2022 Reissue of Fennesz - Black Sea. Repressed on 2 x 10" Vinyl

Christian Fennesz takes his time. He's been a busy guy all through this decade in terms of collaborations, live records, remixes, and so on, but he's only released a few proper albums under his surname, and each has been brilliant. Just before the new millennium he released the 1999 album Plus Forty Seven Degrees 56' 37" Minus Sixteen Degrees 51' 08". It took the blissed-out sense of surrender that My Bloody Valentine specialized in into a harsh and assaultive realm, and the album can seem downright terrifying if you listen to it in the right mood at the proper volume (loud). 2001's Endless Summer established itself immediately as an experimental electronic music classic, and its unique mixture of melody, song structure, and processing has loomed large over the decade. And the eclectic 2004 release Venice solidified the idea that Fennesz was at the very top of his game, developing his keen compositional sense and ear for texture in parallel. Well, a new Fennesz album, Black Sea, is on the way (hopefully) next month, and this lead track certainly keeps expectations very high. Beginning with some of Fennesz' trademark neo-industrial gurgles, it folds in bits of guitar and strings rather beautifully, creating a cluster of sound that trembles, seeming to wait for something. And that something moves in gradually in the form of a massive cloud of distortion, a fine white mist of harmonics mixed with a dark undercurrent of rumbling bass. The tension between these elements is so well balanced, each individual element remaining in the mix even as the sound field becomes impossibly dense, that it's no surprise that it takes a while to get it just right. And as it begins to draw down about five minutes in, you can't help but wish that another full Fennesz album was following behind it. Soon." Fennesz uses guitar and computer to create shimmering, swirling electronic sound of enormous range and complex musicality. "Imagine the electric guitar severed from cliche and all of its physical limitations, shaping a bold new musical language." - (City Newspaper, USA). His lush and luminant compositions are anything but sterile computer experiments. They resemble sensitive, telescopic recordings of rainforest insect life or natural atmospheric occurrences, an inherent naturalism permeating each piece. More

Recorded last year at Rome's contemporary art museum, MAXXI is as graceful and noble as the environment in which it was created. "Intro" sets the tone for this work with its understated pulses and chilling synths. This leads into the deeper, more textured depths of "Sonia Danza" and the aptly named "Dreamscape Generation", which features warbling streams and rivulets of sound, squelches and chatter, like a moist riverbank on a spring morning. "Orange Steps" and "Scintille" are serene and more reflective, after this veritable flurry of musical activity. The release finishes with "Max", a cover of a piece by Italian composer Paolo Conte, but its chimes and layered textures are unmistakably Neel and Dozzy's. More

Special mirrored silver foil gatefold cover with banderole. Pressed on crystal clear vinyl. More

Johannes Auvinen has been a one man acid king for over a decade producing a wealth of acid and acid house under the moniker Tin Man. For this new release on Editions Mego he navigates an entirely different zone. Drawing on the history of electronic musik Akkosaari is a transcendental journey far from the sensual frenzy of sweaty acid drenched dancefloors we are accustomed to with his work. Akkosaari lies in the middle of the kosmic komische of Ash Ra Temple’s Jenseits, the weightless transcendentalism of Eliane Radigue’s Trilogie De Morts and the more glacial output of the Sähkö catalogue. The pace is gentle as the listener is drawn further into a world unlike the one we inhabit, these machines are more second life than one's emulating real life. The fantastic potential for audio induced visions are at play in this adventure in music as mind travel. On Kyläläiset Tanssii a measured pulse acts as a means of navigation before Susi spirals out clouds of sound. By the time we get to Kelluminen we are deeply within an unfamiliar state prior to landing in the heavenly plateau of Akkosaari. Throughout Akkosaari we are bathed in enrapturing and enveloping mists of psychedelic haze which take the listener on a vivid mental journey. This is intoxicating head music unfolding like an astral ascension and like any trip warrants repeat visitation. More

Recorded in Haiku-Pauwela, Maui between 21st January and 8th February 2015. Melting our minds for over two decades with his beat-based productions, this time renowned techno-producer Anthony Child aka Surgeon is putting the fundamental components of electronic sound production to the fore. Focussing on the development of timbre and texture, Child creates exquisite drones, that give an insight in his improvisatory sensibility and dig deep into the potentials of modular synthesis, As the title already indicates, it's a very special setting that he has chosen for this endeavour: The jungle of Maui seems to have acted as a stimulus for this exercise in concentration and trance. The intertwining of the electronic instrument that meets the sublime sounds of nature, opens up an intimate resonant chamber. Birds, insects and raindrops are allowed to break through, while you can sense the thick, humid air and deep colours of the surrounding resonating in the pastose synth lines. Some tracks offer beautifully built overtone-drones, others are structured by playful arpeggios that create a shining bright texture and seduce us into a state of disintegration. At the same time Child gives priority to the graininess of the instrument to emphasise the haptic quality and inner tension of the sounds themselves. In the end these minimalist procedures have been compiled to an unpretentious collection of sonic and atmospheric micro-jewels, inviting us to give ourselves over entirely and exclusively to listening. More

After last year's releases on Spectrum Spools, Italian techno masterminds Donato Dozzy and Neel are returning as the duo Voices From The Lake with a release on the mother label Editions Mego: Live @ MAXXI is a marvellous organic live-set of hypnotic ambient techno, proofing the outstanding and elegant craftsmanship of their sonic sculpturing, that they both are famous for. As was to be expected they stay true to their polyphonic topography of liquid scapes: aquatic sceneries are embedded in soaking dense atmospheres, gently gyrating us into trance. Sometimes soft echoes of sirenic voices are heard - the only remnants of human traces in these spaces that have suspended time, where smooth silky textures are being channeled into fractal structures that induce a state of transcendence. The haptic quality of their sound is adding up to a sonic matrix of metaphysic imaginary that is provoked by gentle glides and dynamic beat patterns of almost tribalistic quality. Dunked in a bath of dark fluid, sometimes washed away at the shores of Kosmische - VFTL's tunes are not scared to seduce us into a condition of haziness, culminating in a cover of Paolo Conte's ,Max' which is turned into a dazzling sample of sweet, dreamy melancholia. With this release Voices From The Lake succeed again in strengthening their position as one of todays most refined ambient techno producers. More