Vague Imaginaires – L’ile Sous l’Eau [ISLE-009]

VAGUE IMAGINAIRES - L'Ile Sous l'Eau

The Underwater Island is a collection of four tracks from Grenoble based producer Denis Morin. Philosopher, gardener, father and sonic explorer. For ISLE009, Vague Imaginaires gifts us with autobiographical field recordings, FM synthesis and skilled sound design inspired by the ocean and the Drac river which flows through the mountains of his city. Harmonising natural sound sources with digital realms, he navigates through minimalism, ambient techno and flashes of dub inspiration. Morin combines these musical ideas with Roland TR-8, 303 emulations, hydrophone recordings and vocal fragments from Tunisia, Morocco and Vercors Massif.

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Vague Imaginaires – L’ile Sous l’Eau [ISLE-009]

Kassel Jaeger – Swamps/Things [SP119]

JAEGER, Kassel - Swamps/Things

Over the last decade, Kassel Jaeger, the moniker of the Paris-based composer, writer / theorist, producer, and director of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM), François Bonnet, has meticulously sculpted a body of multidisciplinary work that rests at the forefront contemporary electronic and electroacoustic practice. This is his new album ‘Swamp/Things’ on Shelter-Press. Sound is abstract. When the source is elusive, narrative and meaning shift between the concrete and obscure. With his first solo LP with Shelter Press, Swamps/Things, Kassel Jaeger wades into this foggy, conceptual realm. From memory and metaphor – sliding fluidly through the imagistic and emotive – emerges an immersive, cavernous world that rethinks electroacoustic music on organic terms. ‘Swamps/Things’ was conceived as an opera without distinct characters or text. It draws Kassel Jaeger into his own history, experiences, and the unlikely double of the swamp, a landscape that has held literal and metaphorical sway over him since childhood. Merging 8 works as a total environment, abstaining from distinct shape or discrete articulation, across the album’s breadth, sound becomes a shifting mirror for the bubbling, ordered chaos of organic life.

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Kassel Jaeger – Swamps/Things [SP119]

Peter Graf York – Expedition Bahn [SONLP03]

Welcome to the curious world of Peter Graf York: a world full of city centre safaris and epic train journeys, Soviet cosmonauts and Oakland rappers, filtered synths and plucked mbiras. It’s a wild ride inspired as much by Jamaican dub sorcery as by playful minimalism outta the Pacific Northwest. Many of these tracks were composed on the hoof – literally en route across sections of the ever-reliable Deutsche Bahn network. As such, there’s a certain travellin-without-moving dynamic across this collection, capturing that cinematic feel of window frames flickering past graffiti’d signal exchanges, morphing into rolling hills and green forests. Expedition Bahn is the sound of ideas being set in motion, each track heralding the arrival of an uncanny destination. Blazed beats give way to acid-fuelled electro, and dub rhythms step aside for 4th world meditations as readily as sleepers on a train track. We can leave the last word to heroic USSR cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, who spent the final moments of his fateful re-entry giving the administration an earful of righteous proportions (regarding the technical failures of the spacecraft). Taking his place as the first martyr of space travel, Komarov accepted the Soyuz mission despite safety concerns, in order to protect the other cosmonauts. It’s an attitude that echoes throughout PGY’s sonic universe – make the most of the trip you’re on… ‘cause you never know just which way it will go.

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Peter Graf York – Expedition Bahn [SONLP03]

Hiroshi Yoshimura – Green [LITA192]

Barely known outside of his home country during his lifetime, the late Japanese ambient music pioneer Hiroshi Yoshimura has seen his global stature rise steadily in the past few years. Originally released in 1986, Green is one of Hiroshi Yoshimura’s most well-loved recordings and a favorite of the artist himself. Recorded over the winter of 1985-86 at Yoshimura’s home studio, the compositions unfold at an unhurried pace, a stark contrast to the busy city life of Tokyo. As Yoshimura explained in the original liner notes, the album title in the context of this body of work is not meant to be seen as a color, but is rather used to convey “the comfortable scenery of the natural cycle known as Green”—which perfectly encapsulates the soothing and warm sounds contained on the album, although it was created utilizing Yamaha FM synthesizers, known for their crisp digital tones. This edition marks the first reissue of the highly sought-after and impossible to find album.

vinylCD / cassette

Hiroshi Yoshimura – Green [LITA192]

Ulla – Tumbling Towards A Wall [ULLA001]

Immersively sensual, diaristic entries by cult US ambient avatar Ulla (aka Ulla Straus), the first release on Experiences Ltd. For solitary reflection or post-party couch slump with friends, Ulla’s first mononymous release is a gorgeous record that mellows and balances any physical or mental space it comes into contact with.

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Ulla – Tumbling Towards A Wall [ULLA001]

Ben Bondy – Sibling [BONDY01]

Ben Bondy blesses Special Guest DJ’s Experiences Ltd with a near-fathomless solo debut of sensual, low key electronics and intimate nocturnes. ’Sibling’ sees Bondy return to a seductively gauzy midground sound that over the course of 15 tracks lulls and lists with a minimalist patience, allowing forms to emerge and evaporate in constantly shifty transitions and weathered plays of light according to an immersive eco-logic. Those liminal traces of sound and influence are almost imperceptible, pulling you into a protective amniotic sound-world thats evocative and comforting.

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Ben Bondy – Sibling [BONDY01]

Ireen Amnes – In The Land Of Silence [SGXLP002]

Debut by Ireen Amnes. “In The Land of Silence” is the first full length album by experimental artist Ireen Amnes. The founder of the London based collective Under My Feet debuts on Sonic Groove with an immaterial journey contemplating suffering, liberation, the importance of affection and unity. This ambient album reveals a hidden connection between these human emotions. From anger and rejection, to love and unity, the sounds explored by the artist represent a recent journey within. Recollections of distant memories are expressed with nostalgic sounds; by contrast, darker tracks are symbolic of those moments when it is more dif ficult to accept reality for what it is. Ireen expresses in this album that there wouldn’t be any joy without suffering.

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Ireen Amnes – In The Land Of Silence [SGXLP002]

Soviet Space Research Institute – ARPA Spatial Industries Commercial [LE004]

Soviet Space Research Institute (SSRI) is a musical scheme led by Vladimiros Peilivanidis under the moniker Heinz Kammler. Similar to other HK by-products such as ITPDWIP (Instant Teleportation Process Detected While In Progress), SSRI is influenced by early Soviet and Western electronix of the likes of Detroit, Bristol, Munich, and St. Petersburg. ARPA Spatial Industries is a fictional exotic tech R&D firm operating from 2036. The SSR Institute is exploring the cosmic endeavours of ARPA S.I. as presented through a series of public commercials.

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Soviet Space Research Institute – ARPA Spatial Industries Commercial [LE004]

Undermedvetenheten – Undermedvetenheten [KR36]

UNDERMEDVETENHETEN is a simple, science fantasy game for 1-12 players, with a focus on atmosphere, storytelling and player cooperation – perfect for newcomers to live action role playing. It takes 2 minutes to set up, lasts around 30 minutes, and no two games are ever the same. Players take on the roles of humans aboard a vessel on an endless journey into the depths of space. They are not lost, but all hope is, as they hurtle stricken into the void. Your only access to the universe outside is through the ship’s altruistic artificial intelligence, Mima. As immersive chapter cards are revealed one by one, players must interact with Mima in order to shed light on the universe around them, indulge in fantasies of worlds past, or attempt to right the ship’s blighted trajectory. Can you make sense of the abyss? UNDERMEDVETENHETEN comes complete with a soundtrack composed by John B McKenna.

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Undermedvetenheten – Undermedvetenheten [KR36]

DYL+ DB1 – Ecou [RE25]

DYL+ DB1 successfully fuses experimental D&B, half-step and techno tropes. Here they re-establish their occasional studio partnership with a first collaborative full-length. It’s a pleasingly atmospheric and imaginative affair, with the pair offering up tracks that variously mix and match elements of unearthly ambient, off-kilter drum and bass, broken techno, murky post-dubstep rhythms, experimental electronica, the metallic clonk of industrial and the hazy hypnotism of dub techno. Musically it’s hard to pin down due to the wide variety of interestingly programmed rhythms, though the album’s uniformly paranoid sense of impending darkness, coupled with occasional glimpses of musical positivity, ensures a coherent aural vision.

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DYL+ DB1 – Ecou [RE25]

Bill Anagnos – The Sizzler [PHXS07]

PHXS07 comes from the Athenian experimentalist Bill Anagnos. It is the final outcome of several projects and performances held in 2019. Throughout long periods of almost complete isolation and loneliness and with a basic amount of audio equipment those 11 tracks are mainly fragments of manually managed and arranged in house performances using two analog synthesisers, a turntable, a loop station and a cheap sampler. Obvious is the influence of Kraut rock and retro wave due to the severe use of synthesisers and locked grooves.

Bill Anagnos – The Sizzler [PHXS07]

Boris Divider – Generative Operations [DCOM016]

After a long break of around seven years, Drivecom the Spanish label based on advanced electro conducted by Boris Divider is back again to the scene delivering a minimal concept (as stated on its first roots) but with avantgarde elements to keep a vibe on the contemporary edge. This is the first episode of a new project under the name of “Generative Operations”. A project born from a new vision and workflow at the B. Divider’s studio. From the technical side, the use of massive modular synthesis and generative sequencing make the tracks to be different each time are being played, so here you have a unique recording of a certain moment as if it was and imprint of an instant. Also the minimalistic percussion tries to be slowly developed in an electro rhythm structure. In the other hand all the tracks have a cinematic vibe, it seems as they were composed thinking about to fit in any hi-tec sci-fi thriller movie. Granular sythesis pads, background noises, experimental compression routines help to fullfill the vision. At the moment of this info three volumes are being planned to be released in this year 2020.

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Boris Divider – Generative Operations [DCOM016]

CPR – Cyber Punk Romance [MKV1/369.004]

Weird shapes emerge from the darkness, illuminated only by muted street lamps and neon signs. The CPR album sifts through the shadows of night life decadence, influenced dimly lit romantic and mysteries that lurk on the streets in the early hours of the morning. CPR is a collaboration of a mysterious Berlin duo of lovers, Alexandra Ismalone and Tobias Lisius. Together they conjure a sound that paradoxically traverses darkness and brightness – diving into the depht of the unconsciousness leading to a hypnotic, transportive and psychedelic state done within a dark, intriguing and mysterious way.

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CPR – Cyber Punk Romance [MKV1/369.004]

Zandvoort & Uilenbal – Folk Triumfator [NW024] FREE DOWNLOAD

“Folk Triumfator”is the second album by Zandvoort & Uilenbal, a ‘paramusical academic’ project of medieval music expert Jimi Hellinga and electronic musician Danny Wolfers. As Zandvoort & Uilenbal they appropriate historical instruments such as a 19th century Victorian harmonium, a medieval hurdy gurdy, an electro acoustic thumb harp and an mid 20th century German Mixtur Trautonium. These are cross bred with the usual arsenal of contemporary electronic instruments and seasoned with some sinister poetry in their North Sea coast temple of sensory sonic delights. We can write how conceptual and arty this all is but let’s just say this is hardcore dark ambient with lots of medieval drone space jazz influences to trip your mind out into a region where time and your opinions cease to exist.

Zandvoort & Uilenbal – Folk Triumfator [NW024] FREE DOWNLOAD

Albert Kuningas – Musiikkia UFO-dokumenttiohjelmille [EFS002]

Take the best parts of 70’s ambient legends and stir it up with some flavour of paranoia, conspiracy, UFO cover up, occultism and new age. After 12 years hiatus X0X Records sublabel Escape From Synthesis is back with a new ambient/dark ambient release. Finally it’s time to get a physical vinyl copies of Albert Kuningas legendary Bandcamp-only release “Music for UFO document programs” with a never before heard bonus track called ‘Homo Galactica’.

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Albert Kuningas – Musiikkia UFO-dokumenttiohjelmille [EFS002]

Muslimgauze – Return Of Black September [ARCHIVEFIFTYONE]

The excellent Black September, a continuous, five-part, 68-minute epic, is as formidably competent as ever, although more for the brooding, surreal nature of its soundworld than for its grooves, which here sound almost subsidiary. The soul samples and restlessly evolving minor-chord kaleidoscopes that unfold throughout the work is prima facie evidence of a musician on a roll. Boldly named after one of the most notorious Palestinian terrorist organizations, the group which carried out the Israeli Olympic athlete massacre in 1972, September matches it’s dark black artwork and design with equally doom-laden music (mastered as one track, despite the five separate song titles listed on the back).

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Muslimgauze – Return Of Black September [ARCHIVEFIFTYONE]