Electronic / All styles

Fifteen artists revisit the tracks and the cover art of Aksak Maboul's latest album 'Figures'! Ranging from simple remixes to reconstructions and cover versions, these 18 tracks are released on two separate, limited-edition vinyl LPs, as well as on two digital albums. In order to extend the fun (and the metaphor in the title), Aksak Maboul have asked the contributors to also revisit Véronique Vincent’s painting which adorned the front cover of the album *. The participants include experimental …

Fifteen artists revisit the tracks and the cover art of Aksak Maboul's latest album 'Figures'! Ranging from simple remixes to reconstructions and cover versions, these 18 tracks are released on two separate, limited-edition vinyl LPs, as well as on two digital albums. In order to extend the fun (and the metaphor in the title), Aksak Maboul have asked the contributors to also revisit Véronique Vincent’s painting which adorned the front cover of the album *. The participants include experimental …

"It’s not my normal Sunday morning post-liturgy music, but there is a gloriously horrendous feel to it, marking in some way, a societal collapse we all seem to be witnessing worldwide." - Music You Need To Hear

"Flutter & Scrape" is a walking performance for prepared piano, aleatorically prepared room & objects, sine & square wave oscillators, tapes, voice, EMF signal, & time-based electronics.  Performed by Sontag Shogun in 2018 in the studio at Machines With Magnets, recorded by Seth Manchester. Electronics & processing done in Montreal & Brooklyn in 2019.

Bob Bellerue's “Unhinged" is 85 minutes of physically heavy yet delicately executed amplified piano noise drone. Taken from two festival performances in 2017, the recordings capture the multidimensional articulation of the speaker systems used on and around the strings of a grand piano. Pickups and microphones are variously fed to small medium and large speakers to make feedback, which is combined to create cross-modulations that are petulant and unstable. Quiet groaning drones build to massive …

Overview 'On Zone 7 New York artist Christina Giannone creates sound worlds that act as portals to the interiority of our lived experiences. These portals appear like shimmering nebula, distant but compelling, calling our attention and sparking us to reach out towards them. Through a series of drifting passages her record maps out a possible trajectory into the recesses of our often under explored subconscious. This is not a didactic music, rather it is invitational and maintains a constant flow…

Notes from Steve Roden on Oionos
:'Oionos was created for the exhibition The Grand Promenade, in Athens, Greece.

 The exhibition took place in various archaeological and historical sites in central Athens, creating a situation for contemporary site specific works to be in dialogue with their historical surroundings.
 While it was not originally offered as a possible site, I pleaded with the curator to allow me to work with architect Dimitris Pikionis’s Church of St. Dimitris Loumbardiardis, abo…

Melbourne based percussionist and composer Maria Moles charts out an electro-acoustic familial history with 'For Leolanda’. Drawing on family roots in The Philippines, she extrapolates rhythm and timbre from the diverse musics of that country and interweaves them with percussion, synthesizer and singing bowls. Her sonic meditations are open and generous, and they chart out the shape and pulse of memory; both real and imagined. Each piece tests for the relationships between frequency and harmony,…

*500 copies limited edition* Since the late 1970s, Nigel Ayers (b. 1957, UK) has cut a bracing, subversive path through the contemporary underground, bridging DIY industrial enthusiasms with multimedia experimentation to form a singular body of work. Co-founder of the groups The Pump and Nocturnal Emissions (along with brother Daniel Ayers and then-partner Caroline Kaye), Ayers has been a contributor to and proponent of industrial music’s high-water marks, his Sterile Records imprint disseminati…

"Jeff Carney's sophomore effort for audioFile (1989) could not have been criticized were it to have remained in similar territory as the electronic wall of sound he had created on Imperfect Space Journeys. Instead, he created a more sparse, evolving tapestry of analog timbres. Using an exclusively vintage analog arsenal and recording live without overdubbing, Carney pushed forward with new ideas and uniquely developing sweeps of filter madness. The side-long 'Questions (Unanswered)' is immensely…

Recorded during two days of extreme weather, Eleh's Snoweight conveys the mesmerizing force of a winter storm with sonic realism and romanticism. These two new compositions evoke both warm security and wild, blanketing intensity in ways that are both emotionally arresting and time stopping.

As in the Osvaldo Coluccino's own words: "Presence of the work, absence of the author. So muffled, vapor escaping from an old coffer, so dusty and apparently, in some ways, timbrically “primordial” and yet elusive, the first three compositions of the album unfold. The following three increase the dynamism and openness of the timbre.  As always in my albums, also in Absum a journey takes place along the tracks that, joined together, make it up. Even in this “raw” timbre paste, emblem of adherence…

Atsuko Hatano is a contemporay classical Viola player who works with electronics to add textures and layers to her sound. Located in Tokyo, Japan, she is a commanding instrumentalist and composer who constructs innovative compositions with strings and layered electronics.Cells #5 is an orchestral collection and sequel to her previous album Cells #2 which will also be released on cassette via Imprec’s Cassauna label. Cells #5 required three years to complete and the work features the artist’s sig…

Every new St. Abdullah record is an attempt to present new ideas and To Live A La West is no exception. Spread out over a CD on Imprec and a cassette on sister label Cassauna, To Live A La West is simply moving, a collection of profound and spiritual tracks miraculously existing at the impossible intersection of free jazz and electro where mystery and clarity exist together. Neither complicated or complex but profound, St. Abdullah’s new work is partially inspired by their love for Jon Hassell’s…

The Fact of Being are happy to inform about the second step in a series of reissues of early works by Peter Davison. The long-awaited re-edition of a highly acclaimed and innovative album "Glide" 1981 to celebrate its 40th anniversary. "Glide" was the second artist's album. Released in 1981 on vinyl and urgently repressed in 1982 due to high demand it was sold-out fast again and has not been reissued since that. To date, this is one of the rarest and wanted ambient recordings that finally availa…

This is the ES final issue of 2021 with the best releases of the last 12 months for your delectation and delight. Our cover star is LoneLady, the first artist to ever have two records in our Top Five Albums Of The Year, and our bundle edition includes a brilliant double CD featuring a bumper selection of the finest tracks of 2021.  We have reviewed 900 albums over the course of this year and deciding on our favourites has involved endless days of list scribbling, head scratching and pencil chewi…

Founded by Eric Jensen & the late Bill DiMichele (RIP), the lifespan of San Francisco based project Batang Frisco (‘San Francisco Kids’ in the Filipino dialect Tagalog) is inimitably distilled on this solitary self-titled record, an outlandish private press pearl of homespun minimal synth music.Recorded over the course of 1985/6 and self-released in 1986, the one and only Batang Frisco LP was the product of an inconspicuous DIY existence spent in the margins of the Bay Area scene in the 1980s. C…

Spunky wave kraut from early ‘80s Germany, portraying the sound of the country’s first proper youth movement, with Conrad Schnitzler, Der Plan, Palais Schaumburg, Asmus Tietchens, Holger Hiller, Populäre Mechanik and many more

Tokio Hasegawa was an original member of Taj-Mahal Travelers. After the band, he has organized Mithila Museum, a small museum for Indian vernacular art, in forest area in Niigata pref. since 1982. His action of introduction of the art is well-known and respected by India nowadays, however, he is still a musician. This CD was released as realization of his cosmological thinking and sound. All instruments are played and mixed by himself (except voice and rhythm, by his daughter).

Double LP version. "Gonzen, uminari or retumbos. Perhaps you've heard these sounds? They're known to occur all over the world and, as one might expect, humans have strained to offer various explanations for these unsettling emissions that materialize unbidden from the sky. We like to say that we've understood what's happening so that we can move on. Tidy up the loose ends and don't scare the horses. Nothing wrong with that in good measure, but there's something to be said for the Haudenosaunee p…

**Edition of 125** The investigative sound artist Jeff Surak is quick to point out that this title should not be interpreted in a negative sense. merely a neutral observation. in fact, themes of detached inquest about disintegration have been quite welcome here at the helen scarsdale agency.  surak has been a fixture within the experimental community for many years, curating the sonic circuits festival, programming for rhizomedc, and running his own zeromoon label. his own work manifests non-lin…

**Edition of 125** Hauras returns to the helen scarsdale agency for a second missive of blurred and broken song. the name translates from finnish as 'fragile,' and that remains an apt psychological space for the construction and composition of the glare of the nave. Howard Ryan, the san francisco citizen behind the hauras moniker, composed this album in seclusion during the second year of the pandemic. it's a crumpled album from a crumpled time.  ryan conjures his fragments of guitar, keys, scan…

* Edition of 100 * In August 1979, ONNYK planned an event called “The Fifth Column Week!" = Daigoretsu Week!, he was o ne of leader of the expanded category group. It was a gallery event where 22 participants from Tokyo , Kyoto, and Morioka hold exhibitions of objects and graphic works, performances, poetry readings, p hysical workshops, theatrical events and improvisations. As part of that, I asked Seiji Nagai to per form a live performance of sitar solo. This special edition #1 consists of reg…

2021 Stock ** Remastered. Limited to 300 copies, Japan release only** Early pioneers of the German New Wave music scene, Din A Testbild were formed in 1978 by Mark Eins and Gudrun Gut (former member of Einstürzende Neubauten, Mania D. and Malaria!). Self-produced third album recorded in 1983. Their sound style totally changed to an introspective soundscape. Including “Going Tutu”, he masterpiece track which was re-evaluated and released as a single after decades. The original LP is known as a ra…

** 200 copies** The anonymous project that makes a pun on a famous Schlager singer!? This mysterious singer was really Jens Kraft from Saal 2. Their only release was published on Unser Angebot label in 1982. This reprint CD is including 2 tracks from the single and 2 unpublished recordings. This is a complete collection of his work!

* Edition of 300 * In 1994, Jens Kraft and Godeke Ilse reunited the band. The increased number of their band name like "SAAL 3", "SAAL 4" and "SAAL 5" was returned to "SAAL 2" as the original. "Auf der Suche nach dem Glück" was released after the reunion, but their first first album. This reissue CD includes unpublished tracks additionally as bonus. Producer: Detlef Diederichsen (Die Zimmermänner). * 2021 digitally remaster used. * Including full-color booklet. * Limited edition, Japan release O…

* Edition of 100 * Including all the official tracks from the Saal 3 and Saal 4 era. Plus an unpublished track as bonus. Limited to 100 copies

* Edition of 300 * Saal 2 was formed in Hamburg in 1980 and had an influential position in the German music scene then. Including all the tracks from "Angust Vorm Tanzen" (their debut release from ZickZack, 1980), compilation track and unpublished tracks from the same time. This compilation album was previously released on LP from VOD label in 2005. This CD, in addition, includes 5 more unpublished tracks as bonus.* 2021 digitally remaster used.* Including full-color booklet.* Limited edition, J…

2021 Stock * Edition of 300 * The original LP was released on Zensor in 1982. Guiest musicians: Genesis P-Orridge, Alexander von Borsig, Angelika Maisch, Christian Kneisel (ex. Agitation Free). Including bonus tracks from “Valeska”, his first 7” EP (1979) and more. A long awaited reissue attempt of Frieder Butzmann's first album from 1981. Butzmann, a self proclaimed "spokesman of the people," more specifically of the Berlin underground, published his debut album after the famous "Waschsalon" 7"…

2021 Stock * Edition of 300 * Special compilation album of Ralf Dörper's (Die Krupps, Propaganda) early rare recordings from 1979 - 1981. Experimental sound collage works!! All tracks are digitally remastered. Liner notes: Ralf Dorper (English & Japanese).

"Le ménisque original is my first solo album under the Sarah Terral moniker. The album was composed and played with a very small modular synthesizer. I wanted to make a very intuitive and minimal record with the idea of doing as little editing and retouching as possible. Synthetic, minimal, restricted, contrasted and intuitive music.  Terral is my mother’s last name and Sarah is the name I would have had if I had been a girl. It is in a way my feminine alter-ego. I wanted it to be almost me, but…

**Natural vinyl with exclusive RISO reproductions of Pamela Z posters from the 1980s / 1990s. Print set includes four 8.5x11" prints in a stamped envelope, hand-assembled in Brooklyn** "Echolocation is the debut album by Pamela Z, the pioneering Bay Area intermedia composer and performance artist. Written and recorded over three years, and self-released and distributed on cassette in 1988, Echolocation is a genre-defying document of Z’s earliest experiments with live voice and delay, and the imp…

Tip! ** Edition of 200 ** Leaving Hardly a Mark is the debut album of the LHAM project, behind which lie the Italians Giuseppe Verticchio (Nimh, Hall of Mirrors, Twist of Fate...) and Bruno De Angelis (Mana Erg). Cinematic and strongly evocative atmospheres are painted with the use of electronic instrumentation, guitars, bass and effects, following stylistic paths on the borderline between ambient music, moderate experimentation and subliminal "World" veins. Delicate sound watercolours, moments …

** CD + 21x21cm 48-page booklet in Italian, ltd. 200 copies ** "It often happens that crime stories are able to influence the larger history that surrounds them, but very few are those that managed to change aspects of society and pass through more than five decades unharmed, at least in terms of fascination. The whole story of the Monster of Florence is one of them. It is impossible not to get entangled or at least to be captured by it, if one delves into its pages of far-fetched features and t…

In a truly monumental rising, Art Into Life delivers “«…»”, the first new album to appear by the legendary French composer and performer, Anne Gillis, in 28 years. Released in limited editions of 300 copies on LP and 200 copies on CD, sculpting entirely singular and visionary tapestries of sonority at the borders of noise, industrial, and music concrète, it encounters an artist of towering importance at the height of her powers, and is unquestionably one of the most exciting new releases of the …

Marking their fourth studio album, Chiastic Slide saw Autechre exploring dark, glitched-out sonics, harsh sounds, and mechanical rhythms.  Chiastic Slide - the glitch blueprint - endlessly imitated, deconstructed and worshipped, now a quarter of a century old and still capable of shaping the narrative.  We’ve said it before, but the period that followed Chiastic Slide was a weird one in electronic music, there were just no other records that shaped IDM in quite the same way. This rubs people the…

This month's Electronic Sound cover feature tells the fascinating story of the soundtrack to 'Drive', one of the greatest movies of recent times.

Devoted to the art of moving butts, our latest cover stars are the fabulous Tom Tom Club, the band that started out as a Talking Heads offshoot but rapidly turned Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz into global musical heavyweights in their own right. We have an exclusive blue vinyl seven-inch featuring two awesome remixes of the group's 'Genius Of Love' to accompany the magazine too.

“Kontraktion” and “Extruder” are the results of various tape-sessions by Conrad Schnitzler and Siegmar Fricke in Con’s former studio Leberstrasse in Berlin.The soundscapes on both records (produced in November 1986 and July 1987 with EMS-Synthi A, Korg MS 10 + MS 20 + delays) contain all the machinistic energy and infernal industrial sound-eruptions similar to Conrad’s first three albums “Schwarz”, “Rot” and “Blau” and to the rumbling train wheel rhythms of “Zug” (from the “Red Cassette” 1974). …

New album by the the Hague-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Lyckle de Jong "This album is titled Os. When I look at the shape of these two letters, O and S, I realize that they are a rotation and an oscillation.  Os is Dutch for Ox. An ox is a castrated male bull.
The primary benefit of castrating bull calves is to 
temper their tempers, making it easier and cheaper for people to handle them. Os is also an abbreviation of oscillation, -cillation being castrated off.
 Oscillation means a …