Producer, drummer and sound engineer in all forms Stiletti-Ana aka Ilari Larjosto is known for his wide output in the world of cosmic, techno, leftfield, disco and ambient music. Stiletti-Ana keeps the main focus rather on timeless quality releases than searching for the hype. His new solo album “Ab Ovo” is the first full length Stiletti-Ana LP and represents his discoveries in the world of heavenly cinematic arpeggios, conga driven ambient and physical 3D drone compositions.
Afrodeutsche’s debut album ‘Break before Make’ comes on Skam label. Her polyrhythmic compositions integrate a wide array of musical genres, including Afrofuturistic electro and techno, classical solo piano and Detroit legacy house; all memorable journeys into deep, abstracted sound.
As Jochem Peteri returns his attention to the jewels buried in his back catalogue, including last year’s reissue of the 154 LP Strike, it’s a relief to know this understated rough diamond is getting the appropriate reissue treatment.
Newworldaquarium adds to his small but perfectly formed discography two unreleased extras from his Dead Bears album, and describes them as “early 2000s minimalism trying to survive in today’s maximized society.” ‘Mercury’ is a ten minute epic that journeys to the stars. Cosmic melodies shimmer in expansive skies as rubber kicks speed up and slow down back on earth. Synths twinkling and change shape, grand pads wash over you and the whole thing is utterly beautiful and hypnotic. ‘Levels Halo’ is a vastly spacious cut with arcing pads reaching up to the heavens as super deep kick drums gently thud way down below. Part dub, part ambient, part soundtrack, it is a truly cathartic listening experience. These are two more devastatingly deep and emotive cuts from Newworldaquarium.
”Commemorating 50th Anniversary of the Moon landing (July 20 2019) Axis Records is pleased to announce the release of the album by Jeff Mills on his interpretations of Earth’s Moon. ”There are influences of the Moon we can detect, measure and document as scientific facts. If these are perceived as rational explanations, then it should raise questions about the possibility of other unseen mental and metaphysical connections humans have, not just with the Moon but with all other celestial bodies in and outside this Solar System. On the flipside, as we recognize that our Sun gives us light and a lifespan, what does an even greater force in the Cosmos, perhaps the darkness [or absence of anything] affects us. If we look at the Moon as a component in a vast configuration of integral connected parts, then an intuitive sense might lead us to a wider understanding about how deeply our relationship lies. This album and the imagination that helped to produce it should be considered as a proposition with open-endedness and no foreseeable conclusion. It is a chemistry of facts and feelings based on then, now and forever”. Jeff Mills”
Celebrated Detroit composer, producer, sound designer and ambient pioneer John Beltran keeps up a busy 2019 with an expansive new LP on Delsin. The nine tracker takes you on a trip though his typically serene and beautiful world right form the off. ‘Alle Kinder’ floats on gentle drums with beautiful synth melodies making for a heavenly atmosphere. The journey commutes through the calming pads and glistening arpeggios of ‘A Different Dream’, uplifting joys of the ‘Himmelszelt’ with its mellifluous harmonies and achingly perfect ambiance of ‘The Coming Home’. ‘One of Those Mornings’ washes over you like the sun through a breaking cloud and the brain cleansing, pulse soothing goodness continues though ‘It’s Because of Her’ and the elegant Detroit techno bliss of ‘Perfect In Every Way’. The final two tracks close things down with a sense of classy contentedness, subtle celebration and inner joy that Beltran conveys better than anyone.
Tresor Records welcomes Rod Modell to its catalogue, with the release of his new album Captagon.
Rod Modell needs no introduction, his various projects render him a master of techno. In repetition and barely noticeable change, Modell resculptures perceptions. His sound-design echoes cinematic ethereality, where ferric artefacts slam against percussion, rusty delays filter observation – the resulting web is a complex, radiating ambience that etches a natural ebb and flow.
Open Letter to the Government of Georgia and Madam President Salome Zurabishvili
Reissue of rare UK ambient techno from ’93-‘94. Cold Blow has joined forces with Berlin’s AVA. Records in unearthing some of the finest ambient techno from the Artificial Intelligence era in a beautiful double LP package. The compilation covers essential cuts from the back catalog of J. M. Adkins’ releases and includes 2 tracks available on vinyl for the first time. Aside from Descent, a previously unreleased track, the material was previously released on the short-lived Metatone Recordings which was founded by Adkins himself together with Damon D’Cruz known from his preceding Jack Trax label. Compiled from the original DAT tapes and remastered by Andreas “Lupo” Lubich at Calyx Mastering, “Electro Music Union, Sinoesin & Xonox Works 1993 – 1994” reintroduces Adkin’s work as some of the era-defining classics from the early years of techno.
Valentino Mora’s IDO (Intercontinental Dance Organisation) is back for its fourth release featuring some deep techno excursions from Olorun.
Random Numbers comes back with “Islands” EP by BXP. An ecstatic recon through the meaning of isolation where field recording unfolds the ambient/techno sides of BXP’s production. Born from nature, crafted in studio: techno meant for wide landscapes. “Islands” is the result of a long search spent seeking sounds on various islands during his journey through south-east asia with a Tascam recorder and several directional microphones. He captured natural sounds from jungles, dunes, beaches and wild urban landscapes, not to mention the deep sounds of the Earth’s elements: the sea, the wind, the interaction between man and nature.
De:tuned continue to celebrate their 10th anniversary with this second EP of the series and dive deep down into the ambient techno world. The A side makes you drift away on a rare Sun Electric get together, followed by a Higher Intelligence Agency piece of beauty. DeepChord’s dubbed lushness completes this highly intense journey.
If you’re in the mood for some industrial-strength dancefloor experiments and lo-fi workouts saturated with noise, this collaboration from old studio buddies Felix Krone and Yu Aseada AKA Ena should hit the spot. It’s an altogether more foreboding and paranoid beast than their previous joint excursion, hence the new “F&E” alias. After offering up a decidedly dystopian ambient intro, the duo slowly cranks up the pressure via the industrial dub techno/electro fusion of “Thesis” and the crackling lo-fi techno crustiness of “Premis I”. “Premis II” offers a more percussive and rolling take on the same murky blueprint, while “Conclusion” is a suitably hypnotic chunk of dub techno.
“New Atlantis” is the fourth full-length album by longtime Berghain resident Efdemin aka Phillip Sollmann. Long drawn to utopian musical traditions, Sollmann took inspiration for New Atlantis from Francis Bacon’s unfinished 17th century novel of the same name, which describes a fictional island devoted to social progress through the synthesis of art, science, technology and fashion. In the story, Bacon imagines futuristic ‘sound houses’, which contain musical instruments capable of recreating the entirety of the sounds of the universe; a 400-year-old prophesy of today’s digital sonic reality. Over eight tracks, “New Atlantis” oscillates between fast, kaleidoscopic techno, multilayered drones and acoustic instrumentation, fusing for the first time Sollmann’s deep dancefloor productions as Efdemin with his sound art and experimental music projects.
It didn’t take too long until CPR and RSOT realized that there is a logical connection between two worlds. Where RSOT defines himself with his warm unearthly loops, floating into an unbounded void while reinventing beauty, CPR comes along to complete these with their more dark psychedelic, acoustic and organic oriented sounds. The “Earth Is Heaven / Heaven Is Hell” EP is beyond logic; it is the conclusion of combining both universes, where space and time confront themselves and will be burned down within the ritualistic circle. The void filled with warmth and sparkles, detached from their original source, a rebirth of natural primitivism.
Almost three years after opening its doors, De School will launch their new label De Nieuw at the end of this year. For their first release, De Nieuw presents the first ever recording to surface from between the walls of the venue. On this LP is one of the first live concerts by Oceanic, recorded at the auditorium of De School on October 21st 2017. This was in the middle of a 64-hour event that lasted from Friday evening until Monday lunch. This LP contains a 40-minute recording of Oceanic’s concert, performed on his custom-made string instrument connected to a modular synth. The concert was performed for 200 people laying on pillows, surrounding Oceanic and Warping Halos, a light installation by Children of the Light.
Sam McQueen’s 2004 EP Sephoria is next up to get the Delsin remaster, recut and reissue treatment. Across six cuts here -two of which have new titles- the little known producer mixes up. There is serene ambient landscaping on the ‘Inception’ and the beatless ‘Graduated Frequencies’, which resonates with exquisitely melancholic synths, then ‘Simple Pleasure’ is a celestial world of wiry synths and warm solar winds and 14 days has pillow drum programming and soft focus chords that sooth the soul. ‘Yemia’ is another symphony of chattery drum hits, meaningful chords and real astral techno beauty and ‘Outer Drive’ closes down the epic space voyage with delicate melodies and melancholic synths that encourage you to lay back and gaze into a starry night sky.
Spazio Disponibile welcomes Valentino Mora for a new EP featuring four tracks of rhythmic exploration. Boss of the IDO label and known for his atmospheric deep techno sets, he brings a richly infused palette to his music. The four tracks on ‘Transmagnetic’ are steep in moody atmospheres, with exquisite sound design colouring in the grooves which range from dark and eerie to more subtly uplifting and enlightened. Icy synths, abstract motifs and a sense of paranoia and tension characterise each one, with barely-there drums all working to sink you into a trance.
The Hipodrome Of Music 