experimental

Eindkrak – Brullend Staal [PRECEPT012]

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Amsterdam’s worst kept secret makes it back to Unknown Precept with his long-awaited album and first solo output since the acclaimed ‘Divine Bovine’ tape mini-album. Inspired by an evening spent in a restaurant next to a car demolition site, Eindkrak’s long player debut echoes the distant sound of steel being crushed and cars pressed into cubes.  All this noise, in combination with the taste of good Italian food, lead to the eleven tracks making up for the aptly titled ‘Brullend Staal’ — loosely translated to weeping steel. A leisurely stroll on crumpled metal sheets, the acidic hints of oxidized metal and the smell of gasoline. Inaudible and distorted vocals as if smothered by the clatter and smokestacks of steel factories. Eindkrak’s first full-length is all about this disquietude made of melted and straightened scrap metal. A resounding and tumultuous din. Try to eat some nice gnocchis while listening to this album, and you’ll see what it is all about.

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Eindkrak – Brullend Staal [PRECEPT012]

Benoit B – Japonaiserie [BH044]

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“Japonaiserie was the term the Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh used to express the influence of Japanese art. Artists including Manet, Degas and Monet, followed by Van Gogh, began to collect the cheap colour wood-block prints called ukiyo-e prints” A mini LP by Benoit B, the boss of Banlieue Records , on which he creates a futuristic environment influenced by the Japanese electronics of the ’80s. A musical “Japanaiserie” that can melt your cold cold heart.

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Benoit B – Japonaiserie [BH044]

Piero Umiliani aka M. Zalla – Africa / Continente Nero [RED312-13]

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Along with Moggi, Rovi or Tusco, M Zalla was one of Piero Umiliani’s most revered monikers from his early period. Starting off in the early 70s, the legendary Italian electronic wizard began to release weird and wonderful shapes of kinetic electronics, often inspired by the anthropology of Africa, the Mother continent. Africa itself is one of his works from ’72, released just before the iconic Problemi D’Oggi, and it has clearly inspired whole generations of different sorts of musicians. It’s polyrhythmic waves of euphoria rarely tire of cease to provoke wonder, and this whole piece of work is a treasure chest that will simply not stop giving. For some, it’s a source for samples and inspiration, while for others it’s the perfect tool to add life to DJ sets, whether at the beginning, in between tracks, or at the end.

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Piero Umiliani aka M. Zalla – Africa / Continente Nero [RED312-13]

Powell – New Beta Vol 2 [DIAG041]

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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.

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Powell – New Beta Vol 2 [DIAG041]

Antenes – Shifting Zones [SSX09]

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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.

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Antenes – Shifting Zones [SSX09]

Winter In June – Eternal Lovers [SSX06]

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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.

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Winter In June – Eternal Lovers [SSX06]

Nocturnal Emissions – Nocturnal Emissions [MNQ102]

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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.

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Nocturnal Emissions – Nocturnal Emissions [MNQ102]

Black Zone Myth Chant – Feng Shen [GRVTS010]

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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.

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Black Zone Myth Chant – Feng Shen [GRVTS010]

Dj Richard – Path Of Ruin [DIAL074]

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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.

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Dj Richard – Path Of Ruin [DIAL074]

Pauline Anna Strom – Trans-Millenia Music [RERVNG10]

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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.

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Pauline Anna Strom – Trans-Millenia Music [RERVNG10]

Max Loderbauer – Greyland [MARIONETTE06]

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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.

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Max Loderbauer – Greyland [MARIONETTE06]

Alessandro Cortini – Forse 1 [IMPREC373LP]

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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.”

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Alessandro Cortini – Forse 1 [IMPREC373LP]