Dolphins – 40G [PBD22]

Pinkman’s resurrection of its Broken Dreams series is marked by a release of Dolphins – Benedikt Frey’s project with Markus Woernle and Nadia D’Alo. 40G evokes landscapes of doom, disorienting pleasure, and the surreal visions that occupy a sleepless night; the soundtrack to a Lynchian fantasy about the creatures that haunt the murky waters of the modern mind. It’s an album for finding yourself on a stranger’s couch, tearing at the fraying edges of another endless night, wrapped beneath a blanket of drugged-out kraut.

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Dolphins – 40G [PBD22]

Khidja – Transmissions Part 1 [MTLP0012a]

MTLP0012 ‘Transmissions’ will be divided into two separate releases – Part 1 and Part 2. Part 1, presented here, is released in June, while Part 2 will be released in the 2nd half of September 2023. The album was written and produced by Khidja over the last several years. Part 1 consists of 5 gems showcasing the diversity in the Romanian duo’s production – from shuffle to slow mow, to ‘chugging’ to new age 4th world…

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Khidja – Transmissions Part 1 [MTLP0012a]

Function – Green EP [INF-025]

To relaunch his seminal imprint, Infrastructure New York, Function presents his new 12″, Green EP. Celebrating 27 years of Function releases this year and the label’s 25th anniversary, the label will serve as an outlet for his new material, reissues of out of print classics from Synewave, Sandwell District and Ostgut Ton (and of course, Infrastructure), as well as developing new artists. Green EP encapsulates the same raw power and hypnotic energy of his genre defining Sandwell District releases updated with a modern flair. 

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Function – Green EP [INF-025]

Wladimir M – 2023 [DSR/EEVO009]

‘2023’ is the rather unexpected new project of the Dutch cult hero Wladimir Manshanden. 32 years ago, in 1991, Wladimir M founded together with techno icon Stefan Robbers, one of the first Dutch techno labels: Eevo Lute Muzique. While Robbers (as Terrace and Acid Junkies) pursued an international techno career in the years that followed, Manshanden preferred to remain in the shadows. His discography is as small as it is peculiar. But his track ‘Evil’ is an undisputed classic. On ‘2023’ he disassembles the eighties pop hits of his youth into sober, futuristic spoken-word techno. On the one hand, he does not shy away from some cringe (Dire Straits, Simple Minds, Tina Turner). On the other, he pays tribute to some genuine electronic heroes like Kraftwerk, New Order or Master C&J. The path to the bare essentials leads through a futuristic labyrinth. Along the way, you get hints of monotone voices, cipher codes and wondrous Dutch titles like ‘Privé Onderzoek.’ The outcome is alienating and magical at the same time.

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Wladimir M – 2023 [DSR/EEVO009]

Alchemulator – A Lonely Larper on LARPA net [NW035] [FREE DOWNLOAD]

This is the follow up the 2021 Alchemulator – “Larping At Fairsnake Hamlet” album that was released on Hunger! records. The sound goes in a bit of a different direction, the cheap digital FM homekeyboard is replaced with simple FM synths, old “obsolete’ samplers and some other stuff. There are a lot of vocals and experiments with them. I would describe them as synthesizer ballads…or hauntological hypnogogic synthesizer folk songs….a bit of a devotional psychedelic spacejazz influence. Instruments used: AKAI X7000, S900, Yamaha DX100, Yamaha DX21, Arturia Microfreak, Korg Microstation, Yamaha PSR373, Alesis Quadraverb, Alesis Midiverb II ZOOM mS70CdR, zILog Vocoder, Soundcraft Mixing desk, computer running Ableton Live.

Alchemulator – A Lonely Larper on LARPA net [NW035] [FREE DOWNLOAD]

Move D – Solitaire [MULE285]

Mule Musiq dives into the archives of humanoid Ambient music history, bringing the vinyl premiere of a classic work by German DJ, producer, and musician David Moufang, globally known as Move D. Released in 1995 on Pete Namlook’s fabled Fax +49-69/450464 label, the album marks his only output as Solitaire, featuring heroic, supple ambient scenes, that some people call one of the best works by Move D.

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Move D – Solitaire [MULE285]

The Black Dog – The Grey Album [DUSTV113]

The Black Dog exploring the old ways… ”We pushed further by adopting old practices, working with one synth per person and limiting the use of our computers. We only stopped short of putting everything on beer crates. It seems like madness these days, but there is raw creativity within these confines.”

vinyl / CD

The Black Dog – The Grey Album [DUSTV113]

Henry Hektik – Motion P. Music [NSHR001]

Natural Sciences Recs and Harsh Reality Music team up for the first reissue of Henry Hektik’s Motion P. Music. A figure who collaborated with M. Finnkreig and active in the 80’s German underground and tape trading circuit, he disappeared off the grid, leaving few documents of his music behind, with the handful of remaining tapes swallowed by mould or fried in electrical accidents. What is left is true unhinged tracks from the edge, with six cuts of jacking proto-house (Haiwasa, T.B.A), night-stalker surveillance wave jams (Hong Kong Wedding Night), Black ops narco paranoia (Private Apocalypse) and static knuckle-dragging workouts (Here Comes Escape).

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Henry Hektik – Motion P. Music [NSHR001]

JUNA – Archetipo EP [SRNDS004]

An intriguing and revealing hypnotic immersion from the enigmatic duo JUNA. “Archetipo” explores the landscapes of the unconscious. The word “persona” in Latin means mask: thus the personality, the scenery of the ego, is transformed into a theatre of archetypal images, merging word and music, like a rhetorical figure, a synesthesia. The aesthetic-musical research is a poetic-sound journey into the psyche, to tell and celebrate it.

JUNA – Archetipo EP [SRNDS004]

Dissemblance – Centauresse LP [LIES195]

After her debut on Mannequin in 2019, Dissemblance now arrives on L.I.E.S. with her second full length of somber, cold wave and emotional bedroom pop infused songs. This time around we hear the Parisian artist add a new arsenal of instrumentation to her repertoire, incorporating live drumming and a wide array of synthetic instrumentation on top of her drum computers providing a backdrop to showcase her stark vocal performances throughout the album. Meticulously constructed, this record displays the full range of Dissemblance’s musical dynamics as she pulls the listener into her universe where dreams and reality tread a thin line, one blurring into the next with no beginning nor end. She expertly brings together a diverse group of styles and sounds from different areas of the electronic spectrum making them her own. An extremely unique and strong display of modern minimal synth pop that pulls equally from the past whilst propelling towards the future.

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Dissemblance – Centauresse LP [LIES195]

VA – For Huwara [CM21]

On 26 February, hundreds of Israeli settlers went on a violent late-night rampage in Huwara and other villages in the northern West Bank, leaving one local resident dead and 100 others injured and the town ablaze. This compilation of music was put together in order to raise funds that can hopefully give some aid to the residents of Huwara, all of the proceeds Confused Machines make from digital sales will go directly to Physicians For Human Rights – Israel (PHRI) www.phr.org.il An NGO that works in the occupied Palestinian territory, promoting Palestinians’ right to health and providing direct medical and humanitarian assistance. The compilation hosts a roster of both local and international artists spanning a wide spectrum of leftfield electronic music. Acid, Drone, Noise, Downtempo, Techno, SoundCollage and more. All of these tracks are new and have not been heard before, many of them have been created with Huwara and Palestine in mind.

VA – For Huwara [CM21]

Moufang & Czamanski – Recreational Kraut [SR23LP01]

“Recreational Kraut”, the latest release on the recently relaunched Source Records label, is a collaboration between Jordan Czamanski (aka Jordan GCZ) and David Moufang (aka Move D). “Recreational Kraut” was recorded live in in three sessions in Jordan’s Amsterdam studio in 2018 and 2019. As the title suggests, the album flirts with the term and the “genre” krautrock and it’s prolonged, often improvised instrumental passages. The equipment used in the late 60s and early 70s was often rather conventional like electric piano, old synthesizers and electric bass guitar. The two instruments shaping the album and giving it a coherence, despite the varied styles and tempos are Czamanski’s Fender Rhodes and Moufang’s lyra-8, an 8 oscillator drone synthesizer which is played manually via touch sensors, giving it a very expressive sometimes violin-like other times outer-worldly, atonal character. The album’s 11 tracks span beat-less ambient soundscapes to jazzy psychedelia, as well as hints of house, techno, broken beat and funk.

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Moufang & Czamanski – Recreational Kraut [SR23LP01]

Scotch Rolex & Shackleton – Death By Tickling [ST1]

New imprint Silver Triplet enters the world with a rocket of a collaborative album from two of electronic music’s most free-spirited mavericks. Combining the surrealist punk ethos of Scotch Rolex and the bass heavy psychedelia of Shackleton, Death by Tickling is ten tracks full of wild and unpredictable changes, incorporating odd time signatures, cosmic synth freak outs and dubbed out space vibrations. At times the album lulls the listener into a zoned out trance whilst at other times it startles with its ferocity, Death by Tickling has the whole range in its Helter Skelter approach.

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Scotch Rolex & Shackleton – Death By Tickling [ST1]

Immediate Proximity – IMPROX 1 [IMPROX1]

Futuristic electronics by Niels Luinenburg (Delta Funktionen) under his new guise Immediate Proximity – in collab with Diana Napirelly. Ambient, Bass, Electro and Techno are the main identifiers for their output. Deep and emotive is the mood, but at the same time the music is playful and has a robust and confident character. This distinct direction, which was laid-out on the pair’s debut LP ‘2334’, has now led to the start of their own label: IMPROX. On IMPROX, the duo experiments vivaciously with color, rhythm, space and tempo. Hi-tech, yet tribalistic rhythms are interlaced with elusive sci-fi themes. Big stage anthems are comfortably combined with cinematic ambient excursions. And through self engineered audio-gen modules, backed by a stark focus on sound design, the IMPROX series marks a powerful upgrade to Luinenburg’s production capabilities.

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Immediate Proximity – IMPROX 1 [IMPROX1]

The Creative Technology Consortium {CtC} – Panoramic Colorsound [DE300]

The venerable Dark Entries celebrates it’s 300th release with “Panoramic Coloursound”, a triple LP from The Creative Technology Consortium. Traxx, Andrew Bisenius, and Jason Letkiewicz forged the CtC during the depths of pandemic isolation. Drawing from film and television music of the 80’s/90’s and armed with a mighty array of vintage analog and digital synthesizers, they set out to explore heists, vices, and catastrophe. Panoramic Coloursound collapses sound and image into a neon blur throughout its 25 tracks. While retro scores were the starting point for the CtC, the project does more than pay dutiful homage — these notes are warped and skewed, devolving into decaying digital soundscapes. EBM-inflected basslines pop up on tracks like “Catastrophe” and “A Retro Vice”, menacing numbers that recall Traxx and Letkiewicz’s legendary work as Mutant Beat Dance (a project also featuring Beau Wanzer). “Follow Our Kode” pairs heroic synths with funky bass, striking cosmic chords akin to the material that Traxx and Bisenius have released as An Anomaly. Krautrock-esque guitars slide along anthemic pads on “Beautifully Polluted Sunset”, which comes across like an alien Miami Vice closing theme. The CtC channel corroded VHS vibes while making music for the future.

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The Creative Technology Consortium {CtC} – Panoramic Colorsound [DE300]

Fashion Flesh – Rubber Mountain LP [BL007]

Fashion Flesh aka John Talaga from Bay City, Michigan, is known for his “off the grid” approach to music. Most all of the instruments used to perform and produce are self-built electronics, oscillators, generators, sound toys, and modulators. Those that are not built from one’s own design are heavily modified beyond audible recognition or return. No sampling/stolen sound is ever used or sucked from outside pre-existing sources. No laptops, instead tape manipulation and hard copy cut-ups…analog devices that are built for specific purpose and dis-purpose. “Rubber Mountain” is his first full LP, 6 tracks of mutant mayhem on The Black Lodge label, spanning from odd italo-disco flavors, to no-wave, post-punk, jakbeat, and experimental sounds from the beyond. Equally for the dancefloor and home listening, this record has it all.

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Fashion Flesh – Rubber Mountain LP [BL007]