NEW ARRIVALS

Convergence is a new live album from William Hooker featuring guitarist John King. Recorded at the B10 Festival in Shenzhen, China on October 25, 2024, it captures an exhilarating set shaped by the audience’s energy and deep mutual connection. Hooker’s thunderous drumming meets King’s walls of distorted guitar in an expansive, hour-long performance of raw intensity, recorded direct from the soundboard. The music moves fluidly between intensity and restraint, structure and spontaneity. The album stands as a document of cross-cultural exchange and creative freedom, reinforcing Hooker’s decades-long legacy as a leading force in avant-garde music while showcasing a compelling collaboration with King.

Paulownia by Merzbow is a 2025 full-length statement comprising two lengthy compositions that fuse intense electronic manipulation with Merzbow’s enduring fascination for natural phenomena. Across both pieces, the album merges organic inspiration and harsh digital process, producing a hypnotic yet confrontational experience.​ **Edition of 200** With Paulownia, Merzbow (Masami Akita) delivers a formidable new addition to a catalog already legendary in the experimental music world. The 2025 release spans two extended pieces—“Paulownia part1” and “Paulownia part2”—each developing a dense matrix of sound where digital noise entwines with subtle references to organic structures. The album’s name, drawn from the paulownia tree, hints at Merzbow’s long-standing environmental preoccupations; here, they are rendered less as representational themes and more as evocative textures and forms. The compositions surge with layered feedback, haunting drones, and micro-rhythmic fluctuations, evoking an ambiguous, immersive environment that rewards attentive listening.​ What distinguishes Paulownia is its ability to generate tension and release from the interplay between ferocity and fragility. The music neither settles into a predictable assault nor dissipates into formless ambience; instead, it sustains a meticulously sculpted intensity. As always, Merzbow’s commitment to tonality, texture, and structure resists easy classification, maintaining a delicate balance between repetition and change, aggression and atmosphere. For those prepared to let sound define its own territory, Paulownia is a compelling testament to Merzbow’s ongoing innovation, fortifying his place at the core of the noise tradition while persistently opening new vistas for exploration.​

Bifuu_ZONE, translated loosely as “a zone of gentle breeze,” is a concept drawn from Tsudio Studio’s personal vocabulary rather than a strict linguistic equivalent. While liminal spaces are often framed through unease, Bifuu_ZONE reimagines them as sites of quiet comfort, restoration, and slow transformation. The project centers on impermanence, erosion, and the subtle ways time reshapes even the most solid structures.The West takes its title literally, drawing inspiration from buildings and environments located west of Osaka. Each track is composed with a specific architectural space in mind, allowing tone, texture, and resonance to emerge from imagined structures rather than narrative progression. The result is a site-responsive ambient work that listens closely to stillness, weathering, and spatial openness. Saxophonist mori_de_kurasu appears on three tracks, introducing breath and human fragility into the album’s restrained sonic palette.This perspective is deeply informed by a Japanese sensibility toward impermanence, an acceptance of loss and change not as absence, but as gentle continuation. Rather than positioning liminal space through anxiety, Bifuu_ZONE gestures toward what lingers quietly after the dream has ended.Beyond the album itself, The West also marks a point of convergence within Tsudio Studio’s broader practice. In March, he will present an exhibition and live performance at Gallery SHUTL in Higashi-Ginza, Tokyo, centered on the idea of “post-liminal space.”Under his primary name, Tsudio Studio has released work through Media Factory, Local Visions, and ULTRA-VYBE, collaborating across Japan, Europe, and the United States. In 2022, the compilation OACL, which he contributed to and mastered through Local Visions, reached #2 on Bandcamp’s global charts. The West is a focused ambient work shaped by space, time, and quiet transformation.

The album opens at dusk with an imagined final stop before departure, a roadside gas station just as daylight fades. This introductory scene, conceived as “Last Gas Station Before the Horizon,” places the listener amid passing cars, distant seagulls, and the low hum of anticipation. The idea is to frame the record as part of a radio program, potentially guided by a radio announcer’s voice drifting in and out of the soundscape. From there, the journey moves fully into night. Tracks progress like signals picked up along the drive, calm, reflective, and gently nostalgic, until the album’s closing moment. “Peaceful Blue” represents arrival at the final destination at dawn, when the sky shifts into a deep blue and the listener waits quietly for the sun to rise and a new day to begin. Transcoastal Night Drive is an album about motion, atmosphere, and memory, less a narrative than a feeling, inviting listeners to settle into the drive and let the night pass by.

Recorded between the iconic Abbey Road and Polish Radio studios, Hania Rani’s original music for Joachim Trier’s Cannes and Golden Globe winning, Oscar and Bafta nominated ‘Sentimental Value’ is a deeply intuitive collaboration, composed before a single frame was edited. Intriguingly Hania worked on the score for Sentimental Value without an edit in hand; instead, she was given a carefully written script and the freedom of her own substantial imagination. The story told in the film oscillates around three characters and the motionless presence of the house, yet the relationships between all these personalities are not fixed, but in progress. Those subtle qualities were at the center of her attention and became the core topic of numerous discussions with Joachim about the music, the film, and the philosophy behind Sentimental Value. In September 2024, Hania went to Oslo and spent a couple of days in the main film location (the family home in Oslo) with her sound engineer, Agata Dankowska. The film crew was away in France to shoot another scene for the project, so they were allowed to freely explore the space - both visually and sonically. They made field recordings in the building, capturing the sounds of objects and furniture found in the apartment, and they also managed to record a couple of piano pieces. The house plays a significant role in the story, silently witnessing the tangled trajectories of its residents.

A 2026 release from Japanese sound artist Chihei Hatakeyama. Spanning six tracks and roughly 43 minutes, the album unfolds without dramatic shifts, letting subtle fluctuations and delicate changes in texture gradually expand across each piece.

Based in Hong Kong, vocalist and songwriter Anita Tatlow — also known for her work as Salt of the Sound and Narrow Skies — presents a delicate ambient work that gently draws the listener into its sound world.

Here In The Valley is the debut full-length release from helllhound, the intimate sonic collaboration of life partners Cadmar Fitzhugh and Nailah Hunter. Born out of a seismic shift from urban Los Angeles to a remote mountain town in the Sierra National Forest, the record reflects a period of profound transition—into the wilderness, into parenthood, and into a deeper communion with self. Woven together through acoustic guitar, harp, voice, and gentle electronics, Here In The Valley evokes the textures of the natural world and the unseen dimensions of ancestral memory. It moves like mist through tall pines and echoes like a fireside tale overheard from across a moonlit meadow. Tracing the arc from conception to early motherhood, the album celebrates the beauty and impermanence of life on Earth, the mysticism of matrescence, and the long journey home to oneself. With tracks written before, during, and after pregnancy, the album unfolds like a handmade map of a spirit-led pilgrimage—through waterways, starfields, and golden hills. Each song is a milestone, a myth. From the harmonic murmurs of “downstream” to the ancestral chant of “by sea,” the stargazing restfulness of “the pleiades (sleep),” and the gentle nighttime balm of “lullaby,” Here In The Valley is a love letter to new life, old stories, and the sacred quiet in between. The pair’s shared creative language finds expression in ethereal ambient and folk sounds. Nurtured in the stillness of California’s high country, their music conjures pastoral dreamscapes that hum with the mystery of birth, the longing of memory, and the wild devotion of partnership. Named after their spirited Husky-Aussie dog Sigge, helllhound channels both the chaos and comfort of life lived close to the bone—deep in the valley, with stars above and earth below.

9 CD with 9 composers of electroacoustic music who did work at INA-GRM.Ludger Brümmer, “Deconstructing Double District” (2011), “Xronos” (2002), “Glasharfe” (2006), “Spin” (2014).Philippe Leroux, “La guerre du faire” (1992), “M.É” (1998), “Objets trouvés… posés” (2009).Diego Losa, “Cronicas del tiempo” (2005), “Historias de dos mundos” (2007), “Sortie d’un rêve dans une nuit étrange très loin d’ici…” (2012), “Horizons ou le récit d’un voyageur” (2015).Mario Mary, “Signes émergents”v (2003), “2261” (2009), “Une bouffée d’air” (2006), “Portraits témoins” (1997).Luis Naon, “La sphère et la pierre” (1993-94), “Perspectives” (2004 – 2017), “Lascaux rbana” (2004).Ake Parmerud, “Les objets obscurs” (1991), “Renaissance” (1994), “Dreaming in darkness” (2005), “Electric birds” (2012).Elzbieta Sikora, “Axerouge V” (2011), “Chicago Al Fresco” (2009), “Flashback” (1968-1997), “Derrière son double” (1982-83).Kees Tazelaar, “Chatoyance” (2013), “Chroma” (2006), “Sternflüstern” (2003), “Sérénade” (2016).Hans Tutschku, “Extrémités lointaines” (1998), “Distance liquide” (2007), “Monochord” (2008), “Migration pétrée” (2001).

lovesliescrushing's Bloweyelashwish is an ambient masterpiece, originally recorded in 1992 with a 12-string guitar, 4-track recorder, looping pedal, and boundless reverb. Scott Cortez’s project, alongside the haunting vocals of Melissa Arpin Duimstra, transformed bedroom daydreams into a serene, moonlit journey on a timeless sea. This expanded and remastered double album features five additional tracks, each distortion-laden and hypnotic, alongside lyrics and a replica postcard to guide listeners deeper into its world. Blindness, not eyewash, is the intended experience.

Morphing between the sensory and the suppressed, Radwan Ghazi Moumneh and Frédéric D. Oberland’s debut album summons a poetic musical proclamation of transfigured reality and social amnesia. These seven tracks evolved collaboratively over two years, beginning as a series of duets that Moumneh instigated at Montréal’s Hotel2Tango studio in summer 2023. The Arabic title of Eternal Life No End translates more literally as "A dark, cursed night, like the seekers themselves" and the album is an outcry amidst the oceans of injustice flooding the SWANA region, haunting the lives and visions of vast populations.

Like Dante and Virgil in Dante’s Inferno, Oberland and Moumneh’s compositions chart an emotional vortex, as dream-time seeps into trancelike percussion and hypnotic melodies, channeling collective urgencies that ripple through the currents of Radwan’s voice and Arabic lyrics. Oberland’s passages of saxophone and clarineau evoke shamanic exhortations of evil, while Moumneh’s buzuk strums and swarms, often through electronic processing, with tempestuous mourning about unfolding tragedies. An array of instrumentation fleshes out the wider soundscapes: daf (a Middle Eastern frame drum) and bongos, a modified electric rababa, shuddering bass and other synthetic filigree from Oberland’s Buchla and Deckard's Dream synths.

"It's a healing process in a way," says Oberland about the work. "Since the genocide started, I’d had a complete artistic block and the inability to articulate what people are living through" explains Moumneh, who ultimately packed his instruments and gear and flew to Paris in the summer of 2024 to work on the album in earnest with his long-standing friend. The two had collaborated on multiple previous occasions, with Oberland’s primary group Oiseaux-Tempête, and through Moumneh's work as Jerusalem In My Heart and as a producer/engineer on various other projects. Eternal Life No End builds on their abiding allyship as Oberland and Moumneh navigate energies and emotional shifts in newfound ways, merging their sensibilities and uncovering deeper resonances. “We worked day and night together and made clear decisions collectively” states Oberland, who nonetheless also took the lead in positioning Moumneh’s voice to shine through these compositions—there is singing on four of the album’s seven tracks. The duo played reverse roles of a sort and ventured new creative processes, as Moumneh openly took direction from Oberland, setting aside his usual lead-producer role as steward of Jerusalem In My Heart.

"Squeal of Swine" and "Dagger Eyes" open the album with dual gut punch, as hand percussion, low end synth tones, and ricocheting buzuk and rababa set the stage for Moumneh’s keening Arabic singing, reflecting a sea of sickness currently drowning the state of humanity. On the instrumental track "A Dream That Never Arrived", a lo-fi dancehall-inflected beat anchors otherworldly melodic lines set against electroacoustic sound design in spatio-temporal displacement. Eternal Life No End is accompanied by an audio-visual essay for the electronic (and vocal) song "The Serpent", assembled by Oberland and shot on Super 8mm camera in Montréal, Paris and Beirut, including footage of Gaza protests in Paris, and of the Frequent Defect event at Irtijal Festival’s 25th anniversary edition in Beirut. Lebanese graphic designer, printmaker, and calligrapher Farah Fayyad provides talisman-like artwork of entwined serpents, similarly inspired by this centerpiece album track.

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.”

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.

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!