Africans with Mainframes – K.M.T. [SJRD333]

Jamal Moss, aka Hieroglyphic Being, returns this time under the alias Africans with Mainframes. With fellow Chicagoan Noleian Reusse they have been releasing music under the name Africans with Mainframes for over 15 years now. The K.M.T. LP is the debut album from the group, a collage of apocalyptic Chicago acid meets industrial and transcendental post-house machine funk. Both intense and unique, the album of forward-thinking, experimental, boundary-pushing Afro-futurist electronic music shows why Hieroglyphic Being is regarded as one of the most serious purveyors of experimental electronic music today.

vinyl / CD

Africans with Mainframes – K.M.T. [SJRD333]

Occult Orientated Crime – Just A Clown On Crack [DKMNTL036]

Dekmantel presents Danny Wolfers a.k.a. Legowelt’s ambient project Occult Orientated Crime. It’s for the first time ever that this moniker of the prolific Dutchman will have a physical release. Wolfers: “The OOC sound is an accumulation of twenty years of musical training and research and what effect it has on the brain. Simply put it’s electronic ambient music, which is more advanced compared to the music I’m creating with my Smackos alias. OOC is deeper and more melodic, less loose and vague but perhaps more intense. It can bring the listener into a completely different state of mind, you can almost call it ritualistic neuroscience music.” The six tracks are recorded around the same time, using coherent recording techniques. “Let’s say I was in a flow, or something like that. But I rather think it’s the music itself that gives it a distinctive sound: the way the music was composed, the notes and the sound palette. I haven’t used any sharp sounds for example, but everything is very round so your brains will soak it up as something smooth.” Apart from the track ‘Just a Clown On Crack’, the release lacks kick drums. “Most or nearly all music from PC doesn’t have a beat because it is often unnecessary, it distracts from the melody or what should be processed in the mind of the listener. The melodies, sounds and structure itself are enough to bring the listener into a certain mindset: a beat there would almost sound cheap, tacky. ‘Just a Clown On Crack’ has a trip-/hip-hop feel to it and was craving for a beat. It’s also the last track of the album and, in a rather fluent way, brings the listener back to the misery and tragedy of the normal, everyday world. It’s like returning from the OCC dimension with a soft landing.”

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Occult Orientated Crime – Just A Clown On Crack [DKMNTL036]

Vactrol Park – II [ESP026B]

Vactrol Park, the collaborative endeavor between Kyle Martin (Land of Light) and Guido Zen (Brain Machine), returns to the ESP Institute with II, rounding out the second half of their EP series. For this installment, a sojourn was made to Stockholm to record at the computer music mecca, EMS (Elektronmusikstudion), where the artists had the opportunity to experiment extensively with the legendary Buchla 200 Modular and Serge Modular, two of the rarest and most pornographic modular synthesizers in existence. While both instruments originate from California (Buchla in Berkeley as a commission from pioneer Morton Subotnik, and Serge at the California Institute of the Arts), the music Vactrol Park draws from these machines is far from warm and sunny. Akin to their predecessors on the 2015 debut I, these works materialize a level of taste and measure of craft that’s unattainable by most, each retaining an individual cinematic approach yet working collectively toward one consummate goal—paralysis.

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Vactrol Park – II [ESP026B]

Andy Stott – Too Many Voices [LOVE101]

Andy Stott rarely gets it wrong. To date, he’s release a trio of fine full-lengths on Modern Love, each of which has arrived perfectly formed. It’s a similar story on fourth album Too Many Voices. Rich, spacious and melodious, it draws on both classic and contemporary sounds, channeling Yellow Magic Orchestra, James Blake, Boards Of Canada, Autechre and clap-happy drum machine funk, before twisting these varied inspirations into thrilling new shapes. For all the high-minded experimentalism, Stott’s greatest gift is an ability to create music that’s inspired and entertaining, achieving a balance between boundary-pushing and old-fashioned melodiousness. When he gets it right, as on Too Many Voices, few can really compete.

vinyl / CD

Andy Stott – Too Many Voices [LOVE101]

Iori – Cold Radiance [FIELD020]

Known and admired for its rich and moody ambient and techno output, Field Records is presenting a brand new LP from Iori. His mesmerizing ambient excursions come under the title of Cold Radiance, and the album features eight tracks that suck you right into his world. Each track here is a long and absorbing affair that slowly unfolds and pulls you right into its grainy core. There are dark, texturally rich tracks that are full of menace as well as more heavenly, suspensory and angelic ambient offerings.

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Iori – Cold Radiance [FIELD020]

Cinematic 74 – Realtime Inverted [PF012]

Debut album by Detroit producer Cinematic 74 a.k.a. Brooks Mosher, who is known for his excellent detroit / house productions on labels as Dolly and Other Heights. Though, his ambient recordings are less known till date, under the alias Cinematic 74, Brooks presents a collection of ambient works produced between 2003-2015. Nine spacious and tranquil cuts, connected to harmonies and moments of bliss. Still, a variety within the album is captured, ranging from darker, remarkable synth-washed soundcsapes to more melodious moods with emphatic rhythm forms.

CD / vinyl

Cinematic 74 – Realtime Inverted [PF012]

Milton Bradley – Tragedy Of Truth [DNRTB010]

The German producer Milton Bradley presents his full-length debut on his own Do Not Resist The Beat label. Bradley has been one of techno’s key names for much of the past decade. “Tragedy Of Truth” incloses in 10 tracks, the full range of Milton Bradley Techno sound: dark, Industrial leaning to 1990s style Acid.

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Milton Bradley – Tragedy Of Truth [DNRTB010]

Zombie Zombie – Slow Futur [VERLP32]

Original music of the “Slow Futur” show by Elsa Guérin and Martin Palisse, played and composed by Zombie Zombie (Cosmic Neman, Etienne Jaumet, Dr Schonberg), here presented separately from the show.

Slow Futur features two jugglers (Elsa Guérin and Martin Palisse) on a treadmill (8 x 2m) which carries them along a neon light installation which delimits the choreographic space as a kind of space-time tunnel: “the hyperspace”. Their minimalist juggling practice – with 3 white balls each – plays with opposite movements like acceleration/immobility, synchronization/progressive transformation, and thus evokes a way of making the body face the inexorable passing of time. The music of Zombie Zombie, repetitive and floating, as a vector of the choreographic mechanic, mixes analog electronic sounds and acoustic rhythms that rise in intensity in order to bring the two jugglers into a frantic and hypnotic rush, whereas the treadmill submits their bodies
to a movement independent of their will, so becoming an infernal machine. Between abstraction and representation of reality, Slow Futur questions the relationships between human beings, where the individualism caused by the modern world leads to loneliness, as the human condition is reduced to a simple machine which robotic movements are devoid of emotion. Elsa Guérin and Martin Palisse are not only renewing the image of today’s circus but also continuing their research on the choreographic, dramatic and poetic potential of juggling.

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Zombie Zombie – Slow Futur [VERLP32]

Dino Sabatini – Omonimo [OUTISOPERA001LP]

As both a producer and the helmsman of the Outis Music label, Dino Sabatini has carved out a distinctive musical style that shows a great reverence for both ancient archetypes and future possibilities for change. With one foot planted in a mysterious past and the other foot planted in a world yet to arrive, Sabatini’s works are carefully realized emotional journeys that intertwine shimmers of optimism with undercurrents of poignancy or nostalgia. His latest full-length offering, ‘Omonimo’ (that’s ‘homonym’ for non-speakers of Italian), brings all of this to fruition on a record that demands (and rewards) deep listening.

vinyl / CD

Continue reading “Dino Sabatini – Omonimo [OUTISOPERA001LP]”

Dino Sabatini – Omonimo [OUTISOPERA001LP]

KWC 92 – S/T [LIES069]

The highly anticipated follow up to their 2013 Dream of the Walled City (OST) LP, Samo DJ and Max Stenerudh return with another far out record complete with backstory. Originally composed as an accompanying piece for artist Thomas Jeppe’s exhibition in Tehran, Iran the music contained on this release was originally pressed on extremely limited cdr’s given out for free at the exhibition. As it stands it would have been a crime to keep this music in the private sector, thus now we see an official release in long playing format here on L.I.E.S. Dream-like, full of drama, suspense and full of cinematic overtones, once again the duo of Samo and Max deliver beyond the full scope of psychedelic soundtrack madness.

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KWC 92 – S/T [LIES069]

RR Hearse – Call of Oedipus [JUNE010]

June Records presents RR Hearse – Call of Oedipus. Completed between 1981 and 2013, Call of Oedipus is a collection of solo works and collaborations of RR Hearse with S/M, A.Rib and Mr. Cricket. The tracks were recorded live at concerts on Greek University campuses, squats, in studio as well as in RR Hearse’s bedroom. This mini LP is a never released before document of the Greek underground music scene, transferred from cassettes and reel-to-reels’s from RR Hearse’s personal archive.

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RR Hearse – Call of Oedipus [JUNE010]

Heinrich Dressel – Mons Testaceum [MNQ075]

DRESSEL, Heinrich - Mons Testaceum

Originally released by Legowelt’s Strange Life on a CD-r back in 2007, Mons Testaceum was the debut album from MinimalRome co-founder Heinrich Dressel and the onset of a trilogy dedicated to Monte Testaccio, an artificial mound in Rome composed almost entirely of ‘testae’, fragments of broken amphorae dating from the time of the Roman Empire. Notable for the prominent usage of Elka Synthex, a legendary Roman synthesizer, Mons Testaceum remains a wonderful curio of the Dressel discography and fans of the Italian’s work will delight at the chance to own it on vinyl thanks to MNQ!

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Heinrich Dressel – Mons Testaceum [MNQ075]

Astronomy Domine – Elementi [KPT004]

Elementi EP is a full music experience into space and alchemy. “Terra Acqua” is a very calm and relaxing opening track full of percussion and rhythm letting the listener explore the inner places while “Fuoco Acqua” closes the EP as a dark tribal hypnotic hymn.

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Astronomy Domine – Elementi [KPT004]

Jamal Moss – 4 This Is Living That Gherkin Life: Gherkin Tracks [0000000-001]

Jamal Moss AKA Hieroglyphic Being with the Gherkin inspired treats. Combining tracks from CDR releases, of the same name, that were circulating at the end of 2015.

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Jamal Moss – 4 This Is Living That Gherkin Life: Gherkin Tracks [0000000-001]

Inhalants – Deep Florida [LIES070]

INHALANTS - Deep Florida

New Yorkers Matt Morandi (Jahiliyya Fields) and Max Ravitz (Patricia) take the buyout, cash in their 401k’s, and opt for early retirement down to ”Deep Florida” on their debut LP for L.I.E.S. Titles like Humid Widow, Dark Duties, and Chasing the Dream set the tone for what can only be called a tropical storm of synthesizer chaos atop dusted drum programming and hazy vibes.

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Inhalants – Deep Florida [LIES070]

VA – World Of Rubber 2 [RUBBER002]

The Rubber label may proudly hail from the iconic Lowlands area known as Den Haag, yet their sphere of influence clearly stretches much further. First up is secret Amsterdam weapon Robert Bergman, laying down some deviant acid box action in the shape of “Broadcast From Ceres” which dovetails nicely with the more psychedelic overtones of “Masquerading As Stars” from Brussels-based duo Tav Exotic. The master Das Ding opens the B-side with the subaqueous “Divebomb” whilst the unheralded Safe Swim plunges into the deep end of experimentation on “Pictures Of Skies”. It’s left to Diagonal pair Bronze Teeth to wrap up matters with the rip snorting squat party techno of “Easygroove” which was clearly produced with The Hague in mind.

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VA – World Of Rubber 2 [RUBBER002]