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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
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Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More

Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More

Outta the shadows and into the strobe-light, Alex Lewis aka Turinn debuts on Modern Love with a highly rinsable debut double-pack of sawn-off brukbeats and anxious, nerve-riding grooves brewed in the ravines of North Manchester. Turinn emerges from a new generation of producers in the city that include longtime spar Willow, and upcoming producer Croww, soon to offer up his own debut recordings. ?Crooked and rugged AF, but tempered by an acute emotive sensitivity, 18 1/2 Minute Gaps renders a bleedin’ cross-section of mongrel, hybrid style ’n pattern in a breathless, deceptively freehand fashion that comes riddled with an electric blue energy all of its own. ?Committing ten trax of fractious, mutant funk and sore feels, 18 1/2 minute Gaps serves to cap Turinn’s formative phase of production like a lead lid on a nuclear rave implosion; trapping original ‘ardcore ‘nuum, Detroit booty and dank post-punk elements in a perpetual flux of in-the-pocket grooves which ravenously attempt to split at the seams, alternately pushing into Muslimgauze-like buffer zones of distortion or resoundingly wide ambient dimensions, and often both at once. ?On the first plate, this ambiguous dichotomy is epitomised between the rare surge of quick/slow torque in Ovum, which almost sounds like Chris Carter sparring with Burial Hex, and then in his nod to the Italian new wave with Elba, which seems to find the square root between Lorenzo?Senni and some skudgy as heck Kassem Mosse grind, whereas the bittersweet soul of 1625 finds compatible links with his close peer, Workshop’s Willow as well as Japan’s Shinichi Atobe and scene enabler Move D, while Parratactico swaggers into quantum dancehall meters. ?The second disc is no less deadly: the album title track runs at a nexx level Detroit momentum?like DJ Stingray flipping Derrick May and Carl Craig’s Kaotic Harmonies, before ESO cuts in like?a super cranky El-B wearing itchy Primark underwear, and the bone-rattling hardcore jungle of Spawn soon enough gives way to the sweetlad couplet of Petrichor and Ondine, where his elusive, distressed melodic touch really shines thru. ?

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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
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Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More

Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More

Modern Love very rarely reaches out to artists outside of its immediate surroundings; it’s happened just a couple of times in the last 14 years. But there’s something about Philippe Hallais that compelled the label to ask him if he wanted to do something together. Philippe has released music on a bunch of cool labels (L.I.E.S., The Trilogy Tapes, Delsin, In Paradisum), but hearing the first tracks recorded for Lighthouse Stories, it was obvious Philippe was hitting on something new: a kinda weird slow/fast dance music that sounded like a Footwork variant sewn up with an exotic production style that was impossible to pin down. These tracks eventually splintered off into different directions, held together by a strong sense of narrative and motion harking back to a teenage obsession with Turntablism, Detroit electro and Ghetto house, and eventually Juke and Grime. Although he’s spent the last few years focusing on more industrial dancefloor variants, for Lighthouse Stories Philippe turned to these foundational influences, as well as his love of mixtapes and sound collages full of unfinished ideas, skits and experiments; all things that inform the flow of this new album.
Lighthouse Stories captures a sense of nostalgia well, but is also a futuristic vision full of that exploratory, vibrant spirit that’s so hard to find in electronic music these days. Frames of reference are hard, but in places it reminds us of the dusted swagger of Anthony Shake Shakir, the acquatic Drexciyan movements of Ultradyne, a loose-limbed take on Shangaan, and of Actress at his most submerged.
But ultimately, it’s an album made by a producer looking to his personal history while forging new ground, pushing ahead with little regard to convention and ultimately ending up with something completely unique: a kind of intimate journal rendered in bright colours and odd shapes.


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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
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The album straddles analogue club music and vocal pop songs - rough, dark, extraordinary.

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7 months on from TP#4, Demdike return with the 5th instalment in their ongoing research and development series - a double-headed monster split between gnarly reductions on the A-side, and industrial strength edits on the flip. 'Procrastination' edges through Grimey detritus and gunshot snares within a vast open space perfectly primed for that Demdike slow build. 'Past Majesty' on the flip offers up a feral take on some kind of cyber-industrial insanity, somewhere between Ministry and Powell - with a denouement which should probably come with a public health warning attached to it. All we're saying is - watch yr eardrums

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Millie & Andrea are Miles Whittaker and Andy Stott, fellow labelmates at Modern Love who collaborated on an occasional series of 12" releases between 2008 and 2010. It's been four years since we last heard from them but they now return with "Drop The Vowels", their debut album. Produced fast and loose through late 2013 / early 2014, it's an album that recalls the strict and stripped funk of Anthony Shakir as much as it does Leila's incredible debut 'Like Weather', eschewing the dark aesthetic both producers are best known for in favour of something much more visceral. It's an album borne from a love of both pop and club music, made to evoke an adrenalised, hedonistic, as well as an emotional response. Opener GIF RIFF brings to life a Gamelan edit stripped bare before the over-compressed 'Stay Ugly' breaks out with a tumbling, broken arrangement situated somewhere between Richard D James and Jai Paul. "Temper Tantrum" and "Spectral Source" follow, versions of tracks originally released on the second and third Daphne EP's respectively, the former a rugged rave anthem tempered by blue strings, the latter a proper dancefloor destroyer recalling Shake's mighty 'Madmen'. 'Corrosive' flits between a fillibrating, arpeggiated steppers rhythm and a brutal jungle breakdown, while 'Drop The Vowels' further explores and strips bare bass & drums before the slow but jacking warehouse killer "Back Down" provides pure percussive abandon. Quay ends the set with something quieter, a sublime coda made entirely from field recordings.

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Germany
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Released almost exactly a year on from their debut 'Struck' EP, Liam Morley and Dan Valentine return with 'New Brutalism', an exploration of angular, brittle club music. Referencing the stripped-down, utilitarian aesthetic of Brutalist architecture (a detail of Preston bus station features on the cover), the 5 tracks here mine looped, blocky source material gradually embellished with more complex percussive and atmospheric layers that are at once robust and introspective. From the opening woodblock/rave dismantling "UK WIll Not Survive" to the heady Hardcore of "Three Day Jag", the EP evokes a distinctly Northern British Weltanschauung, a joyous revelling in melancholy that goes as far back as the earliest dances documented in Mark Leckey's 'Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore' - somehow unique to British nightlife. The EP closes with the industrial clang of "Run Out', the cacophony slowly converging into an alignment of percussion and space, trigerring that feeling of re-emerging into daylight at the end of a long night. Blinded by all the light... by all the possibilities.

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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
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Germany
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The second EP from Jack Dice sees a huge leap in ambition for the project, a 5 track session that's more addictive, direct and heady than its predecessor. 'Sip Paint' centres around 'Stash's Theme' featuring rapper and producer Stash Marina, a track that deploys crisp triplets and saturated production straddling mainstream signatures on the one hand and a world of analogue/deviant recording techniques on the other. It's an odd, hyper-addictive track - available here in both vocal and instrumental versions. 'Low Glo', 'Kerosene' and 'Radium Dial' are more subdued and immersive; you could draw lines straight through the material here to a number of different projects Twells has been involved with through the last decade, though he seems to benefit immeasurably from Chambliss' presence. The pair find a perfect balance between their respective disciplines, resulting in an EP that at different points throws stylistic references to everything from Prince's Black Album to The Art of Noise, Drake, Philip Jeck and Evian Christ's DUGA 3 sessions - without ever sounding overworked or too knowing, a feat in itself.

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DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
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Includes an insert with artwork by Alex Solman and handstamped sleeves Searing, tormented darkside f**kery from Miles Whittaker and Sean Canty’s Demdike Stare on their rinse and run Testpressing series. A-side ‘Fail’ is a slowly descending panic attack of pealing hi-end frequencies and impending bass doom reaching a pit of noisy no return. B-side ‘Null Results’ bruks loose with a scything jungle attack; frantic 16th note hi-hats and cone-crumpling subs laced with a rudeboy mentasm to incite warehouse capoeira. Come test.



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Earlier on this year Andy Stott found himself playing on the same bill as New York “Heavy Metal hoarders” Batillus. Despite operating in completely different spheres, Batillus had been playing ‘Luxury Problems’, Stott’s most recent album, on their tourbus and suggested a remix.
The result is pressed up on this one-sided 12”, a deadly reduction that pitches the original down into the abyss,...
Andy Stott will be back in 2014 with new material.


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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
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Germany
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An addendum of sorts to his recent 'Faint Hearted' album, Miles' returns with a half-hour EP of new material more squarely aimed at the floor with four darkened, robust variants. 'Blatant Statement' is up first, slowly emerging from a rough alignment of metallic percussion and abrasive stabs not a million miles removed from the kind of racket you'd most likely associate with Vatican Shadow, before the almost-clipped rub of those super-warm bass stabs shifts the perspective to a different kind of environment altogether. 'Technocracy' delivers an oozing House deconstruction, slowed down and inebriated, while 'Infinite Jest' revolves around an industrial cacophony harnessed into a rhythmic anomaly situated somewhere between technofied Pete Swanson and a sweaty Kassem Mosse. 'Plutocracy' ends the set with a bleached-out warehouse chug, slowed down and menacing, surrounded by a submerged choral arrangement and more of that toughened hammered-metal sound that runs through the EP.

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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
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Repress!

Minecraft is a dreamscape, a limitless world where anything is possible. Minecraft is a tool, a means of bringing the imagination to life. Minecraft is a community, a platform on which inventive minds of all ages can share their creations and ideas. Minecraft, of course, is also a game, the most popular and best-selling video game of all time. Created in 2009 by Swedish programmer Markus "Notch" Persson, this cultural phenomenon speaks volumes of our current zeitgeist's love for virtual spaces, but its unprecedented success couldn't be pinned on one factor alone. Countless layers of thoughtful artistry flow through Minecraft's singular experience, not the least of which is its transportive soundtrack. And now for the first time since releasing digitally in 2011, the music of Minecraft will be issued on vinyl and CD by Ghostly International.

Minecraft Volume Alpha, the first installment of a two-part OST, is the work of German composer and musician Daniel Rosenfeld. Using C418 as his moniker, Rosenfeld crafted the sweeping soundtrack and vibrant sound design which helped breathe life into Minecraft's voxel-based universe. Fans and critics were universally enamored with his beatless, nuanced electronic pieces upon release. Popular gaming site Kotaku named it among The Best Game Music of 2011, calling the music "remarkably soothing," and The Guardian has compared Rosenfeld's delicate piano and sparse ambient motifs to legendary artists Erik Satie and Brian Eno. In an interview feature with C418, Polygon distilled Volume Alpha to its essence: "It's not bound by the retro aesthetic of Minecraft's graphics. It transcends them. The album is an attempt to uplift the combined game/music experience into the sublime."

But for all of the critical praise, C418's crowning achievement has to be his insatiable fan base, the seemingly endless swath of players and listeners who treat his music like gospel. They are exactly who this physical release of the Minecraft soundtrack was conceived for, though Ghostly hopes to bring Rosenfeld's music to a whole new audience as well. As any cursory listen of the touching sounds will reveal, this isn't a record meant solely for lifelong gamers and MineCon diehards; anyone in love with ambient, neo-classical, or minimal music needs to hear Volume Alpha.

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Never-before-heard psychedelic acid techno and ambient compositions from beloved Japanese producer Susumu Yokota. Recovered from a collection of DAT tapes gifted by Yokota to Ray Castle during the period he released some of his most memorable records such Acid Mt.Fuji or Ebi's Zen.

A fortunate meeting between Ray Castle and Transmigration label boss David Fogarty means these works finally see the light of day.

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Currently based in Los Angeles, Laurel Halo has spent over a decade stepping into different towns and cities for a moment or more, to the point where everywhere almost became nowhere. Atlas, the debut release on her new imprint Awe, is an attempt to put that feeling to music. Using both electronic and acoustic instrumentation, Halo has created a potent set of sensual ambient jazz collages, comprised of orchestral clouds, shades of modal harmony, hidden sonic details, and detuned, hallucinatory textures. The music functions as a series of maps, for places real and imaginary, and for expressing the unsaid.

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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
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Specific States of Mind

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In the third of the ‘Phobiza Trilogy’ we are invited through the ethereal haze that separates our world from RAMZi’s flourishing kindom. Guided always by the deity’s music, we are given passage through the arcane archipelago that RAMZi calls home, a place where animals, children and wild spirits share territories and cooperate in harmony in their plight to protect these ancient islands from the ceaseless threat of the Great Grey Invasion.

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Repress!

* A legendary yet long lost crown jewel from the early 80s Japanese Electronic and Jazz Rock scene
* new powerful master, much appreciated by the artist
* 2LP in UV-glossy laminated gatefold sleeve with OBI
* includes A1 Poster 60x60cm and lyric sheet
* vinyl comes in Japanese Katta innersleeves

Mariah was a Japanese outfit in the field of art pop, way back in the very late 70s and early 80s with 5 albums up their score from 1980 to 1983. The album from 1979 entitled as “Mariah” was actually made before the band Mariah was formed, and was released as a solo album by Yasuaki Shimizu. The album at hand is the fifth and for the time being last album in this row, released as a double vinyl back in 1983. Original copies, that are at least in very good condition, are hard to find. The brand new reissue on Everland, unlike the original and the first vinyl reissue from 2015, comes housed in a thick and artfully designed gatefold sleeve with OBI, which finally does justice to the progressive spirit of the music you will find here.

The musical basement of Utakata No Hibi is a fusion of dreamy synthesizer pop and haunting new wave music, that could be found all around the globe back in 1983. In the vein of TEARS FOR FEARS or more adventurous DAVID BOWIE stuff, with a touch of KRAFTWERK or even BRIAN ENO here and there, but all this gets spiced up with an atmosphere of Japanese traditionalism, with a few bits and pieces from the old music from this Far East island, which sounds so magic to us Westeners. The progressive, wacky art pop of this project was led by the popular Japanese composer and musician Yasuaki Shimizu, a relentlessly exploratory saxophonist who even dared to rework Johann Sebastian Bach’s cello suites for saxophone.

As brilliant as this man is, the music on „Utakata No Hibi“ turns out to be. And the master himself approved and much appreciated the brandnew remastering of this album by assisting a highly professional team of sound engineers who dusted off the ancient tape reels. For certain the record sounds and feels 80s through and through, electronic to the very rhythmical bone of each song sugar coated with catchy melodies that resemble Japanese classic and Enka music, which is a kind of folksy pop music. The listener gets directly drawn into a feverish dream of steaming Far Eastern cities and their darkest and most depraved corners where you find everything cheap in sleazy bars and unlighted backyards and alleys. The next moment he strolls through a beautiful Japanese park surrounded by a sea of blossoms. This change in mood and style you will experience in the sparsely instrumented tune „Shisen“, which indeed comes closest to classic Japanese folk tunes without any too catchy and pop oriented melodies. But we certainly find these harmonies allover the album. Some tunes even feel like ancient BEACH BOYS compositions and Brian Wilson creations played by a then contemporary electronic pop act and sung in Japanese.

An amazingly colorful album with songs that are based on solid substance rather than cheap pop structures. This is music for the bold listeners and music lovers and this awesome reissue should quickly find it’s way into the record collections of 80s synth and art pop aficionadoes.

Yasuaki Shimizu did what he wanted with MARIAH, pushed the borders of popular music further than anybody would have thought. Listen to a track like „Shonen“ with a repetitive rhythm pattern that hypnotizes you and somehow silky melodylines by saxophone and synth piano upon which a female voice sings in a very spiritual way. Praising pop or whatever this can be called, it is sheer magic put in music. I wonder if this would have made it into the charts back then, but you never know. It is a piece of musical art that shall be listened to.

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