André Bratten grew up in Oslo on the border between a bustling city and a dense forest. That juxtaposition has informed his sound: Bratten skilfully imbues cosmic disco with intense cerebral techno. More

Actress’ tenth studio album, the celestial and expansive Statik, is released June 7th via Smalltown Supersound.

The collaboration between Darren Cunningham and the esteemed Oslo-based purveyors of elevated sonics evolved organically following Actress’ remix of a Carmen Villain cut for the 12” of her Only Love From Now On LP.

In this vein, the entire Statik project, from conception through creation and release, has been blessed with an almost unnatural ease. For Actress, who wrote the majority of his subtly majestic new record in an extensive flow state, the project serves as a cohesive testament to artistic liberation.

Resultantly, Cunningham’s new album is imbued with a sense of freedom. And of stillness. The kind of stillness within artistic motion that arises via the deepest states of flow. Once ‘inside’ the Statik experience, listeners may well find themselves newly calm and meditative.

Of course, those well-versed in Actress’s works are well-travelled when it comes to fantastical flights of the mind. Transportive sonics that spark inner-voyages – whether through nocturnal cityscapes, or far above and beyond, through Saturn’s rings and past Pluto’s moons – are prime Cunningham terrain. Yet while Statik is unmistakably an Actress LP, it’s also distinctly aquatic and subtly primordial, and so offers his audience novel elemental atmospheres to flow through. Listening closely, influential visions of aqueous realms, such as the mythic Atlantis, and evocations of ancient ceremonies as well as flying birds (and, perhaps, humans) may reveal themselves.

No matter if Statik inspires you to soar above or below the horizon, Actress and Smalltown Supersound promise you a safe and transcendent journey. More

Die in Frankreich geborene und in Berlin lebende DJane, Soundkünstlerin und Produzentin rRoxymore tauchte erstmals 2012 mit dem zehnminütigen Epos "Wheel of Fortune" auf, das auf Planningtorocks Human Level veröffentlicht wurde. Seitdem hat sie regelmäßig Musik veröffentlicht, ihren Sound dabei immer wieder neu erfunden, von hypnotischem Leftfield-Techno über UK-Bass-Mutationen bis hin zu genreübergreifenden Dub-Kuriositäten und vielem mehr. 2019 erschien ihr Debütalbum "Face To Phase" und kürzlich "I Wanted More", eine Vier-Track-EP, die von Downtempo-Ambient bis hin zu üppigem Deep House reichte. Auf ihrem zweiten Album "Perpetual Now" zeigt sie erneut ihre Neigung, die klanglichen Grenzen auszuloten. Es ist eine langsam brennende Platte, auf der die Grenzen zwischen dem Elektronischen und dem Organischen verschwimmen. Perpetual Now untergräbt das traditionelle Albumformat und besteht aus vier ausgedehnten Klanglandschaften, die den Hörer auf eine Reise durch Tempo, Textur und Gefühlslage mitnehmen.

TRACKLIST
1. AT THE CREST
2. SUN IN C
3. FRAGMENTED DREAMS
4. WATER STAINS
More

TRACKLIST

01. AIR LIKE VELVET
02. TIME DATE
03. YOU DISAPPEAR YOU FIND YOURSELF AGAIN
04. UNTILTED
05. BLANKET
06. MEMORIES OF GRASS
07. ENCHIZ
08. BACKYARD ECHO
09. VAXXINE
10. CRADLE
11. FALLIN INTO SPACE


Perila (Aleksandra Zakharenko) left her native Russia six years ago, landing in Berlin. Finding her place almost immediately - first at Berlin Community Radio and through that amongst a group of like-minded creative individuals (including her current flatmates Special Guest DJ and exael) - she started a regular practice of working on an expressionistic "sonic diary" of field recordings and electronic sound research for her own pleasure. When the opportunity arose to create her own podcast series, WET (or Weird Erotic Tension) was born. Upon hearing her evocative and atmospheric music layered with friends Nat Marcus and Inger Wold Lund's erotic spoken word poetry, Sferic Records asked to release it, and Perila - a project name originally used for her BCR show - truly came to be. Aleksandra, who was raised in St. Petersburg, has been involved in music since childhood thanks to her melomaniac father. She's been both drummer and singer in local bands in Russia, and is also the co-founder of radio.syg.ma - one of the first online stations in Russian focusing on experimental sounds - but Perila is something else entirely. You could loosely describe it as ambient, but her soundworld is so specific and transportative, filled with detail and movement, it's more akin to hauntological musique concrète, touched by song. Her fascination with voice and language - she studied English literature at university - is still evident, although that's now her voice, her texts, her crooning you can hear on the Everything Is Already There cassette (Boomkat Editions, 2020), her processed breaths on the Meta Door L cassette (Paralaxe Editions, 2020). The Wire Magazine got it right when they said about Irer Dent that, "Sensuality is presented as a secret pass to a higher consciousness." For her debut album, How Much Time it is Between You and Me?, released via Smalltown Supersound on June 11th, Aleksandra takes inspiration from the concept of time, which she felt keenly during the pandemic. Recorded primarily in September 2020 in a rural village in France - her only travel during the first year of the pandemic period - surrounded by mountains but otherwise alone with no internet, her perception of time there differed immensely. She describes the trip as, "an immersive experience into self," viewed through a "silence prism" where everyday sounds usually ignored felt amplified. While her work has always dealt in intimacy - be it the private thrills of WET or the audible closeness of our surroundings - the organic response and consistent feedback she gets for Perila made Aleksandra recognize a longing, a need for it in today's world. Intent on creating work based in honesty and tenderness, Perila's practice also explores how we feel music and emotion throughout the body and how sound can help to release it. How does the sound enter a body and travel through it? Where does movement start? How do you reach and unblock emotional clusters with the help of sound and deep listening of the body responses? Aleksandra likes to describe her music and performances as trips - thick narratives drifting along sound to get closer to self. Let Perila guide you through this journey. More

Ah... where to start... Cameron Stallones aka Sun Araw, besides having the most awesome name ever is a true adventurer in sound. I've been a fan of his for a few years and had no idea what to expect. In his own words, he tried to tame the guitars but "they kept melting away". Dungen is the best band in the world period and having the genius Gustav Estjes handling anything coming from my lesser imagination is a humbling experience. The track "J"is something I worked on for inclusion on the album but never managed to wrap it up, until now that is.

More

André Bratten grew up in Oslo on the border between a bustling city and a dense forest. That juxtaposition has informed his sound: Bratten skilfully imbues cosmic disco with intense cerebral techno. More

Brian Reitzell will release a solo LP on Smalltown Supersound on June. The LA-based producer Brian Reitzell is probably best known for his film work-he's acted as the music supervisor for Sofia Coppola and Gus Van Sant movies, as well as a handful of TV series including Hannibal. He's also worked as the drummer for Redd Kross and Air at one time or another, and has written scores with Oneohtrix Point Never. Auto Music is the composer's first full-fledged solo release, birthed from recordings that were originally meant to test out new ideas and sounds in his studio. In typical fashion, each song is attached to a particular visual cue or scene, as Reitzell watched DVDs in his studio while composing the music. The label calls Auto Music "the ultimate driving album," and goes on to say that it evokes "coasting along California's freeways." "I wanted to make music that felt like my drive from my house to my studio," says Reitzell. "I liked the structure of the drive: never repeating, unless I forgot something at home and had to go back. It was sort of like 'event music' where little things come into view and then another one takes its place as you drive past." The LP also has a number of guest musicians, including My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields, who plays organ on "Last Summer," which you can stream below. More