MUSIC

“Nostalgia Por Mesozóica” is an exploration of "experimental exotica" consisted of synthesized tropical attributes — an artificial landscape isolated behind the glass frame. Reminiscent of recording techniques and sonorities ubiquitous in the 60’s and 70’s, it could conceivably have been intended as a soundtrack for the Mesozoic Era exhibition at your favorite Natural History museum.

The out-of-this-world recordings of Dilson de Souza, leading a kind of tropical chamber jazz on leaves from a ficus tree. Dilson was from Barra do Pirai, in the Brazilian countryside; moving to Rio as a young man, where he worked in construction. He recorded his first record in 1954, for RCA Victor. He travelled to Quito around 1957, soon hooking up with Benitez & Valencia, who introduced him to the CAIFE label. Dilson played the leaf open, resting on his tongue, hands free, with his mouth as the resonator. Though a leaf can also be played rolled or folded in half, this method allowed for more precision, a tethered brilliance. A picked ficus leaf stays fresh, crisp and clean-toned for around ten hours. He could play eight compositions, four at each end, before it was spent. Biluka plays trills and vibratos effortlessly, with utterly pure pitch, acrobatically sliding into notes and changing tone on the fly. In Manuco, he leads Los Caníbales into a mysterious landscape on a rope pulled from an Andean spaghetti western, and corrals and teases them into a dialogue. A leaf, a harp, a xylophone, and a rondador — joined in Bailando Me Despido (Dancing As I Say Goodbye) by a saucy organ, doing sloshed call-and-response. In Anacu de Mi Guambra, Biluka shows his full range of antics, hiccuping melodically over a set of magic tricks. His expressiveness was boundless. The eucalyptus leaf is popular among Aboriginal Australians. In China, they’ve played leaves for 10,000 years. In Cambodia, people play the slek, a leaf plucked from either the sakrom or the khnoung tree. But ain’t nobody like Biluka, ever. Astounding music.

A modern funk / downbeat sanctuary recommended by fans around , , and , and also known as popular acts such as Space Ghost and Nelson Of The East , The second album "Chrysalis" of multi-instrumentalist ABUNAI based in Oakland, California appears. Slow tempo, dreamy texture, shadowy mellow vocals, and superb dream pop with rich synthesizers, it's a must-listen for fans of Tame Impala, Khruangbin, Shintaro Sakamoto, and James Blake! Limited to 500 copies.

Following releases on West Mineral and Lillerne Tapes, Iggy Romeu’s inimitable Mister Water Wet project makes its Soda Gong debut. “Top Natural Drum” feels like a double entendre ode to digging culture, drawing equally from the plantlife in the dirt and the grooves in the stacks. Tracks like opener “Soak” concoct a haze of resonant ceramic/wooden percs, skittering drum programming, and addictive yet diffuse melodic and harmonic textures. Dusty-fingered nodders like “Caged at Last”, “Classicfit,” and “Gossamer Hits Softly Spun” harken back to the glory days of instrumental hiphop and downtempo, sounding a bit like transmissions from some lost Landspeed Records or Mo’ Wax comp, or like field recordings from the courtyard at Scribble Jam that have been infused with the slippery sonic signatures and sleights of hand that define MWW productions. What links these two distinctive tonal registers is a sort of lingering warmth – warmth like the saturation of natural dye or sunlight on a brisk, clear Midwestern autumn day.

Acoustic, no-age krautrock from Berlin releasing on Glasgow label, Phase Group. 

 The next release on Phase Group unearths a truly unique project that has existed as an outlier in the Berlin underground since 2002. 
 A stage decked out with xylophones, tambourines, timpani, wooden percussion, two drum kits, a cello, harmonicas, saxophones and pieces of scrap metal. Eight unassuming musicians playing repetitive, trance-inducing phrases, at times serene, fragile and dream-like and at others wild, primitive and driving. This isn’t a scene you might associate with hazy nights out in Berlin but it’s what you’d find if you ended up at a Kulku show. Kulku's music is a hard to define blend of percussive minimalism, folk, krautrock, post-punk and no wave, almost exclusively derived from acoustic sound sources. Their debut album ‘Fahren!' presents this unique sound-identity that they have been crafting for the best part of two decades. The A-side presents 3 tracks of percussive propulsion, minimalist xylophone motifs and repetitive drums alongside monotone organ, dramatic narration and woodwind instruments moving in and out of dissonant howls and melodic improvisation. The B-side is devoted to lighter tones, beginning with the glockenspiel minimalism of ‘Unterm Himmel’ and rounding the record out with trance inducing drone of the album’s title track which builds up into a cacophony of snare drums, dissonant accordion and melodica before fading out like dream. All songs composed and recorded in Berlin by Wenzlovar, Gatis Silde, Johannes Schmelzer-Ziringer, Johanna Riska, Cornelius Onitsch, Alexander Samuels and Maxfield Gassmann

 Artwork by Andrija Čugurović



Marking the 20th release on Invisible, Inc. is this special limited edition double-vinyl gatefold compilation featuring tracks from some of the most highly respected musicians of the last five decades. The astonishingly diverse palette of styles comes courtesy of renowned ambient innnovator Laraaji, multi-Grammy Award-winning producer and ground-breaking synthesist and sound engineer Malcolm Cecil (in his Tonto's Expanding Head Band guise), Italian 'Cosmic Disco' pioneer and DJ Daniele Baldelli, avantgarde experimentalist K. Leimer, New York electro synth-pop legend Richard Bone (all five of whom have been active since the '70s or earlier) as well as dub techno locked groove aficionados log(m), West Coast psychedelic electronics maestro Secret Circuit, Berlin-based synthesist/composer Eva Geist plus a veritable "who's who" of some of the finest producers of ambient, dub, downtempo, leftfield and experimental electronica ever collected together on a single piece of wax (or two in this case): Baikonour, Sordid Sound System, Causa, Ulysses, Epsilove, Luv*Jam, Higamos Hogamos, Randweg, Bronze Savage, Komodo Kolektif, Bal5000 and Natural Sugars. Eliciting a distinct sense of musical other-worldlyness, the title is perhaps more than just a nod to Philip K Dick's "Blade Runner" and hints at the idea that if these transmissions 'from beyond' are 'lost' they may in essence be more rooted in our distant past than in some science fiction future. Putting needle to record, ancient rhythms and hypnotic mantras merge with synthesized soundscapes and deep basslines to propel us upward from the primeval forest floor into steady orbit before engaging the hyperspace drive on a trajectory deep into the Great Mystery.

Domestic Exile warmly welcome the return of Grim Lusk, coming full circle to follow up 2018’s ‘SUNP0101’ after releasing under their Dip Friso and Sunny Balm aliases in the interim. ‘Diving Pool’ is a hallucinogenic concoction of marshy, aquatic, oscillated dubs and skittering, microtonal beat experiments. Grim Lusk's signature production style is in full effect, often occupying some liminal space nearing offbeat discordancy, but beautifully pulling together on the brink. Gelatinous machine funk rhythms and sweet, syrupy dub bass ooozing with a vibrant convergence of bright psychedelic greens, yellows and oranges, akin to bubbling sulphur pools and lava lakes, are present throughout the 6 tracks; Nuovo takes late 80’s drum machine patterns and twists them up with rough-cut vocal chops and long-form sampling of a 60’s film on the first iteration of ‘​​Il Gruppo”. Striding into the turbulent sea, Partans is kept jovial by rim shots, cymbals and snares fed back over the forward bass buzz. Not Enough is a bizarre, primordial, stretched-out gloop sludge half-speed version of the B-side track Too Much, twisted into new rhythmic territory by an off-kilter breakbeat sample. Diving Pool takes crushed, bouncing drum machines and loop-focussed experimentation to find incidental interplay between the two, whilst somehow retaining ebullient make-you-movable gusto. Angular rhythm and zealous sample manipulation seep through in Too Much, live drums patched, extrapolated and pulled further out in the mix, where jump cuts between familiar vocal chops and distorted tape delay contort manically- a warped, swinging echo of Slum Village's ‘I Don’t Know’. Wazoo rounds things out with the most club-leaning moment of the record, a saturated, throbbing atmosphere hanging over a beat-up, lurching drum sample layered with malleable pitched percussion and fuzz guitar. Peculiar shapes, fragmented shards of rhythmic patterns, crushed, crystallised snares, and congealed, jelly-like dubs; the music embodies a sense of carefree fun and playfulness, where dissolving layers of organic echoes, warm, slippery reverbs, and expansive phaser EFX stretch out into nebulous space…

Following the reissues of Pub's beloved early classics "Summer" and "Do You Regret Pantomime?" comes a generous EP of new material. Thankfully the euphoric ambient trance / dub pulse hasn't weakened at all: it's like he never went away. Just in time for fall, Ampoule takes a break from the reissue program to put out the first new material we've heard from Pub in what seems like forever. 'Autumn' plays like a direct continuation of the throbbing hypnotics we last heard on 2001's enduring "Do You Regret Pantomime?" - far more so than Pub's later releases like 2006's gloomy "Sekatuo Ton" and 2012's drifting "Creid", for example. Pub's production, though, has been dragged into a new era, and sounds brighter than ever: the title track brittle and fictile - it's the same old Pub, but with a fresh lick of paint and a nice pink bow. Other than the sound quality, the general musical mode is pretty much unchanged; Pub's distinct blend of arpeggiated analog trance, Chain Reaction dub sonix and THC-laced horizontalism still gives us that floating feeling we had when we heard 'Vilees Wideoo' or 'Summer'. 'Fall in Leaves' absorbs an 'Analogue Bubblebeath' level of oddness, with detuned synths and skittering, spring reverb-drenched beats, a mode that's extended on the record's most generous track - the 12-minute 'Bubble Folder'. It's the most upfront Pub's ever been, wiped clean of any production muck almost glittering in the sunlight, shifting from frangible electro to pulsing, inverted ambience and into key-stepped beat music before sparkling into silence. 'Essence' is the clear high point though, with drums stripped completely to allow Pub's familiar cascading arpeggios to take pride of place. Captivating electronic music that reminds us of simpler times.

Shirk is the new AOR flavored free improvisation solo album by Sam Shalabi featuring Eric Chenaux and Nadah El-Shazly where Synth Pop and Sound Poetry fester. Sam Shalabi is an Egyptian-Canadian composer, improviser and guitarist living between Montreal and Cairo. Starting out during the late 70s punk era, his work has evolved into an experimental synthesis of modern Arabic Music that incorporates free improvisation, traditional Arabic music, noise, classical, text, and jazz. Other than his numerous solo albums, he is a founding member of Shalabi Effect, a free improvisation quartet that bridges western psychedelic music and Arabic Maqam. He has also released four albums with Land Of Kush, the experimental 30-member orchestra which he directs. He has appeared on over 30 albums and toured Europe, North America and North Africa.

Modern Love debut from Delia Beatriz aka Debit; a study of Mayan wind instruments from the late post classical period, rebuilt as synth instruments and deployed with ultimate heft and wooooze. Delia Beatriz’s musical output straddles two distinct artistic poles; her debut solo album, 2017’s acclaimed “Animus”, oozed from sensual, beatless soundscapes to high-octane club music, while her 2019-released 'System' harnessed tribal guarachero elements while simultaneously scraping ideas from industrial techno. On 'The Long Count', the Mexican-American producer has inked her most rigorous statement to date, sublimating opaque ancestral knowledge into vaporous AI-stirred fog banks, activating an ancient rite that reaches into tomorrow. It’s audacious electro-acoustic archaeology that sounds disorientating, anachronistic and arcane. 'The Long Count' is rooted in research Beatriz made into Mayan wind instruments - whistles, ocarinas, flutes and trumpets - using the archive of the Mayan Studies Institute at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, the oldest and largest collection of its kind. Developing a set of digital instruments that could be played using different types of temperaments and scales, Delia processed these sounds using machine learning techniques to shuttle the distant past into our extant artistic universe, peering into Mexico’s pre-colonial history and weaving those ideas into complex tonalities gleaned from musique concrète and contemporary electro-acoustic music. Beatriz describes the Mayan instrumentation as ancestral technology, part of a world that’s not so much been forgotten, but purposefully erased. And although it’s impossible to know exactly how Mayan music may have sounded, it’s feasible to converse with history using modern technology to conduct a ceremony of remembrance. Featuring soundscapes that are haunted by indistinct, shared memories and centuries of pent-up emotion, the material here is as intentional, direct and meticulously crafted as the work of Deathprod or Thomas Köner; Debit's microtonal compositions are psychedelic to their core, shapeshifting through dimensions and painting complex mental images while retaining a stylistic focus and lucidity that’s all too rare. Although 'The Long Count' was nurtured by machines, human experience is coded into its DNA - an ancient-future heirloom that whispers through countless generations. File under: magick concrète.

Alexis Le Tan and Joakim return to Good Morning tapes as Full Circle. On 'From Back There Again' they glance backwards in order to progress forwards. They're on a mission to sloooow your circulation, as they take elements from ambient, trance and Italo disco and reduce the tempos to a gentle chug, resulting in a more spacious, laid-back psychedelic groove that wouldn't have been out of place in the back room of yer fave '90s rave, with a wee bit of contemporary flavour.

Jonas Wiese’s TIBSLC (standing for The International Billionaire’s Secret Love Child) presents its second album on the sferic label. ‘Hypertranslucent’ derives from the same recording sessions as 2021’s sprawling ‘Decisive Tongue Shifts - Situation Based Compositions’ double LP, with late Nineties ambient music being used as a particular source of inspiration to create evocations of massive cityscapes at night. and , after the post-industrial / deconstructed club. A work that integrates the Ethereal sound design of Mastering is also great with Stephan Mathieu! Limited to 500 copies.

You will be swallowed by the beauty, depth, and sharpness of the "over there" side. Kali Malone, a female minimalist living in Stockholm, Sweden, who is familiar with our big and big bestseller "The Sacrificial Code" and produces extremely excellent drone / experimental works from the depths of the current underground such as and The extremely rare debut work left in 2017 is jointly reissued by and ! The original was privately pressed as a numbered record with only a limited number of 100 copies, and it is a very popular work that has also added over $300 in the marketplace, and it is a miracle reprint! Works composed, recorded and produced in Stockholm from 2015 to 2016. R1 Reaktorhallen (Sweden's first nuclear reactor), electroacoustic studio EMS, and a unique hardcore minimalist made with strings, gongs, lutes, electronics, tape, etc. at various locations such as the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. / Noise Drone Masterpiece! Limited to 1000 copies.

Michel Banabila is an indispensable part of the Dutch experimental music scene, where he has acquired a special place with many, in the 40 years that he has been releasing music. Michel is also just as active as a composer for the theater and ballet world, as well as for TV productions, to considerable fame. The threat of drowning in the sea of his oeuvre is real in view of the unprecedented amount of output, but once sailing unmissable monolithic rock formations loom up rapidly. Echo Transformations' is one of them. It's a magical album, where everything falls into place in a rich domain inspired by the Fourth World dimension. A world of sound arises from our imagination, stimulating the senses. A concept album where every sigh has its place and where no superfluous tone can be heard. What remains is to embrace the inevitable surrender that accompanies unstoppable change. This is Banabila at his best.

The latest act to emerge from MFM's new album series is another super-powerful one. Heisei No Oto" is a masterpiece that presents even Japan's unique book-off style digs to the world, and "Virtual Dreams" is a must-have 90's techno and house compilation that looks through the prism of the new age revival. The Zenmenn, a mysterious new band from the newly established Music From Memory label, has released their debut album. Their fresh and organic indie music is a combination of oriental lefty pop, new age/ambient, Sufjan Stevens, and even Shintaro Sakamoto. The band's name may also come from the word "Zen"? Their timeless sound and vibes make for a great listening experience no matter where you are!

When not overseeing A&R and label operations for Isle Of Jura, label boss Kevin Griffiths makes time for music creation in his garden studio in Moana, a sleepy suburb of Adelaide in South Australia. It’s an idyllic location surrounded by palm trees and tropical birdlife and an inspiring spot to fire up the machines, typically with the studio door wide open to soak up the soundtrack provided by mother nature. The resulting tracks, recorded in the midst of the pandemic with no gig distractions, were all heavily influenced by this backdrop of tropical birdsong and wind blowing through the palms, field recordings of which made it into most of the tracks. The album traverses Deep House, Nu-disco, Balearica and Ambient along with some Leftfield samples and a heavy dose Dub throughout. The LP is Pressed on heavyweight 180 Gram Vinyl with sleeve design by IOJ resident designer Bradley Pinkerton.

1983’s Waves of Peace is an album of gentle reflection. The sound of ocean waves permeates every track. Sitar, tambura, synthesizer, and bamboo flute are among the instruments that Aziz & Friends use to conjure their blissful oceanic meditation. “Waves of Peace was born in the beautiful oceanside town of Santa Cruz, California.” Aziz recalls. “Living there in 1982 was the first timeI had ever lived so close to the ocean. I would walk down to the beach on a daily basis. Nature has always been a major source of inspiration in my quest to create beautiful original music. Equally important to me has been recognizing the healing potential of harmonious sound.” “Waves of Peace was my first album to combine instru- mental music with the sounds of nature. Graced by the presence of some truly exceptional local musicians, most of the music was performed and recorded live in the studio.” Aziz explains. “Waves of Peace was created to facilitate relaxation, meditation, healing, and awakening for the body, mind, heart and soul. Let the rhythmic waves of the ocean nourish and inspire you to find your peace within.”

Originally released in 1978, Music By William Eaton is a private-press album from the accomplished experimental stringed instrument builder. The atmospheric recording techniques, mixed with a hint of Fahey/Takoma-lineage make for a listening experience akin to the mountainscape drawing represented on the album cover. The experience may seem simple at first, but like any great trip in nature, new details consistently reveal themselves upon each listen.

“When I started building instruments, playing guitar took on a whole new dimension. From the conception to the birth of each instrument, new layers of meaning unfolded. Cycles, connections and interdependencies became apparent as I contemplated the growth of trees from seed to old age, and the transformation from raw wood to the building of a musical instrument. I sought out quiet natural environments to play and listen to the “voice” of my 6 string, 12 string, 26 string (Elesion Harmonium) and double neck quadraphonic electric guitar. Deep canyons contained a beautiful resonant quality and echo. A starlit night with a full moon provided all the reflection and endless space by which to project music into the cosmos. The sound of a bubbling stream and singing birds added a natural symphonic tapestry to a melody or chord pattern. As I perceived it, everything was participating in a serendipitous dance. Everything was part of the music.

During this time, I decided to record an instrumental album of music. The idea was simple; it would be a series of tone poems with no titles or any information attached, only the words ‘Music by William Eaton.’ While some of the songs evolved out of composed chord progressions, most of the songs were played spontaneously, only on the occasion of the recording. These improvised songs haven’t been played since.” -- William Eaton

"For the very first time, ITDR spaceship travels back in time to unearth 4 tracks from 'Genuine' (aka Chris Zippel) finest productions originally released on Ninetysix sounds in 1997. Celebrating the 25th anniversary of this project, 'Nu Ambient Grooves' is the ultimate mindtrip experience for downtempo, IDM and TB-303 lovers."

Bruno De Angelis and Giovanna Gulinello unwittingly met in London in the late 70’s, after being introduced by a mutual friend. Both Bruno and Giovanna arrived with varying ambitions. Giovanna wanted to learn English or be a painter, while Bruno found work at the Royal Post Office, which he found testing. It wasn’t until Bruno rescued Giovanna from an awkward date that the pair became a couple. At the time, music was just something they did for fun. Bruno already had an acoustic guitar and G bought a bass. Those were the days when you could start a new band, whether you could play or not, and new independent labels were springing up. Rough Trade Records was literally around the corner. In 1981 the pair moved back to Italy and found an apartment in Rome. It’s here that they began to focus on their music and where they started ‘recording’ their tracks. First, they would record the rhythm, maybe add the Gigster (the name of their “cheap drum machine”), the bass, and then, as they made a copy of the first cassette onto a second cassette they would add guitar, more synth, or both at the same time. After that, it was not unusual to copy from the second cassette back into the first cassette adding even more “stuff”. As with many artists during the early 80’s, the Influenza Prods’ sound was the direct result of the accessibility of emerging electronic instruments and the recording equipment available to them. The duo was resourceful and inventive, acquiring new equipment as resources allowed. They recorded dialogue from British Soap Operas on their TV set, which were later added to their tracks, while further making use of their family’s cutlery sets, which were used to fill in certain percussion sections The duo’s homespun recordings found a web of admirers in the unofficial distribution of tape trading and mail-art scenes. Despite the DIY ethos and the fact that most tapes were handmade, the Influenza Prods managed to ‘release’ three tapes which comprised of the Greatest Tits (1983), Cheek-A-Bomba (1984) and Quasi Solo (1985). Bruno and Giovanna were sadly subjected to serious family problems, including the loss of loved ones in their lives and eventually parted ways, concluding the Influenza Prods. However, to this day they remain close friends who keep in touch regularly.

You’ll Never Get To Heaven (Alice Hansen and Chuck Blazevic aka Slow Attack Ensemble) returns with their fourth release Wave Your Moonlight Hat for the Snowfall Train, a collection of ethereal songs that move through the mercurial weather patterns of minimalism and dream pop. The duo named this album after the closing track on Phil Yost’s 1967 release Bent City, inspired by its prescient use of delay processing in elevating spare beatless arrangements into haunting arrays of sonic afterimages — an approach Hansen and Blazevic explore on this outing in their own way, with a few favoured instruments and a Chorus Echo and Revox in hand. The result is a collection of sparse, lightly dub-infused songs and instrumentals, equally icy and wistful, characterized by melodic fretless basslines, spaced-out harmonics, watery piano and marimba, hushed vocals, and tape echo treatments. Stylistically, it’s almost as if the duo was imagining what an early This Mortal Coil demo might have sounded like had Ivo enlisted in lieu of the usual cast, with a pared back L’Empire Des Sons as the session band, and June Hardin or a young Julee Cruise on lead vocals. The album evokes an overcast autumnal evening of cloud-watching, an inner journey witness to an expansive spectrum of moods, from nimbus clouds to shimmering sun showers. RIYL: Broadcast, Weekend’s ‘81 Demos, Chantal Weber, Orquesta de las Nubes, Hydroplane, The Moon and the Melodies, Eberhard Weber.

宮沢正一率いた伝説の実験的パンク・バンド「ザ・ラビッツ」による貴重音源の数々を集めた公式LPが、ゆらゆら帝国やAunt Sally、向井千惠作品などを手がけたニューヨークの要注意レーベル〈Mesh-Key〉から登場。アンダーグラウンドなリスナーを中心にカルト的な人気を博すも、これまで公式LPがリリースされることの無かったザ・ラビッツ初のLP盤！「わ、わ、わ、」や「名犬バター犬君号伝」「Winter Song」といった貴重音源を全10曲収録。

EM Records celebrates Roland P. Young’s 80th adventurous year on the planet with “Spontaneous Bounce”, the sixth RPY solo release on the label. After a musical youth in Kansas City followed by audio activities in San Francisco and New York and elsewhere, he began releasing self-produced solo music in 1980 with “Isophonic Boogie Woogie”, the title of which hints at the forward-thinking yet earthy nature of his sound, a soulful and spiritual multi-world avant-music, drawing on elements of ambient, jazz, soul, new age and electronic music. His ‘Isophonic Music’ concept crystallizes these elements through a comprovisational use of soprano sax, keyboards, drum machines and the possibilities of the recording studio. This release features 13 new pieces, a diverse array of appealing and joyful celebrations of music and life. Available on CD, LP and (DL/download). Come and join the celebration!

First Babe Roots album perfectly executed. This is the perfect balance between dub structures and reggae rhythms. Album composed and produced by Babe Roots in Berlin (DE) and Turin (IT) between 2013 and 2016. Mastered by Mathieu Berthet at Berthet Mastering Paris. Artwork by Miranda. 12" 180gr black vinyl.