Aus | Everis
Tokyo-born composer and producer aus has announced the release of a brand new album via London independent label Lo Recordings x FLAU. Everis features 10 songs performed on piano, strings, clarinet, flute, voice and electronics that encompass ideas plucked from disparate genres such as classical, spiritual jazz, indie, avant-garde and folk. Vibrations of everyday life […]
Bersarin Quartett | Systeme
Finally the 5th album of the imaginary German quartet – as always via Denovali. Although the title “Systeme” suggests a perhaps rather distant-cool album, it is the most personal and concentrated soundtrack so far created by Thomas Bücker from Münster in his “E-Smog-Playground” studio. In 2008, the quartet still flirted with cyrillic-mysterious melancholy and red […]
Lord Of The Isles & Ellen Renton | My Noise is Nothing
‘My Noise is Nothing’ is the collaborative LP between Lord of The Isles and Scottish poet Ellen Renton, set for release on the 29th September 2023. For the pair, both the poems and music came to them in a quick and concentrated period. Renton’s poems were written during 2020 and capture something of that time- […]
Yoshinori Sunahara | Lovebeat (Kioon)
Lovebeat is the fourth solo studio album by Yoshinori Sunahara. It was released on Ki/oon Records on May 23, 2001. Ken Hollings of The Wire wrote, “Sunahara’s fourth solo album finds the Techno dreamer extraordinaire returning to basics in its reappraisal of origins and influences.” Snoozer placed the album at number 8 on the “50 […]
Anagrams | Blue Voices
Balmat co-founders Philip Sherburne and Albert Salinas have been fans of Shy Layers’ lilting, Balearic pop for years, so when Shy Layers’ JD Walsh asked us to listen to a set of demos he was working up with fellow Atlanta multi-instrumentalist Jeff Crompton, we jumped at the chance. And once we heard their work in […]
Habitat Ensemble | Habitat Ensemble
The collective originates deep in the south of the Czech Republic, on the border with Austria, amongst the idyllic hills and fields of a village called Maříž, where a summer school of outsiders and creatives have been gathering since the 1990s. Enriching each other through intercultural exchange, summer school participants have created a unique gathering […]
Basil Neptune | Honkytonk Cheeseballs
The Nag’s Head was a warts-and-all vessel for the sonic meanderings of Brighton artist Stephen Maskell. Taking in richly textural techno, corrupted pop and ASMR drone sculptures, his four releases on Kit documented the ecstatic mundanity of life in broken Britain. Maskell’s impressive ear for a dancefloor bothering rhythm (most likely recorded using a biscuit […]
Miguel Atwood-Ferguson | Les Jardins Mystiques
14 years in the making, “Les Jardins Mystiques Vol.1” comprises 52 tracks / 3.5 hours of music composed, arranged and produced by Miguel with contributions from 50+ friends including Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, DOMi & JD Beck, Jeff Parker, Carlos Niño, Austin Peralta, Bennie Maupin, Gabe Noel, Jamael Dean, Jamire Williams, Burniss Travis II, Deantoni Parks, […]
Fabiano do Nascimento | Das Nuvens
Los Angeles-based Fabiano Do Nascimento is a multi-string guitarist and songwriter who melds the traditional idioms of his native Brazil (i.e., samba, choro) with the more contemporary and experimental strains of jazz, pop, and electronic music. Das Nuvens (“The Clouds”), out July 21, 2023 on Leaving Records, is a crisp, frequently blissful, and deceptively groove-oriented […]
The Pacific Visions of Martin Glass
Exiled in Taiwan working on a deal that never gets done, an American businessman falls under the hypnotic spell of the Pacific. His is an Asiatisch fever dream – seaside lovers, translucent virtual vocalists, glass-y ’80s synthesisers and multinational muzak. It’s an ode to Pacific bubble decadence, beamed from a lilo or a roof garden […]
Hania Rani | Ghosts
Hania Rani announces her new album, Ghosts, bringing her songwriting and beautiful vocals to the fore and featuring special guests Patrick Watson, Ólafur Arnalds and Duncan Bellamy (Portico Quartet). Ghosts is the sound of an ever-evolving artist and, just as the album’s title suggests she passes repeatedly and gracefully between musical worlds: as composer, singer, […]
Carlos Niño & Friends | (I’m just) Chillin’, on Fire
While the album compiles live and studio arrangements recorded in places like Venice, Leimert Park and Woodstock over the past three years, it feels harmonious, as if captured in one space with all musicians present. This highlights Niño’s ability as a conductor and producer. That he could winnow such vast experimentation into a seamless set […]
Coryayo | AUM
“This is a sacred healing album heavily inspired by my experiences with Plant Medicine, Ego Death and Sound Healing. A powerful and meditative exploration of sound, Cory takes you on a journey of sound through the use of many different organic instruments, chants, textures of nature & healing vibrations. Every track is tuned to the […]
The Notional Pastures Of Imaginary Softwoods
Time bends for Imaginary Softwoods, the solo guise of producer, songwriter, and synthesist John Elliott. Though he’s working on new recordings daily, Elliott’s process for the construction of his albums moves at a much different interval, stretching out over months of considerate listening, revision, and waiting patiently for the right combinations and clashes of elemental […]
Midori Takada | Tree of Life
Originally recorded in September 1998 at legendary Ginza (Tokyo) studio Onkio Haus (founded in 1974 and where Ryuichi Sakamoto’s “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence” and many more were recorded) and released on CD only for the Japan market in 1999, Tree of Life is Midori Takada’s best kept secret, a lost gem of minimalism and percussive […]
Meitei | Komachi
“Things fade into obscurity when a populace has no interest” – Meitei / 冥丁 2019 – Meitei considers himself an old soul, often preoccupied with the customs and rituals of the past. Recently Meitei lost his beloved 99-year-old grandmother, a woman who he considered to be one of the last remaining people to have experience […]
Conic Rose | Heller Tag
‘Heller Tag‘ is the debut album of Berlin-based jazz collective Conic Rose. The young musicians come from the most diverse musical backgrounds. What connects them is their love toexplore, create, redefine and effortlessly move between abstraction and accessibility, high quality sound and the beauty of the imperfect – interweaving electronic elements, cinematic jazz, vibey soundscapes and […]
Andrew Wasylyk | Parallel Light
With ’Parallel Light’, AndrewWasylyk offers an alternative mix album to 2020’s spiritual-jazz and neo-classical masterclass in melody, ‘Fugitive Light And Themes Of Consolation’. This new LP, his third with Athens Of North Records, is as much a different perspective as a companion piece. The ten songs still circle landscapes for meaning, channelling half-heard melodies and […]