Issue 93: Blancmange
*In process of stocking* We're delighted to have Blancmange main man Neil Arthur on the cover of the latest issue of Electronic Sound – and a special dot-to-dot image of him, no less. We have a limited edition pink vinyl seven-inch to accompany the magazine too, with the awesome 'Living On The Ceiling' on the A-side.
Blancmange were one of the coolest synthpop outfits of the early 1980s and it was quite a surprise when Neil Arthur and his original partner Stephen Luscombe called it a day in 1986…
Do you Believe in a Pencil?
*200 copies limited edition* Ferns Recordings presents Do you Believe in a Pencil? by Small Cruel Party. Reissue of the first Small Cruel Party CD with different artwork done by Abo (Mark Schomburg/Petry Supply).
Phantom Rooms
A house is something that is so deeply temporary, yet it can hold so much energy. How do we carry or leave behind those energies while transitioning into new spaces? How does each space we occupy for some time shape us and how do we tear ourselves away from it and its influence once it’s time to go? These are some of the core questions behind CC Sorensen’s new album for Mappa, ‘Phantom Rooms’ – it’s a record about movement, change, transformation, family, juxtapositions… but most of all, home.CC…
Petra (Tape)
Tip! Milanese sound artist Alberto Boccardi explores eerie electro-acoustic interstices reflecting his time spent in Cairo, and move back home to Italy, for Room 40. ‘Petra’ unpackages the artist’s mind in quiet, spectral designs after spending five years in the humid swelter and febrility of the Egyptian capital. Recording in a Milan studio he set up years before, Boccardi embraces silence after so long without, prizing his studio’s relative familiarity and controlled settings as a space to ru…
Paréidolie
*Limited Edition of 300 copies.* Three years after Pergélisol/Chorémanie, their first diptych album crossing post-punk radicalism and minimalist ambition, the quartet named after Maria Spelterini (an Italian tightrope walker who crossed the Niagara Falls on a wire several times in 1876) released a second record that transcends this delicate aesthetic balance and navigates well beyond/below rock and electronics. When Pierre-Antoine Parois, Arthur de La Grandière (members of Papier Tigre), Meriade…
All That We See or Seem
*Limited edition of 300 copies.* “Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?” This quote from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe sums up the lamenting, primal work that is "All That We See or Seem"; a project conceived between Finland, England and Brazil. The self-titled album consists of two long-form pieces of droning mysticism hailing from the trio of Gruth (concept, production, electronics), Ellen Southern (vocals, field recordings, percussion) and Johanna Puuperä (violin, modular synthes…
Alles Wieder Offen
Working outside normal record business market mechanisms, Einstürzende Neubauten recorded this album over some 200 days in their own studio funded by their world-wide network of subscribing supporters via www.neubauten.org. Possibly informed by the title of 2000's Silence Is Sexy, the word on the international music scene was that Einstürzende Neubauten had become calmer, quieter even. Alles Wieder Offen blows this assumption out of the water; it is an urgent and compelling album in every aspect…
Byakuya
*2022 stock.* Na-Dha is the solo project by Sandy aka Magthea, the male half of Hybryds! During centuries Japanese religion (Sjintoisme with Boeddistic influences) has been used by the ruling classes for political purpose and domination. After world war II Japan trembled, to discover that their emperor was not a God, reshaped their inner believes and left many in confusion.Japanese man had a particular need for breaking out of the excessive obedience by outbursts of violence. This mental escape …
Lemon Technique
Michael Eisl (Eichamt) had a long eclectic journey between various projects for theater, improvisation, sound art and sound installations, all the way to his first release on God Records. His first release presents him in his full abstract electronics mood, in his own words: "Between analog experiments and obsessive-compulsive digital reworking there is constant need for recalibration."
This is also the first Tape release on vinyl-only label, God Records from Graz, Austria and also the point whe…
Petrichor
Tip! Max Loderbauer’s career in music spans the last 3 decades, yet he’s still managed to keep his listeners hungry by releasing only 3 solo albums to date. Two of those releases (Transparenz, 2013 and Donnerwetter, 2020) were on Tobias Freund’s label Non Standard Productions - his long time collaborator and Templehof studio mate. In between those releases, Loderbauer graced Marionette with Greyland in 2016, revealing a previously unheard youthful and sentimental side. Now in 2022, the seasoned …
Konec
*In process of stocking. Limited edition of 500 copies.* Longtime friends and frequent collaborators Luke Entelis (Viul) and Thomas Meluch (Benoît Pioulard) combine their enchanting textures reflecting on a time spent in lockdown, for A Strangely Isolated Place.
"Konec" is Czech for "end," and a nod to the uncertainty of Luke and Thomas’ home city of New York amidst the pandemic. Birthed from Luke’s short synth sketches, the two friends further collaborated in isolation to create a series of str…
Syntheticopia
*In process of stocking. Limited edition of 100 copies.* Welcome to Astronomer, Inc. (AI) is a non-government agency that is responsible for auditory research of deep space phonic transmissions and sound exploration. AI’s research is a mix of disciplines which encompasses earth-based instrumentation and sound devices, while capturing celestial phonic emissions. AI approved a new mission and the program was titled, ‘syntheticopia’. Classification ID for this voyage was ZD-021. The goal of this mi…
El Fabuloso Sonido de Andrés Vargas Pinedo: Una Colección de Música Popular Amazónica (1966-1974)
** Limited Edition 300 Copies ** Andrés Vargas Pinedo is a prominent composer of Amazonian popular music from Peru. He is blind and has excelled as a player of the quena and the violin. He was born in the city of Yurimaguas but he developed as an artist in Lima, for thirty years he has worked as a traveling musician on a street in the San Isidro district of Lima. Throughout his career, he has formed and joined various popular music groups. This compilation presents fifteen songs of his authorshi…
Aether
Over the course of two nights, a few weeks before the pandemic arrived in Portugal, André Gonçalves (ADDAC System) and Casper Clausen (Efterklang) recorded music from another realm, dreamy and scary at the same time, sounds complete but it seems to be falling apart at any moment. It is like an alien language or a way to process sound that sounds foreign because it is different from everything else, formally, and aesthetically. This is “Aether”, 37 minutes of constant take-off. A departure from w…
Meditations & Suite
After releasing their aptly titled first three LPs (I, II & III) Godtet concluded their triptych with the idea of a 'clean slate'. To allow the universe of Godtet to grow the band hit reset somewhat. Returning to their original conception of the band; Hitting record in the studio without preconceived thought or discussion on the outcome.
After recording Meditations Godtet were asked to pay homage to the great John Coltrane at The Sydney Opera House during their lockdown web series in 2020. To ce…
The Thetford Beast
Motoring up to Norwich from London, it would be difficult to miss Thetford Forest, the vast wooded wilderness that follows a large section of the A11. Planted between the world wars to ensure a plentiful timber stock, today it's a managed park attracting picnickers and hikers. But there's another side to this wood that most day trippers would probably be unaware of...
Concretism's Chris Sharp can often be found walking in Norfolk's Thetford Forest as he has family over that way. It was on one su…
Hallucinating Loss
In Hallucinating Loss, composer William Fowler Collins presents one hell of a cinematic record. Through a sweeping grandeur and telescoped gestures, he offers a poignant and powerful meditation on grief, loss, and sorrow. Completed before the 2020 pandemic besieged the US, this is an album that presages the conditions of anguish that many have felt throughout this very difficult season.
For this album, Collins furthers the connectivity between film and sound by recruiting his friends and colleag…
Murkhr
*2022 stock. Limited edition of 300 copies.* Note: All LPs have a small manufacturing defect: all delivered discs are not perfectly flat, they have a slight inclined shape which however does not prevent the perfect reproduction of the sound. We like to clarify this before your order but don't hesitate ordering such item as this small flaw is almost invisible and has no side efects.
Nordvargr makes a triumphant return to the darkambient scene after a few years of silence. Having focused more on …
It Changes
*2022 stock.* It Changes is a new album by Ailie Ormston and Tim Fraser. It incorporates samples of collaborative session material, automated MIDI instrumentation, and adhoc field recordings. Music from this album was first presented in 2019 as a larger audio-visual work which debuted at the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow as part of Counterflows festival. The recordings were then completed in 2020 during the first lockdown using voice notes, and by running a 7.5m headphone cable between…
Signals
Lawson & Merrill are not financial advisors. But if electroacoustic bliss is what you seek, you would do well to make an appointment with them. They – David Margolin Lawson and David Merrill – met a number of years ago while engineering sessions at the revered CityVox Studios in New York City. They discovered they both had a love for “mid century” electronic music and composers like Morton Subotnick, Eliane Radigue, Edgard Varèse, Ilhan Mimaroğlu, and Steve Reich. It wasn’t until recently, thoug…