experimental
Stiletti-Ana – Ab Ovo [HNR018]
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.
AIR LQD – Repeat Itself [PRECEPT017]
Long overdue, here comes AIR LQD’s first full-length player, “Repeat Itself”, making up for the direct follow-up of his acclaimed vinyl debut released on the label in 2016. Mixing science fiction, social criticism and punk ethics in the most cryptic fashion, the latest entry in the discography of the taciturn Belgian groove-maker sees him pushing further his electronic experimentation. Delving into the meanders of the human consciousness through hazy and abrasive rituals, brainpowered by robotics, artificial intelligence and urban metamorphism. The weird looping echo of a man-machine drifting through a vortex of feral scratches and overworked machinery. Slowly moving towards the event horizon of a supermassive black hole, leading to unexpected aural aberrations full of hidden, past and new meanings. Giving a last disillusioned glance at our human condition facing technological progress and the toxicity of the outside world.
Free Range – King Of Snake [OE01]
Uniting under the moniker of Free Range, prolific US underground producer Matt Weiner (2MR, Night People) and Lithuanian experimentalist Ernestas Sadau (Pinkman, Digital Tsunami), provide Osàre’s first release with ‘King of Snakes’. A lovingly sludgy collaboration, the record mixes DIY electronics, droning atmospheric and space-inflected new wave influences, underscored by a surrealist edge glimpsed in track titles such as ‘Relax, It’s Just Eggs’ and ‘Washing Machine Speaking’. Osàre is the new label from Elena Colombi and this is the debut release.
Steve Moore – Untitled [LIES134]
NYC Synth master Steve Moore makes a welcome return to L.I.E.S. with his first EP on the label since 2012. Through these four tracks Moore creates a world with simplistic stripped down beauty, often using one synth and a drum machine to effectively construct alternate realities, as heard on the opener Broken Kills. This continues on the b-side opener Eigengrau, while Future 86 and Future 99 take a more dramatic komische influenced soaring arpeggiated approach.
Upperground Orchestra – Euganea [DOSER033]
Rabih Beaini’s Upperground Orchestra (Beaini, Alvise Seggi, Tommaso Cappellato. Piero Bittolo Bon) back with their first studio material since 2008.
John Di Stefano – For The Moment [CC003]
Concentric Circles presents ”For the Moment”, which features tracks from some of Di Stefano’s early cassette releases, as well as a number of unheard explorations of Indian polyrhythms from the early 90s. Di Stefano’s prescient and unique work will appeal to fans of Cybe, Joel Graham, UnknownmiX, Zru Vogue, and provides a fascinating view of the 80s US electronic underground. American-born, Japan-based composer John Di Stefano self-released a number of cassettes as part of the 80s DIY underground on his own imprint Oktron Produktions, including Klang’s Drift, a collaboration with Joel Graham. Living in San Francisco, Di Stefano had access to multiple University electronic music studios, where he had an impressive array of synthesizers at his fingertips, including both Buchla and Serge modular systems. Combining his knowledge of modular synthesis with a background in percussion, his early releases were a uniquely human approach to electroacoustic music, with flourishes of post punk in the mix. Di Stefano developed an interest in world music, studying Indian music theory and tabla, and after an extended trip to Indonesia in the mid 80s, he was particularly drawn to Javanese gamelan music. Future recordings would forever be indebted to the sounds he heard during those travels.
Lost Souls Of Saturn – Lost Souls Of Saturn [RS1909]
R&S present the eponymous, debut, full length album transmission from Lost Souls Of Saturn, an epic in scope, time and space, multidimensional mind trip. This ambient house masterpiece combines flavours gathered from across the galaxy, stewing them up into a delicious primordial soup. Old sci-fi soundtracks, acid, free jazz, avant garde, musique concrete, world music and more all whirl around an underground-dance-music axis. Primarily Lost Souls Of Saturn are Seth Troxler and Phil Moffa, plus further opaque participants congregating to combine music, imagery, and storytelling into an inextricably linked whole, all wrapped-up in a philosophy of their own making.
Mister Water Wet – Bought The Farm [OUEST095]
Huerco S’ West Mineral Ltd. return in 2019 to mine a rich seam of ambient jazz sampledelia by Mister Water Wet; a Puerto Rican artist with a gift for conveying in-between, gently altered states of mind and the logic of the natural world.‘Bought The Farm’ yields an elementally cool and breezy spirit guided by a first thought, best thought intuition through 55 minutes of crackly, hand-built music riddled with ephemeral soul. In terms of texture and structure, it’s a sound maybe best compared with Jan Jelinek at his most frayed and slompy, or even a pastoral inversion of Kelman Duran’s rugged chop ’n paste arrangements, essentially rendering a distinctive style that hovers between heavy-lidded, Afro-Latinate jazz, sampled indigenous instrumentation, and strains of gently bucolic, ambient introspection.
TV Victor – Back To The Moon [LFI015]
TV Victor was one of the first artists of Tresor Records where he became legendary with several of his ambient and trance productions including Trance Garden 1-3 and Trancecology Chapter 1. In 1989, he launched his first solo project: Moondance – The Magic Sound of the Moon, where he lay foundations for later explorations with experimental sounds fused with pop elements and anticipated an ambient excursion to be had in the future. In the following decades TV Victor created impressive solo works that traversed between ambient and trance. Contrary to common mainstream tendencies he created a very unique interpretation of both genres. In recent years Victor has concentrated on creating experimental and abstract sonic spaces for escaping reality, spaces that live through the imagination of the listener. 30 years after the release of Moondance and 50 years after the first landing, Lullabies For Insomniacs revisit TV Victor’s musical roots with ‘Back To The Moon’.
The Anti Group - 4 X 12 [PM27]
Following the original dissolution of legendary Sheffield industrial funk outfit Clock DVA in 1984, founder member Adi Newton struck out on his own with The Anti-Group: an experimental project in which he could explore a variety of sonic worlds with the aid of a revolving cast of likeminded Steel City stalwarts (Richard H Kirk, Stephen Mallinder, Martyn Ware and Warp co-founder Robert Gordon included). “4×12″ is a retrospective of sorts, gathering together tracks from three 12” singles (“Ha-Zulu”, “Big Sex”, “Broadcast Test”) and one mini-album (“ShT”). Musically, it veers from collage style sample patchworks and dark ambient soundscapes to rubbery industrial funk, twisted post synth-pop, EBM-influenced workouts and madcap experimental escapades.
Morah – Lust and Desires • Summer 2019 mix
LVRIN – Aperitif de la Mort 009
LostSoundBytes – Radio Rituel 17
RA.683 Phuong Dan
Mono Junk – Vanished [FP016]
Agonis / Valentino Mora – SMKMCHN#02 [SMKMCHN#02]
Smoke Machine returns with a new split EP featuring two artists from the Organik festival stable: Agonis and Valentino Mora. This will be Agonis’ second outing on the Taiwanese based label and a first for Valentino. Now 9 years in the running with a successful podcast and parties, this will be Smoke Machine’s second release on their newly established label with many more to come.
Crossing Avenue – Carmaleonte EP [SPAZIO018]
Experimental Italian techno duo Crossing Avenue return to Spazio Disponibile for their third EP on the label. Once again their four track effort explores new tempos, rhythms and moods in stylish fashion. The Carmaleonte EP counts four multi layered trips into mind melting half time jams that pairs rubbery, rolling drums with hypnotic lead synths. After the gurlgin deepness and sparsity of ‘Monoica’, ‘Carmaleonte’ is high pressure and unrelenting, ‘Santica’ got the razor sharp and unresolved rhythms where ‘Decimo Piano’ is a flurry of high speed drums and sci fi signifiers that plays out like an intergalactic space war. Techno never sounded as adventurous as this.
Retina.IT – Formant / Neural Map [NONPLUS049]
Retina.it debut on Nonplus Records, with five tracks of analogue driven Techno/Electronic music.
Dimitris Petsetakis – On Shores [ITL011]
Into The Light Records has worked with the Greek composer Dimitris Petsetakis to compile a follow-up album that takes an even deeper dive into his archive of previously unreleased material. Like its predecessor, “On Shores” draws on music recorded in the 1980s and early ’90s. It contains just two previous released tracks, the humid ‘Clearance (Part 2)’ and poignant ‘On Endless Shores’, both of which first featured on Petsetakis’s cult 1991 album Missing Links. “On Shores” offers another unparalleled insight into the picturesque and atmospheric soundscapes created in the Piraeus-based composer’s basement studio using a mixture of electronic and acoustic instruments, a wide range of global influences and a keen interest in both minimalism and new age ambience. Listeners will encounter a range of stunningly beautiful and beguiling compositions, from the creepy, slow-burn exoticism of ‘Pythia’s Dance’ and rhythmic, otherworldly escapism of ‘Violated Asylum’, to the gentle bliss of ‘Like a Knife’ and sun-bright joy of ‘Nearxi (Minimal Marimba Edit)’.
The Hipodrome Of Music 