MUSIC

Instrumental four-piece Yuuf return with a new EP ‘Mt. Sava’, out on Ninja Tune imprint Technicolour. The release follows their earlier 2025 EP ‘Alma’s Cove’, a six-track journey through natural soundscapes and quiet introspection.

Described by the band as the “spiritual sister to ‘Alma’s Cove’”, ‘Mt. Sava’ shifts the setting from lush coastal tranquility to the awe-inspiring scale of mountainous desert terrain - one that “lets the listener both explore the serenity of a night sky filled with stars far removed from human life and the brutality and fierceness of life in the desert” the band comment. “The name Mt. Sava comes from the place where we shot a Live Session of the full EP. It’s a breath-taking and canyon-like gorge that is often referred to as St. Sava Canyon”.

This is a work synonymous with the Aphex Twin, featuring one of the most popular songs of their career, "Girl/Boy Song".

First vinyl reissue in 18 years, since 2008.

This is the first-ever compilation bringing together Nigel Ayers’ solo work and his long-running project Nocturnal Emissions. Covering recordings from the early 1980s up to 2024, it spans more than four decades of experimental sound.

Nocturnal Emissions is recognized as one of the earliest and most uncompromising industrial/noise groups, standing alongside Throbbing Gristle, SPK, and Cabaret Voltaire. Their sound sits at the intersection of raw industrial electronics, noise, and electronic Dada, fusing harsh textures, tape collage, and rhythm in a constantly evolving hybrid form.

The compilation, fully remastered in Tokyo, traces the major phases of Nocturnal Emissions and Nigel Ayers’ work, spanning raw, confrontational noise rooted in the squatting scene and anti-capitalist protest of the early 1980s; the rhythm-driven period that brought dancefloor energy to industrial grit; and Ayers’ later solo “Neotantric” phase of ambient, ritualistic sound exploring magick, ancient beliefs and altered states while carrying forward a spirit of subversion and transcendence that remains entirely intact decades later. Across these eras, the collection captures the full breadth of Ayers’ creative journey and moves between intense, layered noise and quiet, atmospheric soundscapes blending field recordings, spoken word, electronics, and collage.

1. Nigel Ayers / Tangled Clumps 02:13

From Excavations in Substation (2024)

Words and music by Nigel Ayers.

2. Nocturnal Emissions / 04 06:37

From Music for Butoh (1992)

Music made for the performance of Transearth by Poppo and the Go Go Boys.

Recorded live in La MaMa Theater, New York City, USA, October 1992.

Music composed and performed by Nigel Ayers

Originally released in 1993, edited and digitally mastered in June 2005.

3. Nigel Ayers / Nonsite Observatory 05:35

From Painted by Spirits (2019)

Electroacoustic instruments played by Nigel Ayers.

Recorded in Cornwall, October 2019.

4. Nigel Ayers / The Wise Wound 04:13

From Omega Earth Electrode (2019)

Sounds of Cornwall's industrial heritage recorded and processed by Nigel Ayers.

5. Nocturnal Emissions / Vegetation Narration 05:28

From The World is my Womb (1987)

Composed by Caroline K.

Text, narration and instruments played by Nigel Ayers.

6. Nocturnal Emissions / Night Sky 10:25

From Imaginary Time (1994)

Acoustic instruments played by Charlotte Bill.

Disarranged and decomposed by Nigel Ayers.

7. Nocturnal Emissions / Sealing a Phase 04:46

From The World is my Womb (1987)

Composition and instruments played by Caroline K.

Text and narration by Nigel Ayers.

8. Nocturnal Emissions / Rusting Shells 06:04

From Shake Those Chains Rattle Those Cages (1985)

Recorded in the studios of the Emission Control during November 1984.

Text and Voice by Caroline K. and Nigel Ayers.

9. Nocturnal Emissions / Sperm Count 04:19

From Befehlsnotstand (1983)

Recorded The Emission Control, London, England in 1983 and remixed in 1992.

Composed by Caroline K. and Nigel Ayers.

10. Nocturnal Emissions / When Were You Last in Control of Your Dreams and Aspirations ? 4:12

From Tissue of Lies (1981)

Computer and Synthetizer by Daniel Ayers.

Voice, Bass, Synthesizer and rythm by Caroline K.

Voice, Guitar, Violin and Tape by Nigel Ayers.

Recorded in South London in 1980.

11. Nocturnal Emissions / Never Give Up 4:53

From Songs of Love and Revolution (1985)

Music and voice by Caroline K.

Lyrics and voice by Nigel Ayers

12. Nocturnal Emissions / Golgotha 07:23

From Omphalos! (1998)

Decomposed and disarranged by Nigel Ayers.

13. Nigel Ayers / A Small Rectangle 02:42

From Excavations in Substation (2024)

Words and music by Nigel Ayers

Coming in October. A groundbreaking compilation album showcasing Japanese techno-pop for a new era—『TECHNO KAYŌ VOL. 1 - JAPANESE TECHNO POP 1981–1989』—compiled by none other than Dubby, one of Japan’s most renowned record diggers and the mastermind behind the influential record shop ONDAS (a key force in the post-obscure revival alongside Organic Music and Revelation Time), and Antal, head of Rush Hour. From the neo-classical/mutant funk gem “Last Battle” by Kazuo Ōtani (of SHOGUN fame), originally featured on the obscure film soundtrack Koiko no Mainichi, to the balearic house anthem “MicroWave” by Kyōko Koizumi—culled from the now-revered cult LP KOIZUMI IN THE HOUSE—this album masterfully weaves post-balearic and obscure city pop perspectives. A curated deep dive into the rich and underrated legacy of Japanese techno-pop, brought vividly to life in the context of 2025.

PULSE DEMON probably is the most iconic, most representative and best known album in the JAPANOISE scene and MERZBOW discography.
This is the edge of music and sound, here you enter a new dimension made of POWERFULL NOISE.
Recorded in 1995 and first released in 1996 on the US label REPLAPSE, this album was re-released several times in both, CD and Vinyl formats.
This is first time in which album was completely re-mastered by Masami Akita for CD re-release with the addition of an exclusive bonus track taken from the original PULSE DEMON recoding session (the original DAT) and never used up to now.
Album comes in a six panel digifile presenting the lavish original and very psychedelic holographic-waves-art-work.

PLAY VERY LOUD AND MERCILESS!

Mesmerising album of Yokota’s earliest sonic explorations that demonstrates his unique vision and sublime transcendence of boundaries.

‘Image 1983-1998’ is a collection of short miniatures, composed in two different time periods. Tracks 1-5 were recorded with guitar and organ between 1983-4 and tracks 6-12 were composed through 97-98, being inspired by the earlier material.

A musical scrapbook, or sonic design board. The sleeve notes give an insight into Yokota’s belief in a close connection between music, memory and his active imagination: ‘Encountering Acid House made me visualise music – I could clearly see the sounds sparkling… this experience led me to create electronic music.’

Mesmerising album of Yokota’s earliest sonic explorations that demonstrates his unique vision and sublime transcendence of boundaries.

‘Image 1983-1998’ is a collection of short miniatures, composed in two different time periods. Tracks 1-5 were recorded with guitar and organ between 1983-4 and tracks 6-12 were composed through 97-98, being inspired by the earlier material.

A musical scrapbook, or sonic design board. The sleeve notes give an insight into Yokota’s belief in a close connection between music, memory and his active imagination: ‘Encountering Acid House made me visualise music – I could clearly see the sounds sparkling… this experience led me to create electronic music.’

Sakura is without doubt the most loved and lauded entry in Susumu Yokota’s catalogue.

The music unravels like cascades of petals falling from the eponymous cherry blossom trees. Yokota intended to ‘express ki-do-ai-raku (the four emotions; joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness) through music’, and throughout Sakura, the effect fluctuates between profound tranquillity, hesitation, melancholy and joy with ease, addressing the fickle nature of human emotion, while transcending the inclination to label moods entirely.

Sakura became Yokota’s best selling album. It was greeted with universal acclaim, lauded by Philip Glass and Brian Eno and launched Yokota internationally.

‘A bittersweet beauty, heightened by the sadness that all things must one day end.’ - Martyn Pepperell

Exhumed '77 OST frond 'Riddles Of The Sphinx'…magick Mike Ratledge unfurls coils of ARP, Moog & VCS-AKS via Denys 'Lucifer' Irving's hacked Z-80 sequencer…these post-Soft Machine plumes spiral in stasis to the frame pans and lock down Maddox & Mulvey's dialogue like SE17 dunes…the concentric riddle of the missing original master tapes…film reel audio prised from the BFI vaults & transferred straight to zeros & ones by hieroglyphic happenstance…this acrobatic dredge has revealed more than enough mercury to further protract the riddles within…"You've got my number if you need anything"…IBM

These tracks are far more than just the initial glimpses of an upcoming collaboration between I-TIST and TOROKI.

They represent the beginnings of a deep human connection, an ever-growing artistic and spiritual synergy that has flourished since our first meeting in 2022 in our Bordeaux Dub School sessions.

And this is just the beginning... WAY MORE TO COME !!

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Ces tracks sont bien plus que de simples aperçus d'une future collaboration entre I-TIST et TOROKI.

Ils représentent les prémices d'une connexion humaine profonde, d'une synergie artistique et spirituelle en constante évolution, qui s'épanouit depuis notre première rencontre en 2022 lors de nos sessions à la Bordeaux Dub School.

Et ce n'est que le début... LE MEILLEUR RESTE À VENIR !!

Before he became better known as Porn Sword Tobacco (PST), Swedish producer Henrik Jonsson released two albums under the name of Stress Assassin. Like his later oeuvre, the tunes are spacious, cinematic and multi-layered, influenced by the likes of Harold Budd and Tangerine Dream, but for this project there is additional guidance from Lee Perry and Moritz von Oswald.

Released on vinyl for the first time, Within the Office of Eye and Ear’s smoked-out ambience and blissful beats are permeated with melodic bass and cinematic space. Found sounds, floating voices and intermittent pops ripple amongst the sweet harmonies, lush atmospheres and pulsating basslines, creating a captivating other-worldly dreamspace.

As Henrik explains: “Made often at night in an attic in Gothenburg, it’s music I did in a world far away from today: the music was, and is, about not running along with a stress-y society soaked in TV, media and materialism, out of touch with the calm beauty this world gives us”

He certainly succeeded as Within the Office of Eye and Ear offers the ultimate stress assassination.

Silly track titles that are mostly in-jokes with my little brother, a.k.a. DJ Denim. A cliché unfair record deal. A conspicuously missing title track. A pretentious looking poem in French about the stupidity of poets. A grid of pillows on the cover that the Japanese audience mistook for bags of heroin, resulting in myths about my being a heavy user. Super nineties Photoshop swirls. A graphic overlay of a UFO turning into an oyster shell that opens to reveal a mountain inside? Those are just a few of the embarrassing things I had to come to terms with when preparing this thirtieth anniversary restored and expanded edition of my first full-length album, Tranquilizer. Originally released in 1994 by the New York label Instinct Records, Tranquilizer is admittedly a bit of a shit-show. The album followed up on my 1993 self-released vinyl EP debut, Comatonse.000, featuring "Raw Through a Straw" on the A-side, and "Tranquilizer" on the B-side. I put out that EP mostly for the experience of pressing a record, with no expectation of people actually buying or listening to it. Lacking a distributor, I loaded up my backpack and lugged copies to all the local record shops, a few of which took some on consignment. As I later found out, most shops never pay for consignment sales, nor return unsold copies, so in the end I basically gave away most of them for free. Then, to my complete surprise, David Mancuso began regularly playing the A-side, transforming it into a Loft house classic. Equally surprising, the B-side caught the attention of ambient producers like Mixmaster Morris and Bill Laswell. Those random bits of buzz caught the attention of Tak Uchida, a US-based buyer for the Japanese vinyl distributor Cisco Music, which would remain the leading supporter of Comatonse Recordings vinyl releases until they went under in 2008. All of that was just enough hype to catch the attention of Instinct, which offered me a textbook fucked up two album record deal. Not wanting to be taken for a sucker, I came in for a contract negotiation meeting with my bona fide real McCoy idiot lawyer who didn't give me an ounce of good advice, the paperwork was signed, and Tranquilizer was underway to becoming a reality. Instinct's plan was simple: grab control of as many tracks as possible on the off chance I (or anyone else they signed) might be the next Moby, who was their cash cow. With typical music industry sleight of hand, the album's title track "Tranquilizer" was cut and released separately on a compilation, contractually requiring me to come up with additional tracks to fill the album. So that solves the mystery of the missing title track. The majority of tracks on this album were actually already done before signing with Instinct. I recorded them as a hobbyist between 1993 and 1994 using heavily edited Korg M1 and E-MU Vintage Keys synthesizers, and two Casio FZ-10M samplers. Despite the silly titles and hobbyist approach, there were social messages to be heard. Many of them stemmed from my longstanding interests in constructivism, industrial ambient records, disco, and queer subcultures. All of these put me at odds with the new age spiritualism and "zippy" techno-hippy raver hooey that dominated ambient music in the US. For example, the opening track "040468," which is the date of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, features a recording of the police radio during the chase and escape of his assailant James Earl Ray. Recorded at a time when King's "I Have a Dream" speech was still being dubbed over house anthems ad nauseam, it was an antithetical choice pointing away from dreams toward hideous reality. As one would expect, all of this was lost on music journalists who - assuming nothing could be more than a simplistic projection of the musician's ego - usually mistook the title for my birthday. "Fat Chair" is a critique of the colonialist fantasies latent in most ethno-ambient music of the time. Rather than taking the listener on a soothing armchair journey to a third world paradise, it focuses on a recording from the Nigerian-Biafran war during the late 1960s, in which a Western journalist's meddling gets a Biafran hostage killed. "A City on Springs" takes its title from a line in a constructivist manifesto calling for the prioritization of engineering over art. While I have never shared constructivism's optimistic faith in humanity's ability to achieve social equality, be it through communism or other means, it did inspire my career long criticism of the social and economic functions of art and music. And "Hovering Glows" features a monologue from a Hal Hartley film about scratched records as a metaphor for abusive family ties. I had planned on including a text on these themes in the original CD booklet to Tranquilizer, but Instinct quickly made it clear that wasn't going to happen. They feared it would alienate their audience. In response, I wrote the "anonymous" little poem against poetics above. Initially in English, I asked my friend/day-job-co-worker/Comatonse-Recordings-label-mate Erik Dahl to translate it into French so that the staff at Instinct would be less likely to understand it. In the end, they included it as a graphic element adding a bit of romantic flair. Still, it left me feeling dissatisfied. Two years later I managed to insert more meaningful imagery into the design of my second-and-last album for them, Soil, but I still was not allowed to include any text. In this thirtieth anniversary edition, disc one depicts the full-length album as I had initially intended it to be released, restored to include the title track, "Tranquilizer." Due to CD time constraints, this meant removing "Meditation of the Mountain Oyster." I also replaced the ending track "Fina•Departure" with its longer, original version. For the completists out there, the 1994 album versions of both tracks appear in their entirety on disc two. Additionally, the second disc includes a rare vinyl mix of "Hovering Glows," featured on Instinct's Untitled Ltd. Edition Ambient Double Vinyl Pack (US: Instinct Records, 1994, EX-291-1). Another rarity is "Get In and Drive," which found limited release through the compilations Muting the Noise (DE: Innervisions, 2008, IV CD02), and Comp x Comp (JP: Comatonse Recordings, 2019, CxC). "20min. Epoch," "Fina," "Fina•Departure (Original Long Version)," and "Hovering Glows (Little Guy Mix)" all get their first proper hi-fi physical release here, having been included as hidden MP3 bonus tracks in my Dead Stock Archive: Complete Collected Works (JP: Comatonse Recordings, 2009, C.018). Considering how few copies of the Archive exist, they are sure to be new to most peoples' ears. Last (and perhaps least?), "Pome" and "Day Off" are previously unreleased. Oh, in case you were wondering, Little Guy was the name of my cat. He loved sitting like a loaf in front of my speakers to feel the 808-style bass hits in "Hovering Glows." - Terre Thaemlitz, 2024

A rare collection of music that has been long awaited by Thaemlitz fans comes highly recommended by Meditations! He is a charismatic DJ, Terre Thaemlitz (=DJ Sprinkles), who has been active in New York's transexual clubs in the 90's, and is currently based in Japan, but travels around the world and continues to develop his artistic music with house music. He has been traveling around the world and developing his artistic music through house music. This is a best-of album that includes one-off compilation tracks as well as self-remixes related to his solo projects. Self-released on Comatonse Recordings, this 2-CD set comes in custom packaging assembled by the artist himself, and includes two double-sided insert cards (100mm x 100mm), a 4x4 panel poster insert (472mm x 472mm) printed on newsprint, and more. This is a great introductory title for this artist. This is a great introductory title for this artist. ....!!!

Viewing-ADMIT IT'S KILLING YOU (AND LEAVE) (SPRINKLES' DEAD END) (Excerpt)
Viewing-MEDITATION ON WAGE LABOR AND THE DEATH OF THE ALBUM (SPRINKLES'UNPAID OVERTIME) (Excerpt)

Dj Sprinkles’ debut full length album,continues with themes from 1998’s “Sloppy 42nds: A tribute to the 42nd Street transsexual clubs destroyed by Walt Disney’s buyout of Times Square” (a track recently featured on Ame’s “Coast2Coast” DJ mix compilation for NRK Records).

While the world celebrates the revial of New York House Music, constructing utopian fictions about the genre as it goes along, DJ Sprinkles retreats deep into the bowels of house. This is the rhythm of empty midtown dancefloors resonating with the difficulties of transgendered sex work, black market hormones, drug & alcohol addiction, racism, gender & sexual crises, unemployment, and censorship.

The title song of track1&2 is a real “strictly rhythm” house music. It’s a simple 4/4 beat with piano loop.maybe this is a real minimal house! Third track “Ball’r (madonna-free zone)” is a euphoric mid tempo house.this track reminds jan jelinek or larry heard.

Fourth track “Brenda’s $20 Dilemma” is a sequel of his fag jazz style.check the beautiful kuniyuki remix of this song(mule musiq 34). Fifth track “House Music Is Controllable Desire You Can Own” is a classic new york house style.if you like the record of jus-ed or that kind of artist,you like this song.

Sixth track “Sisters, I Don’t Know What This World Is Coming To” is a one of the highlight song on the album. Actually this track is not 4/4 beat house but very emotional powerfull music. Seventh track “Reverse Rotation” is a deep and madness beautiful song.When you listen this song,you associate the music of theo parrish or pepe bradock.

Eighth&nineth track are main songs of this album. “Grand Central, Pt. I (Deep Into the Bowel of House)” is associated the sound of jungle wonz or virgo. but this song is filled with somthing sadness.check the story about this album from terre,you will see…. http://www.comatonse.com/releases/midtown120blues.html This album is for a real house music lovers.

視聴-Midtown 120 Intro・ミッドタウン１２０イントロ
視聴-Midtown 120 Blues・ミッドタウン１２０ブルース
視聴-Reverse Rotation・後戻り
視聴-Grand Central, Pt. II (72 hrs. by Rail from Missouri)・グランドセントラル駅　パート２（列車でミズーリ州から72時間）

"Today's dancefloors are wakes in remembrance of a mythological era of openness that never was. Remember where you were. See where you are.... I'm in Kami-Sakunobe." (K-S.H.E) "Routes Not Roots" is the debut album by K-S.H.E (Kami-Sakunobe House Explosion), the newest project from internationally celebrated producer, label owner and DJ Terre Thaemlitz. K-S.H.E "Routes Not Roots" combines Comatonse Recordings' notorious "Fagjazz" sound with the classic NY Deep House and Cross-over dancefloor sensibility of "DJ Sprinkles' Deeperama," Thaemlitz' bi-monthly event held at Club Module, Tokyo. The results are spacious, bass-heavy, epic dance mixes filled with dark humor and harsh realities. As people have come to expect of Thaemlitz releases, "Routes Not Roots" mixes a wide range of social themes such as identity vs. immigrant status; community vs. tranny-on-tranny violence; authenticity vs. cultural decontextualization; openly gay African-American club imagery vs. gay sex on the Down-Low; innocence vs. childhood fantasies of violence; and more. From HIV drug trials to tranny and women's unemployment rates to sexually amorphous Japanese cross-dressers posing as high school girls, K-S.H.E doesn't miss a beat.

Terre Thaemlitz and Zeitkratzer, two noted and highly-respected names in experimental music. This release finds the Zeit guys meeting Thaemlitz on Terre’s terms, adapting and performing pieces from Deproduction with acoustic chamber instruments. Recorded live in Berlin last year, spreading over two CDs.視聴-Admit It's Killing You (And Leave) (Sound/Reading for Gay Porn) (Live Version)
視聴-Names Have Been Changed (Sound/Reading for Incest Porn) (Live Version)

A CD compiling all of Terre's Neu Wuss Fusion's releases to date. Includes previously unreleased and alternate versions of tracks found elsewhere (such as on DJ Sprinkles "Gayest Tits & Greyest Shits" and "Fagjazz"), so this CD will still be of interest to collectors who might already have those other items. Self-released on Comatonse Recordings with custom packaging hand assembled by Terre herself, the package includes one CD in an archival vinyl pouch with two double-sided insert cards (100mm x 100mm), phonograph style anti-static inner sleeve, and 4x4 panel poster insert printed on newsprint (472mm x 472mm).

sample-She's Hard (2007 Archive of Silence Mix)(Excerpt)
sample-A Crippled Left Wing Soars With the Right (Steal This Record Club Mix)(Excerpt)
sample-Thirty Shades of Grey (Demo Version) (Excerpt)
sample-Sloppy 42nds (Terre's New Wuss Fusion Edit)(Excerpt)

Snowflakes & Dog Whistles: Best Electroacoustic Ambient & Sexpanic 1995-2017 is a double-CD compiling twenty-nine of Terre Thaemlitz' best electroacoustic ambient and computer music works produced between 1995 to 2017, including many special edits only available on this release. The majority of these tracks have been physically out of print for decades, and were originally released on a variety of labels including Mille Plateaux, Daisyworld Discs (Haruomi Hosono of YMO's private imprint), Instinct Ambient, Caipirinha Productions, and of course Thaemlitz' own Comatonse Recordings. The first disc, Snowflakes, focuses on tracks that are more conventionally ambient or perhaps even "pretty." Dog Whistles, the second disc, compiles tracks featuring a chaotic array of samples and sounds that are more overtly related to themes of gender- and sexual variance.
Thaemlitz frames the tracks with a new 9000 word essay spread across two large posters, providing a basic introduction to the underlying topics, ideas, contexts and histories behind electroacoustic ambient - both as a genre in the broader sense, and in specific relation to her own work. From the text:

Most of the questions posed over the years in these tracks remain in tension with contemporary mainstream views, including those coming from the LGBT establishment. In this way, one might say a thread running through my projects is that they remain "unlistenable" to most. Any potential critical use value of these tracks emerges from understanding how they are utterly symptomatic of a particular social system - even in their dissonance. Or, to be more precise, because of their dissonance.
Self-released on Comatonse Recordings with custom packaging hand assembled by Terre herself, the package includes two CDs in an archival vinyl pouch with two double-sided insert cards (100mm x 100mm), phonograph style anti-static inner sleeves, and two 4x4 panel poster insert printed on newsprint (472mm x 472mm).

Will Long returns to Comatonse Recordings with Acid Trax, a double album of minimal trax conjuring the best of the early days of Chicago acid house. While there has been a resurgence in acid house from the UK and Europe over the past few years, it is almost always of the hyped up and overproduced techno-rave style. Long responds by turning the tempo down to classic house vibes, and bringing things back to basics with a simple setup of rhythm composer percussion and 303 bassline. Drawing upon his decades of minimalist ambient production as Celer, and his sparse take on house music that debuted here on Comatonse in 2016 with Long Trax (look out for Long Trax 4 coming soon on Will's own label), the result is over two hours of queerly evolving trax that remind us of what the acid genre really had to offer. DJ Sprinkles also drops in as a guest collaborator with percussion edits on "Acid Trax S," and takes things further into deepness with remixes of "Acid Trax N" and "Acid Trax B."

視聴-Acid Trax N (All Alkalis are Bases but All Bases are not Alkalis) remix by DJ Sprinkles
視聴-Acid Trax B (Acid Dog) remix by DJ Sprinkles
視聴-Acid Trax A
視聴-Acid Trax H
視聴-Acid Trax S (w/DJ Sprinkles) 

'Transplant Rejection’ is the second in a trilogy of cassette albums released via Muscut in the latter half of 2022. The work of Estonian artist and IDA Radio co-founder Robert Nikolajev, this collection of seven ‘almost’ dark ambient tracks embody the melancholy of autumn whilst hinting at the forthcoming eternal winter. A man with many hats, Nikolajev operates on the fringes of the leftfield house underground for labels such as Incienso, Collect-Call and Sad Fun as well as being one half of the sporadic DIMA DISK act with Ragnar Rahouja. Eschewing the more rhythmic side of his productions for this Muscut tape, Nikolajev taps into the fictional soundtrack atmospheres the label is known for and brings his own brand of wistful, introspective world-building by way of machine harmony to the now Tallinn based imprint.

There’s a lo-fi, grainy quality running throughout the collection, a kind of sepia-toned nostalgia that envelops the listener and disorientates any perception of time or place. Buried vocal fragments sit in the mix on ‘Stifled’ alongside decaying synthesiser drones whilst ‘DDM’ channels an edgy post-rock dirge with its use of sagged bass guitar. Overall, an inspired look into the more ‘at home’ side of this increasingly prolific Estonian artist.

For the inaugural release on Quadrant Park, SDEM delivers a live recording with a twist: this set was recorded in early 2024 in a single take to an audience of one, at a now abandoned empty club space beneath a railway arch in Leeds.

Following a series of physical and digital releases culminating with Vortices in 2023, SDEM has focused on continuous upgrades to a mutating live set, sporadically performed, for example, alongside the Autechre and Gescom axes. In the phase documented here, the set draws deeply from turntable-era early hip hop and 80s drum machine architecture, resulting in a landscape of tactile slippage: rhythms gripping and releasing, gestural scrubs and stabs, scratching meets musique concrète. Interlocking parts snap in and out of alignment, before recombining on the fly – kinetic, raw, and precise.

The SDEM approach is marked by Tom Knapp’s sculptural take on sound design, rhythm and texture – ranging from dystopic ambient passages to pixelated, sub-heavy beats. A member of the Skam circle of atavistic beat freaks since the late 90s, Knapp’s sound is that of hyperattentive electronica buried under soil and left to decay (or ferment). What emerges is somehow both ruthlessly futuristic and redolent of decrepit antique engineering.

At Quadrant Park is presented in an edition of 500 compact discs with artwork by Robert Beatty unique to every individual copy. In a warped reflection of the recording circumstances, each copy forms one distinct frame of a short film never to be viewed in its totality.

Liner notes are provided by the sole witness to the recording, long-standing SDEM co-conspirator Ed Martin, aka edv3ctor, while audio was mastered by the ears that matter, frozen reeds mainstay Jim O’Rourke.

frozen reeds is proud to present Mark Fell’s ‘Psychic Resynthesis’, an instrumental work performed by Explore Ensemble. This double LP, with included digital download, is the label’s 8th release, arriving 13 years after its foundation.

Fell is a multidisciplinary artist, composer, and theorist based in Rotherham, UK. Renowned for his rigorous and conceptual approach to electronic music and sound art, his work explores the limits of structure, rhythm, and perception through a blend of computational systems, philosophical inquiry, and cultural critique.

Over the last decade, Fell’s practice has visibly shifted from a world of technical intricacy and myopic microdetail to one of collaboration and community. He has purposefully sought out diverse musical partners from a wide variety of traditions and disciplines and found equally diverse ways to work and create together – not to integrate their playing into a musical fusion, but rather to discover how such combinations of approaches and experience can stimulate unique and heretofore unheard results.

The music here emerges from a commission for contemporary chamber group Explore Ensemble, situating Fell’s work in a new context entirely. Having been a notable critic of classical music’s slavish adherence to traditional musical notation, “the score”, and its associated issues of control and hierarchy, one might expect a provocative or abrasive approach. Instead, a work of deep, tonal introspection unfolds - an elegant structure navigating the artist’s antipathy for linear or timeline-based musical approaches.

In Fell’s selection of timbres and events, the dynamic of composer and performer is interrupted by his twin adoption of system and flexibility. Mathematical determination and sonic fixation vie for dominance. The conflict governing combinations. Upsetting preconceived strategies.

Published in an edition of 777 double LPs, with included digital download, the result, ‘Psychic Resynthesis’, represents both a prismatic object for repeated examination and an abstruse table of musical correspondences.

Returning to the unreleased oeuvre of the master of cybernetic sound Roland Kayn, frozen reeds hereby unveils a new high watermark for longform electroacoustic composition, unfolding across 15 CDs in a luxurious gold-stamped boxed set. Big tip! In 1970, Roland Kayn began a decades-long period of research, development and creation at the Instituut voor Sonologie in Utrecht. In the mid to late 90s, he retired, relocated to the Dutch countryside, and began to realise new electronic works at Reiger Recording Studio – his modest home facility. “I finally came to the conclusion,” Kayn would later point out, “that I no longer needed studios to construct my own electronic music.” The working methods Kayn arrived at individually – without the room-filling synthesisers, mixing desks and signal-processing equipment of Sonology at his disposal – saw him turning his own career into a cybernetic process. From the hours of recorded sound amassed in prior decades, he began processing and assembling a mountainous quantity of new music. His works of this period are focused on reabsorbing and recontextualising his life’s work to produce yet another series of utterly alien landscapes. From his retirement until his death in 2011, Kayn was wildly prolific, leaving an archive of dozens of finished electronic pieces. Earlier source material is often re-sculpted using the technology Kayn had available to hand, while other techniques such as sampling radio broadcasts or the plunderphonic quotation of others’ works occasionally intercede. No notes accompany any of this music – no word of explanation or expression of intent. Only the works and their titles remain, the latter often simply deepening the mystery. Their durations range from around 20 minutes to almost 18 hours. ‘The Ortho-Project’, presented here in its 14-hour entirety, is among the longest. At this scale, Kayn’s music is perhaps at its most immersive; the listener senses they are being invited to envelope themselves in a rich environment of diverse timbral physicality rather than a programmatic work. This is simply electronic music as you have never experienced it before. With Jim O’Rourke applying his signature restorative touch to the audio, and Robert Beatty taking his cryptic cybernetics-inspired artwork several steps beyond the label’s previous Kayn box, ‘The Ortho-Project’ (2007) – in its 14-hour entirety – finally sees a fitting release.