New Arrivals
Of Wolves and People
In 2019 Melissa & Nils started working on this project, collaborating and exchanging ideas online. While Melissa followed the howl of the Iberian Wolf in Portugal, Nils focused on one particular Grey Wolf in Germany.
Befreit die Maschinen
The promise has for a very long time been that machines will free us from idle labor. They are to take the drudgery away from us so that we can turn our attention to the beautiful, pleasant and sublime things. And music machines have long carried with them the promise that they would enable everyone to make music. Any music that can be conceived and dreamed should be able to be sounded. But neither are people working less today, nor has the fascination with true virtuosity disappeared. On the co…
series invisible
With the use of an audio recorder, the sounds of selected places or specific sonic phenomena are recorded. At a later date, these initial recordings are deleted again. This process is captured in the form of „writing“. Thus a series of notations is being created.
Example:Wind (gentle)Record: 8.8.2021, 3:24 PM, Mönbachtal Eifel, (D).Delete: 8.8.2021, 3:31 PMDuration: 3’17“
In January 2023, all the notations created since 2004 were recorded in the studio of the Südwestrundfunk (SWR) by a female an…
In the End We Begin
Already in its title, Plume Girl’s debut thoroughly lets things go and takes them in – all at once. “In the End We Begin” is the first solo full-length from Sowmya Somanath, a Hindustani classical singer/composer and half of alt-pop duo Felt Out. Plume Girl’s music takes inspiration from the semi-regular musical form of the rāga (translated as ‘tinting’), invoking mood and atmosphere, each rāga thought to have its own distinct nature and personality, brought to life through improvisation. String…
Chimæras
Named after the mythological hybrid of the chimaera, Forces’ first collection for mappa was put together in a similar fashion. The sounds all stem from a fruitful residency at Stockholm’s EMS Elektronmusikstudion in May & June 2022, leading to a bounty of source material with which to build. The sounds and concept are equally chimeric, stringing together disparate and unintuitive jams, the music mimicking the multi-limbed, sewn together beasts of both creative open source coding and destructive …
Cave Acoustic
In 2018, New York based composer and improviser Lucie Vítková made recordings in caves in the Czech Republic and an abandoned Gothic church in Slovakia. Their album Cave Acoustics combines a beguiling exploration of the physicality and acoustics of these unique locations with profoundly personal themes of family legacy and roots. Lucie performed with their sisters in Výpustek Cave – an underground system of tunnels and former Soviet-era bunker. The choreography-based piece creates crescendos of …
sifting through heaven
Accepting the darkness can be a liberating experience. Realising, and struggling with just who we are and what world we live in requires it. By further complicating the fractured sense of beauty found on his droning 2022 release, ‘I dreamt we found a way’, Bristol-based composer, Rob Winstone creates a language that encapsulates the lifelong reach for our own personal heavens, along with the darkness and fear on which those foundations are built. Winstone’s instrumental palette continues to reac…
a path with a name
Atte Elias Kantonen is a composer and sound designer based in Helsinki, Finland. “a path with a name” follows well-received releases on Mappa and Active Listeners Club, and finds Kantonen expanding the scope of his dynamic and idiosyncratic practice. Here, he places his listeners within an auditive diorama, affording them myriad views of the microscopic landscapes contained there within. An oneiric narrative is established from the opening track, in which a heavily treated voice proposes a dialo…
Next Door
Adroit jazz guitar, prog rock fantasia, and Japanese environmental music all rest comfortably behind Leo Takami's Next Door. The follow up to the acclaimed Felis Catus & Silence, Next Door finds Takami ruminating on passages — of time, seasons, consciousness. Through music, Leo contemplates daily events and finds beauty in ordinary moments. He also seems to be questioning the value of being stuck in the world, allowing his mind to wander towards something beyond it. His music is earnest, deeply …
All Of You
All of You is a live album by American jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal featuring performances recorded at Jamal's own club in Chicago in 1961 and released originally on the Argo label. Jamal's group had a personal sound of its own, often playing quietly and leaving space but never losing the passion. These versions of "Time on My Hands," "Star Eyes" and "All of You" in particular are well worth hearing. On the cover, photographed by Don Bronstein, one of the first staff photographers for Playboy magazi…
Wganda Kenya Kammpala Grupo
*First time reissue!* A wild and funky collection of Afro grooves that was ahead of its time in 1977 and has become a collector’s item in recent years, especially due to the growing international interest in Colombian picó sound system culture. Fruko and his studio bands Wganda Kenya and Kammpala Grupo treat us to a diverse set of African and Caribbean styles, laced with crazy synths, psychedelic guitar and infectious pan-African polyrhythms.
Pan
“The album Led Zeppelin would have made, had they formed in Caracas” - Alex Figueira
First time reissue of one of the essential and most sought-after Venezuelan rock albums, originally released in 1970, along the lines of what other artists such as Santana or El Chicano were doing from the United States in those same years. Grupo Pan was led by Carlos “Nené” Quintero, former member of Los Dementes, Ray Pérez's group, and through this record he aims to retain the rhythmic strength and brass arran…
Cumbia De E.T. El Extraterrestre / El Regreso De E.T. El Extraterrestre
*First time reissue!* Two massive cumbias recorded in 1983 by Afrosound, the studio band fronted by Fruko and put together by Discos Fuentes in order to emulate the guitar-heavy tropical sounds emanating from Perú and Ecuador at the time. Heavy on space sounds and unexpected sonic tricks, these two songs were released as a tribute to E.T. aiming to take advantage of the pull of the film that year.
Mona Call
Two long-lost recordings from Marc Moulin's Placebo band, and it's earliest incarnation, Kiosk. Debuting unreleased outtakes from Placebo's second album, '1973', and the first ever official reissue of the proto-Placebo single by Kiosk. Originally pressed in tiny numbers in 1970 as a promotional release for Moulin's Sunday night radio show, Dimanche Musique, at RTB, Brussels. Taken from the only existing mastertapes, just recently resurfaced!
Phalene I / IV
*300 copies limited edition* Two long-lost recordings from Marc Moulin's Placebo band, and it's earliest incarnation, Kiosk. Debuting unreleased outtakes from Placebo's second album, '1973', and the first ever official reissue of the proto-Placebo single by Kiosk. Originally pressed in tiny numbers in 1970 as a promotional release for Moulin's Sunday night radio show, Dimanche Musique, at RTB, Brussels. Taken from the only existing mastertapes, just recently resurfaced!
Algo Salvaje Vol. 4
After three previous volumes in our series “Algo Salvaje” devoted to the Spanish nuggets, the new instalment explores the darkest, neglected and rebellious side of Peruvian 60s garage beat.
“Algo salvaje” is an anthology devoted to a rich period when hundreds of bands appeared all over the world and, after paying attention to what their US and British contemporaries were doing, found their own way to vent their teenage rebellion through loud guitars. With amazing results!
Many of the 14 tracks a…
Magnetic Stencil/ 2
Tip! "Instead of building towards a crescendo, Smyth and Wiese delight in sustained textures, then continue their patient growth … Scraped and plucked strings, caressed keys and percussive body knocks stand unwavering against waves of static, clusters of tinkling bells and spectral effects ... Throughout, the music’s flow remains profoundly atmospheric, almost oneiric, whether circling down a spiral of whisper-like low frequencies or being thrown around by violent stabs of noise. To finally brea…
Malayeen
*2023 repress* Discrepant proudly re-presents the Vinyl edition of Lebanese trio Malayeen. Malayeen is the project of Lebanese musicians Raed Yassin (Keyboards, Turntables & Electronics), Charbel Haber (Electric Guitar & Electronics) and Khaled Yassine (Darbouka, Percussion). Born from Yassin and Haber’s love for the music of quintessential Egyptian guitarist Omar Khorshid, Malayeen disassembles and re-configures the work and style of the iconic guitarist innovative take on Arabic music.
The fin…
Afterlife
*300 copies limited edition* Polish composer and sound artist Robert Piotrowicz presents his first work for Penultimate Press, one which outlines an uncanny sound world with a series of fictional organ pieces. Whilst resembling a pipe organ alongside other acoustic sources all material is strictly synthetic. The impression of air being swept through the bellows… false. The spatial organisation suggesting it was recorded in large physical space, false! The long middle solo passage in Noumen must…