1
NATHANIEL YOUNG - Limitation Without Direction
2
NATHANIEL YOUNG - Zion Waits For No One
3
NATHANIEL YOUNG - Comfort In Form
4
NATHANIEL YOUNG - Recessed Constraint
5
NATHANIEL YOUNG - Communal Dysphoria
6
NATHANIEL YOUNG - Extrasolar
7
NATHANIEL YOUNG - May I Speak Candidly
8
NATHANIEL YOUNG - Graying Dawn
LP with full color jacket, deluxe printed sleeve, 140g White Vinyl, Digital download code
Tracklist
A1. Limitation Without Direction (5:57) A2. Zion Waits For No One (7:02) A3. Comfort In Form (7:55) A4. Recessed Constraint (6:50) B1. Communal Dysphoria (7:36) B2. Extrasolar (5:16) B3. May I Speak Candidly (7:06) B4. Graying Dawn (5:53)
Short info:
"Accosting Form, Pure Intent" - Nathaniel Young's new album for Mysteries of the Deep - is a contradiction that makes sense. At once raw and elegant, it emerges from a place of constraint and desire. Its individual tracks reflect this paradox as the album unlocks itself like a koan: a riddle that, once solved, dawns on the listener like an epiphany.
Metallic emanations in "Communal Dysphoria" and "Comfort in Form," interpolated with echo and reverb, arise from the void and disappear back into it, moving like scattered precipitation over rugged, rhythmic terrain. Certain tracks speak to certain influences: in "Extrasolar" and "May I Speak Candidly," drone is tempered by synth pads and wistful ambience. "Zion Waits for No One" brings to mind a sense of the Chthonic: a dark, primitive creature submerged. A monster from the loch that at times breaks through the still, watery surface.
Despite the assorted elements at work, a visceral quality binds everything together. Even the record's more subdued works are textured and tangible, at times balancing or playing against the serrated edges of its more structured pieces. Like all compelling works, the sounds here exist in a liminal space that is not entirely classifiable. Still, it is wholly cohesive in both its moodiness and its adeptness.
Releases on Umor Rex, Blankstairs, Phinery Tapes, Hospital Productions
More
Tracklist
A1. Limitation Without Direction (5:57) A2. Zion Waits For No One (7:02) A3. Comfort In Form (7:55) A4. Recessed Constraint (6:50) B1. Communal Dysphoria (7:36) B2. Extrasolar (5:16) B3. May I Speak Candidly (7:06) B4. Graying Dawn (5:53)
Short info:
"Accosting Form, Pure Intent" - Nathaniel Young's new album for Mysteries of the Deep - is a contradiction that makes sense. At once raw and elegant, it emerges from a place of constraint and desire. Its individual tracks reflect this paradox as the album unlocks itself like a koan: a riddle that, once solved, dawns on the listener like an epiphany.
Metallic emanations in "Communal Dysphoria" and "Comfort in Form," interpolated with echo and reverb, arise from the void and disappear back into it, moving like scattered precipitation over rugged, rhythmic terrain. Certain tracks speak to certain influences: in "Extrasolar" and "May I Speak Candidly," drone is tempered by synth pads and wistful ambience. "Zion Waits for No One" brings to mind a sense of the Chthonic: a dark, primitive creature submerged. A monster from the loch that at times breaks through the still, watery surface.
Despite the assorted elements at work, a visceral quality binds everything together. Even the record's more subdued works are textured and tangible, at times balancing or playing against the serrated edges of its more structured pieces. Like all compelling works, the sounds here exist in a liminal space that is not entirely classifiable. Still, it is wholly cohesive in both its moodiness and its adeptness.
Releases on Umor Rex, Blankstairs, Phinery Tapes, Hospital Productions
More
More records from Mysteries of the Deep
1
Locust - Three Suns Of Lanuvium
2
Locust - y Vel
3
Locust - Sea Tides
4
Locust - Spindle Flames
5
Locust - Tell Me
6
Locust - She Knows
7
Locust - OX-HO
8
Locust - Miriam
Limited Edition 140g Black Vinyl LP, Full-color Jacket & Poly-lined inner sleeve, with original photography and artwork by Grant Aaron and Gabriel Benzur
For nearly 40 years, English producer Mark Van Hoen has been making challenging music that eludes easy categorization under his own name, as Locust, and in the groups Autocreation, Scala, and Drøne. While his output has skirted around the fringes of IDM, techno, trip-hop, ambient, drone, and electropop, it has mutated these genres' elements in distinctive ways, revealing a mind always questing for unprecedented sounds.
This is Mark Van Hoen’s ninth album as Locust, and an instant classic.
Drifting, hanging, holding. Hoping, seeking, searching. And then finding.
Mark Van Hoen's ninth album as Locust is a cosmic whisper, a tender touch, where candid songwriting commingles with the afterimage of trip-hop and jungle. Across eight tracks, spectral melodies dance between languid breakbeats, and a formless murmur drifts through the ether, seeking a common thread.
Layered in strata, "The First Cause" reveals itself anew with each listen. Delicate tones share space with bass weight. Drums crunch, and rhythms cascade. Voices loop and intone, bodiless. What at first seems melancholy, you may later find reoriented—toward promise.
We seek solace in each other, and we seek solace in sound. Kinship isn't easy to come by. When a record offers its kind embrace to us as this one does, without reservation, we should take heed.
Written, performed and produced by Mark Van Hoen
© Touch Music/Fairwood Music UK Ltd
2023 Mark Van Hoen under exclusive license to Mysteries of the Deep
markvanhoen.com
Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studio, NY
Photography by Grant Aaron
Design by Gabriel Benzur
Words by Chris Zaldua
Pressed by: AFG Record Manufacturing More
For nearly 40 years, English producer Mark Van Hoen has been making challenging music that eludes easy categorization under his own name, as Locust, and in the groups Autocreation, Scala, and Drøne. While his output has skirted around the fringes of IDM, techno, trip-hop, ambient, drone, and electropop, it has mutated these genres' elements in distinctive ways, revealing a mind always questing for unprecedented sounds.
This is Mark Van Hoen’s ninth album as Locust, and an instant classic.
Drifting, hanging, holding. Hoping, seeking, searching. And then finding.
Mark Van Hoen's ninth album as Locust is a cosmic whisper, a tender touch, where candid songwriting commingles with the afterimage of trip-hop and jungle. Across eight tracks, spectral melodies dance between languid breakbeats, and a formless murmur drifts through the ether, seeking a common thread.
Layered in strata, "The First Cause" reveals itself anew with each listen. Delicate tones share space with bass weight. Drums crunch, and rhythms cascade. Voices loop and intone, bodiless. What at first seems melancholy, you may later find reoriented—toward promise.
We seek solace in each other, and we seek solace in sound. Kinship isn't easy to come by. When a record offers its kind embrace to us as this one does, without reservation, we should take heed.
Written, performed and produced by Mark Van Hoen
© Touch Music/Fairwood Music UK Ltd
2023 Mark Van Hoen under exclusive license to Mysteries of the Deep
markvanhoen.com
Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studio, NY
Photography by Grant Aaron
Design by Gabriel Benzur
Words by Chris Zaldua
Pressed by: AFG Record Manufacturing More
Portland, OR-based multimedia artist William Selman returns to Mysteries of the Deep with his third album for the label. Drawing on influences such as David Toop, Beatriz Ferreyra, Elizabeth Waldo, and David Behrman, “The Weather Indoors” melds live and synthesized instrumentation, field recordings, and digital processing techniques in a new, more melodic and approachable direction.
Immersive site recordings open into melodic woodwinds, orchestral instrumentation, bass guitar, gongs, and vibraphone. Borrowing from the anthropologist Tim Ingold’s concept of “inversion,” this widescreen staging cuts immediately to the core of the project: the way human beings use the faculty of imagination to aestheticize their built surroundings with architecture, images of distant locales, and domesticated flora and fauna to contain the anxiety for the natural world that surrounds human life.
A clear peak in Selman's extensive catalog, “The Weather Indoors” captures his work at a moment expanding his musical and aesthetic project: Neither genre ambient nor musique concrète, but a unique sound world dense with conceptual play and moments of more traditional harmonic beauty.
“We are contaminated by our encounters: they change who we are as we make way for others. As contamination changes world-making projects, mutual worlds—and new directions—may emerge. Everyone carries a history of contamination; purity is not an option.” —Anne Lowenhaupt-Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World
----
'A Soft Degeneration' was featured in a mix from Mysteries label boss, Grant Aaron, entitled 'Sundays are for' – hosted by Delayed.
William Selman has releases on Mysteries of the Deep, Critique of Everyday Life, Going In, Hausu Mountain. More
Immersive site recordings open into melodic woodwinds, orchestral instrumentation, bass guitar, gongs, and vibraphone. Borrowing from the anthropologist Tim Ingold’s concept of “inversion,” this widescreen staging cuts immediately to the core of the project: the way human beings use the faculty of imagination to aestheticize their built surroundings with architecture, images of distant locales, and domesticated flora and fauna to contain the anxiety for the natural world that surrounds human life.
A clear peak in Selman's extensive catalog, “The Weather Indoors” captures his work at a moment expanding his musical and aesthetic project: Neither genre ambient nor musique concrète, but a unique sound world dense with conceptual play and moments of more traditional harmonic beauty.
“We are contaminated by our encounters: they change who we are as we make way for others. As contamination changes world-making projects, mutual worlds—and new directions—may emerge. Everyone carries a history of contamination; purity is not an option.” —Anne Lowenhaupt-Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World
----
'A Soft Degeneration' was featured in a mix from Mysteries label boss, Grant Aaron, entitled 'Sundays are for' – hosted by Delayed.
William Selman has releases on Mysteries of the Deep, Critique of Everyday Life, Going In, Hausu Mountain. More
1
Birds of Prey - 01 Naming Names
2
Birds of Prey - 02 Emanation
3
Birds of Prey - 03 Vanishing Point
4
Birds of Prey - 04 XYZ
5
Birds of Prey - 05 Hyperbola
6
Birds of Prey - 06 Strange and Eternal
7
Birds of Prey - 07 Astrolabe
8
Birds of Prey - 08 Geomancy
9
Birds of Prey - 09 Moebius
translucent blue vinyl LP with full color jacket, deluxe printed sleeve, 140g Vinyl, Digital download code
Tracklist:
A1. Naming Names (3:32) A2. Emanation (4:14) A3. Vanishing Point (4:49) A4. XYZ (5:00) B1. Hyperbola (4:53) B2. Strange and Eternal (6:25) B3. Astrolabe (6:17) B4. Geomancy (4:36) B5. Moebius (3:42)
Short info:
If emptiness is heaviness is Godliness, Birds of Prey's third full-length LP is an immaculate conception from on high. The record luxuriates in the spaces between. What's left out says as much as what made it in. Deep, droning, and dub wise, "Vanishing Point" cascades in elegance. Its reference points call towards the sample manipulation of American tape music and the downward gaze of amniotic British bass music. It charts its own path nonetheless, building its own space for drifting off to.
Unlike many peers operating in similar realms, Birds of Prey are a proper band, a foursome: Grant Aaron, Clay Wilson, Eric Holmes, and Camille Altay. Each are artists in their own right with a distinct practice. In Birds of Prey, their collaborations in studio take on a greater shape, whittled and edited into cosmic formlessness.
Although borne of improvisation, you may never know that in the listening. "Vanishing Point" is a tight, coherent work, the sound of a cadre of talented musicians locked in flow. Rippling tones become glacial melodies. Cavernous drums emerge barely from the ether. Rhythms interlock, interpolate. Patterns repeat and dissolve whence they came. There is untold potency in simplicity, and Birds of Prey make it known.
Releases on Kathexis
More
Tracklist:
A1. Naming Names (3:32) A2. Emanation (4:14) A3. Vanishing Point (4:49) A4. XYZ (5:00) B1. Hyperbola (4:53) B2. Strange and Eternal (6:25) B3. Astrolabe (6:17) B4. Geomancy (4:36) B5. Moebius (3:42)
Short info:
If emptiness is heaviness is Godliness, Birds of Prey's third full-length LP is an immaculate conception from on high. The record luxuriates in the spaces between. What's left out says as much as what made it in. Deep, droning, and dub wise, "Vanishing Point" cascades in elegance. Its reference points call towards the sample manipulation of American tape music and the downward gaze of amniotic British bass music. It charts its own path nonetheless, building its own space for drifting off to.
Unlike many peers operating in similar realms, Birds of Prey are a proper band, a foursome: Grant Aaron, Clay Wilson, Eric Holmes, and Camille Altay. Each are artists in their own right with a distinct practice. In Birds of Prey, their collaborations in studio take on a greater shape, whittled and edited into cosmic formlessness.
Although borne of improvisation, you may never know that in the listening. "Vanishing Point" is a tight, coherent work, the sound of a cadre of talented musicians locked in flow. Rippling tones become glacial melodies. Cavernous drums emerge barely from the ether. Rhythms interlock, interpolate. Patterns repeat and dissolve whence they came. There is untold potency in simplicity, and Birds of Prey make it known.
Releases on Kathexis
More
1
LORI SCACCO - Coloring Book (4:16)
2
LORI SCACCO - Strange Cities (4:48)
3
LORI SCACCO - Cosmosgraphia (7:26)
4
LORI SCACCO - Interactivity in Plastic Space (5:14)
5
LORI SCACCO - Back to Electric (4:28)
6
LORI SCACCO - Tiger Song (4:53)
7
LORI SCACCO - Red Then Blue (3:35)
8
LORI SCACCO - Other Flowers (5:50)
LP with full color jacket, deluxe printed sleeve, 140g Vinyl, Digital download code
Tracklist
A1. Coloring Book (4:16) A2. Strange Cities (4:48) A3. Cosmographia (7:26) A4. Interactivity in Plastic Space (5:14) B1. Back to Electric (4:28) B2. Tiger Song (4:53) B3. Red Then Blue (3:35) B4. Other Flowers (5:50)
Short info:
"I think of myself as a naturalist no matter the palette," says Lori Scacco, the New York
multi-instrumentalist, composer, and electronic musician whose new album, 'Desire Loop,' is
Mysteries of the Deep's third full-length LP.
Natural indeed: Scacco's music effuses warmth, enveloping listeners like a gentle embrace. Her
first album, 'Circles,' was released in the early aughts on Eastern Developments, an imprint
co-founded by Guillermo Scott Herren, aka Prefuse 73. She spent much of the interim period
composing music for performance, film, and classical ballet, influences audible throughout
'Desire Loop.'
Flush with incandescent scree, bubbly synthesizer, and easygoing dulcet tones, the album's
simplicity belies its emotional impact. At times — "Cosmographia" and "Other Flowers," for
instance — Scacco's songwriting approaches a therapeutic purity that feels nearly virtuous,
immaculate. This is by design: she wrote this album as counterpoint to today's destructive
political landscape. "I had to create an empathic means of access for myself, and in turn,
for the listener, using the core of all that I value as my way into the music,” she explains.
"I wanted to provide a vehicle for the listener to impart their own emotional experience without
imposing my own meaning. I found myself returning to that space over and over again.” After listening to 'Desire Loop,' we expect that you will, too.
Releases on Eastern Developments, Too Pure
More
Tracklist
A1. Coloring Book (4:16) A2. Strange Cities (4:48) A3. Cosmographia (7:26) A4. Interactivity in Plastic Space (5:14) B1. Back to Electric (4:28) B2. Tiger Song (4:53) B3. Red Then Blue (3:35) B4. Other Flowers (5:50)
Short info:
"I think of myself as a naturalist no matter the palette," says Lori Scacco, the New York
multi-instrumentalist, composer, and electronic musician whose new album, 'Desire Loop,' is
Mysteries of the Deep's third full-length LP.
Natural indeed: Scacco's music effuses warmth, enveloping listeners like a gentle embrace. Her
first album, 'Circles,' was released in the early aughts on Eastern Developments, an imprint
co-founded by Guillermo Scott Herren, aka Prefuse 73. She spent much of the interim period
composing music for performance, film, and classical ballet, influences audible throughout
'Desire Loop.'
Flush with incandescent scree, bubbly synthesizer, and easygoing dulcet tones, the album's
simplicity belies its emotional impact. At times — "Cosmographia" and "Other Flowers," for
instance — Scacco's songwriting approaches a therapeutic purity that feels nearly virtuous,
immaculate. This is by design: she wrote this album as counterpoint to today's destructive
political landscape. "I had to create an empathic means of access for myself, and in turn,
for the listener, using the core of all that I value as my way into the music,” she explains.
"I wanted to provide a vehicle for the listener to impart their own emotional experience without
imposing my own meaning. I found myself returning to that space over and over again.” After listening to 'Desire Loop,' we expect that you will, too.
Releases on Eastern Developments, Too Pure
More
1
William Selman - Lithic Reduction
2
William Selman - Thick Description
3
William Selman - Polysemy
4
William Selman - The World Without Us
5
William Selman - Inferno Of The Same
6
William Selman - The Island Before The Internet
Mini LP (total time: 38 min) with full color jacket, deluxe printed sleeve, 140g Vinyl, Digital download code (download card includes WAV & MP3)
Tracklist
A1. Lithic Reduction (3:06) A2. Thick Description (9:31) A3. Polysemy (5:21)
B1. The World Without Us (5:05) B2. Inferno Of The Same (8:41) B3. The Island Before The Internet (5:59)
Short info:
What if music had no beginning, no end? Can music exist "for itself" or "of itself," without structure constraining it, defining it? Can music be non-linear, non-narrative, simply experiential, existential? The second full-length album on Mysteries of the Deep, Musica Enterrada from Portland's William Selman, neither answers these questions nor supposes them. But in listening, one can't help but wonder: What if I disappeared into this record forever? In another time and place, William Selman was known as Warmdesk, an alias through which he issued a series of sharply precise minimal techno records. In recent past, Selman shifted gears, shedding the dynamics of tension and release that characterized his previous alias' output. Under his own name, Selman began releasing process-oriented, freeform experimental music on cassette-focused outlets like Digitalis and Hausu Mountain. Now comes Musica Enterrada, a diaphanous, weightless musical vision not unlike the theoretical square root of GRM and Popol Vuh's early electronic forays. Split into six tracks across two sides of vinyl, Musica Enterrada bubbles, churns, drifts, and dozes. Dulcet tones pile up gently like waves on shore. Patterns repeat and reconfigure, as if heard from different angles. Rhythms appear, shift the frame, then disappear, into the ether whence they came. Play Musica Enterrada on repeat. And if you disappear into it, fret not — you have drifted into solace.
More
Tracklist
A1. Lithic Reduction (3:06) A2. Thick Description (9:31) A3. Polysemy (5:21)
B1. The World Without Us (5:05) B2. Inferno Of The Same (8:41) B3. The Island Before The Internet (5:59)
Short info:
What if music had no beginning, no end? Can music exist "for itself" or "of itself," without structure constraining it, defining it? Can music be non-linear, non-narrative, simply experiential, existential? The second full-length album on Mysteries of the Deep, Musica Enterrada from Portland's William Selman, neither answers these questions nor supposes them. But in listening, one can't help but wonder: What if I disappeared into this record forever? In another time and place, William Selman was known as Warmdesk, an alias through which he issued a series of sharply precise minimal techno records. In recent past, Selman shifted gears, shedding the dynamics of tension and release that characterized his previous alias' output. Under his own name, Selman began releasing process-oriented, freeform experimental music on cassette-focused outlets like Digitalis and Hausu Mountain. Now comes Musica Enterrada, a diaphanous, weightless musical vision not unlike the theoretical square root of GRM and Popol Vuh's early electronic forays. Split into six tracks across two sides of vinyl, Musica Enterrada bubbles, churns, drifts, and dozes. Dulcet tones pile up gently like waves on shore. Patterns repeat and reconfigure, as if heard from different angles. Rhythms appear, shift the frame, then disappear, into the ether whence they came. Play Musica Enterrada on repeat. And if you disappear into it, fret not — you have drifted into solace.
More
1
Certain Creatures - Cross Star Woman
2
Certain Creatures - Nyau Dust
3
Certain Creatures - Golden Circle
4
Certain Creatures - Tachyon
5
Certain Creatures - Nasadiya Sukta
6
Certain Creatures - We Live Inside A Dream
Mini LP with full color jacket, printed deluxe sleeve, 140g Vinyl, MP3 Download code included
Tracklist
A1. Cross Star Woman A2. Nyau Dust A3. Golden Circle
B1. Tachyon B2. Nasadiya Sukta B3. We Live Inside A Dream
Short info:
A voice in the ether. A calm, clement drone. A gentle, pulsing throb. Like the ghost of a forgotten future as imagined by the distant past, Certain Creatures' sophomore LP Nasadiya Sukta is a study in timelessness - crystalline, heartfelt ambient music designed to push light through shadow. Nasadiya Sukta is the debut release on Mysteries of the Deep, a record label dedicated to total sensory immersion. Mysteries (as it's known colloquially and affectionately) launched in 2011 after a particularly fruitful late-night mixing session, first as a cult podcast series dedicated to narcotic music of all kinds, subsequently expanding into a series of seasonal events. Now, with the release of Nasadiya Sukta, Mysteries of the Deep becomes a full-fledged outlet for music to play in the dark. Certain Creatures is the alias of Brooklyn-based artist Oliver Chapoy, and Nasadiya Sukta was crafted especially for Mysteries of the Deep. Its genesis came when Grant Aaron, Mysteries' proprietor, tapped Chapoy to perform at Mysteries' Halloween event in 2015. His performance was the night's axis point, bridging earlier subdued sounds with late-night upbeat moods. Two years later, reworked and reconfigured, this performance is reborn as Nasadiya Sukta. Although divided into six tracks, Nasadiya coheres into a single extra-terrestrial mass, its beautiful understated elegance encouraging repeat listens. Simultaneously harking back to ambient classics from the '90s (you know who they are) while cementing Chapoy as a visionary artist with his own unique voice, Nasadiya Sukta is one for the space travellers indeed.
Releases on Styles Upon Styles, Medical Records
Label Promo + Tour
More
Tracklist
A1. Cross Star Woman A2. Nyau Dust A3. Golden Circle
B1. Tachyon B2. Nasadiya Sukta B3. We Live Inside A Dream
Short info:
A voice in the ether. A calm, clement drone. A gentle, pulsing throb. Like the ghost of a forgotten future as imagined by the distant past, Certain Creatures' sophomore LP Nasadiya Sukta is a study in timelessness - crystalline, heartfelt ambient music designed to push light through shadow. Nasadiya Sukta is the debut release on Mysteries of the Deep, a record label dedicated to total sensory immersion. Mysteries (as it's known colloquially and affectionately) launched in 2011 after a particularly fruitful late-night mixing session, first as a cult podcast series dedicated to narcotic music of all kinds, subsequently expanding into a series of seasonal events. Now, with the release of Nasadiya Sukta, Mysteries of the Deep becomes a full-fledged outlet for music to play in the dark. Certain Creatures is the alias of Brooklyn-based artist Oliver Chapoy, and Nasadiya Sukta was crafted especially for Mysteries of the Deep. Its genesis came when Grant Aaron, Mysteries' proprietor, tapped Chapoy to perform at Mysteries' Halloween event in 2015. His performance was the night's axis point, bridging earlier subdued sounds with late-night upbeat moods. Two years later, reworked and reconfigured, this performance is reborn as Nasadiya Sukta. Although divided into six tracks, Nasadiya coheres into a single extra-terrestrial mass, its beautiful understated elegance encouraging repeat listens. Simultaneously harking back to ambient classics from the '90s (you know who they are) while cementing Chapoy as a visionary artist with his own unique voice, Nasadiya Sukta is one for the space travellers indeed.
Releases on Styles Upon Styles, Medical Records
Label Promo + Tour
More