Our RECOMMENDED column is back in this early 2017 Spring period; as usual, we present you about 50 records (this time even more!) we feel is worth suggesting you, whether they refer to the immediate past weeks, to some heavy-consumed release we just cannot stop listening to, or they recall some beloved artist who left us too early. Here below you can find the wide-range categories you should be aware of to best read this list. The records appear in ALPHABETICAL ORDER. Enjoy!
- Brand New, reporting our suggestions referred to the last three months before the publication of the article;
- Still Hot / Heavy Rotation, featuring stuff that is about 6-to-12-months old and that is worth mentioning one more time;
- Blasts From the Past, including suggestions of works still relevant today;
- and finally, the Other Suggestions part to complete the picture
AA.VV. – Inutile De Fuir [CASUAL GABBERZ]
Listen / Tags: gabber, casualcore, hardstyle
“INUTILE DE FUIR is a manifesto-compilation with 51 tracks inspired by the Hardcore-Gabber sound. For this one-of-a-kind project, we asked more than 40 artists to create an original track, inspired by “hard” genres (Hardcore, Gabber, Doom, Trance, Hardstyle, Jumpstyle…). Refusing to get bogged down by each genre’s obligations while respecting their codes, these “club” experimentations celebrate, through original creation, 4 years of existence of the collective and the people we managed to gather around who ventured off the beaten track to simply slum it down” [via]. Also comes with a 80-minutes-long videoclip you can have a look at following this link.
AA.VV. – Outro Tempo: Electronic And Contemporary Music From Brazil 1978-1992 [Music From Memory]
Listen / Tags: electronics, contemporary, brazil, folk
“For their first multi-artist compilation, Music From Memory take us on a trip to the heart of the Amazon rainforest. [The] double LP that explores the outer reaches of Brazilian music, where indigenous rhythms mix with synthesizers and where MPB mingles with drum computers. The product of extensive research, this compilation is a unique introduction to this visionary music and features many fresh discoveries in a country well trodden by record diggers. It gathers tracks from obscure albums that have for too long been neglected by even the most avid collectors of Brazilian music. It includes now highly sought after music by Andréa Daltro, Maria Rita, and Fernando Falcão, as well as unknown gems like those of Cinema, Carlinhos Santos, and Anno Luz. This is an essential release that reveals a broader spectrum of Brazilian music, striking a unique sonic signature that is full of innovation, experimentation, and beauty. Compiled by John Gómez and featuring extensive liner notes, Outro Tempo showcases this overlooked corner in Brazil’s rich music history for the first time” [via].
AA.VV. – Volume 1 [Ceramics]
Listen / Tags: Bristol, bass, jungle, experimental
“The wild mind of the wolf / stopped by a rain-filled hoof print / The river runs like glue / through every uncorrected proof. // After a self-inflicted hiatus, spent scrounging around the gutters we return with Vol.1, The first in a series of mixtapes. 10 tracks from the first 10 artists to present guest mixes published on our soundcloud. Friendships new and old, sonically drifting from the club to the cave” [via].
Featuring: OMAAR, Gramrcy, Preston/Read, Filter Dread, 1127, Joane Skyler, Presente, Mhah Mos, rkss, Infinity Frequencies. Don’t miss the chance to see youngster Presente opening live set at Macao’s Dance Aflliction #5 May the 13th in Milan, Italy: “his music layers tense pieces of posthuman melodrama with a digital palette of darkened synths and broken beats: heavy bursts that draw from industrial music, grime, IDM and jungle, while his rugged sense for moody melodies conducts through tense emotional drifts” [via].
Arca – Arca [XL Recordings]
Listen / Tags: vocals, abstract, electronics
“With its eerie silences, foreboding chords and hymnal chanting, Arca’s third record really does manage to erect a sonic cathedral around your ears. This ceaselessly pioneering producer [] takes ecclesiastical tropes and ingests them into his warped, dissonant and giddily contemporary world. Using his own voice [] – a move encouraged by Björk – Arca improvises melodies and lyrics in Spanish, backed by a filleted version of the startling industrial noise found in his earlier work. Exquisite opener Piel captures the interplay between poise and prostration that has made Catholic ritual such a rich artistic seam, while arch humor is provided by Whip – hyper-real lashing accompanied by the sound of a powering-down robot – and Desafío, which takes disposable Eurotrash pop and makes it worthy of pious contemplation” [via].
Take a look at the video up here we shot at Club To Club Festival 2016 #IAMC2C in Turin, November, 2016: it appears we got Saunter (album’s track #03) at [0:59-2:41]!
Arrigo Lora-Totino – Toccata Vocale/Ursprache [Holidays Records]
Listen / Tags: experimental, sound poetry, vocals, non-music
Holidays Records: “Working at the vinyl release of the Trio3 Prosodico we had the chance to meet Arrigo Lora-Totino and to go with him through his archive of reel tapes and unreleased material, bumping into these two pieces belonging to a completely different nature compared to the ones we were acquainted with – less “acting” and much more “exercise” – where the voice is stressed to its limits in two opposite ways. Toccata vocale is a boiling chorus of short vowel sounds – like hiccuping bullets of a jammed machine gun – while Ursprache is a creepy flow of stretched growling voices ending with a multilingual echoing scream” [via].
Barnacles – One Single Sound [Boring Machines / Non Piangere Dischi]
Listen / Tags: drone, noise, minimal, beats
“Bored of working for years on microsounds, crick & crocks, drones, and field recordings, Matteo Uggeri launches a new project based on field recordings, drones, crick and crocks, microsounds and ignorant beats. Each of these four tracks is then built using only 1 drone, 1 field recording, 1 sampled drumbeat. Then a lot of effects. Inspired by the letters of Charles Robert Darwin to William Darwin Fox. “I am at work on the second vol. of the Cirripedia, of which creatures I am wonderfully tired: I hate a Barnacle as no man ever did before, not even a Sailor in a slow-sailing ship. My first vol. is out: the only part worth looking at is on the sexes of Ibla & Scalpellum; I hope by next summer to have done with my tedious work” [via]”
Basic Rhythm – The Basics [Type Recordings]
Listen / Tags: grime, jungle, bass
“Anthony J Hart gets down to UK rave fundamentals on a killer 2nd LP under his Basic Rhythm pseudonym. Where his more prolific Imaginary Forces output is all about the push ’n pull of power noise and post-rave techno dynamics, Basic Rhythm fixes a steely focus on the physics of the UK’s hardcore continuum; decimating and distilling jungle, grime and garage into their common and most effective dancefloor denominators. Basic Rhythm offers Hart up as a sort Leyden Jar battery or vessel storing decades of absorbed and condensed pirate radio transmissions, and The Basics can be heard as his disciplined attempt to parse those muscle memories and sensations into something tangibly, rudely physical but, most crucially, leaving aside those bits he considers unnecessary in a defragging process of mental sonic décollage – breaking down outmoded values and replacing at a distance from the original medium.
What remains forms a kind of refreshingly eviscerated halcyontology, recollecting and rinsing out the good times spending his p’s on new shells at legendary shops such as Music Power (Ilford) and Boogie Times; listening to Rude FM 88.2, Unity 88.4, Pulse 90.6, Weekend Rush 92.3, Kool FM 94.5; cutting dubs at Music House; and swanging his jaw at legendary venues and club nights like Stratford Rex, Temple, Labrynth, Telepathy, Slammin’ Vinyl and One Nation. In reducing those aspects to a pointillist vocabulary of sawn-off drums, harness-straining subs and tessellating, tussling stabs of flava, he leaves a spare air prompting ambiguous reading of ‘dread’ and ‘ecstasy’, depending on the listener’s own reception/perception. It’s a dichotomy at the core of E18’s postcode-warring sublow shift, explored in the crevices between rap and grime in Fake Thugs, or the way Silent Listener (Adore) is intended to illuminate dank bedrooms, whilst the ructions of Cool Breeze (Summer In Woodford Green) and the fractiously mapped road rave styles of Blood Klaat Kore lend an overlapping sense of deep topographical study to the mix” [via].
Bedwetter – Flick Your Tongue Against Your Teeth And Describe The Present [Self-Released]
Listen / Tags: underground hip hop, lo-fi
“Just a year after his breakout release, 2012’s Mista Thug Isolation, Travis Miller, a.k.a. Lil Ugly Mane, announced his retirement. Unable to keep totally quiet, he satisfied his fans with eclectic compilations, like the Three Sided Tape trilogy. Now, on volume 1, Miller begins a dark new saga as bedwetter, revealing his struggle in vivid detail, and offering a “polemic yelp review of [the] American healthcare system.” Be warned: bedwetter will swiftly kill the mood at any party. Much of Miller’s aesthetic is borrowed from ‘90s Memphis horrorcore, celebrating the infernal and debauched on dollar store cassettes. His frenzied, intense delivery can sting or be wryly humorous—”stoop lights” addresses the cyclical nature of addiction while remarking “fucked up with a room with a view to a wasteland“.
Read more at Bandcamp’s Album of the Day: bedwetter and A Brief Guide to the Music of Lil’ Ugly Mane.
Black Merlin – Proto World EP [Berceuse Heroique]
Listen / Tags: tribal, techno, ambient
“Perfectly stoic tribal techno tension and cathartic ambient release from Black Merlin, playing deep into the Berceuse Heroique agenda. All killer, no filler here; the lead pipe whacks, possessed grunts and hi-line strings of Proto World seem to consolidate early Psychick Warriors Of Gaia and Carl Craig’s Demented Drums, whereas Spirit House is more concerned with invoking ancient gamelan ghosts, and Vision Animal brings the bang with a a more monotone, steamrolling momentum recalling early Zhark or Shifted output, leaving the sensitively constructed abyss of Hope to prove he’s definitely no one trick pony [via]”.
Black Seed – Dirtybox EP [Sign Bit Zero]
Listen / Tags: industrial, EBM, techno,
“Sign Bit Zero’s next output is Black Seed, the alternate identity of Turin-based DJ and producer Matteo Viani. The project is a showcase of his excavations into the realm of electro-tinged techno and live experimentation. Using the sharp edges of a raw, tribalistic robot funk sound as tools for crafting rhythm, Black Seed generates unsettling yet grooving scenarios, basemental bangers of danger dunked in smoke and hypnosis” [via].
Black Seed video appereances on PaynomindtousLIVE YouTube channel: [1] / [2]
Brucianuvole – Scartati Ed Emarginati [Self-Released]
Listen / Tags: noise, folk, drones, diy
“Enrico Carrino’s [Ame, Ame Pantin] brand new moniker, Brucianuvole, focuses on harsh and lonely feelings which take inspiration from the previous productions as well as the folk / lo-fi tradition, but driven by noise and ambient impulses. Brucianuvole translate suffering to art, shifting the attention from a noisy form of criticism towards society to an intimate inward look at his own personality, fears and desires” [via].
Cult Of Terrorism – Il Freddo Di Quel Che Esiste [Dio Drone]
Listen / Tags: dark ambient, drone, noise
Cult of Terrorism is Josha Pettinicchio’s moniker, here at his second release ever, this time on the Italian infamour DioDrone outcome – the label’s name is nothing less than a funny Italian ‘bestemmia’ (word for blasphemy). The tape, limited to 40 copies, collects about 51 minutes of obscure, loud (dark) ambient compositions, with few beats adding hints of rhythmic patterns over it. Coming in an all-black, limited.edition handmade tape box (black the tape, black the heavy paper, black the booklet and the credits), the record features Giovanni Mori (Le Cose Bianche) and Leonardo Granchi (Bad Girl) in two separated tracks, adding up to the artist’ and DioDrone’s underlying philosophy, which ‘to live in the sun but to trust the darkness’. Artwork by Nàresh Ran. photos by Joshua Pettinicchio & Rossella Freggia.
Christoph De Babalon – The Haunting Past of Christoph de Babalon, Vol. II [Self-Released]
Listen / Tags: experimental, gothic breakcore, dark ambient
“The second part of the series [check here the first one, out late 2014] features more hard to find or even unreleased tracks from the early years of Christoph de Babalon dating back as far as 1993. It includes BBC-DJ-legend John Peel’s favourite ‘I Own Death’ as well as ‘Are You Talking To Me?’, the latter never got a proper release but still made its way onto the decks of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. ‘Kirchengänger’, ‘Alpenglühen’, ‘Leave Me In The Autumn’ and ‘Marble Stairs’ have never been released before this day” [via].
Constellation Botsu – ファカすっかもじゃんかよ (FAKA SUKKA MOJYANKAYO) [Haunter Records]
Listen / Tags: noise, digital electronics, experimental
“Oomune Taka is an unknown creature from Japan, communicating with the world through a digital avatar named Constellation Botsu. His actual whereabouts and personal history are unknown, the only tangible manifestation being the innumerable micro-explosions of digital noise he constantly emits. Botsu is a maker of short chaotic poetry made of dissonant frequencies, overloaded with weird harmonics and sense-shattering sound motion. Pushing the envelope on the classical japan-school harsh noise, Constellation Botsu captures a diverse range of contradicting emotional states and has them clash into brief pieces of intensity. Haunter Records captured some of those psychic fragments and printed them on CD, unleashing their joyfully destructive potential. Glowing electronic madness for hyper-stimulation junkies” [via]
Dead Man’s Chest – Trilogy [Ingredients Records]
Listen / Tags: jungle, drum and bass, hardcore
“Dead Man’s Chest returns to Ingredients with more crusty break chopping vibes, 90s style. The aptly named Trilogy is available as a double-sided cassette mix featuring material from his initial trilogy of EPs alongside six previously unheard dubs, which Ingredients have also dropped on three new limited edition 10″ singles. Fans of the project will know exactly what to expect; crunchy jungle breaks, deliberately rough and ready mixdowns, psychedelic textures and more than a few nods to the iconic era of jungle and hardcore. Alex’s knack for capturing what made early rave music so special is definitely still present here. What remains unclear is whether Trilogy marks the end of the Dead Man’s Chest project, or just the end of chapter one; time will tell” [via].
“Dead Man’s Chest is the Jungle / Hardcore retrospective project of underrated production talent, Alex Eveson. The once mysterious alias caught the attention of tastemakers and Jungle fans across the board in late 2014 with the prominent ‘Dreamscapes EP’ on Ingredients Records, featuring the deeply unforgettable track ‘Revenant’. On the cusp of the current breaks revival in drum and bass, this producer is gearing up for further success in 2015, with Nautilus EP slated for the summer. Discerning followers of the sound will be best finding themselves at one of his chaotic Jungle DJ sets in the meantime” [via].
Dedekind Cut – The Expanding Domain [Self-Released]
Listen / Tags: ambient, drone, experimental
“Fred Warmsley, at one point in time known as Lee Bannon, and at this point in time known as Dedekind Cut: this short release comes as a reminder of the producer’s highly creative output over the years, and we see him expanding even more his arsenal of processed sounds and textures, creating both transient ambient music and almost nightmarish industrial incursions in one cut after the other (as heard on the immersive title-track). The striking mix of such disparate genres and production styles is complimented by Bannon’s unpredictable artistic vision, and it is quite pleasant to see him delivering such strange, otherworldly music years after his first endeavours.
The Expanding Domain is eccentric, misguiding and confusing at times, but it also benefits from the same aspects that can be pointed as the most off-putting qualities in his work, and it most certainly sounds more balanced and diverse than many of his recent releases, even if it lacks a more clear structure as a whole, maybe working better as some kind of a tease for a next full lenght than as a full-fledged project of its own, but that is another story anyway. the new, five-track EP features a handful of heavy-hitting guests, including ZutZut, Prurient, Elysia Crampton, Mica Levi, Zack Hill, and more. It’s also apparently a successor to $uccessor, the producer’s fourth release under his latest moniker” [via].
Die Abete – Senza Denti [To lose la track, Sonatine produzioni, Tanato records, Shove records, Longrail records, All ways wrong]
Listen / Tags: hardcore punk, post-hardcore
The peculiar Die Abete 2drums-2guitars-3vocals line-up counts Eugenio Della Mora (drums, vocals), Michele Perla (guitars, vocals), Marco Tortorelli (guitar, vocals) and Lukas Bergmann (drums), coming back on record three years after Tutto O Niente [2004, V4v] with the 8-track, almost-20-minutes long astonishing Senza Denti (Italian for ‘toothless’) release, up over at To Lose La Track, Sonatine, Tanato, Shove and a couple other labels. The band offers havy, chaotic on-top-of-the-lung post-hardcore incorporating math influences but never letting go of the primary urgency punk music is about. Very nice (Italian) lyrics too. Recorded and mixed by Valerio “Fisik” at Hombre Lobo studio, Rome, Italy and mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side Music, NY, USA, the artwork is by Canemorto while Il giorno dei Fuochi and Cheers, Colera! feature Mai Mai Mai and Terence, respectively.
Donato Epiro – Rubisco [Loopy]
Listen / Tags: sound art, experimental, ambient, musique concrète
“Young Italian composer Donato Epiro readies his second full length LP for experimental label Loopy. Field recordings, far-flung samples and FM synthesis come together to create an abstract sound world of ‘post-rave’ limbo. Modern classical is often a fairly dismissive genre bracket but to give an indication of the sort of soundscapes Epiro conjures up it does the job” [via].
“Following his debut album Fiume Nero (2014), the young Italian composer has moved from the raw primordial chaos that characterised his first work to develop a reflection on how a hypothetical absence of humans and biological life could modify industrialized and civilized spaces. Using field recordings, obscure samples and FM synthesis, Epiro draws his abstract landscapes as a series of overexposed and imprecise pictures made by concrete and organic architectures, amorphous rhythmic patterns, repetitive sequences broken by oblique elements that seems looking for a new active role into the ecosystem. Exploring communication and transitions between the inanimate side of the existing and the living one, the sound of Rubisco seems to be pulled out from the walls of an abandoned building or captured while it is lying on the ground of empty spaces or fluctuating like fine dust through the light. It leads the listener into a form of “after rave” limbo, or a personal hiding place, where the head projects only the image of the sounds you’ve listened to during your human experience. The result is a record that plays with taut minimal touches, inspired by the work of Egisto Macchi and Angus MacLise, alongside the sonic delirium recently dreamed up by the likes of Demdike Stare and Fis” [via].
Read more: Noisey Interview by Federico Sardo [Italian Only]
Drøp – V.I.T.R.I.O.L. [Dromoscope]
Listen / Tags: industrial, noise, techno, experimental
“While bringing the Antidigital’s four-fold path to completion, V.I.T.R.I.O.L. squares the symbolic structure of the Series by focusing with conceptual precision and musical elegance the heaviest of elements within the alchemic cycle: Water. Both adaptable and erosive, essence and abyss, the paramount fluid is an archetype of metamorphosis. Constantly attempting to overtake every obstacle towards the gravitational center, pervading and transmuting the Earth by transforming itself, Water eternally conquers the depths where it still serves as origin, nest and nourishment of life. Like a torrent, V.I.T.R.I.O.L. tells and embodies the sublimating Descent of Water, taking shape as a pouring of micro-tonal falls, opening passageways through a radiant narration of deep intimate soundscapes. Framing a sequence of almost religious experiments in circuit manipulation and digital-processing of the resulting electrical sound-fields, the short album signs the important inspirational contribution by Drøp to Dromoscope’ Antidigital project. Enchanting second outcome by sound designer Giuseppe Bifulco, V.I.T.R.I.O.L. resonates clearly of a post-modern electronic shamanism, a fascinating musical vision interpreting sound as a physiological trigger and music itself as a therapeutic instrument, a path for an interior empty-set (ø) capable to free consciousness from rational domain and reconnect it to deeper natural truths. Like a map for the Descent, V.I.T.R.I.O.L. engraves its own name and structure with one of the most substantial hermetic aphorisms ever, “Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem”, dropping a hint and pointing a destination for the healing research of the truth: the unknown interiors of the world, the subterranean unveiled inner self.
Without any will to take part at the usual diatribe that counterposes Analog to Digital, the Series name is rather inspired by a specific direction in the musical research of the works involved. Curated, produced and handmade by Daniele De Santis as a systematic start for Dromoscope Editions, the Antidigital Series (AA) takes shape as a sequence of musical portraits depicting the activity of four musicians spontaneously engaged in a keen re-discover of the Analog sphere. Driven by this awakening to the natural science ruling the purest substance of sound, the Series symbolically crystallizes its main structure in the cycle of the four alchemic Elements. Gradually unveiling a four-ways path into a possible modern instrumental dialogue between complex software elaborations and recycled musical technologies, the project explores the cassette media itself as instrument and symbol of the ‘Antidigital’ process” [via].
Fabio Perletta – Ichinen [LINE]
Listen / Tags: electronics, ambient, minimalism, experimental
“Ichinen (Japanese 一念) is the follow-up to Fabio Perletta’s 2016 work Genkai, released by LINE imprint, and perhaps his most narrative album in material concept and sound. Where Genkai found itself exploring the limit as a compositional rule, Ichinen follows similar paths but in a more immersive, intimate and mysterious way, drawing inspiration from a trip in Japan in 2015 and a book of Suzuki Daisetsu Teitarō titled Living by Zen. The two kanji of the title, 一 (one) and 念 (thought), refer to the shortest possible unit of time as a principle of Zen practice that Suzuki Daisetsu Teitarō describes in Living by Zen, or more precisely the time occupied by a single thought. Time represents an instant or “absolute present”, “a point of time which has neither the past nor the future […], that it is to say ichinen is where eternity cuts into time”. It exactly corresponds to what it’s known as Satori, which “takes place when consciousness realizes a state of one thought”.
Ichinen investigates the notion of presence in a re-defined territory of sonic experience. Incorporating sounds from Japanese traditional objects found in common and sacred locations, Perletta explores the complexity of emotional states experienced before, during and after a very long awaited trip. The work thus aims to re-construct fragmented expectations and memories here framed in a still and timeless auditory field, which fuses together and transcends dimensions of time and space. Arranged in three pieces, each one having distinct movements that drift from one into another, Ichinen is mainly based on various recordings collected in Tokyo, Takayama and Kyoto, subsequently processed using computer” [via].
Forever Now – Eternal Flame [Forever Now]
Listen / Tags: electronics, digital, dancefloor
“Naples-based producers Davide Salvati (Dave Saved) and NPLGNN have united to give birth to Forever Now, fusing their unique post-rave sensibilities to engage in a new line of work to access a new scope of possibilities. Their first effort, “Eternal Flame” is a work of excavation: dissecting forms of escapism and club culture to extract its tragic, frighteningly empty existential genetics as well as its higher spiritual potential. This brought about two long movement in which the sound elements of each sample are enslaved and weaponized. One per each side of their first self- released tape and one per each member of the duo, showing a different approached to a similar starting point, engaging with different concepts.
Dave Saved has digitally manipulated original materials and fragments of musical entertainment that are usually considered to be lighthearted, energetic and fun, warping them into deformed cinematic soundscapes, revealing the monstrous nature lying underneath. All the drama and existential dread that has been put aside in favor of a fun night out is restored back to life into a kind of critical aggression, but also revealed in its melancholic beauty. For his side, NPLGNN has instead chosen a more autobiographical yet magical tone. Remodeling much of his own self-produced material, old and new, he has dilated, chop and resampled all of the sounds it in order for them to give birth to new dynamics . He has then employed them in the creation a kind of hazy dancefloor environment, an endless moment of empathic exchange” [via].
Gábor Lázár – Crisis of Representation [Shelter Press]
Listen / Tags: electronics, experimental, abstract, glitch
“Budapest-based composer Gábor Lázár debuts on Shelter Press with his second full length album, Crisis of Representation. Continuously defining his unique composition skills over the years, Gábor Lázár shared a first release with Russell Haswell for his now defunct imprint Last Foundation, quickly followed in 2014
by the album I.L.S. on Lorenzo Senni’s Presto!? label and EP16 on Boomkat’s The Death of Rave, before collaborating last year on a joint album with Mark Fell for the highly acclaimed The Neurobiology of Moral Decision Making, also released on The Death of Rave. Crisis of Representation, his next statement is a collection of 7 (+1) pieces. Years in the making, the record gathers tracks « mostly recorded in 2015, but some of the tracks were recorded as early as 2011 ; but they are all about the same idea. It’s really important to me to be able to be focused over a long period of time ».
Titled as Crisis of Representation, the album is another step further into the direction his abstract techno fragments. Instead of repeating beats, Gábor Lázár maintains linearity by using only one type of characteristic sound and a few composition techniques throughout the whole album. Gábor Lázár Crisis Of Representation will be released on January 2017 on LP (with bonus CD), CD, and digital formats. Mastered and cut at D+M by Rashad Becker, with artwork by Zsófia Boda” [via].
Grebenstein – Gloss EP [Horo]
Listen / Tags: techno, industrial techno, non-club music
“Grebenstein is a producer, DJ and visual artist living in Kassel, Germany. After playing in several bands as a drummer and guitarist he made his solo-debut with a 4-track EP on the Regis helmed label – Downwards Records in November 2014. The ‘Gloss’ 4 track EP for Horo comes after his Downwards Records follow up ‘Strong, Proud, Stupid, & Superior’ with Seefried was released in October 2016. Title track ‘Gloss’ centres on percussive crescendos and pensive guitar layers, while ‘Self’ and it’s ‘Version’ stretch this effect out into a grinding, slow motion introspection. ‘Loss’ closes the EP with serrated drum machine blasts punctuating feedback contortions. The tension throughout the EP is palpable, with the shaping of the tension providing the substance of his signature style. Non club tracks for open minded clubs” [via].
Heidseck – Margins [manyfeetunder]
Listen / Tags: drone, ambient, experimental, minimalism
“Heidseck is a project by Fabrizio Matrone, also producing under the Matter moniker. Since 1999 the early stage of Heideseck provides for the use of guitars with delays, echos and reverbs that bring to life guitars feedback and drones stratification. The early records are long sessions recorded live by microphones and 4 tracks cassette recorder to take advantage from the induced tape delays. The sound is dark and hallucinated, it is inspired by psychedelic and the most extreme experimental electronic music” [via].
Herva – Hyper Flux [Planet Mu]
Listen / Tags: techno, leftfield, breakbeats, electro
“Few artists have the ability to totally seduce over a few spins like Herva. What may seem messy at first listen starts to fall into sharper definition and ‘Hyper Flux’ makes a very strong case for being his most seductive and mature record yet. The title of the record explains his approach – he says “My music doesn’t change for better or worse but it’s made with a different perception of the moment, and it’s always in flux.” So on ‘Hyper Flux’ he’s dismantled the broken beats of his early records and drifts, dives and shivers, with beats blended into the haze, everything approached from unusual angles with none of the music sounding entirely digital as it smudges between manipulated live instrumentation and field recordings coupled with fm synthesis and space – there’s a warm heart at the centre of this music. Of making the album he says “I challenged myself to play real instruments. I have a lot of guitars and weird acoustic instruments at my home and also my Dad’s. He’s primarily a guitarist and an inventor of instruments, so I have lots of those. Anyway I’m not a pro but I’m able to play drums quite well and I’m not that bad on guitars and bass too, but the weirdo instruments are the best, you are even more free to reinvent how to play them since no one else knows how to.”
The deep ambience of the albums opener ‘Esotic Energy’ melts into the shivering 4/4 pulses of ‘Jitter’. ‘Nasty MF’ pits a sludgy house beat against rough vocal samples whose aggression is disarmed by bell-like melodies, matching one earthiness for another. ‘Rule The Sun’ melts pattering drums and distorted chords with distant piano, while ’Multicone’ takes things down with relaxing undulating chords and clicks and cuts. The centrepiece of the album is the space cruise of ‘Lly Spirals’ which sounds like early 80s boogie blasted into the stratosphere. Things start to get weird with ‘Solar Xub’s drifting jazz, punctuated with scratchy beats and noise. ‘Cops Twerk’ is a rattling piece of uptempo techno with flickering rave chords and a vocal that sounds like police radio whereas ‘Peach’ is a bristling piece of ambient house, all reverbed hits and reversed stabs over a scuttling broken drum kit. ‘Dedicated’ featuring the vocals of Mar G. balances loose chords and a reversed break against her plaintive, striking vocal. ‘Hyper Flux’ finishes the way it started, with the distorted chords of ‘Zykmed’, echoing dust and hiss played out over a gentle nostalgic melody” [via].
Homemade Weapons – Traitors EP [Weaponry]
Listen / Tags: drum & bass, dnb, seattle
“Sparse, Industrial Ambient atmospheric Drum & Bass (half-) steppers w/ deadly precise drum break cut-up science” [via]. More from Homemade Weapons: here.
In Zaire – Visions of the Age to Come [Sounds of Cobra]
Listen / Tags: psychedelic, rock, kraut
“In Zaire are closing the chapter opened in 2013 with their critically acclaimed debut full-length „White Sun Black Sun“. This time, the fever-dance takes on new environments, new worlds, new visions. „Visions Of The Age To Come“ is the aptly named follow-ups name that is to be released on Sound Of Cobra Records this spring. Where its predecessor was bred in much more blurred musical hotbeds, „Visions Of The Age To Come“ is an expressive kaleidoscope of projections (or perceptions?) coming into focus, and in doing so presenting a rich dialogue with the inner and the outer realities we all have to balance. Through the course of the record we get confronted with sonorous entities constantly trying to work with themselves in order to transform, to find new shapes and to eventually pinpoint the reason of their longing.
Culminating in what is arguably the records key track, „The Seven Sermons Of The Dead“ sees the band leading their newfound approach to the edge with an intense marriage of their rock roots with the outer planes they constantly flirt with – the entrancing main riff moves like a snake in a dizzying journey, which finds its destination in the closing title track. The intensity lifts, the curtains fall, an ending giving birth to a new beginning – In Zaire’s age to come is a promising one” [via].
See two video clipa of In Zaire playing live at Magazzino sul Po, Turin for Psycho River Fest Preview #1 here and here.
Jesse Osborne-Lanthier - Unalloyed, Unlicensed, All Night! [Raster-Noton]
Listen / Tags: experimental, dancefloor, trance, abstract, electronics
“Dedicated to promote young and evolving artists, raster-noton is curating the unun series which name refers to the chemical elements 111-119. »Unalloyed, Unlicensed, All Night!« is Jesse Osborne-Lanthier’s first release on raster-noton, and the ninth and final release of this series. Jesse Osborne-Lanthier is a Berlin / Montreal based, Canadian electronic music producer and multidisciplinary artist. His erratic research process incorporates the urgency of dance music and conceptual electronics by disassembling their grammar and acting through it. Refusing to follow the etiquette of a particular musical genre, he explores many creative practices in order to generate clashes of mood, expectation and technique. »
Unalloyed, Unlicensed, All Night!« was recorded by Osborne-Lanthier a mere two hours before a live set in Paris. Its specific purpose was to generate a response from the audience, to stimulate their bodies through sound. The toolbox for this task was stocked with automatic call-and-response music tropes drawn from EDM, big-room house, trance, and online production tutorials. Between the producer’s idiosyncratic by-the-numbers process and the rushed nature of the composition, the final product is rendered unpredictable; each signifier transforms into a distorted ghost of itself. This allows for unexpected responses to manifest on the dance floor as well as in the listener’s space of existence” [via].
King Rambo Sound – Karma [Unknown Precept]
Listen / Tags: EBM, industrial techno, rhythmic noise
“Latest addition to Unknown Precept’s ever-growing community is Sendai’s newcomer King Rambo Sound, ultimately making his way to the European audience by becoming the fifth installation in our ongoing tape series. Member of the far-off Aoba Nu Noise DJs collective in Japan, Atsushi Akama’s boiling technique is genuinely agitated and does not get embarrassed by exaggerated narratives. Instead, the Japanese producer has been following some sort of empirical approach as if to better disconcert us. Leading to tracks running out of breath on seductive epileptic rhythms, crashing abruptly into the wall. Akama, by being as minimalist and unadorned as possible, manages to capture what makes the strength of rhythmic noise and modern electronic music. Layering a jumble of styles with intense strokes of snares and to-the-ground wobbly bass lines, ‘Karma’ does taste and smell of molten steel and burnt samplers” [via].
Klein – Lagata [Self Released]
Listen / Tags: electronic pop, gospel, soul, R&B, samples
“Klein’s latest EP Lagata is a natural progression from Only, but it takes her sound to the next level as unsettling, hi-def glitches rumble loudly and vocal trills show off her range even more impressively. It’s a vivid work, and it’s accompanied by equally striking artwork (above). Staring intensely at the camera, Klein sits at a desk with her hand poised on a mouse, the typical office environment offset by rows of delicate porcelain plates in the background. “It sort of sets the tone of the record,” she explains, “Just something about it doesn’t feel like I’m real.” ” [via]
Kogan Ryuu – Tsukuyomi / Shigurui [Conspired Within Music]
Listen / Tags: drum & bass, japan, dnb
“Conspired Within Music is a label showcasing the musical works of Conspired Within and other artists with deep & dark dnb electronica as the primary vision: the label’s tagline is ‘Artistic exhibits of abstract sound’ [via]”. With these two tracks, namely Tsukuyomi and Shigurui, this misterious and faceless Kogan Ryuu character gives his contribution to CWM. Compact and saturated bass, minimalisms, repressed violence and cinematic athmospheres.
Luca Garino – Sèlection des musiques traditionnelles d’Afrique [Details Sound]
Listen / Tags: ritual african music, percussions
“Sèlection des musiques traditionnelles d’Afrique is a live recording session of ritual dance from Italian composer Luca Garino and the first release on tape of Details Sound, a Turin based record label run and founded by Giuseppe Magistro [A Hand] and Matteo Fabbri. A fascinating musical document that incorporates percussion ensembles, rural soundscapes and improvisation taken from the traditional African heritage of C.N.R.S. and Ocora catalogues. The selection reveals the artistic practice and tireless research of the Turin based artist who is locally renowned for the most diverse contributions to the experimental music scene” [via].
Marc Ash – Ostracism [Clan Destine Records]
Listen / Tags: minimal synth, post industrial, techno
The Berlin based artist Marc Ash, after releasing the glorious Golden record via his Plovdiv moniker and Blacksilk label, is back using his forename “4 dirty wave-electro-industrial pieces, plus two banging techno reworks by Alexey Volkov and /ϟ/HUREN/ϟ/” [via]. See also the videoclip for Cecilio (Alexey Volkov Remix) by X-IMG right here.
Mongoholy Nazy aka Stefano Tamburini – Thalidomusic For Young Babies [Plastica Marella]
Listen / Tags: abstract, prank, industrial
“1986. April. Unspecified day. Undefined hour. Apartment in an undefined suburb of Rome. A living nebula in a city that constantly repeats the pagan rite of its own life existence. A mattress on the floor. This is one certainty. Next to it a body. Undoubtedly the one of Stefano Tamburini. Heroin. Overdose. Another certainty. The last one. Because the true and the false for Stefano Tamburini had always been useless. Meaningless. Because everything “is” when it “is”, like a quantum commandment. Everything “is” when you feel it, when it scratches you, it knocks you to the floor. When you live. The rest doesn’t exist, it won’t exist for eternity. But then it returns, sudden, but it’s already past. Stefano Tamburini is the great absentee of Italian culture, chemical ghost of Italian media laboratories, where they create myths for the present generations, ready to be parcelled up in astonishing series to be included in national newspapers or TV shows that breastfeed the thousands of Millenniums depressed by cerebral onanism caused by encephalic absence. Stefano Tamburini was, but he especially wasn’t. Incessant denial. But not as an act of disobedience. That attitude belongs to the winners, the Italian race par excellence, devoted to the constant and servile adoration for the “strong” and to the constant scorn for the weak. Instead Tamburini dedicated himself to the narration of constant disavowal, creating an extremely personal code of No! always and anyways: not to conquer spaces of recognition, but to lose his conscience and presence right in those very spaces, to recreate a reality that’s denial of the present, so more true than the truth. Stefano Tamburini was many things: comics author with the marvellous invention of Ranxerox (a monumental screenplay on Frigidaire entrusted to the Michelangelesque pencils of Tanino Liberatore: the synthetic chav Ranx with his teenage girl Lubna in a grim cyberpunk Rome) and Snake Agent (absolutely revolutionary for the time, created using Xerox Art techniques and the use of détourment inherited from Situationist International). Creator of magazines, graphic designer and non-musician.
A kinetic vortex that united the New York of Mars and Contortions with Mario Schifano, Tano Festa and Franco Angeli. The Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire with Residents and Aldo Piromalli, Pere Ubu with Alberto Grifi and Victor Cavallo. Stefano Tamburini wrote a column on Frigidaire entitled RedVynile. In this column, Tamburini played the part of a ruthless music critic, precisely RedVynile, who inevitably tore to pieces any musical proposal, using a rude style that bordered on obscene language. Because of this column, many upcoming musicians started to send their tape-recorded music to Tamburini asking for his opinion and advice. Tamburini, submerged by tapes and annoyed by their poor quality, decided to create a musical collage by cutting and destructuring the tracks he received. He published the result under the pseudonym Mongoholy-Nazy, playing the part of an imaginary Hungarian musician. This was the genesis of Thalidomusic for youngbabies, which was released on cassette in just a few dozen copies. But what is Thalidomusic for youngbabies? First of all it’s Italy’s biggest “no wave” work, in fact anti-wave work, The Apotheosis of No! But even more importantly Thalidomusic for youngbabies is the most true and sincere (so crude, violent, dirty, but unbearably romantic) narration of Italy in the very early 1980s. Try to read Thalidomusic for youngbabies with your ears and you will suddenly be catapulted into the most harrowing generational film ever made in Italy. Yes, because it should be lived like a visual story, but made one’s own and experimented on one’s own skin. A non-fiction work about the lost generation that emerged from the 1970s devastated. Suburbs, blood, shit, love and hormonal cataclysm. An escape route towards closed and oppressing spaces. Destroy and don’t rebuild. Getting lost. Have a good journey towards nowhere with Thalidomusic for Young Babies” [via].
Read more about Stefano Tamburini on Valerio Mattioli’s ‘L’eredità di Stefano Tamburini‘, IlTascabile.com [ITA ONLY].
N1L – Ikea Zen [UIQ]
Listen / Tags: grime, jungle, dub techno
“N1L lurches back into cranky post-techno action on Lee Gamble’s label with the Ikea Zen EP: six tracks of deviant, obtuse dance music that brings the future to heel with X amount of noise and abstract funk. Having the honour of inaugurating UIQ with the Wrong Headspace EP, Martin Rokis’ 2nd volley feels more pinched and nervy, rolling out with discombobulating effect akin to caffeinated browser window-hopping or being physically rendered as an algorithmic .gif or holographic projection while in the middle of the dance. Depending on your tolerance for vertigo and motion sickness, that sense of quantum instability is entirely pleasurable or quease-inducing. Maybe we were bounced on our heads too much as kids, but we’re definitely in the former set and all up for being turned inside out.
A-side he plays with the gearbox as a Rubik’s cube in #accelerate, slipping in and out of meter and focus with bewildering diffusion of grime ballistics and gyroid vox before Sleep Architecture gets on a heavy-lidded, technoid dancehall tip veering between dreamy and dread feels, while Galactic Tetris comes off like STL tending to a flock of primitive mechanical birds. B-side, Fugu marks the EP’s most messed-up and elusive moments, and the rickety tribalism Hazy One spirals upwards off scooping subs into heady thizz, but the best is kept in the back pocket with a full frontal mentalism called WARWARWAR which sounds exactly as frantic as the title suggests” [via].
Overlook – Smoke Signals EP [UVB-76 Music]
Listen / Tags: drum and bass, experimental, ambient
“UVB-76, the record label from Gremlinz and Ruffhouse, is only concerned with carrying out its vision; supporting artists that it genuinely believes in and pays no mind whatsoever to trends. Overlook as an artist fits perfectly into UVB76’s ethos. A music maker that has earned himself fans and respect by shaping his craft with a series of well -considered releases, not shouting for the rooftops but instead letting the music do the talking, something very novel in the age of social media led insecurity. For UVB76 to release Overlook’s debut LP felt like a natural step for both parties. The foundation of the project may well be drum n bass but the building itself is so much more than that, equal parts dance music and soundtrack influence. The album is a statement of intent for Overlook, only three collaborations are featured across the album and it’s truly the sound of the young artist being comfortable in the specific niche he has created and blossoming into one of electronic music’s most promising talents” [via].
Qual – Cupio Dissolvi [AVANT! Records]
Listen / Tags: EBM, synthwave, minimalwave
“William Maybelline’s Qual makes a return to the forefront of the esoteric minimal synth underground with the teeth clenching EBM grind of Cupio Dissolvi, a three-track EP on Avant! Records that sees him moving deep into the recesses of hardline industrial techno. William Maybelline’s foray into the somewhat oversaturated post-punk scene reflected a singular approach that drew its focus on the more harsh, cold elements of the genre. A project that lay its gaze on the more machine than human side of the dark sounds expelling from his studio. Following a similar trajectory to Silent Servant in his post-Tropic Of Cancer and Sandwell District projects, Qual has taken the more traditional elements of his previous records and scraped away any excess fat, leaving the sound stripped to its bare bones, and while it carries the hallmarks of his previous work, it now reflects Lebanon Hanover’s skeleton, albeit electrified by a strong, relentless techno thud” [via].
Tim Reaper – All Right / Innerspace [Blu Mar Ten Music]
Listen / Tags: drum and bass, jungle
Back to the roots, again. Blu Mar Ten Music guests the young and well-known son of the Jungle Tim Reaper tributing to ” the summer of ’92 with ‘All Right’ and the winter of ’94 with ‘Innerspace’.
“Unbelievably euphoric feel-good jungle here from Tim Reaper, “All Right” possessing one of the catchiest and anthemic vocal hooks you’re likely to here from the genre all year. Paired with a goosebump inducing orchestration – synthlines, strings and keys tumbling down angelic scales and heavenly chord progressions as a brutal Think break lets loose in the background. B-side cut, “Innerspace” is a more ruthless affair, hitting that OG jungle flavour as chopped amens meet rumbling sub bass and eerie washes. Limited copies – move quick!” [via].
Sciahri – Devotion Part 3 [Sublunar]
Listen / Tags: techno, electronics, deep
“Third and final chapter of the trilogy ‘Devotion’, by one of the two owners of Sublunar, Sciahri, consisting of three limited, hand-numbered releases.
Devotion – Part 3 is the final stage of the journey into the author’s sonic environment. The pace is initially fast and energetic, with ‘Anathema’ and ‘Prostration’ exploring different areas of the frequency spectrum through mysterious yet functional techno arrangements, which then lead us to the closing track of this whole excursion, ‘Critical Devotion’, a slow-motion uplifting anthem that brings us back to the surface” [via].
Sect Mark – Demo Tape [Murung Records, Hidden Hands]
Listen / Tags: hardcore, rawpunk
“Sect Mark is a four piece raw punk/hardcore band from Rome. Recorded @ Disorder by Kika in November 2016; mixed and mastered by Piff, artwork by Francesco Goats” [via]. File under: Lexicon Devils, Metro Crowd.
uBiK – Anything You Don’t See Will Come Back To Haunt You [Fratto9]
Listen / Tags: abstract, electroacoustic, experimental, guitar loops
“Mamavegas’s guitar and Acre’s noise terrorist Marco Bonini shows up again with his uBiK digital alter ego. The soundscapes are crafted using multiple guitar loop layers and real-time audio manipulation via random-generation softwares, moving baldly into noise and ambient-drone territories. uBiK is nothing less than both Philip K. Dick-inspired dystopic science fiction and Chaos Theory’s natural son.
This work is inspired by the inertial condition of Nature. Aimless and sensless. A quite journey through harmonic waves, loosely guitar sounds and smashed field recordings. “I know a crazy old woman who spends her days and nights on the watch, expecting her house to fall apart at any time. Walking to and fro in her room, listening to small noises,she is extremely irritated that the event is running late. On a larger scale, the old woman’s behaviour belongs to us all. We live hoping for a downfall, even when we are thinking of something else” Emil Cioran” [via]. Coming soon on Fratto9: get your copy here.
ZonaMC + Burla – Burlona [Trovarobato Netlabel, Rxstnz]
Listen / Tags: hip hop, conscious, digital noise, abstract
“Burlona is the alchemic transmutation of the ZonaMC element fused together with Burla, who acts as an analogue catalyst able to clean up Zona’s mind that has been wandering into the digital abyss, and bringing it back to the Western ancestral societies. The modular electronics’ continuous waves reflect into the narrative flow, going from the most ancient rituals’ very origin to the latest cultural branches. Abandon all your certainties, you who enter here: nothing is the same after the Coniunctio Oppositorum has been dropped, and only who is able to abandon his / her own self is gonna be able to find the way out of the Daedalus” [via].
DVA [Hi:Emotions] – NOTU_URONLINEU [Hyperdub]
Listen / Tags: dustep, grime, experimental, bass
“As well as featuring a darker, looser feel than his previous productions, the label says NOTU_URONLINEU is a dystopian concept album with hints of “faux-therapeutic advertising and psychotic jingles” that reflect the stress of life online. “The album project comes from a short visual story set in a time where a mega corporation H:E / Hi:Emotions is slowly taking control of everything, and plan to eventually make all people live life under one brand in virtual reality,” the producer says in a press release. As the Hyperdub regular explains, the album was made under several self-imposed conditions, including recording the whole thing in the dark. “I realised before making this album I was most happiest when listening to music in the dark like I did when I was at school,” he says” [via].
Don’t miss DVA [Hi:Emotions] at Macao’s Saturnalia, 16-17th June, Milan, Italy. Support Macao here.
M.I.A. – AIM [Interscope Records]
Listen / Tags: open the borders, hip hop, electro
“M.I.A.’s albums have always served as her political soapboxes. Her latest—and purportedly last—AIM, is no different. M.I.A. has also been vocal about being a refugee for some three decades, as a persecuted Tamil from Sri Lanka living in the United Kingdom—a status that is particularly topical on AIM. For those glued to M.I.A.’s provocative Twitter feed, this is the same album that was previously named Matahdatah. It is also the album on which last year’s enticing “Borders” and the inventive “Swords” appear, the latter only on the deluxe version. M.I.A. has Skrillex, Blaqstarr, and even Zayn Malik (yes, as in formerly of One Direction) on board, yet AIM sounds like a field recording made in the middle of a bustling Sri Lankan market: colorful, flavorful, and most of all, noisy.
M.I.A. always speaks the language of the time, albeit in her own dialect, twisting street vernacular to embed her messages. There are moments when she smooths things out enough to almost be comprehensible, such as on “Freedun” (featuring Zayn) or on “Foreign Friend” (featuring Dexta Daps). Both songs owe much of their conventionality to the guest vocalists rather than M.I.A. herself. Possibly the most user-friendly M.I.A. becomes is on “Finally,” produced by her Buraka Som Sistema cohort Branko. Here her words are straightforward, if predictable. Similarly, the traditional drums on “Visa” are a saving grace for the vibrant track that samples M.I.A.’s own timeless song, “Galang.” The album ends on a pretty note with “Survivor,” which for all its fluttery rhythms, has just as much of a cautionary missive as the rest of AIM” [via].
Nights / Charlux – Nights VS Charlux [NSX]
Listen / Tags: grime, bass
‘Function’ track premiere on weareinster.com: “Nights goes head-to-head with American native, Charlux for the leading track on NSX latest output, NSX002. Aptly titled ‘Function’, this is 4 minutes and 23 seconds of some of the most well thought-out grime we’ve heard this year. Perhaps it has something to do with the pairs detachment form the genres roots – both outsiders looking/listening from an external perspective, able to build on a foundation of soundscapes left over from the genres formation. Whatever the reason, this NSX release sits just as nicely beside a warn down press of a Wiley Devils mix as it would a 2016 digi release from one of their peers – this bridges gaps that few manage to” [via].
TRACKLIST: A1. Nights VS Charlux – Function, A2. Charlux – Steppe Nomad, B1. Nights – Nines, B2. Charlux – Obsession
( r ) aka Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo – The Ways To Love A Man [Benefit Edition] [Self Released]
Listen / Tags: experimental, ballad, lgbtq
“Originally released in 2011 this digital single has now been reissued to help fund the emergency evacuation of gay men at risk in Chechnya. All proceeds will go to All Out and Russian LGBT Network. Enjoy the music and take action” [via].
READ MORE ABOUT THE OUTRAGEOUS CECHNYA SITUATION HERE.
Rancid Opera – Azionismo Bolognese in Rap [-Belligeranza]
Listen / Tags: horrorcore, hip hop, electronics, Italian giallo, turntabilism
“Directly from from the rotten corpse of opera music, MC PavaRotten, MC DominGORE and MC CarreAXE present this 4 tracker of putrid horror-core, blending Bel Canto, Death-Rap and Italian Gore movies. You’d better learn Italian to understand our putrid libretto, if not you find attached in the vinyl an English version of the Rancid Opera. BLEAHHHHH” [via].
Exclusively download the lyrics for one of the craziest Italian hip hop pieces, Necro-Viagra, right here from our repository [ITA ONLY].
Abruptum – Obscuritatem Advoco Amplectère Me [1993, Deathlike Silence Productions]
Listen / Tags: black metal, experimental
“It takes a lot of talent and a very clear mind to pull off a great joke. And as you might know, often times a truly great trickster holds a very serious, more self-conscious side to their craft which is only visible on fringe and scarce works. Such is, I believe, the case with most of Abruptum. The creators of the unexpectedly flawless tribute to trickery and self-parody that was Vondur’s Striðsyfirlýsing (perhaps, and if you can stomach it, you should give my review for that album a light read before continuing reading this) make a case in favour of my aforementioned theory with their earlier and perhaps better known (for better or for worse) project, seemingly directionless and tryhard but undoubtedly experimental project Abruptum.
And what is, more or less precisely, the nature of this project? Well…. Let me put it this way: This is free black metal, or rather, improv black metal. All the elements that make black metal black metal are here, but they’recompletely free and semi-random, both structurally and performance-wise. They managed to distill the essence of the genre without making direct reference to them; without actually including them. I don’t think, by my count, that you’ll find more than five continuous seconds of blastbeats and/or tremolos. I don’t think you’ll hear any hint towards the Romantic period that influenced the second wave so much, nor the thrasy/crude death metal aura that defined the first wave” [via].
Swedish black metal musician Tony Särkkä, who went by the stage name IT, has died at the age of 45. No cause of death has yet been revealed. Särkkä played in many black metal bands, including ABRUPTUM, OPHTHALAMIA, VONDUR, INCISION, BREJN DEDD, WAR and 8TH SIN. He also contributed guest vocals to DISSECTION’s second album, “Storm Of The Light’s Bane”, and to MARDUK’s third album, “Opus Nocturne”. Read more about it here.
Alessandro Alessandroni – Prisma Sonoro [1974, SR Records]
Listen / Tags: jazz, experimental, psychedelic
“Undoubtedly one of the central figures of 1960s/70s Italian film music, Alessandro Alessandroni defined the very essence of the genre with his vocal group, I Cantori Moderni. Renowned for his pioneering reverb guitar sound, sitar exploration and a phenomenal whistling technique, (Perhaps best known for his contribution in shaping the famous ‘Spaghetti Western’ sound) Alessandroni’s vast and innovative contribution to Italian soundtracks is unparalleled. Recording countless sessions for many Italian film composers of the period including Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai, Piero Umiliani and Francesco De Masi (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, All the Colours Of The Dark, Sweden: Heaven and Hell and Alla Scoperta Dell’India respectively), his importance as a sideman often overshadowed his own work as a solo artist. Complementing his session work, Alessandroni was an amazingly inventive composer in his own right; his unique compositions were issued on many Italian, French, and German Library labels throughout the 1970s.
One of the most desired sessions (and reported to be his own favourite recording) is Prisma Sonoro, a mythical library LP issued as a micro press for the highly collectable Sermi label. This record is exquisitely crafted Italian mood music; propulsive bossa infected with mild lysergic delirium. Enchanting Harpsichord melodies measured against scowling Giallo style guitars, mournful string arrangements and the sublimely plaintive voice of Edda Dell’Orso. Long regarded as the backbone of the Italian OST sound, here is Maestro Alessandroni in all his own lush psychedelic glory” [via].
Alessandro Alessandroni passed away on Sunday (March 26) in Rome. He was 92.
Burial – Burial [Hyperdub], as told by Mark Fisher in the notorious Kpunk ‘London After the Rave‘ blog entry
Listen / Read / Tags: dubstep, hauntology, uk garage
“Mark Fisher (11 July 1968 – 13 January 2017), also known as “k-punk”, was a British writer, critic, cultural theorist, and teacher based in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. He initially achieved acclaim for his blogging as k-punk in the early 2000s, and was known for his writing on radical politics, music, and popular culture. Fisher died on 13 January 2017 at the age of 48, shortly before the publication of his latest book The Weird and the Eerie (2017). His wife confirmed that he had taken his own life.[10][11] At the time of his death, Fisher was said to be planning a new book entitled Acid Communism” [via].
London After the Rave short excerpt: “Near future, maybe… But listening to Burial as I walk through damp and drizzly South London streets in this abortive Spring, it strikes me that the LP is very London Now – which is to say, it suggests a city haunted not only by the past but by lost futures. It seems to have less to do with a near future than with the tantalising ache of a future just out of reach“. Reast in peace Mark Fisher, you will be largely missed.
REMEMBERING MARK FISHER by SIMON REYNOLDS: read here.
Datenverarbeiter vs. Jaki Liebezeit – Givt [2006, Fuego]
Listen / Tags: electronics, experimental, non-music, dancefloor
“Jaki Liebezeit, drummer and founding member of Krautrock legends Can, has died. The band confirmed his passing on their official Facebook page. “It is with great sadness we have to announce that Jaki passed away this morning from sudden pneumonia,” the band wrote. “He fell asleep peacefully, surrounded by his loved ones. We will miss him hugely.” He was 78.
While Liebezeit was arguably best known for his work with Can, some of his earliest recordings were as a member of Manfred Schoof’s bands in the late 1960s. He appeared on Brian Eno’s Before and After Science as well as solo records by Neu!’s Michael Rother. He would later collaborate with Depeche Mode and the Eurythmics. He formed drum-centric groups Drums Off Chaos and Club Off Chaos. Liebezeit recorded with Can for all the band’s studio albums, and performed and recorded throughout his life. In recent years, the drummer released collaborative records with Robert Coyne, Holger Mertin, Burnt Friedman, and Hans Joachim Irmler” [via].
Drexciya – Grava 4 [Clone Records, Repress]
Listen / Tags: Detroit techno, acid
“The mythology that surrounds Drexciya—the Detroit duo of Gerald Donald and James Stinson—still still generates interest and speculation. Released in 2002, Grava 4 was the final Drexciya album, and the last chapter of their story—the saga of pregnant slaves, thrown overboard from ships, whose children evolved to live underwater in a place called Drexciya. As Stinson and Donald went deeper into the story, we found out that the Africans who became Drexciyans were actually from Ociya Syndor, a planet 700 million light years away from Earth.
Of course, none of this would matter if Drexciya hadn’t been responsible for some of the best electronic music ever made. And with Grava 4, they maintained their high standards. The album charts Earth’s discovery of “Utopia,” the Drexciyan home universe. Grava 4 was released amid a flurry of seven Drexciya-related albums under aliases including Transllusion, Abstract Thought, Lab Rat XL and The Other People Place. It was a non-chronological series whose entries were called “storms”—in the storyline, they took the form of supernatural forces meant to conceal the existence of three other planets in the Drexciyan system from Earth” [via].
Giusto Pio – Motore Immobile [Soave, 2017 Repress]
Listen / Tags: minimalism, contemporary, classical
“One of the most striking documents of Italy’s Minimalist movement, Giusto Pio’s “Motore Immobile” is a masterwork with few equivalents. Produced by Franco Battiato in 1979, at the outset of a long and fruitful period of collaboration between the two composers, and issued by the legendary Cramps Records, its triumphs were met by silence, before falling from view. Emerging on vinyl for the first time since it’s original pressing, “Motore Immobile” now sits within a reappraisal of a large neglected body of efforts made by the Italian avant-garde during the second half of the 1970’s and early 80’s. It is singular, but not alone. It resonates within a collective world of shimmering sound, one familiar to fans of Battiato, Lino Capra Vaccina, Luciano Cilio, Roberto Cacciapaglia, Francesco Messina and Raul Lovisoni.
An exercise in elegant restraint – note and resonance held to the most implicit need. Where everything between root and embellishment has been stripped away. A sublime organ drone, against interventions of deceptively simple structural complexity – executed by Piano, Violin, and Voice. A sonic sculpture reaching heights which few have touched. A thing of beauty and an album as perfect as they come. The reemergence of Motore Immobile heralds what is unquestionably one of the most important reissues of the year” [via].
Giusto Pio died February the 12th, 2017: he was 91.
Mescalinum United – We Have Arrived 2017 Remaster [Planet Phuture, Repress]
Listen / Tags: hardcore, techno
“Have you ever arrived at a destination and not known how you got there? ‘Mescalinum United – We Have Arrived’ achieves just that in 2017 This digital release by the mover a.k.a. Marc Acardipane is one of few masterpieces in electronic music and contains the blueprints for what was to become the heavier, Hardcore end of the Techno spectrum. This timeless record sounded like the Future in 1990 and still manages to echo the feeling of the far-Future in 2017. The discordant and thick metallic waves pulse with darkened hues of troubled atmospheres to capture and illustrate the power of what Techno could offer the world. A full distortion first approach was uncompromising and its impact was huge. Almost unbelievably it was written in 1990 and when viewed in context of this time it stands loud, proud and utterly unique in comparison to the sound of the post acid-house era. Frankfurt’s enduring gift to the Techno scene is Marc Acardipane’s label, Planet Core Productions (PCP) from which this 12″ is taken and represents the very beginning of the journey.
This journey begins again to new destinations in 2017 with Planet Phuture, Marc’s new label. It is important to understand the powerful global influence ‘We Have Arrived’ had and continues to have, inspiring producers, labels and spawning an entire sub-genre within Techno called Hardcore. This records impact extended as far as New York, Holland, Belgium, France and the UK all from the shockwave with Frankfurt at the epicentre. The original release was followed by licenses to Industrial Strength and R&S with remixes by Aphex Twin. The Mover, the architect of the Hardcore Techno sound set out his extraordinary vision and production skills with ‘We Have Arrived ‘. A re-mastered masterpiece, that should be in every Techno fan’s collection” [via]. Words by Neil Landstrumm.
Low Entropy – Tribute to Tracker Hardcore [Mixtape]
Listen / Download / Tags: hardcore, tracker, techno
“In the beginning, the Hardcore Techno scene had heavy ties to the tracker / mod / demo-scene. A lot of Hardcore tracks made it from being created on trackers to being released on vinyl or CD and became “hits” – like the output of Hardsequencer, Neophyte, Nasenbluten or Cybermouse showed. But a lot of it never made it to a physical release, and was instead created, distributed and enjoyed in the digital mod scene – spread on BBS systems, the early internet, or just diskettes. It’s a hidden treasure of sound still unknown to many people. A lot of stuff from the tracker scene can definetely be compared in production, creativity, and most important, fun, to the “big” or official releases. this is a tribute mix to this sound!” [via].
Zuli, Chevel, Von Tesla x NTS Radio [Radio Show]
Listen / Tags: experimental, glitch, abstract, synth, leftfield
“Zuli, experimental club producer and VENT co-founder hailing from Cairo hits the NTS airwaves to showcase his club wares: aggressively left-field.” Playing tracks by Weightausend, Sote, Opium child, Autechre, Feryal Dawa, Von Tesla and more.
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PAYNOMINDTOUS is a non-profit organization registered in December 2018, operating since late 2015 as a webzine and media website. In early 2017, we started our own event series in Turin, IT focused on arts, experimental, and dancefloor-oriented music. We reject every clumsy invocation to “the Future” meant as the signifier for capitalistic “progress” and “innovation”, fully embracing the Present instead; we renounce any reckless and ultimately arbitrary division between “high” and “low”, respectable and not respectable, “mind” and “body”; we support and invite musicians, artists, and performers having diverse backgrounds and expressing themselves via variegated artistic practices.