experimental
Powell – New Beta Vol 2 [DIAG041]
Powell loosens up and reaches out on the 2nd New Beta playground – a place to explore his more reflexive, emotive urges – with seven curious permutations that swerve from Æ-style abstraction to pointillist electro-acid and a brace of mutant diskotheek breakers. As with the first volume, he’s clearly still gassed off his new hardware, resulting in a nerve-jumping fizz and crack that sounds like he’s jamming with fingers directly in the jack ports, channelling his thoughts and feels practically unimpeded.
Antenes – Shifting Zones [SSX09]
Silent Season tap up Antenes for a rare 12″, building on the sizable impact her last and only release on L.I.E.S. had back in 2015. Here we get three trips into dark, evocative techno territory as you would expect to find on Silent Season, leading in with the doom-laden march of “Dream Uncreates The Land”. “Take Me To The Birds (For A)” ditches the drums and heads straight into the most delicate and stirring of ambient pieces, while “Metra Train Chicago 1000x” makes use of field recordings and processed static to make for an even more immersive listening experience. This is a daring release that eschews the need for functionality to take the listener somewhere else entirely.
Winter In June – Eternal Lovers [SSX06]
The Silent Season 10 Year Anniversary collection celebrates a decade of deeper electronic music. The vinyl series features artists whose music continues to inspire the Silent Season journey. Having only made spotted appearances in the past, icy ambient techno artist Winter In June makes a fine first outing on vinyl with a press of his formerly digi-only EP Eternal Lovers. It’s prime Silent Season material, using massive slabs of reverb and a foreboding sense of space as his main weapons while rolling out bleak machine matter that sounds as though it were blown across the tundra. “About Life & Death” is particularly moving with its heart monitor bleeps and forlorn strings, while “The Party Is Elsewhere” is a telling trip into the coldest of coldwave.
Daniele Cosmo @ Katakombe Bergfest (Zürich) 25.10.2017
Nocturnal Emissions – Nocturnal Emissions [MNQ102]
Nocturnal Emissions has been one of the best kept secrets of the industrial genre since the 1970s. Led by Nigel Ayers, the band was one of the first to use tape cutting, avant-garde art, and underground video works to create a stage experience that was being cultivated by like-mindedartists like Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire. The band moved on to using samplers and electronic noise in their early 80’s work, creating a twisted funk sound that would go on to influence everyone from Foetus to Negativland. They still utilized their former tricks, upping the ante with extremist performance art and more professional video displays. The group avoided signing to a major label, instead focusing on releasing their own music more effectively. They followed this path into the 90’s when they started http://www.earthlydelights.co.uk, an incredibly detailed website that promotes their various ideologies (they are strongly against the British monarchy and believe that citizens should have unlimited access to space travel) and constant release schedule. The band has released countless tapes and CDs of their material, and continues to unleash their noise through their website.
Black Zone Myth Chant – Feng Shen [GRVTS010]
Among many of the producer’s aliases and side monikers, Black Zone Myth Chant is surely Maxime Primault’s finest accomplishment as an artist. Having come through via Low Jack’s unfailingly pleasing Editions Gravats over the last few years, he has now begun to establish himself as our go-to man for sounds that truly lie on the periphery of what is deemed normal or sane. Feng Shen is his new LP, once again coming out through Editions Gravats, and it’s a wild, ethereal journey from start to finish. The frameworks are loose and cavernous, but most tracks going further than ambient or drone do contain plenty of rhythmic flow, making them playable on the more open-minded of dancefloors. “Spiritual Decay Dub” perfectly reflects the diversity of sounds on here, their mysticism, and Black Zone Myth Chant’s ability to construct meaning out of sparse sounds.
Scoro @ Rokolectiv Festival 21.04.2017
Dj Richard – Path Of Ruin [DIAL074]
Dj Richard returns with another stunning release on Dial Records: Path Of Ruin. Inspired by the rather harsh magic of New England in winter – the place where the three tracks have been recorded – Dj Richard creates a wide and dark raving beauty.
Pauline Anna Strom – Trans-Millenia Music [RERVNG10]
Special re-issue in the form of a compilation of various tracks from Pauline Anna Strom’s albums: Trans-Millenia Consort (1982), Plot Zero (1983), Spectre (1984), Japanese Impressions (1988), Aquatic Realms (1988) and Mach 3.04 (1988). Essential ambient works by one of the pioneers from back in the days.
Max Loderbauer – Greyland [MARIONETTE06]
Superb, expert neo-minimalism from the retiring Berliner — veteran of collaborations like Vilod (with Ricardo Villalobos), the Moritz Von Oswald Trio, NSI and Sun Electric — making a rare, treasurable solo foray. Six tracks ranging from oscillatory steppers to eerie hauntings. Beautifully sleeved, too.
Ian Martin – Bheal [NYH035]
Masterful electronics and industrial tinged ambient workouts by expert and SEER head Ian Martin. Some of the darkest vibes this side of Lustmord, some of the wildest electronics this side of PAN…
Alessandro Cortini – Forse 1 [IMPREC373LP]
Alessandro Cortini (Nine Inch Nails/How To Destroy Angels) composed the Forse series using a Buchla Music Easel. Forse, meaning ”maybe” In Italian, is a series of 3 double LP releases Cortini recorded for Imprec to release in 2013. ”All pieces were written and performed live on a Buchla Music Easel, in the span of one month. I found that the limited array of modules that the instrument offers sparked my creativity. Most pieces consist of a repeating chord progression, where the real change happens at a spectral/dynamic level, as opposed to the harmonic/chordal one. I believe that the former are just as effective as the latter, in the sense that the sonic presentation (distortion , filtering, wave shaping, etc) are just as expressive as a chord change or chord type, and often reinforce said chord progressions. Of all the years with Nine Inch Nails the period spent writing and recording the instrumental record Ghosts I-IV is probably the one which changed my approach to music making the most. After that record I started getting more into instrumental composition, although I tried to approach it in a different way. While we had a vast array of tools and instruments at our disposal then, I decided to approach my pieces limiting myself to one instrument only, as I found myself being more decisive when faced with a limited creative environment.”
Beau Wanzer – Issue N. Twenty [JG020]
O Yuki Conjugate – Scene In Mirage [ERC053]
Emotional Rescue returns to the music of “dark ambient” pioneers O Yuki Conjugate (OYC) with the reissue of their debut album, ‘Scene in Mirage’. Released in 1984, it’s post-industrial; cold wave overtures mixed with an ambient oeuvre created a compelling album that has gained cult status. Quickly selling out in its original pressing, inexplicably their record label decided not to re-press, so an expanded cassette version called ‘Scene In Mirage/Soundtracks’ was re-released on the band’s own Final Image label with an accompanying video. Here, Emotional Rescue’s re-issue combines the best of both versions in a lovingly recreated sleeve taken from the original design templates. Based around original members Roger Horberry and Andrew Hulme, OYC is now returning in its fourth incarnation with live shows and hopefully, new music to come. Watch the horizon.
Playgroup – Previously Unreleased Volume 2 [YW002X]
Following the success of last years Playgroup ‘Previously Unreleased’ album and its critically-acclaimed run of nine weekly 12′ vinyl EPs, Trevor Jackson has compiled a second volume of 20 tracks (11 unheard and 9 previously vinyl only) released as a Limited Edition Double CD and 6 track vinyl sampler on Nov 3rd via Yes Wave records. The music featured is a collection of reworked demos and unreleased recordings. A hedonistic mix of raw Disco, Dub, Funk, Dancehall. Electro, New Wave & Post Punk that all still sound as relevant today as they did when initially recorded for the debut PLAYGROUP album during 1997 – 2001.
Autumns – Suffocating Brothers [CDRLP023]
Autumns is the solo project of Christian Donaghey, from Derry, Northern Ireland. 2017 sees the eagerly anticipated release of his debut full length record “Suffocating Brothers”. On “Suffocating Brothers” Autumns presents a resolute nine track culmination of the fierce audacity that has come to define and distinguish the project since an assured first emergence in 2013. Written and produced over the course of six months, between July and December 2016, it’s an album that comes as a momentous and devastating fulfilment of what the Autumns project has outlined with increasingly ruthless intent over the last few years.
Henry Keen – 70’s Baby [MJR002]
Debuting under his given name for Maddjazz Recordings’ second offering, is DJ, producer and synth enthusiast Henry Keen. Henry’s music was discovered after a long night of online digging, and after several exchanges, it was apparent that Henry was making music that defined exactly what Maddjazz is striving to achieve; honest music that’s free of form and not constrained by any genre or tempo. 70’s Baby is a raw and honest record. A collection of uptempo grooves written in various locations around hectic inner London. It’s spirit is born out of the freedom of the CDR sessions at the now defunct club Plastic People, where many of Henry’s productions were first shared, and where tempo and genre were irrelevant. It references Henry’s love for the instrumentation, recording techniques and sounds of the 1970s, the decade of his birth. Featuring a tasteful blend of worldly and otherworldly sounds, It owes itself to modern and ancient dance themes alike.
S. English – Eris [LIES102]
Following up his self titled 12 inch earlier this year Austin, Texas based Shane English continues in his path exploring the deep and bizarre edges of the American DIY electronic world. Over these eight tracks we get English’s wide spanning take on the music touching upon elements of industrial on “Invasion Threat” darker ambient with opening track “Sanctuary” and even hints of Stinson on “Bilocation Drift”. English’s signature sparse and melancholic tone is present throughout again using minimal percussion and voice to glue it all together in a haunting fashion. Another engaging listen direct from the depths of the American underbelly.
John Heckle – Dream Machine pt I & II
A two-part mix as a follow up to the recent ambient & light meditation gigs at brilliant corners.
The Hipodrome Of Music 