The occasion of possibility runs through Ben Bertrand's new album Relic Radiation. It is all backdrops and layers. Hints of the emotive and the distant. Confronting the classical with what is new, looking for an expressive space. Melancholy, not melancholy. Contemplation on a midnight blizzard. Dust motes in a sunbeam. Sand dunes and microwaves.

Ever since 2018 and the release of his first solo album, Ben Bertrand has been working up his own interpretation of the bass clarinet as an instrument of the avant-garde. Touching upon ambient and cosmic as well as earthy sceneries, his is a gentle musical paradox come to life. Let go of explicit pleasantries, Relic Radiation is the polymathic interpretation of a frozen intercom, of a subdued intent of contact. The music is competent and familiar, distant without being distant. There is no predefined form or context here. It is a different kind of colour.

As musical moments and modi become enormous, things break down into exploration. On the crystal shores of perception, Relic Radiation leaves a lot of space for interpretation. It is never loud, although it works loud. An at times almost sequenced feel to treated and overdubbed bass clarinet and clarinet notes adds to a feeling of paradox. Every voice, every gesture indicates a way in. The electron is now an immeasurable wave."

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"I imagine that one of the first things I heard in the world was theexplosion of a Russian ammunitions factory on the outskirts of myhometown. It blew up the night I was born a new GDR-citizen. I´m notsure I heard a noise when the Wall came down, but it still echoes in mybody. The echo contains many frequencies. Some of them sound like Gabberplaying in my childhood room over the speakers my grandfather once stolefrom a Leipzig radio station. Some of them sound like me and my friendsrunning through the streets. They sound like my mother laughing andconsoling women in the women´s shelter where she worked in 1992. Theysound like birds: my father swears after the Reunification the greatcrested grebes on the town lakes lost all fear of humans. Some of themsound like these recordings."

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"I can feel the blood pumping through my veins
I breathe the warm thin air
I got my eyes wide open
I can feel the heat burning under my skin
We're stuck in the mud
The wheels keep turning in overdrive
My blood in the mud getting one with the earth
My blood in the mud getting one with the earth
I want to feel the fear that's in your heart "

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"Farming, often associated with toil and drudgery, can also be a surprisingly sensual and playful activity. The rhythm of the seasons, the tactile experience of working the land, and the shared sense of accomplishment can all contribute to a heightened sense of intimacy and pleasure. Consider the act of planting seeds. The gentle touch of fingers on delicate seedlings, the anticipation of growth, and the nurturing care required can create a deeply satisfying and sensual experience.

Harvesting, too, can be a sensual affair, as one plucks ripe fruits and vegetables from the earth, feeling their warmth and succulence. Beyond the physical aspects, farming can also foster emotional intimacy. Couples can work together in the garden, sharing laughter, sweat, and a sense of shared purpose. The feeling of accomplishment that comes from growing one's own food can also strengthen bonds and create a sense of shared pride."

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"'Piri Piri Samplers' was first released by Memorials of Distinction in 2019. The cassette is an attempt to map the members distinct and complementary approaches to the guitar: Serra’s use of pedals and tapes to create thick, winding soundscapes, drones occasionally punctured by splenetic stabs and flourishes; Leonard’s more traditional, direct-line technique, often acting as harmonic foil. A selection of recordings from the 2019 residency has been compiled into a new piece, “O Terço dos Homens”, which will appear on Stroom’s reissue of the Piri Piri Samplers due for release in late 2024”"

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Repress!

Juris Boiko (1954-2002) and Hardijs Ledi ¡ (1955-2004) were the core members of the NSRD, which is best known as Latvian avant-garde, postmodern, experimental and underground music group active in 1980s. BIG TIP! STROOM BRINGING IT...! comes with download code.


Their activities were widely multidisciplinary and they can not be considered as purely musicians since none of them had a professional musical education. Their creativity was manifested through variety of media – music, performance and action art, visual arts, poetry, samizdat, the introduction video art in Latvia etc. NSRD also made a significant contribution to the explanation of the theoretical aspects of art in the interpretation of the postmodernist movement, and developed the independent concept of “Approximate Art”. At the end of the 80s, NSRD got connected and performed with several artists and musicians living in West Germany, including Indulis BilzÄ“ns, Micky Remann and Maximilian Lenz aka Westbam and others.

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Merope's most experimental and open-minded full length to date, Vejula is a celebration of collaboration and playfulness, and features appearances from Shahzad Ismaily, Laraaji and Bill Frisell. Like its predecessors, the duo's fifth album still roots itself in Lithuanian folk forms, but sprouts out spiritedly from that point into unfamiliar landscapes, muddling ancient themes with contemporary philosophies, concepts and technology. Delicate instrumental sequences and ethereal vocals are woven into a rich tapestry of subtle synth work and evocative field recordings. On 'Kouma lil', Indre Jurgeleviciute and Bert Cools experiment with digital images of the kankles (a traditional Lithuanian chordophone), and Jurgeleviciute's voice, blurring the boundary between the organic and the artificial, while on 'Suiakmo, French percussionist Toma Gouband adds percussion from his custom-made sounding stones to Jurgeleviciute's gentle words and Cools' surreal, sensuous electronics. 'Vejula' is an album that reaches into the unknown without loosing its tight grip on the past. Merope are in a new creative phase of their career, and they've never sounded quite so universal, or so vital.

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180g vinyl + Silver Pantone print (Featuring a fragment from 'The Myth' (1896), a painting by Jos Dirks)

"agony, anguish, bitterness, despair, grief, heartache, pain,
remorse, sorrow, suffering, torment, woe. Another heartbreak album that is totally worth all of it."

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Teratai Åkande' explores electronic techniques transforming sounds, melodies, and rhythms from balinese gamelan. It's an interaction and synthesis of acoustic and electronic expressions, exploring an imagined territory between two otherwise separate cultural worlds.

On 'Teratai Åkande' the Copenhagen-based producer and electronic musician Anton Friisgaard travels new paths, as he explores gamelan music from his own artistic perspective in close collaboration with Balinese musicians, afliated with Ubud’s acclaimed Gamelan scene.
After experiencing a concert with the Gamelan ensemble 'Gamelan Salukat' at Roskilde Festival in 2018, Friisgaard became inspired to contact Dewa Alit from the ensemble. With the aim of bringing forth a unique expression through the meeting of two distinct musical traditions, Friisgaard traveled to Ubud, Bali to record, compose and improvise in close collaboration with artists from the esteemed Gamelan scene in Ubud. The result is 'Teratai Åkande', which features Pande Made Gangga Sentana, I Nyoman Suwida, Dewa Badukz, Suryana Putra and Pande Made Gangga of Gamelan Salukat.

Anton Friisgaard (fka Hviledag) is an electronic producer and musician based in Copenhagen. Known primarily for his experimental work with tape loops and ambient soundscapes, he’s become an established figure both in the Danish music scene as well as internationally.

Composed, edited and processed in Copenhagen, Denmark from 2018 - 2024.
Here, the recordings and compositions changed shape multiple times over the years, until finally reaching their current state.`

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1992 was a wild year. For planet earth. For humanity. People desired for escapism, and some producers just had the jive they yearned for. Endless kick drum excitement under a roof of strings. Up there in clap heaven, the chords fly candid, and all that hi-hat suspense fashions bliss. These dancers met an angel, circulating eternally towards the strobe. Oh, how they wished all that trance never ends in 1993, when CJ Bolland, one of the most influential and successful producers Belgium created in the nineties, dropped “Camargue”. An instant trance techno classic. Atemporal, abnormal, amoral. Raved together with British producer Cisco Ferreira for Belgium’s finest R&S records. Both worked on many sensual club music artworks together. Like “Tokyo”, the B-Site with an A-Note. Tripping fast, more hi-hat ecstasy, techno kicks, somewhere Goa is in there. Those where the 1990ees. Those days in fast pace. Blissed with trance of techno glam.



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*new material (2023) from the enigmatic, Pablo's Eye

A group of friends go sailing and one disappears. The others start
searching for her. But it gradually becomes apparent that she won’t
be found. So the friends return home one by one. Only the missing
girl’s lover and her best friend remain.They have begun an affair.
As the lovers come together the girl’s disappearance is all but
forgotten.

From Michelangelo Antonioni — “Auteur of eerie angst”
(L’Avventura) by Richard Skinner from Vade Mecum Essays,
Reviews & Interviews (Zero books, 2015).

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LTD to 400 copies

Sissi Rada's humble manifestations of the miracle of life, the troubles of love, the thoughts that span through a human mind while performing simple tasks, educated by her love and natural inclination to poetry, read like small vignettes, or marginalia notes on a diary that is of constant flux.

Recorded, mixed and produced by Sissi alone, in her Athens’ home, using a spartan but powerful instrumentation of harp, a Prophet synthesizer, and first and foremost her intimate and enchanting voice, ‘
Aporia’ stands out with its simplicity and familiarity, like a page out of a diary, shared with a blush and a witty smile."

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It's never too late to celebrate love.

"I could climb every mountain. Cross the mighty sea. Refuse water from the fountain. To have you here with me. And I know I'll endure it. I'll be waiting at your gate." A liminal love message between Ad & Frankie from W.A.T.. Both folk country'ish songs made in the mid 80's"

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Alex Deforce & Charlotte Jacobs are overtaking emptyness in shades of silence. Language has something to say here. Voices combined in poetic levels of belgitude. Poetry rewriting days and nights.

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"Two elevator bangers to get through the gloomy holiday season by Japanese artist, Sonoko, probably made somewhere in the 90's. Merry ye ye"

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"An exciting and vulnarable compilation of the world according to W.A.T., a dutch pop / wave band who was active in the early to mid 80's. For fans of VAZZ & Ruins."

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2023 repress "Pablo’s Eye is the science of studio pressure, when engineer becomes artist. Appropriating left and right as well as front and back, Pablo’s Eye uses the mixing desk to examine and exhaust the possibilities of moments. Pablo’s Eye is a record of that examination and exhaustion, but it is also a record of its own inner space. By means of depth placement, psychoacoustics and spatial fug, Pablo’s Eye is experienced in the deeper reaches of the body, bypassing the conscious part of the mind entirely.Pablo’s Eye is the turning of recorded music inside out to show its seams. It interrogates a song, stripping down the body of the song to reveal its bones. Pablo’s Eye is in the interstices of music, it plugs the gaps, fills the holes. Pablo’s Eye seeks out the concealed mechanisms, it is a song’s hidden agenda. For this compilation, it was decided to present the softer air-beatings of Pablo’s Eye. More than anything, Pablo’s Eye is a temporary atmosphere, like a taste or a dream..."

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"Farming, often associated with toil and drudgery, can also be a surprisingly sensual and playful activity. The rhythm of the seasons, the tactile experience of working the land, and the shared sense of accomplishment can all contribute to a heightened sense of intimacy and pleasure. Consider the act of planting seeds. The gentle touch of fingers on delicate seedlings, the anticipation of growth, and the nurturing care required can create a deeply satisfying and sensual experience.

Harvesting, too, can be a sensual affair, as one plucks ripe fruits and vegetables from the earth, feeling their warmth and succulence. Beyond the physical aspects, farming can also foster emotional intimacy. Couples can work together in the garden, sharing laughter, sweat, and a sense of shared purpose. The feeling of accomplishment that comes from growing one's own food can also strengthen bonds and create a sense of shared pride."

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DOVS are the duo of Vienna’s Johannes Auvinen, aka Tin Man, and Mexico City’s Gabo Barranco, aka AAAA. Psychic Geography is their second album together, but it differs considerably from both their respective solo work and their 2019 debut LP together, Silent Cities: Where that album’s hardware-based acid kept its gaze focused squarely on the dancefloor, Psychic Geography is a strictly ambient affair.

The album has its roots in a trio of beatless tracks that peppered Silent Cities; this time, the duo decided to try making an entire album with no drums. “It opened up the chance to make a different, more narrative style of music with more complex structures,” Auvinen says. Ambiguity and uncertainty are key watchwords for their music, which moves with eerie, liquid grace. Untethered from 4/4 kicks, their music drifts and morphs; familiar acid sequences give way to surprising shifts in tone and mood. And with no drums to distract the ear, the seeming simplicity of their silvery synth lines opens up to reveal remarkable depth and dynamism.

Barranco and Auvinen recorded the album together in the studio utilizing machines like the Roland TB-303, Juno G, Prophet 5, Elektron Octatrack MKII, Make Noise DPO and René, Mutable Clouds, Roland SH-101, Behringer TD3, and Sherman Filterbank. Listen on good speakers or headphones, and you can tell: Their gear yields a tonal richness that recalls the ambient and cosmic music of decades earlier. You can practically feel the heat from their circuits warming the air.

The meaning behind the name DOVS is as ambiguous as the duo’s music. (Dig, if you will, the picture of Picasso’s dove of peace—or, perhaps, the outline of a bird pressed into a small white pill.) But Psychic Geography needs little explanation. DOVS’ album is a collection of mental maps of imaginary places. Set your coordinates for the mirage on the horizon and prepare to dissolve.

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"I can feel the blood pumping through my veins
I breathe the warm thin air
I got my eyes wide open
I can feel the heat burning under my skin
We're stuck in the mud
The wheels keep turning in overdrive
My blood in the mud getting one with the earth
My blood in the mud getting one with the earth
I want to feel the fear that's in your heart "

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One of the universal experiences of life on Earth is staring, neck craned, at the cosmos. The vastness of one’s internal life meets the vastness of space, and in that moment those perspectives fuse in a state of wonder and curiosity. Space as an instrument, the new album by French artist and musician Félicia Atkinson, invites listeners to explore the phantasmic landscapes created in such transformative encounters, when the mind is open and receptive to its environment. Like being absorbed by the immensity of the night sky, this music dilates the imagination and helps us to sit comfortably in the mystery of the ineffable.

We are guided through Space as an instrument by the piano, its alinear story told through restrained, iterative melodies that become entwined with the sounds at the music’s margins - a wisp of electronics, a pinprick of an enunciated consonant. They were recorded on Atkinson’s phone, which was placed next to the keys, or behind her, with the sound of the room bleeding through to give a sense of the place and time of the encounter. She describes these sessions as meetings where she and the piano commune to co-create these spiraling phrases and vaporous dissonances moment by moment. Complicating this dynamic is the presence of digital pianos, which exist in the surreal space of diodes and LED displays. They act as avatars of their three-dimensional counterparts: nowhere and everywhere simultaneously.

Still, the inhabited world of people, water, and wind can be heard throughout Space as an instrument. Often these recordings are integrated into the backdrop of electronics, or reduced to the sound of movements whose physical forms are obscured: the microphone straining against a forceful gust on “Sorry,” arhythmic footsteps traversing an invisible terrain on “Pensées Magiques.” These field recordings take us to the brink of synesthetic experience, allowing us to glimpse with our ear the topography of the imagination. But Atkinson’s music resists any kind of singular perspective on the scene, or any distinct conclusion. “It doesn’t explain anything,” she says, “but it translates the way I perceive it, somehow.”

Atkinson is a polymath by nature, engrossed in a variety of daily artistic practices that nourish one another. In her garden, she performs the slow work of cross-species relationship building, cultivating an ideal space for introspection and further creation; many of the album’s vocal and electronic elements were recorded there. Poetry, which she prizes for its capacity to render the everyday tools of meaning-making more enigmatic, becomes folded into the music as well. She paints as often as time allows. One personal limitation Atkinson finds in painting, the rendering of perspective, has become one of her music’s defining characteristics. The vantage point of the listener is slippery and undefined, with sounds at once appearing gigantic and miniscule, distant and immediate.
This phenomena is central to “Thinking Iceberg,” a 13-minute piece that was whittled down from an hour and a half performance, who remain only a ghostly presence on the album’s recording. Atkinson wrote the piece in response to Olivier Remaud’s book ‘Thinking Like An Iceberg,’ in which the philosopher assigns agency to these massive, endangered objects and imagines how they might perceive their millenia-long relationship to humans. Stoic synthesizer tones percolate while water flows just out of the immediate frame with a disarming clarity and presence. As the piece crests, Atkinson’s whispered voice emerges softly, placed right against the listener’s left ear, contrasting with the billowing mass of sound that otherwise dominates. We emerge with a glimmer of awareness of how immensity and delicacy can coexist as time and humanity extract their toll.

Atkinson says her music exists “on the verge of understanding and not understanding,” which often precludes such literal interpretations. But in that nebulous space there is humility and openness, and perhaps enough empathy to understand the consciousness of a massive, frozen chunk of water. With the listener’s perspective diffused into many different vantage points, how might that, too, become a vehicle for the development of compassion? As we listen, we encounter the wisdom that there is meaning not just in the experience of the sublime, that radical juxtaposition of limitlessness and intimacy, but also in the continuum of countless individuals that have taken the same journey.

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