Celebrating its one hundredth release, Black Truffle present a major archival discovery: a stunning document of the only performance by the trio of Tony Conrad, Arnold Dreyblatt, and Jim O'Rourke. Across a two-night program organized by David Weinstein at legendary New York experimental venue Tonic in January 2001, Conrad, Dreyblatt and O'Rourke presented individual projects before performing a collaborative set each night, the first with members of Dreyblatt's ensemble and the second the trio heard here. As Dreyblatt points out in the wonderfully informative and reflective liner notes written for this release, this was a collaboration across generations, reflecting the profound impact of Conrad's pioneering minimalism on Dreyblatt and O'Rourke. Both Dreyblatt and O'Rourke came to this collaboration armed with a deep appreciation of Conrad's music and the just intonation principles at its core, Dreyblatt having first encountered the incredible power of Conrad's precisely tuned violin chords during his tenure as an archivist for La Monte Young in 1975, while O'Rourke had performed with Conrad in various settings since the mid-1990s (as well as admiring, reissuing, and performing Dreyblatt's music). The flyer for the concert promised "massive, ecstatic, pulsating overtones", and the trio certainly delivered. From the moment this keening stream of bowed strings begins, it is clear, as Dreyblatt writes, that you are in "Tony's sonic universe", as massively amplified, slowly shifting combinations of precisely chosen pitches fill the room with complex beating patterns and ghostly difference tones. For more than twenty-five minutes, the music operates at a level of intensity comparable to classic recordings such as Conrad's Four Violins, until the texture thins out slightly in the performance's final quarter, allowing for the listener's first recognition of the individual voices that make up this enormous, overwhelming harmonic edifice. The constant stream of bowed tones is broken by a beautifully rich pizzicato from Conrad on monochord, the sliding low tones and metallic shimmer of the other strings taking the set's final moments on an unexpected detour into spacious pastoral psychedelia. Though produced by three individuals known for their own distinctive bodies of the work, this is egoless music, the perfect expression of Conrad's desire "to move away from composing to listening", to "working 'on' the sound from 'inside' the sound". Historically important and overwhelming in sonic impact, this release also serves as a moving tribute to Tony Conrad from two musicians profoundly marked by the example set by his art and life. Presented with an inner sleeve with illuminating liner notes from Arnold Dreyblatt, an archival live photo and flyers from the concert series.

Time bends for Imaginary Softwoods, the solo guise of producer, songwriter, and synthesist John Elliott. Though he's working on new recordings daily, Elliott's process for the construction of his albums moves at a much different interval, stretching out over months of considerate listening, revision, and waiting patiently for the right combinations and clashes of elemental forces to materialize on their own. The Notional Pastures of Imaginary Softwoods continues Elliott's practice of zeroing in on what he wants to say with an album over the course of countless sessions that span multiple years, this time paying even more attention to locating the emotional through-line that connects the various pieces. The eleven-piece album vibrates at a low, unbroken cycle through all of its articulations. The bubbling neon dots of "North of Roswell," double vision stumble of "Mr. Big Volume," underwater music box trickle of "Portable Void," and clear-headed Arctic daybreak drones of "Diagram of the Universe" are all linked by a gentle, fluid hum. The brief moments of anxiety and long stretches of calm both feedback into the same center of gravity, becoming conjoined reflections of one another as they cycle through. After bending to find this specific universal frequency, time evaporates altogether, and longer zones like the glimmering "Almond Branch" become indistinguishable from Elliott's signature miniatures, some of which stick around for less than a minute. The Notional Pastures of Imaginary Softwoods is a document of the universe as people comprehend it, designed to vanish as soon as it is felt.

A pure journey inward into the headspace of an artist, that reveals his gaze at the Earthly zones he walks in: Song for Joni, the new album by Japanese musician Shunji Mori, offers pure natural music full of artificial nuances, creating a conversation with analog tones. A new kind of musical nature, loaded with vibrant seasons, unknown to the unwise humans. The album is a fine continuation of Japan's rich ambient leaning music traditions, carrying them into Lorren Connor's like pending guitar galaxies. In the 1990s, Tokyo based Mori was part of the trip-hop, nu-jazz, deep house, and down-tempo duo Natural Calamity, releasing a string of albums and EPs on labels like legendary London based imprint Nuphonic, Japanese Idyllic Records, or Down 2 Earth Recordings. In 2003, he launched the instrumental guitar duo Gabby & Lopez with his buddy Masayuki Ishii. Together they created three albums and performed live. Additionally, Mori plays improvisational concerts with Japanese musician, multi-instrumentalist, and stage director Daiho Soga and finds time to invent his very own, charismatic guitar music. His solo work now finally gets introduced with a full-length album for Studio Mule, consisting of recent compositions and ones that a decade old, all merely recorded with the electric guitar, pedals, and field recordings. In the center of Song for Joni is the guitar, spreading longing, drifting melodies. Free floating, yet deeply felt compositions, performed in an accurate journey music style. Around the strings, ambient landscapes soar and vanish. In some moments, the guitar works like a slow-mo yacht rock lead, flying speed less over and under imaginative sonic clouds. Then, Mori's music distributes psychedelic effects in the tradition of krautrock legends like Günter Schickert, just without the echo fuzz. Additionally, in warm vibrating seconds, his creations are reminiscent of the calm flashes in the musical work of English photographer, musician, and artist designer Steve Hiett, while Mori's ambient spheres come close to the magic vibe of records like Pier & Loft by his fellow countryman, Hiroshi Yoshimura. A mixture that transports considerate listeners into a meditative world, a calm island of bliss, made for all those that follow the heedful path of life.

"Manual of the Bayonet is hopefully just the first volume of archival recordings by this most excellent destructo-unit from the Pacific Northwest. The material here was recorded in Portland OR, between the years of 1999 and 2001, with some combination of ten members participating in the sessions. We always viewed JOMF as the West Coast version of free-rock collectives like NYC's No Neck Blues Band and Boston's Sunburned Hand of the Man. JOMF emerged from the Smegma-damaged wing of the Northwest sub-underground, and when you'd go see them about all you could figure was that the line-up would include Tom Greenwood. Although, now that I think about it, I recall a tour they did with Godspeed! where Tom was absent, and Samara Lubelski kinda led the shows. So there ya go. It was a collective effort. And a real damn good one. The period represented by these recordings is around the time of the Magick Fire Music (2000) and Liberation (2001) albums, which was when (in my opinion) JOMF really took off. Their original, somewhat goofy weirdness was now supplanted by a fully-freaked free-rock pulse and energetic explorations of various improvisational nooks. Like No Neck and Sunburned, JOMF just let it rip, and created flowing jagged sheets of sound that routed straight from their heads. Elements of jazz, new music, and rock of all sorts were mushed together into a great pile of strings, keys, horns, thuds, and grooves, then rolled right off a cliff. The splat this made when it landed could be magnificent, as you will surely confirm when you spin this disk. In the words of the critic Kevin Whitehead (albeit in a different context), this is 'nuts music, as free as the squirrels.' Load up." --Byron Coley, 2022

LP version. The 23rd edition of the Pop Ambient compilation, compiled as always by Wolfgang Voigt. With the first tracks of Leandro Fresco/Thore Pfeiffer, Gen Pop (Burger, Pfeiffer, Würden), Morgen Wurde featuring Tetsuroh Konishi, and Max Würden up to Triola's gloomy and melancholic "Kupferblüte", the feeling of a slowness and calmness not experienced before, of an exceedingly lively standstill, creeps over us. A mental state that resembles dreams, in which you follow strange events as if paralyzed, yet awake and sensory. The Cologne-based Sono Kollektiv, an association of experimental artists Annie Bloch, Stefanie Grawe, Joel Jaffe, Alex Linster, Luis Weiß, Moritz Riesenbeck, Lukas Schäfer, Emily Wittbrodt, and Max Würden, is represented for the first time with two contributions on Pop Ambient. The two works, the fragile "Bolzano Sessions IV" and the rather light-flooded "Bolzano Sessions V" nestle perfectly into the musical whole of this year's compilation, not only in terms of their majestic leisureliness. In Jens-Uwe Beyer's "Nero", melancholic guitar chords reduced to the bare minimum are carried away by the wind like leaves, the reverberation holding the last note so long that it almost comes to a stop in the ear. If you like it synesthetic, look at the once again ravishing cover artwork by Veronika Unland right at this moment. Colors and shapes in which there is both everything and nothing to discover. Both feel equally right. The final third of Pop Ambient 2023 begins with Reich & Würden's herbaceous "Receiver," a track so dignified and carried by pads reminiscent of the sound of bagpipes. The slowness is joined by togetherness at the end: Pop Ambient veteran Joachim Spieth cooperates with American sound artist zakè on his literally weightless "Air", Thore Pfeiffer co-produced the wonderful "Instinct" with Scottish brother duo Andy and Mike Truscott aka Kinbrae. California duo Patrick Hills and Morgan Fox aka Blank Gloss close out with the yearning "Down At The Heel."

LP features Gen Pop, Morgen Wurde, Tetsuroh Konishi, Max Würden, Triola, Sono Kollektiv, Jens-Uwe Beyer, Reich & Würden, Joachim Spieth / zakè, Thore Pfeiffer / Kinbrae, and Blank Gloss.

LP version. "Featuring long-lost gems from ultra-rare 45s and private press singles -- plus one previously unreleased banger -- Scrap Metal Vol. 2 maintains a steady NWOBHM course. Packed with infectious outliers and supremely talented one-and-done metal warriors from the crucial British movement of the late '70s and early '80s (and some killer American obscurities inspired by them), this collection delivers all the fist-pumping, riff-mongering and flashy solos of heavy metal's golden age. As always, every track has been officially licensed and every artist gets paid. Some examples include: As a late entry into the NWOBHM sweepstakes, JJ's Powerhouse was formed in Merseyside, England, by guitarist Jon 'J.J.' Cox with members of his previous band, Quad. Much like the opener to the original Scrap Metal comp, one can hear early Metallica coursing through this legendary ripper. Coincidentally, this ultra-rare 45 was released in '83, the same year as Kill 'Em All. Taking their name from a 1978 sci-fi novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Welsh super troopers Storm Queen reveled in animal-print clothing and flying Vs. The Motörhead-meets-Priest anthem 'Raising the Roof' is the flipside to their only single, which the band self-released in 1982. Led by guitarist Dave Morse, Storm Queen's earliest lineup included bassist Bryn Merrick (RIP), who would go on to join The Damned. Roaring out of Birmingham, England, in 1975, Jameson Raid palled around with fellow Brummies Black Sabbath and named themselves after a failed 19th century attack that helped kick off South Africa's Second Boer War. Their three-song 1979 debut featured the infectious 'It's a Crime,' which comes across like a deadly hard-glam version of Budgie. Still fronted by vocalist Terry Dark, they're going strong as of 2022. Both sides of Metropolis' sole single bear the legend, 'Unauthorized duplication shall result in getting your ass beat.' This San Jose metal squad released their only single in 1986 and dedicated it to Metallica bassist Cliff Burton, who had recently been killed in a bus accident. 'The Raven' is the serpentine NWOBHM- and Edgar Allan Poe-influenced flipside to 'Time Heals Everything.'"

"Posh Swat, an all-percussion improvisation album with John Dwyer (OSEES, Damaged Bug, OCS, etc), Ryan Sawyer and Andres Renteria." "Sand in your hair and bugs in your teeth. Hand on your knife, knife in your sheath. Grimy bass burps thru a fried stack. And the crack of the snare is a mighty pink smack. Bells, whistles conga and vibes. This is a drug record. One thousand times. For fans of Niagra, Black Pus, Container, Bruce Ditmas and all things beat driven and drum craven." --John Dwyer

After Black Clouds Above The Bows (IMPREC 507CD), Amsterdam-based collective Wanderwelle presents the second entry of their trilogy for Important Records, which is dedicated to telling the story of the climate crisis and its effects on coastal areas around the globe. For this album the artists incorporated the sound of a dying organ, fatally wounded in a climate related event. All Hands Bury The Cliffs At Sea consists of electro-acoustic threnodies for an environment at risk due to the effects caused by receding coastlines around the globe. Wailing odes tell the story of the catastrophic activity of eroding waves and winds shaping the land that are enhanced by the climate crisis. Firsthand experiences and meetings with local maritime experts on the subject of these receding coastlines inspired Wanderwelle to compose these albums. During their travels, the artists stumbled upon a small church in a town on the east coast of Scotland. The building was quite damaged, the roof was being stabilized and the ancient walls showed great tears running vertically down the structure. The damage had been caused by a nearby cliff that collapsed in the sea, an event increasingly common in the region. The church organ was ruined in such a way that it was deemed unplayable, as most of the pipes were gravely damaged and in dire need of restoration. Despite the damage, the artists were allowed to record a few tones of the instrument with their equipment, which was actually meant to be used for field recordings later that day. In Black Clouds Above The Bows, antique cavalry trumpets were recorded and manipulated. Similar processing was used on the recordings of the dying organ, resulting in spectral, deconstructed tones beyond recognition. In addition to the damaged organ, the artists recorded piano, cello, and synthesizers in later stages of the composition process, manipulating these sounds to mimic the sea shaping the land. Furthermore, a great deal of inspiration was found in maritime superstition, lore, and mythology. As told in the legend of Aspidochelone, a legendary sea creature of enormous size, was once mistaken for an island. After sailors docked and lit a fire, the beast submerged resembling a land mass sliding into the sea. The album's title is derived from the saying "All Hands Bury The Dead", a maritime burial phrase, as the duo likes to think "All Hands" refers to all of mankind since we are all responsible for these impending catastrophes.

2023 repress. 2017 release. "Reaching For Indigo is the fifth album from Circuit des Yeux. It references a moment that fell down in the life of Haley Fohr on Jan. 22, 2016. Reaching For Indigo adds to the definition of Circuit des Yeux, as she realizes her goal of becoming one of the most distinctive voices of this time."

Electronic music legend and head of Editions Mego, Peter Rehberg, teams up with zeitkratzer mastermind Reinhold Friedl. Three side-long pieces melting electronic/contemporary avant-garde. When Peter "Pita" Rehberg and Reinhold Friedl first met each other, they did not like each other "at all," as Friedl emphasizes with a hearty laugh. The two would however eventually bond over the years thanks to a mutual respect for each other's music. In the summer of 2021, they entered the studio together for the first time. Their joint album for Berlin's Karlrecords is a faithful document "no editing, no overdubs" of their improvisations during two recording sessions shortly before Rehberg's sudden and untimely passing on July 22nd of that year. The three pieces see Rehberg working with electronics and Friedl with his inside piano, proving that they had indeed managed to find a common ground -- up to a point where it at times becomes hard to tell who plays what on this record. Friedl ran into Rehberg in Zbigniew Karkowski's tiny Tokyo apartment in 1999 while organizing the first edition of the Off-ICMC that was set to take place in the following year. "I came uninvited and slept a night at Zbigeniew's before Peter arrived and I had to move out," remembers Friedl, who ended up inviting the Mego founder to perform at the Off-ICMC even though he found it hard to relate to his music. "We had very different backgrounds: he came from industrial and I had roots in classical music and improv, a high-brow prick!" After having met several times at different concerts without ever really speaking to each other in the following years, a concert in Vienna in the late 2010s marked a turning point in their relationship (or lack thereof). Playing their sets back-to-back and loving every second of what the other was doing, the two finally clicked on musical level. The two would go on to become good friends, meeting regularly to discuss music and everything else while both were living in Vienna just a few minutes away from each other. Eventually they entered the studio twice for sessions that were completely improvised with no prior preparation. "Caciara," "Chiasso," and "Clamore" -- named retrospectively after three Italian words for "noise" -- capture the spontaneity of two artists who had always been outliers in their respective fields finding a common ground in sprawling dynamics and sonic intensity as well as enabling each other to expand their individual sound palettes. These recordings -- carefully mixed by Dirk Dresselhaus, but otherwise virtually untouched -- perfectly encapsulate the energy unleashed by two free spirits coming together over a shared love for pushing the envelope of improvised noise music. 180 gram vinyl; includes download postcard.

New artist on Mule Musiq. Tel Aviv born producer Nadav Siegel aka Autarkic has been releasing nice indie dance tracks from Disco Halal, Life And Death, Turbo, and Optimo Music, to name a few. This is his first release on Mule Musiq. 12" kicks off with a killer psychedelic techno house track "Cymbals Powder Rush", floating deep house which is reminiscent of Lawrence's stuff, "A Petition For Grace", slow mo-electric German progressive new age tune, "New Age Swag", Detroit manner machine funk, "Breeder".

Atom TM's new four tracker Nacht contains some highlights as well as some unreleased titles from the Neuer Mensch album (R-M 201CD). Both "Nacht" and "Geometrische Einheit" are previously unreleased compositions, while "Sprechender Raum" and "Selbst" appear on the previously mentioned album, yet are presented as alternative versions here. The EP's track selection was made having the emerging meta-techno dancefloor in mind.

2023 repress. Aguirre Records present a reissue of In Paris, Aries 1973 by the Black Artists Group. "This outstanding free jazz session was recorded in 1973 in Paris by Chicago outfit. It was Lester Bowie, trumpeter with the Art Ensemble of Chicago, who suggested that the Black Artists Group should head for Paris. In 1972, several members took his advice and flew to France for an extended stay. The following year, a concert featuring saxophonist Oliver Lake, trumpeters Baikida Carroll and Floyd LeFlore, drummer Charles Bobo Shaw and trombonist Joseph Bowie (Lester's younger brother) was recorded and subsequently issued as In Paris, Aries 1973, a limited LP on the group's own label. Since their formation in 1968, the home of the collective had been St Louis, the city where the Bowies had grown up. It was there that Lester started to play, before moving, to Chicago in 1966, where he joined the recently-established Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). His close friend Lake visited, attended AACM concerts and meetings and was inspired by their artistic vision, integrity, and organization. In June 1969, the Art Ensemble had taken their music to France, with its reputation for audiences that were open-minded and receptive to the music of innovators such as Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, and others. In Paris, Aries 1973 offers a fascinating glimpse into that phase of BAG's existence. The album is dedicated to the memory of Kada Kayan, a bassist who had hoped to make the trip from St Louis but had grown ill and died. His absence adds special poignancy to the sound of the bass when it appears on this recording, played by Carroll. In Paris, Aries 1973 reveals BAG's musical affinities with the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Both groups preserved an independently-minded approach to the notion of free jazz and a carefully filtered awareness of pan-African musical practices, while their creative interest in space, mobile structure, chance occurrences and simultaneity also suggests parallels with the concerns of leading experimental composers working at that time. These performances in Paris of Shaw's "Something to Play On" and Lake's "Re-Cre-A-Tion," plus two collective compositions/improvisations, display the dedication to structural fluency and sensitivity to coloration that accompanied BAG's unorthodox group dynamics and their unconventional instrumental combinations. This is not a showcase for solos, but a shape-shifting and multi-centered statement of togetherness and discovery."--Julian Cowley.

There's no 123 without 4 in Kompakt's beloved Speicher series. Robag Wruhme is back with two intense, low-slung monster tunes in his unique masterful fashion. "Glut" is destined to set your peak time dancefloor on fire with its killer bassline and trippy sequences. "Un-spok-en" is equally relentless and unfathomable, garnished with a haunting vocal snippet.

Frank Vigroux's latest release Magnetoscope refers to the eighties, a "terrifying time" as he calls it. A time that influenced him and raster; Blade Runner dystopia, Polaroid colors, and VHS video recorder aesthetics (in French "Magnétoscope") form the conceptual foundation of the sound aesthetics used here. The compositions, between progressive pop ("VHS"), Vangelis romanticism ("L.A."), and dark, abstract layers of sound ("Stream"), are worked out in detail, driving forward, and can also be harmonically complex. Nevertheless, as usual from Vigroux, they somehow always remain timeless and classic. New on Magnetoscope is a kind of melodic euphoria paired with machine-funk elements, like on "Cassette". Magnetoscope is part of a series of releases -- including Vigroux's predecessor Ballades sur lac gelé from 2020 (R-M 192CD/LP) -- that interrelate strict and cool analog sounds, drum machines and noise landscapes in an epic, almost cinematic way. Let's leave it open whether this artistic attitude is also a child of the '80s.

2023 repress. 2019 release. Praised by Quentin Tarantino as one of the greatest films from Australian new wave cinema, Next Of Kin (1982) was a highly stylized psychological thriller in the bloody tradition of European art-horror. Scored by none other than ex-Tangerine Dream/Ash Ra Tempel drummer and German electronic music pioneer, Klaus Schulze, the music featured in the film was a unique hybrid of pulsing Giallo-moods and hypnotic Berlin-School electronica. Due to the limited availability of the film over the years, rumors have long circulated amongst horror film fans as well as 'Krautrock' enthusiasts alike that a lost Klaus Schulze soundtrack existed. Commissioned to write the score, it is true that Schulze composed an original full-length soundtrack for Next Of Kin, although for editorial reasons the complete score was rejected at the last moment by the filmmakers in favor of using pre-existing tracks from Schulze's studio albums. The final soundtrack consisted of partial elements of this rejected score together with various pieces of early '80s Schulze recordings edited and re-contextualized. Finally rediscovered, the music has been assembled and presented here exactly as featured in the film, documenting a previously lost entry of German kosmische musik soundtracking a forgotten piece of Australian Gothic. Remastered from the original master tapes.

LP version. "Eliza Bagg leads a complex musical life: working as a classical opera singer, she has soloed with the New York Philharmonic, performed in Meredith Monk's opera at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and toured Europe with the legendary John Zorn. While making her own music under the guise of art-pop solo act Lisel, she's also collaborated as a vocalist with some of the most renowned experimental artists, including Ben Frost, Julianna Barwick, Daniel Wohl, and many others, all while playing indie rock venues and lovably dingy basements. One day, it's Lincoln Center or The Kitchen, the next it's an outdoor LA ambient series. She was always torn between her two worlds, and it wasn't until she began work on Patterns For Auto-Tuned Voices And Delay that she discovered a way to merge them together. Patterns comes out of Bagg's experience as a vocalist singing Renaissance and Baroque music along with the work of modern-day minimalists like Steve Reich and Philip Glass. 'I developed a vocal processing system that allowed me to change the idea of what my instrument is,' Bagg says of the album's genesis, a system that combines her virtuosic singing with autotune and delay effects to create a melding of human and machine. Sure, she'll admit it. 'I'm a sci-fi nerd,' she says, with a laugh. 'I'm a Blade Runner and Battlestar person. I love things that explore how society interacts with machines.' While making Patterns, she dove first into Renaissance polyphony and chant. The music of Hildegard von Bingen, Thomas Tallis, and Carlo Gesualdo is a familiar world to her. Starting with Renaissance and Medieval singing styles and idioms, she added processing and electronic world-building to bring out new, expressive qualities of those styles. From there, she improvised in these styles, fed the performances into Ableton, and incorporated modern day hyperpop (like SOPHIE) and ambient electric sounds and aesthetics. From Philip Glass to Charli XCX, Carl Stone to Grimes, Patterns makes radical connections. Yet, it was important for Bagg to maintain the spiritual origins of these vocal techniques. Patterns For Auto-Tuned Voices And Delay stands within those traditions, using voices to transcend the cerebral and overwhelm the listener, all while evoking a unique set of references that span five hundred years."

Pleasure Pool are Finn O'Hare, Andrew Robertson, and a rolling cast of Glasgow-based musicians, performers and artists. They sound like nothing else to have come out of Glasgow recently, exploring the territory between live performance and club culture through their collaborative ethos and party-starting attitude. Their debut EP, Night Scars, arrived in early March 2020 and now comes Love Without Illusion, Pleasure Pool's debut album, released on Optimo Music. Love Without Illusion adds layers of complexity and introspection to Night Scars' squarely dance floor-focused brew, though the record still oozes danceable energy. "Open Hours" is like opening a door and finding a party already in full swing, an assortment of recurring Pleasure Pool motifs -- echoing, dubbed-out vocals, gorgeous, impossibly airy synth melodies, louche percussion, cowbells, rising and falling flecks of trumpet -- all introduced in short order. "Lick The Bag", which prominently features vocalists Chloe Charlton and Raissa Pardini, has a controlled chaos befitting its morning-after-the-night-before name. The rest of the album rides this glimmering, night-magic mood at varying frequencies, with the title track a gentle storm of grandiose walls of synth and pulsing vocal fragments. The slow and low flickering funk of album closer "Zero Hours" pulls all that has come before it together to end things in the woozy bliss of a walk back home in warm, gentle sunlight. Love Without Illusion is a dazzlingly complete expression of Pleasure Pool's intoxicating sound and vision. Dive on in and explore.

LP version. Clear 180 gram vinyl; includes six color pencils to color album cover.. Anton Newcombe -- frontman, songwriter, composer, studio owner, multi-instrumentalist, producer, engineer, father, force of nature -- returns with the Brian Jonestown Massacre's 20th full-length studio album Your Future Is Your Past on his own label A Recordings. The lead track Fudge was released on 30th September. It is 30 years since the release of their first single "She Made Me / Evergreen", released in 1992. As leader of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Newcombe had already established himself as a visionary songwriter, a man to whom making music wasn't a lifestyle choice or a hipster haircut but the very fabric of existence itself. Instead of saying yes to everything like many of his peers Anton Newcombe was different. He was going to say no to everything. Much of this was documented on the controversial documentary Dig!, one of the best rock documentaries ever made. Brian Jonestown Massacre's shoegazing-tinged debut album Methodrone (AUK 008CD/LP) was released in 1995 and since then numerous bandmembers have joined Newcombe on his sonic escapades, but he has remained the sole constant and creative mastermind. There have been a further 19 albums under the Brian Jonestown Massacre moniker since then, each embarking on their own mind-expanding adventure and exploring the outer realms of rock n' roll; psychedelic rock, country-blues, snarling rock n' roll, blissed-out noise-pop and more. Along the way, Newcombe has established himself as a once-in-a-lifetime talent who saw the direction in which mainstream indie-rock was heading and opted to take the long way round. He's hopped around the globe, from the West Coast to New York, from Manhattan to Iceland, and then to Berlin, where he's lived for 14 years and has two flats, one to live in and one that's been converted into his studio. He goes there six days a week to work and write and record and produce. After a hugely prolific 2010s that saw the release of eight long-players and one mini-album, Newcombe had been going through a period of writer's block when one day he picked up his 12-string guitar and "The Real" (the opening track on previous album Fire Doesn't Grow on Trees) came out of him. After that, they tracked a song every day for 70 days and had two albums ready to go by the end. Joining Newcombe in the studio for The Future Is Your Past were Hakon Adalsteinsson (guitar) and Uri Rennert (drums).

Vladislav Delay's 2007 album Whistleblower on vinyl for the first time. Reworked/remastered and featuring new artwork. Following up on reissues of the 2000 compilation Multila (KEPLARREV 001LP) and 2001's Anima (KEPLARREV 009LP), Sasu Ripatti has thoroughly revisited the classic Whistleblower for its first ever vinyl issue on the German Keplar label. Ripatti created entirely new mixes of previously unheard-of alternative versions of the tracks that first appeared on CD through his own Huume imprint in early 2007. He thus shines a new, different light on a record that was as much an expression of reaching a turning point in his life as it also showcased a new, more direct and perhaps more abrasive side of his Vladislav Delay project. Whistleblower was marked by the insertion of more noise and disruptive elements into Ripatti's slowly moving take on intricate electronic music that heavily leaned on dub techniques. Fittingly for an album written at the threshold between one life and the other, Whisteblower seems at once melancholic and forward-looking in both tone and style. Whisteblower was the follow-up record to 2005's The Four Quarters and produced in the German capital. Changes in his personal life had a profound impact on him when making the record. The fifth track, "Lumi," was dedicated to his daughter who was born shortly after the album was finished. Having already previously embraced a sober lifestyle -- hinted at with the last piece's title, "Recovery Idea", Ripatti started questioning his life choices more thoroughly. This is also expressed in "He Lived Deeply", a track inspired by Miles Davis's love for Duke Ellington whose title can be read as an implicit question that Ripatti nowadays paraphrases thusly. The seven tracks also marked a musical turning point in Ripatti's work as a producer, not only because it was the last one for which he primarily used analogue and vintage equipment. They are also more straightforward on a music level, more demanding and at times more concerned with subtle rhythms than with the thick textures that were so integral to his earlier work. Whisteblower represented the first step in a process of focusing less on sonic abstraction and more on direct (self-)expression. While Ripatti admits that he found working on the album difficult back then, he also points out that he was surprised to hear how "gentle and peaceful" it sounded when he started revisiting the original files he used as a basis for these newly mixed versions. Remastered and cut by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering. Includes poly-lined inners; includes download code.

A matter of pace, an analog memory... Feel safe: like newborn, take your first careful steps on a clean slate while Maayan is your supervisor. Naïve and happy, you leave carbon footprints on your way into the "Positives". Then a faster pace: some tribal folk music from a tiny world, where people dance around an LED fire, commands a gallop to the "One And Ollam". Latinfection guaranteed. Your "Nonplus" motion interferes with environmental geometry. A memory from an analog past flashes like a daydream. Upward and rising, your smile workout succeeds while scintillating waves say "hello!" Having grown up to a motorik being, the determined goal however never appears. The journey into a "Perfect Storm" is the reward. Maayan sends you some motivating words. Then have a break and jump on the "Light Train" of thoughts to enjoy blurred reflections: on the water and in your mind. Sing your body beautiful and free. Words come in bubbles, a heart-throb away from a "Light Tower". Feel like stumbling into new adventures on a pathless terrain. Slowly and cautious, the "Novemberme", which is the one that approaches dawn, celebrates tristesse with a funny accent. Kick the blues with a beat. "Somewhere" lost but regenerated, find Sisyphos 'generator of vitality. A nascent religious mood at the Autobahn service station fades into the fog. Finally, the circle of pace is almost closed. "After Laughter" of amazement, Maayan leaves you with a soothing mantra of confidence: an everyday ritual fun you should indulge yourself in. It comes in waves.

Reissue, originally released in 1984. P16.D4 was a German electronic noise music collective, active primarily from 1980 to 1988. P16.D4 embraced tape cut-ups, musique concrète, endless recycling, and transformation of previously published material, and many long-distance collaborations with like-minded artists such as DDAA, Vortex Campaign, Nurse With Wound, and Merzbow. Their active participation in the international industrial tape scene yielded collaborative output such as their release Distruct, where bands such as Nurse with Wound, Nocturnal Emissions, Die Tödliche Doris, and The Haters provided the source material. The longest-term collaboration was with the installation and conceptual artist Achim Wollscheid, who used P16.D4 sounds as the basis for LPs he recorded under the name SBOTHI. Ralf Wehowsky, the only constant member of the group, later released solo material under the alias RLW. Members of P16.D4 were also involved with Selektion, a collective of people involved with sound as well as the visual arts. Selektion published LPs, CDs, books, visual art and design. The collective worked in a strongly improvised, spontaneous and anti-professional way, using acoustic and electronic instruments, using existing sound fragments, duplicating and alienating them, using repetition, distortion, changes in speed and playing direction. For this they used not only sounds of other artists but also their own material from earlier productions. Late works of the collective are associated with musique concrete.

"This music is staggeringly original and innovative, and while it's possible to locate it in a chain of circumstance that links it to 'industrial' music, P16.D4 indulged in none of the empty cliches associated with the genre, worked incredibly hard, and seem to have been aiming at a form of sound art that was much more profound, varied, subversive, and potentially dangerous. Kühe In 1/2 Trauer's accompanying credits indicate their radical approach to making music: lots of improvisation, lots of live electronics, extensive use of tape-loops, some conventional instrumentation, and much that isn't -- like the milk churn on 'Paris, Morgue' or the use of baking tray and washing machine elsewhere. Even when guitars, drums or keyboards are used, they're played very weirdly. It's not even made clear who was doing what; the main credit is 'Concept,' which I assume means that one of the three devised the framework in which the noise would operate itself, and while RLW gets the lion's share of these credits, a lot of the cuts are evenly divided among the team and I have no doubt that the group operated in a very democratic or libertarian manner. None of this prepares you for the insane and troubling sounds that reach your ears, composed with scant regard for conventional logic and following an exciting, absurdist path, especially in the matter of tape edits and juxtapositions of recordings." --Ed Pinsent, The Sound Projector

2023 repress. 2021 release. Following in the footsteps of the landmark 1966 double-quartet recording by Joe Harriott and John Mayer, Indian born musician Amancio D'Silva produced some of the most adventurous and sophisticated recordings within the canon of "Indo-jazz", a term used to define a pioneering east meets west synthesis that reflected the shifting musical and cultural landscape of post-war Britain. An experiment which reached a pinnacle in 1972 with D'Silva's seminal recording Dream Sequence by Cosmic Eye, an adventurous fusion of modal jazz and Indian classical music viewed through the psychedelic lens of swinging London. Exotic third-stream jazz conceived by a visionary composer whose virtuosic technique and deeply emotive guitar playing defined his two earlier and now legendary 1969 UK jazz albums Integration and Hum Dono with Joe Harriott, both recorded for the much-celebrated Lansdowne label. Also recorded in 1972, although not released at the time, was Konkan Dance, an unofficial sequel to Dream Sequence that further explored the unchartered possibilities of an Indian music-jazz fusion. Featuring many of the same personnel, this session also included support from Don Rendell and Alan Branscombe, two giants of the UK jazz scene who add serious credentials to D'Silva's singular and intimate compositions. For reasons unknown the album was cancelled by Lansdowne at the time and never saw the light of day until being resurrected again in the 2000s. The Roundtable showcase this important artist and present a new addition of this incredible and almost forgotten piece of the Amancio D'Silva story. Includes liner notes and rare photos. Custom 1960s-style flip-back sleeve; 180 gram vinyl.

2023 repress. 2022 release. It is widely accepted that the recorded musical output of Indian-born British guitarist Amancio D'Silva came to a premature closure with the landmark 1972 albums, Cosmic Eye and the unreleased masterpiece Konkan Dance. The Roundtable are here to prove otherwise, announcing the discovery of an extraordinary lost recording. Forty years after it was recorded, the label present Sapana, the forgotten piece of a remarkable musical legacy, the final recording from one the most singular artists to emerge from the British Jazz scene of the 1960s/'70s. Recorded in 1983 and released here for the first time, Sapana is thematically akin to Cosmic Eye, a further musical exploration into the subconscious (Dream Sequences) imagined with traditional Hindustani and western improvisation. A spellbinding fusion of Indian raga and new-age jazz. Celebrated as a pioneer of the "Indo-jazz" movement of the 1960s, D'Silva's adventurous synthesis of modal jazz and Indian classical music defined the seminal 1969 Lansdowne jazz recordings Hum Dono and Integration. Here you find D'Silva fifteen years later, removed from the jazz scene, and musically in place of deep introspection and meditative tranquility. The recording features sitarist Clem Alford, a collaborator from the Konkan Dance sessions, plus renowned tabla player, Jahlib Millar, and saxophonist/flautist Lyn Dobson, a musician who had previously worked with Soft Machine, Third Ear Band, and Henry Lowther. Together the quartet produce deeply evocative music which transcends the realms of both jazz and Indian music. Includes liner notes by renowned jazz writer Francis Gooding. Custom flip-back sleeve; 180 gram vinyl.

"Faitiche presents Groupshow's Greatest Hits: The ten tracks on this first vinyl album by Groupshow (Hanno Leichtmann, Andrew Pekler, Jan Jelinek), recorded between 2005 and 2018, document concert recordings and studio improvisations by the trio. In improvisation there are no mistakes, only missed opportunities. Groupshow found their first opportunity in the routines of live performance and they used this opportunity to break with these routines. The trio consisting of Jan Jelinek, Hanno Leichtmann and Andrew Pekler came together in the context of Kosmischer Pitch, playing live versions of the music from Jelinek's 2005 studio album of that name. During this project, the musical interaction between the three participants quickly emancipated itself from the original program, departing from fixed roles and finding a distinct form in constant change. Groupshow sessions -- rehearsal, concert or recording -- are always improvised. The interplay of the various sound sources, converging from the directions of 'electronics', 'percussion', and 'guitar', does not follow the krautrock wave logic of crescendo and morendo. Jelinek, Leichtmann, and Pekler have established a method of transparent density in which links and breaks are not concealed but remain audible. The music works through attraction and repulsion, with a loosely organized structure that always leaves enough room for the next intervention. The principle here, repeated even in the smallest units, is that of duration. Groupshow think of their music in terms of an installation: no starting point, no dramaturgy, and ideally no end. Concerts take place not raised up on a podium, but in the middle of the room on a level with the audience, who only enter the space with the musicians and instruments once their interaction is already underway. In 2008, Groupshow used this approach to create a live soundtrack for Andy Warhol's film Empire, over the full length of eight hours and five minutes. Recordings in general and the 'Greatest Hits' format in particular are another key aspect of this ongoing work on a collectively modulated continuum. The ten tracks on this first vinyl album by Groupshow, recorded between 2005 and 2018, document the ephemeral capturing of opportunities that were not missed. Extracts and essences of an endless movement of searching. The sprawling form of the whole, suspended in succinct, separate units. To paraphrase Lao Tzu and Roland Barthes, one might say: 'Once their work is done, they are no longer attached to it. And because they're not attached to it, it will remain.'" --Arno Raffeiner, 2022 Includes download code.

"The fourth release by this Durham NC-based duo is also their second on Feeding Tube. We did their excellent When Sorrows Encompass Me 'Round cassette in 2021 (FTR 378CS), and are delighted to be able to do this new one on 45 RPM vinyl. The players, as always are Courtney Werner on cello and fiddle, with Evan Morgan playing guitars, banjo, pump organ, and shruti box. Tarantism came together in the depths of the Plague in the spring and summer of 2020 while the pair was living on a mountainside near Hayesville NC. As with their other recordings, the musical textures they play with have traditional Appalachian resonances, but their compositional approach often cuts against any orthodox grain. Courtney writes about the strange juxtaposition of the death throes going on in the world then, as contrasted with the bursting blooms of nature surrounding them in their rural retreat. And you can hear that on the album, as harsher globs of sound merge into softer edged drones that twist into Magic Tuber's more trad folk instrumentals. As with many good things, it's a journey. A totally wonderful record whether you suffer from Tarantism or not." --Byron Coley, 2022

2023 repress. Lilith Records present a reissue of Caetano Veloso's Caetano Veloso (Irene), originally issued in 1969. Although Veloso had already been thrown in jail once for his criticism of Brazil's military regime, he continued to speak out against it on Caetano Veloso (Irene), with tracks like "Irene", (about a machine gun-toting outlaw celebrated by the left). No wonder he would soon find himself in political exile in the UK. The general tone of the album is in keeping with its dire message and actually, Veloso felt it was important for his voice of protest to be heard around the world. If he was a high profile public figure, he felt that he would be safer. Despite all of this (or perhaps because of all this) and the man still managed to make excellent records! Clear vinyl.

"The double-LP Great Moments With documents the music of Pharoah Sanders from 1983 to 1990, showcasing both the raw energy and tender nature of his music. It contains 12 of his recordings, including 'Africa', 'Naima', 'You've Got To Have Freedom' and also the previously unreleased version of 'Central Park West'. Featured guest musicians are John Hicks, Idris Muhammad, Curtis Lundy, Benny Golson, Cedar Walton, Ron Carter and more jazz masters. For this compilation, Bret Primack has written new liner notes and Timeless Records founders Ria and Wim Wigt here share additional great moments from Sanders's sublime work. Great Moments With is available as a limited edition of 1500 individually numbered copies on translucent blue color vinyl, housed in a gatefold sleeve."

Reissue, originally released in 1980. Timeless atmospheres, hypnotic sonorities, minimal arrangements. And a composer gifted with a never-ending passion for music, experimenter in his genetic code, innovator by vocation, at ease with various instruments in order to forge avant-garde themes. Piero Umiliani was already forward in building completely new sounds in the late seventies. Tra Scienza e Fantascienza finds his alter ego Moggi experimenting with alternative grooves, electronic music, jazz tunes, and soundtrack motifs. One of the most interesting music libraries in the Italian composer's discography, reissued with a new remastering by Musica Per Immagini, is in full harmony with its title.

Notes and images of a dystopian future according to Piero Umiliani: "Science fiction has opened up our eyes to a variety of scenarios, possible or impossible, sometimes with a happy ending, sometimes apocalyptic, at times familiarly near, more often disarmingly far away, and always capable of inspiring our imagination. For the histrionic artist it took, perhaps, less of a cosmic leap to create this masterpiece. Centered on the cover, a strange creature with only one eye, its hands on a beaker containing a mysterious red liquid. To its right, a symbolic circle is imprinted on a sandy surface, and three bizarre constructions, similar to the volumetric flasks found in a laboratory, of differing heights and shapes. There is a strange blue planet in the distance."

"Even back in 1987, Guided By Voices was not content to release just one album in a year -- Sandbox was released in the summer of that year following Devil Between My Toes' appearance that February. Likewise, in similar GBV style, the sound and approach of the two albums could not be more different. Where Devil mostly mines a darker, lo-fi psychedia, along with several instrumental explorations, Sandbox is sunny, direct, has a bigger, crunchier sound, and zero instrumentals. Where Devil has a murky and impressionistic black and white photo of a rooster for a cover, Sandbox sports a full color photo of the band relaxing on a lawn on a sunny day. Let's also recall that unlike today, in 1987 a full-color album jacket wasn't just a little more expensive than a black and white one, it was way more expensive. Right up front, the band was communicating that this was a more commercially ambitious endeavor, while behind the scenes they rented better gear for a bigger sound, and tackled more sophisticated arrangements and honed in on the hooks and harmonies of the songs. Of all the band's early self-released albums, Sandbox differs the most from the sound fans would later associate with the group, which is in itself a recommendation. Nowhere else will you hear the perfectly rendered three-part harmonies of 'Long Distance Man,' direct Beatles quotes, or Robert Pollard reveling in his southern Ohio drawl. It's also true that one of the more enjoyable aspects of the record is finding all the places where the band's future is indeed foreshadowed. Simply put, Guided By Voices just can't help but be a little weird, even when attempting something like a power pop album. At the close of the opening track, Pollard announces, 'Ladies and gentlemen! Back by popular demand for your entertainment and spiritual enlightenment...Electric Jam Soul Aquarium!' a truly 'wtf is happening here' moment. Or the stripped-down gloom of 'Trap Soul Door' -- a track that could be right at home on nearly any later GBV album wherein Pollard intones, 'Just one spark can start a hell of a fire.' Little did he know how true that statement would become."

2023 restock. LP version; includes download code. Soulsheriff Records presents a milestone in electronic music, Liaisons Dangereuses' legendary 1981 self-titled debut album, newly remastered and reissued for the first time since 2002. Liaisons Dangereuses still fascinates today, through its innovative sound and the mystery encompassing it. The 10 electrifying songs, produced by Chrislo Haas (DAF) and Beate Bartel (Mania D, Matador) and reinforced by Krishna Goineau's French and Spanish speech-attack lyrics, created a unique style. The album, anything other than a typical Berlin or Düsseldorf thing, became an international favorite. Songs like "Peut Être... Pas" and "Los Niños del Parque" played a decisive role in the development of house in Detroit and Chicago, as well as various forms of European techno.

Autumn of 2022 marked 20 years since the initial release of Metro Area's first and only album, Metro Area. Environ had already remastered and re-released this essential LP for its 15th anniversary. So, this time around, the label is doing something a bit different. To celebrate two decades of Metro Area, Environ has partnered with renowned mastering engineer Matt Colton (Metropolis Studios) to remaster and recut the first four Metro Area 12"s: Metro Area, Metro Area 2, Metro Area 3, and Metro Area 4. Unlike the album reissue, these records include the original, extended 12" versions of all songs, including some which have never been re-released. Metro Area 2 is the duo's first 12" EP, originally released in 2000.

2022 repress. The long awaited repress of Slight Freedom, acclaimed guitarist & composer Jeff Parker's first solo album & a New York Times' best albums of 2016 selection, is here. Pressed on premium 120-gram audiophile-quality vinyl by RTI from lacquers cut at sterling sound by Steve Fallone, presented in a retro flipback jacket. Second edition of 1,399 copies. What we said in 2016: "Slight Freedom, Jeff Parker's first ever solo record, presents the first opportunity to hear the guitarist in fully self-revealed circumstances. recorded 2013 & '14 in the Hollywood Hills as he relocated from Chicago to Los Angeles, Parker combines the dark tonal palette & percussive attack he's long been known for with real-time processing elements & field recordings, deftly crafting a unique world of solo guitar music -- multilingual, mysterious, alive with extraordinary sonic events, with a sturdy intelligence in charge & a raw homestyle vibe. parker's title composition sets the album's cavernous mood. terse lines & ricocheting loops morph into a gnarly ambient section that resembles Neil Young droning out over a vg+ copy of discreet music. Parker creates a different sort of ambient space in his take on Frank Ocean's 'Super Rich Kids', bending the melody around a bossa nova rhythm into a moodsville tone poem. parker makes an extraordinary long-form statement out of Chad Taylor's 'Mainz', a piece he first recorded with Taylor & Chris Lopes on the album Bright Light In Winter. Twice the length of the trio recording, the multi-layered soliloquy finds parker leaping from the high rung to damn near orchestral heights, pushing his techniques & concepts to the breaking points. It's one of the great solo performances you'll hear from a musician this year. To say 'Lush Life' comes with formidable baggage is an understatement. Parker achieves instant classic status with a rendition that sounds beamed-in from a decommissioned satellite -- burned out, covered in space grit, yet still formally nuanced & beautifully reflective of Strayhorn's world-weary lyrics. twenty years into the game it's a joy for eremite to present work by an artist who's clearly taking his music to the next level." "It's not jazz, it's not ambient, it's not noise; it's something more idiosyncratic and more personal, something only Parker could have come up with. Perhaps this is what Slight Freedom is supposed to mean: Not an anarchic exploding of rules, not the total liberation proposed by free jazz, but a steadier, stealthier path -- dissolving boundaries, softening constraints, and wearing away at the edges of things until the ideas run as freely as water." --Philip Sherburne, Pitchfork

Pauline Marx, formerly of the fantastic duo La Fureur de Vouivre, seems like a being from another time and place; namely, an escaped marauder lurking in the forests of a Bruegel painting and integrating the surreal flora and fauna of a Boschian creation into the scenery and lore of deep Brittany. Her invented mythology is loaded with murky rituals and contorted mantras, backed by the surprising sounds and textures of terrains so earthly and so unreal. Where do you think you come from? Where do you think you're going? Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate: you, with the noodle to the four winds, who pass the threshold of this disc, you better leave all hope there, and glide in the poisonous footstep of the devil your guide. Where do you think you come from? The mountain is no longer just the mountain; after your passage, it will no longer even be a mountain. Like the whole landscape, it will have been eaten, sauced by invisible leeches. Your nostalgia for the ground and your thirst to find the source will have only discovered a forest of vain words and foul water. Where do you think you're going? At the crossroads, the world is consumed in the previous future. Only the devil will know how to make you overcome the disgust of traditions, and only the love for the devil will give you enough vim to reach your goal: a village, perhaps, but which belongs to no one, a haven to your excessiveness. The dark tradition to which this game of ternary trampling belongs, like the rhythm of a heart in tune with the inverted world, has no country and no assigned time. Rather a topology of Eve awakened after a thousand-year sleep, an idiosyncratic and possessed reading of our common humus, made up of stories composted in the limbo of the past, of songs captured in extremis vitae and rebus in the privatized antechambers of death. What does she tell us about? Of our automobile and in love roamings, of the porosity of the membranes that separate beings and things, of the constant inversion of signs. The seventeen stages of this short journey, where intertwine the throbbing of objects, blown horns and rubbed horsehair, form the map of a country never to be found, ours, where only the voice of an old child and the disgusting devil's poisonous charm can guide us. Music, artwork, and text by Pauline Marx. Mastered and mixed by Manuel Duval. Recorded in a yurt in 2021. Edition of 300.

The union of Antwerp synthesist David Edren and Tokyo minimalist Hiroki Takahashi is a fit so natural as to feel preordained. Both traffic in subtle shades of contemplative electronics, marked by patience, space, and poetic restraint. And both have rich histories of curation and collaboration -- Edren in the duo Spirit & Form alongside Bent Von Bent, and Takahashi as proprietor of the Kankyō record shop, as well as one fourth of cosmic ambient quartet UNKNOWN ME. Mutual fans of one another's work, they began sharing stems in the latter half of 2020, which slowly blossomed into a collection of multi-hued compositions inspired by notions of connectivity and impermanence, translated for east and west: Flow | 流れ. Opener "Dusk Decorum | 黄昏 礼節" maps the mood of what's to come, elegantly pirouetting and percolating through an expanding vista of looming stars and half-light horizons. Takahashi describes Edren's arrangements as evoking "a strange feel, something we haven't heard much of before." The sensation is one of "in-betweenness," a restless current whispering beneath the beauty, like seasons seen in time-lapse footage: flickering but infinite, transience turned permanent. Takahashi's signature sculpture garden tones plot spiral patterns over which Edren cascades dazzling pointillist synthesizer coloration. The pieces veer between delicate and dilated, micro and macro, their aperture forever softly in flux. From the oscillating orchestral lullaby of "Stalactime | 鍾乳石時計" to the sweeping, sparkling dream sequence closer, "Shift Register | シフトレジスタ," the album achieves the elusive goal of being more than the sum of its parts. This is music of rare air, elevated and amorphous, shimmering just out of reach. Though Edren and Takahashi have yet to cohabitate the same room in person (a fact that should be rectified soon by an astute festival booker), their palettes and poise are perfectly paired, twin fragilities woven into seven radiant and regenerative vibrational states. The cover design of a beatific, beaded leaf rippling on the surface of a hidden pond aptly captures the record's muted majesty. Takahashi's quiet pride is justified: "We are very happy with this time-consuming and carefully crafted work."