fast, gets monetized, sliced up, and repackaged. In that landscape, we believe a label should remain a space for curation, for storytelling, for quiet resistance — a place where we suggest rather than impose.

Over the past ten years, we’ve built a singular catalogue — a mosaic of archival revivals, contemporary projects, and unexpected encounters. Three main threads have shaped it.

First, the compilation of music from the past. Not to claim it, but to keep it moving. To shed light on forgotten repertoires, marginal histories, musical legacies too rich to be overlooked. To help them exist again, with dignity, and reconnect with new listeners who might never have had access otherwise.

Second, international collaborations. From Geneva, we’ve woven bonds with artists from all over the world — groups from Istanbul, Buenos Aires, London, Baku, Bogotá, Lilongwe, Les Gonaïves, or Amsterdam. Records crafted with love and boldness, in collaboration with like-minded labels, passionate curators, and artists who share our spirit. That international dimension makes us proud — it proves that you can create, exchange, and share sound sincerely, even from a city not exactly known as a musical capital.

And then there’s our local scene. Geneva, always. Because it’s where we live, where we grew up, and where we still believe in a city with a unique voice — full of friction, contradictions, and underground energy. We’ve supported projects from experimental circuits, squats, and clubs. Through our sub-label Les Disques Magnétiques, we’ve expanded the spectrum without losing the thread: defending the margins, giving space to those who don’t fit anywhere else.

Bongo Joe is also a musician. The label takes its name from George “Bongo Joe” Coleman (1923–1999), a street percussionist from Texas who stayed true to his independence for over thirty years. Turning down the offers of formal venues, he chose instead to play in the streets — banging out rhythms on an oil drum with raw charisma. His only album, recorded in 1968 in San Antonio, remains one of our most cherished records. Reissued by our friends at Mississippi Records, it carries a DIY spirit, radical freedom, and lyrical boldness far ahead of its time — a guiding light that continues to inspire us.

Bongo Joe is also a collective story. It’s about people. A team that grew over the years: from Cyril and Vincent at the helm to a tight-knit crew — Juliette, Quentin, Margot, Laurent, Baptiste. Together, we’ve kept this strange, handmade machine running. We’ve hand-stamped sleeves, lost test pressings, pressed the wrong masters on CD, found test pressings again, chased down funding, hauled stacks of records to the post office by bike, crossed our fingers for pressings to arrive on time, cursed at customs delays, botched digital releases, and felt a thrill watching “our” bands play on the stages of major festivals and the most forward-thinking clubs. We’ve been through chaos and joy. Together, we’ve made it this far. And with nearly 150 records in the catalogue, we look back on the road travelled with a mix of pride and disbelief.

This compilation isn’t a summary. It’s not a best of. It’s a trace. A selection among many possible ones. A snapshot of what we’ve tried to do since 2015: believe in music as connection, as memory, as compass. Thank you to everyone who’s supported, followed, or inspired us. Thanks to the institutions who’ve backed us. Thanks to our longtime partners: bookers, fellow labels, record stores, publicists, distributors, printers, engravers, pressing plants, sound engineers, photographers, designers. And most of all, thank you to the artists — without whom none of this would mean anything.

Ten years is a little, and a lot. We’re not done yet.

On his second album MUTANT, Moroccan producer Guedra Guedra sculpts irresistible rhythms and sounds from his analogue synths and drum machines, blending them with percussive fragments, field recordings from Morocco, Tanzania, Guinea and more, gathered while travelling across the vast landmass.

MUTANT explores themes of identity, Pan-Africanism, Afrofuturism, and decolonization, bridging the musical heritage of the continent with elements of techno, bass music and dub. “I created something energetic, where I could find my freedom to compose,” Abdellah says. “I wanted to have a cultural sound that explored innovation with African and diasporic music alongside the vibes of rhythm and the vibes of bass.” The songs on

MUTANT celebrate the wealth of African polyrhythmic forms and also challenge how this richness has long been marginalized by technological tools and systems of thought shaped by Western logic and models of standardization.

Black Truffle is thrilled to announce Spilla, the second album from Nantes-based Ensemble Nist-Nah, 48 minutes of music for Gamelan, drum kits, wood and metal percussion instruments, and plucked strings that will surely count as one of the most electrifying records you hear this year. Founded by the Australian drummer/percussionist Will Guthrie in 2019, continuing the explorations begun in solo form on Nist-Nah (Black Truffle, 2020), the ensemble (eight or nine core members with occasional guests) has been consistently active in the half-decade since: composing, rehearsing, recording and touring Europe (with a mass of equipment in tow) to great acclaim. Spilla tracks the continuing evolution of the project since the recording of their first album, Elders (Black Truffle, 2022). The two sides of this record document two different iterations of the group, and the members' compositional input has increased: each side contains one piece by a member other than Guthrie. It has become clearer than ever that Ensemble Nist-Nah is not an attempt at a European Gamelan ensemble but rather a hybrid percussion ensemble that uses instruments from a Javanese Gamelan alongside other percussion to perform original music informed by a variety of South East Asian music but also by everything from free jazz to contemporary hip-hop: while Nist-Nah and Elders both featured traditional Javanese pieces, on Spilla the only tune not generated by a member of the group is by Guthrie’s long-time musical hero and occasional collaborator Roscoe Mitchell.The two short pieces that open the record could almost be the two sides of a wild 7” selected to show off what the Ensemble can do. On opener ‘Gerak Maju’, intricately skittering open-snare patterns bounce over clanging metal, chiming bell-like tones and deep gong hits, adapting the rhythm-register connections heard in traditional Gamelan musics—where the lowest pitched sounds are heard least frequently—to a cut-up breakbeat straight off Feed Me Weird Things. ‘Strollabout’ then moves into an entirely different realm of meditative repeating patterns, performed entirely on Chinese, Javanese and Vietnamese gongs. The remaining seven pieces, ranging from three to twelve minutes, offer up a wealth of different percussive, compositional and arrangement possibilities. On ‘Ghostly Klang’, two drumkits mirror each other’s moves, bouncing hats and snares across the stereo field in a way that recalls On the Corner and the jittering hi hat patterns of trap, while slow moving melodies on the tuned instruments add a sense of majesty contrasted by scurrying details in resonant wood. The epic closing track presents a take on Roscoe Mitchell’s ‘Uncle’, performed by the Art Ensemble of Chicago on their classic Urban Bushmen live album. Where the Art Ensemble used Mitchell’s dirge-like melody as a jumping off point for virtuosic improvisational flights, Ensemble Nist-Nah rethink the piece as a near-static dialogue between the monumental, slow-moving sequence of unison tuned percussion notes and a textural cloud that grows in richness and intensity from whispering cymbal rolls into a mass of gong overtones and bowed metal.Beautifully recorded and mixed, Spilla arrives in a sleeve decorated with core member Charles Dubois’ drawings of cymbals and gongs. Against the backdrop of a wider musical landscape dominated by over-produced electronic slop and bland harmonic wallpaper, Ensemble Nist-Nah stands out as a reminder, vital and unpretentious, of the joys and possibilities of human beings playing instruments together.

Black Truffle is thrilled to begin 2025 with a rare solo release from Konrad Sprenger, alias of elusive Berlin composer-producer-instrument builder Jörg Hiller. A prolific collaborator, Sprenger has worked extensively with icons of American minimalism such as Ellen Fullman (with whom her recorded the gloriously eccentric song album Ort) and Arnold Dreyblatt (as a core member of the Orchestra of Excited Strings since 2009), as well as releasing their music on his impeccably curated label, Choose. As an instrument builder and installation artist, he has overseen the creation of a computer-controlled multi-channel electric guitar and, with Phillip Sollmann, a modular pipe organ system designed to be reconfigured from space to space. In much of Hiller’s work, a scientific approach to acoustic phenomena co-exists with a pop sensibility and a sly sense of humour. Nowhere is this unique combination more in evidence than in his slim body of solo work, beginning with the startling diversity of instrumentation and compositional approaches heard on the short pieces of Miniaturen (2006) and Versprochen (2009), followed by the more single-minded exploration of the computer-controlled electric guitar on Stack Music (2017). Set brings together these various strands of Sprenger’s work into a wildly infectious, playful epic, performed by the composer and the mysterious Ensemble Risonanze Moderne. On the LP’s second side, we are also treated to a guest appearance from longtime collaborator Oren Ambarchi, on whose recent solo releases Simian Angel and Shebang Sprenger has made key production contributions. Ambarchi’s signature stuttering, swirling harmonics weave through a sparkling assemblage of electric guitars, acoustic instruments, percussion and electronics—though, given the deft use that much of Sprenger’s recent production work makes of midi-controlled sampled instrumentation, it’s anyone’s guess where the acoustic ends and the digital begins here. As soon as the needle drops on the first side, we are inside a musical world that Set will inhabit for its 33 minutes: sparkling guitar harmonics and palm-muted notes, tuned percussion, crisp electronic drum hits, flashes of horns, and untraceable bursts of synthetic sound are arranged into a skittering polyrhythmic framework calling up the detail-rich percussive constructions of contemporary techno filtered through the pointillism of the post-serialist European avant-garde. Behind this shifting mist of particulate sound, winds and strings sound out held chords, reminiscent of Arthur Russell’s Tower of Meaning in their epic yet seemingly aimless drift. The relationship between elements is mysterious, appearing both carefully considered and almost random. Though never straying too far from where it begins, as the piece moves along, it spotlights increasingly bizarre instrument choices (shakuhachi and steel drums, anyone?) as well as momentary liftoffs into motorik propulsion. Set is a fascinating, mercurial thing: at once propulsive and fragmented, essentially static in form yet ever-changing in detail, unabashedly egghead in its construction yet sure to get the feet tapping.

In 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic began, environmental sounds were recorded in the dense forests of Kerala, India, and

in 2023, in the chaotic wastelands of Karachi and Lahore, Pakistan, where suicide bombings still occur, Peshawar,

where suicide bombings still occur in 2023.

This futuristic Asian music, created by blending traditional instruments with electronics and collage, mysteriously blends with Arab and African elements, evoking the scent of the earth despite being rooted in asphalt—a truly unique masterpiece!

Big Hands is the alias of Andrea Ottomani, an Italian-born, London-based artist, whose productions have maintained an impeccable level of homogeneity over the last decade. His debut album, titled Thauma, was conceived in dreams over two consecutive nights as he traversed the storm-ridden Mediterranean Sea in late June 2024 and was later brought to life with the intent of preserving the sounds and structures as they were originally dreamt. Composed of ten tracks that seamlessly morph into one another, the album contains recordings of tuned percussion instruments (such as bells and the balafon) captured whilst travelling across the Mediterranean (Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Turkey) as well as collaborations with his tight-knit orbit of talented musicians.

Palestinian artist, بنت مبارح (Bint Mbareh), echoes and wails in dialogue with Abraham Parker’s & Izzy Karpel’s brass interjections on Fuoco Lento, then proceeds to send chills down the spine as she starts singing in Arabic on A Juniper Tree Whose Roots Are Made of Fire. Tenor saxophonist, Buster Woodruff-Bryant, lays down snake charmer waltzes on Sticks And Stones, followed by a spiritual sax solo on Rinascita which features the natural timbres of Yusuf Ahmed’s bamboo kit. Mantras, along with recordings of Andrea’s community, are dispersed throughout the album, amplifying the nostalgia and melancholy associated with the music. There’s an underlying archaic thread woven into the percussion that meshes perfectly with the organic acoustic instruments, ultimately becoming indistinguishable from the electronic drums or modular synthesis. Field recordings of the sea, cicadas, call for prayer, and the overall recurring noise from the surroundings evoke a vivid sense of space and are the foundation for realizing this visionary sound.

Music by Andrea Ottomani
Additional percussions on A4 by Yusuf Ahmed
and on B2 by Hayato Takahashi
Mastered and cut by Noel Summerville
Artwork by Andreas Bauer 

We are delighted to be able to bring you these gorgeous field recordings from the Sumedang Province of West Java which, over their 50 minutes, present two distinct sides of Sundanese musical and devotional culture.

Although West Java is a Muslim country, these recordings highlight currents of pre-Islamic animist beliefs and practices that continue to flourish in the small towns and villages of the highlands of West Java. The recordings showcase two forms of trance music that are essential to the spiritual life of the Sundanese people in the highland regions.

Tarawangsa trance music is a traditional ceremonial genre known for its deep spiritual and hypnotic qualities. This music is made using only two instruments, the tarawangsa, a two-stringed fiddle, accompanied by the jentreng, a seven-stringed zither, creating a unique blend of resonant, droning sounds. Historically, tarawangsa music has been performed as part of sacred rituals and agricultural celebrations to honor local deities and ancestors, particularly associated with the Sunda culture. The minimalist, repetitive melodies gradually build, guiding participants and listeners into a meditative, trance-like state, during which dancers can be possessed by the spirits of ancestors or deities from the spirit realm, the music serving as a link between the two worlds.

In stark contrast to the calm, medititive sound of tarawangsa, we also present here two long pieces from Panca Buana Reak Group. Sundanese Reak trance music is like the punk rock of Sunda folk music, combining powerful and driving rhythms played on a number of hand drums and percussion instruments with the buzzing sound of the tarompet, a double reed wind instrument often amplified through whatever mobile speaker system might be at hand. Sometimes the group will play gamelan gongs, as heard on the first piece on the album, although this remains a music that is popular mainly with the working class youth of the rural villages, many of whom will also be fans of Indonesia's burgeoning metal and punk scenes. Reak performances are often wild, anarchic events that feature masked dancers, costumes, public trancing and spirit possession.

These recordings were made by Xenia At during her travels through West Java earlier this year. The tarawangsa recordings were made in a home in the village of Rancakalong on the evening of 17th January 2024, while Panca Buana Reak Group were recorded during rehersals in the village of Cinunuk on 19th and 20th January 2024.
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 307px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=3330427737/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://hivemindrecords.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-heart-of-sumedang-field-recordings-from-west-java">In the Heart of Sumedang: Field Recordings from West Java by Hive Mind Records</a></iframe>

One of very few labels we can think of around atm that have a certified buy-on-sight status, Wino consistently do it with 100% suss and 0% fuss, here with the solo debut of Wino co-founder Omid Geadizadeh, with Morgan Buckley on the remix.

A follow-up to that deadly Wino-E LP (quietly, inarguably one of the records of the year - just incred), 'Like The Sea Knows Blue' deploys a trio of percolating summer jams like some lost dubplate of skanking 1980’s basement jams relocated from NYC to Tehran, powered by a glorious santur. Think Tapes via Wackies, with added sunbeams.

On the remix, Morgan Buckley gives it a 90’s breakbeat heat, with subs and chopped vocal samples to boot.

They never miss.

"The debut 2023 disc of narcotised, tranced-out dub from Naarm collective Dregs resurfaces on venerable UK imprint Purely Physical Teeny Tapes, its dense textures and abyssal groove splayed across two sides of wax for wider appreciation among those with an ear for corporeal sludge and blurred sound-system sonics. Centred around the core trio of Sina (vox/synth), Drop Dylan (vox/guitar) & Ossian (production/electronics), this particular session of endless-nite trip-hop finds the group bringing Rip Van Hippy (percussion) into the fold, the revered trance figurehead whose tendrils have also reached into the works of far slung sonic explorers such as Boredoms, Ollie Olsen & Osamu Kitajima. The affinities between the pairing are at once sonically obvious & ripe with potential, both parties sharing an ability to convolve diffuse strands of sound (slow-motion dnb, blasted dub, the luxuriant languor that arises at the meeting point between trip-hop & post- rock) into a jet-black molasses of infinite groove, drowned melodics, and dense hallucination. This self-titled debut is best described as a sensual ooze, smeared & smudged textures riding heavyweight bass pressure & trudging rhythms that dissolve into one another, strung-out siren songs from the gutters of the night. Not a music for the club so much as one born of it, the LP plays out in deeply carnal styles: vox swimming in layers of murk writhing among shadow, the faint murmur of a guitar etching out the suggestion of a melody only to be devoured by un-bottled pressure, endless tremors rattling through a hall of mirrors. A sound to be felt equally in the most heart-melted zones as well as firmly in the cavity of your sternum, in states altered or otherwise; delicate & ethereal, evanescently grimy, and deeply, deeply addictive."

It was quite unexpected to see the very prolific and talented Pieter Kock featuring on Macadam Mambo - which is usually used to new-comers - as he has released a lot in the past 2 years on very nice labels like RIO, Meakusma or Moonwalk X. But, the demos that he sent were so good that there was no question about doing something. And with a lot of possibilities, to prepare a double album that is now composed of 16 quality tracks for 1h20 of music… What vibes are in here! It’s heavy, loudly, loopy, mental, smokey, and always surprising. Pieter has is very own universe, and is without doubt one of the most interesting electronic musician at the moment.
Should we ask you to give chance to this opus, and tell you you won’t regret it ? We don’t think we need to do so... ☺

Roberto Musci, born in Milan in 1956, studied guitar, music and electronic instruments. From 1974 to 1985 he traveled the world studying African, Indian, Arab and Oriental music recording ethnic music “in the field,” studying and collecting ethnic musical instruments from all parts of the world. His self-produced debut album, “The Loa of Music,” is a seminal work of staggering originality and extraordinary beauty in which field recordings, musique concrète, electronics, synthesis and instrumentation are interwoven, drawing on the countless musics from all over the World that he recorded. The subsequent “Water messages on desert sand,” composed with Giovanni Venosta, was nominated for a Grammy in the UK in 1987. In the 1980s 'and 90s' he broadcast ethnic and electronic-experimental music from Rai and Radio Popolare radio stations. He has also composed and played music for videos, commercials, dance, poetry, theater, composed soundtracks and accompanied silent films live. From 1980 to the present, he has played with many Italian and European musicians: Giovanni Venosta, Claudio Gabbiani, Walter Prati, Giorgio Magnanensi, Massimo Cavallaro, Massimo Mariani, Moni Ovadia, Roberto Zorzi, Chris Cutler, Jon Rose David Moss, Steve Piccolo, Elliott Sharp, Keith Tippett and the Third Ear Band. The theme of travel, ethnicities and mysticism are a pivotal point in this new album of his as well, demonstrating once again how music needs absolutely no sharp lines of demarcation. The music is one. It goes from the search for deep meanings in a time spent in a Hindu monastery (Ashram) listening to mantras and studying Buddhist philosophy to space explorations and human settlements on the Moon or Mars wondering how man will live and what he will bring to the new worlds imagining that Sufism, an Islamic mystical religion, will accompany him in the discovery of new worlds. An inspired Roberto Musci is increasingly aware of his hypnotic and visionary language.

 

Recorded in 1957 and released on the Prestige label, "Sound of Yusef" features Lateef's quintet with Wilbur Harden - flugelhorn, Hugh Lawson - piano, Ernie Farrow - bass, and Oliver Jackson - drums. Lateef's aesthetic was a perfect mixture of hard-driving jazz and a variety of ethnic materials. Even though If compared to later works, "Sounds of Yusef" is still very much rooted in Jazz while the use of traditional ethnic instruments adds colors and flavors without really deviating from the American Jazz tradition. Lateef shines on both tenor sax and flute while the rhythm section swings hard throughout a varied repertoire including an airy version of Strayhorn's ultra-classic "Take the A Train" and a contemplative Lateef's original called "Meditation".  

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Rivet’s new album for Editions Mego is an uplifting and joyous affair coming in the wake of tragedy and disenchantment. It is yet another rebirth from an artist willing to take a step back and reprise the current situation he is in. Mika Hallbäck has a long credible history in the Swedish underground. First recognised for his industrial techno works under the Grovskopa moniker he worked privately on more experimental works that eventually came out as On Feather and Wire, an album released on Editions Mego in 2020. After much acclaim for this bold new direction that blended electronic abstraction, pop and industrial forms into a heavy synthetic trip two tragedies struck. One was the passing of label boss Peter Rehberg and then the passing of his dog Lilo, who was as close as a companion one could have. These events led to the release of the more unsettling follow up L+P-2 (Lilo and Pita minus two) on Midnight Shift Records in 2023. Peck Glamour sees Rivet return to the reawakened Editions Mego with an album of optimism inspired by reconciliation with loss and further explorations of new mental/sonic realms.

Hallbäck defines his approach as not being married to any particular machine, instrument, process or genre. However he holds a particular affinity to sampling, of which, he says, provides the dirt and grit amongst what would otherwise be pristine, generic machine music. The contemporary crate digging method of scouring obscure download music bogs for unique sounds was his preferred research practice.

Peck Glamour is an album full of tracks brimming with the excitement of exploration. It's the results of a mind informed by punk, industrial, techno, dancefloor, disappointment, trauma and rebirth. Here the synthetic and authentic is viewed simply as the same means of human rationale and expression.

The opening, ‘Catch Up to Light’, sets the scene with ecstatic and odd fluorescent vocals sliding amongst crystalline likembe whilst synths swirl amongst the external festivities. ‘Orbiting Empty Cocoon’ is somewhat a homage to the alien sound worlds of The Orb, one which takes the listener deeper into a mind melting array of teased potential as visual elements are executed in a mask of audio wizardry and euphoric staccato rhythms, the later being a nod to Singeli music. ‘Patitur Butcher’ is more dance frontal utilising the Ghatam drum and a YouTube rip of a Chinese language lesson. ‘Plastic Bag Putain’ was made during the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and should be clear of its intent. ‘All that Heaven Allows’ is a marimba cover of an imaginary Love Parade anthem. 'Kyrie Geire’ potentially briefly fills the void left by the demise of Coil. The entire trip of Peck Glamour is sewn up with ‘We left before we came’ whereby extraneous recordings of double bass player Gregory Vartian-Foss (tuning/strumming/moving the bass) are superimposed with local field recordings to create a gorgeous bed of sounds acting as an exciting exit music to this sharp collection of cinematic ear excursions.

Respekt! Sex Tags Mania, Karolin, Laton, Tage Tombola, Don Papa - The Genuin Of Moss Hip-Hop, Engvaal & The Rygge Family, Lene B., Kambo Super Sound & Family, The Endless Dynamic of Dynamo Dreesen, Brian Not Brian - Going Good And Axin' It Fo' Real - Salik Zia, SVN, Nupi & General Elektro, Bjørn Torske, L.A. Morillo, Fit Detroid, Skatebård, A-Bucci, Camila 575, Dåple-Pera, Benji, Atle, Vilunki 666, Queens Only - Madteo - Keeping It A Level Higher Than The Rest, Geir & Søssa, Rat Salad, Mor & Jerry, Eupraxia, Ringvold Gasta, Unit 6Q, DJ Gilb'R & Versatile Crew With I:Cube, Sähkö & The Keys Of House Life, Winklez, Peng! Ossia, Nell & The Dennis Bros., Roland Lifjell, Paleo & The Bhakti Crew, "70 CPS" Bailey, Bodhi Beats, Pyramide Phillips, Samir M'Kadmi, Thug Records, Audio-In Crew, King 909, Graff Et Grill, Paint House, 411, Nbm, Done, Pol, Sol, Yre, Culos, Kvam, Sau 2, Coats, Buba, 1999, Tmb, Crew - Skredderåsen, Moss! It's Not What You Play - But How You Play. Recorded and digitally edited at the 6th-EonMANIA-fract2 STD between 2012-2014. Original session for Side B recorded at Pyramide Studio, Frankfurt 2010. Vocals on Side C recorded at Inna Di Bu Studio, Moss 2013. Graffiti Can't Be Stopped

One of the very best ever Tribal Ambient Dub albums, originally released on the famous Australian Extreme label.

Brilliantly new mastered, sounds way better than the original recordings.
Includes bonus songs from other Extreme releases.

For fans of early WARP, Muslimgauze, Future Sound Of London, The Orb, Rapoon and alike.

Clear vinyl is only available in the boxset, the regular vinyl edition is black vinyl.
Laminated cover, printed also on the inside, with OBI.

AKT22 Paul Schütze – The Anihilating Angel LP -> out in January 2025
AKT21 Paul Schütze – Deus Ex Machina 2LP -> out in February 2025
The boxset contains all 3 albums at once!

People believe that the magic of Muslimgauze works best with looong tracks. Think the same? Then "Al-Zulfiquar Shaheed" is exactly for you! 75 minutes of mellow eastern-style hypnotism. Consisting of only five parts, the album shows Bryn's ability to create lengthy and detailed compositions filled with Arabic percussion, droning keyboards, vocal samples and ethereal atmospheres.
A strong rhythmic, yet melodic album, that should be in the collection of every Muslimgauze fan. Definitely one of Bryn's best ever albums

"Citadel" is the fourth album release on EXTREME by this enigmatic Manchester-based group. For over 10 years, Muslimgauze have defined their style as a Western re-contextualisation of traditional Middle Eastern music enhanced by technology to form a post-modern mix of music, politics and culture. Muslimgauze construct the music through ethnic instruments that are a frame for dark and sometimes foreboding aural tapestries that capture the essence and mood of the music of the Middle East and the plight of the Palestinian people.

"Citadel" is an album of exotic Arabic textures where traditional instruments intermesh with technology, found sounds and voices meld with drones and synthesizers. The album uses both eastern and western rhythmic patterns embedded in layers of shifting soundscapes. The title track "Citadel" with incessant tablas piercing through swirling cymbals and a haunting melody. "Dharam Hinduja", where staccato percussion moves to fill the space between pulsing inverted samples, and "Opel" with drones building only to be overpowered by machine-gun rhythms. "Masawi Wife & Child" has a subdued rhythmic undercurrent while "Infidel" stands out with its strident percussion fusing with a myriad of sounds. "Shouf Balek" incorporates traditional strings that interplay with rhythm and voice, and "Beit Nuba" with mesmerizing chants weaving between a persistent drum beat. It all draws to a close with "Ferdowsi" where percussive improvisations rise and fall through a minimal soundscape.

Muslimgauze produce a raga music for the technological post-cyber age. Shifting cultures out of ancient history into the current day, transcending those traditional forms. "Citadel" has a voice of what is now and perhaps what is to come. In these troubled political times, peace through people being unified in harmony whilst maintaining their own strength and cultural identity is a vision to strive towards.

– from the original Extreme press-release

The original tracks were perfectly remastered for this first time ever vinyl release and the new masters received high praise from the Extreme Music owner Roger Richards.
New sleeve designs were created by Oleg Galay, who is famous for his artworks for many Muslimgauze reissues.
All 4 album covers are made from extra heavy cardboard with deluxe spot UV finish and inside print.

Turn On Arab American Radio, Muslimgauze Archive Series volume 34

"Through this release, the music stays on the minimal side, leaning heavily on using a drum machine and minimal Middle Eastern samples and instruments, but like the radio signals only. As I like minimalism and the occasional Muslimgauze release, I immensely enjoyed this."
Vital Weekly number 1365

The relationship between Bryn Jones’ music as Muslimgauze and the track/abum titles he would provide (sometimes right on the tapes he would send in for release, but often determined later, sometimes even giving two different pieces months apart the same title, accidentally or not) has always been a little mysterious. Jones himself can no longer be asked, and as we continue to investigate the swathes of material he provided, you hit sources like the DAT or DATs that make up the contents of the new double LP Turn On Arab American Radio. Nine tracks, the first LP/four tracks titled “Turn On Arab American Radio,” and the other LP/five tracks labelled only “Arab American Radio.” None of them sound particularly radio-esque, although given the simultaneous vastness and ornate focus of Jones’ Muslimgauze work that gap between name and sound is far from atypical.

Instead here the de rigeur percussion loops that underpin this particular set of tracks, while occasionally clipping into the fierce distortion that Jones either loved to use or couldn’t get away from, steer away from both the more consistent application of that distortion as well as the Middle Eastern and Asian influences he often used. It’d be a stretch to call anything here basic boom-bap production but they come closer to it than a lot of Muslimgauze production. And while those loops are, as always prominent, they’re not actually the focus; settling into steady vamps as structures for Jones to pursue an extended and often more gentle exploration of the other sample sources he has here. There are stringed instruments, the sound of water, but most prominently or strikingly the human voice. Nothing is in English but tone and the occasional word (“familia”, “passport”) still provide guides. There are ululations, snatches of melody; but most often speech, dialogue, often tense and harried sounding. Is this what Jones was thinking of or referring to with his “Arab American Radio”?

As with so many other questions about Muslimgauze, we’ll never know the answer to that one. (Most pertinently in this case we might wonder who appears here, and what the context of these recordings is. But Jones never provided that with his submissions.) Here, even though those inexorable loops pound on, indefatigable, that emphasis on some of the people Jones chooses lends a measured gentleness to much of Turn On Arab American Radio, at least within the context of his body of work. The last thing you hear at the end of the second LP is one last question from one of the many speakers on this peculiar Muslimgauze radio, echoed away into infinity. We may never have answers, but those questions continue to resonate. 

Producer Pieter Kock, active also as a DJ under his DJ Peacock guise, is known for being one of the people behind the legendary O Tannenbaum bar and club, a haven of sorts in Berlin nightlife for years, and the newly opened second O Tannenbaum called Schankwirtschafft O Tannenbaum. He has released some of his own music on labels such as Musikii, RIO, Full Body Massage, Fantasy Fiction Records, Moonwalk X, and Invisible Inc, and has extensively collaborated with people and projects such as Meeuw and De Fabriek. His new Bright Bars From The Stars album on Meakusma is a dizzying amalgam of moods and influences. From ghostly and contemplative tracks to spaced-out and dubbed-out dark dancefloor psychedelia infused with melodics, phrasing, and percussive patterns reminiscent of pop and avant-garde alike, Bright Bars From The Stars features a full album on vinyl, with an extra CD included. Kock is a versatile chronicler of the night, capturing the beauty, loneliness, and endless possibilities of wide avenues pining for neon lights, futuristic descents into past moods and modes, and all. 14 tracks in total, Bright Bars From The Stars is a cosmic, at times gentle, at times confrontational affair that brims with ideas and influences. Combining sounds, rhythms, melodies, and textures from a wide variety of sources and meanings, Pieter Kock brings all of his influences together, intent on finding new paths of thinking and feeling. His pictures printed in the CD booklet give some kind of indication of his artistic process, without ever wanting to push things in any kind of direction. Cocktail bars of a dystopian future, unite! Bright Bars From The Stars is the soundtrack to a very encompassing and transformative night out. All compositions by Pieter Kock except Bright Bars From The Stars by Pieter Kock and Dominik Peacho Noé Mastering & Cut by Rashad Becker Art by Pieter Kock and Meeuw