MUSIC

A deeply confounding trip into the sublime from master of contextual dream-weaving Nozomu Matsumoto on perhaps his most heart-piercingly beautiful work to date, including a 13 minute choral section that might just be the most stunning piece of pseudo-classical/liturgical alchemy we’ve heard all year. Huge recommendation for followers/lovers of Kara-Lis Coverdale, Ryan Trecartin or Mica Levi’s ‘Zola’ score Leading on from his ’Remain Calm’ album to accompany visual components by regular collaborator Nile Koetting, ‘Immunotherapy’ offers therapeutic solace through a personalised form of Japanese environmental music. A conceptual continuation of themes explored on 2018’s ‘Climatotherapy’ and 2020’s ‘Sustainable Hours’; Nozomu’s 3rd solo vinyl release reprises his uncanny ability to evoke a reflective headspace with a blend of classical ambient tropes, text-to-speech synthesis, and a contemporary cinematic vernacular that’s both nuanced and moving. In 2022, against the backdrop of global warfare, a pandemic, and ecological collapse, Nozomu’s work grasps the nettle with a sober lucidity to make time and space for his, and your, wellbeing. ‘Immunotherapy’ carefully evokes its own temporality and atmospheric conditions via a grandiose but intimate palette of strings, keys, blissed chorales, and electronic webbing which provide the bed for narration by Amazon’s vocaloid, Polly. The results create an unusual duality - a human/inhuman intimacy rooted in some uncertain semi-robotic near-future that references the original ‘80s era of classic Japanese ambient music, which itself emerged as a soothing response to the headlong rush of a technologically enhanced/enchanted society. Across six parts in 22 minutes, ‘Immunotherapy’ resolves from the initial inset of a panic attack in public, via passages reflecting on “diseases of affluence” thru to spine freezing synth pads and an extraordinary denouement of emotive Koto and shearing synthesis on ‘Vertigo’ before entering a final state of blissed stasis on that closing 13 minute ‘Filippo Pacini’ section - a haunting ode to the c.19th Italian anatomist that uncannily reminds us of Kara-Lis Coverdale’s collaboration with Yasuaki Shimizu - a sound that feels all-too-human despite it’s synthetic contours. A whirlwind of emotion, right on the cusp of bliss and melancholia.

Long playing second release by the ever busy RS Produções, showcasing an update of the crew's particularly moody dance beats. Their debut "Bagdad Style" featured only the main core of Narciso and Nuno Beats but RS is expanded with Farucox for this album, adding more oblique ryhthms to the whole. The crew seems to be happy the bleakest and most stressful days of COVID are past them, celebrating the fact with a self-evident title and the opening prayer by Narciso, redirecting God's blessings to the whole family of RS DJs and producers. What we experience on the 13 tracks (including interludes) is a burst of energy. If not exactly extroverted, it communicates a commitment to the purest strain of batida and, for those able to detect hidden feelings, this music might convey some melancholic undertones true to this part of the world. Beats and off-beats invite your most abstract dance moves and even the album´s most melodic piece is "headless" (Farucox's spacey afro house "Sem Cabeça"). The slow moving tarraxos are uncompromising but never emotionally detached. "Bolor" by Narciso might be the most demanding moment here, with so many crashing elements that, when reviewing the listening experience, we feel a direct connection to a very unique underground expression of dance music. A good part of its power resides in the dislocation of our senses to a different tuning and the consequent opening up of possibilities. This means access to different territories, vibes and points of view. The idealized way of the world.

Before his prolific activity in the field of music therapy, Agostino Nirodh Fortini also embarked on his own path in electronic music. In the early eighties he was a close collaborator of Walter Maioli and Fred Gales, at the time of the pioneering label Sound Reporters. “Suoni Immaginari”, released only privately on cassette in 1988, contains a wide range of keyboards and lots of ethnic field recordings assembled with an absolutely modern praxis ahead of its time. Nirodh imagines his planetary odysseys as a complex of harmonic devices, nebula storms, glassy explosions and gravity-free falls. His operational horizon reflects further cultural ideas and suggestions; not only the artifice between natural sounds and the programmed machine but also the intrusion of arabesque dreams and jungles contaminated by invading insects and mad pipers. These are spectral symphonies which can have analogies with the fourth world of Hassell and Eno.

A new ship of fools sails on Bolombia lands! These strange people seem to celebrate the whole jazz universe and african idioms, but they've never been in Africa. The great continent, more than physical, is a mental place of encounter and psychedelic skids. Neurotic and schizoid sorcerers, a furious wind drags them towards the total effervescence of the groove: an unprecedented cauldron of dangerous substances, hybrid styles and influences mixed with secret recipe. Their music is an explosive bubble of expressions, a feverish, impulsive and unstoppable ritual. A cosmic attitude, such as Heliocentrics or Embryo, marries the majestic and floating sounds of synths and psych organs, acidified by toxic dub sparks and deadly funk forays. A crazy horn section travels without maps from Sun-Ra and Ethiopian echoes, hard-bop reminiscenses, to sudden and virulent Balkanisms, making this soup an indecipherable combination of flavors.

This is a masterpiece that throws a huge stone into the re-evaluation of the Italian underground scene! Recorded from 1986 to 1989 by Walter Maioli, a solitary artist / flute player from famous Italian groups such as Aktuala, Art Of Primitive Sound, Futuro Antico and Gruppo Afro Mediterraneo, and a music therapist named Agostino Nirodh Fortini. The unreleased album that had been released has been unearthed and released by Black Sweat, a famous label that digs into the depths of the Italian underground scene! This work was born after an endless quest for psychoacoustics and botany, and is a super masterpiece alongside the phantom masterpiece "AMAZONIA 6891" that was reissued in 2016. It is already an overwhelming masterpiece from the opening song where the solitary meditation drone sound that projects the appearance of vegetation in the natural world and its freshness as it is as a fill record material is amplified infinitely. A beauty that calms the mind and calms down in the latter half, which depicts the natural beauty of water and develops in a healing and ambient manner. The sound that can be heard cyclically is also an index for all people, pointing to what humans should be. Includes a 4-page insert. Limited to 500 sheets.

Based in the Brazilian capital of São Paulo, the TORMENTA collective has long offered an alternative vision of the city's rich and colorful musical heritage. Operating as an ongoing series of DIY parties, creative agency and record label, TORMENTA has welcomed challenging sounds into São Paulo and released music from a cross section of Brazilian artists, including Fkoff1963, 177th & Digestivo. Their musical output is unrestrained: pop edits and unhinged hard dance rubs against errated heavy metal and lifted ambient drone. Anything's possible, as long as there's a social conscience and a middle finger to expectation. In 2019, TORMENTA put together a short film for the online edition of Nyege Nyege Festival. Since the crew is made up of obsessive horror movie fans, the direction was clear. "O Som do Labirinto" (The Labyrinth's Sound), is a terrifying and psychedelic audiovisual experience that's centered around a journalist attempting to examine a series of mysterious gatherings. Casting a side-eye to VICE's notorious series of fish out of water documentaries, the film drags its protagonist to hell through a series of grueling mental trials, all accompanied by TORMENTA's bloody toolbox of tortuous sounds. This full-length soundtrack finds the collective exposing their deep horror movie knowledge and finally flexing their film score muscle. The crew's ragged club DNA is still present, but mainlined into a Frankenstein's monster of John Carpenter synths, haunted piano loops and gruesome Lustmord-esque dark ambient drones. Alada's 'Running' straps a familiar hoover bass to bloodcurdling low-end rumbles and sparse, propulsive kicks; MTMA's 'O Pesadelo' sounds like broken clocks and music boxes at the "Evil Dead" cabin; 177th's 'Together' is a nightmarish beatless rave anthem that's like Lorenzo Senni on a bad trip; and Bruxax's 'Scream' is a full-on sludge metal freak-out that could sit alongside a Rob Zombie movie. The "O Som Do Labirinto OST" is Brazilian experimental club music in corpse paint holding a jack-o-lantern and weilding a bloody knife. Be afraid.

The meaning of “Kanawa” is so simple. We see our children trying to cross the ocean all the time. I said that many of our children die in the ocean and some of them while crossing the Sahara. Some climb over the wires across the borders and they have gotten shot. We have asked them not to leave and instead stay home. But I ask them why do they leave their country? Why do they decide to go? They said that they leave because of the family situation or problems, poverty, and unemployment. We told them if ever they are to leave, they should privilege legal ways. They should abide by laws vigorously when they are to emigrate. That’s better than hiding in boats or adopting other illegal means. I ask them to stay and work in their country. So that we can help each other find a solution to this problem. I call on the UN and African leaders so that we can coordinate our efforts to find a solution, to create jobs for them so that young people stop leaving. This song is about that message and I chose it as the title of my album because I like it. My choice is because it is very meaningful and it is something we see on a daily basis. I chose it in order to alert and sensitize everybody about this question of illegal immigration. To sensitize our brothers and sisters. It is a message. That’s why I chose it as the title of my album so that everybody can learn from it and also so that there is a reduction in the number of people emigrating. To sensitize them so that some can stay home and grow the land. Leaving is not the only solution. That’s my message. 
— NAHAWA DOUMBIA


Early Basinski works, released on professionally pressed CDs (not CDR's!) for the first time. Minimal packaging in the style of the original release (from 2003). These works have been spoken of in hushed tones for a few years, as they have never been widely available. But the Basinski legends grows as the full catalog becomes accessible. "The first two discs of the 9 month generative ambient experiment conducted over the turn of the century. Very tranquil and soothing. Remastered and now available on CD in C-shell." "A one-hour track entirely composed on a Voyetra synthesizer, Water Music is a perfect antidote to the saccharin-drenched ambient cakes released nowadays by hundreds of self-producing wannabes. It's a never-too-present low humming lullaby, caressing the brain and the ears and slowly developing from silence. Comparisons could be made with some of Eno's best old releases, but please be advised this is not Music for films 2002 -- instead, the author gets right to the point with a simple idea, a small plant that needs to be growing in the semi-obscurity of your deep feelings. What a nice sensation." -- Massimo Ricci

Recorded in 2017 and released on cassette only in 2019 no catalogue number-private release

MUSIGUE PAR TIMO VAN LUIJK ET ANDREW CHALK ENREGISTRE : KULTA SAHA 2017

Sam Shepherd aka Floating Points has shared a new single, 'Someone Close' which is out now via Ninja Tune.

Shepherd has also today announced that 'Someone Close' will be released on vinyl alongside the three other new tracks he's shared this year: 'Grammar', 'Vocoder' and 'Problems'. All four will be available on limited vinyl for the first time on 16 December.

'Grammar', 'Vocoder' and 'Problems' were met with widespread praise including a Best New Track from Pitchfork and a glowing review from Resident Advisor describing Shepherd as "one of electronic music's undisputed MVPs". 'Someone Close' changes track completely, something Shepherd has done effortlessly across his career, capping off a run of releases that have showcased the many strings to his bow yet still holds together seamlessly.

Following a summer of festival sets at Glastonbury, Coachella and Field Day, this Autumn/Winter Shepherd will take things back indoors. With an upcoming show on an incredible bill from The Warehouse Project he'll follow up with a marathon open-to- close set at London’s brand new 25,000 square-foot club HERE on New Year’s Day 2023.

From "Pressure Sounds", a prestigious label known for its archival reissues of precious and high-quality reggae/dub sound sources, a collection of treasured recordings by his beloved disciple Patrick Andy, produced by Yabby Yu, has appeared. The work is based on an unreleased treasured tape compiled by Vivian Yabby Yu Jackson, The Best Of Patrick Andy. This treasured tape contains three previously unreleased tracks, one previously unreleased dub, and stereo mixes of several singles previously only available in mono. "Living In Mount Zion" and "You Don't Want Me" were only monaural on previous 7-inch releases, but this album is completely stereo, featuring Yabby You's unique horn and rhythm track panning. He also showed a production trick to switch left and right. A precious collection of treasured sound sources created by an encounter between a wonderful singer and a legendary producer.

recorded in 2012 at Impression Lointaine

Over the 23 years since Loren Connors’ Airs was first published, it has drawn a thick circle of fans. Gently recorded to cassette tape in 1999, (with wonderfully subtle multi-tracking), Airs is comprised of a series of brief electronic guitar poems. Intimately composed with the patience and purposeful hesitation we have reverently come to expect from Connors. Lyrical melodies recur in different forms throughout the LP, as shifting figures in a dream. Shadowy and sunken, the tone evokes an overcast seascape. The album feels singular; woven along as one flowing piece. 

Airs is perhaps the most approachable and beautiful in all of Connors’ catalog, seducing strangers and familiars just the same. Forlorn wonderment; a human quality that makes this such an enchanting record. It is the humble simplicity and the directness of the guitar inflection that conveys such truth. The stark grace of Connors’ playing resonates here for all to embrace.

A first new solo album by Andrew in five years, completed in 2022 at Impression Lointaine and released by ICR. Thirteen beautiful melodic tracks that weave in and out of focus in an almost hallucinatory manner, evoking many different moods and emotions.

OrganumのDavid JackmanやNew Blockaders、Giancarlo Toniuttiといったノイズ・レジェンドたちとの仕事でも古くから知られる、英国にて孤高にドローンを造り続ける巨匠。Christoph Heemannとの伝説的プロジェクトMirror（1999-2004)の活動でも知られている重鎮Andrew Chalkの2022年10月発表の最新アルバム『The End Times』がColin Potter主宰の〈ICR〉よりCD&カセット・リリース。幻想的な郷愁と温かなアンビエンス息づく彼岸の地の音楽が全13曲収録されています。Denis Blackhamによるマスタリング仕様。

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Recital, we present Autumn Fair. A group LP comprised of 44 guest players (full list below), curated and edited together by Sean McCann. Autumn Fair aptly embodies the feeling of Recital as a record label; the infusion of abstract sound art and sentimental beauty – performed by both younger and older generations of artists. Oren Ambarchi - guitar, Ed Atkins - paper shredder, Jason Bannon - family, Derek Baron - keyboard, Karla Borecky - upright piano, Andrew Chalk - guitar, crys cole - birds, Loren Connors - guitar, Philip Corner - grand piano, Maxwell August Croy - whistle, Sarah Davachi - electronics, Aaron Dilloway - SFX, Delphine Dora - voice, Giovanni Fontana - voice, Scott Foust - trumpet, Peter Friel - impression, Malcolm Green - camera, Judith Hamann - cello / voice, Mark Harwood - speech, Forest Juziuk - voice, Johnny Kay - tapping, Kajsa Lindgren - hydrophone, Rob Magill - guitar, Lia Mazzari - whip, Molly McCann - flute, Sean McCann - editing / voice, Nour Mobarak - voice sampler, Azikiwe Mohammed - interview, Charlie Morrow - MIDI piano, Kiera Mulhern - SFX, Zachary Paul - violin, claire rousay - SFX, Michel Samson - violin, Troy Schafer - strings, Eric Schmid - tone generator, Ben Schumacher - SFX, Tom James Scott - keyboard / SFX, Asha Sheshadri - reading, Patrick Shiroishi - winds, Sydney Spann - voice, Matthew Sullivan - instruments, Flora Sullivan-Kelly - percussion, Connor Tomaka - SFX / synth, Alex Twomey - upright piano. I wont go into too much detail on the album itself, but after many twists and turns, the album concludes with “Recital Program,” an intense track that manically collages two-second excerpts from every Recital album to date. I extend a sincere ‘thank you’ for all the incredible support for Recital over the past decade.

Forever an associate of the American avant-garde, Taralie Peterson has been baring her soul on outward-leaning recordings as a solo artist (as Louise Bock and Tar Pet) and with a dazzling array of collaborators (most notably and fruitfully with Ka Baird as Spires That in The Sunset Rise). The Madison, WI based musician now steps out as Tekla Peterson with Heart Press, a garishly gripping set of songs that simmer in a stew of heartbreak and survival. Put simply in Peterson’s own words: “This music came from the fiery flames of pain from the ending of my 20 year relationship.” Matching these previously uncharted emotional areas are Peterson’s experiments with pop structures paired with fruitfully barren arrangements and vivid, pseudo-string textures. No polished ennui or overly gory details, just transcendent beauty and universal emotion. The set opens with “Soda Pop Jam,” an eerily enchanted earworm that writhes in a sultry bed of melody and melancholy. “Swarm of Gnats” heightens the morbid musicality that drips onto a desolate dance floor littered with emotional detritus. “Cancel Out Effect” offers a scruffy, operatic opus that traipses through a litany of confessions and castigations. Casting things in an entirely different light, “Between a Rock” and closer “Count Out Shadows” bring a neon-lit, neo noir of nonchalance that pair perfectly in a downstream drift of sullen musings. “WWIB” is a cacophony of catharsis, a fever dream fugue that cycles into an infinite blur. Heart Press presents the ultimate breakup album that devastates everything in its wake, but Peterson finds true beauty in the emotional valleys and eventual peaks with poise and prowess. credits released April 8, 2022

Smoke Point is a duo composed of Brian Foote (Peak Oil, Leech, Kranky) and Sage Caswell (Spring Theory). With their self-titled debut LP on Geographic North, the Los Angeles-based duo takes a captivating cruise through heady ambient drifts and ruthlessly rhythmic loop dreams. Foote and Caswell first teamed up to create a series of improvisational atmospherics throughout a multi-room art gallery. The pair conceived of a sprawling, dynamic experience with tones, rhythms, and textures that varied from room to room, yet were inextricably tuned and melded together. Visitors could serve as a sort of human crossfader, moving through the gallery and dialing up or down aural aspects as they pleased. And although the collaboration came together to create music for a specific physical space, the concept was never fully realized until what is now the duo’s first record. Smoke Point brings five extended, cruise-controlled exercises that calmly violate the Venn diagram's overlap between boundless dance music and unfathomable ambiance. But beyond the boundaries of an album as a set of songs, Foote and Caswell cracked things wide open and recontextualized the album as an actual DJ tool onto itself; ambient leaning and melodically focused. To achieve this, Smoke Point offers a bounty of loops in the form of endless locked grooves on the vinyl edition and brief but equally utilitarian snippets on the digital edition of the LP.

Andrew Chalk is known for his work on the legendary project Mirror (1999-2004) with Christoph Heemann, and is a master of building drones from England. The long-awaited analog reissue of the extremely rare work "Higan/Sad Distribution", which was voluntarily released in 2016 as a limited edition cassette of 100 copies and sold out immediately.

Tetsu Umehara was born in Yokohama, Japan, but spent much of his childhood in Dusseldorf, and it was in the western German city that his nascent interest in architecture first blossomed. His debut album, Handwritten, is a personal journey that explores the intersection between architectural urbanism, acoustic ecology and human emotion. Formed from a diverse range of sounds created from field-recordings taken in, and inspired by, various cities and urban settings, Handwritten pairs guitar, piano and angular percussive elements to create a rich world of aural depth and intricacy. “If music is a site-specific culture, then the process of making music is nothing more than creating an imaginary place within oneself.” Whilst Tetsu learned to play music from a young age, architecture always remained a driving passion and he would go on to study architectural design at Tokyo University of the Arts. His studies have continued to create an inner dialogue around sound and space, imagining music for specific sites and visualising architectural designs in his own sonic creations. Handwritten is an ode to the diverse styles of architecture that have influenced Tetsu. From the modern urban planning of Yokohama’s harbour to the inorganic sprawl of Berlin, Tetsu sees the fluid hand of the artistic creator in a building’s immobile geometry. In an attempt to mirror the disciplined complexity of a city within music, Tetsu has found a way to talk about the interaction of spatial and auditory dynamics. “It is important that the Handwritten be a record of my musical journey. For me, making the album was like a short trip through the landscapes of my memory.” Handwritten is released by Métron Records on 08/06/22 with the album’s artwork a collage of various sketches taken from Tetsu’s time studying. A portion of profits will be donated to Human Rights Now (HRN), a Japanese organisation looking to improve human rights around Asia.

Impeccably produced and gripping West Mineral wooze from Naarm’s Yunzero, adding to our sizeable appreciation for the Aussie school with a sublime and frazzled set of gaseous, crumbling loops and effervescent soundscapes that plays like a mixtape we can imagine a descendant of Left Ear would grip in 2045. Based in Naarm, Jim Sellars is a strong new addition to the West Mineral stable, bringing with him a profound understanding of textural ambient, bass-heavy dubwise sounds and fractured beat music. After a few cassette releases for Naarm's own .jpeg Artefacts and the Chicago-based Lillerne Tape Club - home of West Mineral's Mister Water Wet and Ben Bondy - Sellars has assembled a record that jumps through sonic wormholes as it drags through soundscapes and meticulously chiseled technoid sketches. Dancing in and around an airspun grid weft with sampledelic fragments of ‘90s ambient dance music, Yunzero lucidly works a sound close to the expansive heart of West Mineral, measured with an equilibrium of drifting out-of-the-lines gauze and cogent, semi-melodic structures that move against convention. From our detached perspective, in the humid post-industrial flatlands of south Manchester, Yunzero’s music feels as though it maps mountain ranges and subtropical climes in its scale and democratic ecology of sounds, projecting escapist sojourns on the back of the eyelids. ‘Butterfly DNA’ lands gently on the mind, with imperceptible jump-cuts and transitions lending to the rolling rural simulacra feel. Plunging in with the cool splash and viscosity to ‘Drop of Honey’, the breezy tendrils of ‘Leaf’ give way to recycled ambient beat loops in ‘Ice Punk’ and the album’s most substantial cut - a nugget of a DJ Plead-like groove on ‘Cupid Television’. From herein the thread gets beautifully frayed between the kaleidoscope turns of slurred downbeats in ‘Snail’ and ambient floor hugger ‘Graffitti In The Pond’, while bush doof echoes perfuse ‘Acrylic Germ’ in a more fractious outburst that brings the album down to close with a surprise in the tail, a reminder that nature can nip as well as soothe.

Hailing from Łódź, Poland, Justyna Banaszczyk aka FOQL was raised in the post-industrial decay of the city beloved by David Lynch for its abundant, knackered architecture (think ‘Eraserhead’, or run go check his warehouse photo studies). ‘Wehikuł’ translating to ‘Vehicle’, echoes its provenance and dark surreality across eight cuts of intricate post-techno pulses webbed with brooding synths that lend a fine new stripe of influence to MAL’s unpredictable ‘Rebel Music’ agenda, perfectly in step with its off-road vectors.

A long-awaited repress of Detroit's H-Fusion's 2019 2LP masterpiece, which has been featured on Theo Parrish's Sound Signature and Derrick May's Transmat. The long-awaited repress! In the midst of the rave techno frenzy, Urban Tribe, Omar-S, Aaron Dilloway, and The Automatic Group mingle to create a psychotic, sagging monster of a record. Mastered and cut by Anne Taegert at Dubplates & Mastering. Limited to 500 copies.