MUSIC

The next installment of MFM's popular multi-artist compilation Virtual Dreams: 'Virtual Dreams - Ambient Explorations In The House And Techno Age, Japan 1993-1999'. As with Part One, released in 2020, 'Virtual Dreams II' shines a light on house and techno-adjacent music that helped redefine the definition of ambient music during the 1990s.

The focus of Part One heavily fell on music from techno and house producers in Europe, eagerly exploring new soundtracks for chill-out rooms and re-imagining the potential future of club culture from new perspectives. For Part Two, we narrow the lens to focus on a unique time and place, namely Japan between 1993-1999. Despite missing out on the 'Acid House Fever', club culture was beginning to take shape in Japan during the early '90s. In contrast to the rest of the world, where ambient techno / IDM emerged as a by-product or response to the scene, 'listening techno', as it is known in Japan, was a central pillar of the culture right from the start.

'Virtual Dreams II' aims to shine a light on this unique moment in time where the thread of ambient music weaved its way through the music of an emerging club culture. This period saw the birth of many great Japanese techno labels such as Sublime Records, Transonic Records, Syzygy Records, Frogman Records, and Form@ Records, following in the late '90s. 'Virtual Dreams II' features ambient, chill-out, and intelligent techno from these leading labels alongside other lesser-known but equally influential imprints, as well as ambient deviations from Japanese house producers. Much of the music featured has only ever been released on CD.

'Virtual Dreams II' is compiled by Eiji Taniguchi and Jamie Tiller, who have worked closely together on previous Music From Memory releases such as 'Heisei No Oto' and 'Dream Dolphin - Gaia'. It is also the final project Jamie Tiller worked on before his tragic passing in 2023. Jamie had been researching, planning, and compiling this version of Virtual Dreams even before the first chapter was released, believing that there were many great tracks in Japan that fit the concept of the series. Knowing how much love and energy he put into compiling it gives it an extra special place in our hearts.

Compiled by Jamie Tiller and Eiji Taniguchi with artwork by Kenta Senekt, design by Steele Bonus and liner notes by Itaru W. Mita,

Music From Memory is delighted to announce a new album from Son Of Chi entitled ’We Carry Eden’, an immersive long-form composition in two parts that seamlessly blends a collage of spoken word, field recordings and drones with elements of dub, jazz, fourth world and ambient music.

Son Of Chi is the latest project of Rotterdam-based multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer Hanyo van Oosterom. Van Oosterom’s prolific career spans multiple decades and genres; among countless projects he has been involved in, he is known for founding the Dutch ambient collective CHI in the early eighties, and in recent years for his prolific collaboration with CHI co-founder Jacobus Derwort as Chi Factory. Following Derwort’s passing in 2019, van Oosterom decided to close the CHI circle with the birth of Son Of Chi.

Sonically, the world of ‘We Carry Eden’ is fully immersive; it ripples with depth and shimmers in detail. Motifs, ideas and fragments, arise and disappear like passing thoughts, drawing the listener deeper and deeper inwards. For those familiar with Oosterom’s work as Chi Factory, the depth and meditative nature of the work will come as no surprise; however it is Oosterom’s skill with grooves that shines equally bright here; his infectiously dubby basslines and percussion rise up from the ether, grounding the listener to the earth. ‘We Carry Eden’ at times invokes the fourth world landscapes of Jon Hassell, (with whom Oosterom has collaborated) but as a whole, it remains the unique work of an artist fully in tune with their vision.

Thematically, storytelling traditions lie at the heart of ‘We Carry Eden’, with van Oosterom’s long-time collaborator Omar Ka playing a central role. Ka, who hails from the West African nomadic Fulani tradition of storytelling, responds to the collage of field recordings and sounds collected by Oosterom. His voice is woven throughout ‘We Carry Eden’, creating a narrative that binds the multiple sound sources of the album together.

As with much of van Oosterom’s musical output, inspiration is drawn from the Greek Island of Patmos and the wisdom and prophecies of the Native American Hopi Tribe. Since his work with CHI in the early eighties, van Oosterom has often incorporated quotes from Hopi Elders into his music. Gods, spirits, animals and humans, all existing in one unchangeable relationship tied to nature; ‘We Carry Eden’ is rooted in this philosophy, serving as a peaceful message of beauty, harmony and respect for the wisdom of the Elders and ancient traditions.

‘We Carry Eden’ will be released on LP and digitally on May 16th 2025. Sleeve art and design by Michael Willis.

Call Super revives the endangered art of the mix CD with a fluid, technicolour hour of elegantly advanced club music featuring a striking assembly of emergent artists.

Since their first releases in the early 2010s, Joseph Seaton has been a many-sided artist balancing expressive electronics with organic instrumentation. Their background in jazz has informed ambient and experimental albums, but they've proven to be just as comfortable tackling all shapes and speeds of impactful club music. This extends to their practice as a DJ, regularly surfing the slipstream of the club and festival circuit with a sensitive, seductive instinct for the movement of a dancefloor.

Seaton set out to make ARPO — an acronym for A Rhythm Protects One — to honour the meaning of mix CDs in a world drowning in online DJ streams. Part of the generation raised on seminal series like the metal-tinned fabric and fabriclive (which Seaton themselves contributed to), they cast back to the lasting impression of landmark sessions like Coldcut's 1995 opus Journeys By DJ: 70 Minutes Of Madness. These were mixes to absorb over and over again, where every deeply considered track and transition became lodged in your psyche.

As a DJ, producer and composer with a reputation for distinctive, head-turning musicality, Seaton puzzled out a selection for ARPO that bristles with invention. Every track feels like a moment, loaded with motifs and loops that gently impose their presence across an ever-shifting, intricately woven tapestry of dancefloor psychedelia (not to be confused with any genres with 'psy' in the name).

As well as exclusive new material under their Call Super and Ondo Fudd aliases, Seaton seeks out uncanny talent from breakthrough artists in tune with their creative vision. In terms of slinky 4/4 groove and mid tempo pace, you might locate the likes of Conny Slipp, Scarletina and Clam1 on the wilder fringes of minimal tech house, but their productions teem with textural depth and melodic subtlety that reach past that scene's typically functional tendencies. Curveballs abound, and Seaton relishes in the chance to divert into dramatic workouts like their own 'Limelight' and 'mothertime' or strip everything down for the striking, swooning poetry of Malgo & KVS' 'The Argosy'.

Way beyond neatly boxed-off club styles, the individual tracks have their own unique qualities that hold space within the mix as a whole — memorable hooks that burrow in deep, sequenced as a complete and immersive whole to carry with you through life. As Seaton puts it themselves:

"There is a line in the Malgo & KVS track that goes, 'I must be the place where the storm catches breath.' The line captures that feeling of the best of times in a club, where everything slips away in terms of time and you feel like you’ve reached a place beyond the outside world, a place of your own that is somehow communal with those around you. The mix was meant to be an honest reflection of those moments for me as a DJ. The zones that somehow encapsulate the physical and mental harmony you feel in that place. This is a mix for that zone."

Of course, the importance of a mix CD is also rooted in its physicality. Seaton thought back to some of their favourite CD packaging, landing on the iconic pill box that housed Spiritualized's 1997 space rock opus Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space. The original designer and manufacturer of that packaging, Daniel Mason, was sought out and enlisted to collaborated with Dekmantel's Jan Tomson. They created a triple-gatefold digipak that centres on figures and a typeface created from dance notation, and a volvelle — a rotating circle dating back to the middle ages originally used to calculate the phases of the sun and the moon. In ARPO's packaging, it acts as a key to detail the artists and track names that feature on the mix. It's a lovingly thought-out, unique piece that further cements Seaton's offering as a memorable entry into the mix CD canon.

Originally out as a free Net-7inch on Jahtari in 2008 to pay respects at the shrine of arcade machine fighting games, these undying hiphop-infused martial arts Dubs by disrupt are finally reaching their intended destination: white blood-splattered 7inch vinyl (attention: not actual blood!).

"Samurai Showdown" (which eventually became Solo Banton's classic "Kung Fu Master", from his Music Addict EP in 2010) is taking place at sunrise, of course, when two master swordsmen are matching blades in a battle to the death. Can the wave-cutting technique of the Jahtari-school prevail?

The B-side is the meditation after the battle, mentally re-creating the epic struggle move by move and in slow motion...

So draw your Katana and prepare for beats as sharp as a battle sword, deadly moves of Ninja swiftness and basslines coming straight from the six paths of hell.

Strictly one-time pressing, 300 copies only!

When DOOM reemerged on the scene in the 90s, he firmly marked his return, capturing the theory of knowing the rules if only to better break them.

That sentiment was captured not only in his unique writing method, but also in his production style that birthed the moniker Metal Fingers. He seamlessly blended creative ingenuity with the all-too-obvious, and a unique ability to sample things oft-considered off limits, yet still create magic.

The 10 volume Special Herbs instrumental series captures a key moment in time of Metal Fingers DOOM as producer, assembling, and sometimes slightly reworking, select beats from albums such as MM..Food, Operation: Doomsday, & King Geedorah, as well as a collection of exclusive beats.

When DOOM reemerged on the scene in the 90s, he firmly marked his return, capturing the theory of knowing the rules if only to better break them.

That sentiment was captured not only in his unique writing method, but also in his production style that birthed the moniker Metal Fingers. He seamlessly blended creative ingenuity with the all-too-obvious, and a unique ability to sample things oft-considered off limits, yet still create magic.

The 10 volume Special Herbs instrumental series captures a key moment in time of Metal Fingers DOOM as producer, assembling, and sometimes slightly reworking, select beats from albums such as MM..Food, Operation: Doomsday, & King Geedorah, as well as a collection of exclusive beats.

Punk Slime Recordings are proud to present the debut album from Gothenburg quintet Hollow Ship, the follow-up to the acclaimed debut 7” We Were Kings from late 2019. Due on April 3, Future Remains is a massive introduction from the band, showcasing their unique take on psychedelic rock which sounds like nothing else around, expertly produced by Hollow Ship together with Mattias Glavå (Dungen etc) on the majority of the album and working with Daniel Johansson on opening track “Take Off”.

A lot of new bands take their time in finding their feet; working their way slowly to the sound they want to project, and figuring out what it is they want to say gradually, as they go along. Not this one, though - both sonically and thematically, Future Remains sees them storm out of the gate with a crystal-clear mission statement. Somewhere in the space behind a well-worn eight-track recorder and the polish of present-day production, Hollow Ship have lift off.

Soundtrack to Cyprien Gaillard’s new stereoscopic film, Retinal Rivalry (2024), is an entrancing journey through Germany’s urban landscape and its layers of historical and social significance.

Bad Brains is the self-titled debut studio album recorded by American hardcore punk/reggae band Bad Brains. Recorded in 1981 and released on (then) cassette-only label ROIR on February 5, 1982, many fans refer to it as "The Yellow Tape" because of it's yellow packaging. Though Bad Brains had recorded the 16 song Black Dots album in 1979 and the 5-song Omega Sessions EP in 1980, the ROIR cassette was the band's first release of anything longer than a single. The release includes the original liner notes by Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo. This reissue marks the second release in the remaster campaign on the band's own Bad Brains Records imprint with Org Music. In coordination with the band, Org Music has overseen the restoration and remastering of the iconic Bad Brains' recordings. The audio was mastered by Dave Gardner at Infrasonic Mastering.

“Danger” (1976) was the Lijadu Sisters’ radical first international release, featuring the politically charged anthem “Cashing In”, its powerful opening track Danger with “funk in abundance”, and the hit Life’s Gone Down Low, which later on was sampled by Nas.With lyrics mostly in English, it drew on Afrobeat, reggae and soul and was the beginning of a fruitful relationship with producer and multi-instrumentalist Biddy Wright. Wright played most of the instruments assisted by traditional drummers and percussionists. As the Irish Times wrote in 2011, “He was adept at accentuating the uniquely beautiful vocal harmonies that were the sisters’ trademark. The way they glide around the melodies in unison is a thing of beauty and Wright’s languid and uncluttered production afford them plenty of room to take flight.”Since its original release, it has been hailed as one of the best Nigerian albums of its time, and cited as an influence for many younger artists.

Following in the wake of baroque chart toppers by the Zombies, Beatles, and the Left Banke, a dandier approach to garage rock flowered in the back half of the '60s. Awash in majestic harpsichords, lilting guitars, melancholic organs, and middle school orchestras, Soft Summer Breezes captures the decade’s last gasps of optimism via 16 gentle moments of soft psychedelia.

In the late 1980s, singer Bizimungu Diudonne, his wife Agnes Umbibizi, and a backing band of family and friends self-released a visionary cassette, featuring stuttering electric guitars, loping bass lines, and call and response vocals.Their combo of 80s studio wizardry rooted in traditional Rwandan praise songs resulted in hypnotic, extended jams unlike anything else released in East Africa at the time. The lyrics praised the beauty of the countryside and the exploits of the ancient gods. On plaintive acoustic tracks squeezed between the electric bangers, Bizimungu and Agnes called for unity in the divided nation. Their message was an eerie presaging of the coming Rwandan Genocide, which tragically tooke the lives of all members of the group. Bizimungu and Agnes were both killed by Hutu militias in 1994. Their music, popular across the region, was largely forgotten in the ensuing decades. We first heard this album through music scholar Matthew Lavoie in 2018, and spent years looking for any surviving members of the band. Last year, co-producer and Voice of America host Jackson Mvunganyi tracked down Bizimungu and Agnes’ daughter, Noella, in Kigali. Only 8 years old at the time of her parents’ death, she had taken on the task of reintroducing their work to a new generation in Rwanda. Though her family lost almost everything in the genocide, Noella miraculously was left with a CD containing the master recordings of Inzovu Y’imirindi.It is stunning to finally hear this music in its fullness and immediacy, beautifully remastered at Osiris Studios and pressed on the highest quality vinyl at David Rawlings’ Paramount Press. We’re grateful to Noella and our collaborators for helping us share Bizimungu and Agnes’ vital music and message with the world.

Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band, the mysterious steel pan outfit hailing from Hamburg, Germany made significant noise in 2024 when French film Anatomy of a Fall won an Academy Award for best original screenplay. Bacao’s cover of 50 Cent’s “PIMP” was featured so heavily in the film and plays such a huge role in the storyline that it became synonymous with its success. Subsequently, they ushered in the first appearance of steel pans in the orchestra pit at the Academy Awards so they could play the tune as director Justine Triet walked on stage to accept the award. All of this brought a lot of new fans to Bacao and pushed the streaming numbers of “PIMP” well past 40 million. For those in the know, this tune made its way into underground fame back in 2008 when it was first pressed on band leader Bjorn Wagner’s own Mocambo imprint and was often mistaken for the original sample source from which 50 made his hit. All accolades and international fame aside, “PIMP” is literally just the tip of the Bacao iceberg. With four full length albums and a tall stack of 7” singles that have become staples to DJs around the world, they have been prolific since signing with Big Crown in 2014. Despite the constant releases and elaborate catalog, every recording session has borne more fruit than could fit on an album, leaving a handful of tunes in the recording vault. Here on Big Crown Vaults Vol. 4 we open up that vault and give all (well, most of) those tunes a proper pressing and release. The album opens up with their cover of the Bob James uber-classic breakbeat “Nautilus” and they put a spin on the original that puts it directly in the must have category for all hip hop and breakbeat enthusiasts. Keeping their foot on the gas, they give the BRSB treatment to the Khruangbin classic “Maria También” with their signature bottom heavy drums taking the energy of the tune to a whole new place. Infamous for digging deep in the crates when picking material to reinterpret, they next take on Royce the 5’9”'s J Dilla produced “Let’s Grow”. Originally the B side to the first pressing of “PIMP” (and making an appearance on the very limited first 2LP pressing of their debut album 55) we put the “PIMP (Version)” on here where they give their original recording the proper dub treatment with melodica and tape echo galore. They turn up the tempo and the funk covering the Jackson 5’s “Great To Be Here” and again dive deep into obscurity with the Billy Jones dancefloor burner “Lookout Baby (Here I Come)”. While part of the allure of a new Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band album is finding out what covers they are going to take on, it is equally intriguing to see what original tunes they’ve cooked up. While BCR Vaults Vol. 4 only has one original, “Kaiso Noir”, it’s an uptempo crowd-pleaser that sounds like a mix between a b-boy break and a James Bond score. This collection of songs spans from 2008 to 2023 and runs a variety of genres from hip hop to jazz to soul and pop through the Bacao lens. The band is already at work on their 5th full length studio album and this compilation should be the perfect thing to hold fans over until it arrives.

KontaktAudio presents the first-ever official release of the ultra rare and sought after B-Semi Live 24/5/1984 cassette, a rare and explosive document capturing a crucial moment in Japan’s underground noise and industrial music scene. Recorded at the legendary B-Semi venue in Tokyo, this performance brings together three pioneers - Merzbow, Null (K.K. Null), and Nord - delivering a raw, unfiltered onslaught of early Japanese noise music in its most intense form.

This historic recording showcases the primitive power and experimental spirit that defined the early Japanese noise music scene, sitting alongside the abrasive intensity of Whitehouse, the industrial ritualism of SPK, and the mechanical destruction of Throbbing Gristle. A sonic time capsule of Japan’s most groundbreaking sound revolutionaries, B-Semi Live 24/5/1984 is an essential piece of noise history.

Jezgro is proud to present the second release by the almighty god of noise Merzbow. "Torus" is bleak, twisted and uncompromising EP, that has a tendency to disturb and sooth, both at the same time, your inner dark parts and make you question your moral.

Spanish producer and composer Pedro Vian and Japanese noise legend Merzbow join forces once again for A Wheel of Mani, a singular work set to be released exclusively on 12” vinyl on June 4, 2025, via Modern Obscure Music. This collaboration follows in the footsteps of their previous joint effort, Inside Richard Serra Sculptures, released last year, where they explored the intersection of sonic abstraction and dense textural landscapes. With this new release, the two artists push even further into the spiritual and abrasive corners of their sound, merging ethereal atmospheres with the raw intensity of extreme noise, shaped by

glitch techniques and digital experimentation.

The album serves as a meeting point between seemingly opposing sonic worlds, now interwoven in a fascinating synergy. Vian contributes his sensitivity for hypnotic pads and enveloping ambiances, while Merzbow amplifies the experience with his signature saturation and searing textures. The result is a composition of stark contrasts and unexpected harmonies, inviting the listener into a sensory journey where mysticism and chaos coalesce into a singular experience.

The decision to release A Wheel of Mani on vinyl underscores its physicality, emphasizing the tactile experience of sound, where each groove reveals unexplored tonal dimensions. Vian and Merzbow eschew conventional approaches, dissolving boundaries between the ambient and the abrasive, the meditative and the cathartic. This is not an album that seeks easy resolutions but one that thrives within the tension between harmony and noise, where texture takes precedence and time becomes elastic. A work designed as much for deep contemplation as for total immersion in its expansive sonic universe.

Don't let the name mislead you! The enigmatic M. Zalla is one of the numerous aliases of the italian maestro Piero Umiliani who, during his period of fascination for psychedelic and electronic atmospheres, started to compose a good number of musical portraits dedicated, as the title reveals, to the problems of his time. We are at the beginning of '70 and italians are worried by mafia, terrorism and social conflicts: so it has sense that the music choosen to represent this anxious problems has a sperimental nature; dark and disturbing, a sort of unicum in the long and extremly productive Umiliani career. And if, in 2015, titlesas “Mondo in Crisi”, “Problemi Sociali”, “Azione Sindacale”and “Mafia Oggi” sounds still sadly actual, it's even more surprising find that the music of “Problemi d'Oggi” (Today Problems) is projected on the future, sounding still alien and uniques. The record presents a various styles: Pink Floyd atmospheres (or Braen's Machine if you prefer...) and compositions characterized by a wide use of drum machines and synthetizer (MOOG and Sinthy). We just have to listen to the opening track “Produzione” to give sense to the words of Sean Canty (Demdike Stare) that defines it the first techno/trance track of the history; but between the grooves of this vinyl it's easy to find intuitions that many other artist and musicians – from Residents to Aphex Twin and Four Tet – will be able to catch during their carrers. So “Problemi d'Oggi” is released in 2015. Perfect timing!

In July of 2022, just one month before jaimie branch’s death sent shockwaves around the world, the trumpet player and composer was in Chicago at International Anthem studios putting finishing touches on an album. It was a suite of music she had composed and then recorded with her flagship ensemble, Fly or Die, over the course of a residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska. In her wake, the album was near complete, with only mixing tweaks, final titles, and artwork to be fully realized. In the months following, her family (led by sister Kate Branch), her band (Jason Ajemian, Lester St. Louis, and Chad Taylor), and her collaborators at IARC banded together to gather memories, texts, emails, photographs, artwork and fragments belonging to jaimie to light the path forward. The goal was always to do what jaimie would have done. Packaged in stunning artwork by John Herndon, Damon Locks, and branch herself, Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)) is jaimie’s final album with her Fly or Die quartet.

From the album's liner notes, written by jaimie's Fly or Die bandmates:

“jaimie never had small ideas. She always thought big. The minute you told her she couldn’t do something, or that something would be too difficult to accomplish, the more determined and focused she became. And this album is big. Far bigger and more demanding — for us, and for you — than any other Fly or Die record. For this, jaimie wanted to play with longer forms, more modulations, more noise, more singing, and as always, grooves and melodies. She was a dynamic melodicist. jaimie wanted this album to be lush, grand and full of life, just as she was. Every time we take a listen, we feel the deep imprint of her all over the music, and we see all of us making it together.”

To celebrate 20 years of this incredible album by Masami Akita, we are doing a limited edition gatefold vinyl pressing on baby pink colored vinyl limited to 300 copies worldwide.

For over four decades, Masami Akita, the man behind Merzbow, has remained one of the most singular and uncompromising figures in experimental music. Known as a pioneer of Japanese noise and a tireless sonic innovator, Akita has consistently pushed boundaries, exploring sound not as a vehicle for melody or harmony, but as a raw material to be shaped, sculpted, and sometimes obliterated. His prolific output spans hundreds of releases, each one revealing a different angle of his evolving sonic philosophy — from dense analog textures to intricate digital manipulations.

Originally released on CD in 2003, Animal Magnetism is now receiving a long-overdue vinyl reissue — a deluxe edition that not only revives the album but enhances it. This new edition has been meticulously remastered by Lasse Marhaug, a respected figure in noise and experimental music who brings on vinyl reissue new clarity, weight, and depth to the recordings. Spread across two vinyl LPs and housed in a gatefold sleeve, the reissue replicates the original artwork, including Masami Akita’s own photographs, while also adding a previously unreleased bonus track, “Quiet Comfort #2.”

Animal Magnetism occupies a unique position in Merzbow’s vast catalogue. It is a work that remains firmly rooted in the artist’s signature approach — dense layers of distortion, feedback, and electronic debris — but it also stands out for its sense of structure, variation, and surprising accessibility. It’s an album that, while intense, is not impenetrable. It invites the listener to explore its textures and uncover subtle melodic patterns and rhythmic shifts beneath the surface noise.

The opening title track sets the tone: a chaotic yet strangely hypnotic blend of static, metallic clangs, fractured beats, and synthetic tones. There's a sense of tension throughout — familiar in Merzbow’s work — but here, it builds gradually, revealing layers rather than overwhelming the listener all at once. There’s even the faint outline of something resembling a melody, buried deep beneath the sonic rubble, slowly emerging and fading as the piece unfolds.

What makes Animal Magnetism distinctive is its balance between harsh noise and a more refined, composed sensibility. Where many Merzbow albums plunge into total abstraction, this one maintains a sense of movement and progression. Tracks evolve over time, flowing into one another with a kind of warped continuity. Noise isn’t just a wall here — it breathes, pulses, and shifts form.

One of the album’s highlights, “Quiet Men,” is a surprisingly playful and kinetic track. High-pitched, swirling sounds bounce around in cartoon-like patterns, giving the piece a strange but infectious energy. It’s vivid, bright, and almost whimsical — a striking contrast to Merzbow’s more oppressive works. Yet, it never abandons the core aesthetic of noise: distortion, friction, repetition — only here, it’s presented with a lighter touch, almost like a satire of dance music through a noise lens.

The album’s longest piece, “A Ptarmigan,” stretches to more of twenty minutes and showcases Merzbow’s gift for long-form development. The track shifts dramatically over its runtime — starting with a sense of movement and brightness, before descending into slow, grinding dirges. At one point it feels almost celebratory, the next meditative and ominous. It’s a miniature sonic journey that encapsulates many of the album’s contrasts: playfulness and heaviness, speed and inertia, chaos and control.

Later, “Super Sheep” picks up the pace, with a more aggressive rhythmic drive. While its bass line may evoke familiar electronic or break core structures, Merzbow twists and mutates it into something uniquely his own. The distortion here feels intentional and compositional — not just as an effect, but as a central part of the track’s logic. It’s not chaos for chaos’s sake, but a carefully controlled burn. Another standout, “Pier 39,” veers into ambient territory. Gentle scraping textures, soft frequencies, and minimal movement make it a quiet anomaly in the tracklist — but also a necessary one. It shows how even within the noise genre, Merzbow is capable of creating space and silence, of dialing back the intensity to explore fragility and restraint. The newly added bonus track, “Quiet Comfort #2,” fits seamlessly into the album’s sound world. It serves as both a continuation and a reflection, extending the album’s themes while offering something fresh.

Today, as interest in Merzbow continues to rise — with new generations discovering the depth and breadth of his work — this reissue feels especially timely. It’s a reminder that noise can be complex, emotional, and even, beautiful. Animal Magnetism is not just for seasoned noise fans, but also for adventurous listeners looking for a unique and challenging experience that rewards attention and repeated listening. This edition is a must-have for collectors and newcomers alike: an essential document of an artist who continues to redefine the outer edges of sound.

Mike Majkowski makes his debut on Hands in the Dark Records with Invisible, a selection of six moody and mysterious pieces produced between 2019 and 2025.

The prolific Australian double bassist and music maker has been involved in a diverse array of contemporary and experimental music since the early 2000s. This time, the Berlin-based artist is venturing deeper into downtempo, meditative and hypnotic minimal electronic realms.

While time and space are constraints, they also define our identities, creating inexplicable bonds with others flowing through shared moments and shared places. The state of being invisible obliterates these confines, allowing one to return to their pure essence. In this setting, Majkowski’s compositions display a discreet and profoundly emotional language characterised by vulnerability, darkness and confusion, while also embodying hope, soothing and resilience. A dim light, transcending love, space, memory and time.

Wow when did this first come out? 1989? Over 30 years ago! I listened to some of the songs yesterday and, well, they hold up, they’re truly timeless songs. In my notes at the time I wrote about the way this music joined musical sophistication with memorable pop melodies and often social and political commentary. Like Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On this music mixed sensuality with pointed social engagement. I learned that though we often feel like screaming we can also couch our awareness and frustrations in beauty and rhythm—which often makes a more seductive and effective argument than a scream—though a scream can be pretty damn cathartic for sure. But as beautiful as the songs sound their message was pointed enough that some of these artists were jailed and forced into exile. Beauty can be pointed. This kind of writing, like Gaye’s and many others, invites us to rise above, to be the change we can imagine. The music says that—while the words might describe the situation as it is, in all it’s pain and suffering. I saw that songwriting can do this—speak brutally and honestly and at the same time provide a hint of a way out. I also learned that musical sophistication like that heard in these songs is not antithetical to acceptance by a popular audience (many of these artists and their songs were hugely popular) and to the work being approachable and accessible. This was one of our most popular compilations. For a while I got used to hearing this record in cool restaurants and clothing boutiques. The label I was signed to at the time must have not expected it to sell well, because they made a horrible licensing deal such that they lost money on every record sold! Beat that Amazon and Spotify! We were losing money to spread the reach of this music 30 years ago, way before internet businesses learned to lose money in hopes of gaining market share before their investors walked away. When this collection came out I realized that although many Europeans and Jazz fans were already followers of Brazilian music, many of the fans of Talking Heads and what was called New Wave music had never heard of these songs or these artists. Like me, many who bought this collection soon became fans of specific artists. I suspected that maybe here was a solution to the marketing that lumped the music under the exotic banner of “world music”—Northern folks were actually beginning to pick out artists they liked and were following them the same way they would their local rock and RnB groups. I began to see more non Brazilian faces at the live shows in NY that I attended. Though this collection represents a special era in Brazilian popular music these artists have not stood still. They’ve continued to explore and expand what they do—some of their recent albums are some of their best. Meanwhile, this music has served as an inspiration for newer generations of composers and performers. By the way—the record cover is an optical illusion thought up by the late Tibor Kalman and his studio. If you flip the record upside down you can see that the young woman’s hair is not falling straight down—so she’s not in fact leaning back or swooning quite as much as it appears. She was just leaning back ever so slightly while standing on a slanted wedge. When the wedge edge was tipped in layout to be parallel with the bottom of the record cover it appeared that she was in an extreme ecstatic swoon. Very smart—to visually represent what the music FEELS like. -David Byrne, 2022

Aphex Twin's Grammy-winning masterpiece heralds a miraculous comeback! Released unexpectedly in 2014 as his first full album in 13 years, this groundbreaking work sent music fans worldwide into a frenzy. Intricate rhythmic structures intertwine with warm synth sounds, constructing a unique world that feels mechanical yet somehow human. This work, distilling Richard's musical philosophy, won the Grammy Award for Best Dance/Electronic Album, propelling him back to the forefront of the global scene. Truly the pinnacle of electronic music representing the 2010s!

Following the announcement of his comeback album Syro, Aphex Twin achieved a full-fledged return with two EPs and a revival project under the AFX moniker. This 2018 release features the lead track “T69 Collapse,” which explodes with near-frenetic hyper-speed beats and searing melodies, shocking the world alongside hallucinatory visuals by artist Weirdcore. Throughout the entire album, the complexity of the soundscapes and the precision of the rhythms reach unprecedented levels, where chaos and sensuality, violence and beauty coexist in a delicate balance. This definitive work proves Aphex Twin is a “genius in the making” and further carves out the future of IDM!