Repress!

The latest by Chicago trio Purelink unspools an alchemical suite of fractal ambient, dusted dub tech, and interstitial electronica, born from a spirit of unity and flux: “All hands on the mixer, forever finding the sound.” Since forming in 2020, Tommy Paslaski (aka Concave Reflection), Ben Paulson (aka Kindtree), and Akeem Asani (aka Millia) have convened regularly in a shared studio to workshop, swap samples, and hone their collective muse via “the endless possibilities of a laptop,” seeking “something different than we would make on our own.”

Distilled from extended compositions prepared and performed across 2022 in Chicago, Kansas City, New York, and Los Angeles, Signs captures their chemistry at its most liquid and immaterial, mapped in mutating systems of glitch, glass, rhythm, and space. It’s music alternately subdued and subterranean, elevated and remote, attuned to the flickering sentience of outer spheres.

Cover art by Ezra Miller. More

We’re thrilled to announce NAFF017, “To / Deep”, by Chicago trio Purelink

“To / Deep” comprises four tracks, two of which –Maintain the Bliss and Head On A Swivel– were previously released as a digital-only EP in 2021.

Here, Purelink return to form with an updated sound, adding crystalline angularity and dialed precision to their warm, enveloping style.

Blissed break abstractions flutter and gasp like shifting light
through variegated glass. Rhythms arise within rhythms,
the breath resounds throughout.

“To / Deep” carries the uncanny feeling that home has changed, or that home is change. More

** info soon More

Want, both lack and desire, is the sound of two brothers trying to sing sense into a burning world. More

The Ick — a sense of sanity amidst the storm of information. This album by Archetype is an abstract scream for something quite fragile — a polarizing society, disruptive isolation, and the fading collective experience. Utilizing dramatic vocals, industrial trip-hop, and post-punk-leaning electronics, Archetype marks the new moniker by the ever-versatile Viennese Rotterdammer, Leonard Prochazka. Following his manifold of concept-driven, instinctive musical output, Archetype's "The Ick" releases in 2024, following "Strapazen und Genesung" as Geier Aus Stahl on Knekelhuis in 2022. More

Ghastly and hallucinatory – 'last liasse' is a sign of the times, alternative pop record by helen island. Within this debut album, the artist captures the saccharine gaze of digital escapism through characteristic filtered high notes, cut-up genres, and processed vocals. Providing a comprehensive overview of helen island’s self-distributed initiatives, with the ethos of the Parisian Simple Music Experience collective, the twelve tracks set a solid musical score that resonates with the age to come. More

Trystero comprises Scottish/Luxembourgish producer Thomas Lea Clarke (aka MR TC) and Low Bat, otherwise known as one half of the formidable duo Jean-Luc. Their debut album, Sfumare e Vedere, was conceived over three days aboard Urban Boat, a 1960s barge transformed into an arts and performance space. Moored along the river just outside of Paris, the duo embarked on a joint residency, discovering their complementary creative energies and a mutual passion for all things strange and psychedelic.

As frontman, Low Bat is a fire-powered poet, his unparalleled stage presence resonating through Trystero's music. The French native and fluent German speaker has a natural flair for languages. For this project, he sings in a combination of Italian and English about love, loss, and class struggle, constructing surreal wordplay about pelicans and puttanesca. Meanwhile, Clarke's drone-lead electronic accompaniment takes its cues from sizzling acid, 1990s snap rhythms, post-punk, krautrock and shoegaze. Firmly rooted in these tripped-out genres, Trystero journeys to entirely new cosmic dimensions. More

‘Permanent Rain’ is introspective listening. Lean back and let your ears catch a source that moves, breaths, resonates and rises, until a quiet truth swells upon us.
XII captures truth in all its honesty. Sometimes it feels so physical, it’s as if time and elements of nature are peeled of layer after layer.

This record combines songwriting with sonic hypnosis. A rhythmic, esoteric oasis, containing currents of mysticism, yet accompanied by contemporary electronics. Its elements translate to a brew of mutant raga, neofolk and tripped out celtic fantasies.

Ffo: Rapoon, Breadwoman, O Yuki Conjugate More

Laurène Exposito releases her 3rd album on Knekelhuis. Honolulu / Saigon is a collage of unreleased material, and previously on cassette released work. Some songs go even back to the era of Sabine and ties in wonderfully with Laurène’s previous work. She’s been performing some of these tracks back in the days. For sure a pleasant recognition. More

The Naarm/Melbourne based producer will unveil meticulously crafted tracks that breathe life, deliver crispness, evoke emotions, and pulsate with energy.

KiTA's music defies easy categorization, blending ambient, dub, and breakbeat with real instruments and orchestral elements. The album "Ceramic" takes us on a mesmerizing journey with its title track, a twelve-minute composition that intertwines groove-laden ambience, deep bass throbs, swirling guitars, enchanting strings, and atmospheric vocals.
The B side of the record embraces a club-oriented soundscape with infectious breaks and captivating hooks, offering a refreshing contrast to the prevailing musical landscape. The final track concludes the album with dub-influenced percussion, creating a captivating dance that evokes both melancholy and beauty, leaving room for personal interpretation and discovery.
Mastered by Wouter Brandenburg and artwork by Kae Kitzler and Steele Bonus. More

2023 Repress!

EYE is back. Metamujer marks the third installment on the Knekelhuis label and we’re extremely happy to release this document of another chapter in Laurène Exposito’s life. Recorded on various locations ranging from the Swiss mountains to the chalky coasts of Brittany, Metamujer is an 8-track ode to salty love and closeness to nature, a tribute to a modest lifestyle à la Henry David Thoreau. Far from being praise for self-sufficiency, this new LP is deeply influenced by Laurène’s environment. We can hear Korg MS-10 created synthetic waves (Sanatorium) and birds (Luscinia), but one can also catch her singing in Italian, one of 3 languages spoken in Switzerland. Still minimalist and yet more aesthetically diverse, her new sounds are on the edge of EBM and synth pop, between classic minimal wave tunes and rustic ballads on acid. More

Repress!

"Amsterdam, 1982. Smoke fills the streets, squatters clash violently with the police, uprising is in the air. In this disorderly mess, the worlds of activism, art, fashion, and nightlife converged into an explosion of creativity. Amidst all of this Electric Party, the brainchild of René van Rijn, released the ‘Work’ tape on Amsterdam label Fetisj, now a cult cassette for the few who remember.Forty years ago they created this unique blend of no wave, mutant disco, funk, and experimental music. It was around the time of the rise of the members-only club Mazzo, with all its prominent figures, the anarchy of the squatting movement, and the art academy connection. Everything took place in this inebriated twilight zone of blissful joy.This record consists of 3 of the best tracks from the ‘Work’ tape and 6 unreleased tracks from forgotten cassette tapes, all remastered and restored where necessary. Among them the unreleased anthem ‘Caribe’, which was recorded in Spain as the opening track for a Spanish discotheque in 1987. More

Geier aus Stahl is one of the many artistic guises of Leonard Prochazka. No superfluous elements take away from the core experience of his sound. Somewhere a statement from David Byrne crossed our path, able to highlight something of the essence of Leonard's art: “No matter how alienated the subject or the singer might appear, the groove and its connection to the body would provide solace and grounding. But the edgy, uncomfortable stuff was still on the foreground”. The debut album 'Strapazen und Genesung' takes us to an exciting world that twists, squeaks and creaks, yet is grounded by an unmistakable groove. More

Repress!
Something was brooding in the furthest outskirts of Amsterdam. The isolated concrete suburbs of the western part of the city constituted the ideal dwelling place for the writing of De Ambassade's debut album Duistre Kamers.
Pascal Pinkert, accompanied by bass player Timothy Francis, searched for new horizons and managed to find them on this next chapter in the evolution of De Ambassade. Icy electronics display a love for NDW, ragas and raves. Beneath the surface lies a deeper Dutch language narrative celebrating free speech and thought, starkly in opposition with a world where alienation and solitude create ever more distance between all beings.
After releasing two, by now classic 7" ep's, a long player will shine brightly. The album release will feature a long awaited live performance with additional band member Mian. More

Stacks is the Belgian duo of Jan and Sis Matthé. These Antwerp residents build and undress different timbres and textures into vocal-hooked songs, flouting the rules of pop in the process. We at Knekelhuis appreciate this immensely and are delighted to work with them. ‘Love and Language’ is a romantic, moody pop-not-pop record in which everything falls perfectly into place. More

Across two 7”s, Death Or Glory (1982) and Death Rocks (1983) and one 12”, Anguish (1982) Jimmy Smack carved his own bleak chasm amidst the LA Death Rock scene that he inhabited. After decades dormant in the crypt, Knekelhuis compiles Smack’s full recorded output, providing it a lavish place to rest on the Death Is Certain LP.

While his local punk contemporaries pursued aggressive hardcore and political punk, Jimmy Smack donned corpse paint (before it would later become synonymous with the European black metal movement) and found a home performing in venues like the Anti-Club, amongst other subterranean dwellers Christian Death, Dead Hippie and 45 Grave.

Even within this lurid milieu, Jimmy Smack stood alone. Hating Life (from Death Rocks) easily locates Jimmy within the negative-punk and KBD lexicon. However his recordings, consisting of voice, rhythm box and electrified bagpipe drones, otherwise veer closer to other-worldly avant-garde rituals. Jimmy’s background in theatre and performance art helping inform not only his menacing stage presence, but also spawning the singularity of his sound.

Death Is Certain comes housed in a printed inner sleeve featuring rarely seen archival photos, liner notes by Cooper Bowman and excerpts from an interview with Jimmy Smack conducted by Juan Mendez (Silent Servant) More

Michel Banabila is an indispensable part of the Dutch experimental music scene, where he has acquired a special place with many, in the 40 years that he has been releasing music. Michel is also just as active as a composer for the theater and ballet world, as well as for TV productions, to considerable fame. The threat of drowning in the sea of his oeuvre is real in view of the unprecedented amount of output, but once sailing unmissable monolithic rock formations loom up rapidly. 'Echo Transformations' is one of them. It's a magical album, where everything falls into place in a rich domain inspired by the Fourth World dimension. A world of sound arises from our imagination, stimulating the senses. A concept album where every sigh has its place and where no superfluous tone can be heard. What remains is to embrace the inevitable surrender that accompanies unstoppable change. This is Banabila at his best. More

Oak Corridor is the second full-length album from Newcastle, Australian duo Troth (Amelia Besseny & Cooper Bowman). It follows 2020’s warmly received album, Flaws In The Glass (Altered States Tapes) and 2021’s Small Movements In Radiance mini-album (Not Not Fun). While the same themes and intentions remain, this time Troth channel their ambient experiments into an environ located somewhere closer to minimal-wave and synth-pop.

While Oak Corridor is their most ‘song-based’ album to date, it continues the respectful treatment of natural themes found in their previous releases, further tying in elements of balance, truth, justice, humility, strains of mysticism from varied origins and an opposition to the encroachment of ill-advised development surrounding them in Newcastle (and Australia more broadly). The album is a truly collaborative affair and offers something of a sound-diary of the two’s relationship. More

Summer has arrived and with it our first club release in ages, a high energy burner by KSITO from Tokyo, Japan. We are more than excited to welcome this talented MPC finger drummer Keito Suzuki to fiery post-lockdown dance floors. He draws inspiration from the South African Gqom and percussive music, and in his own stately way he merges big room intensity with an experimental explosion of weirdness. Expect bare bones techno, full of earworm hooks. Tolouse Low Trax and K?r complement this record with a bunch of psychedelic remixes, creating a great balanced journey.

Artwork by Marta Marinotti. More

Compilation of all new productions from a wealth of international talent, put together by Knekelhuis.

Label Text "This is a story of friendship, about how it grows stronger through the years. But it’s just as much about fledgling togetherness and shared art in times of crisis. The result is an introspective document of contemporary music, in spirit of Eno and Hassell. A space where we embrace our differences and speak the language of collectivity together, where we reflect, adapt and value each artist's contribution equally. To witness a multitude of cultural backgrounds that speak one like-minded language. Soothing and illuminating. And felt like...

Mastered by Amir Shoat and artwork by Keziah Phillips and Steele Bonus." More