RECOMMENDED

Limited Japanese edition inc the insert. KNOWER FOREVER credits

(1.) Knower Forever (Louis Cole)
*All strings
*All Brass
Extra synth: Louis Cole

(2.) I’m The President (Louis Cole / Genevieve Artadi)
Genevieve Artadi: Vox
Louis Cole: Drums
Sam Wilkes: Bass
Jacob Mann: Keyboard
Paul Cornish: Keyboard / Piano
*All Brass
*All Flutes
*All Choir
*All strings

(3.) The Abyss (Louis Cole / Genevieve Artadi)
Genevieve Artadi: Vox
Louis Cole: Drums
Mononeon: Bass
Rai Thistlethwayte: Keyboard
Sam Gendel: Saxophone

(4.) Real Nice Moment (Louis Cole / Genevieve Artadi)
Genevieve Artadi: Vox
Louis Cole: Drums
Mononeon: Bass
Rai Thistlethwayte: Keyboard
Paul Cornish: Keyboard / Piano
Sam Gendel: Saxophone
*All Choir

(5.) It’s All Nothing Until It’s Everything (Louis Cole / Genevieve Artadi)
Genevieve Artadi: Vox
Louis Cole: Drums
Sam Wilkes: Bass
Jacob Mann: Keyboard
Rai Thistlethwayte: Keyboard / Piano
*All Strings
*All Horns

(6.) Nightmare (Louis Cole / Genevieve Artadi)
Genevieve Artadi: Vox
Louis Cole: Drums
Mononeon: Bass
Jacob Mann: Keyboard
Rai Thistlethwayte: Keyboard

(7.) Same Smile, Different Face (Louis Cole)
Genevieve Artadi: Vox
Louis Cole: Piano
*All Strings

(8.) Do Hot Girls Like Chords? (Louis Cole / Genevieve Artadi)
Genevieve Artadi: Vox
Louis Cole: Drums
Sam Wilkes: Bass
Jacob Mann: Keyboard
Paul Cornish: Keyboard
Adam Ratner: Guitar

(9.) Ride That Dolphin (Louis Cole / Genevieve Artadi)
Genevieve Artadi: Vox
Louis Cole: Drums
Sam Wilkes: Bass
Jacob Mann: Keyboard
Paul Cornish: Keyboard
*All Choir

(10.) It Will Get Real (Louis Cole / Genevieve Artadi)
Genevieve Artadi: Vox
Louis Cole: Drums
Mononeon: Bass
Rai Thistlethwayte: Keyboard
Chiquita Magic: Keyboard
Sam Gendel: Saxophone

(11.) Crash The Car (Louis Cole / Genevieve Artadi)
Genevieve Artadi: Vox
Louis Cole: Drums
Sam Wilkes: Bass
Jacob Mann: Keyboard
Paul Cornish: Piano
Adam Ratner: Guitar
David Binney: Saxophone
*All Brass
*All Choir
*All strings

(12.) Bonus Track (Louis Cole)
Genevieve Artadi: Tambourine Robot Holder
Louis Cole: Drums
Mononeon: Bass
Rai Thistlethwayte: Keyboard
Chiquita Magic: Keyboard
Sam Gendel: Saxophone
Tambourine Robot built by Louis Cole and Daniel Sunshine


*Strings:
Leah Zeger (vln)
Lily Honigberg (vln)
Megan Shung (vln)
Yu-Ting Wu (vln)
Chrysanthe Tan (vln)
Sabrina Parry (vln)
Nora Germain (vln)
Tylana Renga (vln)
Tom Lea (vla)
Ethan Moffitt (vla)
Daniel Jacobs (vla)
Lauren Baba (vla)
Isaiah Gage (clo)
Chris Votek (clo)
Niall Ferguson (clo)
Emily Elkin (clo)
Karl McComas-Reichl (bs)
Logan Kane (bs)

*Brass:
Robert Murray (tuba)
Corbin Jones (sousaphone)
Kyle Richter (sousaphone)
Jon Hatamiya (tbn)
Vikram Devasthali (tbn)
Mariel Austin (tbn)
Nick Platoff (bass tbn)
Aidan Lombard (tp)
Aaron Janik (tp)
Andris Mattson (tp)
Chris Clarkson (tp)

*Flutes:
Rob Sheppard
Amber Navran
Henry Solomon

*Choir:
Kathryn Shuman
Mikaela Elson
Dyasono
Micaela Tobin
Jessica Freedman
Rayah Clarkson
Alexandra Domingo
Sharon Kim
Linnea Sablosky
Katharine Eames
Glynis Davies
Michael Kohl
Jeff Eames
VJ Rosales
Brett McDermid
Luc Kleiner
Sean Fitzpatrick


All production by: Louis Cole
All songs mixed and mastered by: Louis Cole
Audio Engineer: Daniel Sunshine
Cameras: Daniel Sunshine, Richard Thompson, Chiquita Magic, Max Zemanovic
Special thanks for Alliz Espi at Songololo Music, and publishers Because Music

A shining star in Mika Vainio’s dense microcosm returns to vinyl - and for our money it’s the most transcendent record in his revered catalogue, unfurling through an hour of disarmingly melodic romance and astral projection that never fails to bring a tear to our eye. First presented on CD in 2005 under Vainio’s Ø alias, ‘Kantamoinen’ became something of a sleeper gem, cultishly adored for its concerted embrace of extended melody and narrative tone within an ambient context, which made it stand out from his preceding decade of ascetic noise brutalism and minimal techno. Our first encounter, back at our Pelicanneck shop, left us utterly smitten with its soundtrack-like qualities, eventually prompting us to issue it on vinyl for the first time via our Editions label in 2016. Sadly, Mika passed the following year, which only made the material more precious as a lone, curious artefact in his deeply influential body of work. It now returns in this new edition, ready to flip preconceptions with a new generation of listeners through its exquisite carousel of tear-jerking soundscpaes where the artist’s most intimate, distinctive spirits endure. Dedicated to Mika’s grandma, Laina Vainio (1913-1991), and adorned with a cover image of her garden in Artjärvi, Finland, the 16-part 2LP is the closest you’ll get to a type of nostalgia in Mika’s catalogue. Whilst recorded 1999-2004 at an early crest of his game-changing work with Pan Sonic, the album clearly manifests a quieter space for Mika to emote far more nuanced feels, from the wide-eyed vastness of ‘Galaxy’ to a breathtaking ‘Sound Picture’, transitioning from Hans-Ulrich Obrist’s snippet of Oskar Sala into icy bliss, and the rosy warmth of a ‘Summerland’ clearly dedicated to his nan’s garden. The rest is better defined as ephemeral snapshots adding up to a broader picture, like a mind’s eye filling gaps in the memory from illusive vapours and sensations, generating all-time gems in the steepled choral synth voice of ‘In Wind’, or a sense of magic realism in the swaying organ of ‘Antenna-ant’, with the blooz folk wheeze of closer ‘To Home’ that could feasibly score the most haunting moments of a Bela Tarr flick.

The Weather Channel is the new instrumental album from Bad Brains bassist Darryl Jenifer. It follows his 2010 solo debut, In Search of Black Judas. The record features a venerable lineup of heavy-hitters from the jazz world, including the likes of John Medeski, Ben Perowsky, Jack DeJohnette, and Karl Berger, among others. The tracklist includes nine new compositions, as well as new interpretations of two Bad Brains classics.

Simplicity floods itself in textured imperfection and anointed noise on the debut oracular folk guitar album released under the UK's 5 Gate Temple. A roughly recorded stack of improvisations on a classical-style guitar, God Spill embodies the broken, all while un-doing the expectations around traditional guitar folk. Mingot's fingerpicked tones meld with unsteady pedal loops and hissed drones rotating through flawed circuitry. A slow to becoming repair that is translucent, cryptic and oblique. Mingot's misty glitched landscape paints the polarity of both presence and disappearance, all cyclically mirroring the unseen. Honesty, discordance, impatience, and certainty all find home alongside blurred vocals. Since 2022, the EU-based, Queens NYC native has released music elusively as hardcore high priestess St Agnis and now swims waters of the acoustic - with soft rage and pursuit.

“Warm Waves” took shape from a series of recordings of spontaneous improvisations by a core group of Turn On The Suniight regulars, with additions by Laraaji, Sam Gendel & Luis Pérez Ixoneztli. Carlos Niño then contributed two remixes, both in collaboration with Jamael Dean. The album features Mia Doi Todd's ethereal vocals and the voice-like sounds of Sam Gendel’s electronically-processed saxophone, but is intentionally devoid of words, save for a single phrase spoken by Laraaji in one of Carlos’ remixes - "Peace All Over" - a message of hope for the future and expression of faith in the timeless, omnipresent, eternal now.

The San Diego via Boston alt trio's complete original studio recordings, remastered, restored, and compiled into one lavish box set. Wait A Lifetime gathers the band's peerless albums Junk and This Afternoons Malady, plus a first time vinyl pressing of R.I.P., expanded to include their unfinished 3rd album, singles, splits, and comp tracks. The 28-page accompanying booklet details the entire saga via Nina Corcoran's essay and dozens of period photos, all housed in a stunning case-wrapped and varnished box. Sink into the ground and fly.

Subliminal moments, suspended fragments, caught between time zones. Comprised from a selection of soundscapes created by Aleksandra Zakharenko throughout various stages of last year, 7/37/2.11 acts as an auditory journal chronicling the fluctuating states of vague ambiguity the artists faced during the unprecedented turmoil of 2020. Press: Perila casts her slow burn, drowsy magic on Vaagner’s A Sunken Mall sublabel, drawing on the ambiguous nuance of daily life for another diaristic entry to her quietly expanding, precious catalogue. Continuing to occupy a personalised corner of the contemporary ambient sphere, somewhere between Félicia Atkinson and claire rousay’s liminal tone and Burial’s South London nightscapes; Perila transmutes fleeting feelings into a singular sort of ephemeral ambience richly textured with field recordings and laced with her signature spoken recitals (here edged from ASMR and into more audible room volume), slowly venting her thoughts. If you’ve had even half an ear on this realm over the past few years, we hardly need to describe it any further - but suffice it to say that this one is a deeply satisfying entry to the microcosm. The album is a more serenely intimate experience then much of what we’ve heard from Perila before, relaying observations in low-lit settings that settle the listening space to her tenor. ‘Long Dizzying Air Through a Balcony Door’ lures in with long, healing, sferic pads, and ‘Amorphous Absorption’ feels to drop the temperature a few degrees, condensing into icier drips. The title and spare tone of ‘Haven’t Left Home 4 4 Days’ is uncannily on the mark - we know that feeling all too well - with a dream-pop tone recalling Teresa Winter at her quietest, with ‘Crash Sedative’ surgeon off any slumber feels with beautifully quizzical, whimsical flurry of keys, but the final send off leaves us in ‘1 Room’, with what sounds like a stray Theo Parrish chord sequence drifting in from the street, as the day blurs into the next.

Masayuki Takayanagi, having absorbed free jazz, offers a response that brings the tumultuous 1970s to a close. His return to his roots—a tribute to Lennie Tristano and Lee Konitz—serves as a rite of passage to reach new heights in the coming era.

Between 1999 and 2000, Merzbow entered a new artistic phase, embracing digital production and refining his sonic language. He moved away from the tape collages and improvised circuitry of his earlier years. In their place arose monumental sound structures, dense and meticulously sculpted. Harsh noise, tribal rhythms, and corrosive textures merged into a single, overwhelming sonic body.Yoshinotsune emerged during this especially fertile period and stands as one of Masami Akita’s most evocative works. The album weaves together historical, mythological, and personal references, drawing inspiration from the figure of Minamoto no Yoshitsune. From the outset, bird calls, radio interference, and electronic signals create an enigmatic atmosphere. The result is an unsettling soundscape suspended between nature and technology.Throughout the album, the sound continually transforms, alternating between ominous beats, unearthly moans, and ritualistic pulses. These elements evoke tribal rhythms filtered through circuitry and digital distortion. The music drives forward with relentless force while maintaining a constant tension between motion and stillness. Rather than simply overwhelming, it invites the listener to become immersed in its intricate details.What makes Yoshinotsune so compelling is its perfect balance between technical precision and creative instinct. Though meticulously constructed, its structures retain a raw and immediate vitality. Akita’s hand can always be felt, shaping the sound with intensity and sensitivity. This reissue fully restores the grandeur of one of Merzbow’s richest and most immersive recordings of mid 2000.

細野晴臣率いるティン・パン・アレーが、1976年5月8日、横浜・中華街の老舗中華菜館「同發新館」で行った伝説的なライブ。その夜の空気を克明に記録した音源が、半世紀の時を経て“ステレオ・ミックス”として蘇る。
今回のリリースでは、新たに発見されたステレオマスターをもとに、エンジニアの保土田剛による新たなミックス／マスタリングを実施。当時の会場の空気感、臨場感を感じる素晴らしいMIXを是非アナログでお楽しみください。50年という時間を超えてなお輝き続ける一夜のライブ音源が遂にLP化！

[Credits]
細野晴臣 Vocal, Marimba, Hand Clap
鈴木茂 E.Guitar, Banjo
林立夫 Drums
浜口茂外也 Percussions, Flute, Hand Clap
矢野顕子 Piano, Chorus
坂本龍一 E.Piano, Synthesizer
田中章弘 E.Bass, Hand Clap
羽鳥幸次 Trumpet, Hand Clap
新井英治 Trombone, Hand Clap
村岡健 Sax, Hand Clap

Mix, Mastering : Goh Hotoda
Cutting Engineer : Shinya Matsushita (PICCOLO AUDIO WORKS)

Art Direction & Design : Takashi Okada
Illustration : Takashi Okada, Yasuo Yagi
Photographs : Masashi Kuwamoto
Liner Notes : Yoshiro Nagato

【収録内容】
SIDE-A
1. つめたく冷して
(Words & Music : Otis Blackwell, Elvis Presley Japanese Words : Morio Agata)
2. 香港Blues
(Words & Music : Hoagy Carmichael)
3. 絹街道
(Words & Music : Haruomi Hosono)
4. チャタヌガ・チュー・チュー
(Words : Mack Gordon Music : Harry Warren Japanese Words : Haruomi Hosono)
5. ボレロ（メンバー紹介）
(Music : Maurice Ravel)
6. ハリケーン・ドロシー
(Words & Music : Haruomi Hosono)
7. ブラック・ピーナッツ
(Words & Music : Haruomi Hosono)
8. トーク・トゥ・ミー
(Words & Music : Irving Fields, Sunny Skylar)
SIDE-B
1. 北京Duck
(Words & Music : Haruomi Hosono)
2. 蝶々-San
(Words & Music : Haruomi Hosono)
3. アヤのバラード
(Music : Haruomi Hosono)
4. 熱帯夜
(Words & Music : Haruomi Hosono)
5. ファイアークラッカー
(Music : Martin Denny)
6. “サヨナラ” ザ・ジャパニーズ・フェアウェル・ソング
(Words : Freddy Morgan Music : Hasegawa Yoshida)

It's time for the 5th album of the Long Trax series, featuring six new tracks produced in an A/B style, cut onto 3 vinyl records and compiled onto a single CD. Staying all-hardware, with drooping synth pads and Rhodes piano, rhythm machines, space echo and spring reverb, and featuring 3 new narrators here to put us in our place. Stay independent, and anti-AI. All music by Will Long Artwork by Tsuji Aiko Mastered by Stephan Mathieu A Long Trax Productions release

“All possible processes. All channels open. Twenty-four hour alert." This Heat’s eponymous debut album, also known by fans as the 'blue and yellow', is a masterpiece of experimentation. This Heat's exploratory practice was based on extended collective improvisation that incorporated not just guitar and drums, but also viola, melodica, organ, household objects, and broken toys. They used tape machines to stretch the fabric of time and creative mic placement to warp space. They were fuelled not just by formal restlessness but also by rage at consumer society. Although widely considered to be Post-Punk’s finest, This Heat had actually begun performing at the start of London’s punk era. They developed new strange and volatile strains of avant-garde music that time has proved to be hugely influential, a blueprint for much that would follow. Featuring material recorded as early as their first public performance on 13th February 1976 and compositions that appear on the 1977 BBC Peel Sessions, their debut album was finally released in 1979.

Yuri Suzuki, the sound artist and designer known for creating works that explore the realms of sound through exquisitely designed pieces, has become completely captivated by that silver box. Toting that infamous box and relentlessly diving deep into the swamp of Acid House, he drops a new album after nearly six years in LP format. On this record, Suzuki's finely honed squelchy old-school 303 sound, tightly mastered by the sound alchemist Rashad Becker, unfolds with precision and points toward another possible tomorrow. Each track is a sketch, carrying you through a timeless landscape of rhythm and texture and reaffirming Suzuki's unique command over sound and space.

For it's 4th instalment and final addition to the May batch, Vaknar is enthralled to present 60+ minutes of selected organ music over two set of tapes, all coming courtesy of none other then Danish collage artist and musician øjeRum. øjeRum has been a favourite of the Vaagner/Vaknar hub for years, and it is with the utmost honour that we were given the chance to comply some old, new and unreleased organ works for this upcoming release, all of which will be presented via a double cassette box that will include a riso printed, fold out sleeve and feature work by both the label and the artist himself. -Vaagner What we listen to in this anthology of more than an hour are textures related to the minimalism of masters like Terry Riley, La Monte Young and Phill Niblock, as well as a fervent passion for the neo-classicism ambient of Erik Satie and Brian Eno . A reflexive maridation prone to states of static and decidedly spiritual interpenetration. Far away from the New age pseudo mysticism so in vogue. Here one can hear falls in profane and sweeping chasms built with an obscene simplicity. It´s not music (only) to listen to but with which to surround oneself and live forever. The word and concept music has been outdated for a long time. - Perú Avangarde

Mana is the International Anthem debut by composer, trombonist and vocalist Kalia Vandever. This new full length carries on the expansive and dazed spirit of their first solo album, We Fell In Turn, while entering a new landscape of spacious songwriting.

Vandever’s music has quickly and widely gained traction in the last few years despite the fact that their style has been consistently difficult to pin down, boasting a compositional scope ranging from the cinematic modern jazz of their quartet work to the synthetic, gauze-like droning ambience of their solo material. Mana leans into the expansion of the latter: solo trombone filtered through a well-dialed pedalboard and manipulated live, paired with spare piano à la late-career work of Ryuichi Sakamoto. The electroacoustic interplay simultaneously echoes and transforms the long-note melodicism of Vandever’s melancholic brass work; and the whole sound is emotively augmented with head-on, unambiguous, and deeply personal sung lyrics—a particularly fresh move for the composer. This dexterity has not gone unnoticed, with The Wire asserting, “Vandever has never sounded more assured and in control of their many strengths.”

“It was born out of curiosity,” says Vandever of the new record. “Of wanting to explore playing in a solo context, but also wanting to interact with my own sound. I was also asking myself things like ‘how can I do this in a way that feels personal, but different from what I've seen?’ It's allowed me to go deeper into my relationship with the instrument and with sound in general.”

A turning point in that development came when Vandever began to get more opportunities to play outside of the context of the jazz world. Some of those opportunities came in the form of playing a part in backing groups for pop stars (Harry Styles) or indie-rock mainstays (Japanese Breakfast), but the true exploration of Vandever’s own sound personality came while performing solo to new audiences unconcerned with genre. In particular, an opening slot on a tour with folksinger Haley Heynderickx seemed to knock something loose. There was, perhaps, less of a feeling that they needed to touch on jazz traditions in order to satisfy some kind of unspoken expectation from the audience—less perceived rigidity and, thus, less shyness about how to present. For Vandever, warming up the stage for Heynderickx and seeing a very different kind of crowd from the stage night after night helped to cement a sort of bravery about sharing a number of more intimate, lyric-centered pieces. “I was considering that they might gravitate more toward words,” says Vandever. “So I thought I could try these songs that I had been developing, that maybe I was feeling a little nervous to share."

“When I started opening for Haley, her audiences were just so giving and really open to receiving anything,” they continue. “So I started trying these songs and I feel like the words really resonated with audiences. It felt important to include them on the record.”

It’s more than just the words that resonate here. There’s a sonic scope on Mana which tees up a deep world for these lyrics to live in whenever they appear. A full-bodied trombone awash in reverberation and polyphonic pitch-shifting introduces “Hubbard Road,” Mana’s opening track. Vandever’s trusty brass axe rings out with confident warmth and soft power, ascending and descending in register, before being joined by the song’s primary theme—two repeating grand piano triads. It’s a quietly tense musical figure that is slowly unwound by Vandever’s soul-bearing horn improvisations.

“Waiting” opens with solo trombone laid deeply in a dense web of cloudy effects, holding a warped mirror to Vandever’s melodic brass call. The two elements vie for position until the halfway mark, when the disorienting tonal wash wins out, soon joined by Vandever’s longing and contemplative high-register vocal work—not dissimilar to the alluring intimacy of Grouper or the obscure swoon of Victorialand era Cocteau Twins.

“Murmuray” is a could-be brass reverie, rendered ambient via the foghorn solitude of Vandever’s effect chain savviness. By the 1:30 mark it’s transformed into a droning take on a tune grandma might have hummed, appropriate for the early riser’s first step into the day or the night owl’s weary and quiet walk home.

The track’s title is an Ilocono term used to describe waking and being fully awake. “Ilocono is one of three most common languages in the Philippines and was spoken primarily by my maternal grandfather,” says Vandever, who learned the term when their grandmother used it to describe their voice on a phone call. “I'm very close to my grandma on my mom's side. She's the only one in the family who sings, and I grew up listening to her sing Hawaiian folk songs. I feel like her singing encouraged me to discover my voice. She's been an influence of mine for my whole life.”

For Vandever, that family connection and that lineage cannot be overemphasized. In the liner notes for Mana, they focus on the importance of Hawaiian mythology and ancestry as inspiration for their solo work. Mana, which in Hawaiian means “foundational, supernatural, or divine power and strength,” reveals more of their voice and words, drawing from yearning, loss, and bewilderment.

From Vandever's liner notes for Mana: "Mana in Hawaiian culture is the divine and supernatural spirit that gives strength and power to living beings, places, and objects. In traditional Hawaiian society, mana lived in Ali'i, known as chiefs and royalty who upheld the kapu (code of conduct) and cared for their people and the land. They possessed the most mana due to their believed relation to Gods and their responsibilities to the islands. In modern culture, mana can be felt, cultivated, and strengthened as you grow closer to your inner self, native land, and ancestral power. I carry the stories, wisdom, and care of my ancestors as I navigate grief, love, community, and exploration and feel my sense of mana deepening when I play for them."

In the last few years Vandever has had several opportunities to travel to Hawaii to play music, and it seems to have shed new light onto their personal connection to Hawaiian mythology and ancestry and how it relates to their musical expression—a meeting of their familial and professional life that represents a sort of closing of a circle.

“My experience of going to Hawaii when I was younger was purely to see family, and it always felt very separate from music,” they explain. “A lot of my Hawaiian family doesn’t really travel, so they weren't able to see me perform until the last couple of years. I’m just feeling really grateful that there's been this convergence, and I feel like it really influences the way that I play, and to have this confidence and when I play the solo set. I think a lot about the presence of family and ancestry when I play—connection with family that I've lost.”

The final song on Mana is “Holding,” Vandever’s version of a breakup song. Swirling, suspended chords pile up beneath a trombone-led intro, concentrating into droning clusters of soft synth-like sound. These frenetic yet melodically unchanging tones become a gentle beeswarm bed for Vandever’s simple and direct lyricism, the most apparent point of new growth on the album itself, delivered with the same floating confidence as their trombone work:

Holding on to you

Will you hold me til the end?

Will you release me?

I will release you

I am holding

Swiss unarchivers WRWTFWW give vinyl wings to a cult, 1999 Japan suite of jazz-spurred techno and shine-eyed electronica balanced between Warp’s AI comps and A.R.T.’s future jazz styles A lot of Japan-o-philes will be made-up to see this one on wax after more than a quarter century as a CD only curio and, since ’22, on download formats. All the material is duly given room to breath over 2LP, spinning the ‘Bug in the Bassbin’-era Carl Craig vibes of Missing Project’s ‘Poisson D’avril (Da’ Future Given a Deep Soul Mix)’, thru it soaring ‘Galaxy Dub’, via chunky house wigglers from Virgo, a slow-rolling groove by Tensor, early Black Dog feels in Penance’s ‘Cure of Soul (Fossil Mix), and low-slung trip by Led-M.

2026 repress. With Dub Techno firmly back on the menu in clubs the world over, Deadbeat, at long last, resissues what is perhaps his greatest collaborative work with Paul St Hilaire aka Tikiman. A true genre masterclass, as the name suggests, the album infinitely showcases two titans of the form at their very best, and 10 years on, remains a stone-cold classic. Re-cut by their old friend Stefan Betke aka Pole at Scape Mastering who first cut it to wax so many years ago, this 10-year anniversary edition is a crucial showcase of two masters at work.

The title “Mijin” comes from a Japanese word meaning very fine particles. The album gathers particle-like sounds and lets them resonate in space. As I watch the movements that arise between them a balance gradually takes shape. Within those relationships and the quiet tension between them I explored how silence can resonate with sound. The album begins with the most minimal piano chords then develops by reconstructing fragments of voice and percussion, Rhodes and synths along with traces of jazz and soul. Each sound exists like a particle drifting in air gently resonating with the others to form the structure. I hope that the spaces and silences created by this placement will appear with a presence equal to the sounds themselves. -Fumitake Tamura

Texas-born, Maui-based musician and producer Jesse Peterson aka Turn On The Sunlight's new LP via Music From Memory. "Originally formed in New York in the late 2000s, Turn On The Sunlight has evolved into a fluid, location-spanning practice rooted in collaboration, intuition and process. Now based on Maui, Peterson’s work draws together a wide network of musicians and environments, with recordings taking shape across Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, San Miguel de Allende and Haʻikū. Loosely situated within a framework of organic, ambient-leaning jazz, 'Iseo' unfolds as a series of open, exploratory pieces, with electronics sitting subtly beneath acoustic and environmental elements. Built from layered instrumentation including synthesizers, guitar, zither, flutes, voice and field recordings, Peterson moves between grounded, tactile detail and more expansive, immersive states. A sense of warmth and permeability runs throughout: organic percussion, environmental textures and drifting rhythmic elements lend the record a gently saturated humidity, reflecting Peterson’s base in Hawaii, where the presence of nature is felt as much as it is heard. Underlying the project is a way of working rooted in gathering, listening and tending. Instruments, ensemble sessions, field recordings and everyday environments are approached with attentiveness, shaped through collecting, refining and allowing things to settle. Relationships, landscape and lived experience shape the sound, giving 'Iseo' a tactile, almost hand-made quality. Rather than fixed arrangements, the album feels as if it has been organically and lovingly assembled through a process of listening and response, each element finding its place within a wider, evolving whole. This approach reaches a natural centre point in the 15-minute piece 'Medianoche En La Calle Aurora', which unfolds patiently, bending through shifting environments as motifs and textures emerge and dissolve with quiet continuity. Peterson’s role as both instigator and facilitator is central to the project. Bringing together a diverse group of collaborators including Carlos Niño, Mia Doi Todd, Laraaji, Ko Ishikawa, Luis Pérez Ixoneztli and Miles Spilsbury, he creates space for individual voices to emerge within a shared language. The result is a music defined by openness and generosity. 'Iseo' takes its title from Peterson’s son’s middle name, a word that can be understood to mean ‘one-world life’. The piece itself takes the form of a gentle lullaby, its melody loosely shaped around the syllables of his name and sung to Peterson’s son by Luis Pérez Ixoneztli, a close collaborator whose presence across the record reflects a long-standing relationship that extends beyond the music itself. Sleeve art and design by Michael Willis."

Ulla’s 28912 label returns with a gorgeous bouquet of lowercase wonders that'll cast a gentle spell over anyone on the line from Vincent Gallo to The Humble Bee, Sofie Birch to Tenniscoats.​ The fourth release on the label following Naemi's 'Breathless, Shorn' and Ulla's own 'Hometown Girl', and its ‘Other Girl’ companion piece, 'Puff' is a new album from Justin Cantrell aka J and the Woolen Stars, a core member of Naarm's underground scene as part of local supergroup Picnic, and the brains behind the excellent Daisart and se Dessaisir Publishing labels - we recommend you check in on both if you haven't already done so. ‘Puff’ is a glistening pool of lush refractions and music-box lullabies, featuring an array of acoustic instruments and fragile foley sounds that are gently peeled away until all we’re left with are the faded outlines of half-remembered songs. A sound that roots itself in the prophetic machinations of artists like Fennesz and the languid Japanese minimalism of Fourcolour or Moskitoo, 'Puff' strikes a delicate balance, sounding as bewitchingly informal as a Tenniscoats set, but also consistently muddling the perception of high and low-brow sound. Cantrell's skill lies in a sort of sonic conjuration, bamboozling the brains of those of us who grew up listening to stepped-on audio via ramshackle RealMedia streams by alchemising the content, turning found sound into gold. Just tell us you don't get chills from hearing the bitrate-impaired acoustic guitar on 'Dirty like an angel', set against a backdrop of windy, harmonic detritus. It's both meticulously contrived and gloriously off-the-cuff, like one of Vincent Gallo's classic 'When'-era demos reduced down to 96kbps. Similarly, 'She knows just what to say' provokes faint memories of folk music, with impromptu fiddle parts gently steamrolled to create a sound that’s nothing short of exquisite, like pressed flowers rediscovered in an old, discarded book. Even the more palpably electronic elements are hand sculpted in a way that belies the era we're living in - it's music for a digital age that sounds oddly unplugged, flawed and human. An unmistakably lovely antidote to the opiating nostalgia of our time.

Or Sobre Blau's 'Making Friends' on Stroom."Andreu G. Serra and Kiran Leonard first met in Lisbon nine years ago, arriving in the city within weeks of each other by chance. Living together in a crumbling warehouse in Alto São João, they recorded a series of improvisations that became The Piri Piri Samplers (Memorials of Distinction, 2019): Serra’s abrasive, tape-warped guitar lines colliding with Leonard’s stark, pedal-free counterpoint. They played a single gallery show, left Lisbon that summer, and then spent almost a decade living in different countries.When Stroom reissued The Piri Piri Samplers in 2024, the label suggested the duo make a new record. At first, it seemed impossible: Leonard was in London, Ubaldo in southern Catalonia, and their attempts at long-distance recording quickly collapsed into nothing. But the near-failure sparked something. Leonard travelled to Catalonia to restart the process in person; soon after, Serra moved to South London, and the pair began meeting every week.The result is Making Friends: a richer, more expansive album built over six months. Where The Piri Piri Samplers was assembled from raw improvisations, Making Friends transforms fragments into fully realised songs, weaving together nylon and steel-string guitars, piano, drums, bells, samplers and more. For the first time, Serra and Leonard sing together, each in his own language - Catalan and English - sometimes translating one another in real time.Musically, Making Friends still carries the jagged dissonance and free-blues spirit of the duo’s earlier work, while opening outward toward everything from emo and blown-out noise to fractured chamber pop. There are only three guests on the album, and they are worth mentioning: Rachel Leonard and Antonia Serra (the musicians' mothers) on the seventh tune, and the American poet Pete Simonelli (of Enablers) appears on Top of Duboce / Tyne Bridge Crossing, one of the album’s two sprawling centerpieces.At its heart, Making Friends is an album about friendship: about distance, reunion, family, and the stubborn need to make music together. It begins with uncertainty and disconnection, but ends somewhere stronger - with, as put on the closing track, “molta il.lusió per lo que pugue vindre” or “much excitement for what may come.”"

This is a solo percussion work recorded in 1980 and released in 1981 by Masahiko Togashi, one of Japan’s foremost percussionists and drummers. After the accident that left him partially paralyzed, Togashi developed his own techniques and performance methods, using drums, bells, gongs, and a wide range of percussion instruments to capture the unique sound world he envisioned. This album documents that deeply personal sonic exploration.

Mieko Shiomi is known both for her avant-garde musical activities with the Group Ongaku collective during her student years and for her participation in Fluxus from 1964 onwards. The Fluxus Festival held in Venice in 1990, to which she was invited, became a pivotal event that brought about a major shift in her subsequent work. That same year, she self-released a cassette requiem in memory of Fluxus founder George Maciunas.

This tape work combines original compositions performed on synthesizer harpsichord and organ with recordings of her own voice played backwards. These sound sources were taken to a studio and edited together with environmental sounds recorded at the Venice venue. The piece also incorporates the voices of key Fluxus artists including La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, Eric Andersen, Willem de Ridder, and Ken Friedman. Making use of the specific properties of tape, the piece integrates unique ideas and structures and occupies a distinctive place among Shiomi’s oeuvre.

L.A. composer and Leaving Records label founder Matthew David McQueen is largely known for his experimental production including releases on Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder label. After nearly a decade of evolution, Trust the Guide and Glide is at once a powerful statement of identity and a new door into cosmic consciousness."It’s Now! Eternally! Easy, Tender, Loving Sound.The Guide is You. The Glide is Life. Be Yourself, Live Fully –That’s what the Vibrations are Encouraging, Echoing,Waving, Glowing, Singing, Rippling, Radiating.Matthewdavid’s Mindflight is Heart Music. It’s a recordof beauty that has evolved from explorations into hisdeepest emotions, visions and imagination. The Flightswere most directly inspired by his profound connectionwith Michael Stearns’ Planetary Unfolding (ContinuumMontage 1981). You can feel that Trust is it’s Brother.Stearns speaks of Dreams, Resonance, Unity, and Ecstasy.Matthew adds that this journey has been one of Healing,Discovery, Finding, and Transformation. The two andtheir kindred are wondrous Sonic-Energetic-Midwiveshelping to usher in this age of Expanded Consciousness.The process and source are Extra and Terrestrial,Synthesized, Improvised (Live on Dublab Radio) Meditations.Sourced from the well of spiritual expression, theserecordings were further realized in Ableton. You’re flyingthrough the mystical world of Gilbert William’s cover,the software technology is dancing with circuitry, Flute,Harp, Hulusi, Water, Sonar, Quasar, and microtonallanguage are Tied and Dyed in the moment.The Mind is programmed by the Heart. With an openHeart the Mind can apply our gifts. I asked Matthewwhat he’s seen on / in his Mindflights: “Unconditional Love!Stillness – Centeredness,” he replied. “I’ve seen and feltmy ancestors, I’ve heard the songs of humanity . . .”Welcome, Listen, Hear, Here, Now, Celebrate!Joyously Written with Trust the Guide and Glide on repeat,Tuesday, December 8, 2015, in Woodland Hills, California– Carlos Niño