Poe
Recorded over the course of March 2020 in Bandung and Amsterdam, ‘Poe’ is a collaboration between Jonny Nash and Teguh Permana. Permana is a renowned player of the Tarawangsa, a two-stringed instrument used in the sacred Tarawangsa music of Sunda, Indonesia. Poe’, meaning ‘Days’ in Sundanese, is a meditation on death and rebirth as reflected in the passing of time and the changing of the seasons. Permana is also active in the group Tarawangsawelas who released their debut album on Morphine recor…
French Archives Vol. II 1974-1985
An absolutely astounding accomplishment, Black Sweat's second 4 LP Box set of previously unreleased material by Ariel Kalma - French Archives Vol. II - is a mind-melting immersion into the composer and saxophonist's radical experiments and stunning ambient harmonics made between 1974 and 1985. Venturing far beyond the territories for which he is most well-known, the collection takes great strides to accurately framing ambient and New Age musics as rightful extensions of the avant-garde, and is e…
Hole in my Head
The only true non-places are those of the mind: but being able to give them a tangible form doesn't always equate to the delineation of a balanced, pictorially satisfying landscape, nor does it solve the inner mystery from which it originated. In the creation of an audio document, even the simplest sonic occurrence derives from an idea and a gesture, even if only pressing the record button: and it's precisely the gesture - be it overt, dissimulated, concealed, or mediated - the absolute protagon…
Some Deaths Take Forever
2LP + insert. First time vinyl reissue since the original 1980 version. Original remastered album plus second LP with unreleased extra tracks from 'Some Deaths Take Forever' recording sessions. Originally released on Pathé in 1980, the influence and the impact of Some Deaths Take Forever is still vibrating: Carl Craig mentioned it as his all time favorite album in Future Mag, the signature sound of Oneohtrix Point Never feels almost like a not so hidden tribute and the killer sci fi electronics …
Postcards From Nowhere
In 2017, musicians and regular collaborators Gigi Masin and Jonny Nash were invited to a residency at artist Xavier Veilhan's "Studio Venezia" project at the Venice Biennale. For this immersive installation, Veilhan transformed the French Pavilion into a fully functioning recording studio, inviting artists to record original works during a series of residencies. Masin and Nash recorded a series of improvised compositions primarily for Piano and Guitar which were eventually edited down to 6 piece…
Hotel Nota
**Much needed, limited repress** If you plot a line between Jon Hassell’s 'Dream Theory In Malaya' and Jan Jelinek’s 'Loop Finding Jazz Records', you’ll find this pearl lodged somewhere in between. Add in cover art that reminds us of the sun-bleached breeze of Antena’s eternally nostalgic 'Camino Del Sol' and you have three of our favourite albums referenced in one paragraph. In other words; essential listening if yr into the aforementioned, or if you're in desperate need of some time alone, was…
Penetrating, For Filtration
Akhira Sano's "Penetrating, For Filtration" was manufactured on C60 Super Ferro tape for a low noise floor, high output, and an incredible warm sound. Packaged in a purple tinted case with silver shimmer printing. Japan's Akhira Sano is a young master of slow, ambient, electro new age music. His compositions are highly organic, growing and flowing with great patience and care. But, like in nature, imperfections and incidentals are allowed to evolve producing sublimely primal and imperfect music…
Aperio!
* 180 gram Vinyl * The title of Miki Yui’s seventh solo album “Aperio!” is derived from the latin origin of April, "aperire" meaning “to open” or “to reveal”. Hinting at the way her music unveils another reality which is hidden beneath the surface. The title also reflects the aperiodic character of the music, its irregularity. Like a magic word to reveal the mysterious cosmos, each song opens up another intimate world of wonders."All my work emerges from my physical experience, the inspiration o…
The Oblivion's Wordless Knot
* Edition of 100. CD + Booklet * CD self-released by Haarvöl with music created for the commissioned audio/visual work "The Oblivion's Wordless Knot" for The Family Film Project in Porto, November 2017. Comes with photo booklet in lovely 6 panel artwork. The media times of our self-absorved present seek instantaneity. A time that cancels time. Times that affirm forgetfulness as the necessary matrix for the perpetuation of the present. A present time that makes a continuous act of presence.
The w…
Dedans / Dehors
An exercise in musique concrète in the Luc Ferrari sense: not soundscape, not reportage, but the deliberate assemblage by montage and superposition of recorded sequences drawn from disparate origins, composed into a continuity that functions as sonic narrative. Meirino and Duplant arrange and contradict their sources so that the listener has to construct the story: recognition of materials and interpretation of their succession become themselves part of the compositional event.
Cuspa Llullu
Second collaboration between Anla Courtis and Daniel Menche, recorded across Portland and Buenos Aires. Two side-long pieces traverse a kaleidoscopic sound labyrinth: Side A moves through metallic, multi-layered corridors in constant mutation, Side B opens outdoors and gradually visits a sequence of interior regions toward a final climax. The sound material is treated as living, vibrating matter rather than inert sample, a study in frequency-as-organism on the drone-noise threshold.
The Age Of Space
* Edition of 200 * Joel Gilardini is an experimental guitarist and sound designer, based in Zurich (Switzerland). His solo ambient oriented works are often based on the use of live‐looping and instant composition techniques. It’s a very unique biosphere of ambient, drone, dub, doom elements and morphing soundscapes. Joel Gilardini opens at Montags for Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin/Mobile on regular basis at Exil club (Zurich/CH), and has taken part to Y2K International Live-Looping festivals in Zurich, Pa…
Abtasten_halten
Faitiche presents a new album by Frank Bretschneider. abtasten_halten was made as part of the raster.labor installation first presented at CTM Festival in 2019. It is perhaps the most radical work in Bretschneider's distinctive oeuvre: abtasten_halten is a self-generating composition for synthesizer modules whose sole sound source is the movement of two VU meter needles. The resulting percussive sounds coalesce into rhythmic combinations -- all random, without repetition. The album resembles a m…
Great Events Are Coming
* Edition of 200 * Over time, different sound elements have settled, coming to constitute a heterogeneous but at the same time subly fascinating whole. The noise was compounded by infanticidely rhythmic timbres of toy instruments, rustling and crackling of old vintage radios have been joined by snippets of miniaturized voices from the web. The final work is a fil rouge that crosses all these elements joining them in an unconventional sound research hypothesis.
Overgrowth
* Edition of 200 * Overgrowth: We consider technology as a tool at our disposal, while it has become the environment around us and takes only care of efficiency.
So, nowadays, the technical apparatus became more important than men and their needs.
It has no purpose, or a vision for a better mankind future. It only "works".
In Between
2020 release ** Limited edition of 200 copies. "Sound pulses and pale metallic clangs, thin percussive incisions, impalpable high notes broken by thundering and flaying industrial noises. This powerful work by Gianluca Becuzzi breaks down the barrier between the “inside” and the “outside”. As in the third law of correspondence what is above is below, what is below is above, the barriers are broken down, the rhythm deconstructs and annihilates, they are explosions of a Tancredi Parmeggiani with d…
Devotional LP
Devotional LP is a collection of darkly-beautiful prayers. A late-night walk through an ancient city center. Ceremonial bass-music. Alien-transmission crackle, whispered messages, and snippets of soulful vocals beamed from another dimension. An exotic melange of ambient, garage, pop, and techno. Ghosts of another time and place float in and out.
An ocean of emotion to swim in. Sounds that trigger memories of incense and exotic flowers in bloom. Menacing tones tempered with overwhelming beauty an…
November
Concept City was a low-key release in 1985 that surfaced on Cordelia Records, an underground favourite for lovers of esoteric ruminations from bedroom producers tinkering with technology. That makes it no surprise this reissue of work from Mr Concept appears on Platform 23, the perfect home for such charming collages of sound recorded on lo-fi four track. The mood veers from track to track on "November" but there's a generous nod to The Durutti Column in the lingering guitar refrains that appear…
Kave
New quartet by Samuel Rohrer, Max Loderbauer, Stian Westerhus, and Tobias Freund. In the present era of media saturation, the artist's dilemma has shifted away from the question whether to fuse disparate stylistic elements, towards the decision of which energies to draw upon: a situation most rewarding for those who listen to musicians navigating this limitless terrain. One such journey, the captivating full-length release from Samuel Rohrer's new Kave quartet, is bringing together players who a…
Whale - Wail, In Peace, En Paix: For Voice and Tape Structures of Whale and Other Animal Sounds
**2020 stock** Whale - Wail, In Peace, En Paix: For Voice and Tape Structures of Whale and Other Animal Sounds is a 1986 recording by composer Ann McMillan, commissioned by Moses Asch. The piece, first presented on Baffin Island, north of the Arctic Circle, for an Inuit audience, is a plea to humans to be more like whales. Inspired by her study with Edgard Varèse and his work with pre-recorded sounds, the composition features whales and other sound sources (including bull, insect, and Chinese cy…