MUSIC

In 1978 Having Been Built on Sand was conceived as a vinyl edition and released by the Rüdiger Schöttle gallery in Munich with sleeve design by Weiner. The piece consists of eight untitled tracks. Lawrence Weiner, Tina Girouard, and Britta Le Va recite text with Dickie Landry’s woodwinds, all recorded in the natural reverb of Robert Rauschenberg’s studio, a former mission and chapel in Lower Manhattan. Layering Girouard in English, Le Va in German, and Weiner in English and German blocks of related or physically proximal texts repeat, invert, and intersect with Landry’s music as a constant. The layers of text and sound have meanings that fluctuate in complexity and scope, and like much of Weiner’s work, beyond mere facts. The first piece is a trio for Landry’s keening tenor, repeating winnowed but breathy lines that contrast with and buoy Le Va’s clear, husky phrases, building in intensity as Weiner, in English, offers statements that are caught just off mic. The third cut adds Girouard, and one can hear woven parallels in the two women’s voices, cadences, and pitches, with Weiner’s cutting inflection dancing amid them. Landry’s bass clarinet is rich in its warble, full and gentle with woody footfalls that demarcate shapes through the chorus. Vocal rhythmic cycles, wordless in nature, are the energy that courses through the fourth song, urgent and sweaty as Weiner recites statements of political position in the Middle Ages, Le Va declaiming alongside in German. On soprano saxophone for the fifth tune, Landry pierces and darts in a bright manner in a private dialogue with himself, echoing Steve Lacy as female voices nearly bury one another in closely valued hues. Weiner, meanwhile, volleys between the LP’s title phrase and cornerstone proclamations such as “the artist may construct the piece. The piece may be fabricated. The piece need not be built.” The closing cut makes curious use of delay and alto flute, Landry’s breath and the inherent percussiveness of the instrument’s keys creating a slick rhythmic support that courses through overlapping vocal phrases, advancing and receding declarations of presence and intent.

This one’s been teased for awhile, decades even. The Hated box set was an idea before Numero was an idea. Today we’re pleased to announce the first of five planned Hated collections that we’ll be rolling out over the next several years. Up first is Best Piece Of Shit Vol. 4, which compiles the Annapolis quartet’s earliest explorations into revolution summer emo. Spread across two LPs is the band’s 1985 debut cassette, the No More We Cry EP, and 14 period bonus tracks from these hardcore hooligans. We’ve also made a limited 7”+CD+tape edition with an additional five bonus tracks. Andrew Gephardt and Ken Shipley provide lengthy essays on the band and scene, illustrated by dozens of photographs from the band’s archive. We’ve got 500 copies broken bone white wax on both, but not for long. The Hated on Numero… Never said it’d be like this, right?

Sea of Trees from Japanese producer T5UMUT5UMU. "T5UMUT5UMU has built up a reputation in the last few years for his ability not just to recreate club styles but to flip them into almost unrecognizable dancefloor hybrids, he has melted together gqom and techno, deconstructed grime and welded dubstep to traditional music from Japan and India. Here, he's operating completely off the grid, pulling raw materials from across the globe and hammering them into confounding shapes and patterns. On its surface, 'Fireball' sounds like a liquid metal approximation of South African gqom, but move in closer and you can make out dubstep bass squelches, trap hats, and industrial techno jet propulsion filling in the gaps with rubberized mortar. 'Desert' is the EP's most lightheaded cut, a psychedelic percussive spiral that curves micro-tuned mbira clangs around bee sting bass, aerated noise blasts and sub-aqueous kicks. It's a hard track to place, but fits in somewhere between Donato Dozzy, Menzi and 33EMYBW, all shifting rhythms and precision-edited sound design. 'Sea of Trees' retains this momentum, pushing the tempo and interspersing woodblock vibrations with syncopated bass drums and goosebump-inducing synths, while closer 'Bottomless Valley' shifts back into a gqom framework, shuffling the expected pulse with a powerful dembow swing, half step subs and Indian-inspired rattles."

While Chrisman's "Ku Mwezi" ep mostly explored gqom and trap influenced Afrohouse mutations, his debut album heads in a different direction. On "Makila", Chrisman provides an experimental vision of the taraxina sound: a molasses-slow fusion of the Angolan kuduro and kizobma dance templates that dips in-and-out of fuzzy drones and syrupy gqom. On 'Angels of Kivu', he pushes the clicking skeletal rhythm into the background, allowing electrified likembé melodies to take pride of place. It sounds like Congolese legends Konono No.1 shocked into a psychedelic electronic future by way of Durban. 'Fatiliya' pushes more solidly into taraxina territory, with familiar saw synths accenting low 'n slow kicks and air blast leads. The backbone is Angolan, but Chrisman approaches his music with a full awareness of Atlanta trap and gqom, never ignoring the gut-rattling pressure of sub bass. That's never more evident than on the title track, where he constructs a haunted atmosphere of bells and drones to sit beneath staccato percussive hits and and winding drill slaps. "Makila" is challenging music that takes divergent African forms and melts them together with next level skill and sleight of hand. It's another bold step for East African electronic music that underscores the wild creativity and talent emerging from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Don Cherry, who pioneered free jazz as Ornette Coleman's right-hand man and has been noted for his collaborations with Coltrane, has moved to Sweden with his partner Moki and daughter Nene. Don Cherry, who was a pioneer of free jazz as Ornette Coleman's right-hand man and also attracted attention for his collaborations with Coltrane, gathered local musicians when he moved to Sweden with his partner Moki and daughter Nene, and held weekly meetings at the ABF (Workers' Educational Association). From February to April 1968, Don Cherry, who has been attracting a lot of attention, held weekly workshops at the ABF (Workers' Educational Association). From February to April 1968, Cherry was giving lessons in this workshop as an extension of improvisation. Göran Freese, the saxophonist and recording engineer who later recorded Organic Music Society and Eternal Now, invited Cherry and the Turkish drummer to his summer house for a series of rehearsals and jam sessions to practice the aforementioned workshop. However, this lost tape, which has long been treated as a mysterious footnote in Don Cherry's session records, has been discovered in the vaults of the Swedish Jazz Archive and is now being published. With additional bonus material from other records recorded on the same day, this is a must-have for fans!

Kelela, a new generation R&B singer who straddles R&B and dance music, has released her latest album "RAVEN" on Warp, her first album in five years since her acclaimed debut album "Take Me Apart". The album was co-executive produced by Kerera and LA producer Asmara, with Kerera composing and arranging all of the songs. Other producers on the album include Yo van Lenz and Florian T M Zeisig, who also work as the ambient unit OCA, and LSDXOXO, who produced the entire album, and Canadian Bambii ( Bambii) also participated in the additional production. Kerera's new chapter, "RAVEN," is an extremely beautiful and lustrous musical experience. Through the fifteen songs on this album, including the already acclaimed predecessors "Washed Away" and "Happy Ending," Kerera explores autonomy, belonging, and self-renewal.

Nurse With WoundのSteven Stapletonもその大ファンであることを公言しているアヴァンギャルド音楽史上に刻む大傑作にして、TNBことThe New BlockadersのPhilip Rupenus & Richard Rupenus、John Mylotte (Metgumbnerbone)、Nigel Jacklin、Sean Breadinらにより結成されたカルト・グループが残した幻の名作。1981年に〈Orgel Fesper Music〉から限定500部でリリースされたBladder Flaskのデビュー作が〈Sonoris〉からCD&LPリイシュー。ポスト・インダストリアル時代における最も多彩なアルバムの一つであり、挑戦的であると同時に当惑させられるインダストリアル/サウンド・コラージュの傑作。Colin Potterの手により〈IC Studio〉でリマスタリング。

The Wire's critically acclaimed 1999 album is now available on LP and CD for the 21st year. His 1999 work, praised by The Wire, has been reissued on LP and CD for the 21st year. It is an ink painting-like sound work created with his own voice and found sound loops, weaving dry sounds. New mastering by Giuseppe Ielasi.

Xochimoki - celebrated American ethnomusicologist Jim Berenholtz and Aztec descendant / wisdom keeper Mazatl Galindo - traverse millenia with career compendium Temple Of The New Sun, an album recorded in New Mexico in the mid 1980’s but tracing a lineage back thousands of years. Xochimoki summon feathered gods and animal spirits. They incant mythological folktales of celestial glory and supernatural dread. Their songs are sung in Pre-Columbian Central and South American languages, including Nahuatl, Maya, Purepecha and Quechua. And much of their music was written at ancient ceremonial sites, in rituals and meditations, in communion with the spirits that rest there. There is an inherent sense of storytelling, of the peoples of the jungle and the earth living through this music. Xochimoki self-released two cassettes, soundtracked the Albuquerque Museum’s touring exhibition MAYA: Treasures of an Ancient Civilization, and created several discs’ worth of further soundtrack music elsewhere before moving on to new and individual projects. Phantom Limb’s hand-curated reissue album The Temple Of The New Sun collects key works from their broad history, newly remastered and now available for the first time on vinyl.

Invisible City Editions continues our 10 year anniversary in adventurous sounds. We are thrilled to announce the re-release of Rico Toto’s 1993 CD recording Fwa Épi Sajès. Mind melting synthesizers and drum machines fuse with ancient Guadeloupe Gwo-ka rhythms in this musical endeavour Rico Toto describes as “Electro-ka.” The improvised live instruments of the Moundjahka ensemble meld with electronic abstraction to create a psychedelic, immersive digital diaspora dream state. With nods to Jon Hassell's atmospheric soundscapes, YMO and Baldelli / TBC Cosmic mixtapes, this selection of songs encompasses an entire spectrum of moods and sounds. The A side begins with fourth-world tropical percussions, opening with sounds of nature in “Jungle Meditation” and leading into the downtempo summer synthpop jam “Yadadé.” The B side takes a darker turn, starting off with the deep chugging rhythms of “Rawal Pindi” and continuing even deeper with synth sounds and haunting vocals that culminates into the dreamy meditative final track, “Golgotha.” Limited vinyl repress in collaboration with Rico Toto. Artwork by Floating Bstrd.

Devo's Hardcore documents the group's beginning as pre-punk outcasts in the fertile Akron, Ohio underground rock scene. Spawned at the nearby college of Kent State, site of the infamous May 4 Massacre, Devo formed as a conceptual art project armed with a radical philosophy of de-evolution. Brothers Mothersbaugh (Mark, Bob, and Jim) and Brothers Casale (Jerry and Bob) along with drummer Alan Myers soon whipped-up an otherworldly brand of "devolved blues" that could hold its own alongside the beatnik groove of 15-60-75 (aka The Numbers Band) or the primal rock poetry of the Bizarros. Recorded on various 4-track machines and in tiny studios, basements, and garages between 1974-1977, Hardcore reveals their strikingly clear vision: rock n' roll stripped bare of its collective cool and jerked back into propaganda fit for post-modern man. It's no surprise that these transmissions would soon catch the eye and ear of Brian Eno who later produced their landmark 1978 debut album. Noisy synth, strangled guitar chops, and a primitive rhythmic thud power the early Devo sound. Threaded beneath it all are lyrical themes of post-McCarthy paranoia, middle-class ephemera, and Devo's long-running topic of choice: sex, or lack thereof. Volume 2 digs further into the band's cranial bunker with the caveman hit "Be Stiff," the space age surf-blues of "Clockout" and even a demented take on bubblegum pop, "Goo Goo Itch." This 2xLP set includes four previously unreleased tracks: "Man From The Past," "Doghouse Doghouse," "Hubert House," and "Shimmy Shake." Superior Viaduct and Booji Boy Records are proud to present Devo's Hardcore to a new generation of spuds, lovingly packaged with Moshe Brakha's stunning cover photography. As David Bowie said in 1977, Devo is indeed "the band of the future."

One of our all-time favourite artists and extended Circus Company member The Mole returns to the label for a proper presentation of his album The River Widens. Originally a limited, cassette-only release via fellow Canadian Eddie C’s Red Motorbike, we are proud to offer this album in its full glory for the first time on all formats. Never one to shy away from synth deep dives, or raw sample flip collaging, this collection of 21 works checks all the boxes. Ambient trippers to straight up neck-snapping instrumental beats. Not forgetting tastes of the more uptempo, highly-assured and hypnotic dance floor feels the world has come to love The Mole for. Moments of casual chillin are interspersed with effortless, emotive angles, some evoking the charm of his Little Sunshine release for us in 2017. X-pert Profat opens the set with sly statements that give way to relaxed and subtle keys over gentle, midtempo rhythms. Things switch up nicely into easy, Northwest Coast boogie-meets-beatdown feels in Break for Ma, followed by a solid array of almost Jaylib-schooled boom bap twists, like the aptly-titled Drums 2002 and Jo Barker. Ambient cuts like AR day and New Family offer a refreshing tap of the brakes, setting the scene for the gorgeous, Jarre-esque Weak Stranger. We also get treated to Repepepater’s nod to Detroit house, urban-mode Balearic feels on They Work for Mr. O, and sneak attack lo-fi future funk in the form of Ufos Over Egypt, with Montreal co-pilot Cristobal on a wild shisha-lit vox narrative, earlier versions of which have blessed many of our label comrades’ DJ sets, from Dave Aju to Vincent Lemieux. The River Widens expands beautifully on the breadth of unique musical directions The Mole is capable of taking us in, now spread across fresh 2x12” vinyl and available digitally for the first time, along with another limited editio

On 1986's Celestial Realms (originally released
on cassette only), Laraaji conjures his typically vivid
soundworld of shimmering electric zither, while Goldman
inhabits that world with pulsing guitar and droning synthesizer.

Celestial Realms provides a blissful 46-minute ambient
voyage.

White Heaven’s second album, Strange Bedfellow, is one of the great unsung albums of the 90’s Japanese underground. Released two years after their striking debut, Out, the album reveals the group shifting to a more dynamic and finely honed sound. You Ishihara’s songwriting & arrangements take center stage, leading the group to transmute classic west coast psychedelia and garage into a thrillingly direct collection of songs that span from fuzz drenched, driving rockers to smoldering numbers that fade into the night... Only ever available in an edition of 700 LP’s released in 1993 by PSF Japan, Black Editions is pleased to present Strange Bedfellow, newly remastered in this deluxe edition.

Eliane Radigue's Chry-Ptus is her very first piece for the modular synthesizer. It was composed in 1971 using a Buchla 100 which had recently been installed at NYU by Morton Subotnick. This double-LP was mastered by Golden and pressed at RTI for maximum fidelity.

From the original press release: "Chry-Ptus (1971). Originally two tapes which were to be played simultaneously, with or without synchronisation, which does not affect the structure of the work, but creates changes in the game of sub-harmonics and overtones. Three variations on this piece were performed at the New York Cultural Center in 1971, with variations of amplitude and location modulation as well as synchronisation. Realized on the Buchla Synthesizer at the New York University. The booklet contains a text by painter Paul Jenkins, who also realised the watercolor on the front cover, written on occasion of Radigue's first concert in New York, April 6th, 1971. "It's with the Buchla that I constructed Chry-ptus, a piece made up of two tapes with an analogue duration, 22 or 23 minutes, which could be played either simultaneously or with a slight time difference, so as to establish slight variations every time the piece was played. I spent the first months eliminating everything I did not want; I even used a notebook in which I tried to determine a writing system resembling chemical formulae." --Eliane Radigue

Prima Materia was a vocal improvisation ensemble, founded by Roberto Laneri in 1973. Composed entirely of vocalists with no academic training, the group developed various techniques – revolving mostly around the use of overtones – that would embody their unique sound. No instruments nor electronic manipulations were ever employed within the group's physiognomy, which was realized purely through the human voice. La Coda Della Tigre, the group's sole album, was recorded in 1977 by Alvin Curran and released on Ananda, an artist-run label founded by Laneri, Curran and Giacinto Scelsi. As the original liner notes state, "The music of Prima Materia may sound radically new, yet at the same time it is likely to ring some distant bell and evoke ancient emotions. This is not due to chance: indeed, the very name of the group points to a specific path, namely, the unfolding of the potential implicit in the alchemical symbol as embodying a process of transmutation of consciousness." Prima Materia's four members (Laneri, Claudio Ricciardi, Gianni Nebbiosi and Susanne Hendricks) combine voices to create a singular, beautiful drone that is (as the group's name suggests) both impossible to define and fundamentally simple. This first-time standalone reissue is recommended for fans of La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Disques Ocora.

"Sound: An Exhibition of Sound Sculpture, Instrument Building and Acoustically Tuned Spaces opened at the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art in the summer of 1979 (and was also on view later that year at PS1 in New York). Curated by Bob Wilhite and Robert Smith, the exhibition surveyed the field of sound art. The forty-four participants were painters pivoted toward performance, conceptual artists attracted to time-based mediums, self-styled creators of environments, and musicians (formally trained and otherwise) fashioning new instruments from household items and consumer electronics. They were more or less object-oriented and, at the same time, more or less music-oriented. What brought them all together, as the exhibition catalog gamely asserted, was sculpting in three-dimensional space. The Sound exhibit included installations, recordings played in the exhibition space and a series of live performances, demonstrating instruments that otherwise rested inert in the gallery. For a broader sense of the show than a single visit provided, the curators also produced a compilation album featuring short pieces, or excerpts from longer works, by many of the participants. (Artists in the exhibition, but not on the LP include Alvin Lucier and Mike Kelley.) Selections from bright lights of the 20th century avant-garde -- such as composers Bill Fontana, Yoshi Wada and Paul DeMarinis; conceptual artists and performance artists Terry Fox, Tom Marioni and Jim Pomeroy; experimental vocalist Joan La Barbara; and Los Angeles Free Music Society members Tom Recchion and John Duncan -- feature alongside the sounds of Jim Hobart's tuned jars, Ivor Darreg's fretless banjo, Doug Hollis' aeolian harp and Richard Dunlap's rubber bands. This first-time reissue is limited to 500 numbered copies. Comes with poster."

Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS) formed in the mid-1970s as a loose-knit experimental music collective and multimedia publishing vehicle. Founded by teenage Le Forte Four members Chip Chapman, Joe Potts and Rick Potts and soon joined by Tom Recchion of Doo-Dooettes, LAFMS incorporated free improvisation, modular synthesizers, tape music, sampling, musique concrète, homemade instruments, noise, mail art and avant-rock in permissive and anarchic sessions at the Raymond Building and Poo-Bah Record Shop in old Pasadena. Inspired by The Residents, LAFMS self-released records and periodicals, organized performances and connected with fellow outsiders via post in the years before punk. Their uninhibited, egalitarian ideal of music-making and DIY distribution would influence generations of underground artists. In 1977, LAFMS released Blorp Esette, one of several compilations tracking the collective's growth and wild-eyed experimentation. Ace Farren Ford, an early LAFMS recruit from the Poo-Bah circle, produced the album and solicited cover artwork by Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart). Ford appears in various configurations alongside members of Smegma, Le Forte Four and "unknown artist" (as the credit for more than one piece reads). The Residents, showing their affinity with LAFMS, contributed "Whoopy Snorp" for their first non-Ralph Records release. Blorp Esette shows the artists grasping for new, non-idiomatic voicings and collaborative modes, anticipating LAFMS affiliates and offshoots such as Airway, Human Hands and Monitor. A second volume would come out in 1980, featuring Ford's punk band The Child Molesters. If you're looking for the missing link between mid-'70s art practice and outsider music, then look no further. This first-time vinyl reissue is limited to 500 numbered copies. Comes with inserts.

Laila Sakini fleshes out her Princess Diana of Wales avatar on a quietly stunning album of slowburn, coygaze dream-pop for the ever-wonderful A Colourful Storm. Following a trio of wonders released last year - her AOTY contending ‘Vivienne’ and it’s endlessly layered 'Into the Traffic, Under the Moonlight’ companion piece, as well as a brilliantly distinctive submission for our Documenting Sound series, on Princess Diana Of Wales Sakini finds a contemplative and opaque downstroke, her forlorn vocals convected via radiant webs of reverb in an ephemeral style of songcraft that drifts effortlessly, like the sound of someone coming to terms with themselves. Making use of negative space as an evocative ingredient, she keeps everything in a sublime tension between reserved emotion and the lingering decay of FX, effectively allowing us into her space but at arms reach, obfuscated by pink hued smoke and down lit in a manner that keeps her features oblique but tangible. And like everything we’ve heard from Sakini before - her work here is multi-dimensional, its emotional complexity taking a while to resolve, its impact multiplied in waiting. Lulled into existence with the snoring bass and sleepy cicadas of ’Sleet’, Laila's voice comes to occupy a dreamily illusive mid-ground, smudged into whispers and drizzly atmospheres on the breathy country nocturne of ’Still Beach’ and plumbing rich depths of her echo chamber in the all too fleeting ‘Closer’. Flip it over and the kneaded bass presence of ‘Exhaust’ guides us into a sort of flinty 2-step dream-sequence, before that dream logic steers a lonesome post punk bass and dubbed snare rolls of ‘Fragments of Blue’. On the closing ‘Choir Chant’, harpy squeals ride against a low slung bassline, one part Coil, one part Joy Division, notched with a longing detachment. Difficult to absorb and benefiting from attentive, repeat listens, Princess Diana of Wales resonates with these strange twilight times above perhaps anything else we’ve listened to this year. "What is real and how does it feel?" the cryptic press release asks. We're gonna be unravelling that for months.

This 2-LP set and CD from EM Records chronicles the legacy of underground Japanese techno legends Cycheouts - pronounced ‘psyche outs’ in English. Originally formed in 1994, the group quickly became a centerpiece of Osaka's underground electronic scene. Led by main producer Akira Ohashi, Cycheouts melded influences from jungle, drum'n'bass, digital hardcore, and experimental noise music, all of which are explored in this compilation of tracks painstakingly selected by two true Cycheouts experts. Cycheouts' music and live performances went on to inspire a number of successful Japanese dance music acts, and can be seen as an origin point for the "nerdcore techno" movement of the early 2000s. This archive of the early work of Cycheouts provides an essential look at the birth and development of hardcore jungle in Japan, including multiple tracks featuring the full Cycheouts lineup with original vocals and multiple MCs. Most of these tracks are available on LP for the first time, and have been newly remastered for the format; the set also includes extensive liner notes in both English and Japanese.

Hugging the bend and blowing kisses since 2012, Antinote has been a vessel of choice for lovers of left-of-centre dance music and retro-laced boogie. Covering a supremely wide range of styles, the Parisian outlet has carved out a musical lane truly its own by putting on a nonstop celebration of electronics’ inexhaustible power of enthralment. A pledge of quality-driven curation and never-ending search for the next thrill that’s proven untiringly relevant throughout the years and opens onto its second decade of existence with equal panache. Toasting to its ten years splashing the game with continuously reasserted outsider bravura, label captain Zaltan has bottled some of the finest expressions out Antinote’s versatile vaults of sound to form the present “X” compilation, “ten years of loving notes and foolin around 2012-2022". From totem animal IUEKE’s oddball musique concrète (“fiano-church") to the candid synth-pop of Latvian outfit Domenique Dumont (“La Dolce Vita"), via Feminielli’s outré mix of ghetto-house and ominous croon (“Nobody’s Boy”) and Tel-Aviv vibist Alek Lee’s signature synth-splattered 80s wave (“Different Plans”), it’s a smorgasbord of colours and vibrations that prepares to avalanche across your sound system. Take the esoteric shoegaze of Epsilove, Shelter and Thomas Riguelle (“From The Spaceship in My Room”) and prepare to move upstream a river of saturated guitars and all-engulfing reverbs; let Low Jack’s jagged floor aggressor drill a hole in your head (“Feel 2020”) or opt for further ankle-breaking UK-bass-influenced riddim traction from DK & Geena (“BelleTech One”). A further cosmic-friendly epic, Chimère FM (I:Cube!) embarks us on a ride near Saturn’s belt (“La Genèse du Monstre à Suze") whereas former Antinote apprentice River Yarra snipes a hail of Italo-informed arpeggios and giallo-esque bass murk to compelling effect (“Blooms”) and L.I.E.S. head honcho Ron Morelli goes all in with a formidable, old-school dusty house chugger (“Tribute”). There’s obviously more to "Antinote X" than the sum of its parts, and Jean Luc’s post-Plantasia jazz hybrid (“La Truite”), Arabica’s decadent, anti-colonial spoken number (“Multo Storia") or fellow Antinote in-house visual designer Nico Motte’s vintage disco churner (“All The Money In The World”) are there to attest. Not to forget Panoptique, up with a lashing, dissonant treat for the senses (“Un Licenciement”), Leo Martelli under guise as Sammy Patanegra with a tribal jacking weapon (“Maria”), Pont Levis floating into emotional hyperspace (“L’Espace et le Coeur de L'Âme”), Trigger Moral in with a marvel of a hip-hop gem emerged from some retro-futuristic wormhole (“soul assssn”) and Laporte rounding it off downtempo, modular ambient style for good measure (“Sleepers”). Ten years on, Antinote still leading the pack.

Back in 1980, The Pump sessions prefigured Nocturnal Emissions. The same personnel (Nigel and Daniel Ayers + Caroline K) was later credited in the first NE performance in March 1981. Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire opened a path and a kind of DIY sound collage practice became popular in the underground. More punk than punk, right? With synth, bass, guitar and vocals, The Pump could almost be mistaken for a new wave band, but it was the start of a long, prolific and eclectic journey for Nigel Ayers, sole member of Nocturnal Emissions for quite a while now. Although it is not at all obvious, by 1980 Nigel had been exposed to a few dub tricks and mainly the otherwordly spatial sounds and breaks: «In the late 70s I became aware that dub producers such as Lee Scratch Perry, Prince Far I - and sound systems - were doing something with sound that was a very new and different approach. It was in the separation of recorded sound into very spatial elements, working very sculpturally with sound. I had absorbed the space concerns of Hendrix years before I got into dub, and the spatial elements within Gong, Hawkwind, early Pink Floyd, Velvet Underground, BBC Radiophonic Workshop, etc. When we did The Pump, we lived in Brixton and spent a lot of time absorbing dub in the streets and shebeens.» Growing up in the Peak District (northern England) during the 1960s didn't put one directly in touch with black culture or music. There was one black kid at school and «to see a black person you'd have to go to Manchester or Sheffield.» And mainstream culture tends to ridicule outsider forms and expressions, so a popular idea of reggae came through in things such as the novelty single "Johnny Reggae" by The Piglets, released in 1971. By that time, Nigel was already listening to a few reggae singles his dad brought home from Sheffield, where he worked. He remembers the labels being scratched and thinking it must be because the records were so rude, meaning lyrical content. His artistic inclinations led him to spend more time at home trying out his skills with Super8 films and pasting soundtracks onto them. One of the first he remembers was a loop worked out from side B of one of those singles (the traditional instrumental Version on reggae singles). First heard about tape loops from "Dr Who" on TV, a weekly show that imprinted strange sounds and sights on kids' minds since the first episode in 1963. More experiments followed, loops and cut-ups recorded to cassette with full conscience that non-musicianly, non-conventional approaches were sanctioned by such names as Captain Beefheart and Brian Eno. Punk made it easier for everyone aspiring to make a point with music, it created a context for rawness and spontaneity. «Punk was a necessary break from virtuosity, and a good thing. I dug punk, a lot of ideas about accessibility, tackling racism, sexism and species-ism, were brought to the foreground. And it created an infrastructure for the zine culture, and cassette culture, autonomous collectives & networked DIY.» Only the way most early punk bands recreated dub and reggae didn't strike a chord with Nigel Ayers: «That's more to do with questions of my own personal taste and preference, which is by no means fixed.» Things became more serious when "Tissue Of Lies" came out in 1980 and Nocturnal Emissions steadily became hot within the so-called industrial culture (or counterculture). Although never explicitly adopting a dub format, its techniques and inspiration certainly informed many of the more rhythmic tracks NE recorded over the years. «Personally I was trying to create something that integrated my own personal experience and had a focussed ethic in content, personnel, production and distribution. Women collaborators have been vital , for example, as active creators - not as set dressing. Caroline K (for example) had technical proficiencies that aren't often expected in a male-dominated music world, she ran her own studio and later became a telecommunications engineer.» Come 2010 and the love of dub finally surfaced explicitly on a very limited "In Dub" CDR. All the space is there, some might say also the industrial weight and - dare we say it - the weight of crumbling capitalism (notoriously visible after 2008). There's a sort of robotic pace in these dry statements of political commentary, not really the same as in 80s digital dancehall or 90s digidub. It sounds like the kind of autonomous zone dreamed about since the punk and cut-up years and informed by all the accumulated background in electronic music and knowledge and respect for dub pioneers. "In Dub Volume 2" appeared in 2020, also strictly limited, framed by the early stages of the COVID experience, expanding on the same sonics, gently dragging the listener along for a thoughtful ride. The music on both volumes was recorded at leisure over a period of roughly 12 years and it hovers timelessly above. Heavily synthetic, learned and respectful music, alienated and in sync with the desire to escape (even if temporarily) to an artificial and abstract safe zone. We now present carefully selected tracks from both volumes, given a proper boost for vinyl by Douglas Wardrop (Bush Chemists, Conscious Sounds).

Kinzua debut a ritualistic, zonked outernational ambience, downbeat and cyberpunk bliss on Vladimir Ivkovic’s Offen Music - RIYL Morphosis, To Rococo Rot, CS + Kreme, Black Zone Myth Chant. Formed by Lucas Brell in Berlin and Leipzig’s Marvin Unde (Qnete), Kinzua emerge from the German club undergrowth with hypnotic slants of brownfield-pastoral electronica and meter-messing motorik pulses on their first release ‘None of the Above’. Smeared over a double LP, the hour-long album pitchbends with a properly lysergic quality as it executes its functions between the folksy crackle of ‘First Chapter’ and the grungy, viscous, post-D&B rolige of ‘Breath’. Rhythmic prompts ranging from klassic kosmiche to ‘90s UK armchair music and contemporary dembow dancehall underline Kinzua’s lines of melodic thought and dream-textured electronics in swirling permutations that feel in-the-moment but ever rolling towards an uncertain horizon. Kinzua act as spirit guides for the mind expanding new generation of trippers, with effortlessly oily grooves and keen attention to detail that suspend a sense of disbelief and mesmerise to their method. Seductive oddities such as ‘Domestic Affair’ follow to Detlef Weinrich-esque electro on ‘Elevator Moving Flor’ and ‘Heidi Peter’ echoes original Harmonia from a bleaker perspective, while supremely groggy drone in ‘Surface’ gives way to arid dancehall abstraction on ‘Sahara’, and ‘Gobi’ slopes off on a crooked outernational tip to a highlight of Laila Sakini-like scenes in ‘The Dancing Smoke’ starring vox by GiGi FM reciting from Baudelaire’s ‘Les Fleurs de Mal’.

The more discerning and concentrated electro head will be tuned into the work of Bot1500. It is an alias of Shinichi Kobayashi, a producer who since 2018 has landed on the likes of Analogical Force and Furthur Electronix with a unique mix of futurist sounds. This one is another brilliant EP featuring cuts like 'Chartreuse 8.' It's a propulsive rhythm built from silky breaks and overlaid with the sort of heart-aching and thought-provoking chords that will send you inward on the dance floor. The five other cuts are just as much a perfect mix of the physical and the cerebral.