MUSIC

Something truly massive has arrived!!! Following his 2023 solo album, Paul St. Hilaire (AKA Tikiman) returns with w/ The Producers, released to mark the 10th anniversary of Kynant Records. Each track pairs his unmistakable voice with a different cutting-edge producer, including Aurora Halal, Cousin, Priori, Shinichi Atobe, Batu, Azu Tiwaline, and Russell E.L. Butler. The concept takes its cue from Mark Ernestus & Moritz von Oswald’s legendary w/ The Artists, yet here St. Hilaire stands as the lone vocalist, delivering conscious songwriting and poetic monologues. Across nine tracks, the deep currents of dub techno intertwine with fresh new visions—an essential new chapter in his unmatched discography.

A landmark self-titled album from Ghanaian legend Ebo Taylor, originally released in 1977, now reissued on vinyl by the esteemed Strut label. Rooted in the spirit of Afrobeat and the traditions of highlife, while weaving in jazz-inflected arrangements and the deep pulse of funk, this record stands as a defining statement of his career and a perfect entry point into the genre. The interplay of sophisticated horn sections and propulsive rhythm, together with Taylor’s spiritual vocal presence, creates a sound world at once grounded in local tradition and reaching toward the universal. A historic masterpiece that helped shape the future of African music, vividly reborn.

Aphex Twin’s definitive compilation Classics, gathering his essential early 90s tracks, returns on vinyl. Drawing from his formative EPs, the album vividly conveys the raw energy where hardcore acid techno collides with experimental sensibilities, making it the perfect entry point into his world. Relentless, floor-shaking beats are laced with moments of distortion, humor, and strange emotional undercurrents. More than just functional club tools, these tracks contain the seeds of his later ambient works and IDM explorations. A document of rave’s brute intensity crossed with the solitude of deep listening, Classics stands as nothing less than the primordial landscape of Aphex Twin.

Alleviated Records presents the first-time vinyl reissue of Larry Heard's mid-90's gem "Sceneries Not Songs, Volume 1". The album stems from a time when the tempo slowed down and Heard reached a perfect synthesis of jazz influences, deep electronic ambiance and the house sound he was known for. The result is a brilliant album that should cater to both house and R&B heads alike. Now for the first time released as a 2x12'' with an extra track previously only available on cd.

Domenique Dumont’s fourth album, Deux Paradis, arrives like the three that came before it – with an air of mystery and wonder. This is dance music for inner worlds – rituals, revelations and reveries.

Deux Paradis is a ten-track song cycle that leads the listener through the rhythm of a day, the bloom and fade of a relationship, or even the stages of a life. It begins with a song about waking up – the candy-striped dub of “Enchantia” – and traces the sun’s arc with the pixelated reggae of “La Vie Va” and the sensuous rush of “Amants Ennemis”. As night falls, the songs take on a twilight quality in the shimmering pop of “The Order of Invisible Things” and the seductive pulse of “Visages Visages” (a subtle nod to the Desireless classic). There’s also the baroque swoon of “Deux Paradis” and the soft exotica of “Visiteur de la Nuit”. Bolder and richer than before, it’s vintage Domenique Dumont – timeless and romantic, yet laced with an unplaceable sense of longing, like in an Éric Rohmer film.

After the instrumental film score People On Sunday (Leaf, 2020) composed solo by Arturs Liepins – singer Anete Stuce returns to Domenique Dumont, bringing her inimitable joie de vivre. Deux Paradis

completes a trilogy of releases alongside Comme Ça (2015) and Miniatures De Auto Rhythm (2018) on the Antinote label.

Deux Paradis took shape between 2022 and the end of 2024 in studios in Riga and Paris, and on the Estonian island of Hiiumaa.

This expansive double pack from Silentes finds each side of vinyl taken up by one long, ever-evolving piece of music based around one original. Gianluca Favaron & Stefano Gentile go first with their take on 'Landslide,' which goes from whirring machines sounds to brain cleansing sine waves and found sound abstraction. Dub techno don Rod Modell explores emptiness on 'Landslide' (Reworked) and Carl Michael Von Hausswolf's take is an eerie one with scratchy textures and filtered synth meanderings. Rod Modell then closes out with another rework of his own remix that will leave you adrift in space.

 

unification of techno and dub reggae. The long-awaited 2023 repress of the Rhythm & Sound catalog number 7, which was originally announced in 2002! A one-of-a-kind solitary acoustic space by Mark Ernestus & Moritz von Oswald's Basic Channel.

unification of techno and dub reggae. The long-awaited 2025 repress of the Rhythm & Sound catalog number 4, which was originally announced in 1999! A one-of-a-kind solitary acoustic space by Mark Ernestus & Moritz von Oswald's Basic Channel.

unification of techno and dub reggae. An outstanding universal masterpiece of sound dub/minimal techno released in 1992 as M-Series by Mark Ernestus & Moritz von Oswald's Basic Channel, repressed in 2025.

First issue since 1969 of the Malombo Jazz Maker’s unknown third album, fully licensed from Julian Bahula, with liner notes featuring interviews with Julian Bahula and Lucky Ranku. 'Malombo music is an indigenous kind of music. If you listen to it, you can feel that it can heal you, if you’ve got something wrong. It’s healing music.' Lucky Ranku Lucas ‘Lucky’ Madumetja Ranku (1941-2016) was one of the greatest African guitarists of his generation. He first made his name with the Malombo Jazz Makers – the successor group to the legendary Malombo Jazzmen, formed in Mamelodi township by guitarist Philip Tabane, drummer Julian Bahula and flautist Abbey Cindi. When Tabane left the Jazzmen in 1965, Bahula and Cindi called on Lucky to replace him, and the Malombo Jazz Makers were born. Building on the popularity and success of the original Malombo Jazzmen, the Malombo Jazz Makers become immensely popular, touring widely, winning numerous jazz competitions, and recording two successful albums for the Gallo label. The deep and hypnotic 'Down Lucky’s Way' was their third album. Recorded in 1969, it was the first Malombo Jazz Makers album to feature additional instruments, and the first to feature Abbey Cindi on soprano saxophone as well as flute. But more than anything else, 'Down Lucky’s Way' is a transfixing showcase for Lucky Ranku’s sui generis guitar virtuosity. Quite different from their previous recordings, the album shifted the Jazz Makers’ sound toward hypnotic, extended compositions, layered by organ bass and guitar overdubs. Of all the Malombo Jazz Makers recordings, 'Down Lucky’s Way' is the deepest of mood, and the richest of vision. However, through one of the erasures that are ubiquitous in South African musical history under apartheid, it seems that the record may not ever have been properly issued. Original copies are outrageously rare – only a few are known among collectors. When we asked Lucky about the album, he was unaware it had ever been released, and had never seen a copy. Perhaps it was pulled; perhaps it was pulped; perhaps Gallo simply took their eye off the ball. Nobody knows, but it is not impossible that the apartheid authorities were involved, for by 1969, the Malombo Jazz Makers were well known to them. Julian Bahula’s introduction of malopo drums to the music of the original Malombo Jazzmen was a moment of crucial political and cultural radicalism for South African jazz. Traditionally used by BaPedi people for healing, the malopo drums of Malombo music re-centered jazz around indigenous sounds and culture, and over the next decade, the Malombo Jazz Makers became deeply involved in political opposition to apartheid. Their recovery of indigenous sounds made them the musical standard bearer for the Black Consciousness movement, and they toured South Africa clandestinely with the writer and anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko. They also broke apartheid laws by playing with the white rock group Freedom’s Children, sometimes appearing on stage in masks or made up with UV paint to avoid detection by the authorities; they appeared regularly at the rule-bending Free People’s Concerts organized by David Marks, where Marks’ clever exploitation of a loophole – mixed audiences were prohibited from attending ticketed concerts where anyone was being paid, but the law said nothing about private functions played by artists for free – meant people could come together in defiance of apartheid laws. The notorious Special Branch would raid their concerts; Lucky remembered police storming an auditorium, throwing smoke bombs. Eventually the political situation became too dangerous, and the band were being actively sought by the police. Though Abbey Cindi remained in South Africa, both Julian Bahula and Lucky Ranku went into political exile in the UK, where Bahula founded the group Jabula with Lucky and former members of Cymande, Steve Scipio and Michael ‘Bami’ Rose. With Jabula, Julian and Lucky worked tirelessly for the anti-apartheid movement, raising funds and awareness all over Europe and in the US. They played with Dudu Pukwana’s Spear in the joint formation Jabula-Spear, and worked together in Bahula’s Jazz Afrika formation; in 1984 Bahula organized the first Concert for Mandela, and it was Jabula that supplied the chorus for The Special A.K.A.’s hit single ‘Nelson Mandela’. Lucky also played and recorded with Chris McGregor’s South African Exiles Thunderbolt group. After the fall of apartheid, they both remained living and working in the UK. In 2012 the South African government awarded Julian Bahula the Gold Order of Ikhamanga for his cultural work during the struggle against apartheid. Until his death in 2016, Lucky continued to play with countless groups and musicians, putting together the band Township Express with Pinise Saul, and leading his own African Jazz Allstars. The influence of his playing on the international perception of South African township music was immense, and he was held in the highest regard by his peers – ‘Lucky was a guitarist who could bring any house down’, said Michael ‘Bami’ Rose. But despite his continuous presence on the UK live circuit over four decades, Lucky Ranku never recorded an album as leader. And so as well as restoring an important lost piece of South African musical heritage, 'Down Lucky’s Way' is a precious opportunity to hear one of Africa’s foremost guitarists stretching out, in focus and in his element.

Moritz von Oswald, who has laid the groundwork for a deep interaction between genuine Jamaican dub and Detroit-style classic techno through his collaborations with Mark Ernestus, dub techno legend =Basic Channel and Rhythm And Sound, is creating ambient techno. Moritz Von Oswald Trio, a legendary trio teamed up with Max Loderbauer of Sun Electric, the pioneer of , and Vladislav Delay, a master of avant-garde electronic music from Northern Europe and Finland. The fifth album "Sounding Lines" released in 2015 from London's prestigious is in stock!

Diriaou (“Thursday” in Breton) captures the singular collaboration between Kristen Noguès-pioneering Celtic harpist and explorer of Breton tradition-and legendary British saxophonist John Surman, renowned for his atmospheric jazz on ECM. Recorded live in 1998 at the Dre Ar Wenojenn festival, this album presents the duo weaving together original compositions and traditional melodies into a tapestry of free folk, modal improvisation, and ambient soundscapes.

Noguès, deeply rooted in Breton music yet always pushing boundaries, and Surman, whose career spans jazz innovation and evocative sound worlds, invent a language that is both ancient and strikingly modern. The repertoire draws on Breton songs (“Maro Pontkalek,” “Le Scorff”), with highlights like “Baz Valan,” where harp and saxophone engage in celestial dialogue, and “Kernow,” a theme that dissolves into mist. Vocals appear sparingly, with Surman on “Kleier” and Noguès on “Kerzhadenn” and her signature “Berceuse,” adding further depth to the duo’s sonic palette.

Diriaou stands as a testament to the pair’s extra-Celtic inspiration and improvisational spirit, offering a rare and mesmerizing journey through landscapes both familiar and uncharted. This release is a unique document of two visionary artists at the height of their creative powers, now available thanks to Souffle Continu Records.

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

Roberto Cacciapaglia is an Italian composer and pianist who started out in the fertile Milan avant-garde scene of the 1970s, which included Franco Battiato, Giusto Pio, Lino Capra Vaccina, Francesco Messina, among others. After studying at the conservatory, he worked at RAI's Studio of Musical Phonology – an electronic music laboratory similar to NDR/WDR in Germany, GRM/IRCAM in France or BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Originally released in 1979, Sei Note In Logica (Six Notes In Logic) is Cacciapaglia's second album. While his debut, Sonanze, offers a series of ambient mini-soundtracks, Sei Note presents a singular, sinuous piece. The composition is based on a finite set of musical notes, yet this limitation is the point of departure for a grand tour of possible combinations and enthralling timbres (marimbas, strings, reeds and human voice).

Like Steve Reich's Music For 18 Musicians, the joyous experiment of Sei Note is grounded in constant variation. Often doubled by multiple instruments, non-repeating patterns are exquisitely layered, while electro-acoustic signals transform and further refract through visceral effects. Within this conceptual framework, Cacciapaglia does not so much juxtapose rigid dichotomies – acoustic vs. electronic, melodic vs. dissonant, simple vs. complex – as fuse them into an expansive whole.

What started as an inspired study in Minimalism becomes a bold feat of 20th century music. Sei Note In Logica is deeply sincere and, at the same time, quite playful. With one foot firmly planted in the past and the other steeped in technology, Cacciapaglia's influence can be heard in the work of Jim O'Rourke, Fennesz and Ben Vida.

Cluster was the pioneering German duo of Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius. Formed on the cusp of the 1970s, they were a part of West Germany's nascent Kosmische Musik scene. The group would use restrained improvisational techniques similar to Gruppo Nuova Consonanza, working with both electric and acoustic instruments (organ, guitar, tone generators, cello, etc.) to create a singular sound that Julian Cope called "a huge beating heart, planet-sized and awesome." Originally released in 1972 on Brain, Cluster II features six pieces of atmospheric, proto-ambient drones – a step up from Cluster's 1971 self-titled debut, which had all untitled songs. On "Im Suden," hypnotic bass pulsations and repetitive guitar patterns flow serenely, while side two opener "Live In Der Fabrik" dives deep into Roedelius and Moebius' foreboding industrial soundscapes and synergistic textural interplay. As Roedelius told Uncut magazine in 2022, "This feels like a breakthrough? Well, we were just getting more into it, and getting more experienced at being able to elaborate it. Conny (Plank) was working with us again – as well as being a multi-talented artist, he was a very experienced sound master and great human being. He contributed as a fellow musician, adding sounds with his mixing table such as reverb, delay and other effects enriching the whole pieces so that they finally became somehow unique." It's no surprise that when Neu! guitarist Michael Rother first heard Cluster II, he suggested a collaboration with the band – resulting in the supergroup Harmonia who would make their first album together the following year.

cLOUDDEAD's debut album, compiling six 10" EPs that appeared between 2000-2001, is aurally dense and obscured. A sprawling mass of miniature beat-suites and Dadaist lyrics, this strange and beautiful 3xLP would influence a myriad of sub-genres (cloud rap, hauntology, lo-fi hip-hop, etc.) in the two decades since its initial release. Only the three members of cLOUDDEAD – Why?, Odd Nosdam and Doseone – can speak to the group's origins, but in the context of underground hip-hop towards the end of the 20th century, their arrival makes perfect sense. Cincinnati had a vital scene; home to Scribble Jam, an annual confluence of MCs, DJs, B-boys and graffiti artists. While the trio soon relocated to the Bay Area where they co-founded the Anticon collective, their Midwestern roots – in ramshackle basements of off-campus hovels, as the "cerberus of Southern Ohio" – would remain the atomic heart of their early recordings. As Chris Martins writes in the liner notes, "The only reason we know their names today is because of how loudly and curiously they aired their insularity. They rewrote the entire world as they knew it through their own fucked perspective, and when those mysterious 10-inches started popping up in record shops, it wasn't just a puzzle to investigate: there seemed to be a whole cosmology hidden in those grooves." Each side of the album represents one of those elusive 10-inches, each embodying a universe unto itself. Opening salvo "Apt. A" and "And All You Can Do Is Laugh" are perhaps most emblematic of the cLOUDDEAD experience. Why? and Dose create a new language through boundless non-sequiturs, sing-song non-choruses and call-and-response hooks, while Nosdam's dexterous production shifts from crackling ambience of Flying Saucer Attack to tight Ohio Players drum breaks and oblique film samples. Taken all together, cLOUDDEAD is an original interpretation of hip-hop in the surreal Y2K glow – a bizarre meeting point between William Basinski's Disintegration Loops and MF DOOM's Operation: Doomsday. All it took was a Dr. Sample SP-202, Tascam cassette eight-track and cheap RadioShack mic. There's truly nothing like it.

A name that breathes, a voice that whispers and howls in soliloquy. Collecting the echoes that follow—field recordings from Colombia, murmured poems, the spectral songs of birds—she stitches together a sonic diary, an audible thread between past and present. Like the shifting landscapes of Colombian magical realism, she bends nature as memory bends truth. From this alchemy arises Un Pensiero Intrusivo: seven folk incantations, captured live in Cagliari, Italy.

A new genre, steeped in something unnameable—a haunted flamenco, spectral invocations, a piano unmoored from time. The air thickens, the horizon tilts. A slow descent into vertical tropics, where distant sensibilities collapse into a single, hypnotic pulse.

1994 second album by the trio of Andrew Weatherall, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns, unavailable on vinyl and CD since original release. A concept album with accompanying text for each track by James Woodbourne, it also includes additional production by Portishead and Mr Scruff. Remastered from the original tapes by Matt Colton, contains “Theme” for the first time on the 2LP edition.

Composed through the fall 2024 while Nala was 28 years old, The Smashing Machine is Sinephro’s first film score, following her two highly-acclaimed albums Space 1.8 and Endlessness.

Emerging in the aftermath of the Louisville–via–Chicago late-90s post-rock wave, The Mercury Program carved their own path with a vibraphone-led sound that blurred genre lines. Their 2000 album From The Vapors of Gasoline, released on Tiger Style, was no sophomore slump — its ten intricate, atmospheric tracks fused cerebral post-rock with unexpected flashes of dissonance and melodic warmth.

Rather than conform to the era’s prevailing styles, the group explored what might happen if new age shimmer and post-hardcore intensity shared the same space. The result was a record that felt both expansive and intimate, drawing in listeners with its textured arrangements and restless creativity.

This 25th anniversary remaster brings new clarity and depth to an overlooked triumph, illuminating the full scope of its inventive musicianship for a new generation of heads.

“Prudência / Praga”, or “Prudence / Plague”, is a double single with these two songs that I composed and which were originally recorded by two of my heroes: Maria Bethânia and Alaíde Costa. Curiously, they are two sambas: although I come from the rock and roll scene in São Paulo, I wound up writing a samba as if it were the 50s. At the time of my first heartbreak, at the age of 17, I had the record Jamelão canta Lupicínio with the Orquestra Tabajara on my iPod, and I identified with those dramatic sorrows, almost a hundred years old. In a way, I felt that Lupicínio Rodrigues was bloody and direct, like Tarantino, and Nelson Cavaquinho, heavy metal like Black Sabbath. So, I feel it’s a compact 45 of sambas but it’s also very Rock n Roll to me. Raw and coming from hell.

“Prudência” is that internal battle between the passionate side and the controlling side in the head of the former romantic bohemian. I wrote it for Bethânia to record on her album Noturno. Her version turned into a moving bolero. When I saw her singing it live and the audience singing along with her, I couldn’t believe it. I cried, hidden in the audience. She said that when she showed the record to her brother, Caetano Veloso, he thought that “Prudência” was some old classic that she had dug up to bring back to light. Nothing could be a greater compliment than this mistake on Caetano’s part.

“Praga” also has to do with MPB heroes of mine that I never imagined I’d see up close or have any relationship with or any connection with. I was asked to write these lyrics in partnership with the main man Erasmo Carlos for Alaíde Costa’s album! Surreal. Like many people, I got acquainted with Alaíde listening to “Clube da Esquina,” her singing with Milton Nascimento. And the idea was to do a poisonous cabaret song samba. The curse of a woman who has dumped a drunk. I love it when Alaíde sings “BIBIDA” in her recording of the song—a total legend. I wanted to produce a kind of horror samba recording, because if it wasn’t rock and roll, it wouldn’t be much fun for me. I went over to Bielzinho’s, and we recorded this chorus that explodes with the percussion and the choir of my friends Tulipa, Maria Beraldo, and Luiza Lian.

This take of “Prudência” came from the unpretentiousness of recording two live sessions of the song with Fred Joseph with the cameras of the 70s’ program “Ensaio” (MPB Especial) by the great Fernando Faro. The video take ended up being so unexpected and raw that it unseated the studio version, and that’s what you hear on the single. The idea behind the video is a sort of this temporal mindfuck; like found lost tapes of the MPB Especial from the early the 70s. Same microphones, same cameras, that zoom—time travel.

Between Mil Coisas Invisíveis, the end of the cycle with O Terno, and starting the new album process, I decided to take advantage of the respite to release this rock and roll 45 of sambas, without thinking too much or over-producing the thing. “Prudence? Don’t talk to me about prudence!” 😉

-Tim Bernardes, 2025

Rumah Sakit were a four-piece rock band based in San Francisco, CA. The group began to take shape in 1998 after guitarist John Baez, bassist Kenseth Thibideau and drummer, Jeff Shannon, all moved from Redlands to San Francisco. Fully formed once guitarist Mitch Cheney quickly joined, the band settled on the name Rumah Sakit – a literal Indonesian translation of “sick room” (aka hospital) – and a sound that fused the frenetic energy of Red-era King Crimson with a meditative melodicism that starkly contrasted the vast majority of so-called “math-rock” bands of the era. Soon thereafter, Rumah Sakit entered the studio for the first time to record what would become their eponymous debut album.Rumah Sakit was recorded in 1999 at The Music Annex – a hallowed megaplex that counts diverse icons such as Erik Satie, The Tubes, Michael Hedges, Montrose, and American Music Club amongst its many historical clients – in two somewhat clandestine overnight sessions with good friends and studio interns, Jay & Ian Pellicci. The album was made with a “no tricks” philosophy that would come to define the band’s approach to performing and documenting their music. Recorded entirely live with no overdubs in very few takes, the band embraced the art of using the natural presence of the room and strategic gear placement to capture the purest and most accurate representation of those songs in those moments. In an era that was quickly being transformed by the burgeoning popularity of ProTools and meticulously manicured, maximalist mixes, the world inside of Rumah Sakit was a refreshing respite.A year later, in the fall of 2000, Rumah Sakit flew renowned Chicago recording engineer and Shellac bassist, Bob Weston, out to San Francisco to spend two brief days recording an EP at John Vanderslice’s Tiny Telephone Recording. This EP would be released as part of Temporary Residence’s subscription-based CD series, Travels In Constants (alongside Mogwai, Low, Explosions In The Sky, Eluvium, and MONO). Aside from the original pressing of 1,000 CDs reserved for subscribers, the studio recordings on Travels In Constants were never available again on any format or platform.Reuniting with Bob Weston to meticulously remaster the original master tapes, Rumah Sakit 25 collects the band’s debut album and their long out-of-print Travels In Constants EP into one exceptional package. Featuring new cover art from old friends and collaborators, Jeremiah Maddock and Marty Anderson, the expansive gatefold 2xLP includes full-color printed inner sleeves featuring hundreds of previously unpublished photos documenting this inspired early era in the band’s history, as well as a massive full-size 24-page art book of previously unpublished artwork by Maddock. It’s an exquisite opus that masterfully captures a special band at a special time.

The definitive collection of Laraaji’s earliest works, Segue To Infinity compiles his 1978 debut Celestial Vibration and six additional side-long studio sessions from previously unknown acetates from the same period. A lengthy essay by Living Colour’s Vernon Reid chronicles the origins of Edward “Flash” Gordon, illustrated with dozens of previously unpublished photographs that capture this beautiful and elusive young artist. Full of discovery and wonderment, Segue To Infinity is a miraculous chronicle of new age’s most fabled artist.

International man of dub techno mystery, Shinichi Atobe returns to DDS with a new double album of pensile steppers and lip-smacking, feathered swang, a good 10 years since first crossing paths with Demdike Stare’s label - a massive RIYL for any heads into DJ Sprinkles, Red Planet, Mike Huckaby, Sususmu Yokota, Convextion, NWAQ.

 

 

For years people were convinced that Atobe was a well known artist (probably German) working incognito. Thanks to a flowery twitter feed, plus some interviews, all that distraction has been finally laid to rest. Still offering little in the way of biographical factoids, though, Atobe lets the music do the talking in typically emotively nuanced and special style on his 7th album ‘Discipline’, offering further refinements of prevailing, salient ‘90s deep house, dub techno and ambient scenes cultivated and pruned to near perfection.

 

 

Hailing a sensuality and feel for spaced movement that’s been lost to club music’s EQ arms race over the decades, he comes poised with a near ineffable lightness of being, flush with a newfound effervescence that’s come to define his work in recent years. There’s a real electro-acousmagique in-the-mix that conveys beautifully at low or high volume, elegantly guiding bodies in motion like little else. 

 

 

Atobe’s grasp of deferred gratification and tempered gravitas is really the key thing, carrying from the fluttering 8-bit melodies and purring techno bass of ‘SA DUB 1’ to tender beatdown and blushing FM chords, then into flirtations with hair-kissing trance like Convextion and AGCG gone Goa in ‘SA DUB 2’, thru brisk Red Planet techno and a sort of shoegazing, acidic panorama in ‘SA DUB 5’, defining Terrence Dixon-esque levels of Motor City mechanical nous on ‘SA DUB 6’, and into the subaquatic, pearlescent dub house promise of ‘SA DUB 7’. 

 

 

Chef’s kisses, all the way.

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