NEW ARRIVALS

Yep, it’s a compilation. A marker for the first year of Short Span and a road map into the future maybe. Featuring a mix of artists already heavily involved in the label who’ve had releases out this year. As well as those with future material prepared and awaiting careful hands plating them to metal under the shadow of ski village in Sheffield and then wax in East Lothian some time in 2026. Plus a wider net of friends and admired artists making contemporary music that feels closely connected to the label right now.

There’s a lot of different narratives, meanings, and histories backwards and forwards contained on these two discs and its tempting as the compiler to dig deeply into those and write an accompanying essay...

About how the entire compilation was born from Conna sending over his tune that had started as a playful chop and screw of a Mammo track from General Patterns. How the a.m.p tune has Ben from Purelink loosely playing the keys over it during a party session.

That the Klaus and Mount Kimbie one has been sat travelling from hard drive to hard drive for years with the hope it could be released one day at the right moment. That intermountain is a freshly minted alias for IS and the False Aralia ecosystem. That I reached out to caitlin c harvey after being introduced to her wonderful music via the inspiring Submerge Sessions compilation, which recently collected work from a new school of Detroit music formed in community and tutored by some of the Underground Resistance crew…

But in sum total its just Short Span setting out its table and focusing in on publishing new music. Interesting music. Dialling in on dub and ambient and techno in different forms and qualities that hope to catch the ear and the heart. With some of the most interesting and exciting artists and tune-makers of the moment featuring in here. And a couple of geographic focal points of creativity and shared musical language coalescing in amongst that.

Two discs, two sequences you can listen through in entirety or split into listening sessions. I tried to sequence things so that it flows nicely and suits different moods. A bit of a mixtape.

Extra Stars is a deeply beautiful expression of Gregory Uhlmann’s ever-evolving sound world, and comes at a pivotal juncture in the LA-based composer, producer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist’s musical journey.

Following a long run of supporting work with artists like Perfume Genius, Tasha, and Hand Habits, alongside an eponymous recorded output largely focused on his more singer-songwriter oriented music, Uhlmann has spent the better part of the last couple years trotting out album after album of groundbreaking instrumental modern music. From the sparse melodies and hushed ambient soundscapes of Small Day, to his much-lauded duo outing Doubles with Meg Duffy, to his perhaps lesser-known but no-less-brilliant duo record Water Map with Dustin Wong, to the lush chamber-jazz interplay of his trio recording with saxophonist Josh Johnson and bassist Sam Wilkes, to the two genre-breaking albums he released as a co-leader of synth-laced trance-jazz quintet SML (2024’s Small Medium Large and 2025’s How You Been), Uhlmann has subtly, if not quietly, established himself as an essential presence in some of the most progressive recordings of our time.

Extra Stars encompasses all he’s learned through all the above. A radiant sidereal serenade, the album’s fourteen miniature infinities swirl serendipitous synthesis and measured, melody-rich song into a panoramic menagerie of sound. For a record that seldom incorporates percussion instruments, the music is distinctly rhythm-forward, while Uhlmann also leans heavily into swaths of pastoral beauty. Extra care was clearly poured into the kind of harmonic depth that’s often missing from vibe-only “ambient” music, making for a delightfully refreshing take on the electronic, processing-heavy 'quiet' sound.

The compositions and production techniques here reflect Uhlmann’s musicality perfectly, surely the result of him being as much a seasoned practitioner as he is an avid listener. If there is a middle ground between Cluster & Eno, Terry Riley’s Shri Camel, and Yo La Tengo’s There’s a Riot Going On, it’s somewhere nearby. Lofty comparisons aside, Extra Stars seems to look beyond reference or imitation. Even the album’s title indicates as much—inspired by a trip to California’s Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, where the reality of the night sky’s starry expanse stretches beyond the boundaries of belief.

We can feel Uhlmann’s gaze past the horizon line from the jump. Album opener “Pocket Snail” kicks off with a slow-ambling synth bass line before opening up into a richly processed, reverberating cacophony of beautiful sliding melodies. Eyes wide open, the small world of the pocket snail begins to burst with new color after a fresh injection of sunlight, but the tonality is more akin to something of a simple torch ballad. It’s an immense clash of big and small, and sets the stage nicely for the delightful vantage point shifting to come throughout the record.

“Lucia” is named after a quaint lodge nestled amongst the cliffside drama of Big Sur, and the tune’s musical rendering of an intimate yet expansive perspective perfectly fits its namesake. The steady thump and chime of Uhlmann’s guitar repetitions sit atop a field recording of the distant, heavy-winded ocean crash of the Cabrillo Highway coast, held even steadier by harbor bell metallic clank percussion and a firm yet pillowy cluster of electric organ chords and mellotron-like leads. Enter saxophonist Alabaster DePlume, the track's lone feature, with his signature breathy reed work. Here DePlume’s vibrato-heavy tenor sax wandering adds a secret-among-friends intimacy to a sonic scene that could go for miles. DePlume hums low in multitrack as Uhlmann leads the steady pulse on, encountering syncopated harmonic pings, fluttering recorder flourishes, and the little bustling sounds of the rural Pacific shoreline. Earworms must live in the ocean air, because it’s tough to get any element of “Lucia” unstuck once it’s in, and the whole thing is all tied up in a bow in just under three and a half minutes. Equally playful and introspective, “Lucia” is the potential soundtrack to a close reading or a thousand yard stare. If Jim Henson dreamt Link’s Awakening this would be the sound he heard.

“Burnt Toast” is an essential example of Uhlmann’s penchant for using the guitar to make non-guitar sounds. That’s not to say that what is occurring here is a simple act of processing. Rather, Uhlmann has a distinct and instantly recognizable ability to play the instrument itself in a way that lends to drastic and realtime tonal transformation. Clocking in at a lean 1:25, it’s a quick and lively skip through a blend of complimentary and warring syncopations—another hallmark of Uhlmann’s style—topped with synthetic glissandos and stereo-image warbles placed just so. What really makes it gel, though, is the harmonic simplicity that the transformative madness is serving. At the end of the day, the basic structure of “Burnt Toast” is an uncomplicated chord progression.

That essential simplicity, leaning into tonal expressions of quiet joy and deep longing, could be the most relevant throughline in Uhlmann’s work. On Extra Stars it’s likely best exemplified on “Days,” a serene 7+ minute track born in the nerve shattering confusion of 2020. “It was made in my old apartment and felt like a way of self soothing by playing the same chords over and over again,” says Uhlmann. The result is a wisping, languid, near free-time drift through a progression that manages to maintain its directness despite its slow-building reverberated accompaniment. Like a Harold Budd take on the somber fingerpicked elegance of Frantz Casseus, “Days” wanders through the speakers with an almost nostalgic air. A grandmotherly wall organ melody sings around dancing piano notes as chattering synthesis renders itself percussive amongst the steel string comfort of Uhlmann’s electric guitar. It’s the kind of recording that could go on forever and maybe, somewhere, it’s doing just that. On Extra Stars, though, it acts as a spiritual centerpiece, rejuvenating the listener as it fades out slowly, cleansing and leaving us ready for more.

“Back Scratch” is collage-cut from a series of piano improvisations and post-composed with pitch-shifted percussion contributions from Uhlmann’s SML bandmate Booker Stardrum. Uneven loops syncopate in chance mode while the barrage of high-register notes conflate with Stardrum’s stickwork to cement a rhythm dense enough to nearly become a drone. The impulsive comparison to the intensely rhythmic zither dance of Laraaji would be understandable, but mostly inaccurate. “Back Scratch” is produced in a markedly raw, un-reverberated manner—and it’s precisely that stark wonkiness that separates it from something like Day Of Radiance and makes it more akin to a basement DIY crack at Reich’s Drumming. That said, its brevity and singularity among the wildly diverse Extra Stars tracklist means that it might be (just maybe) more actual fun to listen to than both of those records.

The guitarless moments on Extra Stars shine as brightly as those that highlight Uhlmann’s primary instrument, but even those departures display themselves distinctively, especially when he invites and directs a collaborator. The labcoat synth silliness and percussive b-ball bounce of “Dottie,” for instance, contrasts sharply from the unbridled beeswarm rhythm composite of “Worms Eye” despite the implementation of the same tools and techniques—likely due to the co-production presence of synthesist Jeremiah Chiu (another SML bandmate) on the latter. Regardless, there’s no mistaking an Uhlmann composition and there’s no mistaking when he’s at the helm. For instance, while Chiu’s presence can certainly be felt on “Voice Exchange,” its outlandish rhythm focused take on the pitch-shifted vocals of longtime Uhlmann collaborator Tasha couldn’t be further from the other Chiu co-productions on Extra Stars.

The ability to maintain a recognizable voice across vast stylistic shifts, while employing the talents of those who also possess singularly recognizable voices, is not something that is heard often and it’s Uhlmann’s ability to recognize what makes each collaborator unique that makes it work here. A great example is “Bristlecone,” which finds him directing the powerful low-end command of Anna Butterss’s bass and the multiphonic mystery of Josh Johnson’s processed alto. The composition and arrangement are supported at every turn by Uhlmann’s SML bandmates without the result ever wandering away from something we can hear as distinctly his. Like David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, or Miles Davis, Uhlmann uses collaboration to both support and transform. To reinforce and evolve. With Extra Stars he has delivered such a promising collection of instrumental concepts following an extended period of vast, high-level artistic output. There’s no doubt that it will continue to be a joy to experience that evolution in real time.

Following the release of the well received Rave ‘Till You Cry compilation of unreleased versions from the vaults in 2019, Disciples follow it up (a mere 5 years later!) with a new album from Rephlex alumni Bogdan Raczynski, complete with another manifesto style title: You’re Only Young Once But You Can Be Stupid Forever.

A collection of warmly melodic electronic sketches, with tracks alternately drifting beatless on the breeze or underpinned by lo-fi drums, sometimes barely held together with a delicate construction of odd synth patches and ping-pong percussion. Each piece is short and to the point, a record of perfect miniatures. Whilst this description may sound utopian, the album is conceived around themes of late stage capitalist brutality, hyper consumerism, online doom and alogorhithmic apocalypse. Beauty in the face of planetary collapse and 24/7 livestreamed genocide. The theme summed up by the front cover which just features a giant (readable) QR code, that most ubiquitous of modern symbols. We’ve asked Bogdan on several occasions for more background information on the creation of these tracks, but received a different answer each time. One of the below statements might be true, though it’s equally possible that none of them are, just like the real news.

1) All these tracks are a result of Bogdan asking AI to make an EDM album.

2) These tracks originated in a desperate bid by Bogdan to crack the lucrative mood / chill / coffee / gym algorithmic playlist market.

3) All of these tracks were commissioned for a Tesla infomercial but rejected when Elon Musk heard them.

4) The music on this album is over ten years old.

5) The music on this album was made in a furious weekend of creative inspiration in early 2024.

The QR code on the cover takes listeners to an ever-evolving page on Bogdan’s website which may delve into some of these theories in more detail, or ignore them completely.

We leave you with Bogdan’s text in the booklet that accompanied Rave ‘Till You Cry as the closest we may ever get to some kind of logical reasoning:

“Burn the damned art labels. Ambiguity is wonder. Information is an affront to expression, a death knell to spontaneity. For if an explanation is required, then a connection has failed to be made. Art should be like an overtone, resonating invisibly with your history to form an ethereal experience. Either it hits you or it’s wrong time, wrong place. To hell with the dawdling interviews and vanity shots. One turns to music precisely because it least resembles what’s in the mirror. Put away the arrogance and pride, and boast and bias. With each word uttered, your mystery wanes. Your shimmer dims. In my nostalgia, your light show is drowned out by the ricochet of soundwaves. Art is best when all else is drowned out. Black as though the moon forgot to come out. Let the night cover my flailing humanity like a veil. Gangly arms tangled, feet aflutter, yet all but silent against the din. This is not an escape. This is me screaming, happily, inside, out through my fingertips. This is my beck and call. Carefully assembled to drw forth some other form of you. May we partake in this moment together, for just a little longer.”

KITCHEN. LABEL is proud to present AGATE, the latest album by Japanese artist MEITEI, marking a deepening of the world he first shaped through his Kofū trilogy released between 2020 - 2023. Named after the mineral agate, a stone formed through slow accumulation, pressure, and time, the album reflects MEITEI’s patient approach to sound. AGATE brings together extended and newly rearranged works from across the Kofū cycle alongside new compositions and passages, refining material developed through years of performance and sustained practice. The album presents seven tracks: HAŌ (Previously unreleased track) SHIN-OIRAN (Remodeled from Oiran I, Kofū 2020) SHIN-SADAYAKKO (Remodeled from Sadayakko, Kofū 2020) SHIN-WAROSOKU (Remodeled from Wa-rōsoku, Kofū III 2023) KYŪGEKI (Remodeled from Shinobi and Akira Kurosawa, Kofū II 2021) SHIN-OIRAN II (Remodeled from Oiran II, Kofū 2020) SHIN-EDOGAWARANPO (Remodeled from Edogawa Ranpo, Kofū III 2023) Across these works, MEITEI expands the musical vocabulary first introduced in Kofū, a sound he once described as “lost Japanese mood.” While Kofū drew from fragments of folklore, theatre, ghost stories, and forgotten urban memory, it was never an act of historical reconstruction. Rather, it reflected a sensibility of the past observed from the present. With AGATE, this worldview is clarified as Shinpu, a process of discovery in which historical awareness becomes a foundation for contemporary creation rather than a constraint. During five years of Kofū tours across Japan, Europe, and Asia, MEITEI performed this material in a wide range of spaces, from underground live houses and listening rooms to culturally significant sites. These environments influenced pacing, dynamics, and structure, shaping how the material evolved over time. AGATE is therefore not only a studio album, but the result of material refined through repeated performance. If the Kofū albums were windows into forgotten eras, AGATE explores what lies beneath, sediment and strata formed through time and pressure. MEITEI’s approach to sound mirrors the nature of agate itself. Grains become texture. Texture becomes narrative. Voices drift through decaying layers of sound, while ancient instruments are used in non-traditional ways, forming distinctive percussive rhythms and melodies that appear and vanish without fixed resolution. The album’s visual materials were developed under MEITEI’s direction through physical art-making processes. The cover artwork originates from a letterpress print created by Kamisoe, a Karakami atelier in Nishijin, Kyoto, using Kyo-karakami paper. The original artwork, produced through traditional woodblock techniques on handmade washi, was subsequently reproduced on print for the album edition. Kamisoe continues to reinterpret this historical Kyoto craft with a contemporary sensibility. The title calligraphy was created by Bio Xie, whom MEITEI personally invited to participate in the project. During his performances abroad, MEITEI encountered in Taiwan a lingering atmosphere reminiscent of “Shitsunihon” — a sense of old Japanese memory that quietly endures beyond time. He was deeply drawn to Bio Xie’s distinctive use of Chinese characters, which resonated with this experience, and asked him to contribute to the visual expression of AGATE. In parallel, MEITEI continues to reinterpret Japanese sensibility through his concept of “Shitsunihon,” presenting it as a contemporary musical language. The refined Kyoto motifs envisioned by Kamisoe and the distinctive calligraphic expression by Bio Xie intersect with MEITEI’s singular artistic direction, weaving together a newly articulated worldview. The accompanying visual imagery, including the liner photographs, was created by photographer Hiroshi Okamoto, who was also responsible for the visual direction of MEITEI’s previous work, “Sen'nyū.” It draws from MEITEI’s lived experiences of winter seas, solitary cliffs, and breaking waves. These scenes symbolize the inner conflicts of the ten years he spent living in Hiroshima, and his confrontation with solitude and the sounds he creates. AGATE will be released on 17 April 2025 via KITCHEN. LABEL on 180g vinyl, CD, and digital formats. The album is mastered by Kelly Hibbert, known for his work with Flying Lotus, Madlib, and J Dilla. With AGATE, MEITEI returns to the material of Kofū with greater focus and discipline, continuing an ongoing process of working forward with inherited material.

To celebrate 100 years of the Theremin, Gaudi has created an album of Theremin infused dub, with precious contribuitions by some of his friends and collaborators. Developed in 1920 by Russian physicist Léon Theremin, the Theremin is an electronic device which works with magnetic fields and consists of one metal antenna controlled without physical contact. Predominantly a fairly niche instrument, it has featured in several styles of music since its creation, from classical works to sci-fi movie soundtracks, pop and rock. Gaudi was supported in this tribute by five of the world's top dub producers - Mad Professor, Adrian Sherwood, The Scientist, Dennis Bovell and Prince Fatty. All hugely respected individuals who have been representing the best of international dub production for the last 50 years, they have provided the riddims that underpin Gaudi's Theremin playing on this astonishing project. As a solo artist, Gaudi has recorded over 20 albums, while as a producer he has hundreds of productions under his belt. In his 30 year career he has worked with legends of the reggae and electronic music worlds including Steel Pulse, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Michael Rose, Horace Andy, Michael Franti, Zion Train, Maxi Priest, The Beat, Sizzla, Dub Pistols, Hollie Cook, Dub FX, Youth, The Orb, Simple Minds, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Deep Forest, Trentemøller and Lamb. As a Theremin player for over 25 years, Gaudi has often combined his passion for the instrument and for reggae music, playing it on several of his albums, but until now he has never dedicated an entire release to it. Known and lauded for putting his "dub-take" on many musical genres, '100 Years of Theremin (The Dub Chapter)' is Gaudi's brainchild. Listening to this blissful out-of-body-experience of an album, where roots reggae meets the enigmatic and ethereal sounds of sci-fi, is a deep and pensive experience. Haunting and mellifluous melodies meets earthy, bassy grooves in an unlikely yet undeniably successful union.

Gaudi’s Jazz Gone Dub is a masterclass in genre fusion, seamlessly blending the improvisational essence of jazz with the heavy atmospheric grooves of dub. Known for his eclectic approach to music production, Gaudi pushes the boundaries yet again, creating a sonic landscape that feels both nostalgic and refreshingly innovative.

Four years in the making, from the opening track it’s clear that Jazz Gone Dub is more than just a mashup of styles, it's a thoughtful exploration of the intersections between two rich musical traditions.

Gaudi’s multi-instrumental talents are on full display, and the presence of reggae royalty is palpable, courtesy of rootsy melodies from David Hinds (Steel Pulse), Jah Wobble’s iconic bass grooves, Ernest Ranglin’s intricate guitar lines and Sly & Robbie’s rhythmic genius.

Add Colin Edwin of Porcupine Tree, Sardinia’s Train to Roots band, Manu Chao collaborator Roy Paci, veteran guitarist Marcus Upbeat, Mr Woodnote and Tim Hutton’s brass work, Gavin Tate-Lovery’s sultry sax and flute, Horseman’s percussive flair plus Vlastur’s serious basslines, and the result is a rhythmic foundation that’s both solid and fluid, allowing the jazz elements to float freely above the dub undercurrents.

Despite this star-studded line-up, Gaudi remains the glue that holds this gem together: his production is meticulous yet organic, allowing each track to breathe and evolve naturally. The use of space, delays and reverb—a hallmark of dub music—is expertly handled, giving the album a dreamy, immersive quality. Tracks like Susceptible and Alabaster Moon showcase Gaudi’s ability to create mood and atmosphere without sacrificing melodic and rhythmic complexity.

In Jazz Gone Dub Gaudi has crafted an album that feels both timeless and forward-thinking, a celebration of musical synergy where the free-spirit of jazz meets the deep resonance of dub. Whether you’re a fan of either genre or simply appreciate masterful musicianship and innovative production, this album is a must-listen.

Lucciole is Silvia Tarozzi’s luminous follow-up to the intimate reflections of Mi specchio e rifletto and the deeply rooted folk dialogues of Canti di guerra, di lavoro e d’amore with Deborah Walker. Here, Tarozzi draws together voices, memories, and musical lineages to create an album where avant-garde composition, personal narrative, and collective resonance exchange freely.

The album opens with a radiant brass ensemble—chosen for its popular, celebratory, spiritual sound—and closes with the Piccolo Coro Angelico, the children’s choir she has worked with for over fifteen years and calls “my best school of composition and a constant gym of hope.” Between these bookends, Tarozzi’s songs trace life’s transitions with a rare tenderness: childhood into adolescence, health into fragility, presence into absence.

Two central songs—her own “Lucciole” and a glowing live-in-studio cover of Milton Nascimento’s “River Phoenix”—honor a beloved friend whose life and presence evoke new horizons. “Corallo e perle,” inspired by a dream her grandfather had after her grandmother’s passing, becomes a gentle, dreamlike meditation on the persistence of love.

The strings, voices, and melodic contours that define Mi specchio e rifletto reappear here with new warmth and depth. Produced by Tarozzi in close collaboration with Marta Salogni, who engineered and mixed the album, Lucciole carries a clarity, intimacy, and sonic generosity that reflect their shared journey through the recording process.

At its heart, Lucciole is an album about small lights carried through moments of transition—an invitation to listen closely to the places where life changes, and to the people, living and remembered, who illuminate the way.

Beat Records is glad to present GOLDRAKE GENERATION VOLUME 1, the first release of a series dedicated to Italian 70s, 80s and 90s cartoons’ main titles songs. A franchise with roots in Japanese immense cartoons’ production that stormed Italy with a high wave of images, sounds and colours which left a remarkable sign in the period children. Goldrake Generation is dedicated to a musical period deeply rooted in screen emotions which, every time we experience it, generates a chain reaction, this first episode dedicated to music composed for cartoons having Robot as protagonists. Grande Mazinger, Trider G7, Ufo Diapolon, Yattaman and many more, for going back to the origins and to the memories of a wonderful childhood, among the dearest belonging to the Goldrake Generation to which we dedicate the series. This CD presents Universal TV theme songs belonging to former RCA catalogue, a selection by Francesco Piccardo that together with Simone Pellecchia and Claudio Fuiano remastered 13 cues for a great listening experience. Liner notes by Daniele De Gemini, Goldrake Generation mascotte by Jacopo Cigarini, graphic layout by Daniele De Gemini.

Akashaplexia is the culmination of Merzbow and John Wiese’s decades-long partnership, offering over three hours of new music across four CDs. Recorded together in Tokyo, the album balances Merzbow’s psychedelic intensity and Wiese’s meticulous sonic architecture, presenting a vast and intricately detailed landscape of noise, improvisation, and unpredictable dynamic shifts.​

Akashaplexia stands as the first full-length studio collaboration between Merzbow and John Wiese, captured in December 2024 at Sound Studio Noah, Tokyo. This box set - designed by John Wiese and elegantly housed in a casewrap slipcase - is remarkable in both ambition and presentation, packing more than three hours of newly forged material on four separate discs. The album’s creation is rooted in a history that stretches over 25 years, encompassing live sets and mail collaborations that have shaped a deep mutual vocabulary between the artists.​ From Smegma to Sissy Spacek, Wiese has paired with Merzbow through varied musical guises. Both artists maintain core positions within experimental sound and improvisation. Merzbow continually evolves: from his early days of acoustic tape work and improvisatory noise, through the extremes of the 1990s, into an era marked by digital sound and a blend of crude metal scrapings with heady psychedelia. Wiese, for his part, navigates the terrain between rigorous composition and volatile concrète techniques, mixing electronic surges with refined tape collage, and driving performances that stretch the boundaries of sonic drama.

On Akashaplexia, Merzbow’s layered, dynamic noise architecture collides and interlocks with Wiese’s textural sophistication and firey manipulation. The result is a rich landscape where raw, energetic blasts are counterbalanced by moments of deliberate compositional control and intricate collage. Tracks move fluidly between abrasive crescendo and atmospheric detail, giving listeners a chance to experience both artists’ strengths in full scope. Thresholds of sound are tested and extended, expectations upended, and each piece invites attention to both the smallest detail and the overall immersive force of the album. This set marks a new pinnacle for both Merzbow and John Wiese, and for the wider world of experimental music. Akashaplexia is not only about noise but the construction and transformation of sound itself - where raw intuition and calculated artistry become indistinguishable, and the music, in all its extremity, reveals new terrain.​

Anushka Chkheidze + Robert Lippok’s »Uncontrollable Thoughts« on Morr Music is the duo’s debut joint release. The Netherlands-based Georgian composer and the German sound artist from Berlin first met in 2019 in the context of a workshop programme that took place in Tbilisi, and later worked with Eto Gelashvili, Hayk Karoyi, and Lillevan on the massive »Glacier Music II« music and book project, released in 2021. This led them to engage in a less conceptually driven form of musicking and real-time composition that corresponds with their respective environments. They draw on traditions such as minimal music or late 1990s and early 2000s electronica to integrate subtle beats with elegiac organ drones, playful melodies with lush textures. The first document of an ever-shifting intergenerational dialogue, »Uncontrollable Thoughts« is a product of mutual listening outside time.Though Chkheidze and Lippok had access to professional studios, they chose to rent a simple rehearsal space, equipped with only the bare essentials—bass and guitar amps as well as a small PA—to maintain immediacy in their working process. The music they made together corresponded to and drew on the respective possibilities and shortcomings of this studio, much like their collaboration in general is characterised by the care with which they approach each other's talents and ideas. While both had loosely defined roles—Chkheidze was responsible for the free-flowing beat programming and the evocative distortion came courtesy of Lippok, for example—they individually contributed in different ways to their joint process, which is as free of hierarchies as it is limitless. Hence, the duo’s focus on spontaneity and out-of-the-moment emergence makes them organically move beyond tried and tested conventions, resulting in music that seems to suspend time altogether.When the first chimes on »Bird Song« announce a piece that sets rattling kickdrums against a backdrop of layered drones and rhizomatically entangled melodic elements, it becomes clear why »Uncontrollable Thoughts« carries this title: The album follows the constant detours of the subconscious of its makers, letting them explore moments of ecstasy such as on »Rainbow,« melancholy with »Field,« and the interplay of suspense and release through the ten-minute-long title track. But the different pieces also tie into one aother in various ways. The dirge-like organ drones on which »Rainbow Road« ends reappear in the beginning of »Uncontrollable Thoughts,« much like Chkheidze’s gentle yet emphatic piano chords on »Field« seem to provide the starting point from which the artist develops the striking motifs of the final piece »Opening«, whose title itself suggests that the record as a whole can and should be enjoyed as a loop. All this creates a unique, idiosyncratic temporal logic.While there is much that sets Chkheidze and Lippok apart as solo artists, the major shared leitmotif in their respective bodies of work is the sonic engagement with space. »Uncontrollable Thoughts« is hence best understood as an extension of this practice; as an album that maps the geographies of their minds in motion, tracing musical movements as they melt into each other.

Beyond Rare! These historical recordings of a 1967 concert at Hope College in Michigan involving John Cage, Toshi Ichiyanagi and David Tudor, performing compositions by Ichiyanagi and Alvin Lucier, were recently discovered in an archive in Japan. The Lucier piece, "Music for Solo Performer”, was the first musical composition to utilize human brainwaves; this 1967 performance, released here for the first time, is an early realization of the piece, featuring Tudor, Ichiyanagi and Lowell Cross, using alpha waves to activate a wide range of percussion instruments. This proto-industrial version is heavily influenced by the amplified performance techniques pioneered by Cage and Tudor in the 1960s; quite different from the 1982 Lucier/Pauline Oliveros realization on Lovely Music. Ichiyanagi’s 1967 composition “Appearance” combines live electronics with acoustic instruments and adds Cage to the list of performers. This is the same piece which was released in 2006 by Omega Point, but the source tape used here is believed to be the master tape, resulting in a significant improvement in audio quality. These are historically significant and musically fascinating recordings, available on LP and CD. The release includes liner notes by Ibe Osamu of Omega Point, who explains how the tape was discovered, as well as liner notes by sound artist Minoru Sato, a researcher of Lucier's work who was in contact with the composer during his lifetime. Ichiyanagi contributes a note about “Appearance”.

In the North of Nigeria, people like Bollywood films so much that 20 years ago, they started making their own local productions. The films of Kannywood feature song and dance - and the incredible music that defines Northern Nigeria: Autotuned robotic vocals combined with frenetic drum machines and pitch bending synths for a hybrid of local styles and Indian influence. In 2012, Sahel Sounds and Little Axe traveled to Kano, the center of the film and film soundtrack industry and heart of Kannywood. Meeting with some of the top actors, directors, and musicians, and visiting dozens of studios - where songs are composed with desktop computers and digital keyboards - we collected thousands of songs, a drop in the abundance of Hausa film music. "Harafin So" which translates to "Word of Love" is the first ever international release of film songs from Northern Nigeria, available on limited edition Vinyl and CD and digital download. Featuring top hits by some of the biggest Kannywood film superstars (Fati Niger, Abubakar Sani, and the exuberant Sani Danja), the selection highlights some of the most notable songs in this remote and flourishing music scene - a scene that is the signature sound of an increasingly globalized world.

‘ИМА (Ima)’ is a work by KiMiMi, the solo project of a musician Shin-ya Ohno, which captures the layers of time and the presence of people inhabiting ‘Arimasuton Building’—a self-built structure created over 20 years by architect Keisuke Oka, located in Mita, Tokyo, and reconstructs them into music. A multi-instrumentalist who masterfully handles a diverse range of instruments, with the gaida (an ancestor of the bagpipes) – which he studied in Bulgaria – at the core of his sound, KiMiMi has previously brought traces of daily life and folk melodies recorded during his travels back to the scale of home recording, weaving fantastical folk soundscapes through cassette tape works and stage music. Alongside his musical activities, he has participated in the construction work for ‘Arimasuton Building’, recording the sounds of hammers and steel beams echoing on site, lunchtime chatter, the melodies of instruments played by others, and the sound of cars passing by. From the end of 2022, a zine titled ‘Monthly Arimasuton Building Urimasu’, based on this construction project, was launched. KiMiMi incorporates these recordings into the musical works he contributes to each issue, layering sounds from live instruments—including the gaida, accordion, guitar, flute, ukulele, piano, foot-pump organ, melodica and xylophone—alongside a few synthesiser tones, to shape a soundscape imbued with the humidity and breath of the site. KiMiMi’s creative process is characterised not by planned construction, but by an attitude of entrusting the work to chance, intuition and the passage of time. Fragmented recordings are layered, set aside for a time, and then unearthed again. Through this repetition, the music naturally takes shape. This resonates perfectly with the process of ‘Arimasuton Building’, which was built up improvisationally, layer by layer, without any pre-prepared blueprints. ‘ИМА (Ima)’ marks the current stage of KiMiMi’s sonic journey and represents an attempt to gracefully transcend the boundaries between architecture and music, documentation and creation, and the individual and the community. The clamour of the city, the tranquillity of manual labour, laughter, and every sound resonating at the Arimasuton Building site blend with KiMiMi’s music, reflecting the very passage of time in which people live.

"When you notice the cheerful mystery playing with the synths, the edges of this small world start to look slightly distorted. In any era, someone is always creating mysterious music on their own." (7FO) Music in DNA is an album recorded in the early 1980s in New York City and self-released in 1984 in Japan by Yasuhito Ohno, a young Japanese man breaking free from the constraints of his homeland. The album is a naive burst of outsider DIY enthusiasm, inspired by the multiple avant-garde movements of the era, in music, painting and performance, as well as the native energy of 80s NYC. Ohno channeled his youthful “edge” and zeal into open-minded lo-fi musical explorations using a mere two machines: the then-new technological glories of a four-track cassette recorder and that polyphonic synthesizer masterpiece, the Roland Juno-60; on several pieces he vocalizes. These seven tracks have a zestful, innocent, anything-goes charm, free from preciousness and self-consciousness: a raw and youthful human spirit at play in a new world. Ohno was also inspired by the humanistic promise of the general technological developments of the day, including DNA research, personal computing, and early computer graphics, an example of which can be found on the cover. Ohno later returned to Japan, becoming a renowned composer/producer. In an era of jaded cynicism, Music in DNA is a welcome taste of big-hearted innocence, a revival of a raw self. Available on CD/LP/Digital, with E/J liner notes by the artist.

One of the first artists iDEAL wanted to work with was Japanese noise legend Masami Akita (b. 1956) aka Merzbow and we consider his 7” for us as the first release on the label. His work is of course very well documented since his start in 1979 and we have been obsessed by his noise since we first came across it in the late 80s through that double LP on RRR. Merzbow is unique and has always kept his own corner in the experimental music world. ”GAREKI NO NIWA” is harsh, psychedelic and rewarding. It’s great listening and to us an essential Merzbow album!

The latest mixtape LP, “Even The Devil Smiles,” comes from rapper and producer IDK (Jason Mills).

At the end of June 2025, the Krakow-based label Instant Classic will release the album "Bura" by Raphael Rogiński and the group Ružičniak Tajni, which includes Serbian artists: Svetlana Spajić, Marina Džukljev and Tijana Golubović. The album also features guest appearances by Piotr Zabrodzki (LXMP, Mitch & Mitch) and Mila Gavrilovič. Ružičniak Tajni is a unique meeting of Polish and Serbian musical traditions, the result of cooperation between artists seeking new forms of expression based on the cultural heritage of Central and Eastern Europe. The initiator of the project is Raphael Rogiński - a Polish guitarist, composer and researcher, known for his experimental approach to traditional music and his love of improvisation. In the project, he is accompanied by three outstanding Serbian artists whose work is a conscious combination of local traditions and modern expression: Svetlana Spajić – a renowned ethnomusicologist and singer, specializing in old vocal techniques and archaic song forms. Her interpretations combine authenticity of message with sensitivity to the contemporary context. Marina Džukljev – a pianist moving in the area of ​​improvised and experimental music, known for deconstructing harmonic and rhythmic structures. Tijana Golubović – a violinist and vocalist, drawing from folk performance practice, while simultaneously exploring new sonic narratives. Their collaboration resulted in the album “Bura”, recorded in Serbia in November 2024. The title refers to the characteristic wind from the northern Balkans, symbolizing both the forces of nature and the cultural tensions shaping the identity of the region. The album is a musical encounter of traditional Serbian songs – reconstructed on the basis of oral traditions and archival materials – with modern means of expression. Another key element are Raphael Rogiński’s original compositions, inspired by Sufi poetry, which was translated into Serbian in the 19th century. The sound layer of the project is based on the dynamic interaction of voice, stringed instruments and piano. Spajić brings the depth of archaic vocal techniques, Golubović combines the violin idiom with the vocal one, Džukljev creates complex harmonic structures, and Rogiński transforms the guitar tradition, enriching it with microtonality and modality. The Ružičniak Tajni concert tour will take place in May and June 2025, covering five Serbian cities. The inaugural concert is scheduled for May 16 in Belgrade. The project was created with the support of the Polish Institute in Belgrade. The concert tour is carried out in cooperation with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the cultural programme accompanying the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2025.

5-CD box set presenting virtually all of Morton Feldman'smusic for solo piano. Performed by Philip Thomas, who also writes a 52-page booklet that is included in the box (and a pdf of the booklet is included with download sales)

Artwork by David Ainley

Morton Feldman's three long pieces for flute, piano and percussion, played by the GBSR Duo (Siwan Rhys & George Barton) with Taylor MacLennan on flutes. Why Patterns? (1979) 30 minutes, Crippled Symmetry (1982) 90 minutes and For Philip Guston (1984) 280 minutes.

"The works contained in this box set occupy a special place within the context of Morton Feldman’s oeuvre, written as they were for Feldman’s ‘house ensemble’ at the University of Buffalo from the late 1970s onwards: Morton Feldman and Soloists. Flutes, piano/celesta and percussion is an idiosyncratic combination of instruments that Feldman came ultimately to favour. Indeed of Why Patterns? he said in 1983 “I never dreamt to write one of my most important pieces with that combination”; but in his last decade Feldman wrote multiple chamber works for identical forces only twice: the two string quartets, and the three trios presented here.

What a contrast – where the string quartet offers an abundance of woody timbres, this ensemble is glacial, dominated by simple, almost sine-tone-like sonorities. Percussion could be anything, but the pure metallic sounds of the vibraphone and glockenspiel dominate, with tubular bells and marimba introduced in Guston but rarely used. The ensemble seems almost an embodiment of Feldman’s spectacular statement from 1984’s The Future of Local Music “I’m not interested in colour”.

Yet in exploring the timbral etiolation this unusual trio affords, Feldman discovers an unexpected world of delicate tinctures where harmony and colour interact and become almost indistinguishable. Notably, immediately after stating “I’m not interested in colour,” Feldman continues by remarking on Schoenberg’s observations about the interaction between pitch and timbre: “he says that timbre is the prince of the domain, that the resulting timbre is to some degree more important than the pitch itself, as we think of pitch. That’s a very important idea.”

Perhaps it’s no surprise then that this ensemble, with its uniquely refined timbral combination, held the role of crucible for Feldman’s important compositional ideas in the transition into his fully-fledged late period.

For Philip Guston: The close friendship between Morton Feldman and the painter Philip Guston collapsed in 1970, an estrangement that would endure until the painter’s death in 1980. Four years later Feldman would dedicate this contemplative epic to his late friend and to their lost friendship; a work that conjures an emotionally complex world of hazy perceptions and hazier reflections.

As the hushed tones of piano, flutes, celeste and metallic percussion cluster in complex soft-focus rhythms, at some points cohering around snatches of melody, at others scattering to explore seemingly unrelated ideas, Feldman explores the limits of memory and half-recollection – traversing and re-traversing the same terrain, but with deceptively sure tread leading the listener towards a poignant, perhaps devastating, conclusion."

Young Anglo-German composer Eden Lonsdale returns to Another Timbre with this startling double-album, writing immersive, long-form experiments that question instrumentation, space and harmony in collaboration with Apartment House, Oerkal and Ensemble Ipse. RIYL Arvo Pärt, Morton Feldman or Gavin Bryars.

There's a softly-spoken quality to Lonsdale's compositions that we identified immediately when we copped his brilliant debut, 'Clear and Hazy Moons', last year. He pares his sound back even further on 'Dawnings', that's conceptually rooted in its three string pieces: 'Aura' (for solo cello), 'Cloud Symmetries' (for four violins) and 'Shedding' (for seven violas). Each piece is minimal in its own way, but pushes the instrumentation to its limits by extending the harmonic versatility; 'Aurora', for example, is performed by (and written especially for) Anton Lukoszevieze and uses an experimental technique for a cello tuned in just intonation, where the player can extract resonant chordal sounds just by varying the pressure in their left hand. And for a solo piece it's strikingly rich, even when compared with the ensemble pieces, its fictile, scraped moans splitting the difference between archaic Northern European folk and intimate chamber music.

Lonsdale's motions are clearer though on 'Shedding', a collaboration with Brooklyn's Ensemble Ipse that queers a simple three note melody with microtonal alterations that create justly tuned intervals. It's clever stuff on a formal level, and to our ears just works so beautifully, widening the aspect ratio and deepening the sense of longing with its poignant, gentle phrasing and obscured harmonics. Lonsdale intersperses the string pieces with more varied orchestrations: 'Dawnings' (for clarinet and piano), and 'Constellations' (for organ, with flute, clarinet, percussion and strings). The latter is particularly startling; Lonsdale imagined the composition as a spacialized installation of sorts, with the players scattered in small groups around the venue. Even in stereo, the concept comes to live as he layers the various sounds, using the organ's powerful tones to anchor the additional instruments as they overlap and create distinct tonal clouds.

It's a magical listening experience, honestly - one that shows Lonsdale's full range as a composer and has our heads spinning. Quite how he manages to balance the drama and restraint without sounding repetitive or schmaltzy is a genuine achievement, it's music that prioritizes texture and space, but still sounds harmonically captivating.

A defiant new recording of one of Morton Feldman's most disarming compositions, Apartment House's 'Violin and String Quartet' captures the icy character of the instruments, melting time into fuzzed memory. When Feldman began producing durational works in the late 1970s, he managed to confound even his most dedicated friends and followers. Steve Reich famously lost touch with his cohort during this period, later regretting it when he gave the compositions time to sink in - he eventually conceded that 1985's 'Piano and String Quartet' was "the most beautiful work of his that I know." 'Violin and String Quartet' was written the same year, only two years before Feldman died, and evolves slowly, lasting two and a quarter hours. This fresh interpretation from Apartment House is different from previous recordings, close-miking each instrument to emphasize the tiny variations in sound: the little earthquakes that lend drama to the composition's watery flow. One of Feldman's prettiest pieces, it's aptly elevated by Apartment House's refined technique. If you heard the ensemble's rendition of 'Piano and String Quartet' from 2021, 'Violin and String Quartet' is a worthy follow-up. Their expertise with NYC minimalism is well documented at this point, and feeds into the effortlessness they exude while soldiering through the piece's duration. Billowing clouds of harmony replace any expected "vocal" themes, and the piece hangs in the air, reshaping time rather than commanding attention. Apartment House use microscopic magnification to help us perceive Feldman's original vision; the composer was obsessed with natural reverb and the physical decay of his instrumentation, and gave the composition plenty of negative space for these elements to bleed into the foreground. Here, Apartment House treat the pauses with reverence, leaving the echoes and traces to imprint themselves into the recording. Melodies and phrases twist into bubbling whirlpools of bowed fluctuations that appear and reappear throughout the piece, rhyming with previous segments and creating disarming pockets of sonic deja vu. Feldman asks us to reconsider the act of listening, lulling us into an elevated state. Apartment House give us the experience of hearing the music as if in the same room, concentrating on the bows on the strings and how they interact with the environment. It's a form of meditation that requires focus, but also an ability to release yourself from temporal concerns for a couple of hours - right now, that's never been more important.

Two Pianos and Other Pieces 1953-1969 collects the most experimental and beautiful works for multiple pianos from Morton Feldman’s formative years, exhuming scores rarely captured before - including “Two Pianos,” “Piece for Four Pianos,” “Piano Four Hands,” “Piano Three Hands,” and “Two Pieces for Three Pianos.” Led by pianists John Tilbury and Philip Thomas, the ensemble expands with strings, brass, and percussion, depending on the piece. This collection shines during passages of radical quietness, microscopic shifts in texture, and dramatically suspended time - hallmarks of Feldman’s search for an elastic music both shorn of narrative and dense in acoustic intrigue. Each piano work in the set privileges the instrument’s decay, color, and afterlife, using soft dynamics and open textures to lead performers into a phenomenological engagement, “as much about listening as playing.” Notes hover in limpid suspension; chords and clusters bloom and vanish in reverberant spaces. Feldman’s notational experiments with time - free durations, coordinated ensemble decay, unorthodox alignments - led him to invent forms where narrative is replaced by attention and depth is measured in the smallest changes of sound. Quietness is essential, but not the subject: the focus is on what sound does in space, how it transforms under touch, and how ensemble musicianship can dissolve boundaries between performer, score, and environment. The album stands as an essential addition to Feldman’s recorded legacy - a chamber adventure where collective listening, spectral nuance, and compositional radicalism shape every gesture. The performances are supremely sensitive, satisfying Feldman’s still-radical aims with restraint, clarity, and palpable intimacy. In these pieces, piano music reaches its apotheosis as exploration - of instrument, ensemble, and the outermost edge of musical time.

Seven beautiful, melancholic motets and a chanson by Renaissance composer Nicolas Gombert, arranged for instruments by James Weeks, who also composed the interludes. "One of the least expected and most beautiful records we are likely to hear this year." (Clive Bell) Gombert's music was renowned for the complexity of its polyphony, and these realisations, played by leading experimental ensemble Apartment House, emphasise the layered density of the music, while trying to take it as far away as possible from its origins as choral church music. The album is a personal project initiated by label owner Simon Reynell, a long-term fan of early music. Composer James Weeks also straddles the worlds of both early and contemporary music, and his 'media vita' interludes act as resting points between Gombert's intricate pieces. One of the bonus items which comes with the music is a pdf of an extended discussion about the project between Reynell and Weeks in which they discuss different approaches to the performance of early music, the brutal world of 16th century Europe from which the music sprung, and the ethics of promoting the music of a composer who did awful things. You can also read Clive Bell's excellent feature article about the album on another of the bonus items.

A 72-minute realisation of 'Intermission 6' (1953), one of the most open of Feldman's piano works. The piece was realised in October 2024 by Antti Tolvi.

The score consists of a single page with 15 events (chords or single notes) which can be played in any order, and can be performed by one or two pianists. Feldman writes that “The pianist, or pianists, begins with any sound on the page, will hold until barely audible, then proceed to whichever other sound he may choose. Sounds may be repeated.”

Most performances of 'Intermission 6' are between 4 and 10 minutes, but Antti Tolvi extends the piece to a duration more typical of Feldman's later music.