NEW ARRIVALS

Caterina Barbieri & Bendik Giske's At Source resounds music as wellspring, that which is essential and unknowable, and yet utterly primary. It finds two acclaimed composer-musicians building a world together in self-contained collaboration between analogue synthesis and an extended approach to the saxophone that conjures its own universe of sound. It is at once intimate and cosmic, drawing on the challenges and possibilities of their artistic exchange, tearing down technique to access all the expansive possibilities of their sonic meeting point. At Source is a document of the world of sound to be conjured when two artists strive for something together, discovering the expansions and limitations of performance by bodies and machines. It is not an exercise in assimilation, but in productive exchange and creative confrontation. It does not draw on outside energies or influences, but grapples with what there is to find in their respective playing. "It also reflects how natural the collaboration was," says Barbieri, "a meeting at the source which was spontaneous, graceful and natural". Barbieri and Giske first met and were enthralled by one another's performances at Kunsthaus Glarus in 2019, a meeting that spurred conversations on the power of transitions as a compositional force. Giske later contributed a rework of Fantas for Fantas Variations (Editions Mego, 2021), an ambitious undertaking to rescore Barbieri’s work for his saxophone and voice, a challenge Giske had started undertaking two years prior as an ongoing practice of transcription. “The request came as a proof of aligned ideas”, says Giske. Their new collaborative project then started during an artistic residency in Milan’s ICA in 2021, by invitation of swiss artist and curator Jan Vorisek, as the world was emerging from lockdown. This meeting, and the preceding closure of sites for cultural exchange, made their work together 'feel like springtime' says Barbieri. Giske, who was on the brink of releasing his sophomore album, Cracks, then joined Barbieri's light-years tour, which functioned as an inaugural incarnation of her newborn label and platform through a series of multi-artist curated shows with appearances of Lyra Pramuk, Nkisi, MFO, among other artists. Through the tour, they continued to develop material live, and this release, laid down in the studio, is true to that ever-evolving process of creation, where live feedback stays essential to the vitality of this collaborative effort. The tracks are each named with two evocative words that contain the two poles of their sound. Theirs is both abstract and cosmic, in the synth as machine undermined by Barbieri's naturalistic playing, and in Giske's continuous exploration of the symbiosis between his instrument, voice, and body. These binaries, of body and machine, posed various challenges, notably in how the stepped patterns Barbieri uses were near-impossible to translate for Giske's body to perform, and other times where mathematical resolutions were needed to sync their playing. Explains Giske: "It forced me to go to the core of what I am and what I have to offer”. Barbieri says that it "explores the liminality between the machine and the human, and the vulnerability in this process". On 'Intuition, Nimbus', the first track to be written, Giske's playing flutters and rises on Barbieri's synth, like a flock of birds lifted skywards on thermal columns, with clouds of pulsing tones fanning avian wings. 'Alignment, Orbit' settles into a steady torque, Giske's gentle percussions syncing with shifting loops, steadily building energy and conjuring solidity from breath and resistance. The extended 'Impatience, Magma' stretches glowing and languorous, honing in on and picking up a synth melody with whetted edge that cuts through the firmament, populating a broad cosmos of extended tones and replicating patterns in a piece that calls to mind Laurie Spiegel's extended works, and steps into transcendent duet with Giske's saxophone at its most keening and spiritual in tone and movement. 'Persistence, Buds' unfurls gracefully in sensuous sympatico, as saxophone caresses Barbieri's slowly twirling progressions, a tactile and meditative closer. At Source is testament to two divergent practices finding a whole cosmos in which to convene; music is crystalised and made utterly enveloping through the focused and critical work of two musicians working at their peak. The versions here are, temptingly, "just one of many versions" of this abundant source material Giske explains. Like the best collaborations, At Source is more than the sum of its parts – bringing more to the feast than the simple combination of two musicians, promising versions upon versions of the exquisite material captured here.

"Four Corners" is a compilation that showcases the various facets of American West Coast minimalist composer Jeff Bruner, with pieces from the 1970s to the 2020s displaying a cohesive set of aesthetic concerns. Bruner has a kinship with the composers Harold Budd and Daniel Lentz, the latter being a mentor to Bruner, and one can hear a relationship with the music of other minimal/post-minimal composers such as John Adams and Terry Riley. 1979’s “Magic Mbira”, a key piece in this collection, particularly highlights a Riley-esque element, and with its skillful use of tape delays reminiscent of Lenz's "cascading echo system." Bruner and his mbira piece also have musical affinities with Roland P. Young and his classic Isophonic Boogie Woogie, in their shared melodic and structural concerns, as well as a desire to perform their compositions in a wider range of performance spaces, away from traditional recital halls. Another side of Bruner is revealed in the funhouse-mirror “Reggae Foes”, a deconstructionist calypso-reggae tune and skewed Black Ark filtered through Cunningham/Toop’s General Strike. The remaining two pieces are melancholy beauties of solo instrumentation: “Cold Rain and Snow” is a fretless gut-string banjo re-imagining of an American folk song; “Remembrance in a Pale Room” is a lovely piano piece dedicated to Lentz. Bruner has built upon a tradition, altering and adding to it with his individual vision, giving us this collection of intriguing and beautiful music. Available on CD/Vinyl/Digital, and the physical version includes E/J liner notes by Jeff Bruner, rare photos & the score for "Magic Mbira”. ----------------------------------------- "I first came across Jeff’s mysterious "Reggae Foes" 45 in the mid-2000s at the legendary Logos book/record store in Santa Cruz, California (RIP) - the kind of generic sleeve and label that gives you nothing more than a font and some scant shards of text to go by (luckily this text was “A Flying Saucer Came Down and Burnt My Baby's Neck”). What I heard upon bringing it home felt like some kind of alternate-timeline post punk calypso, unknowingly adjacent to the deconstructions occurring at the Black Ark or in David Cunningham’s early productions. When I finally talked to Jeff many years later, I was even more surprised to learn that he was also entrenched in southern California’s post-minimalist composer scene in the 1970s alongside many of my compositional heroes, work which this compilation presents for the first time. Couldn’t think of a better place for it to be transmitted from than EM!" (Spencer Doran/Visible Cloaks)

EM Records is proud to present the first repress of the dancehall dub classic "Aftershock Dubs" (2014) in 12 years from Australia's Sheriff Lindo, dubmaster of the Southern Hemisphere. His "Ten Dubs That Shook the World" [EM1219CD/LP], released in 1988, has been growing in stature and became a classic since its release, supported by its rerelease on EM Records, and in the meantime the Sheriff has been working steadily, deep-local style, honing his skills with the Australian sound systems Firehouse Sound and Earthlink Sound. The tracks on "Aftershock Dubs," recorded between 1990 and 2005, while never officially released, have been played as dub plates at sound system parties, proved movers, tested in the heat of action. Recorded at Lindo's 4/5 Studios, these specials were chosen by Japanese sound system savants Takuto Kuratani (Ruv Bytes) and Atsushi Muneshige (Touch the Sky/Corner Stone Music) from a cornucopia of goodness supplied by Sheriff Lindo, mastered by Kuratani for maximum impact. EM Records' first-ever Dancehall release is now available again on vinyl, digital and CD, with two bonus tracks on the CD. One track features the vocals of Ras Roni; all tracks feature the experience-forged Dub sense of the Sheriff. More than a quarter-century of love, knowledge and soul-science has been distilled here. Don't miss it.

A split LP by two bands with truly singular musical identities: OOIOO, the Japanese experimental rock group led by YoshimiO of BOREDOMS, and Lightning Bolt, the noise‑rock duo from Rhode Island, USA.

Saxophonist and composer Jasmine Myra presents nine beautiful and powerfully grounded compositions that express her ruminations on life, growth, and progression, powered by the artist’s vision of duality. “It’s those bittersweet moments which are heart-breaking but so important. Looking forward and trying to make sense of life,” she says. “Pain is unavoidable, and you’ll have hardship no matter what, but you don’t grow or learn about yourself or the world around you without it. The duality is the growth and coming out the other side. I had the concept from the start.” Jasmine Myra’s verdant musical vision and talent for instrumental storytelling came to life over five days, with her long-standing ensemble gathering in one room at The Nave studios in Leeds with the addition of a string section – all recorded live. Myra had crossed paths with Ancient Infinity Orchestra bandleader Ozzy Moysey before she moved from Leeds to London, often attending and playing at the same jam sessions. This made him the perfect choice to conduct the 13-piece band, freeing her up to bring maximum tenderness and elegiac tones to the alto sax lines she’d written. Her own playing sits deliberately within each track, never flying above. Instead, it wraps gently around precision melodies she wrote for strings, piano, flute, guitar, vibraphone, and harp which themselves furl and unfurl gorgeously around tenor sax, double bass, drums, and percussion. Melodies that sparkle like sunlight on water.

Remixed and remastered with bonus material and released on vinyl for the first time. Deluxe 2LP editions with artwork re-imagined by Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic. "If I could watch any jazz band in the UK, any, I would choose Matthew Halsall's band, just love what he's been doing over the last few years... It's always high level, spiritual jazz music" Gilles Peterson BBC Radio 1 Matthew Halsall (born September 11, 1983, in Manchester, England) is a Worldwide Award winning and MOBO nominated trumpeter, composer, producer and DJ. Since 2008, Matthew has released seven critically acclaimed studio recordings and has been a key figure in the rise of a new jazz sound in the UK. In addition to his own releases Halsall has collaborated with many DJs and producers, most notably DJ Shadow and Mr. Scruff, and in 2013 Matthew’s music was selected by Bonobo for his Late Night Tales compilation. Halsall is also the founder of Gondwana Records, a genre bending independent record label featuring a wealth defining albums by the likes of Portico Quartet, GoGo Penguin, Hania Rani and Mammal Hands. His own rich music draws on the spiritual-jazz of Alice Coltrane and Phaorah Sanders, contemporary electronica and dance music alongside his travels in Japan, the traditional art and music of which, has left a lasting impression on his compositions. Sending My Love (2008) and Colour Yes (2009) were his first releases and document Halsall’s first great bands featuring the likes of flautist Chip Wickham, saxophonist Nat Birchall, harpist Rachael Gladwin, bassist Gavin Barras and drummer Gaz Hughes. Joyful, life-enhancing albums, drawing on UK jazz and spiritual jazz influences but with a decidedly modern bounce, they introduced Halsall’s music to the world gathering support from the likes of Gilles Peterson and Jamie Cullum, Mojo, Straight No Chaser and beyond. But Halsall was never completely happy with how the records were presented and as part of Gondwana Records 10th anniversary decided to revisit the recordings, meticulously remixing and remastering them for vinyl and commissioning new artwork from Ian Anderson, one of his favourite designers. These then are the definitive editions of the records. Sending My Love comes complete with the beautiful bonus track This Time, while Colour Yes features the equally striking It’s What We Do and Ai. “I am very proud of these early recordings. They represent the starting point of my musical journey in Manchester and showcase some of the cities finest musicians such as: Nat Birchall, Chip Wickham, Rachael Gladwin, Adam Fairhall, Gavin Barras and Gaz Hughes. They are also the very first recordings my brother and I decided to release on our record label (Gondwana Records). Listening back they sound full of energy and joy and really reflect how I was feeling at that precise moment. But as much as I loved the music, I was never 100 percent happy with the sound of the mixes and mastering. So I decided to go back to the original tapes to remix and remaster them and present them the way I'd always wanted, and along the way we unearthed a couple extra unreleased tracks, which we decided to include as bonus material. Myself and my brother also decided to bring in Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic to re-imagine the artwork and we are super blown away by the results!" — Matthew Halsall, Oct 2019

Chaz Prymek and Matthew Sage are old friends; after a spate of duo releases in the late 2010s and early 2020s, this is their first proper full length duo release in six years. Those six years have been busy for both artists; they are the primary songwriters in their project Fuubutsushi with Patrick Shiroishi and Chris Jusell, Prymek is busy with his Lake Mary project, along with being a curator and organizer in Salt Lake, Sage has had a string of albums on RVNG, as well as juggling being a professor, a parent, a gardener, and an artist in Northern Colorado. They both spent part of that time wandering the Midwest, but both share deep roots in the Mountain West, in Colorado and Utah. Shelter sees the duo settling back into the wide landscapes of where they come from, and also where they are going. These were the first recordings made in the pole barn studio Sage set up in rural Colorado in 2022. Slowly and gently layered with sparse overdubs – yearning slide guitar, accordion, clarinet, recorder, delicate synthesizers – and sateen production treatments, the core of the album is a series of first take live improvisations with Prymek on electric guitar and Sage on piano. The album feels like sitting on a porch with an old friend and a warm cup of coffee while you catch up and talk about the good and the bad with a smile. Gentle and hymn-like, deeply melodious and patient. Channeling a humble spirit looking out on a majestic scene, things feel airy and pastoral, spacious and patient but a little tousled, windblown, chapped. Prymek and Sage have a long and wide catalog together, but something about Shelter feels like a new chapter and a benchmark for both of their practices containing the influence of years of sonic and artistic explorations, immense life changes, cross country moves, and all the warmth a sunbeam can bring along the way.

AFTER DARK is the latest project from French producer Onra, conceived as the soundtrack to an imagined late-night film. Entirely self-produced, the album continues the sophisticated R&B and Modern Soul direction explored since his 2010 classic Long Distance and 2018's accomplished Nobody Has To Know, focusing on late 80's / early 90's inspirations. Structured like a film unfolding between dusk and dawn, After Dark moves through themes of intimacy, urban solitude, distance, and quiet indulgence. Analog synthesizers, tight drum programming, understated basslines, and selective live saxophone textures shape a cohesive body of work that favors mood and narrative over excess. The sequencing reinforces its cinematic intent, opening and closing with intro and outro pieces that frame the record as a cohesive night-time narrative album. Over 20 years since emerging in the mid-2000s from the beat scene, Onra has steadily evolved from sample-based Hip-Hop production toward polished, song-oriented projects rooted in contemporary R&B and Funk. With After Dark, he delivers one of his most focused and refined statements to date: a mature, immersive album built for late hours, and attentive listening. The first taster of the album to drop is the slick nostalgic ’Lap of Luxury’, sets the tone for the project, a blend between Instrumental Hip-Hop, late 80s R&B and 90''s Smooth Jazz.

When they were there they saw a lone woman coming to the door of the Hostel, after sunset, and seeking to be let in. As long as a weaver’s beam was each of her two shins, and they were as dark as the back of a stag-beetle. A greyish, wooly mantle she wore. Her lower hair used to reach as far as her knee. Her lips were on one side of her head. She came and put one of her shoulders against the door-post of the house, casting the evil eye on the king and the youths who surrounded him in the Hostel. He himself addressed her from within. "Well, O woman," says Conaire, "if thou art a wizard, what seest thou for us?” "Truly I see for thee," she answers, "that neither fell nor flesh of thine shall escape from the place into which thou hast come, save what birds will bear away in their claws.” "It was not an evil omen we foreboded, O woman," saith he: "it is not thou that always augurs for us. What is thy name, O woman?” "Calib," she answers. "That is not much of a name," says Conaire. "Lo, many are my names besides.” "Which be they?" asks Conaire. "Easy to say," quoth she. "Samon, Sinand, Seisclend, Sodb, Caill, Coll, Díchóem, Dichiúil, Díthím, Díchuimne, Dichruidne, Dairne, Dáríne, Déruaine, Egem, Agam, Ethamne, Gním, Cluiche, Cethardam, Níth, Némain, Nóennen, Badb, Blosc, B[l]oár, Huae, óe Aife la Sruth, Mache, Médé, Mod.” On one foot, and holding up one hand, and breathing one breath she sang all that to them from the door of the house.

The elusive Shin Watanabe, gives us an insane 13 track double lp of absolute deep house mastery. When talking about deep house here, we mean along the lines of greats like Master C+J, Quest, Burrell, or Blue Jean to name a few. Late night mid-tempo dark house sleaze for the corners of the club. Total old school deep cuts in the truest of traditions. Not to be missed. Housed in a disco sleeve.

Straight out of the local mud of the city of Antwerp comes this next Souvenirs from Imaginary Cities slab of free-flowing bits of electronic wonder : Schönen Abend by Simon B. Just in time to ease you out of this endless winter and right into springtime. Like the previous hit by Purple Uncle, this flower takes some time to bloom and fill up your head and body with it's ear wormy fragrance. It's hazy and cinematic, makes you think of Italian electronic pioneers and their library magic, Patrick Cowley's School Daze and Haruomi Hosono in some kind of gothic manner. It's quite stripped and lush at the same time, rhythms like minimal mechanics make you fly above the river and land just outside reality. It's a nice place where soft jazz tingles right around the dark corner, and that particular mix of exotica and melancholia — the trademark of this port city's best electronic auteurs is definitely in the air. The river still shines, but she’s deeply poisoned. The old town has lost every bit of fresh air but keeps on digging for old gold. This bitter pill is served with delicacy and lightness, the wound is dressed up seductively — feet in the mud, head in the air. Stuff is sensuous, with quiet places reminding of the good side of those times when the big wheel stopped turning ever so madly. A strange quietness whistles through the leaves. Some things take time to unfold. In or out of C. Four years in the making, this is the solo debut LP of Simon B, a longtime contributor to Antwerp's improvised music scene (Groovecats Deluxe, Wij Blij Trio ). Primarily a double bass player, he also has a deep-felt passion for offbeat electronica and the rainbowy side of American minimalism, which takes front here. You can hear the tenor and soprano saxophone of Adia Van Heerentals on 4 tracks, deepening out Simon's naturally flowing compositions and playing around with his melodies. You may know her from Bodem and her strong presence in the Belgian jazz scene lately. The smoky voice on the last track belongs to Nina-Joy Thielemans, she is part of Particals, a trio working with live electronics and field recordings, releasing an lp on Ultra Eczema later this year. Simon's electroacoustic experiments — using a clarinet and some outboard effects — were important tools in finding the very specific colour of this record. There's this airy character, like wind blowing through old layers of bricks and over the river, anchored with a deep sense of bass, gathering ages of dust and memories in these eight elegantly wobbling tracks, forming a perfect whole that’s really coming together in one deep listening from A to Z. The centrepiece is perhaps "Came to Me", instrumental and reprise with vocals, but no fillers on this one. Every part of the mystery is needed to come to its end and back again. It's a record that works in the morning, to open up a day and in the quiet corners of the night, with it's sleazy quirkiness, smiling towards you from the right corner of the eye. A perfect compagnon for your long-form wandering habits, light reflections on a wet surface obsessions, coffee slurping in the morning and the forgotten art of beachcombing. Quite essential these days, witnessing a world going apeshit.

Born out of a summer (and time) sadly lost forever, this new release on Souvenirs From Imaginary Cities will break your skull open most tenderly, so its fine particles of audio dust can mingle with the last rays of sunshine and the bitter storms of this autumn. Track after track, this LP draws you in with a natural flow and a deep-felt pulse, reminiscent of classic slices of raw and sample-based ambient like Susumu Yakota's 'Sakura' and 'Everyone Alive Wants Answers' by Colleen. These tunes are heartfelt, melancholic, real, emotional. It's a very personal and unique blend of almost nineties chill out zoning with a dubby undertow, rich textured loops, mixing a whole range of crazy acoustic and electronic flavours — stuff that shouldn't work together but are dancing all the way to heaven anyways — with slow-burning, dusty slabs of melody and those deep choral pads (some Rachmaninov vesper magic in the air), everything rough around the edges and low slung but so damn precise. A subtle mélange between abstract and more concrete sonic territories, but delivered in an upfront, improvised manner with great intuition and a rough but poetic touch. The name of this piece of swampy, chopped up but most nicely presented ambient work is ‘La Ho’, by Purpurniy Dyadya aka Purple Uncle aka Sergey Dmitriev, originally residing in St. Petersburg but living now in Armenia. Sergey has been busy on labels like Echotourist, Hair Del, Nazlo and most recently with fellow traveller Nikita Chepurnoi as Amkarahoi on Patience/Impatience. Using old tapes from his childhood times, filled with all kinds of sonic memories and Russian underground hip-hop as sample ground, he loaded up his MPC with magic dust and jammed out the basis of this LP during a summer fest near St. Petersburg in 2021. It's the kind of record that needs some time to really let loose its inherent power. Give it some air, let it hop along a bit and the sounds will bloom wide open. Sounds to put in an envelope and send without a return address/further delay to the last one that transformed your heart into a smoky pile of rubble — or to your sweet self, of course. Part of the proceeds from this release will go to the Ukrainian aid organisation "Voices of Children”.

Based in California, Marjorie W.C. Sinclair’s multi-disciplinary project, Evanora Unlimited, weaves together goth, industrial, bedroom pop, and post-punk through a uniquely dark lens. Their latest release, Portraits from Memory, is a deeply personal and conceptual self-released album.

Sensible Soccers x Mad Professor present EP#1 - Dub Versions, a meeting point between Atlantic psychedelia and classic dub techniques. The collaboration pairs the Portuguese trio’s hypnotic grooves with Mad Professor’s deep-rooted studio approach, resulting in a set that moves between dancefloor propulsion and spacious, exploratory textures. ‘Dub de Saia Travada’ and ‘Berlaitada Dub’ lean into heavy basslines and rolling rhythms, built for movement and sound system play. ‘Dub Discreto’ shifts the focus outward, stretching into kosmische territory with nods to Cluster and Klaus Schulze, while retaining the warmth and depth of dub. Bridging styles, scenes and sensibilities, EP#1 - Dub Versions captures a focused exchange between two distinct approaches, reshaped into something fluid and transportive.

Brochure is a new collaboration between Gee Dee, Miles Felix, and Nick Stropko. For their debut release, they opted to cover Joking by Celine Lomez, originally featured in Soft Rock for Hard Times Vol. 7. Drenching the arrangement with synthesizers and opting to record the tune half-time, Brochure recontextualizes the song into a longing ballad. Osprey 2 is the latest nom de guerre of Ryan M Todd aka Paul Atreides, Tom Guycot, Darklord Disco, half of Private Sea, founder of Going Home Records and an instrumental part of Universal Cave productions and parties for well over a decade. Osprey 2's Version Verrückt flips the longing ballad into a funky, driving krautrock number for Side B. The Universal Cave crew offers their Terrace Mix as a digital only bonus track. A stripped-down strummer for the summer, the Terrace mix is scenic overlook gear for the mind's eye. Pre Order includes download and streaming of sides A & B, bonus mix will be released with the 45 in January.

For the debut release on our new Soft Rock For Hard Times imprint, Suzanne Kraft covers Sugarcane's unforgettable soft-rock-meets-modern-soul ballad "What You Do To Me." Originally released as a limited 45 and featured on WDVE's first Pittsburgh Rocks compilation in 1980, and then featured on Soft Rock for Hard Times Vol. 2 in 2014. Recorded and produced by Suzanne Kraft with a pitch perfect synthesizer solo by Jordan Czamanski, this version expertly matches the original song's private press essence with a full sound and dynamic arrangement that is recognizably Suzanne Kraft. Secret Circuit delivers an extraordinarily heavy dub on the flip, launching Suzanne Kraft's cover forward with bass and drums under waves of delay and echo, bouncing the song towards the iconic synth solo which Secret Circuit sends into pure soundsystem bliss. The Universal Cave crew whipped up a bonus Atmos Mix for the digital release, easing the song into downtempo, chilled-out arpeggiation directed squarely at horizontal listeners everywhere.

Music From Memory returns with their penultimate release of 2016, this time bringing together a compilation of works by the Italian composer and musician Roberto Musci. While studying guitar and saxophone in his hometown of Milan, Musci developed a deep fascination for non-western music and set out to travel across India, Asia and Africa, which he would do extensively between 1974-1985. During his many journeys Roberto would become deeply embedded in each unique world of rhythms, scales and approaches to making and performing music. Throughout this period of travel he would make many field recordings as well as collect and study many traditional and indigenous instruments that he would then later combine with synthesizers and electronics on his return to Italy.

Combining personal documents of music and sounds deeply connected to the history and cultures of those lands, with his own explorations and experiments with cutting edge sound technology Roberto Musci would develop through his music a very unique and at times wholly mystical space, where ancient and modern would evolve into a new musical language.

As well as making his own music, during the 1980’s and 1990’s Roberto would also regularly broadcast radio shows of experimental and indigenous music on Italian radio stations such as Rai and Radio Popolare. Deeply connected to the arts he would also compose and perform numerous pieces of music for theatre, dance and performance art pieces as well as soundtracks for film and television.

‘Tower of Silence’ brings together a double LP of material from Roberto Musci’s solo recordings commencing with the Loa of Music sessions from 1984 up until later very recent works. The compilation also includes a number of collaborative pieces, many performed and written in collaboration with Giovanni Venosa, such as material taken from their ‘Water Messages On Desert Sand’, which as an album was Grammy-nominated in in the UK in 1987. A unique and at times intensely mesmerising musical world ‘Tower of Silence’ offers an introduction to the work of a unique and visionary artist.

Indie Stock places itself in a context it adores and defies. Every wall is movable and no accident is an accident. Just as a song is made out to be one thing it reveals itself to have been the other all along. Make no mistake, there is something at the heart of it all, even though its pulse resonates from all directions at once. The listener becomes the toad, gladly boiled in a shimmering liquid until it is too late: The bass kicks in and cant be unheard. From 2, Amsterdams self-proclaimed troupe of folk mutants, take stock of it all on this record: hushed affect in tumultuous settings, a mole insurrection of epic proportions, the secret workings of pornography platforms and memory. One song might invite to dance, stumble or float, while another is what a ghost should sing. Above all, it is real. Palpably real in a way only the fabrications of true devotees might ever be. What is a consoculator, again?

in filth your mystery is kingdom / far smile peasant in yellow music Recorded 2019-2024 'the gold metal must be wrung a bore is a well lit mine where everything belongs to me' Dagmar Zuniga makes music that feels both intimate and expansive: songs drift like disrupted signals, carried by harmony, tape hiss, and a strong sense of touch. Her debut solo album in filth your mystery is kingdom / far smile peasant in yellow music — written and recorded in New York, Norway, and Athens, Georgia over a period of five years on her longtime companion, the Tascam 424 — was uploaded to Bandcamp and YouTube in January 2025 through Dagmar’s friends People's Coalition of Tandy. The project quickly garnering over two hundred thousand views and the attention of artists such as Mount Eerie, who invited her to tour with them that summer. This year, what was once a jewel of tapped-in algorithms and message boards will meet the world at large, with in filth arriving digitally on March 4, and physically on April 10, via AD 93.

Previously released on May 20th 2014. Kikagaku Moyo here sound anything but lost, their child-like wonder manifested in a confident, courageous exploration of sound. Labels – psychedelic, folk, prog-rock, psychedelic-folk-mixed-with-prog-rock – do little to accurately reflect the spectrum of influences on display, let alone the more impactful realization of completeness in Kikagaku Moyo’s songs.

A pivotal 2006 work from the late Mika Vainio—renowned as one half of Pan Sonic and a towering figure in experimental and electronic sound—returns on Sähkö under his solo alias Ø. Born from the underground of Helsinki, Finland’s experimental stronghold, Aste documents a coldly precise yet exploratory approach to electronic sound that left a decisive mark on the minimal techno scene. Metallic austerity and mysterious silence coexist here, as sharpened structural beauty and ruthless reduction of sound deliver an overwhelming tension that still resonates today. A definitive statement from the outermost edge of electronic music.

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.

“Bells” is the celebrated set that overjoyed the audience at New York’s Town Hall on May 1st, 1965. It’s a ferocious, twenty-minute romp containing excellent group improvisation and Ayler's signature military-themed melodies. The performance marks an important shift in Albert’s music: towards blurring the lines between composition and improvisation. It is also the debut recording of Charles Tyler. Reissued on 180 gram transparent vinyl with screenprinted Bells logo on the blank side. クレジット

consciousness through ecstatic dance. Gabrielle Roth & The Mirrors were a world unto themselves.

Despite featuring an extraordinary cast of musicians (with credits including Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, Miles Davis, Santana, Stevie Wonder, Milton Nascimento and much more) and selling hundreds of thousands of albums, the music of Gabrielle Roth & The Mirrors remains largely unheard beyond their sphere. Conceived as live, improvised soundtracks to Roth’s transcendental dance workshops, musical acclaim was never on the agenda.

Instead, for a passionate dancer and spiritual polyglot like Gabrielle Roth, movement was a means through which to channel a wide spectrum of teaching, from experimental psychology to psychedelic counter-culture. It was from this heady mix that she devised a movement meditation known as 5Rhythms, which came to define her life’s work.

As “guide and catalyst”, Roth would dance to inspire the percussion-led instrumentals that would in turn fuel her 5Rhythms workshops, stimulating a secular form of ecstatic dance with roots in Native American shamanic traditions, Afro-Brazilian Candomblé and Yoruba drumming.

Using anything from a Sioux pony drum to East African kihembe and Japanese Kabuki drums, Gabrielle’s lawyer-turned-drummer husband Robert Ansell set the foundational rhythms for The Mirrors’ recordings, each of which would then feature a rotating cast of friends and professional musicians.

“The secret of everything we’ve done is that we never told anybody what to play,” Robert shares. “Instead of our albums being a musical vision of one person like me or Gabrielle, they were the musical vision of a whole bunch of people.”

At times the recordings have a Middle Eastern flair, at others, West African and spiritual jazz modes come to the fore. Hints of kosmische musik, proto-house and electronic ambience are laced like LSD through the organic rhythmic structures. This was kaleidoscopic ambient music to stir the body and free the mind.

In practice, the task of synthesising these different elements fell to Scott Ansell, Robert’s son and a recording engineer whose credits now include Nile Rogers, Duran Duran, Grace Jones. With meticulous attention to detail he captured and translated the dynamic energy of each drum onto record. Their sessions became legendary, and with access to the best studios in the NYC, The Mirrors sparkled.

Despite being initially overlooked by the burgeoning ‘80s New Age market, which preferred pipes and gongs to The Mirrors’ heavy-grooving drums, Robert Ansell set up Raven Recording to self-release the music, creating a vast sonic archive of sixteen albums over almost forty years.

The breadth of Raven’s catalogue is such that curator Pol Valls had to cut an initial selection of sixty-six tracks down to the eleven featured here. What crystallises is a stunning, mind-altering collection which spans, in Pol’s words, “a variety of genres, styles, and vibes within their catalogue, whether it is emotional, esoteric, spiritual, melancholic, hypnotic, dark, or at times a combination of these elements together.”

Music for immersive and intimate environments, Gabrielle Roth & The Mirrors were born from the dance. In the hands of the right DJ, at the right time, in the right place, they might just return there.