LP version. History of Silence is the first full body of work by Icelandic collective múm since 2013's Smilewound (MORR 124CD) and their seventh studio album to date -- recorded, deconstructed, put back together again, refined and finished over the course of two years. Vibrantly oscillating around a carefully curated palette of electronic and analogue sounds, the eight new tracks reflect the group's continuous strive to explore sonic spaces through subtle yet gripping songwriting. For a long time now, múm have been exploring the idea of distance in their music. Founded in Iceland in the late 1990s, the members soon began embarking on journeys across the world. Settling in, moving on, catching up: The concept of distance soon became an integral part of the collective's process. History of Silence leans into this idea, with space and time becoming indispensable pillars of the arrangements. While being coherent and structured, they echo their origins from different seasons, cities, and spaces -- neatly stitched together with unparalleled craftsmanship. On History of Silence time manifests in unexpected, liberating, and mesmerizing ways. It does not move reliably forward; it drifts, takes twists and turns, even disappears completely. Electronic textures blur into acoustic sounds, voices flicker and dissolve, melodies stumble and repeat. The arrangements often feel like they're wandering, gently resisting direction. Work on History of Silence began at Sudestudio in southern Italy. Additional recordings were made in Reykjavík, Berlin, Athens, Helsinki, New York, and Prague. The strings were recorded by Sinfonia Nord at the Hof concert hall, Akureyri, arranged and conducted by Ingi Garðar Erlendsson, who has worked with the band for many years. The orchestral elements don't dominate the record -- instead, they surface gently, adding depth and resonance to the songs without disturbing the songs' fragility. Contrary to what the album title suggests, History of Silence is a collection of bold and colorful songs, no matter how muted they might sound at times. They tickle like a feather drifting through the wind, ending up in unexpected places, stimulating long-forgotten thoughts and feelings, intimate moments of introspection. The songs move through the echoes those moments leave behind: the emotional traces of things unsaid, the weight of stillness. Offering closeness by means of distance and much-needed support. Bless.

LP version. Acclaimed Welsh composer, singer and multi-instrumentalist Cerys Hafana's third album, Angel, is a deep exploration of minimalism, traditional and avant-folk music and Hafana's primary instrument the Welsh triple harp. The album alternates between vocal songs (all sung in the Welsh language) and instrumentals, often buoyed by a deft trio of sympathetic and exploratory musicians (drums, double bass, alto sax). The uncommon breadth and innovation of Angel soundly confirms Hafana as one of the UK's most exciting young contemporary folk artists. Their spellbinding music is rich with atmosphere and heart and stubbornly resistant to genre boxes and easy classification. Hafana has been self-releasing their music for a few years, with 2022's Edyf making the Guardian newspaper's Top Ten Folk Album Of The Year list. They also recently had an album of piano pieces called Difrisg released on Instant Karma Classics. Although Hafana is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist and considers the piano to be their "main instrument, technically," it's for their work using the Welsh triple harp that they've gained a reputation as an innovative, exploratory, singularly powerful musician. Hafana's harp has a distinct sound, in part because they had the idea of damping the harp's strings using blu-tac to produce a woody, muted sound, after hearing about other harpists threading strips of paper and other material to create a 'buzzy' effect. It's this kind of experimentation that sees them both reach back to artists in the Welsh triple harp tradition like Llio Rhydderch and forward to fellow contemporary artists and sonic adventurers like Rhodri Davies. Hafana's music manages to be immersed in and informed by Welsh harp traditions but also embraces minimalism, jazz, the avant-garde and, particularly on the track "Angel," contemporary Breton folk styles. Hafana says: "on this album I wanted to try to push the musical limits more than I have previously, and to swing between the extremes of dynamics and texture as much as is possible on the instruments at my disposal. Lots of the writing also draws from contemporary Breton folk music with its driving and repetitive dance rhythms, more sparse, contemporary styles of composing and improvising, and some brief moments of very Welsh and traditional harp playing and unaccompanied singing."

LP version. Color vinyl. Few debut albums arrive with the kind of self-contained logic and radical spirit found on the self-titled Faust. Released in 1971, it marked the beginning of a project that would sidestep genre and expectation, offering a fractured, exploratory take on rock music, blending tape experiments, improvised structures, and surreal collage. This Bureau B reissue offers a fresh opportunity to engage with one of the most curious and uncompromising records of its time. The story of Faust begins in 1969, when cultural journalist Uwe Nettelbeck met with Horst Schmolzi, an A&R man at Polydor in Hamburg. Schmolzi was looking for a German answer to The Beatles, but Nettelbeck had other ideas. With a generous advance in hand, he set out to assemble something far more radical. Nettlebeck headed into the Hamburg underground and fused members of the bands Nukleus and Campylognatus Citelli into a new six-piece lineup. From Nukleus came bassist Jean-Hervé Péron, guitarist Rudolf Sosna, and saxophonist Gunther Wüsthoff. From Campylognatus Citelli, he brought in keyboardist Hans-Joachim Irmler and drummers Werner "Zappi" Diermaier and Arnulf Meifert. Their debut album Faust feels deliberate in its unpredictability: a meticulously chaotic document of six musicians discovering a new musical language in real time. At its heart lies a groove so deep and syncopated it borders on funk, only to collapse into chaos once more. Drums stutter toward cohesion and then back away in terror. Guitars unravel into smoke. And in the final moments, the music recedes, leaving behind a broken narrative, fragmented speech, laughter, coughs, like a bedtime story told by ghosts of a Europe still recovering from war. Despite the experimental nature, surrealist lyrics and a complete rejection of conventional music form, this isn't an over intellectual exercise, or a display of willful antagonism. Instead, Faust packed these three sprawling, sputtering pieces with the breadth of human emotion, capturing the chaos and complexity of existence in an audio analogue to Jackson Pollock's abstract expressionism. More than 50 years on, it remains a thrilling reminder of what can happen when artists abandon the map and follow instinct instead.

WRWTFWW Records presents the self-titled debut from Throwing Shapes, a new collaborative project featuring harpist Méabh McKenna, percussionist Ross Chaney, and label mainstay composer/producer Gareth Quinn Redmond. The immersive electronic meets traditional album is available on limited-edition LP housed in a heavyweight sleeve and including a beautiful mini-poster designed by artwork creator Stina Sandström. A hypnotic, texturally rich exploration in sound led by the striking timbre of the Irish wire strung harp, Throwing Shapes weaves intricate instrumental tapestries with ambitious electronic synthesis and arrangements. The result is an immersive soundscape that feels rooted yet experiential and through which a unique vocabulary emerges -- cinematic harp driven avant-electronic conjuring lush sonic worlds that evoke both heritage and futurism.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the release of this indisputable classic of French coldwave and synthwave, including hits such as "Polaroid Roman photo" and "Mots," Born Bad presents a limited-edition reissue, including a bonus 7" with two previously unreleased tracks and a 12-page vinyl booklet. Thierry Müller, who initiated the RUTH project, was not a newcomer when the album Polaroid Roman Photo was released in 1985. As early as 1982, an early version of the track "Polaroïd/Roman/Photo" was released under the project RUTH. "I wanted to write a piece to make the girls dance and make fun of the boys. I plugged a small handmade clock on my Farfisa organ as a sequencer. I had a small Roland synth-guitar, I put the organ in it and that's how it started." Thierry worked on other tracks for the future LP and asked some friends to write other texts. Later, Thierry settled down in the Anagramme recording studio to carry out acoustic sound recordings. But when the sessions were over, he was not too happy with the results of "Polaroïd/Roman/Photo": according to them, they lacked "flamboyance". They decided then to record a new female voice with a professional singer and the sound engineer Patrick Chevalot offered to mix the track in the Synthesis studio "so that it blows out." With his tape ready and the help of Jacques Pasquier (S.C.O.P.A./ Invisible Records) he started to contact record companies. "I visited almost all the major record companies and was thrown out every time. Only at RCA's I found someone interested in my music." The album barely sold 50 copies in 1985, despite the eponymous title being a potential success. In 2004, two DJs (Marc Colin and Ivan Smagghe) discovered the track "Polaroïd/Roman/Photoand," and decided to exhume it from oblivion. They released it on a compilation called So Young But So Cold (Tigersushi) and then with Born Bad records on the BIPPP compilation in 2008. Thanks to them, the track and the album began a new life. Alongside his activity as graphic designer, Thierry Müller carries on producing music under his name, those of ILITCH and RUTH, and with various collaborators.

Rafael Anton Irisarri's landmark work reimagined. Marking the tenth anniversary of the American composer's critically acclaimed album A Fragile Geography, this new edition arrives renewed, both sonically and visually. First released in 2015 during a period of personal upheaval and creative reinvention, it endures as a testament to resilience, transformation, and the connection we hold with the places that shape us. Written in the aftermath of a devastating theft, A Fragile Geography was born out of loss. Just days before a cross-country move to New York, Irisarri's entire Seattle-based studio was wiped out. Instruments. Recordings. Archives. Gone without a trace. He arrived on the East Coast to an empty room and the daunting task of starting over. Composed and recorded in the rural woods of the Hudson Valley, the album took shape in seclusion, surrounded by nature, and through a process guided by improvisation. Embracing limitations, Irisarri wove textural layers of field recordings with half-remembered melodies from his Seattle years, piecing them together like fragments of memory. Among its defining sounds is "Empire Systems," a monumental centerpiece built around a simple four-chord progression, organ textures, and guitar drones. Gradually, the track expands into layers of immersive loops and thick, enveloping distortion that wash over the listener like a rolling wave. More than a career highlight, A Fragile Geography has laid the foundation for Black Knoll studio, which Irisarri rebuilt from the ground up. The studio has since grown into a creative hub for countless projects, with Irisarri engineering records for iconic music figures like Terry Riley, Ryuichi Sakamoto, William Basinski, MONO, Devendra Banhart, Grouper, Emeralds, Steve Hauschildt, Julianna Barwick, and many others. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu with exceptional attention to detail, this anniversary edition uncovers every nuance in the sound design, enhancing clarity and presence. With each listen, new elements emerge, inviting discovery and reconnection.

The bicoastal duo of Greg Hartunian (West) and Colby Nathan (East) have made music together for 15 years. For their third and most focused full length, Dimples displays that they are anything but spring chickies. Past injuries leave scars, old flames leave burns, and memories are little more mental syrup on a midnight sundae. Obscure Residue stays true to Dimples' bittersweet off-the-cuff pop sound while pushing the tempo up a bpm or two, honing in their codeine dream melodies with orchestral arrangements. The humor is subtle, but ever-present -- cherished, not precious. Nowhere is this more-clear than on "Passage of Time," the most elemental and stripped down track of the album. Nathan's voice accompanied by the guitar delivers a personal and resonant message, stating: "Open up/you may get burned/But keep shut/And never even get a turn/There's no easing the passage of time." Dimples' songs comment on the psychic clutter that people collect, filter, and then retain or abandon -- be it by choice, chance, or circumstance. This clutter can be physical, too -- as experienced during Dimples live performances. Nathan typically performs alone in an ever-mounting pile of nostalgic detritus. He uses elements of the recorded materials while mixing in real time cacophonous loops, projections of deeply layered video collage, mutating outfits, and interactive set designs. One can see him smirking as he folds himself into the canvas of light and freak accident. Hartunian prefers tending his desert garden over performing live. He chooses instead to paint a world of his own design. These paintings, utilized for Dimples' album artwork and incorporated into the live projections, display surreal worlds that act as shelter for these strange pop songs. For a band more familiar with questions than answers, Dimples share some glimpses of wisdom that time bestows. Cheeky lyrics reflect that wisdom lies in the acceptance of ignorance and how it sculpts perception. Obscure Residue feels lived in -- a lifelong friendship -- direct and obtuse, familiar yet abstract. Dimples proves that they understand that time proceeds without restraint, and what comes along and what is left behind is less a matter of choice and more a matter of fact. So they sing, "some currents cannot be resisted, they turn you right around."

2025 restock; Legendary shoegaze band Chapterhouse share their first ever recordings on a new EP, White House Demos. The four tracks were laid down at The White House studio in Weston-super-Mare on January 15, 1989, when the band were only four gigs old. The tracks weren't included on 2023's career-spanning Chronology boxset because they had been forgotten about -- until the intervention of Slowdive guitarist Christian Savill. He and Patman worked together in an office in Reading as their respective bands were starting out and he says the demo remains "their best record." Of the four tracks that make up the EP, "Ecstasy" has appeared in various versions and permutations on Chapterhouse compilations over the years, but never in its full eight-minute glory; a much later version of "Guilt" was included on the band's 1991 debut album and shoegaze classic Whirlpool; a version of "Die Die Die" was also included with that album on a bonus 12", and remained part of the band's live set for a while. The stunning "See That Girl," however, has never been released before. With 36 years of distance, it sounds like something of a lost classic, and the White House Demos as a whole feel like a brief moment in time captured forever.

Students of Decay presents The Dip, a new full-length recording by Berlin-based artist and composer Thomas Ankersmit, marking his debut with the label and sixth album to date. Comprised of two expansive, sidelong pieces composed entirely on the Serge Modular synthesizer, it signals a subtle yet significant shift in Ankersmit's trajectory, imbuing the hyper-physical, psychoacoustic intensities of his live performances with introspective, atmospheric, and even melodic elements. Primarily known for a site-responsive approach to sound, often realized in the moment of performance, Ankersmit's turn toward the studio in the last few years has opened up a new dimension within his practice. It is in this quiet rupture that The Dip emerged, a study in internality and suspended states, rich with cinematic undercurrents and ghostly spatial suggestion. Here, electricity itself feels transfigured -- becoming supple, even organic -- within an environment shaped entirely by analog signals. Over the past two decades, Ankersmit has established himself as one of the foremost practitioners of the Serge, the notoriously idiosyncratic and expressive instrument that has remained central to his work. On The Dip, he harnesses its potential not for brute force or disorientation, but for spaciousness, resonance, and lyrical abstraction. Without resorting to additional processing or effects, he draws out tones that feel simultaneously raw and refined, articulated and blurred -- intricate structures that seem to breathe and evolve of their own volition. The result is a kind of auditory hallucination, a "cinema for the ears," wherein impressions, emotional arcs, and imagined topographies unfold. Each side of The Dip plays like a single gesture unfolding in time -- a spatial narrative constructed through vibration, density, and the movement of air. The Dip follows acclaimed works on PAN, Touch, and Shelter Press, and reaffirms Thomas Ankersmit's position as one of the most focused and probing voices in contemporary experimental music. Quietly radical and meticulously constructed, it is less a departure than a deepening -- a descent into a more private sonic world, where the boundaries between perception, memory, and pure signal dissolve.

Double LP version. Clear color vinyl. "Nobukazu Takemura's music is singular in its ability to create a musical sense of childlike wonder and curiosity, with gracefully executed yet complex compositions. His pieces embody an innocence and the intricacies of self-discovery that every human is faced with as their worlds become more complex. An acclaimed producer and composer, Takemura is known for his idiosyncratic music and video artistry as well as his prolific collaborations including those with Tortoise, Yo La Tengo, DJ Spooky, and Steve Reich. knot of meanings, Takemura's first proper album in a decade, finds the Japanese artist wrestling with the rise of technological influence on art and culture in the modern era, in tandem with his own relationship to religion, and where those struggles meet. Like the colorful, irregularly shaped glasses on the cover, the album is a mosaic of technicolor elements that come together to form a complete picture, a dense portrait of interconnected struggles and triumphs. Throughout the album, Takemura exudes an unpredictability that builds surprise from unlikely combinations of instruments, tonalities and harmonic motions that embody bewildering knots to untangle, held together with a youthful sense of wonder. 'I attended a Catholic kindergarten as a child and cherished those early years, which laid the foundations for my future. This is in part why I have always used the keyword 'child' in my work as an adult,' notes Takemura. knot of meanings culminates his use of that child's perspective, or as Takemura has used extensively, that 'Child's View' to explore deeper life philosophies to ecstatic ends. The meanings and mysteries contained within make for an enchanting excavation for those attuned to deep listening, a journey that rewards the kind of inquiring open-mindedness of the listener."

"Japanese composer Nobukazu Takemura, who turned in a brilliant set of electronica...At points the music turned radiant, glowing with major harmonies, the pulse of the music driving. The music makes you concentrate, it promotes ecstasy." --NY Times

"Takemura has an uncanny understanding of [a child's] perspective, and even more amazing, realizes how to turn it into music." --Pitchfork

LP version. Clear color vinyl. "Sam Prekop's work over the last 30 years, whether created primarily on his guitar or on his modular synth, is consistent in its powerful melodicism, delicate arrangements and subtle evolution. Prekop's singular blend of melody, impressionistic lyricism and quietly intricate rhythms are the core of the singular sound of The Sea and Cake. Since 2010's Old Punch Card, Prekop's exploration of modular synthesis and electronic atmospheres, has come into its own. Highly skilled at manipulating the sonic interplay, Prekop has established a style all his own, his pieces are complex expressing real movement. Harmonies bloom with granular detail and contrary to their machine sources are able to convey emotion. Open Close is an album that captures the flow and energy of a live performance through the lens of a deft craftsman, an equilibrium of intuitive composition and the excitement of possibility. The music of Sam Prekop is defined by his signature curiosity and his ability to mold and refine that curiosity into a wholly unique sound. His process in naming album Open Close mirrors his creative practice and the worlds he builds across the album: 'I like simple words that become complicated if you think of them more than a second or two, beyond face value. And Open Close could be: close as in 'close to you' or close as in 'close the door.' If it gives everything away too quickly, then I'm not interested.' Each movement across Open Close is replete with simple gestures that suggest new complexities with Prekop's careful arrangements. Open Close unearths new, soulfully human sounds from synthetic textures precisely juxtaposed, its subtle contrasts in texture and rhythm are a free-flowing celebration of sonics as stunning as they are ephemeral."

"Every track is awash in sumptuous, eminently hummable melodies; the album swells with a newfound sense of joy." --Pitchfork, Best New Music

"The best improvisation transforms music into a living thing." --NPR, Best Albums of 2022

2025 restock; 1998 release. Voted one of 1998's top 15 Records of the Year in Modern Composition by the writers and critics of The Wire, Trilogie de la Mort is a work in three parts for anolog Arp synthesizer. The first third of the work, Kyema, is inspired by The Tibetan Book of the Dead and invokes the six intermediate states that constitute the existential continuity of the being. Kailasha, the second chapter, is structured on an imaginary pilgrimage around Mt. Kailash, one of the most sacred mountains in the Himalayas. Koumé makes up the last part of the trilogy and emphasizes the transcendence of death.

The Danish label Arbitrary presents Framework/Zwischen Remixes -- a remix by German artist Jan Jelinek and one by musician and label founder Mads Emil Nielsen originally made for a digital compilation, now published on 7" vinyl. For the CRXSSINGS release, Jan Jelinek remixed Nielsen's "Framework 10," a track from the Framework book/CD based on sequences/recordings of sine waves and noise. Side B features a rework by Mads Emil Nielsen of Jelinek's voice collage and electronic sounds, from Zwischen -- Marcel Duchamp, would you like or expect people to spin the wheel on your kinetic object Roue de Bicyclette. Mastered and cut by Kassian Troyer at D&M, Berlin.

"Yard Man Posse -- produced by Jah Thomas with massive hits such as the "Posse Yard Style," "Landlord," "Natty Walking," "China Girls," and more. When you put it on the turntable it will get you in the mood listen and enjoy for hours." --Alfred Newman

Featuring Roots Radics, Errol (Flabber) Holt, Sky Juice, Bingy Bunny, Dwight Andsowell, Steely and Winston Wright, Glassy Anderson, D Bradley, Dean Fraser, and Mambo and Friends.

LP version. Here are fourteen tracks of untimely yet unprecedented cross-fertilization from the French West Indies: all types of music rooted in the Creole archipelago have found their way, whatsoever, to the tracklisting. Whether originating from the city or being more rural, they all go back to what Edouard Glissant, in an interview about the place of West Indian music in the Afro-American scope, called "the trace of singing, the one which got erased by slavery." The opening track features one of the emblematic orchestras of this aesthetic identity, criscrossing many music types from the archipelago. The 1974 Ray Barretto guajira is magnificently performed by Malavoi, a legendary Fayolais group. Additionally, the compilation ends on a piece by Los Martiniqueños de Francisco. Practicing the danmyé rounds (a kind of capoeiria) to the rhythm of the bèlè drum, it delivers a terrific Caterete, a kind of champeta of Afro- Colombian obedience which was originally composed by Colombian Fabián Ramón Veloz Fernández for the group Wgenda Kenya. The icing on the cake is Brazilian Marku Ribas, who found refuge in Martinique in the early 1970s, bringing his singing to the last trance-inducing track. The Los Caraïbes cover of "Dónde," a famous Cuban theme composed by producer Ernesto Duarte Brito, has a typical violin and features renowned Martinique singer Joby Valente and his piquant voice. The meaningful "Amor en chachachá" by L'Ensemble Tropicana, a band which included Haitian musicians among whom was composer and leader Michel Desgrotte, also recalls how Latin music was pervasive in the tropics in the mid-1960s. They were the ones keeping people dancing at Le Cocoteraie in Guadelupe and La Bananeraie in Martinique. Around the same time, another "foreign" band, Congolese Freddy Mars N'Kounkou's Ryco Jazz, achieved some success on both islands by covering Latin jazz classics. In a more typically salsa vein, the Super Combo, a famous Guadelupean orchestra from Pointe-Noire that was formed around the Desplan family and had Roger Plonquitte and Elie Bianay on board, adapt "Serana," a theme by Roberto Angleró Pepín. Léon Bertide's Martinican ensemble excelled at the boogaloo which had been composed by Puerto Rican saxophonist Hector Santos for the legendary El Gran Combo. Three years later, in 1972, Henri Guédon, with the help of Paul Rosine on the vibraphone, tackled the Bilongo made famous by Eddie Palmieri. On the high-value collectible single -- the first one released by Les Aiglons under the Duli Disc label -- there is a sticker classifying the track under the generic name "Afro." Digipack CD includes 20-page booklet, and liners notes in French, Spanish, English. LP version includes 6-page booklet.

LP version. Star Feminine Band, hardest working women in Beninese show business, present their third album on Born Bad. These eight young women, from a village that even Beninese can't quite place, started out in hard mode. They had to convince themselves that it was worth a shot, but also their family, their village and an entire continent. André Balaguemon, composer, manager and lyricist, does a lot, while remaining in the background. He put the group together, included his three daughters, houses everyone with his wife Edwige who also manages dances and costumes. He gave them a musical training, and created the framework for them to continue school while rehearsing hard. From local heroes to UNICEF ambassadors, the group has made it. The very existence of this new album is a testament to the perseverance of Grâce, Anne, Urrice, Bénie, Angélique, Sandrine, Julienne, and Ashley. The personnel of this family affair has changed a bit: two new women have joined the group, which conquered bigger stages. This new album brings simple joys: watching them grow from Benin's first girl band to a band in its own right. Star Feminine Band makes straightforward music, taking no detours to express what's missing in the country. The musicians having a lot of fun on this album. It wanders through the vast territory of the countless West African styles. They even make a quick foray into reggae to talk about marriage (with a little rap thrown in), and interweave their voices in multiple languages (Waama, Ditamari, Bariba, Fon, Yoruba). And boy do they have hits. To each is own, but "L'enfant c'est un don de Dieu" (Child is god's gift) is a mighty steamroller, methodically smoothing out the ground for dancing together to its final chorus, singing "debout-les-en-fants / get up, kids!" along. Smoother than the first two albums, supported by fine arrangements, ambitious keyboard parts and more complex vocal harmonies without losing any of their spontaneity, this third opus quietly adds to Benin's musical heritage. As they make clear in "Jusqu'au bout du monde," a clever little number that listeners can already hear swelling up on stage.

The cinematic documentary Iron Winter, directed by Kasimir Burgess, follows two young herdsmen from the Tsakhir Valley in their quest to keep their community's herd of 2000 horses alive through Mongolia's harshest winter. The temperature regularly falls below -40℃ as they drive their herd into the mountains in search of pastures under the snow. As deteriorating climatic conditions make winter herding even more gravely dangerous, and the city lures away the young people, this ancient traditional rite of passage has nearly entirely disappeared. Through Iron Winter's score the Mongolian landscape shimmers and shivers with harmonics. Endless snowscapes glisten and swish, but stress and upheaval are also evident in the score's ominous murmurs. The tremors of imminent environmental and cultural collapse can be felt in the distant creak and clatter of the unseen, while tradition groans under the weight of obligation resting upon fewer and fewer shoulders. But to the sound of a mysterious reveille the herders and their horses are pulled irresistibly deeper into the mountains, exacerbating their vulnerability to dire cold and starvation, to the accompaniment of the howling wolves of the steppe. De la Catessen Records presents the original soundtrack for Iron Winter by Port Adelaide based composer Luke Altmann in a hand-numbered vinyl edition of 250 copies.

In 1978, at the University of London, the physicist David T. Kemp made an unusual discovery. Kemp noticed that faint sounds, known as Otoacoustic emissions (OAEs), revealed the existence of the cochlear amplifier, a mechanism responsible for sound sensitivity and frequency resolution. This discovery proved that the ear is an active rather than passive organ. Following this discovery the experimental music world embraced these findings by incorporating them into sound works. Maryanne Amacher was a notable early pioneer of this technique resulting in large scale sound works, the likes of which audiences had never encountered prior. Since these early explorations the use of OAEs has spread more widely in the experimental music landscape, notably by Editions Mego artists Florian Hecker and Marcus Schmickler. Stefan Juster aka Jung An Tagen is known for conceptual works and has a large back catalogue of intriguing ideas and sounds. Revenge of the Speaker People is another adventurous release, one which takes the Otoacoustic discoveries of David T. Kemp and applies them to a techno framework. OAEs are fragile and can collapse quickly when combined with other elements. Jung An Tagen's success in combining OAEs with beats is therefore quite an achievement, without precedent. The first CD comprises the results of Juster's experiments, resulting in some of the strangest techno committed to digital since the initial burst of the Mego label. A series of head spinning, ear tickling extreme electronic miniatures bleed in a continuous form. This adventurous and playful music would likely have many a raver run to the bathroom. There is a tangible subversive delight in mixing in such sounds to what is ostensibly "club music." Because the record had this clear divide of beat and otoacoustics the idea came to see how the material would lend itself to a series of remixes. The second CD has remix contributions from a selection of artists from the Editions Mego stable alongside Juster's own ETAT imprint along with DJ Nervoso from the Príncipe crew. The results are a head-spinning variety of Otoacoustic mayhem as the likes of Evol, Thomas Brinkman, Ellan Phan, Nik Colk Void and others fold these initial bizarre sounds into even more twisted shapes. Revenge of the Speaker People is a daring, playful and audacious release. One that will baffle your ears, neighbors and dancefloor clients.

2025 repress; LP version. Yīn Yīn's dazzling second album dives even deeper into dancefloor propulsion and space travel atmospherics than their lauded debut The Rabbit that Hunts Tigers (2019). The beautiful, old and somewhat staid city of Maastricht, where the band is based, isn't really conducive to setting up a bustling music scene: and it's a place where the outsiders quickly recognize each other. Yīn Yīn are all "nightlife people", which meant their friendship initially came about through co-organizing and deejaying DIY parties. Things started to move for real when Yves Lennertz and Kees Berkers decided to make a cassette tape that drew on references to Southern and South East Asian music. Once the idea was formed, Lennertz and Berkers wasted no time in taking "a lot" of instruments to a rented rehearsal room in a small village near Maastricht. They asked friends to help out, and they became a full band: with Remy Scheren on bass, Robbert Verwijlen on keys and Jerome Cardynaals, and Gino Bombrini on percussion. A "united against the world" stance is also heard at the end of "Declined by Universe". It's a funny, maybe surreptitious statement of belief in what they do. Yīn Yīn also wanted to create an illusion of strength in other ways: "Declined By Universe" sounds as if there is a large group of people playing, not just the core band. Nods to brilliant, invigorating dance music abound, some of the thumping beats in numbers like "Chong Wang" the title track and "Nautilus" drop some thumping 1990s-style electric boogie and Italo disco chops along the way. Then there is "Shēnzou V.", which plots a stately course between eastern-inflected pop music, Italo, and Harmonia-style electronic meditations. The expansive richness in sound and feel may be down to the fact that more samples, drum computers, and synthesizers are used on The Age of Aquarius than in their previous records, a process that intertwines with real-time playing in the studio. "Faiyadansu", for example, started with a sample found on an old traditional Japanese koto record. Cosmic appropriations of time also crop up in the titles, which may give the lie to some of the band members' preoccupations with the state of the world. An old trope musically the Age is most famously referenced in the hippie musical, Hair. Other direct references to cosmic times are in the track names "Kali Yuga" and "Satya Yuga": the Kali Yuga, in Hinduism, is the fourth and worst of the four yugas (world ages) in a Yuga Cycle, preceded by Dvapara Yuga and followed by the next cycle's Krita (Satya) Yuga.

An elusive cult gem resurfaces through Glossy Mistakes. Originally released in 1986, L'Empire Des Sons is an otherworldly blend of synth pop, folk experimentation, and cinematic percussive layers -- dreamlike, poetic, and wildly ahead of its time. L'Empire Des Sons was a fleeting yet powerful transmission from the fringes of the French underground -- an album that blurred genre lines and evaded easy classification. Fusing experimental folk, lo-fi synth pop, and avant-garde textures, the record exists in its own sonic universe: poetic, layered, and fiercely independent. Formed in Saint-Étienne by percussionist and composer Dominique Lentin (Dagon, Fille Qui Mousse) and first-time vocalist Bipé Redon, L'Empire Des Sons emerged from the vibrant DIY spirit of the early 1980s. Their paths crossed during the interdisciplinary project L'Opéra Quotidien, and what followed was an intuitive, deeply collaborative process. "I would bring in lyrics and my voice," Bipé recalled, "and Dominique would shape the music around the atmosphere or rhythm suggested by the words." The result is a collection of songs that feel both meticulously constructed and completely free. Ethnic percussion, marimbas, xylophones, and synthesizers dance around Bipé's surreal, fragmented lyrics -- little sonic postcards from imagined worlds. There's a theatricality here, but it never feels forced; rather, it's playful, intimate, and raw. Despite their inventiveness, L'Empire Des Sons remained a well-kept secret -- circulating only in select avant-garde circles and eventually becoming an extremely sought-after collector's item. Now, thanks to Glossy Mistakes, this lost artifact returns to the world with new life: remastered from the original tapes, pressed on vinyl for the first time with extended liner notes. L'Empire Des Sons was never meant to be boxed in. Like the quote from Brian Eno that opens their liner notes -- "For the world to be interesting, you have to be manipulating it all the time" -- their music resists stasis. It evolves, shifts, surprises. And now, it finally gets the audience it always deserved.

2025 repress. Nils Frahm presents a new collection of solo piano music, his first album since 2022's three-hour Music For Animals. Day was recorded in the summer of 2022 in complete solitude and away from his studio at Berlin's famed Funkhaus complex. Day may come as a surprise to those who, over the last decade, have watched Frahm shift slowly away from the piano compositions with which he first made his name in favor of a nonetheless still-distinctive approach that's considerably more instrumentally complex and intricately arranged. Indeed, Frahm has never been able to resist returning to his first love, and those who enjoyed earlier acclaimed albums like The Bells, Felt, and Screws will once again revel in Day's familiar, personal style. Day contains six tracks, three over the six-minute mark. Characterized by its confidential mood, the album confirms that, while Frahm is arguably now best known for elaborate, celebratory concerts calling upon an arsenal of pianos, organs, keyboards, synths, even a glass harmonica, he's still a prolific master of affecting simplicity, tenderness and romance. In 2021, having spent the early part of the pandemic arranging his archives, he released the 80 minute, 23-track Old Friends New Friends, a compilation of previously unreleased piano music intended to enable him to "start over" with a clean slate. Judging from the extended, ambient nature of Music For Animals, it proved a successful gambit, but Frahm has never been able to resist returning to his first love.

Spanish producer Pedro Vian and Japanese noise icon Merzbow reunite for A Wheel of Mani, out via Modern Obscure Music. Building on their previous collaboration, the album fuses hypnotic atmospheres with extreme noise, blending spirituality and digital experimentation. Vian's ethereal pads meet Merzbow's blistering textures, dissolving boundaries between harmony and chaos.

2025 restock; LP version. "1979's 154 represented the final tableau in Wire's Harvest released '70s triptych and was the first Wire album to be released to a universal set of five star reviews from the British rock weeklies, thus it represented the point when the British 'pop culture establishment' publicly recognized Wire's primacy. '154 makes 95 percent of the competition look feeble' wrote Nick Kent in the NME, 'Wire are achieving a lot of things other--and more recognized--names have been striving for' wrote Chris Westwood in Record Mirror (a paper that had slagged off Pink Flag). 'The album is a musical tour de force' wrote Jon Savage in Melody Maker. Many said it was the album that Bowie and Eno had failed to make with Lodger (as hinted in the RM review), it was on John Lennon's playlist. Without a doubt, even if record sales did not bear it out, Wire had 'arrived.'"

2025 restock; 2002 release. LP version. Originally released in 1983, Einstürzende Neubauten's second album marks a radical progression in the band's sound as well as a revolutionary step forward in the realms of industrial and experimental music. Bassist Marc Chung (ex-Abwärts) and electronics engineer Alexander Hacke (later a member of Crime And The City Solution) joined the band during this time, and singer Blixa Bargeld also became a full-time member of Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds. Despite each members' background, Einstürzende Neubauten's ethos -- "Destruction is not negative, you must destroy to build" -- treaded on ground that was explicitly anti-music. Through their intuitive compositional approach and application of found, industrial objects into song forms, the band's sonic trajectory was intent on generating entirely alternate modes of music-making. In contrast to the all-out destructive barrage of their debut, however, Zeichnungen Des Patienten O.T. reveals an astonishing maturity in its varied and dynamic range of textures while still being no less uncompromising.

Ashtar Afterhours is Kenneth Graham -- originally from Los Angeles, he has been a defining presence in electronic music ever since the '90s. Buying his first classic synthesizer, a Yamaha CS01, in 1984, he delved into music production at an early stage. Kenneth also formed some super-groups together with friends, his Sun Children/Sunkiss project -- together with David Alvarado -- put out highly influential music on legendary Peacefrog Records. Body Music was originally released on Plastic City in 2001 and it has been a Smallville favorite for a long time. Featuring full cover artwork by Stefan Marx.

Other worldly folk music from the Central Highlands of Vietnam performed by some of the most renowned musicians of the region, this exceptional document features small ensembles and solo performers on a variety of unique instruments (many with vocals). This is rare and disappearing music from the Jerai, Banhar, Ede, and Rongao ethnic groups and although the recordings are made during informal settings, they are raw, emotional, dreamy, and transcendent. From Vincenzo Della Ratta's liner notes: "In recent decades, the traditional cultures of various ethnic groups in Vietnam have undergone dramatic changes, leading to the radical transformation or even loss of some long-standing traditions, all of which has also had a significant impact on the musical traditions of the Central Highlands. The recordings on this album reflect this period, in which the last representatives of the old musical traditions have coexisted with a new wave of musicians and performers. This shift has affected the musical instruments used, the functions or contexts in which they are played, the repertoires, and the playing styles. A further characteristic of musical change in the Central Highlands is the influence of Western or Vietnamese music, evident in the way young musicians perform with a clean and measured style, with the standard Western tuning. This contrasts with the traditional playing style of older generations, and both styles are featured on this album. Rather than just being a 'musical postcard,' this album is intended to provide an accurate sonic representation of the musical landscape in the Central Highlands over the past two decades, while still being highly enjoyable. I feel that it is particularly significant, considering the present period of major change, during which the music of the older generations is fading from the villages of the region, making way for new forms of musical expression." Recorded live on location by Vincenzo Della Ratta between 2003-2023, this extremely limited-edition LP includes a four-page full-color insert with photos of the musicians and surroundings, a detailed track list and liner notes by Vincenzo Della Ratta.

White color vinyl version. Artist and multi-instrumentalist Flaer embraces the search for quiet miracles on first full-length LP Translations. In 2023, Realf Heygate -- who makes music as Flaer -- released his debut mini-album Preludes, composed on his mother's piano and his childhood cello. Returning to ODDA for his debut full-length album, Heygate is now looking in another direction. A record that embraces transition and movement, Translations is in many ways more internal, less rooted to a single place and reflective of the process of laying new foundations in Cornwall. Like Preludes, Translations is colored with found sounds and field recordings, from the starlings which can be heard singing through the open window of his studio, to the brittle recordings of his mother, who was a linguist, learning Spanish on a set of language tapes. In both cases, Heygate embraced the translations and memories inherent to the sounds. These decayed transmissions hint at loss, resisting clarity in favor of the ineffable. Translations is also a record of ambiguities and in-betweens, suggested by the double meaning of the album's opening track "Entre." At once intricate and expansive, threaded with birdsong and acoustic guitar motifs, this and "Starling Descends" (a reference to Vaughan Williams' "The Lark Ascending") act as a bridge away from the pastoral themes of Preludes towards a more assertive sound. At times intimate in its textured instrumentation and at others more overtly grand in orchestration, reflecting a wider palette of influences. Recorded between 2023 and 2025 -- what Heygate calls "A gradual process of sowing and harvesting ideas rather than a single intense creative period" -- each track follows a rhythm similar to the small maquettes and sculptures he has been working on in his visual practice, whereby structures and melodies form intuitively in moments that are as rare as they are fleeting.

Living In The Present is an album built around the work of American minimalist poet, Robert Lax (1915-2000) who is widely praised for his artistic concept of reduction, in which a pause becomes as important as the things said. The album brings together the sound of Robert Lax reading his poetry, narrative field recordings by Nicolas Humbert and subtle yet imaginative timbres by Carina Khorkhordina (trumpet) and Miki Yui (electronics) who is also behind the final mixing of the album. Living In The Present is drawing from an archive of audio recordings originally made by film maker Nicolas Humbert while shooting a film on Robert Lax entitled Why Should I Buy A Bed When All That I Want Is Sleep? The film was made on the Greek island of Patmos where Lax had lived withdrawn for three decades. More than 25 years after the premiere of Why Should I Buy A Bed When All That I Want Is Sleep?, Humbert, Khorkhordina and Yui are revisiting the original audio material and patiently open worlds within worlds, pointing to new harmonic textures and isolating timbres, synchronizing different layers of time and traces of various locations into a new composition in its own right. In some ways this album feels like an expansion of the work Humbert and Penzel did with Lax across six years, between 1993 and 1999, where they developed a unique intimacy in their textual-visual collaboration. On two long pieces, for each side of the album, "Where do i begin" and "One moment passes, another comes on" respectively, Yui's electronics and Khorkhordina's trumpet interweave beautifully with Humbert's field recordings, in a manner that shadows the reflective reduction of Lax's poetry. Indeed, it's no surprise that Lax's poetry draws musicians into its orbit; it offers the curious a welcoming reduction in which only individual words and syllables represent the essence of language. Lax's poetry is notable for its qualities of near-stillness and its capacity to pause the reader's thought, asking them to hold the sensuality of language for an extended, quietly revelatory moment. His readings on this album share a similar cadence, interested in settling with syllables, with single or several words, for an extended time. Ultimately, Living In The Present unfolds with unforced grace and poetics -- one moment passes, then another comes on.

"Kris Kristofferson was the true country outsider, a man who single-handedly pushed the genre leftward, changing forever the perception of its songwriters, its performers and its message. He was long-haired, anti-war and sang songs with drug use, sex and violence always lurking as dangers in the margins, at a time when Waylon and Willie were wearing sweaters and playing golf on their album covers. He was the outlaw, in a genre that would soon have people recording his songs, and co-opting his vision for a new version of country, to much greater financial success." (AAA) lacquers cut from tapes by Ryan Smith, Sterling Sound. Pressed on exclusive 180 gram "black and blue" galaxy vinyl. Listening notes by Andrew Winistorfer.

"Townes Van Zandt's work, as far-reaching and as universal as it has become, begs for possessorship. It's a love language understood by all who find it, yet one that remains acutely difficult to translate to those who haven't. No one understood this better than his earliest fans. It's perhaps why his first studio album, For the Sake of the Song, remains a point of controversy among anyone who discovered Townes Van Zandt outside of these LP's grooves. Townes Van Zandt the songwriter was the antithesis of bells and whistles, and so an album with such accoutrements, as this album has in spades, rings false -- however unfairly -- among purists. Taken in context, though, For the Sake of the Song is a gorgeous study in polarity. Each anchor is an artist from wildly different backgrounds, united under the profound effect of songcraft. Heavyweight translucent blue vinyl. Remaster by Jason Ward at Chicago Mastering. Exclusive liner notes booklet."

"Rakim is an American rapper best known as one half of the legendary rap duo Eric B. & Rakim. Rakim is considered a transformative figure in hip hop for raising the bar for MC technique higher than it had ever been. Rakim helped to pioneer the use of internal rhymes and multisyllabic rhymes, and he was among the first to demonstrate the possibilities of sitting down to write intricately crafted lyrics packed with clever word choices and metaphors rather than the more improvisational styles and simpler rhyme patterns that predominated before him. Rakim is also credited with creating the overall shift from the more simplistic old school flows to more complex flows. Rapper Kool Moe Dee explained that before Rakim the term "flow" wasn't widely used -- Rakim is basically the inventor of flow."

Double CD. Noble jewelcase edition. Ltd. 200, hand-numbered. "Attention lovers of audial art, sophisticated noise and musique concrete! Dunkelheit Produktionen presents two full-length CDs by Hands To in an ambitious campaign to make these amazing compositions available to a wider audience. Although Hands to and its mastermind Jeph Jerman may not be quite as known within die hard Power Electronics or Harsh Noise circles, the legacy of this unique musician speaks for itself. Having released music under the moniquer of Hands To as well as his own name, this visionary has been an unsung hero of his craft, creating genre-shaping classics and pushing boundaries, extending his sounds into realms unknown. There have even been extensive visual documentations of mastermind Jerman sitting in front of peculiar utensils like bowls filled with metal balls conjuring up tasty and refined sounds like the sonic alchemist he is. Presented as a noble double CD edition, Q'Ofja is the perfect release for those who appreciate Hands To's harsher and noisier side. This roughly 90 minutes of material actually stems from the late '80 and could be seen as a perfect blend between the finer points of US Noise and the artistic merits of musique concrete. The leading element here is metal junk and there is enough of it to spoil even the greediest aficionado. The opening track 'X' proves this without a doubt, as squeaking loops meet unhinged bashing in audial bliss. However, as the journey goes on, Hands To even venture into more experimental territories, presenting symphonies that slightly resemble the more technical Japanese cut-up artists. Q'Ofja is a killer release and also a landmark monument of Noise history. Mandatory."

3,900 years ago, in 2010, David Tibet and Andrew Liles decided to ReDream and ReName the first six and two-halves Current 93 albums on Steve Pittis' dirty Dirter label. Now, 3,900 years later, to mark The Death Of The Age, Or Æon, Or Arse, Of Aquarius, they have returned with a CD box-set, consisting of the original vinyl albums in the box-set remastered by Master Monster Liles, and an extra CD featuring C93's album Who Is The Sufferer. The box-set has been taken from the original artwork by Saint Rob Hopeye, and also includes five color cards, and one color poster, painted by David Tibet. Limited to 1,000 copies. The material on these albums and single and postcard, that has now been dreamt and redrawn by Andrew Liles, was originally performed and released by Current 93 on her earlier UnVeiled, Rising, MalD'Aurorian, MoonBled, DayBreaking, Faustian, Suffering, and BlackBird albums and singles. Now Dirter Promotions offers to you all: Nature Revealed, Dogs Blood Ascending, The End Of Red Dreams, Dead At Bar Maldoror, Dusk, Haunt Invocation (Apadno), Who Is The Sufferer. The box-set also includes a 7" single in full-color sleeve, featuring "There's No Hiding From The BlackBird."

WRWTFWW Records is boiling with excitement: Pizza Hotline is back! The UK producer and DJ is following up the already classic Level Select (WRWTFWW 078LP, 2023) with another liquid drum and bass with a video game music twist beauty: the Polygon Island album, available in a limited-edition double LP with a majestic 45rpm cut (for louder, bigger, bolder, deeper earth-shaking bass), packaged in a heavyweight 350gsm gatefold sleeve. Home of eight all new slices of delicious atmospheric drum and bass, Polygon Island is the perfect artificial paradise beach for Pizza Hotline to deepen his exploration of modern jungle music liquified through the lens of '90s/Y2K video game motifs and seasoned with the soundtrack essence of PS1, PS2, N64, Sega Saturn & Dreamcast adventures. Bewitching and larger than life, Pizza Hotline's perfect follow-up to Level Select takes listeners (players?) on an endless summer escapade filled with immaculate vibes, crispy beats, and refashioned homages to, once again, LTJ Bukem, Peshay, the Wipeout OST, and Soichi Terada's Ape Escape. It's bouncy, it flows, it's dreamy -- something to dance to, something to reminisce to, something to chill to. Pizza Hotline is back and it feels so good. Press start. Again.