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Carrier makes his Modern Love debut with a collaboration alongside Equiknoxx leader Gavsborg, blending dub techno precision with stripped-back, bass-heavy steppers. Known for reshaping the intersection of dub and drum & bass, Carrier (Guy Brewer, Shifted et al.) here doubles down on the fundamentals, while Gavsborg’s distinctive vocal presence — previously heard on productions for Busy Signal and Thom Yorke — adds a dark, hypnotic edge. ‘The Fan Dance’ on the A-side is a masterclass in reductionist rhythm: intimate vocals drift across spacious stereo fields, sharp hi-hats, deep subs and spectral detail. The B-side dub pares it back even further, exposing skeletal mechanics that echo early Burial and latter-day T++. Guy Brewer never misses!
King of the house swingers (and shufflers, jackers, buckers) kicks off his bloodlines whitelabel series with two long sides of sweaty jams that act as a counterpart of sorts to that recent BLOOD LIVE tape, sniping groove-riding killers for the canny DJs.
The near half hour session portrays MJB deep in the flow in a way that seamlessly elides and blurs distinctions of his signature, jazz-taught and tracky studio and DJ tekkerz with mesmerising finesse.
Side A is a real killer, chopping out 15 minutes in transitional flux between multiple elements and nailing the in-the-blend, 3rd track effect as it snakes from salsoul hustle to a purring Motor City mode and riff-riding Prescription vibes.
Side B yokes back to big-boned, pendulous and tracky business glazed with glyding keys and pumping bass echoing Norm Talley, and switching up half way to a ruggeder offbeat tipping a cap at Theo.
Sonor Music Editions proudly presents this restored issue of Maestro Sandro Brugnolini's Overground. This elusive masterpiece in library music captures the most impressive work, alongside Underground (1970), of the Italian composer and alto sax player.
Sandro Brugnolini was a prominent member of the Modern Jazz Gang, a famous Italian jazz group, during the 1950s and 60s, which also included Amedeo Tommasi, Cicci Santucci, and Enzo Scoppa. The group was active from 1956 to 1965 and produced some remarkable albums such as Miles Before And After (1960) and the original soundtrack from Gli Arcangeli (1962), which featured the renowned American jazz singer, Helen Merrill. Subsequently, he recorded many of the genre's most iconic releases, including Feelings (1974), albeit uncredited, and ventured into Psychedelic Lounge Funk and Progressive Jazz Beat tunes.
Overground was released on Sincro Edizioni Musicali in 1970 as the soundtrack to Enrico Moscatelli and Mario Rigoni's documentary Persuasione, commissioned by Ente Provinciale Per Il Turismo Di Trento, a local tourism board in Italy, with music composed by Sandro Brugnolini and Luigi Malatesta featuring some of the best musicians in Italy at the time like Angelo Baroncini and Silvano Chimenti on guitars, Giorgio Carnini on piano and organ, Enzo Restuccia on drums, and Giovanni Tommaso on bass and effects. The music spans from underground Psychedelic Prog. Rock with swirling organs, trippy effects, and distorted fuzz guitars to sophisticated Lounge grooves with Avant-garde orchestrations.
The music has been transferred and remastered from the original master tapes. It has been lacquer cut in stereo by Jukka Sarapää at Timmion Cutting and packed in a thick cardboard sleeve featuring a fully restored painting by Umberto Mastroianni licensed by Centro Studi dell’Opera di Umberto Mastroianni.
“Although it’s not a UFO case, there are those who insist on interpreting it as such, creating narratives and situations that don’t correspond to reality.”
– Claudeir Covo, ufologist, during the 1st Brazilian Forum on Exobiologism and Holism, 1998.
Sensational Conversations is a phantasmatic dialogue between two people who have never met — a freewheeling exploration across different languages, geographies, and states of mind. An artifact that could be interpreted as an alien signal, but in fact, it is just the sound of two people trying to stay in motion.
Bruno Tonisi’s debut album began as a gesture of contact: reaching out to one of his longtime heroes, legendary New York rapper and producer Sensational. What followed wasn’t a conventional collaboration, but something far more peculiar — an exchange that feels like a coded message, picked up on a staticky radio frequency, halfway between two broken worlds.
The album deconstructs hip hop until it becomes something else entirely: at times, an abstract sound collage in a similar vein as GRM's; at others, a dirty, low-slung loop that could’ve emerged from some long-lost NYC basement tape. No matter how far it ventures into atmospheric or unearthly territory, there’s always a kind of tension anchoring it — a pulse, a streetwise roughness, a refusal to drift too far from lived experience.
With intense spectral processing, distorted beats, fractured voices and half-lit conversations, the album creates a terrain that constantly shifts underfoot. At first, it’s disorienting. But as you acclimatize yourself to its logic — its unstable rhythms, its errant signals, its sudden emotional clarity — the landscape begins to feel strangely navigable.
And through all of this, one thing remains clear: hustling creates connections. Beneath the abstractions and distortions one finds a shared drive — a low-key urgency in both Bruno and Sensational, each of whom find ways to keep on moving, keep on creating, keep on reaching out. Sensational Conversations may sound like science fiction, but its engine is deeply real.
What we’re hearing isn't necessarily what it seems — and it is precisely therein that some form of truth may lie.
Manchester’s Sferic label (Space Afrika, Jake Muir, Bianca Scout, Roméo Poirier++) return with a fire debut from ungoogleable Greco-Canadian anomaly Anastasia Patellis, aka Any, featuring additional instrumentation and co-production from Klein/Lolina cohort LA Timpa. It's a set of "squat pop" experiments that thread nocturnal soundscaping and pop hooks through hallucinated outlines written on harp and broken synth, highly recommended if you’re into Astrid Sonne, Tirzah, Nala Sinephro.
Greco-Canadian artist Any was bedding down in a Cretan squat when the album's title, μέγα ελεός in Greek, boomed from loudspeakers next to a bonfire, courtesy of a midnight Orthodox church sermon. Moving to the sunny, ancient island had provided her with an escape from big city burnout, but she ended staying far longer than expected - years rather than months. It’s this prolonged sense of suspension that provides the album with its wandering spirit, using harp as an emotional core.
Listening to Breton music made on the Celtic harp from artists like Kristen Noguès and Alan Stivell, Any sketched out song outlines that were then tweaked by Lagos-born, Toronto-raised journeyman LA Timpa, who flew out to Crete last summer to put his idiosyncratic stamp on the record. Like the dusty songs on Astrid Sonne's 'Great Doubt, ‘MEGA MERCY' sounds as if its drum line was duped on dictaphone from an old beat tape, then spliced with field recordings and vocals.
Half sung, half spoken, she murmurs around the beat, not exactly over it, adding circuitous, boss-tuned harp twangs when necessary. It's music that's spartan rather than lo-fi; a sort of bare-bones reaction to electroacoustic experimentation and outsider folk. It makes perfect sense that an artist as thematically on-point as LA Timpa is involved - Any's instrumental vamps are roughly pasted around pinprick boom-bap snaps and crunchy foley denouements, eventually cooled into contemplative Nala Sinephro-esque meditations.
Sections bring to mind Tirzah's most psychedelic early excursions, with dry asides set against a slurping, off-axis beatbox loop and distant, barely-audible synths. The record is tied up on 'WEATHER LIKE TIDE', an instrumental callback to the opener, book-ending the album with a melancholy, humid kinda ambient folk, purposefully melting the timeline.
A collection of brand new studio recordings, recorded by Davey Jewell (Peaking Lights/Flaming Lips) and mixed by Carlos Niño (Leaving Records). A magical mixtape of tracks that run the full gamut of ‘Laraaji music’, from blissed-out percussive jams to reflective vocal hymnals to trance-inducing drones. A perfect Laraaji entry-point on his never-ending creative journey through inner light.
Praise for Bring On The Sun:
“Shimmers and glistens and throbs in all the right places.” - The Guardian
“It’s minimalistic and trance-like, made for headphone listening and intimate spaces, but in no way does it fade into the background” - Pitchfork
“Spontaneous yet cohesive; intimate yet spun-out, this is some of Laraaji’s finest work. He is finally getting the recognition for being the singular visionary that he is” - Future Music
“A remarkable, transcendental journey into the clouds” - Electronic Sound
“Some much needed waves of cosmic sunshine for our currently troubled times” - The Wire
“An uplifting transcendence that’s simply a joy to hear” - Prog Magazine
“A sprawling collection, encompassing everything from euphoric zither washes to jazzy beat poetry, without ever losing sight of its mood of sunny positivity” - Uncut
On his second album MUTANT, Moroccan producer Guedra Guedra sculpts irresistible rhythms and sounds from his analogue synths and drum machines, blending them with percussive fragments, field recordings from Morocco, Tanzania, Guinea and more, gathered while travelling across the vast landmass.
MUTANT explores themes of identity, Pan-Africanism, Afrofuturism, and decolonization, bridging the musical heritage of the continent with elements of techno, bass music and dub. “I created something energetic, where I could find my freedom to compose,” Abdellah says. “I wanted to have a cultural sound that explored innovation with African and diasporic music alongside the vibes of rhythm and the vibes of bass.” The songs on
MUTANT celebrate the wealth of African polyrhythmic forms and also challenge how this richness has long been marginalized by technological tools and systems of thought shaped by Western logic and models of standardization.
Internationally acclaimed harpist Alina Bzhezhinska and Ibiza-based producer Tulshi announce their collaborative album ‘Whispers of Rain’
The album delves into the architecture of memory and human emotion, using rain as a central metaphor for life’s cycles: the cleansing of loss, the blossoming of renewal and the profound inner strength cultivated in moments of serene introspection. To celebrate the release, Alina will be hosting a listening party at Brilliant Corners, London on Monday 23rd June, followed by an album launch show at The Vortex, London on Monday 7th July. The live performance will feature Tulshi, Tony Kofi & Ni Maxine.
With album singles “Whispers of Rain” and “Across the Sea”, this LP expands on the pair’s seamless fusion of organic and electronic elements. Alina’s expressive harp, deeply rooted in jazz and classical traditions intertwines with Tulshi’s inventive production, drawing from ambient deep tech and dub-inflected electronica.
“Journey Home”, is a poignant meditation on closure and self-discovery. It mirrors the arc of the album, bringing the listener full circle, both thematically and sonically. Reflective and expansive, the track captures the emotional weight of returning to a place that has changed, while questioning if home is truly a destination or a state of being.
Born from a shared creative vision on the tranquil side of Ibiza, ‘Whispers of Rain’ was shaped by the island's natural beauty and a deep connection to the life that surrounds us. After years of travel, both Alina and Tulshi found inspiration here, turning movement into stillness. In 2022 Alina and Tulshi were introduced by a mutual friend, their first session was entirely unplanned, an afternoon of spontaneous improvisation in Tulshi’s home studio in Ibiza. “It was a beautiful sunny day and my three-year-old was playing outside while Alina and I jammed inside,” Tulshi recalls. “Her harp was running through granular effects and large reverbs and the result was “Child’s Play”, you can even hear the children’s voices in the background if you listen closely.”
That improvisational energy became the foundation of the album. Tulshi initially experimented with house beats but ultimately stripped everything back to allow Alina’s harp to lead the way. “I always say as a producer, you have to sit back and let the music tell you what it wants to be,” he explains. Alina adds, “I loved the way Tulshi felt the music, we instantly had a strong creative connection. Our collaboration was built on trust, we each understood how to complement the other’s sound without overpowering it.” Their process was supple, allowing the compositions to evolve organically into a body of work that feels deeply personal, yet universally resonant.
The album’s narrative deepens with tracks like “Nomad’s Nocturne” which introduces darker, restless energy, reflecting themes of displacement and the uncertainty of movement, with Alina’s bold harp clusters and Tulshi’s live tabla guiding the piece. “Whispers of Rain” emerged from a moment of sunlit rain in Ibiza, where Alina and Tulshi found themselves in a state of pure flow, translating the rhythm of falling droplets into sound. “Warm Days, Cold Nights” juxtaposes earthy folk and blues tones with a brooding synth pad, expressing the emotional contrasts of a traveller’s path; “Starling” dissolves the boundaries between harp and synth, creating a soaring, immersive soundscape; “Across the Sea” explores the bittersweet experience of finding a new home while feeling the pull of what’s been left behind. Tulshi’s glitch-infused production mimics the fizz and crackle beneath ocean waves, as Alina’s fluid glissandi mirrors the movement of the tide.
Get Wise gathers ten standout tracks from Horace Andy, recorded between 1972 and 1974 with producer Phil Pratt. Originally released in 1975 on Pratt’s Sunshot label, this collection features a string of expressive early singles, including alternate takes on classics like ‘Root Of All Evil’ (‘Money, Money’) and ‘I Don’t Want To Be Outside’ (‘Zion Gate’). With his unmistakable falsetto—shaped as much by Otis Redding and Smokey Robinson as Alton Ellis—Andy had already marked himself as one of reggae’s most distinctive voices. Backed by the ever-reliable Soul Syndicate Band (featuring the likes of Sly & Robbie, Aston “Family Man” Barrett and Earl “Chinna” Smith), the tracks were recorded at legendary Kingston studios Channel One, Black Ark, Dynamic Sound and Randy’s Studio 17, with engineers including Lee Perry, Errol Thompson and Ernest Hoo Kim. Get Wise is a vital document of early Horace Andy—soulful, rootsy and essential listening for fans of classic ’70s Jamaican music. Liner notes by JR Gonne.
Originally released in 1978 on High Note, Dub Expression is a classic dub album recorded at Duke Reid’s famed Treasure Isle studio by his nephew, engineer Errol Brown. Working with the mighty studio band The Revolutionaries, Brown delivered dubbed-out takes on rhythms originally crafted for Marcia Griffiths, John Holt, Dennis Brown and more. Anchored by Lowell “Sly” Dunbar’s propulsive drums, The Revolutionaries channel the turbulent spirit of late-’70s Jamaica with militant precision. Though their line-up was ever-shifting, overlapping with other legendary session crews like The Professionals and The Aggrovators, The Revolutionaries were best known as the house band for Channel One during dub’s golden age. The decision to release the album under the band’s name—rather than crediting individual vocalists—was made by pioneering producer Sonia Pottinger, recognising the commercial power and creative force of the group itself. The result is a deep, heavy and unfiltered dub set that stands as one of the genre’s finest. Liner notes by JR Gonne.
Bitchin Bajas return with Inland See, a fluid and meditative follow-up to 2022’s Bajascillators. Written largely on the road and recorded live at Electrical Audio, the album captures the trio in a heightened state of cohesion—playing together in real time with no added reverb, preserving the raw spatial dynamics of the room. Across four expansive tracks, Inland See drifts with a translucent clarity, guided by the band’s trademark time-warping minimalism and gentle sense of propulsion. Each piece stands apart but flows into the next, forming a seamless whole that feels both grounded and elevated—like floating on saltwater or rising with helium. The album deepens the group’s physicality while holding space for stillness and transformation. What emerges is a sense of discovery, of something quietly breaking through. Bitchin Bajas continue to refine their elemental sound, radiating ease, precision and an ever-present sense of wonder.
2025 repress. "Natural Information Society, like their partners in time Bitchin Bajas, live their days in flow motion. Rhythms come and go, instruments sound as a means to a greater end. Music is the way of their life. Their debut convergence, Automaginary, feels as natural as it does inevitable. Both groups were first heard in 2010, both emerging from solo endeavors that accessed a vastness, more room than a single player might ultimately fill -- a place then for fellow travelers! Joshua Abrams, a questing bassist and improviser by trade, with an extensive discography of solo recordings and collaborations with a wide variety of artists, formed Natural Information Society as a conduit for the live presentation of his guimbri music. Abrams had delved into the sound of the threestringed Gnawan lute on his own, intrigued by the instrument's ability to provide melodic and rhythmic direction with a minimal, hypnotic palette. Known for the drone also are Bitchin Bajas. Cooper Crain of CAVE started the Bajas to explore his fascination with vintage electronics and recording techniques. With Dan Quinlivan on keyboards as well, Bitchin Bajas' discography has explored a range of dynamic approaches, producing various proportions of atmosphere and soundtrack that move from becalmed stasis to synthetic beat-building with a prescient liquidity. Both Natural Information Society and Bitchin Bajas are in pursuit of the unconscious in their musical expression, and through their independent methods, both have ridden the wind to unseen places, using the playing as the carpet that will take them there. A multitude of influences swarm amoebically in their sounds, from the mud of ancient Afro-groove to 20th-century classical austerity, from the clatter of freedom jazz to the 4/4 of kraut and disco and fusion beyond -- and then beyond the music and into the air. Wrapped up in a screen-printed jacket from visual artist Lisa Alvarado, whose aesthetic sense is a touchstone for the vision of Natural Information Society, Automaginary is psychedelic and ambient and jazz -- yet none of it either, the whole being more than the sum of former parts. This is music of unique variance, a remarkably perfect congregation of the two tribes that are Natural Information Society & Bitchin Bajas."
Second volume of unreleased solo material by Tim Barnes, Noumena explores the thresholds of perception with long-form compositions built from minimal gestures, field recordings, and ambient textures. A durational and meditative counterpart to Lost Words.
Big Tip! Released shortly after its companion Lost Words, Noumena is the second chapter in a stunning return to solo work by Tim Barnes - percussionist, composer, and sound artist whose influence across avant-garde and improvised music is immeasurable. A study in durational drift and perception, Noumena eschews conventional structure in favor of immersive textures, soft frictions, and the subtle emergence of acoustic detail.
Recorded between 2016 and 2019, the album presents three long-form pieces (Note, Difference, Noumenon) that unfold slowly, often hovering at the threshold of silence. Through field recordings, incidental sounds, and sparse percussive interventions, Barnes offers a deeply immersive sound: field recordings, found objects, analog manipulations, and barely-processed percussion dissolve into each other, creating three long-form pieces—Note, Difference, and Noumenon—that meditate on the porous edge between perception and abstraction. In 2021, Tim was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s at the age of 54, and he and his family went public with this immediately. The response from Tim’s network of friends and musical peers was overwhelming, but the lingering shutdown meant only remote and long-distance interactions were possible. Beginning in late 2021, a large body of recordings coordinated and assembled by Tim’s longtime friend Ken (Bundy) Brown, with whom Tim had worked in the past as a member of the group Pullman, early pioneers of the new Americana movement in the indie scene of the late 90s.
Rather than a showcase of virtuosity, Noumena reveals Barnes's acute sensitivity to space and resonance - his ability to draw musicality from what might otherwise remain unnoticed. Presented on LP in a limited edition via Quakebasket, and distributed by Drag City, this is a vital document from one of experimental music’s most quietly important figures.
With their incredible fifth album, OM wisely expand on the dilated visions of their mighty 2009 LP 'God Is Good'. Assisted by long-time engineering collaborator Steve Albini, among others, on 'Advaitic Songs' they incorporate richer, ornate strains of string drone and vocals into their sharply defined aesthetic while remaining devoted to the stripped down, ritualist practice and near-religious philosophy which has taken them thus far. It's a stunning achievement, using doom-drone as a bedrock on which to erect totems of timelessly spiritual affect and purpose. From the vaulted reverb space of opener 'Addis' to the closing funeral march of 'Haqq al-Yaqin' the clarity of their intent and execution is just astonishing, creating the sort of rarified sonic space in which it almost only feels right to cleanse oneself before entering. 'Advaitic Songs' is the exceptional document of a duo dawning on the peak of their imaginative powers and at once progressing themselves, and their related scene with genuinely progressive, yet elemental majesty. Strongly recommended.
Bitterviper is the brand-new quartet of Nikos Veliotis (cello), Taku Unami (synthesizer), Sarah Hennies (percussion), and David Grubbs (guitar, piano), four individuals who separately are responsible for some of the most striking and wildly idiosyncratic music of the past couple of decades -- not to mention the duo collaborations between Grubbs and Unami (the albums Comet Meta and Failed Celestial Creatures) and Veliotis and Grubbs (The Harmless Dust). Athens-based Nikos Veliotis set Bitterviper into motion with four overdubbed pieces of dense psychoacoustic marvels on the cello; Grubbs responded with characteristically subtle tracery on piano, guitar, and lap steel; Unami weighed in electronically from Tokyo to mysteriously thicken both the plot and the low end; and Hennies applied her compositional gifts to structure the whole thing with an Occam's Razor approach to percussion. But once you drop the needle on Bitterviper, its origin story becomes ancient history; you're suddenly in the presence of an ensemble that sounds like no other and for whom there are no false steps. It's all fair game when this is how you choose to play; Bitterviper is a salvo of confidence and conviction, and this is only the beginning. David Grubbs is Distinguished Professor of Music at Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, CUNY. He was a member of Gastr del Sol, Bastro, and Squirrel Bait, and has performed with Tony Conrad, Pauline Oliveros, Luc Ferrari, Will Oldham, Loren Connors, Jan St. Werner, The Red Krayola, and many others. Sarah Hennies is a composer and percussionist based in upstate New York whose work is concerned with a variety of musical, sociopolitical, and psychological issues including queer and trans identity, psychoacoustics, and the social and neurological conditions underlying creative thought. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Bard College. Taku Unami's work is influenced by science fiction, supernatural horror and weird fiction. He's the composer of film scores for directors including Isao Okishima and Takeshi Furusawa, was half (with Toshiya Tsunoda) of the group Wovenland, is one-third of the group Hontatedori, and has collaborated with, among others, Annette Krebs, Radu Malfatti, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Jarrod Fowler, and Graham Lambkin. Nikos Veliotis founded Mohammad with ILIOS and Coti K. (renamed MMMD in 2015). In the 1990s he developed an experimental practice, exploring image and sound, mainly through the cello; he also performed in numerous groups, most notably CRANC (with Angharad and Rhodri Davies) and Looper (with Ingar Zach and Martin Küchen)."
Soul Media, led by Jiro Inagaki, played a pivotal role in the development of jazz rock in Japan. This album, “Memory Lane,” recorded in 1980, is their final release under that name. Inagaki commented on this work, saying, “We created this album while anticipating the future of fusion music.” Indeed, the sound is completely distinct from the typical fusion genre. The mellow and emotional “Memory Lane,” the stormy yet refreshing “I Will Give You Samba,” and the groovy and edgy “Take My Hand.” The sound created alongside his close friend Ken'ichi Maeda, looking toward the future, boasts an extraordinary level of perfection in every aspect—the songs, arrangements, and performances. It remains a fresh and vibrant masterpiece even when listened to today.
Text by Yūsuke Ogawa (UNIVERSOUNDS/DEEP JAZZ REALITY)
One of the most outstanding composers in the history of contemporary music in Okinawa, and also the representative of Marufuku Records, Tsuneo Fukuhara's representative works and beloved songs were recorded by top Okinawan singers such as Keiko Kinjo and Chieko Iha with contemporary arrangements, and included in the 1999 album “Okinawan Hits & Standards” (Victor/nafin label). “Shirahama Blues/Bossa Nova Jintōyo” is being released for the first time on 7-inch vinyl.
Jameszoo (Mitchel van Dinther) returns to Brainfeeder with a wonderfully cinematic album embarking on adventures on the fringes of jazz and contemporary classical. Imbued with the same spirit of adventure and experimental outlook as his previous work on the label, ‘Music for 17 Musicians’ is a new work written for and performed by the renowned Dutch ensemble Asko|Schönberg, percussion group HIIIT and Jameszoo’s own “blind” group: Niels Broos (organ), Petter Eldh (electric bass) and Richard Spaven (drums). Much like in 2019 when he worked with the Grammy-winning Metropole Orkest and Jules Buckley to adapt his album ‘Fool’, ‘Music for 17 Musicians’ is a largely acoustic piece diving deeper into and reflecting on the ideas behind his 2022 album ‘Blind’. With 16 musicians and a self-governing disklavier taking center stage this album documents the Dutchman’s foray into contemporary classical music. The title is a nod to Steve Reich’s masterful 1978 album on ECM ‘Music for 18 Musicians’.
“Late in 2022 I was approached by Dutch contemporary music ensemble Asko|Schönberg to ask if I would be interested in writing a new piece for them,” explains Mitchel. “Apart from the fact that I thought this group of fantastic musicians would be a lovely fit for music in the spirit of ‘Blind’, I also always loved the idea of expanding on and continuing a process… being able to show more than one side to a work.”
One of the principal ideas underpinning ‘Blind’ was the notion of active objective listening. “In music and other arts there is a heavy emphasis on the artist,” says Mitchel. “Which composer, which soloist, which performer… and the shifting emphasis between them all colours what we hear. Is it possible to create something that bypasses this?” In reality his explorations only threw up more questions, but this only fuelled van Dinther’s desire to explore further. How is the listener’s perception affected when you try to detach the composer/musician/artist from a work?
Van Dinther started out by working with self-playing robotic instruments to embody the music without the use of human hands. “This created something visually special but was ultimately just a magic trick to fool myself as all these instruments were merely citing what I was giving them as input. There were no autonomous choices being made by these instruments whatsoever, which made me wonder, would it be possible for an instrument to experience some sort of freedom within the context of my music?”
Deciding to focus on a single instrument, van Dinther gave a player piano a pivotal role in his compositions. However, for this concept to work this player piano would need the capacity to make autonomous musical decisions whilst performing (in the way a human improviser or a soloist would do). The player piano is an instrument invented in the late 1800s mainly used for reproducing piano music at home, but there is also a strong tradition in contemporary ensemble
music written for these machines. You can communicate with a modern player piano instructing it what notes to play and when to play them by sending it MIDI information. MIDI is a digital language used for these kinds of musical instructions.
Excited by the possibilities herein, van Dinther contacted a couple of expert friends Hendrik Vincent Koops and Jan van Balen and asked if they wanted to help create this. They opted for making a set of algorithms that could communicate and instruct the player piano through generating custom MIDI. “We created a chain of musical rules per song… rules we thought would be interesting within this context,” explains Mitchel. “We created custom datasets for all of this with the help of fantastic musicians like Kit Downes, Matthew Bourne and Niels Broos. Vincent and Jan decided they wanted to write and script these algorithms mostly by using Markov models and LSTMs. (Markov models and LSTMs are models used in statistical and self learning systems to analyse and generate data). Vincent and Jan ultimately made this dream into a reality!”
When it came to the music written for the rest of the ensemble Mitchel wanted to create something that would showcase some of the specific capabilities of the fantastic musicians. Pieces that would build on the foundation of ‘Blind’ but quoting it freely more so than directly citing it. “I knew I wanted to invite musicians from my own group (Richard
Spaven, Petter Eldh and Niels Broos) and I wanted to extend the percussion section by inviting my friend Frank Wienk from percussion group HIIIT. I sat down with the music and started working on all different parts occasionally helped by my friends and longtime collaborators Niels Broos and Petter Eldh. To help me with the final arrangements I asked Stefan Behrisch with whom I worked on the music that became the 2019 album ‘Melkweg’ with Metropole Orkest and Jules Buckley.”
‘Music for 17 Musicians’ is released on Friday 30th May on vinyl/digital formats via Brainfeeder Records. A strictly limited hand-painted and numbered LP edition (of 200) by Mitchel’s longtime friend Philip Akkerman is available exclusively via Bandcamp/Brainfeeder Store.
Veritable pioneers of electronic music, iconic act THE ORB returns to Kompakt with the new full-length MOONBUILDING 2703 AD - another major slice of psychedelic synth bliss, obscure loops and deep ambient textures tossed in swinging breakbeats and powerful basslines. Installing a forward momentum rather unusual for a genre-defying project like this, the latest effort from masterminds Alex Paterson and Thomas Fehlmann follows their 2005 album success on Kompakt, the cheekily named "Okie Dokie It's The Orb On Kompakt" (KOMPAKT CD 45), as well as several contributions to our Speicher and Pop Ambient series - but more importantly, it finds the legendary duo at the peak of its creativity, ringing in another essential phase in what can only be called a ground-breaking career.
True to form, the new offering MOONBUILDING 2703 AD features a small track list, but turns each one of its four cuts into a mini epic in its own right. Opener GOD'S MIRRORBALL hits the ground floating, employing a handful of cozy statics to great effect before finally discharging into an intricate mosaic of atmospheric melodic sketches and gripping rhythms. With a hypnotic runtime of more than 14 minutes, it immediately establishes a blueprint for the other album tracks to follow, perfectly illustrating the vast extent of the artists' vision and their impressive skills in luring in listeners - welcome to THE ORB's sonic labyrinth, where nothing is what it seems and the unexpected waits just around the corner.
Likewise, follow-up track MOONSCAPES 2703 BC presents itself as a uniquely versatile affair sitting comfortably between ambient flourishes and beat-driven focus, holding as many twists and turns as a caper movie, but carefully grounding every single one of its cliffhangers in its impeccable flow. With a runtime of approximately 9 minutes, LUNAR CAVES is the shortest jam of the bunch - and also the most ethereal, keeping its rhythmic content to a bare, pulse-like minimum and opting for enticing, freewheeling synth textures instead. Album closer and title cut MOONBUILDING 2703 AD introduces a surprisingly jazzy vibe mingling rather well with the wealth of electronic tricks up its sleeve - even indulging in abrasive bass sweeps and a breathtaking multitude of different rhythm sections constantly switching places. It's a fitting closing act for a full-length as multifaceted as this, as idiosyncratic as possible and as muscling as needed.
Carrying on from recent archival releases from masters of Indian classical tradition such as Kamalesh Maitra and the Dagar Brothers, Black Truffle is pleased to present a previously unheard recording of a concert by Pakistani vocalist Salamat Ali Khan. Born to a musician family in Hoshiarpur in the northwestern state of Punjab, Khan moved with his family to Lahore in Pakistan after the 1947 partition of India, becoming a child musical prodigy. Khan was a master of the kyhal form of Hindustani classical vocal music, a style integrating influences from Middle Eastern musical traditions that gives the singer a great deal of improvisational freedom. Travelling widely across the globe from the 1960s until his death in 2001, Khan approached ragas performed in the kyhal style as expressive forums for risk-taking improvisation, enlivened by ceaseless ornamental invention.
This remarkable recording was captured by Michael Hönig (of krautrock legends Agitation Free) in concert at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie as part of the MetaMusik festival in 1974 (which also featured Nico, Tangerine Dream, and Roberto Laneri’s Prima Materia, among many others). Khan, who is also heard accompanying himself on a specially tuned alpine zither (in place of the traditional swarmandal, an Indian style of zither), is joined by Shaukat Hussein Khan on tabla and Hussein Bux Khan on harmonium. The lack of a familiar underlying tanpura drone gives this performance a weightless, floating quality, with all three of the musicians playing masterfully with the interaction between silence and the pulse propelling each section of the raag. As Khan explains in his opening remarks, this performance of the rainy season Raag Megh is divided into three parts, each with its own tempo and rhythmic scheme (tala). The opening vilambit, in a twelve-beat tala, stretches out for over twenty minutes, lingering for a long time in a space of meditative calm, Khan lightly strumming the zither while exploring the lower end of his range in languorously extended notes. Virtuoso tabla interjections at first barely state the tempo, and the interplay between musicians is so spacious that we hear scraps of audience noise and the squeak of the harmonium’s mechanism in between the notes. Gradually picking up rhythmic definition and melodic complexity, after around fifteen minutes the music builds dramatically, with Khan letting out emotive yelps and swooping scalar shapes ranging across his full vocal range. This flows seamlessly into the following jhaptal, at a faster tempo in ten beats, which then makes way for the concluding teental, very fast in sixteen beats, which becomes a frantic improvisational exchange of daring rhythmic disruptions from the tabla, flowing harmonium melodies, and a stunning variety of vocal approaches from Khan, ranging from rapid-fire staccato consonants to guttural growls. Accompanied by stunning black and white concert photographs, the LP also contains a moving and entertaining recollection from acclaimed German musicologist Peter Pannke, looking back on his experience assisting Khan and his musicians in Berlin at the Metamusik festival (including a mouth-watering description of a feast cooked by the maestro himself). As Pannke describes in his account of attending the concert, the beauty and spiritual intensity of this music leaves the listener speechless.
First limited edition
*With obi
A historic masterpiece that is indispensable when talking about the history of Japanese rock/punk! Friction's first album, "Friction," the first release from PASS Records, is being reissued on LP for the first time in a long time!
Friction was formed in 1978 by Reck (b/vo) who had just returned from New York, and released their memorable first album in 1980!
This is the only full studio album by the three-member lineup of Reck, Tsunematsu Masatoshi, and Chico Hige, and a masterpiece that shines brightly in the history of Japanese punk! The sound that connects the era of New York that gave birth to post-punk and no wave with Tokyo will send shivers down your spine, and as the title suggests, it's a miracle album that will never fade, with a creaking sound that can be heard from every corner of the album. Reck's thick bass and stoic vocals without a trace of sweetness, Tsunematsu's cool and solid guitar, and Chico Hige's precise and destructive drums surge forward in a trinity. From Reck's heavy bass roar at the beginning of the opening number "A-Gas" to Tsunematsu's saw-like guitar towards the end of the closing number "Out", everything is beautiful. It was co-produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto, who was a huge success with YMO at the time, and the band.