Minor Science—aka UK-born, Berlin-based musician Angus Finlayson—makes his Balmat debut with Absent Friends Vol. III, the third installment in a shape-shifting series across a variety of formats and platforms. And with it, he pushes forward his vision of ambient music as neither static vista or merely mood-setting atmosphere, but rather a dynamic matrix of textures, sensations, and even rhythms.

The first two Absent Friends—a 2014 set for Blowing Up the Workshop, and a 2017 cassette and web player for Whities (now AD93)—were hybrid affairs, part DJ mix and part collage, mostly featuring music made by other people. Then, in 2020-21, Finlayson developed the project into a live show of his own material. Armed with hundreds of bespoke stems created in his studio—idiosyncratic FX chains, feedback loops through cheap rack gear, heavily post-processed field recordings, found voices, etc.—he would improvise on four CDJs, mixer, FX, and live synths, extending techniques he learned as a club DJ into a live context, accompanied by visuals by Stockholm-based artist Paul Witherden.

Absent Friends Vol. III is an album of studio versions of the music developed for the live show. But in Minor Science’s world, even a category as simple as “studio versions” is slightly opaque. “Most of these tracks weren’t ‘composed’ in the studio,” Finlayson explains: “The sounds started out as stems and source material for the live show, and might not have been intended to go together—but then through performance, they settled into shapes that worked. I then recreated those performances in the studio.” That organic process of ideation and realization might help explain the unusual coherence of the album, in which sounds and textures flow seamlessly from one to the next, sometimes seeming to stand still, and sometimes looping back. There are virtually no melodies, few recognizable motifs or riffs, yet the eight-track album nevertheless moves with a distinctive logic and a determined sense of purpose, from the frozen-in-time shimmer of the opening “Introduction” through the early cuts’ studies of space and light; from the seemingly autobiographical “Summer Diary” through the rushing trance (yes, trance) arpeggios of “Contingency” and on to the dulcet denouement of the closing “Gather Your Party (Dispersed Mix).” More

Meaning shifts throughout Murphy"s debut album "Um" with songs that meld moments of baroque beauty with crashes of electronic noise, employing textures that are by turns organic and artificial, hi-fi and lo-fi.
Tracklist
1.1First Day
1.2Need
1.3Pick Yourself Up
1.4Theme Parks
1.5Spray Can
1.6Call Me Back
1.7Kind
1.8The Words
1.9Dust Yourself Off
1.10IRL
1.11Forgive

https://listen.k7.com/eac93d24-a23a-4973-b90c-03749589165c More

Emerging from a generative paradox of laser precision and fluid dynamism, Metallur fuses percussive, metallic force with warping tempos and a field of ethereal resonance and debris.

The result is an insurgent, elemental, time-smearing of hyperspace, where "tellurian beats merge with alien glossolalia and vocal samples blip tesseracts of human affect into a ghostly, melodic aether".
Music for a crushed infinity. More

The Knife’s Olof Dreijer continues his new adventure as a solo producer with a three-track EP, also marking a unique sonic chapter in his work.Olof has been pushing the borders of electronic music for two decades, both as a part of The Knife and with the secret pseudonym Oni Ayhun - releasing music that traverses experimental avenues, exploring themes surrounding gender.

The Coral EP draws inspiration from the lively steel-drum experiments featured in last year's "Souvenir" EP with Mt. Sim

Vibrant compositions and distinct melodies create an ambient progression where electronic and acoustic sounds delicately dance together, forming friendships and blending seamlessly, reminiscent of white magic.

Olof has recently co-produced several tracks on Fever Ray’s critically acclaimed 2023 album “Radical Romantics”, produced Tunisian multi-instrumentalist and composer Houeida Hedfi’s debut album “Fleuves De L'âme”, as well as helped create music with Planningtorock and Zhala. More

Whispers from Ancient Vessels is a collection of tales, ‘speakings’ and relationships with nature’s beings such as trees, the sea and the inner self.The tracks pose as reflections of relearning to join with nature again. To grieve and to hope. To take in wise words, to listen to truth that can feel intense. Reconnection can be a painful process.The sounds and the visual identity of Whispers from Ancient Vessels is an attempt to remove the rose tinted view of nature and to put it at the forefront of the piece. Nature often tends to be a pretty backdrop where we come and go as we please. But this is a reminder that it is not separate from us and we exist as one. To realise its beautiful evil.To amplify alternative communication. The tracks are about listening to the wisdom of the earth, translating it and taking the wisdom on board. Being vulnerable to the rawness and darkness of the earth. Being vulnerable to truth, to change and proximity. Succumbing to oneness. More

Bristol’s four-piece outfit Quade's debut album.

The first single ‘Of The Source’ will be released 4th October, alongside the album announce.
‘Of The Source’ opens in familiar territory for Quade, with distant drones and searching violin, before breaking down into perhaps the album’s most experimental track.

‘Nacre’ is the culmination of three years of work from the band, the blueprints of their songwriting and sound firmly established in the sprawling, haunting and yet hopeful record. Traipsing between gothic expansiveness and cosmic psychedelia, the record cannot be pinned down into one recognisable place. By the album’s close, the listener may be left wondering whether it was all a memory or a dream.

The recording and production of the record was collaborative, with the band drawing upon the services of Jack Ogbourne and Larry ‘Bruce’ McCarthy - two divergent pillars of Bristol’s music community - for engineering and mixing respectively. More

Clara! ( with a 6 track LP ft. productions from the SKY H1, Pearson Sound & Low Jack.

"Pulso is about sexual desire, my desire. Me as the subject, not only the object of it. I sing my pleasure and daydreams, because it's my body and my imagination, so I know what I like to feel."

Sonically inspired by reggaeton, a genre that is personally nostalgic and reminiscent of times spent at parties listening to the imported genre as a teenager in her home country, Spain.
Clara! works with producers who don’t usually dabble in the genre - SKY H1, Pearson Sound and Low Jack - in order to mix their own, unique universes with it. More

Australia born, London based producer Surusinghe debuts on AD 93 with her EP Brake Fluid, due for release on the 27th October 2023.Featuring four tracks of alien club music designed for the dancefloor - Bop, the lead single, has been doing the rounds at clubs all over the world since the start of this year. More

‘My Noise is Nothing’ is the collaborative LP between Lord of The Isles and Scottish poet Ellen Renton, set for release on the 29th September 2023.

For the pair, both the poems and music came to them in a quick and concentrated period.

Renton's poems were written during 2020 and capture something of that time- that feeling of having no obstacles between ourselves and our emotions. Especially the feeling of anger, which is expressed by Renton as a feeling that is not wholly negative but complicated, necessary, unifying and even joyful.

Likewise, Lord Of The Isles’ dusky and unfurling production refuses obstacles- embracing experimental live recordings using pedals and vintage synths. It is warm and fuzzy, but most importantly organic, with all the imperfections and character of a living entity.

A1 - Let the Colours Flood In
A2 - A Discovery (feat. Ellen Renton)
A3 - For a Burning World (feat. Ellen Renton)
B1 - A Portrait (feat. Ellen Renton)
B2 - Last Day
B3 - Don’t You Ache (feat. Ellen Renton)
B4 - My Noise is Nothing (feat. Ellen Renton) More

Composed, produced and arranged by Evangelia VS, the artist behind Abyss X, Freedom Doll is the culmination of a year of emotional unloading through songwriting, offering an introspective journey into the ocean of her mind. Produced and recorded between an artist residency near the Mayan jungle in Mexico and her Berlin home, the album chronicles transformations the performer tackled mentally during the writing process, tracing the rollercoaster of falling in love during the pandemic, as well as the pleasures and tribulations of womanhood.

Freedom Doll encapsulates the romantic escapade between her voice and the guitar. The amalgamation of seduction, sexual tension, vulnerability and assertiveness pulses throughout the entirety of the album, spiralling out of the cracks spawned from her vocal chords. From the twirling dance between her lush harmonies and the progressions of the acoustic guitar in tracks such as Ascend and From Hot to Cold, to the explosive confrontation between the metallic and operatic qualities of her voice, the searing sound of the electric guitar in industrial rock / psychedelic anthems such as Torture Grove and Banyana and the cathartic momentum found in the gospel inclined chants in A CHEW - Freedom Doll untethers the dramatics and theatricality that defines Abyss X’s vocal performance and music production, while maintaining the sensual vibrations of her creative essence.

Freedom Doll is the encapsulation of the Minoan woman, the elusive harlequin tiptoeing her way through the “circus of terror” that is living and loving her way through womanhood. With this visual reference, Abyss X pays tribute to her ancestors and their groundbreaking ancient artistry. The back cover of the vinyl features a reiteration of depictions of bulls leaping found in Minoan frescoes; an inherently male cultural act that in the ancient Minoan times presumably gave expression to a tension that underlies man's somewhat tenuous mastery of nature. Freedom Doll’s artwork challenges this preconceived notion through an eco-feminist approach, bringing the Minoan woman slash Gaia in the seat of the bull leaper, taming the unhinged and predominantly male earth - threatening human force.

A1 - Ascend
A2 - A Chew
A3 - Torture Grove
A4 - Oceans of Heat
A5 - Vacuum (feat. Juliana Huxtable)
B1 - From Hot to Cold
B2 - This Strange Asylum
B3 - Banyana
B4 - Feeling a Type Away
B5 - Never Apart (feat. Juliana Huxtable) More

Out of time, alone sometimes, wide awake, thinking, I must have been here before? In a dream, or vision of a memory, and it’s hard sometimes, but I wrote this for you to ease. Something to carry with you on and on, seasons change, but the bite of Scorpio remains…. ‘So let it go, don’t be a cell to yourself.’

‘Scorpio’ and its dubby anagram, ‘Ether,’ are brought to you by hoodie x james K. Made together, from across the ocean, this 10? comes in the balm of heat, just before the fall.

_____________________________________________

hoodie is Naemi and Shy:

Naemi is a Berlin-based artist whose work encompasses a broad range of sonic aesthetics and philosophies of musical composition by way of a handful of aliases. They are most known for their work as exael, which seeks to examine the digital fragmentation of identity of contemporary life by way of alchemical reconfigurations of genre and composition. Their focus in the past few years has slowly shifted more into the vein of classic songwriting, implementing more organic instrumentation and vocals, via collaborations such as Hoodie and Baby Bong, as well as material released under their own name.

Special Guest DJ/Shy
"if you know, you know”
3XL cowboy, party rockin' head knockin', cyberdub hi-fi, bass n sci-fi, fast/slow, outer rim/inner edge. Michigan born, Berlin based.
Resident DJ at kwia.
Parties Past Present and Future: Headbangers Ball, luckY lottO, spin cycle, Dance Tutorial and Vague Music.
aka Caveman LSD, fka uon, aka DJ paradise, as xphresh w/ Ben Bondy, hoodie w/ Naemi, sofa w/ Ulla. Part of cypher & thru on Appendix.Files, Critical Amnesia & Ghostride The Drift on xpq?

A version of James K was born. Comprised of bones, reactive metals and a larynx with freckled eyes that catalyzes that mix, she can now see through all the schemes. This is the truth. When she chews gum, it's not clear which one of her personas does it. Since their first release in 2013, describing them separately is grunt work as they switch places, cosplay each other and would most likely lull you into a lonesome dream. Together, they know how to produce, sound, film and edit. Thus, they are brought to the table, performing and DJing in clubs and theaters, along composers and children alike. They release on Incienso, AD 93, PAN, among others, and continue to operate her label She Rocks! K provides shows for NTS, has collaborated with artists such as Yves Tumor, Beta Librae, Drew McDowall, crimeboys, and slayed her band SETH twice. She produces music that makes temporary haven for indomitable lyrics – and these are in constant flux. You can check what they are here: [917 908-1173]. It's only a part of her fairly detailed world. A world that she abandons and then builds upon. More

TIP!

AD93 say: Inspired by distant memories, fairy-tales and transcendental experiences.
“Where all the souls unite, drifting as one, dancing into the night” More

Repress!

‘Blue Car’ is a collection of songs from Joanne's archive of unreleased solo recordings, similar to 2020's ‘Painting Stupid Girls’, these tracks attempt to record the moment, and where she was at emotionally that day, similar to diary entries. The dates she wrote these songs is unknown, they span roughly a ten year period. More

A collection of loops recorded between 2016-2021. More

You Always Will Be is the new album by artist Dylan Henner.

The follow up to 2020's well received 'The Invention of the Human', the new record touches on themes of nostalgia & longing for times passed; innocence yielding hardships and vice versa; ageing; the soul; life changes; parents and children; loss; love.

Dylan says:

"The piece tells the story of a single life, from birth to death. I've been thinking about the passage of life a lot recently as I lost all four of my grandparents but celebrated the birth of my daughter all within a short period of time. The brevity and preciousness of being really hit me."

The vinyl release consists of a ~ 40 min piece split across two sides, while the digital release features extended versions of the music in that piece, making up 10 individual tracks. More

In the beginning, woman was the sun, and then the monster put its hand in the fire.
Knowing without knowing.
Nature versus Nurture. More