2022 repress. LP version. HYbr:ID Vol. 1 is the first installment of a new series of Alva Noto's works bringing together heterogeneous composition methods. HYbr:ID Vol. 1 captures the music commissioned for the score of "Oval", the choreographic piece directed by Richard Siegal and performed by the Staatsballett Berlin at the Berlin State Opera in 2019. The process of creating HYbr:ID Vol. 1 was defined by the search for a form to bind astrophysics phenomena, fiction, and performance movements. Its narrative is inspired by cinematic visual techniques and static images portraying scientific events which also inspired the titles of the nine compositions. The music possesses a dilated rhythmic base contributing to the images of gravity and spatiality. At points static is used with an ornate, delicate intricacy. The album's sonic spectrum builds with deep sub-bass, gloomy sonics, spacious sound design, and inorganic ambiance that is gently coerced with artistic finesse. The nine compositions are accompanied by graphic notations informed by the album's sonic and acoustic codes. Album art designed by Carsten Nicolai. Nibo mastering by Bo @ Calyx.

Orange vinyl (US exclusive). "Here we have the third solo LP by London's Alison Cotton, following on previous successes, All Quiet at the Ancient Theatre (FTR 424LP, 2019) and Only Darkness Now (FTR 564LP, 2020). And as with each of Cotton's projects it is a stylistic advance as well as another example of her dark signature sound. Alison's work with bands is well documented by recordings with Saloon, 18th Day of May, Trimdon Grange Explosion, and her current, ecstatic folk/psych duo, The Left Outsides. But her solo recordings always seem a bit more experimental in terms of song structure and musical texture, as the six tracks on The Portrait You Painted of Me clearly demonstrate. The touchstones of her sound are viola, harmonium, and voice, but these are merged together in all sorts of different ways, creating a rich and thoroughly artastic suite of songs. 'Murmurations Over the Moor,' is a wordless piece of layered vocals, drifting like fog towards a sunset over the green undulations of Northeast England (from whence she hails.) 'The Last Wooden Ship' evokes the shipyards of Sunderland using droning harmonium and viola lines, laced with piano and percussion events, while her voice calls out like one of Tim Buckley's Sirens urging listeners to a rocky demise. 'I Buried the Candlesticks' has a haunted, traditional feel with its dolorously folky viola melody laid across a thick carpet harmonium, and small bursts of percussion that sound like cannonade heard through the thick cold walls of a castle in winter. 'That Tunnel Underground Seemed Neverending' is a musical vision of Northumberland's mining culture at the dawn of the 20th Century -- labyrinthine, subterranean, dimmer than night. 'Violet May,' the only 'song' on the album, was inspired by a trip to Vita Sackville-West's Sissinghurst Castle. Its plot deals with a reclusive artist who has forsaken all else for a life of solitary creation in her tower. The structure and sound, make me think of a post-modern approach to lyrical concerns dealt with by folk singers of the British '60s, but the actual arrangement is closer to something John Cale might have done with Nico on The Marble Index. And finally, we have '17th November 1962,' inspired by nearly forgotten memories of disaster with a fishing boat, a storm and an ill-fated rescue attempt. The song (and album) ends with what sounds like a forlorn foghorn cutting across waves of night with Alison's voice again evoking the Sirens. Damn, what a good spin. As with its predecessors, The Portrait You Painted of Me was recorded at home in London, beautifully produced by Alison's partner, Mark Nicholas. She expressed concern at one point that the album might be a little too heavy in spots for some listeners, but that is a canard. I think one of the main things people relish about Alison's solo work is exactly the somber, exquisite melancholy she creates. This is some serious and remarkable stuff." --Byron Coley, 2022

The out-of-this-world recordings of Dilson de Souza, leading a kind of tropical chamber jazz on leaves from a ficus tree. Dilson was from Barra do Pirai, in the Brazilian countryside; moving to Rio as a young man, where he worked in construction. He recorded his first record in 1954, for RCA Victor. He travelled to Quito around 1957, soon hooking up with Benitez & Valencia, who introduced him to the CAIFE label. Dilson played the leaf open, resting on his tongue, hands free, with his mouth as the resonator. Though a leaf can also be played rolled or folded in half, this method allowed for more precision, a tethered brilliance. A picked ficus leaf stays fresh, crisp and clean-toned for around ten hours. He could play eight compositions, four at each end, before it was spent. Biluka plays trills and vibratos effortlessly, with utterly pure pitch, acrobatically sliding into notes and changing tone on the fly. In "Manuco", he leads Los Caníbales into a mysterious landscape on a rope pulled from an Andean spaghetti western, and corrals and teases them into a dialogue. A leaf, a harp, a xylophone, and a rondador -- joined in "Bailando Me Despido" (Dancing As I Say Goodbye) by a saucy organ, doing sloshed call-and-response. In "Anacu de Mi Guambra", Biluka shows his full range of antics, hiccupping melodically over a set of magic tricks. His expressiveness was boundless. The eucalyptus leaf is popular among Aboriginal Australians. In China, they've played leaves for 10,000 years. In Cambodia, people play the slek, a leaf plucked from either the sakrom or the khnoung tree. But ain't nobody like Biluka, ever.

The ongoing series/tradition of a Konstrukt release in August this time returns to the early beginning: the overdue double vinyl reissue of the Turkish free-formers' studio meeting with the German Free Jazz titan Peter Brötzmann from 2008. As written in several info sheets before, the Istanbul-based collective led by multi-instrumentalist Umut Çağlar (also member of Karkhana) and reeds player Korhan Futaci has since its formation in 2008 created an impressive catalog including collaborations/performances with significant musicians like Keiji Haino, Joe McPhee, William Parker, Akira Sakata, Marshall Allen, Evan Parker, Thurston Moore, Michael Zerang, Alfred Harth or Alexander Hawkins -- and Peter Brötzmann. The German free jazz titan was invited to the Deneyevi Studio in the Turkish capital in November 2008 where they recorded Dolunay, an album that was released three years later on a small label in Turkey only. Back then a quartet with drums and percussion, guitar, reeds but no bass player, Konstrukt and their iconic guest took off on a session full of fire and fury: shrieking reeds, thundering drums, and -- free jazz of the wildest, most energetic and cathartic (afterwards) kind! Just as they did a few months before (May 2011) in a former church as documented on Eklisia Sunday (HOL 095LP, 2016) and then once more in February 2014. Remastered for vinyl by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin, Dolunay is now finally available as double-LP and it shouldn't be missing in any proper jazz collection. 180 gram vinyl; includes download.

Reissue, originally released in 1980. Our Swimmer presents the first official vinyl reissue of The Hilversum Session in over thirty years. Licensed from Hat Hut. Jazz iconoclast Albert Ayler took the experimental leanings of contemporaries like John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman as a starting point and then blasted them to stratospheric extremes, creating some of the most polarizing and brilliant music of the 20th Century. In particular, 1964 was a pivotal -- and well documented -- year in the free jazz artist's career. After returning to New York, Ayler assembled a brilliant group with Sunny Murray on drums and Gary Peacock on bass, recording Spiritual Unity (ESPDISK 1002CD/LP), Ayler's first record for the legendary ESP-Disk' label, that summer. Soon after that session, Ayler took his trio to Europe where they were joined by cornetist Don Cherry for a tour of The Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark. The Hilversum Session is a live radio session recorded on November 9th, 1964. At that point the quartet was months into its European tour and the interplay is extraordinary. On classic Ayler compositions like "Spirits" and "Ghosts" the band absolutely rip, with a kind of intuition and connectivity rarely heard, creating some of the most untethered and undeniably powerful music in the history of free jazz.

Reissue, originally released in 1983. Deux Filles was not, in fact, two girls despite what the group name and its elaborate hoax of a backstory suggest. No, they were not Gemini Forque and Claudine Coule, French women who met as teenagers under tragic circumstances and became fast friends, recording two albums together before disappearing into the ether. In reality, Deux Filles was Simon Fisher Turner and Colin Lloyd Tucker, a UK duo who first worked together in an early incarnation of The The. Straddling the line between experimental and pop, Turner was an actor and teen singing star who later composed soundtracks for the iconic queer filmmaker Derek Jarman while Tucker's career began as an engineer for the famed UK library music studio, De Wolfe, before forming experimental wave group The Gadgets. In Deux Filles, the duo found an outlet for their least commercial tendencies, combining lo-fi proto-dream-pop instrumentals with samples, tape experiments, ambient textures, and drum machines. Even in the vibrant, seemingly endless well of UK DIY, Deux Filles stand out. Double Happiness is the duo's second album, originally released in 1983 on their own imprint, Papier Maché. Full of meandering guitar and with a more ominous tone than the debut, the album is recommended for fans of Durutti Column and Thomas Leer & Robert Rental's The Bridge (1979).

2022 restock. One might think, with a discography as extensive as the one that Sun Ra boasts, that the scope of his work has been fully apprehended by this point, but The Intergalactic Thing demonstrates its seemingly bottomless depths. This is not a complete surprise; anyone who saw Ra and the Arkestra perform will remember the sight of the band quickly shuffling through an imposingly thick stack of sheet music, when Sunny would call the next tune on the program with an encrypted hint on his keyboard. Band members tell stories of spending long hours practicing a newly-written composition, only to never play it again. Here, we have a taste of what's been hidden: drawn from rehearsals at the Sun Ra house in Philadelphia from 1969, The Intergalactic Thing introduces a dozen never-before-heard pieces from Ra's songbook. These are tunes that may have never even made it to the bandstand, let alone the recording studio, along with a handful of reworkings of such Ra classics as "Spontaneous Simplicity" and "The Exotic Forest." Without a doubt, this is one of the most important augmentations to the Sun Ra catalog in many a moon. This double LP set comes in a beautiful gatefold jacket, with extensive liner notes by Ra discographer Robert L. Campbell.

2022 repress on clear vinyl, in an edition of 500; newly remastered by Rashad Becker. Dominique Lawalrée (b. 1954) is a composer born and based in Brussels. First Meeting is Lawalrée's first archival release to date. Culled from four different albums originally self-published on his private label Editions Walrus, circa 1978-1982, this compilation highlights the composer's unique sense of ambient and minimal composition. Originally considered for release on Brian Eno's Obscure Records, Lawalrée's music is now no longer hidden. In this collection the listener finds the sounds of piano, synthesizers, percussion, Wurlitzer, organ, and voice, all performed by Lawalrée. Using these tools Dominique creates miniature themes that gallop across the speakers in slow motion, stretching our normal sense of dynamics and color, effortlessly widening the stereo plane. On "Musique Satieerique," Dominique pays homage to the influence of Satie with simple repeated piano figures and a lush field of organs and flutes. And on other selections, like "La Maison Des 5 Elements," he takes a more wistful, ambient approach, layering keyboard lines, and invoking found/tape sounds to create a hypnogogic world of his own. Childlike in its playfulness and surreal to the bone, the music spins like a carrousel placed inside the Rothko Chapel. Lawalrée's sense of timbre, tone, and overarching composition is like an impression of a home movie whose charm lies in its knowledge of intimacy, shared by few. An incantation of innocence.

"a quiet, understated music that is both touching and elegant" --Gavin Bryars.

"What is most affecting is the feeling of parabolic calm that can emerge from this music, ascending gradually. It's atypically devoid of New-age cliché, closer somehow to a secular revelation than to any protracted or consensus bliss." --Keith Connolly, BOMB Magazine.

"Part of the charm of Lawalrée's work, and perhaps why he never broke through into broader consciousness, was the obliquely personal nature of his albums, which sometimes felt like improvised sound diaries, or like incremental explorations of deeply individualistic themes... A beautiful rediscovery." --Jon Dale, Uncut.

"Harold Budd is an obvious reference point, but Lawalrée's brilliantly economical music eschews the grand, systematizing ambitions of most minimalist music, and has a tactility and sense of particular time and place that places it closer to Angelo Badalamenti, Popol Vuh's Hosianna Mantra, or even Broadcast. This may be the first meeting, but hopefully not the last." --Derek Walmsley, The Wire

Behold! I Make All Things New is all instrumental and consists of sparse works for lute and electronics. There are no vocals. It is more a return to the minimal neo-classical style of Jozef Van Wissem's early work. Written and recorded in lockdown in Warsaw and Rotterdam between 2019 and 2021. Van Wissem lived in Brooklyn since the early nineties. He left New York because of Trump's immigration policies. There was no need for singing. Personnel: Jozef Van Wissem- lute, electronics. CD version includes one bonus track.

Since 2018, João Pais Filipe (drums) and Burnt Friedman (electronics, synth) have investigated into automatic pattern -- composition rooted in doubling and halving; the unimpeachable laws of motion. The offer of freedom can be seen as a way to get in touch with necessity. On Mechanics Of Waving the attempt is made to succumb to such a mode of action, the drilling of a method, not through individual cunning or displayed musicianship. Through constant practice Friedman and Pais discover the principles of rhythmic phenomena while dis-associating the music from cultural idioms. Inspired by rare infrasound -- ratios ranging from 11 to 23, Nonplace releases the results of a four years long operation. Drums recorded and engineered by José Arantes. Mastered by Kassian Troyer, Dubplates & Mastering.

2022 repress. "'Afro-Danish saxophonist John Tchicai spent his youth playing alongside the greats- recording and performing in NYC with Albert Ayler, John Coltrane, Archie Shepp and Don Cherry amongst many others. Following a meeting at the Coimbra Jazz festival in 2004, he agreed to record with John Coxon and Ashley Wales. The beautiful resulting album sold out almost immediately on its release in 2005 and is available here for the first time on vinyl. Eloquently balanced between Eric Dolphy and Lee Konitz, his 'wise and lyrical' alto saxophone and bass clarinet playing make this 'one of his finest recordings' [Richard Williams in The Guardian] Essential."

2022 repress. 2017 reissue. Originally released in 1983. Includes insert. "Issued in 1983 as a limited private pressing, Die Erde Und Ich Sind Eins was Florian Fricke's first 'solo' LP. It features the guitar of his Popol Vuh partner Daniel Fichelsher and vocals by Anni Morris Wieland, Bettina Fricke Waldthausend, Dieter Prym, Florian Fricke, Friedemann Berger, Friedemann Wieland, Gisela Von Doering, Ingeborg Jahnke, Jan Lorck-Shjmerning, Jana Faust, Karl F. Weber and Klaudia Wieland." "You could label it as 'body-space-music' (Körperraummusik) where you sing inside the body and take it in such a way that every cell in the body, from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, starts to vibrate. In order to be able to realise this I have experimented to find where speech resonates in the body. The consonants vibrate at the body walls, the bones and flesh and the vowels fill the body spaces. And that sounds like a gong-concert: it also has a great therapeutic effect." --Florian Fricke

2022 restock. 180 gram reissue, originally released in 1973. "The late Big Bill Broonzy looms as one of the few country blues greats whose career seems as remarkable as his musicianship. He played every professional role available to the untutored black guitarist of his generation: that of the country blues soloist catering to dance audiences, the city bluesman beguiling record-buyers with full-dress lyric themes and a slow song delivery, and the folk entertainer trading on familiar standards ear-marked for white listening audiences... It is his early career as a country bluesman that this LP, like its companion volume The Young Bill Broonzy commemorates."

2022 repress; 1995 release. "A virtual wizard of the mixing desk, Overton H Brown has been one of the key figures in dub since the late 1970s. Getting his start as a teenager at King Tubby's legendary studio in Waterhouse, Brown was known as 'The Scientist' because his imaginative approach to the mixing desk and electronic gadgetry seemed to derive from magical powers that linked him to some intangible, futuristic realm."

Double-LP version. Silver vinyl. The musical vortexes of Caterina Barbieri rewire time and space. Listening to the Italian composer and modular synth virtuoso has felt like traveling at light-speed and slow-motion all at once since 2017's breakthrough Patterns Of Consciousness. 2019's acclaimed Ecstatic Computation pushed even further with the lead single "Fantas". Far beyond any new age trope or modern synth trend, her music stands alone in its ecstatic intensity and cataclysmic emotional impact. Marking the debut album on her new label light-years, Barbieri now delivers her most profound work yet -- a journey through inner-space as vast as a universe and as intimate as a heartbeat. Spirit Exit is Caterina Barbieri's time machine, primarily composed with a modular synth rig she thinks of more like a mechanical fortune teller. Whereas previous releases were constructed on lengthy tours, capturing only snapshots of continually evolving works, Spirit Exit represents the producer's first album fully written and recorded in her home studio amidst Milan's two-month pandemic lockdown in 2020. It was during this extended isolation she found inspiration from female philosophers, mystics and poets spread across time, but united in their strength at cultivating vast internal worlds. St. Teresa D'Avila's foundational 16th century mystical text The Interior Castle, philosopher Rosi Braidotti's posthuman theories and the metaphysical poetry of Emily Dickinson act as thematic anchors throughout Spirit Exit. Spirit Exit crystallizes Barbieri's densely layered, blindingly bright synth arrangements while introducing stunning new elements that feel as if they've always belonged. Strings and guitar flawlessly thread into the composer's web of modular patches, while her revelatory singing voice often cuts right through them. Melodies remain Barbieri's great passion and obsession and on Spirit Exit they grow as large as planets before cracking into atoms. The sweeping "At Your Gamut" perfects the producer's dramatic, slow-burning openers, but in her first ever use of sampling, it later gets crushed, accelerated and unrecognizably transformed into the ghostly hook surging through "Terminal Clock". As the album closes on "The Landscape Listens" -- a song that approaches death with all the gentle grace of Brian Eno's "An Ending (Ascent)".

Following her critically acclaimed album The Sacrificial Code (IDEAL 192CD/LP), Swedish-American composer Kali Malone returns with Living Torch on Portraits GRM. Living Torch, through its unique structural form and harmonic material, is a bold continuation of Kali Malone's demanding and exciting body of work, while opening new perspectives and increasing the emotional potential of the music tenfold. As such, Living Torch is a major new piece by the composer and adds a significant milestone to an already fascinating repertoire. Departing from the pipe organ that Malone's music is most notable for, Living Torch features a complex electroacoustic ensemble. Leafing through recordings from conventional instruments like the trombone and bass clarinet to more experimental machines like the boîte à bourdon, passing through sinewave generators and Éliane Radigue's ARP 2500 synthesizer. Living Torch weaves its own history, its own genealogy, and that of its author. It extends her robust structural approach to a liberated palette of timbre. Living Torch was initially commissioned by GRM for its legendary loudspeaker orchestra, the Acousmonium, and premiered in its complete multichannel form at the Grand Auditorium of Radio France in a concert entirely dedicated to the artist. Composed at GRM studios in Paris between 2020-2021, Living Torch is a work of great intensity, an oeuvre-monde that is singularly placed at the crossroads of instrumental writing and electroacoustic composition. Living Torch proceeds from multiple lineages, including early modern music, American minimalism, and musique concrète. It's a work as much turned towards exploring justly tuned harmony and canonic structures as towards the polyphony of unique timbres, the scaling of dynamic range, and the revelation of sound qualities. GRM (Groupe de Recherches Musicales), the pioneering institution of electroacoustic, acousmatic, and musique concrète, has been a unique laboratory for sonorous research since 1958. Witnessing the extreme vitality of the music championed by GRM, the Portraits GRM record series extends and expands this momentum with Kali Malone's Living Torch. The French label-partner Shelter Press is proud to continue the collaboration with GRM, which Peter Rehberg of Editions MEGO set the foundation for in 2012. Composed and produced by Kali Malone at INA GRM 2020-2021. Trombone and bass clarinet recorded at EMS Elektronmusikstudion 2020. Pre-mastered by Emmanuel Richier at INA GRM. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu at Schwebung Mastering. Cut by Andreas Kauffelt at Schnittstelle, Berlin. Personnel: Mats Äleklint - trombone; Isak Hedtjärn - bass clarinet; Kali Malone - ARP 2500, Modular Synthesis, Pura Data, Boîte à Bourdons.

LP version. "Felicia Atkinson's music always puts the listener somewhere in particular. There are two categories of place that are important to Image Language: the house and the landscape. Inside and outside, different ways of orienting a body towards the world. They are in dialogue, insofar as in the places Atkinson made this record -- Leman Lake, during a residency at La Becque in Switzerland, and at her home on the wild coast of Normandy -- the landscape is what is waiting for you when you leave the house, and vice-versa. Each threatens -- or is it offers, kindly, even promises? -- to dissolve the other. Recognizing the normalization of home studios these days, she revisited twentieth-century women artists who variously chose, and were chosen by, their homes as a place to work: the desert retreats of Agnes Martin and Georgia O'Keefe, the life and death of Sylvia Plath. Building a record is like building a house: a structure in which one can encounter oneself, each room a song with its own function in the project of everyday life. At times listening to Image Language is immediate, something like visiting a house by the sea, sharing the same ground, being invited to witness Atkinson's acts of seeing, hearing, and reading in a sonic double of the places they occurred. In an aching moment of clarity in 'The Lake is Speaking,' a pair of voices emerge out of the primordial murk of piano and organ, accompanying the listener to the edge of a reflective pool that makes a mirror of the cosmos . . . At other times, listening to Image Language is more like being in a theater, the composition a tangle of flickering forms and media that illuminate as best they can the darkness from which we experience it. On 'Pieces of Sylvia,' a noirish orchestra drones and clatters beneath and around a montage of vocal images, stretching the listener across time, space, subjectivities. Atkinson says that Image Language is like the fake title of a fake Godard film. There is indeed something cinematic about Atkinson's work -- not cinematic in the sense that it sounds like the score for someone else's film, but cinematic in the sense that it produces its own images and language and narratives, a kind of deliberate, dimensional world-building in sound. Image Language is built from instruments recorded as if field recordings, sound-images of instruments conjured from a keyboard, instruments Atkinson treats like characters, what she calls 'a fantasy of an orchestra that doesn't exist.' . . . Voice can be a writerly anchor or a wisp of a textural presence. Atkinson's capacious and slippery speech plunges into and out of the compositional depths, shifting shapes, channeling the voices of any number of beings, subjectivities, or elements of her surroundings -- not unlike her midi keyboard, able to speak as a vast array of instruments..." --Thea Ballard (2022)

On Decades On Divided Stars, Brock Van Wey, aka bvdub, presents his first album on Affin LTD, each of its tracks spanning his trademark Odyssean length, with a sonic and emotional density second to none. You are lost... losing your sense of time... of self. Yet finding your inner existence in its inwardly-folding galaxies. Your thoughts and emotions revolve, as planets caught in gravitational pull, before you suddenly awake, as if from a dream, unaware of how much time has passed. Only the stars will tell...

Repressed; LP version. After the overwhelming success of the 1971-1974 box set release (BB 374CD/LP), containing the first four studio albums and for the first time ever this lost "last" album recording, Punkt gets a deserved and necessary standalone release.

"The band called it 5½, fans referred to it as the 'Munich album' and for almost fifty years it's been the missing chapter in Faustian mythology. Now for the first time, the German iconoclasts' previously unreleased fifth album sees the light of day as Punkt . . . Punkt is Faust at their most unhindered, untethered and unstoppable. Returning to Germany after a loss-making U.K. tour and after their manager Uwe Nettelbeck had split with them, the group dusted themselves down and planned their next project, what would have been their second for Richard Branson's Virgin. Joined as always by their engineering genius Kurt Graupner, the band took residence in the Arabella High Rise Building, the luxury hotel which housed Giorgio Moroder's Musicland Studio in its basement . . . Faust spent their nights below ground, creating the sublime cacophony which courses through these seven tracks. Driven by Diermaier's primitive repetition and Péron's rabid low-end growl, 'Morning Land' stomps its way through almost ten minutes of heavy psychedelia . . . A Luciferian spirit courses through the beatless 'Crapolino', a tumult of scorched guitar chords, strident FXs and disembodied vocals which bares all the hallmarks of a black mass. And just like that, the group summon some demonic hunting party for 'Knochentanz' (bone dance), arguably their most immersive creation . . . The storm clears for a second to allow a celestial chord progression to emerge from the darkness before the heavens open and Sosna's snarling, sawing guitar rains down from above, carrying 'Knochentanz' through its final iteration, a collision of muscular fretwork, percussion freakout and bleeping organ which completes the most psychedelic recording you've never heard. The frazzled optimism of 'Fernlicht' buzzes away like an acid Beethoven bathed in neons, before the breathless 'Juggernaut' stretches the definition of blues rock to its limit as squirming sine waves, clattering cymbals and corrosive guitars pan, reverse and overlap, each following its own unhinged rhythm. Then for a time the sound and the fury abate, making space for the frankly sublime 'Schön Rund', a piano-led diversion into the soul-swelling realms of ECM jazz and fin de siècle impressionism, which rivals anything else in their catalogue for pure beauty. And in case you thought they'd gone soft, Faust sign off with the guttural groans and course drones of 'Prends Ton Temps'..." --Patrick Ryder

Ákos Rózmann's Mass consists of twelve electroacoustic compositions created between 1989 and 2004 in the composer's studio and at EMS in Stockholm. Like most of Rózmann's compositions, Mass is a long-form work with a duration of around seven hours. Mass is s an enormous fresco of personal observations on the two first parts of the Catholic Mass, Kyrie and Gloria. The intensely subjective perspective on the texts of the Mass is underlined by Rózmann's freezing images -- in his own words -- "tropes", i.e. meditations in Swedish, Hungarian, and Latin over particular words in the mass text or connection to it. A few passages have nothing to do with the mass text: "Organ piece VI" in "Gloria I" (also performed with the subtitle Nocturne in silver and dance) is a sort of lament based on the phrase "Natten gråter" (the night is crying). You find the composer's peculiar sense of humor in the intermezzo following "Gloria I" -- a composed version of the intermission common in Swedish concert houses, complete with clashing coffee cups and empty chatter from the bureaucratic music establishment. The overarching formal structure of Mass is an intricate one, with the various parts functioning simultaneously as independent pieces and as parts of sub-groups within the whole structure of the piece. As independent pieces, some of them go under the name Organ piece. For example, the three pieces included in the first "Gloria" part of mass form another independent composition named "Triptykon", first performed as a separate work in 1996. In the earlier parts of Mass, a battle fought between positive forces is represented by the words in the Mass text and negative forces represented by various challenging sounds, such as scornful laughter, grunts, burps, nauseous choking and vomiting sounds. First, the negative powers drag down the positive forces into a "black hole" or in pockets. Then the positive forces return to dominate the remaining parts of "Gloria". This formal narrative is nuanced by the composer, who, in interviews, offer a less dualistic, more complex viewpoint on the conflict central to the Mass. The most prominent sound sources in the work are the organ, a Hungarian zither and human voices. Throughout the whole piece, there is a vocal group from a village church in Corsica, singing the Latin mass texts solo and chorally. Other participants are Schola Gregoriana Holmiae under the direction of Viveca Servatius, a group of German Benedictine monks and, in the role of a sort of master of ceremonies, Thomas Hammar. Deluxe seven-CD boxset including two booklets and digital download.

"Sound coiled and uncoiling, the (well) spring and trap set and first trilogy concluded with three wordless hymns to the Apep serpent, and the serpent power in general. Skullflower slithers and glides through their third LP for Nashazphone, always revolving like geologic time sufis, conjuring wrinkles and portals in the multiverses stiff unyielding fabric. As Brian Wilson still might sing 'she's givin' me serpent vibrations'." --Matthew Bower and Samantha Davies West Yorks, UK August 2021.

Skullflower: Matthew Bower- Aire Delta Slide, Travis Bean Koa, Coiled Crimson Serpens; Samantha Davies: violin, Ibanez Destroyer, Descending Gold Serpens. Vinyl master and lacquer cut by Frederic Alstadt, Angstrom Studio. Edition of 333.

Shirk is the new AOR flavored free improvisation solo album by Sam Shalabi, featuring Eric Chenaux and Nadah El-Shazly, where synth pop and sound poetry fester. Sam Shalabi is an Egyptian-Canadian composer, improviser and guitarist living between Montreal and Cairo. Starting out during the late '70s punk era, his work has evolved into an experimental synthesis of modern Arabic music that incorporates free improvisation, traditional Arabic music, noise, classical, text, and jazz. Other than his numerous solo albums, he is a founding member of Shalabi Effect, a free improvisation quartet that bridges western psychedelic music and Arabic Maqam. He has also released four albums with Land Of Kush, the experimental 30-member orchestra which he directs. He has appeared on over 30 albums and toured Europe, North America, and North Africa. Mastered by Mark Gergis. Vinyl master and lacquer cut by Frederic Alstadt, Angstrom Studio. Edition of 300.

Exposition of Clove is the new fast electro-acoustic album by the duo of Matteo Castro and Riccardo Mazza. Hailing from the farthest North-East glacial tip of Italy, Lettera 22 utilize elements of musique concrete sound sources, delicately sampled, looped and edited; resulting in five very subtle and rich compositions of textured noise and field recordings via analog tapes and feedback. Recorded and mastered in 2020 by Ricardo Mazza and Matteo Castro. Vinyl master and lacquer cut by Frederic Alstadt, Angstrom Studio. Edition of 300.

What is fascinating with Rai is that it has never needed media, scenes or official and sponsored festivals in order to exist, progress and reinvent itself. Rai in the 21st century sustained its evolution via social media, the 3G and 4G networks and of course, the democratization of digital recording and electronic music in general. Cheba Wahida comes from that newer, incidentally very feminized, wave of Rai artists in the Oran region. Vice remains a central theme in the lyrics of all these modern day chebbat whose strong voices and charisma are carried by electronic music and arrangements. Vinyl master and lacquer cut by Frederic Alstadt, Angstrom Studio. Edition of 300.

Reissue of the now long sold-out debut album (2014) by the guitar and saxophone duo of Aoki Tomoyuki (Up-Tight) and Harutaka Mochizuki. Initially limited to 200 CD copies only, this record features nine, reverb drenched, mourning pieces characterized by this duo's specific melancholic language via guitar and alto saxophone. Immediately evoking the Velvet Underground inspired electric and echo filled ballads of Les Rallizes Dénudés, it is also augmented with haunting horn improvisations simultaneously reminiscent of Anthony Braxton and Kaoru Abe. Recorded at A.B.U. Studio, Hamamatsu: 2014. Vinyl master and lacquer cut by Frederic Alstadt, Angstrom Studio. Edition of 300.

In the heady days prior to the pandemic, on October 23, 2019, Pye Corner Audio headlined Sonic Cathedral's 15th birthday bash at The Social in London (on a bill that also included bdrmm and Andy Bell). Now, following a limited cassette release in 2020, the incendiary performance -- which mixes improvisations with reworked material from across his career -- has been remastered by Antony Ryan (ISAN) and is to be made available on vinyl for the first time. Wryly titled Social Dissonance, it comes on green and blue swirl vinyl in a striking fluoro green and neon blue sleeve by designer Marc Jones. "This is a recording of a gig in a small space with a big heart," says Pye Corner Audio, aka Martin Jenkins. "A memory of a night before the world changed completely. However, new alliances were formed and friendships made in that basement in Little Portland Street." Indeed, Pye Corner Audio went on to collaborate with Andy Bell on an acclaimed series of remixes and the Ride guitarist returned the favor by playing on some new recordings that will be coming out on Sonic Cathedral later this year. Blue/green swirl vinyl.

2022 repress. LP version. "For five decades, Harold Budd stood on the forefront of the West Coast avant-garde. Born in Los Angeles, he studied with Schoenberg-pupil Gerald Strang and began teaching at CalArts in 1970. While searching for his own voice, he was influenced as much by abstract expressionist painters as by John Cage and Morton Feldman. In his work, Budd brought delicate, slowing-moving melodies to the foreground -- creating a new musical language based on 'eternally pretty music' and smooth surfaces. In the early '70s, Budd started an extended cycle of compositions that would comprise The Pavilion Of Dreams. For Budd, the album was a signpost for a new direction in thinking about music: 'The Pavilion Of Dreams erased my past. I consider that to be the birth of myself as a serious artist. It was like my Magna Carta.' Produced by Brian Eno in 1978, The Pavilion Of Dreams stands toe-to-toe with another minimalist masterpiece also released that year, Steve Reich's Music For 18 Musicians. Budd's gorgeous pieces reveal a lightness of touch that draws the listener in, while sublime voices float in and out as if in a recurring dream. Featuring saxophonist Marion Brown and multi-instrumentalists Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman, The Pavilion Of Dreams remains a master class in exquisite timbre and shimmering texture. The Pavilion Of Dreams was both the final release on Eno's Obscure imprint and a transition point towards his seminal ambient series. This first-time reissue is recommended for fans of Ryuichi Sakamoto, Jon Hassell and Mark Hollis."

The Gamelatron is many things; one could call it a sculpture, a multimodal installation, an instrument, a robot, a feat of engineering, a vision -- and it is all of these things. More importantly, though, it is a concept sustained by Aaron Taylor Kuffner, aka Zemi17, whose Gamelatrons are "sound producing kinetic sculptures" designed to create an immersive, visceral experience for the listener. Not a small feat, and yet the ambitions of Zemi17 are absolutely realized in this long-standing project, culminating now in his third release for The Bunker NY: Gamelatron Bidadari. The Gamelatron Bidadari is not just a name -- it is one of seventy-plus musical sculptures that Zemi17 has conceptualized, designed, and fabricated. Therefore, it would be inaccurate to think of this release as simply a series of arrangements composed in a finite period of time. Rather, it's a window into a project and a process that is much larger than any single album can encapsulate. Gamelatron Bidardi is the culmination of more than a decade of work, and is central to Zemi17's evolution, not only as a musician but as an artist. Having studied gamelan for many years in Indonesian villages and at the Institut Seni Indonesia in Yogyakarta, Kuffner is a musician, an artist, technologist, and craftsman. The gongs in his sculptures are co-created with master Indonesian artisans. Each Gamelatron composition is site-responsive, meaning its sounds are composed for the acoustics and intentions of the space it inhabits, whether it's an art gallery, a wooded landscape, or the inner temple of Burning Man. The Gamelatron does not stand alone: it is in constant co-creation with its physical environment, and in dialogue with gamelan's long-standing history. Originally exhibited at the Smithsonian Renwick as part of a show entitled, No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man, the Gamelatron Bidadari produces sounds that are delicate yet strong, and deeply hypnotic. Textured chiming creates intricate polyrhythmic patterns that are both complex and simple, or in a word, elegant. On Gamelan Bidadari, Zemi17 refrains from adhering to the strict musical structures; his approach to composition is free flowing. The music conjures up natural wonder, and the four sculptures that make up the Gamelatron Bidadari, in fact, resemble trees. They are four independent, yet connected entities each with a large gong situated at their structural base -- the sonic "roots" of the sculpture -- while smaller gongs branch off of a golden, trunk-like spine. The Gamelatron Bidadari is as physically stunning as it is mesmerizing to the ear.

"On the cover... Neu! + 50 Years Of Motorik A special cover feature on the motorik rock originators Neu! to mark half a century since their game-changing debut album. This two-part special includes a new interview with guitarist Michael Rother by Mike Barnes, and a user's guide to motorik rock by Noel Gardner which follows the road leading from Neu! and Kraftwerk through Stereolab to Circle and beyond. Inside the issue... The Mystic Revelation Of Rastafari: Francis Gooding surveys the work of the originators of nyabinghi music and the forefathers of roots reggae, talking to members Sam 'Time' Williams and Calvin 'Bubbles' Cameron about a new edition of their masterwork Grounation; Global Ear: A new generation of musicians including Siriya Ensemble, Damahi Band and Soheil Nafisi are making waves in the jazz rock scene of Tehran inspired by the legendary guitarist Ebrahim Monsefi; Unlimited Editions: Niche German imprint Volke Verlag is specializing in the untold stories of experimental and avant grade music: Epiphanies: Dublab broadcaster Mark 'Frosty' McNeil explains how a life glued to the dial introduced him to radio as a participatory medium; Plus one page interviews with Eddy Kwon, Lenhart Tapes, Imperial Triumphant and more..."

WRWTFWW Records announce the official vinyl reissue of the highly sought-after Haruomi Hosono-produced Interior self-titled debut, originally released in 1982 on legendary label Yen Records. Interior is Daisuke Hinata, Eiki Nonaka, Mitsuru Sawamura, and Tsukasa Betto. Their classic 1982 debut, produced by Yellow Magic Orchestra's Haruomi Hosono, is one of a kind -- a very rare breed of feel-good ambient music blending instrumental synth-pop, soft electronic minimalism, and cozy sound design in the most heartwarming ways. It evokes the intimate pleasures of daydreaming in a hotel lobby, holding hands in a museum, or napping by the pool. It depicts the urban landscape as a caring environment, where simplicity and repetition is mind-soothing and smile-inducing. Interior takes you into an alternate reality, where nostalgic modernism makes the present time feel like the fondest memories. The unique sound of Interior caught the attention of William Ackerman and Anne Robinson who rereleased the album in 1985 on their famed label Windham Hill Records (with a slightly different track listing) and then proceeded to put out their follow-up, Design, in 1987. After that, members of the group continued their careers separately, Daisuke Hinata notably recording an overlooked but absolutely amazing solo album, Tarzanland, in 1988.

Remastered vinyl reissue of this 1990 Bill Laswell/Richard Horowitz production of local Gnawa musicians, recorded in the Medina of Marrakesh. According to AllMusic it is "a must for fans of both African and Middle Eastern music" and voted one of the "10 essential Gnawa albums" by Songlines. The Gnawa are an ethnic minority in today's Morocco, descendants of slaves from West Africa who were brought to Morocco in the 16th century and who (although they quickly converted to Islam) nevertheless brought with them remnants of their animistic practices. The Gnawa perform a complex ceremony (called lila or derdeba) that over the duration of several hours recreates the genesis of the universe by the evocation of the seven main manifestations of the divine, represented by seven colors. Those ceremonies, led by a master or "maleem", are still taking place today privately while Gnawa music in general has clearly been modernizing and thus become more profane, but witnessing a performance is still an astonishing experience. With the exception of a handful of recordings by Paul Bowles and Philip Schuyler (more ethnographic documents in a field recordings style), Gnawa music was barely heard outside of Morocco before 1990 -- one of the first westerners to come and record the music was Bill Laswell, back then running his Axiom label that portrayed a wide range of ethnic music and musicians like The Master Musicians Of Jajouka or Maleem Mahmoud Ghania, to name just two. Night Spirit Masters, recorded in the Medina of Marrakech, delivers soulful tracks of lead and group singers in call-and-response mode, fired by sentirs, drums, hand clapping, and qrakechs, while others are drum features or sentir/vocal pieces. Over 30 years after its initial release, this essential Gnawa album is finally available again. Gnawa, bottom heavy trance music of North Africa. Repetitive bass lines, generated by the gimbri or sintir with metal clappers, hand drums and voice. Seven trances, seven colors, seven scents, Gnawa not only moves, it can remove. 180 gram vinyl; includes download card.

Montreal composer and cellist Justin Wright's sophomore album is an ode to the creative process, intricately stitched together from cassette loops, string improvisations, modular synthesizer patches, field recordings, and orchestral arrangements. While the cello remains a central engine behind many of the tracks, A Really Good Spot is a drastic departure from Justin's previous records. The transparent result, mixed by Pietro Amato (Bell Orchestre, The Luyas), intimately and honestly embraces the beautiful spontaneous moments, tribulations, and studio edits. A Really Good Spot is a celebration of process. Justin met Pulitzer-winning composer Caroline Shaw as he was experimenting with cassette loops during a residency at the Banff Centre. Shaw pushed him to apply for Princeton University's highly selective PhD program in composition with her recommendation, where he was accepted despite having no formal music education. At Princeton, Justin completed the album with instruction from composers such as Donnacha Dennehy, Steve Mackey, Dan Trueman, and Juri Seo. Over the winter of 2021, Justin was unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer (prognosis: likely OK), adding another layer to the story of this album and leading to an earlier-than-expected release. Stemming from an eventful five years, A Really Good Spot presents an abstract exploration and appreciation for the processes of artistic and personal evolution, pushing boundaries while still maintaining an emotional and evocative sound. Co-release with First Terrace Records.

"When I first started writing tracks for A Really Good Spot, I didn't have much in mind other than wanting cello, wanting synthesizers, and feeling like I was long overdue for writing new material. But once I got started, I was having so much fun coming up with new methods for writing that I wondered: what if 'procedurality' could appear on a spectrum, just like dynamics or tempo? Why is process something we try to cover up? There is something that feels so dishonest about a pristine, polished album that fits together a little too perfectly, as if all the tribulations leading up to it are swept aside in the name of presentability. Of course, time is an enemy of simplicity, and what began as an attempt to bring process to the foreground turned into what the album is today: a surrealist spectrum of methodology, where the techniques showcased may or may not be real, where the orchestration confidently reinforces the most haphazard nonsense elements, and where the playfulness occasionally steps aside for moments of somber clarity." --Justin Wright

What could possibly happen when two ultimate masters of soprano saxophone square off for their only recording of duets? Chirps is the only place to find out. Steve Lacy -- the one who planted the flag for soprano saxophone in the ground of modern jazz, who established its iconic status, who devoted himself to the axe with monkish devotion, who brought shakuhachi breath and stairstep melody into its upper-register antics. Evan Parker -- arguably the one who pushed the instrument the furthest post-Coltrane, the technical marvel, the polyphonist, the one willing to immerse in the instrument's harshest environs and find things of radiant beauty. Performed in Berlin at the Haus am Waldsee in July, 1985, it was every bit the chamber concert -- super intimate and interactive, gorgeously recorded by FMP's Jost Gebers in an ideal acoustic room. Rather than alternate between one and the other, Lacy and Parker explore middle-terrain the whole time, perhaps skewing a tad more Lacy's funky-tuneful direction, becoming a single soprano entity made of fragments of sound sometimes accreting into perfectly imperfect lines. Two long tracks, "Full Scale" and "Relations," are completed by a final four-minute coda aptly titled "Twittering." Indeed, the whole program has the joyous interactivity of Paul Klee's painting "Twittering Machine," birds aligned on a line, proposing and picking up lines, nothing cruel or mean-spirited, free play all a graceful twitter. This CD reissue restores the original Tomas Schmit design from the initial release on SAJ Records. Licensed directly from FMP. Edition of 500.

The Air's Chrysalis Chime is the second LP from Old Million Eye, primarily a solo project of Brian Lucas. This beautifully transcendent and deeply explorational album sees Lucas widening his spectral and woozy palette to include musical contributions from Gayle Brogan (Pefkin/Burd Ellen), Steven R. Smith, Sheila Bosco (Dire Wolves), and Jeff Jefferson (3 Moons/The Lodestones). The album's darker more drifting songs, "Ruby River" and "Tales from Copperopolis" feature the vibrational voice of Georgia Carbone, erstwhile vocalist of Dire Wolves. Lucas and Carbone's eerie vocal duet on the lengthy "Ruby River" is stunningly haunting and unexpected. This mysteriously anomalous album utilizes such elements as tape collage, improv jazz type drumming, clarinet, Brogan's melodica, intertwining basses, piano, treated violin, and Lucas's Scenes from the South Island-like plaintive skeletal guitar playing that is sure to tickle the ear into quiet hysterics, if not downright rearranging the ear to accommodate a new form of hearing. The listener should expect the usually oddly crafted and layered sound combinations as evidenced on previous OME releases. These sonic elements are a vehicle for Lucas's softly placid tenor, but with added dimensions his purely solo work only alludes to. This album isn't "psychedelic" in the sense of spacey, wah-wah riffs: it's far more subtle, detailed, and delicate in terms of its transcendent properties, but the invitation is there to climb into the chrysalis and be transformed.

"180 gram audiophile vinyl edition of this much sought after 1969 Pussy album. This repress is on pink vinyl. A psych classic with a mint original copy fetching around $2000."