FELT

先鋭的英国のテクノ・プロデューサー、ShiftedこもGuy Brewerが"Carrier"名義で放つ最新作『FATHOM』が、Perko主宰の〈FELT〉よりリリース。ミニマルな構造の中にドラムンベースのリズムを再構築し、金属的な質感と抽象的なサウンドデザインが融合した全4曲を収録。幻覚的な抽象性を帯びたグリッチ・プログラミングと霧のようなアトモスフィアが特徴的な"FATHOM"や粘性のあるベースと点滅するパルスが印象に残る"The Cusp"、有機的なディテールが際立つ"Trooper"など、IDM、実験的テクノ、アブストラクト・エレクトロニカの愛好者にとって、現代的なリズムとサウンドの探求が詰まった一枚！

Civilistjävel! returns with Brödföda, the successor to 2022’s Järnnätter and his fourth release for FELT. The record features collaborations with Laila Sakini, Mayssa Jallad, Thommy Wahlström, ELDON, and Withdrawn. Tomas Bodén is a revered figure of the aural murk, known primarily for his work as Civilistjävel. It’s an alias that has spawned a catalogue of self-released peculiarities, featuring music that scorns traditional form, instead opting for unfussed symphonies of ice-hued minimalism; soft murmurs that emanate from his studio in the High Coast of Sweden. On Brödföda, his latest album for Fergus Jones’s FELT imprint, subtle new developments in mood prevail. Across its 75 minutes, Civilistjävel! unveils a breadth of emotions that on previous releases seemed distant. He also invites collaborators on record for the first time: Beirut-based singer Mayssa Jallad mournfully croons on “IV”, “VIII” hosts Coldlight’s ELDON & Withdrawn for an abstracted session of dub-hop murk, Laila Sakini offers a hallucinogenic monologue amidst melodica, sticks & bells playing on “IX”, and Thommy Wahlström floats scant acid dub stylings on “VI”. These additions and developments bring a forlorn intimacy to the music, and suggest an ambition that few artists of his ilk strive for. FELT’s (un)reliable cast of audio ghouls routinely summon the odd, with Civilistjävel! often its primary culprit; Brödföda gently modifies this path to pursue some of his and the label’s most quaintly beautiful music yet.

FELT welcomes back Civilistjävel! with Följd, the follow up to last year’s Brödföda. 7 tracks further chronicling his melancholic murk, ever drifting towards that faint dub glow. Features a collaboration with Thomas Bush.

Uncanny are the nocturnal sounds that ebb patiently from Tomas Bodén and his machines. His music continues to uncover equal parts beauty and dread from isolation, a purposeful slow pace guiding those gentle noises through the arctic air surrounding its author. No matter the weather, these expressions as Civilistjävel! continue to find a loving home on Fergus Jones’s FELT imprint.

On Följd, he naturally develops on the inclinations found on Brödföda. XIII’s unsettling warble melts into the dusky spurts of XIV. Further on, the dew-glowed ambience of XV precedes XVI’s dub trudge which casts a hypnotic grey shadow. XVII’s wind-swept acid redux then quietly transitions into the stunning introspective drone of XVIII before closer XIX comes into view, its positive dawn enacted through Thomas Bush’s croons lilting amongst organs, guitars and tempered sound design.

Civilistjävel! continues to emote a great deal with very little, a reliable abstract practitioner that posits Följd as an arresting audio tale within his celebrated oeuvre.

There isn’t much to go on other than the soundscapes when it comes to Civilistjävel! What is rumoured to be a figment of the pre-internet era tapping into a similar consciousness as Biosphere, Chain Reaction or early Fax +49-69/450464 is ultimately left up to second guessing. For the average listener crossing paths with the project, a steady run of small-run, minimally packaged LPs has cemented Civilistjävel! as a leading force in the dub techno/glacial drone scene of present. However niche that may sound, this collection of tracks for Perko’s new FELT imprint navigates the same territories as the previous outings but with the folkloric tag “Iron Night” to help guide our ears. A Swedish expression for long nights of frost that damage plants and crops, the spectral and foreboding atmosphere of the opening cut already hints at the direction of the album. Combining dense ambient synth layers with hard to place industrial motifs (sometimes in rhythm, sometimes chaotically arranged) are what Civilistjävel! does best, indeed Järnnätter unfolds as a piece of work you can really spend time with. At points it feels as if the machines in some old factory complex have spluttered back to life through some unknown force and have begun to sing to one another. Other times the atmosphere is akin to a hydrophone placed deep into an ice-covered lake and the synthetic pulses of ‘A2’ are the only vaguely human touch. However, the sparse melodic flourishes across the record stem from an interest in psalms and early Swedish folk music, the juxtaposition of machine-led intuition and personable studiousness adding a hidden depth to the album.

FELT summon the hand of two of the most uncannily suited producers around to remix cuts from Civilistjävel!’s "Järnnätter" album one year on from its initial release. As a regular collaborator with SVN and Dynamo Dreesen as well as having a slew of experimental techno 12”s to his name, A Made Up Sound immediately got the memo. The Dutch producer takes the foggier, subdued angle of his own craft into wildly captivating effect when tasked to build upon the stems from “Järnnätter”. Whilst A Made Up Sound's remix constantly builds in intensity, Ossia’s “Disoriented Dub” explores a much more radiophonic, lost-at-sea headspace with echoes of early concrete compositions and a spectral approach to dub; an olive branch of muggy hauntological weirdness extending from Bristol up to Scandinavia and back via the lowlands.

日本の伝説的衛星放送〈St.Giga〉から名前を取った先鋭レーベル〈CITY-2 ST. GIGA〉を主宰。〈The Trilogy Tapes〉や〈Incienso〉にも作品を残す、東京の要注目プロデューサー、DJ Trysteroによるセカンド・アルバムが〈FELT〉からリリース。ダブ・テクノの深淵を漂う全9曲を展開していく本作では、リズムは曖昧に、メロディは断片的に、音響は霧の中で揺らめき、聴く者を夢と現の狭間へと誘います。濃霧が晴れ、しおれたダブの形が浮かび上がる瞬間が印象的な"Untitled 6"など素晴らしいです。Huerco S.やCivilistjävel!を想起させる、減衰と残響の美学が光る一枚！

Copenhagen’s meme-able, custom line of genre-blurring songwriters yields Lithuanian talent, Gintè Preisait, fresh from the conservatoire and an LP with Toshimaru Nakamura, on an enchanted, waking dream blend of lower case concrète, trip hop and avant-classical experimentation calling to mind the refined crafts of ML Buch, Ugné Uma, Svitlana Nianio, Smerz, Lucrecia Dalt, Julia Holter or Martyna Basta, thru the reaches of Finland’s Fonal Records. It was bound to happen at some point, right? We've written more than enough about how Copenhagen's Rhythmic Music Conservatory has become the central node in a scene that's prioritized the permeable membrane between pop, classical training and unhinged technological experimentation - honestly where else are you gonna find Clarissa Connelly, Astrid Sonne, Erika de Casier, ML Buch and Fine? Gintė Preisaitė pushes even further into uncharted waters on her debut album, letting the pop forms evaporate like vapors around her intricately woven experimental collages. We're already off to a good start with 'Vigilance', a lengthy introduction that pays its respects to Preisaitė's past, present and future. The classically trained improviser, producer and composer begins with an ensemble of moaning acoustic instruments that she gradually chips into, tearing through the acoustic sounds with electronic treatments and introducing subtle, grounding field recordings before adding her voice and completely shifting the direction. The unwieldy blend of elements prepares us for an arguably bolder experiment, 'Summary Saint Mary', where Preisaitė matches her gamelan-like prepared piano phrases with Björk-ish vocal loops, OPN-inspired electronic touches and wheezing processed acoustic sounds. And it's remarkably well controlled; even in capable hands, it's a tough palette to work with and Preisaitė makes it look almost easy, never stepping too far in any direction or another. Because it's not really a pop record at all, it's an album that's aware of pop, doesn't avoid its charms, but manages to corral its characteristics into the avant garde's misshapen spirit. Even the relatively upbeat, straightforward 'Aéroport', a track that would have sounded stylistically comfortable on Smerz's RMC love-in 'Big city life EDITS', she never goes full James K, letting the melodies curve towards freeform abstraction in the final act before hitting us with three tracks of choppy, half-dissolved prepared piano. It's ambitious stuff, and all the better for it.

Grady Steele (Formant Soundsystem) debuts on FELT with the tender spectre of Nausea, poignant patterns captured through the dusk-hued window pane. Co-founder of the Formant Soundsystem, a travelling rig that’s powered forward-thinking dances in London and Paris, Grady Steele has championed both experimental and club music at the cutting edge. Concurrently to this, he debuted his own productions back in 2024 for Archaic Vaults. Uniquely intimate, his music shone lowkey and warm with an assured glow. It’s no surprise then to find his inimitable sounds land neatly on Fergus Jones’ FELT imprint. Nausea extends across seven movements, narrating sentimental parallels of familiarity. Grady posits concentrated pangs of post-rave nostalgia with rich melodic sustenance, a vivid introspection tempered with field recordings and live instrumentation. Strummed guitars and aching pads move purposefully with the suspended pace, an immersive beatless vista from its opening quiet moments through to the guttural noise-laden finale. It’s a brief, beautiful collection from Grady Steele and another string to FELT’s unpredictable bow.

Dave Huismans (ex_libris, A Made Up Sound) presents In Transit, a self-titled LP of arresting downtempo vignettes, with origins dating back to over a decade ago.

Renowned for some of this century’s most notorious rhythmic advances, the work of Dave Huismans (fka A Made Up Sound and 2562) continues to provide a blueprint for new generations of innovation-obsessives. After a long hiatus from releasing original material, he returned in 2025 with two beloved EP’s as ex_libris. Now he returns to FELT as In Transit, following up on his remix of Civilistjävel! from 2023.

Borrowing its name from the closing dialogue of a novel by Dutch author Hella S. Haasse, In Transit was written in just two weeks in the summer of 2013 on a Korg ESX sampler. Since then, he has patiently refined its constituent parts.

Over the course of 38 minutes across six tracks, In Transit maps out an absorbing vista. The music shimmers with a celestial quality, underpinned by rhythmic stamina and creeping intensity. Tangential to Huismans’ previous work, the beats here are decentred and further scattered, acting as buoys to the constantly evolving and intricate narratives of layered textures.

In Transit marks a fascinating new addition to Huismans’ sprawling catalogue, a truly remarkable racket to be crafted with such humble means, finding a suitable context within FELT’s continued venture into parallel sounds.

Swell Maps / Television Personalities affiliated C86-era indie pop rescued from sheer obscurity and thrust into semi-obscurity by FELT. The Catburgers were a short-lived Scottish group, this recording initially primed for release on Dan Treacy’s Dreamworld imprint yet placed on the perennial backburner as so many creative projects inevitably are.

Soundcloud uploads dating back over a decade ago and the odd blog/twitter post aside, the group lived on only in the memories of those who happened to catch them on the Edinburgh scene back in the day. Until now! With the help of the National Sound Archives, the original master tape containing these three tracks has been rebaked, cut and mastered for seven-inch.

‘Holiday House’ sounds immediately at home in the Postcard Records nexus, the influence of 1980 particularly tangible. Slower paced and with a touch more melancholy than its companions, the song sounds both in and out of time, as if some young teens raised on a hand-me-down diet of Pastels CDs might have laid it down yesterday.

Jowe Head of Swell Maps joins the group for ‘The Acid Tree’, whilst EP closer ‘Diving For The Brick’ sees the band ruminating on weak knees, sore lungs and stinging eyes down at the local swimming pool.

Recorded at Electro Rhythm Studio, London on 28th February 1987

Guitar & Vox: Robert Jones
Bass: Stuart Macgregor
Drums: Jeff Duffy
Producer: Jowe Head
Engineer: Wilson Sharp
Mastering: Mark Klon
Audio Restoration: Conor Walker
Cover Photo: Gerard Livett
Sleeve Design: Andrew Beltran

A companion to “The Catburgers - Dreamworld Sessions”, this cassette-only release was recorded at The Rocking Horse Studios in Bathgate in Autumn 1986. The audio is restored from a demo tape owned by journalist Simon Reynolds and contains some of the tracks that made it onto the FELT003.

FELT survey Copenhagen's contemporary jazz scene with RMC graduate Vincent Yuen Ruiz’s intimate and strikingly minimal rendition of stifled percussion, spacious piano and precise double bass work, tipped FFO of The Necks x Talk Talk, naturally. Ruiz is a seasoned jazz player who's also nursed a parallel reputation as a post-rocker, formerly playing bass in Plaistow. And it's this knowledge of a world outside of jazz that gives 'Trio' its edge. It's not a post-rock record, by any means, but it's not pure jazz either - or at least, it doesn't sound as if it's confined by the aesthetic. The ensemble formed in 2019, but their last record together, 2021's 'Le seul salut que je connaisse', was recorded as a six-piece. Ruiz strips the sound to its bare bones on 'Trio', relying on unusual percussive sounds (provided by drummer Anders Vestergaard) to fill in some of the gaps. And although Rasmus Kjær takes a de facto lead roll on piano, it's the rhythm section, commanded by Ruiz on double bass, that makes 'Trio' so fascinating. There's an almost meditative sense of calm to opener 'Choral', with Vestergaard's bowed cymbal tones providing a neat bed for Kjær's Bach and Ravel-inspired flourishes. The tension is only released when Ruiz's soft bass enters the frame, played somewhere between improvisation and composition, minimalism and decelerated chamber jazz. Just as he slimmed down his ensemble, Ruiz slims down the pieces themselves, condensing and distilling his ideas so the record never gets busy, or outstays its welcome. Just head to the central piece 'Weaving', beautifully balancing its measured piano with Vestergaard's odd flurries of percussion that sometimes appear for just a second. We can hear post-rock - particularly the variety that Talk Talk perfected - but our brains are also directed into filling in the gaps. 'Trio' is an album that lives and dies on its pauses, focusing on decaying notes and echoing rhythms in all their quiet beauty.