MUSIC

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

koleżanka is Kristina Moore: vocals, guitars, bass, drum machine, synths, glass clanks, piano Ark Calkins: bass, drums, vibraphone, hand claps and aux percussion clarinet written and performed by Elana Riordan, additional vocals on “Saddle Up, Cowboy” performed by Ark Calkins, Danny Clifton, Abigail Clark, and Steven Head tour guide, spiritual advisement, Sherman Filterbank operator on “Goliath”, ebow guitar on “River Rushing”, and unfailing kindness and attentiveness to The Process by Steven Head all songs written by Kristina Moore/koleżanka music (ASCAP)

koleżanka is Kristina Moore: vocals, guitars, bass, drum machine, synths, glass clanks, piano Ark Calkins: bass, drums, vibraphone, hand claps and aux percussion clarinet written and performed by Elana Riordan, additional vocals on “Saddle Up, Cowboy” performed by Ark Calkins, Danny Clifton, Abigail Clark, and Steven Head tour guide, spiritual advisement, Sherman Filterbank operator on “Goliath”, ebow guitar on “River Rushing”, and unfailing kindness and attentiveness to The Process by Steven Head all songs written by Kristina Moore/koleżanka music (ASCAP)

Lost & found Japanese jazz-funk from 1986 surfaces for the first time on Estonia’s Memme Vaev, featuring overproof levels of wiggly machine funk backed by a driving Italo-acid remix by US-based Estonian JT (DJ Julius Talvik) “With unprecedented prosperity and growing worldwide fame in broadcast, game, and synthesizers, the 1980s Japan entered a golden decade. New genre splashes from technopop, Pacifica, and AOR/City pop merged local sensibilities with jazz-funk and Latin influences. Spiced in sugary US West coast sparkle and boasting naive lyrics with opulent arrangements and cover designs, it beamed millions of listeners on the cosmic journeys of Japan and its connections with Asia. Looking to bet on the city pop phenomenon, a group of young, just out-of-school in-house studio players gathered for ad hoc recording sessions between 1982-1986. Spearheaded by up-and-coming associate producer and arranger HASEGAWA Joe and keyboardist KATSURAGI Mariko their goal was to produce a hit album concept with a musical journey from Japan to Asia and beyond. Just short of wrapping a handful of test-pressings for studio and radio executives and a few tapes of demo recordings, the sessions came to an abrupt halt in 1986 with a striking personal loss. With the band's consequent disbanding and members embarking on their decades-long sessions careers, the original tapes were archived and lost in the Akihabara district for decades… …until Japanese pop culture *connoisseur extraordinaire* and producer Sten SALUVEER aka MILDHANS discovered a rare demo of the original recordings in one of Tokyo's Ebisu district's revered vinyl bars. After a lengthy period of digging and tracings for the original tapes, the lush soundscapes of KATSURAGI Mariko and HASEGAWA Jo are finally here to take you on a jazzy journey to City Heights of Asia.”

Esa's Aweh label is back with its second release, this time Esa with his Afro-Synth Band share their Brazilian & South African boogie influences on “Vem Comigo”. You might have caught the band over Summer 2022 at festivals including Lente Kabinet in Amsterdam, or The Jazz Cafe in London which featured special guest Steve Monite. This is a special collaboration with Brazilian singer & songwriter Diego Moraes from São Paulo, and Forest Law who’s also part of the Afro-Synth Band.

Cult jazz soundtrack to supernatural Soho strangler epic by Swiss electronic pioneer held captive since 1966. There’s a devious religious sect underneath the Tower Of London which consists of some of the most greedy and powerful men and women in the world! The plot of this obscure Soho-based German thriller perhaps feels more believable during today’s political climate than it did when it was released back in 1966, taking die hard fans of Edgar Wallace paperback adaptations on a slightly more macabre and mystical journey than they had come to expect. What is perhaps less believable is the almost “criminal” fact that this films unheard spooked-out jazz score by one of the most innovative European players and composers has spent almost fifty-five years locked away, shrouded by mystery, not unlike the stolen Parvati Emerald that lies at the centre of the storyline of Der Würger vom Tower. For those who thought soundtracks and conceptual cinematic records like Mad Monster Party and The Vampires Of Dartmoore were unrivalled in there phantasmagorical micro-genres, well the time has come for the original “jazz électronicien” Bruno Spoerri and the Finders Keepers archivists to unleash thick plodding bass lines, mind-bending percussion effects, wayward electric organs and breakneck European jazz to the loneliest part of your record library. Encapsulated in the unbroken chains of baritonal chants by mystical mad monks during cloaked underground ceremonies while the life-blood of some of the most important and coveted players of the Swiss, French and German jazz scenes perform outlandish musical exchanges under Dr. Spoerri’s watchful eye Der Würger vom Tower delivers on a rare conceptual brief marking a truly unique moment in their combined careers. Having finally been liberated from Bruno Spoerri’s meticulous master tape vault this music takes us to the furthest reaches spanning right back to his first-ever feature-length soundtrack commission in order to find its place alongside other recently resuscitated oblique jazz scores by the likes of Basil Kirchin, Krzysztof Komeda (Cul-De-Sac), Angelo Michajlov (Saxana/In The Night Kitchen), Roger Webb and Jonny Scott. For an established jazz composer like Spoerri, who would quickly gravitate towards the rise of electronic music to become one of its biggest champions and pioneers, it is easy to identify within this score the early murmurs of minimal electronic sound design and bizarre jarring keyboard motifs which wouldn’t sound out of place in recordings by Sun Ra if you can imagine an unlikely recording session with the John Barry Seven. Heinz Pfenninger’s thick plodding bass notes (complete with double tracking and spring reverbs) embody the classic Bert Kaempfert and Tony Fisher wet bass sound (that will instantly appeal to fans of Dave Richmond and Serge Gainsbourg), successfully pinning down the sodden plot against the damp underground canals of Sixties London in conjunction with legendary Swiss jazz drummer Rolf Bänninger as the rhythm sections unwittingly channels McCallum and Axelrod in the dark shadows. Translated as The Strangler In The Tower this lesser-known thriller possibly stretched the imaginations of cinematic crime buffs beyond the genre’s parameters before disappearing into obscurity. Opening up with Sixties shots of Big Ben and Oxford Circus before a cat and mouse chase through Soho (and a quick stop at Paul Raymond’s Revuebar strip club) this film, under the direction of established TV programme maker Hans Mehringer, sees a cast of bizarre red cloaked occultists called The Brothers Of Compensatory Righteousness gather in the deepest chambers of England’s capital to worship their “holy root” and retrieve the scared jewel that binds them. Following a varied cast, including renowned burlesque dancers and confusing twin brothers, this ambitious seventy minute whodunnit (replete with the obligatory tangental plot) might pay the right kind of niche aficionado in rich dividends. It is the soundtrack, however, that is the real sacred jewel in Bruno Spoerri’s crown as the leader and pioneer of Switzerland’s electronic underground (not to mention sample source amongst rap royalty) and a mysterious monarchial figure in European jazz and music technology. A cult soundtrack in every sense of the word. Bound in secrecy. Bound in mystery. Now bound in faux leather and tough cotton. Yes, it’s another Finders Keepers special edition, annointing another holy grail discovery to its highest macabre and monarchical status… with an interactive twist. The hooded cult of crooked politicians, royal ne’er-do-wells and general corruptors of power and privilege provide the underlying narrative of this 1966 witchy crime Euro sleaze which demanded a unique soundtrack by a great experimental mind. Up steps Swiss medical scholar an electronic jazz pioneer Bruno Spoerri for his big screen debut and the rest is history, or better still, phantom funk folklore! A would-be doppelgänger to the likes of Dracula’s Music Cabinet and Mad Monster Party including an added burst of plundering Sun Ra synth and am-dram Don Cherry Druidic drones, this obscure soundtrack album is finally excavated from the Spoerri vault and packaged in fine robes like the hooded cult at the centre of the plot. Disguised In red mottled pleather with bespoke eye holes this limited edition include a custom printed insert with moving eye feature to reveal with actress or composer before you delve into a written interview (exclusive to this format) and rare images and trivia from the original film. Clearly one of the labels finest special editions thus far, this edition represents a sacred jewel in Bruno’s discography, not unlike the stolen emeralds which green light the murderous motives of the strangler in the tower.

Previously unreleased, Manchester, 1991. Betonska hits hard with their second release travelling back to an essential period of dance music history. A record blending rave, downtempo, ragga, dancehall, and early hardcore/jungle; a crossover which continues to shape and define some of the most innovative sounds of contemporary club culture. Produced by Philip Kirby, with vocals/rap by Martin Merchant (together Two The Hardway). On the A side Graham Massey (808 State) accompanied them on the synths, and Howard Walmsley played the saxophone on the B1 and B2. All tracks were recorded in ’91 in Phil’s house, where “funnily enough Massey co-wrote ‘Army of Me’ with Björk!”. Find more info about it in the text below. The whole release consists of solely ’91 originals: a deliberate choice to not take it out of context. The A side serves two versions of ‘Who Said?’, a mysterious midtempo jam with a jumpy acid line, organic yet punchy drums and a mesmerizing lead synth, played by none other than Graham Massey. The instrumental version has a more elusive feel to it, while the Vocal version tops it off with toasting by Manchester’s very own Martin ‘Sugar’ Merchant. Both tracks were pressed on the earlier test pressing from ’91, but have never been released officially before. The flipside boasts two mesmerizing versions of ‘Hot Number’. Driving protojungle rhythms and Sugar Merchant’s ragga vocals, are fused with secondary vocals by Phil and a saxophone solo by Howard Walmsley to form a seamless and smokey sonic concoction that will get bodies moving. Whilst the B1 surfs on a slick breakbeat rhythm with a deep bassline, the B2 bounces on a 4/4 beat with a pulsing hardcore bassline. To top it off, the B3 and final track in the running order is a deep and dubby downtempo dancehall track. Originally produced in the 90s, but recently finished by Phil, ‘Blossom Street Dub’ has an added synth line and an iconic King Tubby filter which help to enhance a time-warping, headrush effect. This track, alongside the ‘Hot Number (Alternative Version)’ B1 tune, will both be pressed for the very first time on vinyl, having been absent from the original ’91 test pressing.

Look around you. In recent years ambient music has changed and encountering Jon Hassell's fourth world design has become easy. Most of the time there’s no feeling, no narrative, a nothingness of ideas through layers and layers of pastiche and boring bedroom music. This is not bashing. Just a reminder that sometimes the information trap delays an understanding of how good music really is. “Cavalcante” is the new release by funcionário (born Pedro Tavares). You’ll find Jon Hassell in these eleven pieces. And yes, sometimes you’ll think about ambient music. Most of the time you’ll wonder about what is really happening. And why it's only now you’re hearing about this twenty-something musician from Setúbal, Portugal. A little bit more than one minute into “En Garde!”, the opening track, one feels challenged by the idea that everything that was listened up to that moment was a false start. The piece abruptly stops, flips some digital sound, and restarts in a whole new direction. As this happens it becomes obvious we are in for a treat. Those two, three seconds create a sensation that everything happens in a moment that introduces you to funcionário's craft: delicate complex sounds infatuated with the idea of movement and the never-ending notion that there’s no dividers in the fourth world. Music can go beyond that. As it moves forward – “Verde”, “Sierra” or “Publicidade Arco e Flecha” -, the album (his fourth) morphs around variations or perceptions of ambient / electronic / experimental music. And as the language evolves, it hints on how funcionário keeps stretching the boundaries of digital music as he wishes to advance to a more analog setup. In a way, he confronts foundational ideas while having breakthroughs and realizing he is at a top level. Justifiably ambitious, bright and discreetly edgy. We dare to say: monumental.

Antipodean Anomalies 2 is Left Ear Records most ambitious project to date, a compilation that took over 4 years to license and includes 17 artists across a double LP. AA2 picks up where the first iteration left off, with co-compilers Chris Bonato & Bridget Small continuing to dig through the music of the geographically isolating and maverick landscapes of Australia & New Zealand As with the first iteration, Left Ear continues to excavate the music from these vast micro-scenes that evolved out of a number of small community-focused domains creating their own unique reinterpretation of musical influences from near and far, spanning the years 1980 – 1992. The compilation scopes an overlooked epoch from Adelaide, presenting acts such as the DNA Lounge, TCH & Will Kuiper. A close-knit community of like-minded mates that made distinctive electronic music together throughout the 80’s, all of which remained unreleased until now. Buchanan Holbrook capture the ambiance of Perth’s heat prodded afternoon’s perfectly with their track Hunger, a breezy 9-minute minimal-jazz jam that includes kalimba, water samples & conga. Furthermore, artists like David Watson & Colin Offord use samplers and handmade instruments to offer a more abrasive and experimental aesthetic. To round out the compilation, artists such as Jane Stevenson, discovered a 7” at an op-shop and found the needle stuck on the word, ‘Aloha’. Using tape loops, she chose to highlight imperfections rather than hide them and in unison managed to cross boundaries of time; the 60s (album voice) and the 80s (my voice), of location; Hawaii and Australia, and of language; “Aloha and Hi”. This ethos echoes the compilation's vision, to champion artists that implement impromptu creativity, and who have a desire to create regardless of their surroundings and resources. AA2 signs off with the Back to Back Zithers, drawing inspiration from the haiku poems of Basho. To illustrate this, Kari set a Kacapi improvisation to the backdrop of the cicada chorus of summertime in outer Melbourne.

Some notes: tracks A1, A2, A3, A4, B2, B3 and B4 are mastered from 1980's demo tapes that Piitu got from the artists. Piitu exchanged letters and tapes actively with artists in punk, industrial and experimental scenes from all over the world. Some of the tapes we had to leave out from this compilation because we couldn't reach the artists. The three new tracks among the older ones underline the principle of infinity and immortality of music Piitu Lintunen: The first idea for this compilation came one night when Tommi text messaged me while I was having a good time with my Raisio-born punk friends. Tommi suggested that I compile an album from my musical history. After considering different directions I went through my archives and found a box of 1980's demo tapes. Some of the tapes were from 1981 and 1982, when we did the punk zine Pöly with my brother Sakke Lintunen. I had totally forgotten about many of them. A beautiful track from a Nurse with Wound demo turned out to be made by a NWW studio technician that lived somewhere in the Canarian Islands in early 2000. He couldn't be found. At first this collection consisted only of demo tracks. Then I got a feeling that I want to include some new tracks too. I asked for a track from Clair whose debut solo is one of my recent favorites. Corumn was another contemporary artist I thought should be there. Jimi Tenor sent me some demos when he moved to NYC in early 1990's. I chose one of those tracks for the compilation. I learned to know Pekka Airaksinen in the early 1980's. He passed away in 2019. Pekka has a big archive of unfinished songs. His wife Maarit gave me some unfinished tracks and Jimi Tenor made a new track out of them. DDAA sent me a tape in the 1986's. After I asked one of the tracks for this compilation they wanted to re-record the track. And they did so in a very original style. Kostruktivists sent me a tape in 1983 while they were recording Psykho Genetica. All 4 tracks from the tape could have been suitable here, but Opening Signs was the one. Ramleh's Black Ark is a unreleased chapter from the recording of Grazing on Fear in 1987. All of the tracks are electronic experimentations. In early 80's I did a lot of cassette exchange. It was a way of communication in the punk spirit. Everybody knew each other. Tasaday, Odal and Neljän seinän jumalat (my own project) are examples of the active players of the time.

Collaborators since 2020 who have also made music with AIR Krew, Russian producer Piper Spray and multimedia artist Lena Tsibizova present their first album-length work in ‘Leaving Memory’. Compelling freak zone music encompassing ambient, outsider pop, dub and industrial elements and weaving them into a coherent sonic patchwork.

Wipe your blade clean. The bloodline of Eastern European kosmische and groundbreaking, grinding cinematic psych rock finally emerges from fifty years of forbidden forestland to fill your thirsty grails. Poland’s prime progressive provocateurs Żuławski and Korzyński finally expose the jagged roots of Possession and The Silver Globe and give the devil his due via this historical vinyl release. If an opening strapline that reads “Forget everything that you thought you knew about the history of psychedelic rock and horror movies” appeals to you, then further potentially hyperbolic phrases like “Lost Grail” and “Banned Forever” will surely clinch the deal, leaving the hugely significant wider context of this dream come true release surplus to requirement. But as we hope you have come to expect from Finders Keepers releases “The devil is in the detail” and the fact that any mention of the perpetually elusive original master tapes to a 1972 project entitled Diabeł and the phrase “Holy Grail” have become synonymously associated only adds the twisted irony that surrounds this genuine masterpiece of both aforementioned fields. For those fastidious enough to pursue the hunt, these unearthed recordings represent the crowning glory of the lifelong unison of Maestro Andrzej Żuławski and filmmaker Andrzej Korzyński, two genuine mavericks of Polish experimental cinema who challenged artistic and societal norms, on both sides of a politically restricted regime and on an international artistic stage, without compromise. Friends since childhood, Korzyński and Żuławski may have become divided by limelight and geography (Żuławski the intrepid emigre), but they remained united in their kaleidoscopic creative vision, resulting in a fractured stream of troublesome and mind-bending golden era collaborations such as Possession, The Silver Globe, and Third Part Of The Night. This long-awaited liberation of the psychedelic masterpiece known as Diabeł finally completes the duo’s full vista with what many consider the most vital piece of the prism.

The long-awaited debut album of Daniel Villarreal, a drummer and DJ from Panama who lives in Chicago and is known to many for his work with Dos Santos, Wild Belle, The Los Sundowns and more. It's a debut worldwide, but it's been widely known in Chicago's music scene for a long time, and almost every night on the bustling 18th Avenue of his hometown Pilsen, at least one place has been loved enough to see his DJ. person. This work collaborates with Chicago, including Bardo Martinez (Chicano Batman), Jeff Parker (Tortoise), Marta Sofia Honer (Adrian Younge), Anna Butterss (Jenny Lewis), Aquiles Navarro (Irreversible Entanglements). A masterpiece of instrumental funk that has been recorded in several places in Los Angeles and is based on jazz but psychedelicly fused with Latin rhythms! Led by the mysterious gong of the opening song "Bella Vista", the synth sound of William Onyeabor style is intense "Uncanny" to the labyrinth where you can't get out of it. Various styles of works such as "In / On" and "Patria" dedicated to the organist Avelino Munoz in his native Panama are a masterpiece! Recommended for fans such as and !

Bukaroo Bank is actually Mauskovic’s second album. There, the band reinvents both their approach and their sound, while maintaining the rhythm-forward euphoria heard on their debut album and surrounding singles. It is one of those albums that sounds brashly live, like you’re in the room while the jams are being kicked out, but in fact uses the studio very shrewdly. Recorded in 2020, during one of the Netherlands’ intermittent lockdown bouts, for this one the MDB wanted to step up from their previous homebase, Garage Noord – an ad hoc Amsterdam space for recording, practise and after-hours parties. They chose Electric Monkey, operated by engineer Kasper Frenkel. His stacks of what Nicola calls “very strange equipment”, and ability to sprinkle magic dub dust over everything, suited the vibe perfectly. The results glow and shiver with assembled synth sounds, rhythms spliced and echoed in a way that hails late Jamaican dub great Lee Perry – maybe the band’s biggest influence. Some sections might remind you of Afro-disco or slightly older highlife, others industrial prototypes like early Cabaret Voltaire, or 1980s On-U Sound mainstays like African Head Charge, or NYC groovers such as Liquid Liquid... there are outbreaks of saxophone, congas, echo units, wah-wah disco guitars, beats that sound programmed but aren’t (a nod to MDB’s industrial side). If that sounds fun to you, be assured that Bukaroo Bank is an irrepressibly fun album – but one that contains multitudes.

"The phenomenon of the sound and music created here is very mysterious. These pieces of music, created without any intention of being published, reached my ears without warning. Of course, this happened because I have lived a life devoted to a certain kind of music, but there is a chance I would never have listened to them in my life. But, they came to me. Now they play over and over in my listening space - blending into the air that surrounds me. Vibrating. It is as if they had always been there from a long time ago." Chee Shimizu (Organic Music, Japan)

Ayanda Sikade on Drums Nduduzo Makhathini on Piano Simon Manana on Alto Sax Nhlanhla Radebe on Bass Produced by Ayanda Sikade Recorded by Peter Auret at Sumo Sound Mixed and Mastered by Gavan Eckhart at Soul Fire Studios Artwork: Michael MacGarry Cover photo: Vuyo Giba

New work from the enigmatic duo Tav Exotic, 4 tracks to tantalize and energize your mind and body. Private Stress is proud and honored to have this E.P. as our first release!

We write to you with the conclusions of our investigation into the synthesized audio transmissions picked up by the deep space telescope at regular intervals since 1986. The source was traced to two brothers in Kawasaki, Japan, who identified themselves as Satoshi and Makoto. When we raided the building, they were huddled around a synthesizer manufactured by the Casio Corporation, model number CZ-5000. 

In their archives we discovered a wealth of colourful and ear-pleasing material created entirely using this music-making device in the early 1990s. We asked them to provide copies so that we could make these compositions available to the public for the first time. They handed us a compact disc that bore the handwritten code “ST006”.

Scientific Bulletin From The Safe Trip Institute, Amsterdam. 

Our latest communication to colleagues concerns an audio artefact – library reference code ST019 – provided by our esteemed Japanese brothers Satoshi and Makoto. They unearthed it from their own archive of musical experimentations and laboratory tests, which have been ongoing since the 1990s. They have shared it so that the process of peer reviewing can begin in earnest. 

We have undertaken thorough testing in the Safe Trip Laboratory and offer the following observations: 

Colleagues in Japan provided us with sample product of the following audio artefact – file number ST015 – believing that it may be relevant to the Safe Trip Institute’s ongoing research in this area of study. After rigorous testing and analysis, we would like to offer the following observations: 
  
• By running each of the 10 pieces of music that make up the artefact through the Past Fire Particle Analyzer, we have ascertained that every single note, chord and aural element was created using the CZ-5000, an electronic instriment built by Japan’s Casio Corporation. 

• One of our researchers discovered that if you assign a Pantone colour code to each different musical note featured on the artefact, all bar 734 of the 1,867 “spot” colours are present. By gathering these together on one screen, she discovered that most of the “musical colours” employed by Satoshi & Makoto were shades of purple, orange, red, green, yellow and pink. 

• In laboratory tests, listeners were instinctively drawn to the following percussion-free compositions: ‘Crawl Up (ST019-02)’, a combination of vibrant melodies and rumbling sub-bass; ‘Updraft (ST019-08)’, which one listener claimed helped him see through time; and ‘Kass (ST019-09)’, a musical voyage through neural pathways that should interest colleagues within the world of phrenology. 

• Test subjects also responded positively to a number of other artefacts, with one insisting that ‘Corendor (ST019-03)’ induced intense feelings of joy thanks to its use of vibrant melodies and “shuffling beats”. We draw no conclusions from this comment but think it worthy of further discussion. 

We invite colleagues the world over to analyse and test this audio further in order to increase our understanding of Mr Satoshi and Mr Makoto’s archive aural artefacts. We eagerly await your correspondence. 

Concocted in a share house in the South of Brisbane in the mid-80s, a small collective of well-acquainted musicians including Jon Anderson, Rainer Guth, Gary McFeat & Rod Owen gathered to compose film soundtracks, music for pictures, therefore ‘Picture Music’. To this end, a ‘spec’ tape of Picture Music recordings would be produced to give to potential clients and or sold to local stores. A distinct album comprising a collection of ambient, minimal-jazz and experimental music. If there is a red thread running through the Picture Music album, it is its "late night" ambience. The wrath of the sub-tropical summer heat of Brisbane is not kind on electronic equipment, which would crash regularly by day. So, all recording was done in the relative cool of the late evening, in a room only dimly lit by lamp and candle. The Picture Music collective would make music and party all through the night, departing around sunrise. They would sleep through the heat of the day, only to return in the evening for more of the same. This 2021 reissue of their self-titled 1987 cassette, was taken from the original master tapes and remains an evocative representation of the music that resulted from the late-night, dimly-lit, atmospheric-enabled environment, that sparked the creativity of a group of like-minded friends in a tiny corner of Brisbane. Dedicated to the memory Rainer Guth.

In January 2021, Eelco Topper (Felbm) went into hermit mode by way of a two-week residency at Buitenplaats Doornburgh, a former monastery on the outskirts of his hometown of Utrecht, Netherlands. He had already intended to use only natural elements for inspiration, such as naturally-occurring textures and patterns, and the earthiness of acoustic instruments like singing bowls and a range of wooden percussion. On arrival, the contemplative architecture of the building and the peace of the surrounding landscapes energized Topper so much that these initial ideas blossomed into nearly 50 minutes of intimate 4-track cassette recordings. Following the residency, Topper collaborated with a cast of local guest musicians on flute, saxophone and cello, infusing the original rhythmic foundation of percussion and acoustic guitar with a lush melodic backdrop.
 The resulting new release – simply titled ‘Elements of Nature’ - marries the fluttering melodies and lo-fi cassette sound of earlier Felbm releases with a new conceptual approach and more varied sonic toolkit. Here, Topper successfully preserves the joyful naïveté of the Tapes series while exploring sweeping new ground, resulting in a decisive step forward for Felbm as a composer, producer and artist. ‘Elements of Nature’ was first released in November 2021 on limited edition cassette, accompanied by a riso-printed book of artwork. 
Illustrated once more by long-time collaborator Joost Stokhof, the artwork assembles Stokhof’s ink drawings together with the analogue photographs that inspired them, taken by Felbm during his residency.!

In an effort to sublimate the negative energy surrounding everyone in 2020, legendary Japanese heavy rock band Boris focused all of their energy creatively and turned out the most extreme album of their long and widely celebrated career, "NO." The band self-released the album, desiring to get it out as quickly as possible but intentionally called the final track on the album "Interlude" while planning its follow-up. The follow-up comes with "W", the band's debut album for Sacred Bones Records. The record opens with the same melody as "Interlude" in a piece titled "I want to go to the side where you can touch..." and in contrast to the extreme sounds found on "NO", this new album whispers into the listener's ear with a trembling hazy sound meant to awaken sensation. On all of "W" Wata carries the lead vocal duties. In general the styles on the album range from noise to new age, as is typical with one of our generation's most dynamic and adventurous bands, but there is a thread of melodic deliberation through each song that successfully accomplishes the band's goal of eliciting deep sensation. Be it through epic sludgey riffs, angelic vocal reverberations or the seduction of their off-kilter percussion, Boris will have you fully under their spell. This languid and liquifying sound is perfectly represented in the beautiful Kotao Tomozawa cover art and in suGar yoshinaga's sound production. "NO" and "W" weave together to form NOW, a duo of releases that respond to one another. In following their hardest album with this sensuous thundering masterpiece they are creating a continuous circle of harshness and healing, one that seems more relevant now than ever and shows the band operating at an apex of their musical career.

PAN is pleased to announce the debut release from Lifted, an ongoing collaborative project initiated by Matt Papich (AKA Co La) and Beautiful Swimmers’ Max D.

Drawing on studio sessions recorded in their respective hometowns of Baltimore and Washington DC, the album sees the pair break free from the constrictions of the grid and exercise their versatility through improvised fusion. Working outside the framework that underlies their solo output, the eight tracks on offer showcase experiments in freeform techno, hyaline electronics, and ambient, with the duo reaching out to Motion Graphics, 1432 R co-founder Dawit Eklund, and Jeremy Hyman for additional synthesis, drumset and percussion.

The album also exhibits solo performances from Gigi Masin and Jordan GCZ (Juju & Jordash), who submitted overdubs from their bases in Venice and Amsterdam.

The album is mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, pressed on 140g LP. It features photography by Traianos Pakioufakis and artwork by Bill Kouligas.

 

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Leading dons of hybrid dembow club music, Nick León & DJ Python cap a mad couple of years with four metallic, reticulated electro-ton zingers on the latter’s Worldwide Unlimited label. Chasing up León’s summer rave anthem ‘Xstasis’ and production on Rosalía’s ‘Motomami’, and Python’s winding annum including ‘Club Sentimientos Vol. 2’ plus a Sangre Nueva followup with Florentino & Kelman Duran; the pair build on months of residency + hanging at club Suero in Miami with four mercurial fusions finessed with sick, divergent production palettes and techniques. Bridging their known styles into something altogether new, the ‘Split’ EP gives up two solo shots by both artists. Nick León cooks up the spiny ace ‘Nerves’ with its hackled metallic melody set to martial dembow swag and grimiest bass grind, whilst his ‘Love Potion’ pushes the tempo to near percolated broken beats zones, and opens out the vibe with breezy chords and fluid texturing. On the other hand, Python whisks jaunty reggaeton trills and aerosolised electronics in ‘I’m Tired’, and slants off into psychedelic-impressionist abstraction on ‘uwu’ with its un-stitched tresillo patterns and groggy pads coloured well out-of-the-lines. A+ madness.