Philadelphia-based producer Chaperone has been working as a creative partner at Great Circles for the past six months, as well as collaborating with Westov Temple on an ongoing A/V project, Seppuku Overwrite. P O N D is his first 12” release on the label. The A-side of P O N D is comprised of three slow-paced, meditative takes on techno. Samples are blended with cut tape loops, following suit from earlier Chaperone cassette releases - No Gold//Hawaii [Crisis Urbana CU-03] and Reflex/Contaminant [Vague Audio Tapes VAT-003]. Artifacts become instruments. Capstan motors seem to slow, only to catch up again. Torn speaker cones from an earlier noise session are left to flutter, without question or regret. On the B-side are three re-works by Westov Temple, Hero/Victim [of Vague Audio Tapes] and Thug Entrancer [Software], making for faster, more rhythmic versions of the originals, each one zeroing in on and exploiting specific peculiarities of Chaperone’s sound
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Salem Rashid Skourlis, a human artist and composer, defies limits to manifest his solo project "fatalism." Drawing inspiration from personal experiences with paganism, pacifism, and immigration, fatalism intertwines otherworldly sounds and post-industrial landscapes. His work, relentless and self-sufficient, illuminates a foreboding future. Founder of @bedouinrecords, he has captivated audiences worldwide in prestigious venues like Berghain, Berlin and KGR(n), Tokyo. fatalism's forthcoming debut album, "fatalism:Gh0st," explores human escapism and the power of music to transcend societal confines. Currently based in Bangkok, Salem continues to forge sonic journeys, prepare film soundtracks, and embark on a solo tour for the release of his new album. More

The cascading hollowness of Japanese producer Mars89's latest album 'Visions' for Bedouin Records evokes a hypnotising atmosphere that takes the listener on a cinematic journey through what is best described as a post-apocalyptic daydream. In its entirety, this album is a political act against capitalism and urban infrastructure as a whole, paying homage to those who endure the various ways in which capitalists and authoritarian governments attempt to infiltrate and control their lives, and all that surrounds them.Breaking musical boundaries in the creation of what is considered to be a new genre of Japanese street music, Mars89 draws on a wide range of influences –such as sci-fi films– to conjure an eerie dystopian scene, inviting the listener to imagine a world on the brink of collapse as a tyrannical authority stands by idly. Embedded in the back cover of the album, Mars89 pays tribute to the working-class resistance; 'This album is dedicated to the city dwellers who live with the rats and crows in the gaps of the city where the giant capital tries to control everything'.Opening the album with 'They made me do it', Mars89 manages to convey an uneasy welcoming party that tempts you to stay longer with flickering distorted explosions of sounds, then further captivates us with 'Tete Apotre' by using a series of vivid, and energising hushed tones that are somewhat opaque and abstract, making it difficult to identify the echoes as human or not. Accompanied by hollering alarms overhead and hurried echoes, the standout track 'Dick Laurent is dead' emits a dark, pulsating soundscape through the repetition of a distant voice stating; 'Listen up, told you once told you twice; You know I'm in this'. Signalling what could be perceived as the brink of frustration, or a looming warning.Through a combination of incessant bells and rhythmic distorted drums across the ten tracks, a building sense of urgency before a life-altering decision must be done begins to form in the listener. With its shuddering rhythms, abrasive whirring, and ominous chimes contributing to the ways in which the sounds break down into hisses and stark fluctuations between texture and volume; the surreal nature of this experimental album will enthral you.?With every riveting listen, we are offered a glimpse into something inconceivable through a plethora of celestial sounds. 'Visions' concludes with 'LA1937', a chilling 5 minutes track that suggests the end of a chase has been reached, bringing everything to a breath-taking closure. More

"In the closed circuit screen glow with the hand scripting the events of two people staring from a long distance for a matter of moments that seemed endless, vast, the pen takes to paper and senses apprehension in the author. Leaving things out from the self, the self knows the truth is well-guarded, security and a large key ring with one thumb-drive filled with secrets carefully placed beneath a granite prism, buried in brain cells and matter. Everything left unsaid is sacred and that sacrament is gold-leafed and stoic, crackling voicemail recording leaves out details, nearly telegrammed, a post-it's worth of vital information. We keep secrets to ourselves so tightly that we hide the secret from the self. Speak the truth, the closed circuit surveillance will manage the details." More

This building was intended to fall. The dust in all 6 rooms suspends in the air and light glitters on each particulate, a piercing bright like a headache behind the eye. Knuckles chapped like a dancer's feet, a listener survives in the building like it's a home. Makes it a home. Frantic energy holding still remains frantic. Trying to swallow, trying to catch your breath. Enough dust to settle and make the building in its exact image. Beating at the walls only makes the walls once more, 6 rooms, listening and responding. This is the sound of a space that cannot be unmade. Sorcery is permanent. More

Haku Sungho is a Korean-Japanese musician and artist, from Tokyo, who lives and works in Berlin. In addition to his work as a musician, he uses conceptual methods to create his own instruments and to develop his video and installation works. A developing circle, pinwheeling, restarts at every rotation before completing the circle. The circle does not close, but indicates the shape it seeks to finish. Each time, it seems nearer to closing, and the patience maintains. Still, no circle closes, in each rotation. Anxiety develops with the inability to resolve the shape, but the shape turns, a graph develops, two circles pinwheel, unable to close, but overlap now. One circle, pausing, casts a straight to indicate the radius, and stops, still one moves above the other, now clarifying. A message is buried in the charts and figures, an odious one. "I am breathing. You, too, are breathing. We are breathing. The subtle scent of us both breathing." Spelled out now, the circle never completes, just makes a letter in a message and makes difficult the reading. More

If you stand long enough at this bus shelter, it will begin to snow. The horizon that ends the road outward often feels like it will crawl closer, but it remains the same distance, the same traffic. When running on a track and the centrifugal force begins to carry you, and you feel as if racing the other user on the track is the winning solution, remember to race the track itself. The track does not move. The meditation of punching a brick wall is still a meditation. The moment you decide to walk, as the horizon is not far off, the moment you race the white chalk lines on the clay field you're running, when the bricks break before you, you find you the outcome. Place your phone in your pocket and sit back in the seat of this bus, place your head between your knees, and brace for impact. The scream of glass is only a second, then the peace of glitter as it becomes particles around you is overwhelming in beauty. You are the outcome. You are what made it this far in a single day, a mayfly's life-cycle, a work shift, several movies streaming in a dark room on a laptop, a cat's fur glowing. Turn the key for your flat and enter. Welcome home. Again. More

Elegies-in-waiting to the monotonous dread of exploitative labour, dosed with elliptical distortion, industrial noise and ear-crushing bass. in the lineage of Pan Sonic, Sun O))), and the more gruelling Scott Walker productions. Vex'd veteran Roly Porter drops by with a sci-fi reinvention of Council Flat, trading in IF's mogadon footwork and megaton polyrhythms for a less apocalyptic, more introspective blend of modern classical, dark ambient and dirty stinking breakbeat. More

This release captures kicks, rhythms, and snares—only to drag them kicking and screaming into a metallic underworld. In J. Tijn’s echo-sphere, there are only allusions to the status quo of sound and beats, and never a full-fledged embrace of the conventional. On Side A’s “Kanon V.I.P.” a grizzly digital war is left to play out between both kick and snare, with grainy battle lines drawn around upbeat and downbeat. Survivors of the conflict are rewarded with a groove reminiscent of grime, if only the genre had been reborn in a dystopian future. Side B opens with a roughneck beat on “MOR” before turning its hand into a fist and effectively destroying its own image. The groove lives through this barrage of sound, but as a heavy and dark undercurrent just strong enough to remind you where J.Tijn’s roots are. “Shy” lures you in with a rounded electro kick, before glutting the rhythm and ushering in a wall of sound. A snowstorm of screaming drum samples proceed to surround you: you may have been here before, but you are somewhere rhythmically unseen. Embedded in all of these tracks are perhaps a sign of the times: the things that used to be seen as normal have now changed and mutated. More