MUSIC

We have repeatedly surprised you with unusual releases that sound uncharacteristic for wellknown artists Remember Merzbow with guitars, synth (almost said synth-pop) and drum machine? Well, Muslimgauze's turn came up. Emak Bakia – long out of print masterpieces from 1994. Even in the huge Bryn Jones' discography Emak Bakia really stands out of albums from the period due its rather unique (house-music related) sound and short, by the standards of Bryn Jones, tracks. Like a crossmix between Psychic TV (circa Towards Thee Infinite Beat) and Muslimgauze's trademark percussion and eastern vibes.

Los Angeles producer and artist Nosaj Thing AKA Jason W. Chung returns with his fifth album, Continua - featuring a stellar ensemble cast including HYUKOH, Toro y Moi, Kazu Makino (Blonde Redhead), serpentwithfeet, Sam Gendel, Coby Sey, Julianna Barwick, Mike Andrews, Slauson Malone, Pink Siifu, Panda Bear & Eyedress.

Nosaj Thing's expertise is in crafting exquisite soundscapes that hold a mirror up to his journey from noise and punk shows at DIY venue The Smell, to his debut sets at Low End Theory, to touring with The xx and The Weeknd. Throughout, he has innovated with a live experiences conceived with Tokyo-based AV savant Daito Manabe. Chung's music carries such visceral humanity it feels like a disservice to refer to the 'mood' which pervades his records. But it's exactly that distinct mood which has made Nosaj Thing such a cult artists across his 16-year-deep discography.

French guitarist Mischa Fitzgerald Michel, who studied under Jim Hall, covers the genius SSW Nick Drake, who died young, on this 2012 release. A hidden masterpiece revived in the modern era with unparalleled beauty, refined harmonies and proper interpretation.

‘Cupo’ is the debut album of gothic folkways and dark jazz rituals enacted by prolific percussionist Valentina Magaletti and enigmatic spirit Laila Sakini, deploying an orchestra-sized ensemble of instruments into a 10-part movement spread over two seamless sides. Ghostly and completely transfixing material, it sounds like a pitch-black reduction of Talk Talk's ‘Spirit of Eden’ crumbling into Julee Cruise's ‘Floating into the Night’. An ode to DIY culture and improvisation, Cupo marks a turning point and coming together of two of London’s most imaginative figures. The project sprung to life after Magaletti, versatile drummer-composer for a myriad projects including Moin, Tomaga, Holy Tongue and CZN, asked singular singer-songwriter/art explorer Sakini to contribute to an album that quickly developed into a separate project in its own right. Initiated under a title meaning ‘dark’ in Italian, Sakini plays trumpet, flute, harmonica, recorder, vocals, bass, strings and piano, while Magaletti adds acoustic guitar, spoken word, bass, and drums, pitched down to match the sunken swag of Sakini’s voice. ‘Cupo’ oozes a sense of theatrical dramaturgy that feels like two players in a staged psychodrama. The pair’s exquisite twists of light and space enhance the sensation of peering in from the dark of the stalls, scenes mysteriously changing on stage. The opening hums with nervous energy, the vast sweep of possibility - things could go in so many different directions - concrète, free jazz, doom noise, forest folk, trip hop - who fucking knows. Magaletti's drums gain momentum, cutting into the void like a snare roll in the middle of a trapeze act, or the din from the orchestral pit in an old cinema. Staggered bass and pitched trumpet are thrown into the mix, the deep thrum of subs, a heartbeat, shapeless words, flute, lost fragments of chamber music, piano keys wafting in from outside. Just as things feel irrevocably shapeless, all the elements coalesce, Sakini’s voice and a recorder flip the mood. We’re in smokey, weird pop mode - just the thing we were hoping for. The spirit of post-prog/proto-shoegaze hangs in the air, but the music isn't quite so specific. Pop dissolves into jazz, ambient passages cut into rickety blues, then scuffed into DIY art noise. The linking thread is always the duo's creative energy, providing a space for each to explore, without overwhelming the other. Gentle, fierce music from two of the very best in the game right now.

It's by some strange inversion that since his untimely death in 1999 Bryn Jones' Muslimgauze project has become evermore enigmatic as his publicly available recordings have become evermore vast. The Mancunian artist's sudden passing at the age of 37 prematurely resolved a body of work that remains as experimental as it is diffuse, with an informal archive that was left spread between favoured labels and confidantes. And though this monadic project never abided by genre specifications, it all feels as if it is taking the critical pulses of its time and rendering them into something other than the sum of its obscure compulsions. Jones' double album 'Veiled Sisters' from 1993 is no exception, and it persists as a magnificent outlier in his singular and bewildering discography. Originally released by the label Soleilmoon, an early and lifelong supporter of Jones' work along with Staalplaat, the album is a notable example of the uniquely recombinant fragility and fervour of Jones' work. This 3LP edition marks the album's first appearance on vinyl. Like much of the Muslimgauze catalogue, 'Veiled Sisters' is dedicated to the Palestine Liberation Organization, with its two halves—Sister One and Sister Two—calling on the history and conflicts of the modern Islamic world through opaque titles and snatches of musical oration. Forgoing the raucous timbre and abrasion that Jones could occasionally employ, this album balances a medley of shrill instrumental bursts with a complex patterning of ambient atmospheres. 'Veiled Sisters' moves with a hypnotic gait across its extended runtime with a dynamic ensemble of electronics grounded in a pulsing yet evasive combination of low-slung kicks and dub-soaked bass. The hissy wash of drums, both played and machined, decorate a restless patina all over, and the cacophony of samples send impressions scattershot into Jones' idiosyncratic yet readymade psychedelia. With a quiet intensity that is not often captured this succinctly in the Muslimgauze catalogue, this new edition of 'Veiled Sisters' is a reminder of the haunting wonder that Jones was capable of manifesting.

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.

Dominique Lawalrée (b. 1954) is a composer born and based in Brussels. First Meeting is Lawalrée's first archival release to date. Culled from four different albums originally self-published on his private label Editions Walrus, circa 1978-1982, this compilation highlights the composer's unique sense of ambient and minimal composition. Originally considered for release on Brian Eno's Obscure Records, Lawalrée's music is now no longer hidden. 

In this collection the listener finds the sounds of piano, synthesizers, percussion, wurlitzer, organ, and voice, all performed by Lawalrée. Using these tools Dominique creates miniature themes that gallop across the speakers in slow motion, stretching our normal sense of dynamics and color, effortlessly widening the stereo plane. On “Musique Satieerique,” Dominique pays homage to the influence of Satie with simple repeated piano figures and a lush field of organs and flutes. And on other selections, like “Le Maison Des 5 Elements,” he takes a more wistful, ambient approach, layering keyboard lines, and invoking found/tape sounds to create a hypnogogic world of his own. Childlike in its playfulness and surreal to the bone, the music spins like a carrousel placed inside the Rothko Chapel. Lawalrée’s sense of timbre, tone, and overarching composition is like an impression of a home movie whose charm lies in its knowledge of intimacy, shared by few. An incantation of innocence. 

"a quiet, understated music that is both touching and elegant" - Gavin Bryars 

If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust? This is the crucial question at the core of Julia, Julia, the moniker for Julia Kugel, founding member of garage punk icons The Coathangers and the dream pop duo Soft Palms. On her first solo full-length album Derealization, Kugel shifts her focus from collaboration and band dynamics towards a singular artistic vision and private self-discovery. Steeped in the beguiling pop elements of her past work, Derealization is a meditative deep dive into the mind of a person struggling to understand a crumbling internal and external world. The album traverses a landscape of ethereal folk, atmospheric deconstructed pop, and dubbed-out country ballads, all centered around straight forward and direct lyrics. This juxtaposition of nebulousness and lucidity gives the album a sense of clarity emerging from the haze, an apt reflection of Kugel's personal growth and journey toward self-acceptance. Derealization is based on weaving the unreal, unsaid, and unknown into an undulating sonic fabric. Vocal layering and abstract instrumentation convey a blurred desperation to connect to an emotional and psychological focal point. Moody, dark, and sumptuous, the record is a flow chart of Julia Kugel coming into herself as an artist and songwriter. The album finds Julia playing almost all the instruments and taking her first stab at engineering at COMA, her and her husband's home recording studio in Long Beach, CA. “You know how touring musicians often speak of whether home is real or tour is real? Well, it can lead you to lose grasp on ‘reality,’ especially when touring is taken away and you are left to wonder if anything was ever real, including yourself. Like you we're just playing a character,” Kugel says of her headspace leading up to the creation of Derealization. “Honestly, I kinda lost it, and through making this record I made peace with it and reconciled myself as a real person. I forgave myself and in turn forgave those around me. The song ‘Forgive Me’ is the apology I wanted to say and to hear. I wrote every song from that place and gained the confidence I was pretending to possess.” This raw and personal approach to the lyrics is present throughout Derealization. On the opening track "I Want You," Kugel creates a woozy sense of space with reverb-soaked drums and spaghetti western guitars while she lists off her desires for a mysterious “you.” Is she actually listing off her desires for herself? For the people around her? As she repeats "do you feel it?" in the song’s chorus, it feels as if she’s conjuring a magical thread by which we are all connected, showing us how our desires are all the same. On "Fever In My Heart" the listener is treated to a lush, acoustic techno track detailing the exhilarating madness of an emotional breakdown. Simple truths percolate to the surface on "Words Don't Mean Much,” as if clearing away the murk of platitudes and empty gestures. The journey continues on the detached and conflicted "Do It Or Don't,” an alluring walk through the winding road of lonely choices. The name for the project—Julia, Julia—is a look in the mirror, a reflection of what is hidden and unanswered, of what is real and what is transient. The experience of living life not as you planned it but as it unfolded, and the mysterious, magical pain that creates meaning. Suicide Squeeze Record is proud to offer up Julia, Julia’s Derealization to the world on September 30, 2022.

A masterpiece of the schooner rock variety, Black and White Raven is an album that emerged from Archie James Cavanaugh’s youthful dream of recording his own music while stuck in the Alaskan wilderness. “This dream was always elusive,” Cavanaugh said, “believing either that it was only meant for those famous artists who got picked up by major record labels, or that it was just too impossible to achieve because of cost and lack of know-how.” With a freewheeling cast culled from Archie’s travels around the Pacific Northwest, Black and White Raven was set down as the ’70s crested and self-released in the spring of 1980. Traces of disco, AM gold, gospel, and yacht mixed freely with his Tlingit heritage, creating a breezy and optimistic portrait of life in the 49th state.

2022年度リプレス。アメリカのインディ・ロック・バンド、Bedheadが1998年2月10日に〈Trance Syndicate Records〉に残した3枚目のスタジオ・アルバムが〈Numero〉からアナログ・リイシュー。Steve Albiniがエンジニアを務めた本バンド唯一のレコードであり、前作よりもアップテンポで激しく歪んだサウンドを披露したスロウコア/オルタナティヴ・ロックの傑作！

Who do we become when we live our dreams? It's all here - the high hairdos, the dreams and schemes, the tender camp, the wedding bell fantasias and chaste tragedies. Sister acts, studio receptionists, classmates, angelic voices of the 1960s; some legendary, many hidden in the basement of expired rainbows.

The third installment of Numero’s ode to lowrider souldies, Rust Side Story compiles highly sought after sweet soul singles from the Buck Eye State. Prepare for a low and slow ride from Youngstown to Dayton, Cleveland to Columbus, Toledo to Cincinnati, all soundtracked with silky falsettos and dreamy harmonies.

On 29th September 2017, Iglooghost will release his debut album “Neō Wax Bloom”, almost two years to the day since he made his debut as a teenager on Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder imprint with the “Chinese Nü Year” EP - four tracks documenting the time-traveling adventures of a gelatinous worm-shaped creature called Xiangjiao. Expanding on this story, “Neō Wax Bloom” follows the events surrounding two giant eyeballs crashing into the mysterious world of Mamu. Across its 11 tracks, Iglooghost builds a typically intense, hysterical, borderline batshit crazy soundtrack, introducing new characters to his fantastical world and inviting back old friends Mr. Yote and Cuushe for the ride.

In the words of Iglooghost:

“When a pair of giant eyeballs crash into the strange, misty world of Mamu, the mysterious forces that govern nature itself are disrupted. A life cycle of transforming creatures is thrown off balance, and the odd looking inhabitants of Mamu are forced to adapt to this calamity. These inhabitants include Yomi - a multicoloured pom-pom monk; Lummo - a wise blind witch training a band of melon coloured babies; and Uso - a sneaky bug thief hidden in a green cloak - as well as many others. As their respective stories begin to interlock, the mysteries surrounding the giant eyeballs are slowly revealed.”

Featuring artwork by Iglooghost, the vinyl format includes a large format 12-page Riso printed comic booklet and “Neō Wax Bloom” character sticker sheet. 

In 2021, we started the Mdou Moctar mixtape series. These releases compiled field recordings, cell phone voice memos, interview clips, conversations captured in the tour van, and blown-out board recordings from shows all over the world. As a continuation of those mixtapes, we present the Niger EPs, which examine the roots of the Mdou Moctar band. Early Mdou recordings were contained on cassettes, though the humble tape was soon replaced by the quick and easy facility of cell phone technology. 

Long bus rides are common in West Africa. On one of these rides, you might be seated next to a stranger and ask ‘what are you listening to?’, then a song exchange would begin over Bluetooth. This is a very real way artists found their music distributed far from home. In that vein, the Niger EP series features solely recordings taped in Mdou Moctar’s home country of Niger. Volume 1 begins the series with a mix of recordings from 2017- 2020, documenting the band at weddings, picnics, rehearsals, and even impromptu house concerts. A must have for any Mdou Moctar fan!” 

- Mdou Moctar bassist Mikey Coltun

"end of an era" was produced over a period of 23 years. It began with a few short recordings of lightly processed sine waves that came to me via Asmus Tietchens and Achim Wollscheid. The work on these resulted in a first version and release of "time is the simplest thing" (Three Poplars 2003) which I was never fully satisfied with, so I continued working on it further until a definitive version was completed in 2018. I began work on "time and again ... and again" in 2013 when experimenting with analog electronics. Again I made a first version that I was not entirely happy with and picked up again and completed it in 2022 with the help of Ronnie Oliveras who engineered parts of the remix. The titles for the pieces are related to American writer Clifford Simak whose novels and short stories have been a source of inspiration since adolescent days.

Cosmic American Music from the far flung reaches of rural Oregon. Issued in 1979 on Allan Wachs' own True Vine imprint, Mountain Roads and City Streets gathers a decade of songs written while hitchhiking up and down the west coast. Screeching pedal steel, lilting flute, and tingly dulcimer are peppered throughout Wachs' tales of brief affairs, invisible dogs, and getting lost in a changing America.

Back in print for the first time this century, first time for color and tip-on jacket, the definitive edition remastered from the original tapes. Meeting at the halfway point between Bleach and Damaged, Unwound’s 1995 self-titled album arrived years after the original trio of Vern Rumsey, Justin Trosper, and Brandt Sandeno made their Avast Studios debut. Compiling their EPs for Kill Rock Stars and Gravity Records with five more session outtakes, Unwound was released on Rumsey’s Punk In My Vitamins as the band began flirting with the mainstream. Witness a band’s prehistory as it plays out in a feral maelstrom of screaming, distortion, feedback, and abrasive promise.

Things are looking up for The Harlem Gospel Travelers, who return here with a new album, a new lineup, and a new lease on life. Produced by Eli Paperboy Reed, Look Up! marks the group’s first full-length release as a trio, as well as their first collection of totally original material, and it couldn’t have come at a more vital moment. The music still draws deeply on the gospel quartet tradition of the ’50s and ’60s, of course, but there’s a distinctly modern edge to the record, an unmistakable reflection of the tumultuous past few years of pandemic anxiety, political chaos, and social unrest. The songs are bold and resilient, facing down doubt and despair with faith and perseverance, and the performances are explosive and ecstatic, fueled by dazzling vocal arrangements punctuated with gritty bursts of guitar and crunchy rhythm breaks. Born out of an non-profit music education program led by Reed, The Harlem Gospel Travelers—singers Thomas Gatling, George Marage, and Dennis Bailey—released their debut LP, He’s On Time, to rave reviews in 2019, with Pop Matters hailing the album’s “musical transcendence” and AllMusic praising it as “dreamlike and joyous.” The record charted on Billboard, earned the Travelers high profile fans like Elton John (who invited them to appear on his Rocket Hour radio show on Apple Music), and landed them festival slots everywhere from Pilgrimage to Telluride Jazz.

The second album of 2012's masterpiece has been repressed! From the opening vocals to the bass-heavy beat of the preceding track Numb, which leads into a dark world, all of these songs have a solemn worldview where ashes fall. This album features a female vocalist who sounds like a liquefied version of Sade, and the leaden industrial beat and jet-black ambience that accompanies the aesthetic sound is breathtaking. The artwork that perfectly matches the music is also excellent. Masterpiece!

Phew's 1992 legendary solo album "Our Likeness" will be reissued on clear vinyl, limited to 1,000 copies worldwide!

Jaki Liebezait (CAN), Alexander Hacke (Einstürzende Neubauten), Chrislo Haas (D.A.F.), Thomas Stern (Lime and the City Solution) participated! Recording by Kraftwerk , NEU!, Cluster & Eno, D.A.F.

Ectopic Ents is proud to announce the long-awaited vinyl reissue of the second Foetus album, ACHE, to coincide with it’s 40th anniversary. Released under the moniker You’ve Got Foetus On Your Breath, the ACHE album was originally released in 1982 on JG Thirlwell’s Self Immolation label, whilst he was resident in London. It was recorded at Lavender Sound Studio in South London and engineered by Harlan Cockburn. On its release it was acclaimed by the music press, John Peel and even cited by Leonard Cohen on more than one occasion. Over the years the album has become a highly sought-after collectors item. The 2022 reissue was remastered by Josh Bonati and is in a limited run on white vinyl. The album is packaged with a reproduction of the original promo poster from the album, and a download code.

the most live-sounding Yo La Tengo album in years, This Stupid World. Times have changed for Yo La Tengo as much as they have for everyone else. In the past, the band has often worked with outside producers and mixers. In their latest effort, the first full-length in five years, This Stupid World was created all by themselves. And their time-tested judgment is both sturdy enough to keep things to the band’s high standards, and nimble enough to make things new. At the base of nearly every track is the trio playing all at once, giving everything a right-now feel. There’s an immediacy to the music, as if the distance between the first pass and the final product has become more direct.

Limited Clear Vinyl edition, 500 copies! Recorded in NYC in 1958 and originally released in 1959 as "The Cecil Taylor Quintet - Hard Driving Jazz" this is in fact the only existing document of the meeting between John Coltrane and Cecil Taylor. Even if caught at an early stage in their career the two masters show great personality and deep respect for each other while trumpeter Kenny Dorham sticks more to his familiar bop idiom. Cordially backed up by Chuck Israel on bass and Louis Hayes, Coltrane swings madly on Taylor's dissonant comping producing a rare, fascinating friction between two worlds. A must for every Coltrane maniac out there.

Don Cherry (1936-1995), one of the true giants in the history of spiritual jazz, released his masterpiece on the hallowed Blue Note label in 1969. This is the last of the three albums he released from Blue Note. This is the last of the three albums released from Blue Note. From the very beginning, the band rushed forward with tremendous energy and tremendous toughness. Recorded on November 11, 1966, with sleeve notes by Ornette Coleman. Limited to 300 copies on clear vinyl.