In Different Rooms
In early spring 2023, with the end of Covid-19 in China, MK helped produce this album for Rubey. Focusing on the piano atmosphere and framework of the Night Piano Project, MK added some flowing sounds and textures to Rubey's original tracks using a guitar, delay effects, and a synthesizer. At the same time, Ding Mao, another member of the band Hualun, contributed on two tracks. Of course, all production processes were completed at night; capturing the quiet atmosphere of traditional Eastern natu…
Cordial
On ‘Cordial’, Ursula Sereghy traces the sensation of home; not as a place, but as something fleeting and deeply felt. Comfort appears in glimpses, nestled between moments of dissonance and unraveling structure. There is joy, but it carries the weight of absence, the quiet grief of realizing what was missing all along. A laughter that is both liberating and bittersweet.
Sereghy’s music moves with no fixed center, shedding hierarchies and opening itself to the unknown. Sounds unravel and reform: f…
Midnight in Tokyo Vol.4
Tsunaki Kadowaki curates the fourth installment of Midnight in Tokyo, themed around Ambient Kayō. The Midnight in Tokyo series by Studio Mule focuses on Japanese music, serving as a soundtrack for Tokyo nights -- whether for home listening, club play, or as a driving BGM, transcending location and space. The fourth volume takes "Ambient Kayō" as its new perspective, compiling genre-defying tracks released between 1977 and 1999 to explore the intersection of Japanese ambient and pop music. The fo…
Lucid Dreams
First Terrace are thrilled to present the new album Lucid Dreams from the prolific Japanese artist Chihei Hatakeyama on January 24th 2025. Renowned ambient composer Chihei Hatakeyama is set to release his latest album, Lucid Dreams, an evocative sonic exploration that invites listeners to drift between the waking world and the dreamscape, to experience “dreams you are aware that you are dreaming”. Known for his deep atmospheric textures and minimalist approach to sound, Hatakeyama’s new project …
The Air Outside Feels Crazy Right Now
Perila returns with a contemplative spiritual successor to her album »7.37/2.11«, which was also released on Vaagner’s sister label A Sunken Mall back in 2022. Featuring a collection of 8 pieces produced between 2021 and 2023, the album carries a serene vulnerability that underpins each work, drawing the listener in while gently grounding them amidst a drifting, ephemeral motion of echoing voices, droning guitars and sonorous soundscapes. Like a whispered conversation in the quiet moments of the…
Celesta
Tip! 'Celesta’ marks Barbarelle first foray into composing and producing her own music; a debut that reveals the intimate, heartfelt territories of her creative universe. The culmination of years of composing for herself - ‘behind closed doors’ - ‘Celesta’ is a deeply personal, self-guided masterstroke of beguiling, free-flowing ambient soundscapes and DIY electronics. With ‘Celesta’, Barbarelle artfully transitions from ardent music aficionado to fully-fledged artist, unveiling an enchanting so…
Antimother
2003 release ** ""Anti Mother is a follow-up from Czech ambient-industrial pioneers The Three, whose works foresaw and predestined the musical algorithms and the development the Czech industrial scene. After their last studio session in 1995, which resulted in seven compositions that blazed the trail later walked by such artists as Steve Roach or Yen Pox, Project the Three’s activity was frozen. After eight years of hibernation they have metamorphosized into Anti Mother.""
Phlegmaticus
1999 release ** "Maurizio Pustianaz is the mentor of Gerstein a one-man sound project that from the mid-80s to the end of the 90s, was creating authentic underground electronic gems. Already in the new century, Pustianaz opted for the most bland and commercial electro, something that he has been doing until now, a real shame. This is his most experimental stage, where he took risks with dense atmospheres, dark electronic sounds, tape treatment, etc... Re-issue of his first cassette released by t…
Thinking Dust
2005 release ** "After a few CD-R releases, Wolfram's "first real album", released by the newly established Monotype label from Warsaw. "Thinking Dust" develops and exceeds the ideas from "Atol Drone" and "Mind Locations" released over the years - a very personal, calm, but also subconsciously disturbing variety of ambient. Wolfram never explored the sounds of "post-club" or naive el-music, so his work has always been free from rainbow idyll, instead it was disturbing (without evoking ghosts or …
Cavitation
2005 release ** "The interaction between computer science technology and freeform musical creative process becomes a central point in this international collaboration of three artists from Belarus and USA. The abstract soundscapes are obscured by intricate structures, acoustic phenomena and electronic effects, it’s going to infinity and never repeat itself. The finest harmony of soundfield is credited to the principles of intuitive simulation, realised through the system of computer-aided instru…
../Requiem
2004 release ** "Andrea Resch was one of the two members of the legendary Mynox Layh. "Requiem" is a genuinely unusual, sinister work of morbid atmospheres... disorienting as though waking from a nightmare. Immense, striding, sumptuous string arrangements create a majestic and inspiring atmosphere. A highly recommended "opera" in vein of In The Nursery and old Laibach. There are no other words which could possibly describe the endless feeling of the album. This remastered edition features four b…
Cyber Totem
2007 release ** "Marek Styczyński uses technical achievements to create folk, ethnic music of various kinds - both in recording "in the field", in the studio, and in computer processing. He effectively transfers the world forgotten and rejected by pop culture into the digital sphere, processing it a lot. He writes: "I used sounds as the initial building block for designing sound environments and I completely processed some of them, moving them significantly away from the original". He uses many …
The 5th Anniversary Compilation
2008 release ** "Depressive Disorder, No Name Desire, Gregory and Mastermind are the main drivers of the small but functional label Monopol Records. The first own retrospective simply named after the publisher's name and the addition "The 5th Anniversary Compilation" brings exclusive tracks not only from them, but also from friendly bands or neighbors in the industry such as Aliens from Bratislava. Fifteen tracks across the spectrum of the Czechoslovak underground electro scene are infectiously …
Indistinction #2
“indistinction #2” comes from the same session as ‘indistinction #1’ and creates the same immersive pull. here, too, rsn works exclusively with his bass and a series of effect devices - no overbuds. everything is created live in the flow and reflects the intensity of the moment. often everything sounds deeply distorted, then it clears up again and metaphorically lets light into the scenery. the mixture of drone and ambient gives “indistinction #2” a broad and balanced sound palette that is best …
Indistinction #1
The game with quiet and loud is not new, but it has not lost its effect. “indistinction #1” proves this impressively, as the three songs on rsn's debut album create a highly immersive moment. they move and yet remain rigid in their depths. they build up and break down. like a current through which you are sucked - wild, yet somehow safe, always moving forward. if you allow yourself to do so, “indistinction #1” is an excursion into your inner self.
Clarity #1
The collaboration between pianist Merle Louise and rsn follows an improvisational approach, as all the songs were created spontaneously and in a flow. while the use of piano is or has become a main element in ambient music, the sound of “clarity #1” is different. instead of reproducing the typical patterns and harmonies of the genre, two styles meet here and interweave at the moment of creation. the drone and ambient soundscapes of rsn are enriched by piano melodies and patterns that are atypica…
Porosity #1
The permanence and recurrence of “porosity #1” by Rsn creates a kind of meditative permeability. the musical maelstrom creates a seemingly endless surface that develops from the two-dimensional to the three-dimensional. but this surface is porous and has loopholes. it is not a fast ride through this soundscape, but rather a walk - and the landscape hardly changes noticeably, but there is a resolution, a small aftermath. “porosity #1” is slow and deliberate, waiting and gentle.
Shift #1
"shift #1" is a collaboration album by the two drone/ambient artists rsn and N. the album comprises three songs that deal with semitone shifts, creating an aesthetic depth of sound on the one hand and building up a long arc of tension on the other. "shift #1" is a musical colossus - sound, structure and length create an immersive sound experience. quiet, rather contemplative sounds gradually develop into an alert sound construct. sometimes, however, it remains calm and inward-looking, meditative…
Air de repos (Breathworks)
A double vinyl and a catalogue that constitute a proper extension of the exhibition with which the Capc in Bordeaux continues to question the forms that the museum can take (here transformed into a temporary breathing assistance machine) by developing the idea of the exhibition as an atmosphere, with the aim of creating a renewed awareness of what it means to breathe, not only on an individual level, but also on a collective one, at a time when the world is living in a climate of generalized asp…
Transmission Fields
2004 release ** "A surprising and ambitious trip from ambient to cosmic paths from Wintersilence - a project established in the late 1990s by Mathias Grassow (here under the alias of Tyler Whitney), Scaai, and Don Castellano. This work has various influences, but all titles have something in common; they all seem to suggest an evocative attitude. Mysterious vocals, acoustic / ethno-ambient sounds, epic post-rock structures with Nordic sensations. Rhythms and melodies cross themselves in a mixtur…