April 30, 1967 recording of a Velvet Underground performance at The Gymnasium (424 E. 71st St) in New York City. It's Velvet's White Light/White Heat period in full gloom. In fact, it contains the first public performance of "Sister Ray" and the previously unreleased songs "I'm Not a Young Man Anymore," as well as the R&B number "Booker T." Mastered form recently sourced tapes not comparable with any previous versions.

Anton Newcombe and Dot Allison present an album together under the moniker All Seeing Dolls. Anton Newcombe is the founder, the sole constant and the creative mastermind at the center of one of music's most fascinating bands; Brian Jonestown Massacre. He's a frontman, songwriter, composer, studio owner, multi-instrumentalist, producer, engineer, father and force of nature. There have been 21 BJM albums over the last 30 years, each embarking on their own mind-expanding adventure and exploring the outer realms of rock'n'roll; psychedelic rock, country-blues, snarling rock'n'roll, blissed-out noise-pop and more. Newcombe has established himself as a once-in-a-lifetime talent, a revolutionary force in modern music and an underground hero. Dot Allison released her debut solo album Afterglow in 1999. Over the years she has strived to keep the listener on a journey -- and herself too. She revolts against what she has done before, to evolve and not just occupy the same space. That journey has taken her from Afterglow's broad church to the sultry synth-pop of We Are Science (2002), the lush, baroque Exaltation Of Larks (2007) and the eclectic, rootsy drama of Room 7½ (2009). After a hiatus to raise her family she returned with the graceful acoustic folk record Heart-Shaped Scars (2021) and the haunting, barely there beauty of Consciousology (2023). The range of guest stars on Allison's records is equally broad: where else would you find a cast list that includes Kevin Shields, Hal David, Paul Weller, Pete Doherty, and Darren Emerson.

Jump Ship, Sit Lean, Be Still, Stand Tall is a collaborative LP from BZDB, comprised of Duncan Bellamy and Belinda Zhawi (MA.MOYO). The record is a collection of sonic-poetry setting Zhawi's illuminating, elliptical words in dialogue with diffuse, explorative music and sound by Bellamy. Together they render these disparate forms into something distinct, melancholic and luminous, fluctuating between expansive contemporary classical arrangements and intimate layered vocal experiments. Belinda Zhawi (b. Zimbabwe) is a literary and sound artist based in London and Marseille, author of Small Inheritances, and experiments with sound/text performance as MA.MOYO. Her work explores African diaspora research and narratives, and how art and education can be used as intersectional tools. Her literary and sound works have been featured on various platforms including The White Review, Vogue, NTS, Boiler Room and BBC Radio. She's held residencies with TriangleAsterides, France; Cove Park, Scotland; Serpentine Galleries; ICA London and was a Brixton House Associate Artist 2022-24. Belinda is the co-founder of literary arts platform, BORN::FREE. Zhawi is working on her first full poetry collection. Duncan Bellamy (b. Cambridge, UK) lives and works in London. Encompassing painting, photography, sound and music, his diverse practice explores the correlation and discrepancy of our present with the distant past. He is a founding member of Mercury Prize nominated Portico Quartet and has contributed sound work to the artist Hannah Collins audio-visual installation I Will Make Up A Song as well as to Hania Rani's latest album Ghosts. Bellamy is working towards a solo exhibition and an album of new music.

LP version. Clear color vinyl Mirror Phase concludes a trilogy of minimal ambient albums in Jonas Munk's own name. These eight compositions, based on guitar and synthesizer loops, marks a return to the warmer sounds Munk is often associated with. Sonic structures that slowly and gradually evolves and changes, like cloud formations in the sky. The title track "Mirror Phase" is Munk's most expansive drone opus so far. It's a carefully arranged piece where sounds that oscillates with the same interval, but at different phases, are continuously added, hence creating shifting patterns throughout the track's nearly 18-minute duration. Elsewhere, in "Transition," multi-layered guitars create the sonic equivalent of waves gently splashing on the shore. "At a Distance" creates a haunting, and hypnotic, soundscape by using slightly out-of-tune analog synthesizers, summoning the transcendent krautrock of Popol Vuh. "Rise," as well as the closing track "Return to Nowhere," recall the glistening sounds of his Manual releases. Mirror Phase might just be Munk's ambient oeuvre reaching its zenith. RIYL: Fripp & Eno, William Basinski, Christopher Willits, Stars of the Lid.

Re-release of Blue Chemise's debut LP Influence On Dusk, which originally appeared in 2017 as a limited private release of 105 copies. BAADM make this much sought-after record available again on both physical and digital format, with remastered sound by Christophe Albertijn and updated artwork, all true to the original intentions of, and in close collaboration with, the artist. Influence On Dusk forms an idiosyncratic cycle of fourteen mysterious, sometimes uncanny electroacoustic compositions, a personal and subdued eruption of "melancholy of the healthy kind," suddenly here and suddenly gone. This is the second release on B.A.A.D.M. by the Australian artist Mark Gomes, following his equally atmospheric but more romantic Flower Studies from 2021.

The 2015 edition of Winnipeg's send + receive festival, focussed on rhythm, turned out to be a generative meeting of minds. There, Mark Fell encountered the music of Will Guthrie, a meeting that was eventually to result in the frenetic acoustic drumkit and digital synthesis pairing heard on Infoldings and Diffractions (2020). At the same festival, Limpe Fuchs first heard and appreciated the music of Mark Fell, planting the seed of a collaboration that came to fruition when Fell (along with his son Rian Treanor) visited Fuchs at her home in Peterskirchen, Germany in September 2022. Black Truffle now presents the release of the results of this extensive session in the audacious form of a triple LP, housing over two hours of music across its six sides. The collaboration might appear unlikely: what common ground could exist between Fuchs, classically trained pianist, legend of improvised music, instrument builder and sound sculptor active since the 1960s, whose group Anima Sound connected the dots between free jazz, krautrock and ritual, and Fell, proponent of radical computer music, known for his bracingly austere productions that twist remnants of club music into algorithmic stutters. For all their seeming disparity in technology, approach and background, the music on Dessogia/Queetch/Fauch makes it immediately evident the pair share a great deal in their essentially percussive approach and ability to, in Fuch's phrase, "establish silence." Recording at her home studio, Fuchs had the use of her entire array of instruments, found, invented, and traditional, and treats the listener to some that don't often make their way to concerts, including extensive passages performed (with Gundis Stalleicher) on pieces of wooden parquetry. Fell also stretched himself, with his contributions ranging from characteristically fizzing pitched percussive pops to swarms of sliding tones and abstract digital noise. Showing both remarkable restraint and improvisational freedom, much of the music consists of duets between a single percussion instrument and a distinctive mode of digital sound, often lingering in one timbral-rhythmic space for minutes at a time. Improvisational forward momentum coexists with a free-floating, wandering quality. Epic in scope, immersing the listener in an entirely distinctive world of sounds, and thrillingly bold in its melding of the most ancient musical procedures with cutting edge technologies, Dessogia/Queetch/Fauch is an unexpected major statement from two of the great mavericks of contemporary music.

Limited edition pressing of 500 copies worldwide. All pressed on cream colored vinyl, housed in a full color sleeve with leather effect laminate, with hype sticker and black polylined inner bag. Continuing Riot Season's quest to get all of the classic early AMT albums released on vinyl, the label now turns to 2004's Mantra Of Love with the help of Makoto Kawabata's studio wizardry. This latest instalment in the Acid Mothers Temple Vinyl Archives - First Time On Vinyl series has been meticulously put together with the help of Makoto Kawabata with the original CD artwork recreated for these vinyl editions from archive photos stored in the vaults at the Acid Mothers Temple in Osaka, Japan and the original audio remastered by James Plotkin. Here's what Pitchfork had to say upon its original CD only release back in 2004: "Acid Mothers are strong folk. You'd think they'd tire quickly, all tucked away on their island, strewn about on tree roots while baking their lungs and throats to a knotty green tinge. But instead of waltzing through life like hippies, they manage to not only tour and put out records every year, but also to fill those albums with 30-minute jams and assorted freakouts. And while evil jam bands would fill that space with guitar work taken from the Classic Rock Manual of Clichés, Makoto Kawabata and company assault listeners with frighteningly dense walls of white noise, psychedelic swirl effects and, yes, even guitar solos -- albeit ones that are more Merzbow or Keiji Haino than Gary Rossington. Truly, AMT's endurance and threshold for cosmic lashings are both worthy of admiration." Originally released on CD by Alien8 Recordings in 2004.

In 2007 an Italian film festival invites Mouse on Mars to score a film of their choice. The organizers claim to be able to clear the rights for any movie the band chooses. Werner Herzog's fictional documentary Fata Morgana, which merges footage of several desert explorations by Herzog and his team into one continuous association, has long been a band's favorite. The film comes with a soundtrack by Mozart, Leonard Cohen, Third Ear Band and field recordings. Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner are sent a DVD to Düsseldorf and start working. The idea is to score the film in real time so instrumentation has to be readily at hand: guitar, percussion, electronics, mouth harp, pedals, software, tapes, samplers. Once the arrangement for the three-part film is sorted Mouse on Mars bring their score to stage. Herzog Sessions is performed twice: first when the band still thought the rights had been cleared, and a second time at London's Southbank Center knowing that Herzog would have never approved a new score. Filmed in 1971, Fata Morgana is perhaps not one of Herzog's best-known works, but then Mouse on Mars have never been ones to embrace the mainstream, quietly letting their modern, experimental take on krautrock do the talking over the years, thus producing some quietly brilliant electronica that far outweighs their modest profile. The film itself is not altogether dissimilar to the wonderful, Phillip Glass-scored Koyaanisqatsi, with sweeping landscape shots and no obvious plot or narrative, though Fata is concentrated purely in one place -- in and around the Sahara Desert, switching from images of barren wasteland to desert tribes and dead, skeletal cattle. The obvious thing to do when soundtracking such powerful imagery is to vie for dreamy electronic soundscapes which can be sustained for a long period, and whilst this ambient shoegaze approach was present and correct (also carefully constructed and highly effective), Mouse on Mars added a human element to the performance, incorporating a live dimension by using and looping guitars, harmonicas, processed vocals and even a live horn player for the final section of the film. Some of the most interesting points arose when the duo suddenly switched from solemn, ambient tones to glitchy, bouncing electro (reminiscent of their more upbeat work) whilst on the same film shot -- causing the audience mood to flick from tripped-out bliss to attentive semi-wired, utterly subverting any idea of a narrative the film may have possessed.

Souffle Continu presents Byard Lancaster -- The Complete Palm Recordings 1973-1974, the definitive seven LP deluxe package of Philadelphia born jazz wizard Byard Lancaster, including his four legendary albums released on Jef Gilson's Palm Records in the 1970s: Us, Mother Africa, Exactement, and Funny Funky Rib Crib, along with the first ever standalone edition of "Love Always," a fifteen minute modal jazz beauty plus a 20-page booklet with rare photos and in-depth article about Byard Lancaster's Parisian years by Pierre Crépon. At the beginning of the 1960s, at the Berklee College of Music, Byard Lancaster met some feisty friends: Sonny Sharrock, Dave Burrell, and Ted Daniel. Once he was settled in New York, he appeared on Sunny Murray Quintet, recorded under the leadership of the drum crazy colleague of Albert Ayler. In 1968, the saxophonist and flutist recorded his first album under his own name: It's Not Up To Us. He would come back to France in 1971 and in 1973. This is when he met Jef Gilson, the pianist and producer who encouraged him to record under his own name again. On Palm Records (Gilson's label), he would release four albums: Us, Mother Africa, Exactement, and Funny Funky Rib Crib. Us, the first of the four records was recorded on November 24th, 1973 with Sylvin Marc on electric bass and the evergreen Steve McCall on drums. A few months after recording Us, Lancaster recorded Mother Africa along with Clint Jackson III, a trumpeter, partner of Khan Jamal or Noah Howard on other recordings. The recording of Exactement required two sessions in the studio: February 1st and May 18th 1974. Two names appear on the cover of Exactement: Lancaster (Byard) and Speller (Keno). Funny Funky Rib Crib is an unforgettable recording (made up of several sessions dating from the middle of 1974) of creative jazz overwhelmed by funk and soul. If Lancaster had already made successful albums in the same genre, this one is an homage to James Brown and Sammy Davis. The magnificent "Love Always" was originally released on the fourth (and last) volume of the Jef Gilson Anthology series released in 1975. Recorded on 8th March 1974, it is a beautiful 15-minute-long modal jazz piece. Four notes from the bass (the relentless Jean-François Catoire, who makes up the rhythm section alongside drummer Jonathan Dickinson and percussionist Keno Speller), and the group is up and running! On piano, Gilson shows the subtle tact of a sideman, leaving the lions' share of the place to the horns. And if further proof was required of the confidence that Byard Lancaster and Jef Gilson inspire, "Love Always" provides it on this one-sided release exclusive to the box set. Carefully restored and remastered by Gilles Laujol. Graphic design by Stefan Thanneur.

"cLOUDDEAD's debut album, compiling six 10" EPs that appeared between 2000-2001, is aurally dense and obscured. A sprawling mass of miniature beat-suites and Dadaist lyrics, this strange and beautiful 3LP would influence a myriad of sub-genres (cloud rap, hauntology, lo-fi hip-hop, etc.) in the two decades since its initial release. Only the three members of cLOUDDEAD can speak to the group's origins, but in the context of underground hip-hop towards the end of the 20th century, their arrival makes perfect sense. Cincinnati had a vital scene; home to Scribble Jam, an annual confluence of MCs, DJs, B-boys and graffiti artists. While the trio soon relocated to the Bay Area where they co-founded the Anticon collective, their Midwestern roots -- in ramshackle basements of off-campus hovels, as the 'cerberus of Southern Ohio' -- would remain the atomic heart of their early recordings. As Chris Martins writes in the liner notes, 'The only reason we know their names today is because of how loudly and curiously they aired their insularity. They rewrote the entire world as they knew it through their own fucked perspective, and when those mysterious 10-inches started popping up in record shops, it wasn't just a puzzle to investigate: there seemed to be a whole cosmology hidden in those grooves.' Each side of the album represents one of those elusive 10-inches, each embodying a universe unto itself. Opening salvo 'Apt. A' and 'And All You Can Do Is Laugh' are perhaps most emblematic of the cLOUDDEAD experience. 'Why?' and 'Dose' create a new language through boundless non-sequiturs, sing-song non-choruses and call-and-response hooks, while 'Nosdam''s dexterous production shifts from crackling ambience of 'Flying Saucer Attack' to tight 'Ohio Players' drum breaks and oblique film samples. Taken all together, cLOUDDEAD is an original interpretation of hip-hop in the surreal Y2K glow -- a bizarre meeting point between William Basinski's Disintegration Loops and MF DOOM's Operation: Doomsday. All it took was a Dr. Sample SP-202, Tascam cassette eight-track and cheap RadioShack mic. There's truly nothing like it. This edition has been faithfully restored by Nosdam. Comes with poster."

Arthur Russell first visited The Gallery in 1976 with his then boyfriend Louis, who introduced him to Nicky Siano. Arthur became a regular at the space and one night as Siano was playing "Turn the Beat Around," which had just been released, Arthur waved at him from outside the booth and asked to come in. Nicky opened the door and Arthur suggested they make a record like this together. This ended up being a huge step for Siano as it marked the first ever production by a DJ making a record from scratch. Arthur had written a song and had an arrangement for it so they assembled a band featuring Wilbur Bascomb who was one of Nicky's favorite bassists, as well as, Allan Schwartzberg, David Byrne, Miriam Valle, Peter Gordon, and Peter Zummo, who were all friends of Arthur's. Russell played the cello and piano -- and that was the band. They recorded throughout 1977 and the Kiss Me Again 12" was finally released in 1978 on Sire Records selling more than 300,000 copies. Week-End Records presents the first ever reissue by this outstanding disco production. Remastered from the original tapes. With liner notes by David Byrne, Nicky Siano, Peter Gordon and Peter Zummo.

The seeds of composer Rafael Anton Irisarri's latest LP were first planted during his 2016 tour in Italy, months before that Autumn's unexpected presidential election. The linguistic glitch of an innocuous diner in Milan named "il Mito Americano" -- meant as "The American Dream" but translated literally to English as "The American Myth" -- sparked a series of ideas, both conceptual and musical. Amid the chaos of 2020, while exploring the stark world of brutalist architecture and inspired by the false fronts of Potemkin villages, a vision started to take shape: Façadisms. Composed over three years, it's a late capitalist lament of simmering electric despondency. Irisarri's obsession with repeating motifs mirrors the cyclical nature of a tumultuous political history. The album's eight tracks heave and storm like a tempest being drained of its rage. This is the sound of majestic dissipation, of morning afters, fashioned from a mournful haze with cavernous guitars and granular twilight. A euphony of a receding tide as one sifts through the remnants of what remains: dust, delusion, and memory. Façadisms moves fluidly between moments of absence and abandon. Ashen swaths of electronics billow above smoldering embers of melody, guitar, and scattered streaks of processed strings and voice, as on the rapturous doom of "Control Your Soul's Desire for Freedom," featuring Julia Kent on cello and Hannah Elizabeth Cox on vocals. Co-written with Kenyan sound artist KMRU, "Red Moon Tide" surges from flickering elegy to celestial disquiet, roiling waves of hymnal descent, and bristling noise. The effect is unsettling and unmooring: a soundtrack for the soul leaving the body, only to discover a void. It's the sound of the center not holding, of shared illusions being dissolved in a tunnel of white light. The cover photograph captures a profound sense of desolation. Taken in the historic shanty town of La Perla, Puerto Rico, where Irisarri spent his childhood, brutal colonial mysteries are lost to time. A skeletal concrete structure decays against an expansive blue horizon. Only the shadow of its shell ripples on the empty sea. Has the American myth finally run its course? Also available on blue (BKE 019BL-LP) and clear vinyl (BKE 019PE-LP).

LP version. "In recent years, the introductory texts for the Pop Ambient compilation series, which is released every year on Kompakt as the last release before the Christmas break, often began with the sentence 'Every year again.' 'Every year again,' a quiet, almost unnoticed maxim of self-evidentness. Because this is already the 25th issue to be published this year. 25 years in increasingly fast-moving times in the even faster-moving music business is an eternity that doesn't just feel like it. It is all the more remarkable how I, as someone who is always restless and often driven by this fast pace himself, pleasantly almost haven't realized how -- in pop-ambient contexts -- time does not pass (or passes differently) in the best sense. When compiling the 25th edition I was asked, among other things, what it was like that I was still doing this and whether I had a favorite track. In the spirit of bringing all the tracks together I don't have a favorite track, or all of them. But I have a favorite part (moment) that I played. In this case it was a broad chord in a change of key at minute 2:55 in the piece 'Circles' by Max Würden. A moment of majesty and familiarity that, at that moment, contains the entire Pop Ambient cosmos, that just works and doesn't explain anything -- and I said: 'that's the reason why I'm still doing this.' Pop Ambient is a statement without demands. Is promise without expectation. Is a path without a destination. Every year again." --Wolfgang Voigt, October 2024

As always, the indispensable final mastering by Jörg Burger ensures that everything is brought together and the sound is fine-tuned. And like every year, the 25th edition is of course wrapped in an abstract, floral magic creation by Veronika Unland. Over the years, the grace of her imagery has increasingly merged with the musical aura to form an unmistakable magical symbiosis. Featuring Leandro Fresco/Thore Pfeiffer, Pass Into Silence, Tamarma & Sebastian Mullaert, Sono Kollektiv, Nathalie Brum, Andrew Thomas, Julia Parr, Segensklang, Ümit Han, Max Würden, Blank Gloss, Hendrik Meyer, and Triola Zum.

LP version. Clear vinyl. What Are You Going to Do with Your Life? is the eighth studio album by British post-punk legends Echo & The Bunnymen, released on April 16, 1999. The album saw the band continue a trajectory set with 1997's Evergreen, embracing more introspective themes and melodic approach to its arrangements. Featuring an inspired selection of collaborators including strings from the London Metropolitan Orchestra and two songs featuring the American rap rock band Fun Loving Criminals, What Are You Going to Do with Your Life? featured two singles, the title track, and the atmospheric fan favorite "Rust," which would mark the band's final Top 40 UK single. Celebrating 25 years of What Are You Going to Do with Your Life?, the album is issued on vinyl for the very first time, alongside expansive 34-track 2CD which feature B-sides, alternative versions and previously unreleased live versions of both tracks from the album and classic Bunnymen tracks.

Fohn brings connection, displacement and new identities into the moment, on pastoral debut album Seanteach -- informed by island life, marine folklore and musical tradition. Connection to the land, the severing of earthly ties, explorations of environment, mythos and generational memory: under the moniker of Fohn, English violinist and producer Tom Connolly takes to the fiddle on which he learned his craft as a child. Forging new bonds with his family's island home off the coastal west of Ireland, their story is retold in Seanteach (Irish for 'old house'), released on Odda Recordings. Each track on the album is a reflection of aspects of that relationship to island life -- where physical features intersect with mythology. Such as, "Boreen," named after a colloquial term for rural byroads sometimes shared with otherworldly neighbors. "Aisling at Sea" draws on the primal, unstoppable momentum of the water, while the folklore of "Immram" reflects on generationally-kept tales of marine bravery and supernatural accomplishment. "The compositions often sit at the fraying edges of memories I've inherited from my own experiences," says Connolly, "that of family lore, or from stories that I have come across. I wanted the compositions to tread the space between documentation and fantasy that feels so reflective of my relationship with this place." Tying these worlds together is the presence and memory of Connolly's "Mamó" (Irish for 'grandmother'), Bríd. Despite passing during Connolly's childhood, this "larger-than-life character" shaped his imagination with anecdotes and stories, representing both a familiar figure, and the poignancies of potential and regret. "Between the Shoreline and the Gorse" channels her early childhood, born to a large Catholic family in the island's "Seanteach," and cast adrift from her old life -- a severance of ties that Connolly attempts to make ethereal amends for, with the album named for her family home. "It's something that feels so visibly prominent in Connemara with its landscapes charcoaled with deserted ruins. It's a feeling I also experience, despite never having lived in Ireland, which prompted me to want to explore the idea of longing for something/somewhere 'un-experienced', and to a certain extent, fictionalized."

Red color vinyl version. Blake Lee has always been fascinated by the unknown, and space, in its isolating, mysterious vastness, embodies this theme immaculately. The open void, captured so memorably by Stanley Kubrick in 2001: A Space Odyssey, is Blake's far-reaching canvas on No Sound In Space, a cinematic meditation on the cosmos that's painted in nuanced, emotionally sincere colors. The Los Angeles-based composer has been contemplating his full-length debut since 2021, using his guitar as a sonic paintbrush rather than find himself snared in its traditional aesthetic constraints. Transforming its characteristics with effects and subtle processes, he layers sustained tones and intimate improvisations, creating richly visual polychromatic utopias teeming with unknown life. Since 2011, Blake has been most known for being the guitarist and a music director for Lana Del Rey, notching up three songwriting credits on her acclaimed Ultraviolence full length. He sees his solo work is a form of escapism, a place where he can experiment and find comfort and catharsis outside of expectations and formal structure. The album was written instinctively, and Blake made sure he didn't force anything, letting go and getting out of his own way, listening intently as sounds and textures materialized organically. His collaboration with Kenyan sound artist KMRU, who runs the OFNOT label and contributes to two of the tracks on the album, occurred similarly organically. Blake was moved to reach out to KMRU when he caught a performance of Natur at Los Angeles' Zebulon in 2022, leading to a prolonged back-and-forth. This is the first release on OFNOT that's not by KMRU himself; the label emerged last year with the release of KMRU's own Dissolution Grip, and Blake's debut immediately expands its sonic universe. Alongside the playlists, Blake also provided KMRU with the tracks' raw stems, which KMRU began to edit and expand in his Berlin studio. Blake is constantly searching, and fills his unoccupied space with warmth, perception and sensitivity.

"When KMRU accessed the sound archive of the Royal Museum of Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium, it catalyzed an auditory response in the form of the album Temporary Stored. The album listened back to listen forward -- to reckon with the collective inheritance of colonial (sound) archives. Temporary Stored II serves as an artistic and curatorial extension of the original album, inviting other artists to lend their critical ear to museum archives holding recordings of African songs, traditions and practices. With KMRU, Aho Ssan, Lamin Fofana, Nyokabi Kariuki, and Jessica Ekomane draw upon their listening experiences as global contemporaries navigating a world in flux -- ecologically, economically, and politically. Each artist brings a selection of sonic fragments out of dormancy, channeling (in)audible traces into a contemporary cultural and political paradigm. Temporary Stored II sensitively responds to historical archives whose sounds have been restored and made more accessible through digitalization, despite still being the copyrighted property of European institutions. It develops an emergent language to engage with the vocal, rhythmic and syllabic intelligence rooted in these sonic repertoires, grounded in reimagination of sonic records as seeds for a sounding future. Listening back to these recordings is one way to recover the loss of listening traditions, orality and modes of transmission. In these sonic mediations, Lamin Fofana, KMRU, Jessica Ekomane, Nyokabi Kariuki, and Aho Ssan account for the archives with care and criticality. Inscribed in this album are 'black waveforms as rebellious enthusiasms,' which in the words of Katherine McKittrick 'affirm, through cognitive schemas, modes of being human that refuse antiblackness while restructuring our existing system of knowledge.' The album asks us to listen to colonial pasts and imagine the sound of our epistemological futures. It is a sonic retort; a playback to history and its colonial processes of extraction and accumulation. Temporary Stored II is a reminder that the labor of listening back is a continuous process of reassessing what has been lost, captured and refused." --Bhavisha Panchia

Kaoru Inoue is a Japanese veteran producer and DJ, active since late '90s. He has been releasing music from his own label Seeds and Ground and other labels like Mule Musiq and Groovement. This album was originally released in 2013 Japan. It's a style mix of world music, field recording, ambient and electronic music. The album starts with the minimal gamelan ambient "Malam," followed by "Selva," a minimal Afro-Brazilian house which reminds listeners of early Luciano or Villalobos. The third track "Kamui Fuchi" is an electric jazz fusion house, while the fourth track, "Sphere," is like Joan Bibiloni in the late '80s. The B-side track "Etenraku" is avant-garde tribal break beats, and the album closes with the beautiful melancholic new age music "Healing Force."

Formed in Bristol, four-piece Lice have become one of UK experimental rock's most inventive and ambitious outliers. Their second album Third Time At The Beach is a three-part epic exploring the struggle to better understand the world. Darting between minimalism, rock, techno and more, it sends listeners hurtling through time and space: featuring a cast of astronauts, cavemen and dinosaurs. This follows Lice's internationally acclaimed debut album WASTELAND: What Ails Our People Is Clear (2021). Third Time At The Beach's concept is expressed through three movements. The first ("Unscrewed," "White Tubes," "Red Fibres") presents the child being introduced to the world, hammered into shape through prevailing culture, and realizing they have reached adulthood with a blinkered understanding of the world. The second ("To The Basket," "Wrapped In A Sheet," "Scenes From The Desert," "Mown In Circles") is a disorientating, alien sequence: reevaluating fundamental concepts including money, time, nationhood and language. In the third ("Fatigued, Confused," "Third Time At The Beach," "The Dance"), the individual embraces these new ideas -- granting them a changed understanding of the world, and more agency in the path they take through it. Everything is always changing in Third Time At The Beach. The album shifts from lush piano balladry to crushing industrial, and from swampy avant-garde compositions to triumphant rock freakouts. Employing vocal manipulation and field recordings, as well as cutting together studio recordings and home demos, the band produces a spatially elastic, collage-like effect. The album, like the ideas being reached within it, presents a work-in-progress. Lyrically, the record employs a scattershot style to present the experience of learning (or "unlearning"). The listener visits ancient civilizations, the Industrial Revolution, outer space and the land of the dinosaurs: encountering mediaeval farmers, silver miners, cavemen, Napoleon and Satan. Speaking on the record, the band say: "This album's about trying to understand the world and everything in it: history, science and the way we explain it all to each other. It's a celebration of feeling confused or intimidated by the processes that shape our lives."

Two years after his critically acclaimed Ultrachroma album, Kangding Ray returns to ARA with a decisively dance- floor LP named Zero. As the artwork suggests, his different explorations and influences converge into one point on this record, where sound becomes a raw vibration, precisely engineered to bring bodies into movement. This record marks both a return to the source of his sound in its purest shape, with hints of his debuts on the experimental label raster-noton, as well as the hypnotic journeys he is now for with his DJ sets. As an artist who is constantly reshaping his own sound in search of new forms, Kangding Ray offers here a singular take on modern dance music, driven by a visceral and futuristic approach. "When an audio signal crosses the X-axis, there is an infinitesimal moment of silence. Zero is inspired by this quiet instant, a point of inversion where vibrations die and are reborn at the same time."

"Logically, Omega did not plan to divide their career into genre phases at the time. Music journalists and fans -- and especially statisticians -- did that later. According to their interpretation, the second half of the seventies was the Space Rock era of the Hungarian band. It is represented by the trilogy Time Robber (1976), Skyrover (1978) and finally Gammapolis (1979). Although spherical sounds could already be heard in the work of the Budapest quintet before and after this, Omega only really showed themselves to be so conceptually focused on this triple. If you take the successful LP Time Robber as a measure of quality, Gammapolis could easily keep up. The compositions of the group around singer Jànos Kòbor had become more melancholic, the bittersweet melodies more flattering. This was especially true of the seven-minute opener 'Dawn In The City' ('Hajnal a város felett'), the title track 'Gammapolis' and 'Silver Rain' ('Ezüst eső'). Apart from the vocals and the language, there are some minor differences between the Western European, English-language version and the Hungarian 'original' in the order of the tracks and the length of the songs. Minimally, Omega let the instrumental passages of some songs flow longer on the native language version. For the Western European Omega record buyers, however, these subtle differences were irrelevant, as most of them were not even familiar with the Hungarian songs. Nor would they have noticed that Gammapolis was the best-selling LP of the band's career in Omega's home country, selling almost three quarters of a million copies. However, the German cover artwork differed considerably from the Hungarian version: while the Bacillus/Bellaphon version showed the silhouettes of the musicians against a night sky cut by anti-aircraft searchlights, the Pepita album apparently depicted a futuristic but barren world on an alien planet."

LP version. Nuts of Ay, the thirteenth album by the Berlin-based electronic pop duo Tarwater (Ronald Lippok and Bernd Jestram), is their first in a decade, since 2014's Adrift. Beautifully poised and smartly dressed, it's an album that draws Tarwater's various pasts into a high-definition present, while bringing the duo, yet again, into productive dialogue with all kinds of fellow travelers. Tarwater's music has always been marked by a hypnotic pop-ness, but that's particularly evident on Nuts of Ay, where a song like "Hideous Kiss" weaves together jangling guitar, pastoral flute, and flittering electronics into a gem-like construction. While the lyrics of "Hideous Kiss" are written by the duo, Nuts of Ay also continues a longstanding Tarwater tradition of recasting the words of others in their own mould. This time, their remit is broad: poetry from Derek Jarman ("All Nuns") and Millner Place ("Trapdoor Spider"); lyrics from Jean Kenbrovin ("I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles"), the late Shane MacGowan ("USA") and, again, John Lennon ("Everybody Had a Hard Year"). This cast of found and borrowed lyricists also finds collaborative echo in the guest musicians dotted throughout Nuts of Ay. Schneider TM turns up on the lovely, Felt-like "Spirit of Flux", where guitars channel the tangled reveries of Vini Reilly and Maurice Deebank into lush pop. Carsten Nicolai joins, as Alva Noto, dappling "On Waves and Years" with intimate glitching textures; he also provides the album cover art. Elsewhere, Masha Qrella appears on "Down Comes the Goose," and actor Lars Rudolph pitches in for "USA." Both voracious and committed in their creative energies, Jestram and Lippok say there was no concept for the album, which is surprising, perhaps, given its holistic mood, explaining it "grew together like a coral reef in the studio over a period of several years." This music shares a strong sense of place -- whether in the world, or the mind -- and the twelve songs on Nuts of Ay have such similar presence; a shared mood, a shared world, a shared sense of the possibilities of what electronic pop music could, and should, be. A bold and brave pop experiment.

"Available in a galaxy ruby colored vinyl pressing with a 12-page booklet. The next release in Now Again's Memphis Rap series is Da Hard Ov Frayser, the only album by MC Money & Gangsta Gold produced by the legendary DJ Sound and presented on vinyl for the first time ever. This is part of Now Again Records multiple LP series on the history of Memphis Rap, which attempts to capture Memphis and its underground rap scene as it began to produce some of the most distinctive music of the '90s. This was a unique hip-hop strain -- visceral and often vicious. It was a local, low-fi, cassette-tape based movement - yet it went on to change the course of rap music. These albums have never been pressed on vinyl -- until now. From Skinny Pimp and Carmike to Gangsta Blac and Shawty Pimp, these albums have been relegated to the proverbial bins of history and bootlegged, with unofficial copies still fetching top dollar on the secondary market. These albums were all licensed directly from their original creators, and come on limited edition colored vinyl with artist-approved imagery for their first LP iterations. You can read the story of the Memphis Rap scene in a 12-page, oversized booklet with notes by Torii MacAdams. It captures the story of Memphis rap starting with the city's founding and ending with an auto supply shop that sold these albums over the counter, with all points in between."

"For over three decades, the Stone Alliance's debut album on Gene Perla's PM Records has been a record collector's commodity. An LP that evolved from the Rare Groove 1990s into a hallowed place in America's deep jazz canon. This definitive reissue of the 1976 release was lacquered in an all-analog transfer by Bernie Grundman, who removed the Dolby noise reduction and freed the space in the record's grooves. Grundman himself said that this is the best that this record has ever sounded. Contains an oversized eight-page booklet that details bass player and PM Records founder Gene Perla's arc in music, the creation and lineage of his PM Records imprint and the story of the Stone Alliance band."

Okokon returns to Other People with his sophomore album, Offering, delving deeper into the lush and cinematic soundscapes he first explored on his debut album, Turkson Side. While primarily working in visual arts, Africanus Okokon, who records under his surname, bridges his artistic practices in Offering, using his masterful collage techniques to create his most personal work yet. Defying easy categorization, the album melds influences from dream pop, avant-garde folk, psychedelia, trip hop, and dub, with traces of field recordings seamlessly blended throughout to form a cohesive whole. Offering sees Okokon confronting and negotiating a sudden and unexplained death that occurred in his childhood and the complex emotions left in its aftermath, acting as his main inspiration when making the album. This ambiguity is something that permeates throughout, with Okokon wanting to explore the ambivalence and sometimes uneasiness of contradicting emotions appearing simultaneously, alluded to in the album title. This is also reflected in how the album tracks each inhabit different narrators with varying perspectives on the same events. The result being a hauntingly beautiful album, with recurring themes of death, growth, sacrifice and spirituality ever present. Featuring Okwui Okpokwasili.

Exquisitely compiled by Discrepant head honcho Gonçalo F. Cardoso from three tapes by the tireless mind-body of Spencer Clark through his own Pacific City Sound Visions, This Year In Coconuts Vol. 2 is another revelation into the deeply personal soundworld of this true voyager of both ancient, present and forthcoming times. Coming from a truly singular artist, capable of conveying multiple visions into a labyrinthine-esque mythology all of his own, these seven tracks feel as much part of their original setting as connected pieces from this never ending and puzzling netherworld. Dedicated to the Temple of Isis in Pompei and opening sides A and B, the two tracks from Tempio d'Iside set up a scenario not far from a dream version of the Temple itself, made from crystal clear synth-lines and levitating ambiences, like drifting into ancient memories from days to come. Making up about half of the compilation, the four tracks from Kowloon Spider Temple drip into a feverish mosaic of Clark's by now trademarked cascading rhythms, un-hinged alien-vocal samples, phantasmic textures and sparkling synth harmonies projecting a catchy hypnotic oblivion filled with intrigue. The sole title track from From the Caves and Jungles of Apulia tangentially reports back to some lower-fi recordings of the past, with its murkier sound inducing the feeling of willing confinement within such caves and jungles.

Following releases on Sähkö Recordings and The Trilogy Tapes, Fever of the World is the Soda Gong debut by Memotone, the nom de plume of UK-based multi-instrumentalist Will Yates. As a collection, it is both intimate and expansive, like the feeling of gathering one's thoughts before setting off on a long journey or committing to an irrevocable course of action. Throughout, Yates' talents as both player and sound designer are on full display, as are the sonic signatures that have come to characterize the Memotone catalog: low-lit, ECM-inflected noir; evasive and evolving loop-based accretions; and mellifluous mosaics of keys, guitar, reeds, and percussion. It is patient and focused music, built around production techniques and compositional ideas that have been perfected both in studio and in live performance over a period of several years. "Catherine, On Fire" sets the scene, one of two languid, longform selections, and develops slowly from a spare, harmonic-laden guitar loop into a bed of rippling textural ambience and woozy clarinet filigree. Later, "The Bus" and "When the Bakery Has What You Want and It's Cheap" conjure images of rain-streaked windows, fanciful baked confections, and grey skies broken finally by sunlight. Warm, generous, and comfortable in its own skin, this is music that reminds listeners that when it feels easy to resign themselves to world weariness, they should pause for a moment and listen to the rustle of the leaves. The wind knows not to linger.

"Lou Barlow personified home recording's rise in the late '80s and was arguably one of the few key players that changed the trajectory of songwriting as the '90s charted its cultural course. For the 30th anniversary of his Really Insane 7-inch and Winning Losers EP, Emil Amos and Steve Shelley have compiled an overview of Barlow's best solo work under the name Sentridoh. Based around an even mix of legendary tracks and extra deep cuts, this compilation focuses on Barlow's arrangement innovations, signature textural explorations, and radical ability to turn psychological upheaval into classic songs."

WRWTFWW Records presents a new collaborative album between Polish producer, multi-instrumentalist and sound engineer Albert Karch (notably known for his superb 2019 album Celestially Light featuring Ichiko Aoba) and Irish ambient master and label's favorite Gareth Quinn Redmond. The six-track LP comes as a limited edition of 300 copies worldwide with an artwork by Dublin artist Barry Gibbons and liner notes. It is available in digital format as well. Recorded in at Albert Karch's studio in Warsaw in January 2023, Warszawa is conceptually rooted in the reason the two artists met in the first place: the work of Japanese composer Satoshi Ashikawa, who sought to compose a time that was stationary. Sparse in approach but sharp with intention, the six pieces of the collaborative album were sculpted with precise and floating use of piano, drums, synthesizers, and strings. The result is gentle but emotionally deep minimalistic ambient, reassuring environmental music with an indescribable Mark Hollis touch, also an artist whose worked influenced the recording sessions. Gareth Quinn Redmond's previous albums, Laistigh Den Ghleo, another ode to the work of Satoshi Ashikawa, Umcheol, mixing ambient with traditional Irish music instruments. Warszawa by Albert Karch and Gareth Quinn Redmond is dedicated to the memory of Satoshi Ashikawa. For fans of ambient, minimalism, environmental, Satoshi Ashikawa, Mark Hollis, Erik Satie, Midori Takada, piano, synth, quiet Winter nights in a warm place, with a friend, or two. Limited edition of 300.

Senking and DYL team up again after first collaborating for a track on 2020's Uniformity Of Nature EP that also featured different solo productions by the two producers. Diving Saucer Attack is the first full-length record by the German artist and his Romanian collaborator, released through the Berlin-based Karaoke Kalk label, home to the former's work for more than a quarter of a century. The six pieces, two of which were produced individually, both showcase the duo's shared interests for dub-heavy, adventurous electronic music while also emphasizing the productive friction generated by the subtle differences between their respective approaches. Cluj-Napoca-based DYL, real name Eduard Costea, cites his colleague Jens Massel's work and especially his Ping EP as a crucial point of reference for his own development. Massel was already familiar with his partner's eclectic productions when he was approached by him with the idea of collaborating for a piece in 2020. They didn't stop there, as Massel explains: "It went very well and ever since we've been sending each sounds and tracks." As their first joint album, Diving Saucer Attack documents the multi-faceted results of this on-going process. Throbbing bass frequencies, haunting synth melodies and carefully placed rhythmic elements form a slow, but driving groove. Before DYL's "a7r380R" introduces the listener to his anthemic take on IDM, the collaborative second track "2024" showcases how well their respective philosophies complement one another: the two create a detailed soundscape in which an intricate interplay of percussive elements and melodies can unfold. The title track transforms rattling drums and growling bass sounds into a laid-back, spooky trip-hop tune with a live-jazz feel, while "Astral Project" sees the duo venture into the uncanny regions of dub techno. "Not Just Numbers" closes on an even more sombre note -- a fitting closing statement to an album full of twists and turns. Diving Saucer Attack is a special album on more than the musical level.

The debut release of Malmo-in-Sweden based producer Martinou on Mule Musiq. There are four first-class atmospheric psychedelic deep house tracks.

Over the summer of 2024, Adam F released a series of reboots on 181 Recordings -- the label founded with vocalist and partner Kirsty Hawkshaw. He now presents painstakingly re-recorded and rebooted versions of his seminal track "Circles," with a reboot by Adam F, as well as the first official release of the Pola & Bryson & Adam F reboot -- which has been causing a storm on DnB dancefloors worldwide. "'Circles' is one of the first tracks where I could express my influences with no boundaries. The music became known as Drum n' Bass but started off as hardcore Rave and Jungle. One of the greatest things about it for me was that I could express myself through that medium using all my influences; funk, soul, reggae and jazz -- freely and unrestricted." says Adam F on the release. "'Circles' has evolved over time with very solid and rich roots. Behind the hooks, basslines and such there are great textures. Saxophone, trumpet, Keyboards and synthesizers contributing to a free flowing arrangement drawing on my love of jazz musicians indulging my own personal imaginative dreamscape of sound. Ultimately I want it to be crafted into something of a listener's story and journey that people can hang their hats on as well as their hearts."

2024 repress. "Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy, x2 LPs of long-form, lyrical, groove-based free improv by acclaimed guitarist & composer Jeff Parker's ETA IVtet, is at last here. Recorded live at ETA (referencing David Foster Wallace), a bar in LA's Highland Park neighborhood with just enough space in the back for Parker, drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss, & alto saxophonist Josh Johnson to convene in extraordinarily depthful & exploratory music making. Gleaned for the stoniest side-length cuts from 10+ hours of vivid two-track recordings made between 2019 & 2021 by Bryce Gonzales, Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy is a darkly glowing séance of an album, brimming over with the hypnotic, the melodic, & patience & grace in its own beautiful strangeness. Room-tone, electric fields, environment, ceiling echo, live recording, Mondays, Los Angeles. Jeff Parker's first double album & first live album, Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy belongs in the lineage of such canonical live double albums recorded on the West Coast as Lee Morgan's Live at the Lighthouse, Miles Davis' In Person Friday & Saturday Night at the Blackhawk, San Francisco & Black Beauty, & John Coltrane's Live in Seattle. While the IVtet sometimes plays standards &, including on this recording, original compositions, it is as previously stated largely a free improv group -- just not in the genre meaning of the term. The music is more free composition than free improvisation, more blending than discordant. It's tensile, yet spacious & relaxed. Clearly all four musicians have spent significant time in the planetary system known as jazz, but relationships to other musics, across many scenes & eras -- dub & Dilla, primary source psychedelia, ambient & drone -- suffuse the proceedings. Listening to playbacks Parker remarked, humorously & not, 'we sound like the Byrds' (to certain ears, the Clarence White-era Byrds, who really stretched it). A fundamental of all great ensembles, whether basketball teams or bands, is the ability of each member to move fluidly & fluently in & out of lead & supportive roles. Building on the communicative pathways they've established in Parker's -- The New Breed -- project, Parker & Johnson maintain a constant dialogue of lead & support. Their sampled & looped phrases move continuously thru the music, layered & alive, adding depth & texture & pattern, evoking birds in formation, sea creatures drifting below the photic zone. Or, the two musicians simulate those processes by entwining their terse, clear-lined playing in real-time. The stop/start flow of Bellerose, too, simulates the sampler, recalling drum parts in Parker's beat-driven projects. Mostly Bellerose's animated phraseologies deliver the inimitable instantaneous feel of live creative drumming. The range of tonal colors he conjures from his extremely vintage battery of drums & shakers -- as distinctive a sonic signature as we have in contemporary acoustic drumming -- bring almost folkloric qualities to the aesthetic currency of the IVtet's language. A wonderful revelation in this band is the playing of Anna Butterss. The strength, judiciousness & humility with which she navigates the bass position both ground & lift upward the egalitarian group sound. As the IVtet's grooves flow & clip, loop & repeat, the ensemble elements reconfigure, a terrarium of musical cultivation growing under controlled variables, a tight experiment of harmony & intuition, deep focus & freedom. For all its varied sonic personality, Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy scans immediately & unmistakably as music coming from Jeff Parker's unique sound world. Generous in spirit, trenchant & disciplined in execution, Parker's music has an earned respect for itself & for its place in history that transmutes through the musical event into the listener. Many moods & shapes of heart & mind will find utility & hope in a music that combines the autonomy & the community we collectively long to see take hold in our world, in substance & in staying power. On the personal tip, this was always my favorite gig to hit, a lifeline of the eremite records Santa Barbara years. Mondays southbound on the 101, driving away from tasks & screens & illness, an hour later ordering a double tequila neat at the bar with the band three feet away, knowing i was in good hands, knowing it would be back around on another Monday. To encounter life at scales beyond the human body is the collective dance of music & the beholding of its beauty, together." --Michael Ehlers & Zac Brenner

2024 repress; 180-gram LP version. Originally released in 1975. Remastered by Manuel Göttsching. Recorded July-August 1974, Inventions for Electric Guitar is Manuel Göttsching's first solo album. Written and performed entirely by Göttsching on electric guitar, with a four-track TEAC A3340, Revox A77 for echoes, wah-wah pedal, volume pedal, Schaller Rotosound, and Hawaiian steel bar.

Double LP version. NOTON presents the release of Xerrox Vol. 5, the final installment of Alva Noto's Xerrox series. For anyone who has been following the series since its inception in 2007, the concept of Xerrox no longer requires introduction. Originally, it aimed to create copies of images -- both visual and acoustic -- that are more memorable than the originals. The exploration of the relationship between the original and the copy, along with the invention of the copier, not only inspired the series name but also informed its underlying concept. In 2024, this series comes to an end, marking the culmination of a journey that began with the first recording in 2005/2006. Over nearly two decades, the five albums in this series have accompanied the artist's evolving perspective and conceptual approach. Nicolai describes this evolution as a journey encompassing buildup, exploration, and resolution, drawing parallels to the Odyssey and the stories of Jules Verne, particularly those featuring Captain Nemo. The conclusion of this album holds a sense of finality for the artist. In crafting Volume 5, Nicolai has evolved his compositional process, eschewing samples in favor of original melodies. Drawing from his recent experiences working with film and larger ensembles, Nicolai's approach to composition reflects a growing influence of classical instrumentation. The sonic atmosphere of Xerrox Vol. 5 is one of profound dissolution. "I wasn't initially interested in strong, emotional melodic aspects," Nicolai shares, "but I realized that the fragment plays a central role." This shift leads to an emotionally charged experience, imbued with melancholy and the bittersweet essence of farewell. The passing of Ryuichi Sakamoto, an admirer of the series, has further deepened the album's emotional resonance. "Xerrox Vol. 5 has a lot to do with farewell," the artist explains. "Not only the farewell to the series itself, which I've nurtured for almost two decades, but also there have been many farewells to people who were close to me. I believe these people are recognizable in the music. It's a very emotional, personal album." Listeners can expect a visual dimension to the music, though Nicolai intentionally leaves this open to interpretation. The result is a layered listening experience that invites tenderness and introspection. Album art designed by Carsten Nicolai & Nibo. Mastering by Bo at Calyx.