Tracklist:
1.And Then He Wrapped His Wings Around Me (feat. Meg Baird and Walt McClements)
2.Arrivederci (feat. Lol Tolhurst)
3.Blender in a Blender (feat. Roy Montgomery
4.Music for Applying Shimmering Eye Shadow
5.Horses, Glossy on the Hill 07:09
6.Yesterday's Parties (feat. Rachel Goswell and Samara Lubelski)
Through evocative, emotionally resonant music, Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, the new LP from American harpist and composer Mary Lattimore, speaks not just for its beloved namesake — a hotel in Croatia facing renovation — but for a universal loss that is shared. Six sprawling pieces shaped by change; nothing will ever be the same, and here, the artist, evolving in synthesis, celebrates and mourns the tragedy and beauty of the ephemeral, all that is lived and lost to time. Documented and edited in uncharacteristically measured sessions over the course of two years, the material remains rooted in improvisation while glistening as the most refined and robust in Lattimore’s decade-long catalog. It finds her communing with friends, contemporaries, and longtime influences, in full stride yet slowing down to nurture songs in new ways. The cast includes Lol Tolhurst (The Cure), Meg Baird, Rachel Goswell (Slowdive), Roy Montgomery, Samara Lubelski, and Walt McClements.
“When I think of these songs, I think about fading flowers in vases, melted candles, getting older, being on tour and having things change while you're away, not realizing how ephemeral experiences are until they don't happen anymore, fear for a planet we're losing because of greed, an ode to art and music that's really shaped your life that can transport you back in time, longing to maintain sensitivity and to not sink into hollow despondency.”
Memories, scenes, and split-second impressions have long filled Lattimore’s musical universe. As one of today’s preeminent instrumental storytellers, she has “the uncanny ability to pluck a string in a way that will instantly make someone remember the taste of their fifth birthday cake," writes Pitchfork's Jemima Skala. Lattimore's impulse to record life as it happens matches her drive to travel and perform, as profiled by Grayson Haver Currin for The New York Times: "Lattimore recognized that being in motion shook loose strands of inspiration, moods she wanted to express with melody. She needed, then, to remain on the go." That sense of fluidity has also made her a prolific collaborator outside of solo work. 2020's Silver Ladders, recorded with Slowdive's Neil Halstead, opened the door for Lattimore to widen the vision of her primary project as well, and its proper follow-up is the natural next scale. “All of these people I asked to contribute have deeply affected and inspired my life.”
For the title and inspiration, Lattimore’s mind returns to the island of Hvar in Croatia, where she first saw those silver ladders at the water’s edge. “There's a big old hotel there called the Hotel Arkada, and you could tell it had been hosting holiday-goers for decades in a great way. I walked around the lobby and the empty ballrooms and it looked like a well-worn, well-loved place. My friend Stacey who lives there told me to ‘say goodbye to Hotel Arkada, it might not be here when you get back’ and I heard soon after that it was actually going to be renovated in a very crisp, modern way.” Lattimore became fixated on the ingredients that make a place special — for Hotel Arkada, the patinaed chandeliers, the patterned bedspreads, the echoes of its intangible charm — and how when those leave this world, as they inevitably always will, it feels important to memorialize them, “to bottle it for a brief second.”
For the opening track, “And Then He Wrapped His Wings Around Me,” Lattimore looks to two of her closest friends — songwriter Meg Baird, her collaborator on 2018’s Ghost Forests, and accordionist composer Walt McClements, who she’s toured and performed alongside — to surface a core memory. As a kid, Lattimore won a drawing contest through a country radio station and got to see Sesame Street Live! in Asheville. She and her mom were invited backstage, and there the benevolent icon Big Bird “gave me an incredible hug with his scratchy yellow wings.” The trio channel the enveloping warmth of that portrait, the feeling of innocent escape, flying away towards a childhood dream that is just out of reach, surreal, and tinged with sadness. In a rare vocal passage in Lattimore’s library, Baird softly hums with the rolling washes of harp above McClements’ tranquil drone; just for a moment, we are held in a sublime canary yellow embrace.
“Arrivederci” features the synth work of Lol Tolhurst, an original member of The Cure and one of her musical heroes. Lattimore started the song after getting fired from a project because she hadn’t played the harp parts well enough. “So I came home and cried my eyes out and then wrote this song to try to recapture my love of playing the harp with nothing to mess up. I received Lol’s parts on New Year's Eve when I was hosting a party. I secretly went into my room and listened to the song and it felt just so magical to have such an influential musician connecting with a song that I made, especially a song I made when I was feeling like a total failure.”
On “Blender In A Blender,” Lattimore connects with guitarist Roy Montgomery, a pioneer of New Zealand’s underground. First drafted by Lattimore during an artist residency program in UCross Wyoming, the track later evolved over the duo’s pen pal correspondence. Montgomery adds chords that first feel distant, hazed behind a high-drama harp pattern, before thundering into the foreground in a thrilling outro. The title refers to the trend of teenagers blending their cell phones; Lattimore and a friend were joking about all stuff that could be blended, including another blender. Humor is an unsung key to Lattimore’s craft; titles and anecdotes provide unexpected, counterbalancing levity.
The subdued and striking “Music For Applying Shimmering Eye Shadow” is a tribute to the earthly rituals of preparation. “I wanted to make a song for the green rooms,” she says, recalling a moment in the mirror when a tourmate readied herself to go out into the unknown of performance. “It originally was made after googling ‘what does space smell like’ and getting an answer of ‘walnuts and brake pads’ and thinking about the wooziness of space, somehow smelling familiar earth smells in unfamiliar territory. Once I started adding more layers, I started thinking about what I hoped the song would soundtrack and what I wished a song would do.”
In the case of “Horses, Glossy on the Hill,” the narrative is nearly inextricable from the sonics. The percussive clacking resembles hooves in an anxious gate. There’s a storm cloud in the sky; from a car window, Lattimore captures the silvery sheen coming off the horses’ striated shapes as if photographing the scene through sound. Her shimmering strings accelerate and distort under twisting effects as the herd becomes one with the horizon.
There’s a crumbling elegance to the closing track, “Yesterday's Parties,” indebted to the reveries of Julee Cruise and the droning down-tuned strings of The Velvet Underground. We join Lattimore on a midnight stroll through the streets of Brussels; she looks through stained glass windows into quiet apartments and thinks of late nights with her friends who were out of town. Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell sings a wordless hymn as the harp, a special one Lattimore keeps in Brussels, glides with violin from Samara Lubelski. Leaving Lattimore in this place, itself a memory of yearning for connection, is an appropriate end to an album devoted to remembering and manifesting through shared expression. More
1.And Then He Wrapped His Wings Around Me (feat. Meg Baird and Walt McClements)
2.Arrivederci (feat. Lol Tolhurst)
3.Blender in a Blender (feat. Roy Montgomery
4.Music for Applying Shimmering Eye Shadow
5.Horses, Glossy on the Hill 07:09
6.Yesterday's Parties (feat. Rachel Goswell and Samara Lubelski)
Through evocative, emotionally resonant music, Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, the new LP from American harpist and composer Mary Lattimore, speaks not just for its beloved namesake — a hotel in Croatia facing renovation — but for a universal loss that is shared. Six sprawling pieces shaped by change; nothing will ever be the same, and here, the artist, evolving in synthesis, celebrates and mourns the tragedy and beauty of the ephemeral, all that is lived and lost to time. Documented and edited in uncharacteristically measured sessions over the course of two years, the material remains rooted in improvisation while glistening as the most refined and robust in Lattimore’s decade-long catalog. It finds her communing with friends, contemporaries, and longtime influences, in full stride yet slowing down to nurture songs in new ways. The cast includes Lol Tolhurst (The Cure), Meg Baird, Rachel Goswell (Slowdive), Roy Montgomery, Samara Lubelski, and Walt McClements.
“When I think of these songs, I think about fading flowers in vases, melted candles, getting older, being on tour and having things change while you're away, not realizing how ephemeral experiences are until they don't happen anymore, fear for a planet we're losing because of greed, an ode to art and music that's really shaped your life that can transport you back in time, longing to maintain sensitivity and to not sink into hollow despondency.”
Memories, scenes, and split-second impressions have long filled Lattimore’s musical universe. As one of today’s preeminent instrumental storytellers, she has “the uncanny ability to pluck a string in a way that will instantly make someone remember the taste of their fifth birthday cake," writes Pitchfork's Jemima Skala. Lattimore's impulse to record life as it happens matches her drive to travel and perform, as profiled by Grayson Haver Currin for The New York Times: "Lattimore recognized that being in motion shook loose strands of inspiration, moods she wanted to express with melody. She needed, then, to remain on the go." That sense of fluidity has also made her a prolific collaborator outside of solo work. 2020's Silver Ladders, recorded with Slowdive's Neil Halstead, opened the door for Lattimore to widen the vision of her primary project as well, and its proper follow-up is the natural next scale. “All of these people I asked to contribute have deeply affected and inspired my life.”
For the title and inspiration, Lattimore’s mind returns to the island of Hvar in Croatia, where she first saw those silver ladders at the water’s edge. “There's a big old hotel there called the Hotel Arkada, and you could tell it had been hosting holiday-goers for decades in a great way. I walked around the lobby and the empty ballrooms and it looked like a well-worn, well-loved place. My friend Stacey who lives there told me to ‘say goodbye to Hotel Arkada, it might not be here when you get back’ and I heard soon after that it was actually going to be renovated in a very crisp, modern way.” Lattimore became fixated on the ingredients that make a place special — for Hotel Arkada, the patinaed chandeliers, the patterned bedspreads, the echoes of its intangible charm — and how when those leave this world, as they inevitably always will, it feels important to memorialize them, “to bottle it for a brief second.”
For the opening track, “And Then He Wrapped His Wings Around Me,” Lattimore looks to two of her closest friends — songwriter Meg Baird, her collaborator on 2018’s Ghost Forests, and accordionist composer Walt McClements, who she’s toured and performed alongside — to surface a core memory. As a kid, Lattimore won a drawing contest through a country radio station and got to see Sesame Street Live! in Asheville. She and her mom were invited backstage, and there the benevolent icon Big Bird “gave me an incredible hug with his scratchy yellow wings.” The trio channel the enveloping warmth of that portrait, the feeling of innocent escape, flying away towards a childhood dream that is just out of reach, surreal, and tinged with sadness. In a rare vocal passage in Lattimore’s library, Baird softly hums with the rolling washes of harp above McClements’ tranquil drone; just for a moment, we are held in a sublime canary yellow embrace.
“Arrivederci” features the synth work of Lol Tolhurst, an original member of The Cure and one of her musical heroes. Lattimore started the song after getting fired from a project because she hadn’t played the harp parts well enough. “So I came home and cried my eyes out and then wrote this song to try to recapture my love of playing the harp with nothing to mess up. I received Lol’s parts on New Year's Eve when I was hosting a party. I secretly went into my room and listened to the song and it felt just so magical to have such an influential musician connecting with a song that I made, especially a song I made when I was feeling like a total failure.”
On “Blender In A Blender,” Lattimore connects with guitarist Roy Montgomery, a pioneer of New Zealand’s underground. First drafted by Lattimore during an artist residency program in UCross Wyoming, the track later evolved over the duo’s pen pal correspondence. Montgomery adds chords that first feel distant, hazed behind a high-drama harp pattern, before thundering into the foreground in a thrilling outro. The title refers to the trend of teenagers blending their cell phones; Lattimore and a friend were joking about all stuff that could be blended, including another blender. Humor is an unsung key to Lattimore’s craft; titles and anecdotes provide unexpected, counterbalancing levity.
The subdued and striking “Music For Applying Shimmering Eye Shadow” is a tribute to the earthly rituals of preparation. “I wanted to make a song for the green rooms,” she says, recalling a moment in the mirror when a tourmate readied herself to go out into the unknown of performance. “It originally was made after googling ‘what does space smell like’ and getting an answer of ‘walnuts and brake pads’ and thinking about the wooziness of space, somehow smelling familiar earth smells in unfamiliar territory. Once I started adding more layers, I started thinking about what I hoped the song would soundtrack and what I wished a song would do.”
In the case of “Horses, Glossy on the Hill,” the narrative is nearly inextricable from the sonics. The percussive clacking resembles hooves in an anxious gate. There’s a storm cloud in the sky; from a car window, Lattimore captures the silvery sheen coming off the horses’ striated shapes as if photographing the scene through sound. Her shimmering strings accelerate and distort under twisting effects as the herd becomes one with the horizon.
There’s a crumbling elegance to the closing track, “Yesterday's Parties,” indebted to the reveries of Julee Cruise and the droning down-tuned strings of The Velvet Underground. We join Lattimore on a midnight stroll through the streets of Brussels; she looks through stained glass windows into quiet apartments and thinks of late nights with her friends who were out of town. Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell sings a wordless hymn as the harp, a special one Lattimore keeps in Brussels, glides with violin from Samara Lubelski. Leaving Lattimore in this place, itself a memory of yearning for connection, is an appropriate end to an album devoted to remembering and manifesting through shared expression. More
More records from Ghostly International
1
Studio - Out There
2
Studio - West Side
3
Studio - Origin
4
Studio - Life's A Beach!
5
Studio - Self Service
6
Studio - Indo
The mid-2000s underground stir surrounding Studio, the project of Swedish musicians Dan Lissvik and Rasmus Hägg, feels nearly lost to time. West Coast, their seminal 2006 debut, captured a faraway romanticism of Balearic brushed up against Krautrock, disco, dub, and afro-beat, with pop lyricism lifted from new wave, all made modern by two art school grads in Gothenburg. First pressed in a small vinyl-only run via their own Information label, the album has been notably absent from most streaming services, and the internet’s record of its initial impact is all but fossilized from a bygone blog era, while its sound is simply untraceable to any one moment in music.
Presented with a minimalist black circle LP design, the set possessed an uncanny escapist sensibility, underscored by track titles like “Life’s A Beach!” but otherwise entirely on the suggestion of that sound, imagined, displaced, and subconsciously amalgamated. Some called it “the missing link between The Cure and Lindstrøm,” Pitchfork heard Durutti Column and Can, as the duo’s story became swept up in a loosely developing scene — adjacent first to the label Service (Jens Lekman, The Whitest Boy Alive) and later Sincerely Yours (The Tough Alliance, jj) — and a precursor to the 2010s boom at the axis of electronic and psychedelic music guided by indie greats like Caribou, Four Tet, and Darkside. Featuring six free-flowed tracks that glide between hypnotic instrumental terrain and anthemic pop architecture, West Coast succeeded in its premise, a trance-inducing, deja vu-like destination instantly identifiable and endlessly replayable. By late 2007, following its expanded CD repackaging as Yearbook 1, the songs were staples of year-end lists, including best album write-ups by Pitchfork, FACT Magazine, and Rough Trade. While Lissvik and Hägg kept busy, Studio’s proper follow-up never came, thus adding to West Coast’s strange allure and legacy. In 2025, the record sees renewed appreciation, remastered and reissued by Ghostly International.
West Coast took shape throughout much of Studio's existence. The earliest recordings trace back to sessions held at Lissvik’s art school and Hägg’s rehearsal space between 2001 and 2004. During this period, Lissvik co-founded the Service label, creating a platform to release music, produce T-shirts, and host events. Service organized large parties, and the art school served as both a club venue and office, in a style reminiscent of Factory Records and Haçienda. Aside from their three initial 7-inch releases on Service, they kept most of their music to themselves for several years. Hägg remembers, "All these recordings were just piled up and we dusted them off and started to deconstruct and assemble them in a more drawn-out fashion." In 2005, they left Service, flirted with breaking up, and then revisited material and wrote two new songs at Hägg's Ferry Terminal Studio and Lissvik's N.47 studio, which he jokingly dubbed the "Beach Ball of Death sessions" due to the slow processing strain put on his Power Mac G4. Hägg continues, "I had started a disco club night with a friend and we went deep down the rabbit holes of Balearics, space rock, and strange leftfield dancefloor stuff. This probably seeped into Studio's output. Around the same time, with Dan slowing drums down to half tempo, finishing ‘No Comply’ and creating ‘Radio Edit’, the B-side of Studio's first 12", a West Coast blueprint was born.”
Soon songs were finalized and sequenced from countless sketches and layers, and the titles clicked into place after being kicked around for a while. The title for the pulsing, guitar-driven “Self Service” was inspired by Lissvik’s visit to the office of the Paris fashion magazine and chosen to mark their newfound independence. Thematically, a larger vision emerged. “Somehow, I knew I wanted to make a conceptual record that, although only imaginary at that point, could represent or define how our city sounded,” says Lissvik. “I was totally immersed in a word bubble and was really struggling with lyrics for one of our potential instrumentals. While walking back to the studio one day after a lunch break, ‘West Coast’ appeared in my mind. I ran back to the studio, wrote down the lyrics for ‘West Side,’ and suddenly ‘Life’s A Beach!,’ ‘Indo’ and the rest of the potential instrumentals all made sense.”
Sonically, the set represented years of developing taste as well. In the same breadth, they cite DJ Screw, J Dilla, and Joy Division, along with early ‘80s European live DJ sets from the likes of Beppe Loda, DJ Mozart, and Baldelli as reference points. “The anything-goes mentality was very encouraging and was a big cornerstone to the Studio sound,” says Hägg. “But there’s so much more to the picture, we were not that young then and had lots of musical baggage in our suitcases, the new thing was that we finally let it all come through, not bound by any borders that was often the case with music identity in Sweden during the ‘90s.”
West Coast is defined by its swing, an ability to lock into loops and beat-grids while still prioritizing looseness and genuine surprises across long passages with layers constantly appearing and fading from the mix. Songs can momentarily fall out of step or change course, like 10 minutes into the hazy opener “Out There” when the bass line suddenly dips back beat for 4 bars and then returns on the beat, giving way for a dubbed-out breakdown and ascendent finish. Or take the 13-minute “Life’s A Beach!” which eases into a soft, tide-changing crescendo just before the 9-minute mark, returning anew on an optimistic bass line as the guitar gets moody above the shimmering wash. Hägg says, “It always transcended very well live, like an implosion. It’s a very tricky song to play, due to strange rounds so it’s such a relief when one gets there, probably what you hear is a big sigh.”
In the afterglow of the record’s 2007 reception, as their oft-mentioned un-Google-able name and Myspace page made rounds and West Coast was cemented as “one of the finest pieces of electronic music you ´ll hear this year,” per The Guardian, Studio receded from view, clouded behind a mountain of remix requests (including belter for Kylie Minogue and Stockholm’s Shout Out Louds) and label bureaucracy. But both artists, now well into respective careers beyond Studio, have come to peace with West Coast as their most enduring effort together. Lissvik adds, “It serves as a good reminder for me to keep to that decision and promise and to continue exploring and growing.” More
Presented with a minimalist black circle LP design, the set possessed an uncanny escapist sensibility, underscored by track titles like “Life’s A Beach!” but otherwise entirely on the suggestion of that sound, imagined, displaced, and subconsciously amalgamated. Some called it “the missing link between The Cure and Lindstrøm,” Pitchfork heard Durutti Column and Can, as the duo’s story became swept up in a loosely developing scene — adjacent first to the label Service (Jens Lekman, The Whitest Boy Alive) and later Sincerely Yours (The Tough Alliance, jj) — and a precursor to the 2010s boom at the axis of electronic and psychedelic music guided by indie greats like Caribou, Four Tet, and Darkside. Featuring six free-flowed tracks that glide between hypnotic instrumental terrain and anthemic pop architecture, West Coast succeeded in its premise, a trance-inducing, deja vu-like destination instantly identifiable and endlessly replayable. By late 2007, following its expanded CD repackaging as Yearbook 1, the songs were staples of year-end lists, including best album write-ups by Pitchfork, FACT Magazine, and Rough Trade. While Lissvik and Hägg kept busy, Studio’s proper follow-up never came, thus adding to West Coast’s strange allure and legacy. In 2025, the record sees renewed appreciation, remastered and reissued by Ghostly International.
West Coast took shape throughout much of Studio's existence. The earliest recordings trace back to sessions held at Lissvik’s art school and Hägg’s rehearsal space between 2001 and 2004. During this period, Lissvik co-founded the Service label, creating a platform to release music, produce T-shirts, and host events. Service organized large parties, and the art school served as both a club venue and office, in a style reminiscent of Factory Records and Haçienda. Aside from their three initial 7-inch releases on Service, they kept most of their music to themselves for several years. Hägg remembers, "All these recordings were just piled up and we dusted them off and started to deconstruct and assemble them in a more drawn-out fashion." In 2005, they left Service, flirted with breaking up, and then revisited material and wrote two new songs at Hägg's Ferry Terminal Studio and Lissvik's N.47 studio, which he jokingly dubbed the "Beach Ball of Death sessions" due to the slow processing strain put on his Power Mac G4. Hägg continues, "I had started a disco club night with a friend and we went deep down the rabbit holes of Balearics, space rock, and strange leftfield dancefloor stuff. This probably seeped into Studio's output. Around the same time, with Dan slowing drums down to half tempo, finishing ‘No Comply’ and creating ‘Radio Edit’, the B-side of Studio's first 12", a West Coast blueprint was born.”
Soon songs were finalized and sequenced from countless sketches and layers, and the titles clicked into place after being kicked around for a while. The title for the pulsing, guitar-driven “Self Service” was inspired by Lissvik’s visit to the office of the Paris fashion magazine and chosen to mark their newfound independence. Thematically, a larger vision emerged. “Somehow, I knew I wanted to make a conceptual record that, although only imaginary at that point, could represent or define how our city sounded,” says Lissvik. “I was totally immersed in a word bubble and was really struggling with lyrics for one of our potential instrumentals. While walking back to the studio one day after a lunch break, ‘West Coast’ appeared in my mind. I ran back to the studio, wrote down the lyrics for ‘West Side,’ and suddenly ‘Life’s A Beach!,’ ‘Indo’ and the rest of the potential instrumentals all made sense.”
Sonically, the set represented years of developing taste as well. In the same breadth, they cite DJ Screw, J Dilla, and Joy Division, along with early ‘80s European live DJ sets from the likes of Beppe Loda, DJ Mozart, and Baldelli as reference points. “The anything-goes mentality was very encouraging and was a big cornerstone to the Studio sound,” says Hägg. “But there’s so much more to the picture, we were not that young then and had lots of musical baggage in our suitcases, the new thing was that we finally let it all come through, not bound by any borders that was often the case with music identity in Sweden during the ‘90s.”
West Coast is defined by its swing, an ability to lock into loops and beat-grids while still prioritizing looseness and genuine surprises across long passages with layers constantly appearing and fading from the mix. Songs can momentarily fall out of step or change course, like 10 minutes into the hazy opener “Out There” when the bass line suddenly dips back beat for 4 bars and then returns on the beat, giving way for a dubbed-out breakdown and ascendent finish. Or take the 13-minute “Life’s A Beach!” which eases into a soft, tide-changing crescendo just before the 9-minute mark, returning anew on an optimistic bass line as the guitar gets moody above the shimmering wash. Hägg says, “It always transcended very well live, like an implosion. It’s a very tricky song to play, due to strange rounds so it’s such a relief when one gets there, probably what you hear is a big sigh.”
In the afterglow of the record’s 2007 reception, as their oft-mentioned un-Google-able name and Myspace page made rounds and West Coast was cemented as “one of the finest pieces of electronic music you ´ll hear this year,” per The Guardian, Studio receded from view, clouded behind a mountain of remix requests (including belter for Kylie Minogue and Stockholm’s Shout Out Louds) and label bureaucracy. But both artists, now well into respective careers beyond Studio, have come to peace with West Coast as their most enduring effort together. Lissvik adds, “It serves as a good reminder for me to keep to that decision and promise and to continue exploring and growing.” More
1
Shigeto - Dial In (Intro)
2
Shigeto - Ready. Set. Flex. (feat. Zelooperz and Ian Maciak)
3
Shigeto - Runnup On'm (feat. Cleveland Thrasher and Ahya Simone)
4
Shigeto - Nothing Simple (feat. Tammy Lakkis and Cleveland Thrasher)
5
Shigeto - The Punch! (feat. KESSWA)
6
Shigeto - Let’s Talk (feat. KESSWA and Ahya Simone)
7
Shigeto - Can’t Keep Up (feat. KESSWA)
8
Shigeto - BookaMagick (feat. Cleveland Thrasher)
9
Shigeto - Pressure (feat. KESSWA and The Josh Craig)
10
Shigeto - Honey High and Blue (feat. KESSWA)
Cherry Blossom Baby, Shigeto's first full-length statement since 2017, sprouts out from a collective thaw, ambitious, collaborative, and fully realized. The Detroit-based, Japanese-American musician, DJ, Portage Garage Sounds label co-founder, and longtime Ghostly International artist embraces the role of producer and composer. Bold and cultivated with intention, the band-built sound honors traditions in electronic, jazz, R&B, and hip-hop, a fusion that's become his signature, now more vibrant than ever. Zach Saginaw and a group of guests and players present a snapshot in time, a celebration of self-love and an expression of vitality distinctly rooted in Detroit and informed by his family’s cultural history. "I am a cherry blossom baby," he says. "We all are cherry blossom babies, we all are resilient, we all are growing, we all will continue to."
Heritage has been at the heart of Saginaw's recording project from the start; his middle name is Shigeto, a name passed down from his great grandfather, which means "to grow" — it was apt given his premature birth weight of less than a pound, and remains fitting for the evolution of his artistry, now nearly 15 years since he signed to Ghostly. On Lineage (GI-148, 2012), Saginaw grappled with an ancestral story; the artwork contrasted photos taken of his great-grandfather's home in Hiroshima in 1916 and later at the Amache Internment Camp in Grenada, Colorado, where he and his family were sent during the Second World War. The line continues through Cherry Blossom Baby, which finds Saginaw drawing inspiration from the cherry trees that bloom every spring at Hiroshima, an enduring image of hope, resilience, and renewal.
Saginaw's been searching, a simmering introspection that surfaced in recent years as nightlife paused and he began to question the idea of Shigeto, the performer and Michigan fixture. "My identity is always something I've struggled with, not being really considered Japanese, not being considered white. I think Shigeto was a way for me to have this identity, to create one for myself that I can latch onto, and it suddenly didn't exist anymore." The realization pushed him to work on himself, to come back to his craft and his community, laying the groundwork for a record that rises from the figurative ashes anew.
A reaffirmed sense of self, momentum, and maturation is apparent in where Saginaw situates here as a songwriter and producer arranging ideas alongside Detroit's finest, a physical manifestation of his WDET 101.9FM show highlighting “forward-thinking music from the Detroit Diaspora.” Every track is a collaboration, be it with a vocalist or multiple instrumentalists, a tradition forged in his Portage Garage studio sessions. "It's the first time I'm writing this stuff myself and getting these players to make it even better…it's impossible to have made it at this level without them." The production and mix favor a full, throwback quality, eschewing modern compression for more spacious dynamics, a nod to psych and jazz records of the '70s and '80s. "It was on purpose but also subconsciously, playing live with jazz bands and DJing b2b with mentors like Dez Andrés, playing older sounds over the last decade. Sonically I wanted to make this record feel like you could see multiple people in a studio."
The group puts egos aside to pursue the best possible outcomes, like Saginaw's choice to invite drummer Ian Maciak (Machinedrum) for the early standout "Ready. Set. Flex,” which takes off with drum & bass velocity. "Ian's sound is unmatched, I can't play jungle breaks like Ian and I thought, how cool would it be if I could get another drummer to play that track?" Above the breaks and a rolling piano loop, there's Zelooperz, the ascendant rapper and Bruiser Brigade member (as well as Shigeto's partner in 2017 project ZGTO), rattling off a series of cerebral lines, with upright bass from Josef Deas (a Portage Garage alum) and Saginaw's synth flourishes.
"The Punch" dips into an electro-boogie vibe; it's a crew jam featuring rising star vocalist and musician KESSWA, who has worked with Shigeto on previous releases and a 2022 MOCAD museum installation and lights up half of Cherry's ten tracks with her smooth, soulful delivery. Behind the kit, Saginaw provides the percussive punch (as well as synth and glockenspiel), surrounded by the personnel that has comprised his live band and Versions (GI-340, 2019) ensemble, including Ian Finkelstein, Dez Andrés, and later, Marcus Elliot.
The collaborative spirit that runs through Cherry Blossom Baby widens its range. Rapper Cleveland Thrasher brings raspy bars to the hypnotic "Runnup On'm" with harpist Ahya Simone, the trap/breakbeat-wielding "BookaMagick," and across the pop grooves of "Nothing Simple," where he bobs and weaves with producer/DJ Tammy Lakkis. Guitarist Sasha Kashperko riffs through several tracks, giving the material a loungier feel — "I've always wanted a great guitarist on my tracks," says Saginaw. Ahya Simone returns to elevate "Let's Talk" to the cosmos. Her harp parts represent a natural progression for the Shigeto sound; whereas in the past, he might have collaged string elements together, he leans back in the open space and lets it all flow organically.
Expanding on the title's metaphor, Shigeto is pushing forward with the people around him: "A cherry blossom is regrowing, but it's always different too, and I'm speaking to that with all the different musicians on this record, getting everyone involved and honoring their contributions is part of that cherry blossom philosophy.” More
Heritage has been at the heart of Saginaw's recording project from the start; his middle name is Shigeto, a name passed down from his great grandfather, which means "to grow" — it was apt given his premature birth weight of less than a pound, and remains fitting for the evolution of his artistry, now nearly 15 years since he signed to Ghostly. On Lineage (GI-148, 2012), Saginaw grappled with an ancestral story; the artwork contrasted photos taken of his great-grandfather's home in Hiroshima in 1916 and later at the Amache Internment Camp in Grenada, Colorado, where he and his family were sent during the Second World War. The line continues through Cherry Blossom Baby, which finds Saginaw drawing inspiration from the cherry trees that bloom every spring at Hiroshima, an enduring image of hope, resilience, and renewal.
Saginaw's been searching, a simmering introspection that surfaced in recent years as nightlife paused and he began to question the idea of Shigeto, the performer and Michigan fixture. "My identity is always something I've struggled with, not being really considered Japanese, not being considered white. I think Shigeto was a way for me to have this identity, to create one for myself that I can latch onto, and it suddenly didn't exist anymore." The realization pushed him to work on himself, to come back to his craft and his community, laying the groundwork for a record that rises from the figurative ashes anew.
A reaffirmed sense of self, momentum, and maturation is apparent in where Saginaw situates here as a songwriter and producer arranging ideas alongside Detroit's finest, a physical manifestation of his WDET 101.9FM show highlighting “forward-thinking music from the Detroit Diaspora.” Every track is a collaboration, be it with a vocalist or multiple instrumentalists, a tradition forged in his Portage Garage studio sessions. "It's the first time I'm writing this stuff myself and getting these players to make it even better…it's impossible to have made it at this level without them." The production and mix favor a full, throwback quality, eschewing modern compression for more spacious dynamics, a nod to psych and jazz records of the '70s and '80s. "It was on purpose but also subconsciously, playing live with jazz bands and DJing b2b with mentors like Dez Andrés, playing older sounds over the last decade. Sonically I wanted to make this record feel like you could see multiple people in a studio."
The group puts egos aside to pursue the best possible outcomes, like Saginaw's choice to invite drummer Ian Maciak (Machinedrum) for the early standout "Ready. Set. Flex,” which takes off with drum & bass velocity. "Ian's sound is unmatched, I can't play jungle breaks like Ian and I thought, how cool would it be if I could get another drummer to play that track?" Above the breaks and a rolling piano loop, there's Zelooperz, the ascendant rapper and Bruiser Brigade member (as well as Shigeto's partner in 2017 project ZGTO), rattling off a series of cerebral lines, with upright bass from Josef Deas (a Portage Garage alum) and Saginaw's synth flourishes.
"The Punch" dips into an electro-boogie vibe; it's a crew jam featuring rising star vocalist and musician KESSWA, who has worked with Shigeto on previous releases and a 2022 MOCAD museum installation and lights up half of Cherry's ten tracks with her smooth, soulful delivery. Behind the kit, Saginaw provides the percussive punch (as well as synth and glockenspiel), surrounded by the personnel that has comprised his live band and Versions (GI-340, 2019) ensemble, including Ian Finkelstein, Dez Andrés, and later, Marcus Elliot.
The collaborative spirit that runs through Cherry Blossom Baby widens its range. Rapper Cleveland Thrasher brings raspy bars to the hypnotic "Runnup On'm" with harpist Ahya Simone, the trap/breakbeat-wielding "BookaMagick," and across the pop grooves of "Nothing Simple," where he bobs and weaves with producer/DJ Tammy Lakkis. Guitarist Sasha Kashperko riffs through several tracks, giving the material a loungier feel — "I've always wanted a great guitarist on my tracks," says Saginaw. Ahya Simone returns to elevate "Let's Talk" to the cosmos. Her harp parts represent a natural progression for the Shigeto sound; whereas in the past, he might have collaged string elements together, he leans back in the open space and lets it all flow organically.
Expanding on the title's metaphor, Shigeto is pushing forward with the people around him: "A cherry blossom is regrowing, but it's always different too, and I'm speaking to that with all the different musicians on this record, getting everyone involved and honoring their contributions is part of that cherry blossom philosophy.” More
1
Shigeto - Dial (Intro)
2
Shigeto - Ready. Set. Flex. (feat. Zelooperz and Ian Maciak)
3
Shigeto - Runnup On'm (feat. Cleveland Thrasher and Ahya Simone)
4
Shigeto - Nothing Simple (feat. Tammy Lakkis and Cleveland Thrasher)
5
Shigeto - The Punch! (feat. KESSWA)
6
Shigeto - Let’s Talk (feat. KESSWA and Ahya Simone)
7
Shigeto - Can’t Keep Up (feat. KESSWA)
8
Shigeto - BookaMagick (feat. Cleveland Thrasher)
9
Shigeto - Pressure (feat. KESSWA and The Josh Craig)
10
Shigeto - Honey High and Blue (feat. KESSWA)
Sakura Droplet Vinyl!
Cherry Blossom Baby, Shigeto's first full-length statement since 2017, sprouts out from a collective thaw, ambitious, collaborative, and fully realized. The Detroit-based, Japanese-American musician, DJ, Portage Garage Sounds label co-founder, and longtime Ghostly International artist embraces the role of producer and composer. Bold and cultivated with intention, the band-built sound honors traditions in electronic, jazz, R&B, and hip-hop, a fusion that's become his signature, now more vibrant than ever. Zach Saginaw and a group of guests and players present a snapshot in time, a celebration of self-love and an expression of vitality distinctly rooted in Detroit and informed by his family’s cultural history. "I am a cherry blossom baby," he says. "We all are cherry blossom babies, we all are resilient, we all are growing, we all will continue to."
Heritage has been at the heart of Saginaw's recording project from the start; his middle name is Shigeto, a name passed down from his great grandfather, which means "to grow" — it was apt given his premature birth weight of less than a pound, and remains fitting for the evolution of his artistry, now nearly 15 years since he signed to Ghostly. On Lineage (GI-148, 2012), Saginaw grappled with an ancestral story; the artwork contrasted photos taken of his great-grandfather's home in Hiroshima in 1916 and later at the Amache Internment Camp in Grenada, Colorado, where he and his family were sent during the Second World War. The line continues through Cherry Blossom Baby, which finds Saginaw drawing inspiration from the cherry trees that bloom every spring at Hiroshima, an enduring image of hope, resilience, and renewal.
Saginaw's been searching, a simmering introspection that surfaced in recent years as nightlife paused and he began to question the idea of Shigeto, the performer and Michigan fixture. "My identity is always something I've struggled with, not being really considered Japanese, not being considered white. I think Shigeto was a way for me to have this identity, to create one for myself that I can latch onto, and it suddenly didn't exist anymore." The realization pushed him to work on himself, to come back to his craft and his community, laying the groundwork for a record that rises from the figurative ashes anew.
A reaffirmed sense of self, momentum, and maturation is apparent in where Saginaw situates here as a songwriter and producer arranging ideas alongside Detroit's finest, a physical manifestation of his WDET 101.9FM show highlighting “forward-thinking music from the Detroit Diaspora.” Every track is a collaboration, be it with a vocalist or multiple instrumentalists, a tradition forged in his Portage Garage studio sessions. "It's the first time I'm writing this stuff myself and getting these players to make it even better…it's impossible to have made it at this level without them." The production and mix favor a full, throwback quality, eschewing modern compression for more spacious dynamics, a nod to psych and jazz records of the '70s and '80s. "It was on purpose but also subconsciously, playing live with jazz bands and DJing b2b with mentors like Dez Andrés, playing older sounds over the last decade. Sonically I wanted to make this record feel like you could see multiple people in a studio."
The group puts egos aside to pursue the best possible outcomes, like Saginaw's choice to invite drummer Ian Maciak (Machinedrum) for the early standout "Ready. Set. Flex,” which takes off with drum & bass velocity. "Ian's sound is unmatched, I can't play jungle breaks like Ian and I thought, how cool would it be if I could get another drummer to play that track?" Above the breaks and a rolling piano loop, there's Zelooperz, the ascendant rapper and Bruiser Brigade member (as well as Shigeto's partner in 2017 project ZGTO), rattling off a series of cerebral lines, with upright bass from Josef Deas (a Portage Garage alum) and Saginaw's synth flourishes.
"The Punch" dips into an electro-boogie vibe; it's a crew jam featuring rising star vocalist and musician KESSWA, who has worked with Shigeto on previous releases and a 2022 MOCAD museum installation and lights up half of Cherry's ten tracks with her smooth, soulful delivery. Behind the kit, Saginaw provides the percussive punch (as well as synth and glockenspiel), surrounded by the personnel that has comprised his live band and Versions (GI-340, 2019) ensemble, including Ian Finkelstein, Dez Andrés, and later, Marcus Elliot.
The collaborative spirit that runs through Cherry Blossom Baby widens its range. Rapper Cleveland Thrasher brings raspy bars to the hypnotic "Runnup On'm" with harpist Ahya Simone, the trap/breakbeat-wielding "BookaMagick," and across the pop grooves of "Nothing Simple," where he bobs and weaves with producer/DJ Tammy Lakkis. Guitarist Sasha Kashperko riffs through several tracks, giving the material a loungier feel — "I've always wanted a great guitarist on my tracks," says Saginaw. Ahya Simone returns to elevate "Let's Talk" to the cosmos. Her harp parts represent a natural progression for the Shigeto sound; whereas in the past, he might have collaged string elements together, he leans back in the open space and lets it all flow organically.
Expanding on the title's metaphor, Shigeto is pushing forward with the people around him: "A cherry blossom is regrowing, but it's always different too, and I'm speaking to that with all the different musicians on this record, getting everyone involved and honoring their contributions is part of that cherry blossom philosophy.” More
Cherry Blossom Baby, Shigeto's first full-length statement since 2017, sprouts out from a collective thaw, ambitious, collaborative, and fully realized. The Detroit-based, Japanese-American musician, DJ, Portage Garage Sounds label co-founder, and longtime Ghostly International artist embraces the role of producer and composer. Bold and cultivated with intention, the band-built sound honors traditions in electronic, jazz, R&B, and hip-hop, a fusion that's become his signature, now more vibrant than ever. Zach Saginaw and a group of guests and players present a snapshot in time, a celebration of self-love and an expression of vitality distinctly rooted in Detroit and informed by his family’s cultural history. "I am a cherry blossom baby," he says. "We all are cherry blossom babies, we all are resilient, we all are growing, we all will continue to."
Heritage has been at the heart of Saginaw's recording project from the start; his middle name is Shigeto, a name passed down from his great grandfather, which means "to grow" — it was apt given his premature birth weight of less than a pound, and remains fitting for the evolution of his artistry, now nearly 15 years since he signed to Ghostly. On Lineage (GI-148, 2012), Saginaw grappled with an ancestral story; the artwork contrasted photos taken of his great-grandfather's home in Hiroshima in 1916 and later at the Amache Internment Camp in Grenada, Colorado, where he and his family were sent during the Second World War. The line continues through Cherry Blossom Baby, which finds Saginaw drawing inspiration from the cherry trees that bloom every spring at Hiroshima, an enduring image of hope, resilience, and renewal.
Saginaw's been searching, a simmering introspection that surfaced in recent years as nightlife paused and he began to question the idea of Shigeto, the performer and Michigan fixture. "My identity is always something I've struggled with, not being really considered Japanese, not being considered white. I think Shigeto was a way for me to have this identity, to create one for myself that I can latch onto, and it suddenly didn't exist anymore." The realization pushed him to work on himself, to come back to his craft and his community, laying the groundwork for a record that rises from the figurative ashes anew.
A reaffirmed sense of self, momentum, and maturation is apparent in where Saginaw situates here as a songwriter and producer arranging ideas alongside Detroit's finest, a physical manifestation of his WDET 101.9FM show highlighting “forward-thinking music from the Detroit Diaspora.” Every track is a collaboration, be it with a vocalist or multiple instrumentalists, a tradition forged in his Portage Garage studio sessions. "It's the first time I'm writing this stuff myself and getting these players to make it even better…it's impossible to have made it at this level without them." The production and mix favor a full, throwback quality, eschewing modern compression for more spacious dynamics, a nod to psych and jazz records of the '70s and '80s. "It was on purpose but also subconsciously, playing live with jazz bands and DJing b2b with mentors like Dez Andrés, playing older sounds over the last decade. Sonically I wanted to make this record feel like you could see multiple people in a studio."
The group puts egos aside to pursue the best possible outcomes, like Saginaw's choice to invite drummer Ian Maciak (Machinedrum) for the early standout "Ready. Set. Flex,” which takes off with drum & bass velocity. "Ian's sound is unmatched, I can't play jungle breaks like Ian and I thought, how cool would it be if I could get another drummer to play that track?" Above the breaks and a rolling piano loop, there's Zelooperz, the ascendant rapper and Bruiser Brigade member (as well as Shigeto's partner in 2017 project ZGTO), rattling off a series of cerebral lines, with upright bass from Josef Deas (a Portage Garage alum) and Saginaw's synth flourishes.
"The Punch" dips into an electro-boogie vibe; it's a crew jam featuring rising star vocalist and musician KESSWA, who has worked with Shigeto on previous releases and a 2022 MOCAD museum installation and lights up half of Cherry's ten tracks with her smooth, soulful delivery. Behind the kit, Saginaw provides the percussive punch (as well as synth and glockenspiel), surrounded by the personnel that has comprised his live band and Versions (GI-340, 2019) ensemble, including Ian Finkelstein, Dez Andrés, and later, Marcus Elliot.
The collaborative spirit that runs through Cherry Blossom Baby widens its range. Rapper Cleveland Thrasher brings raspy bars to the hypnotic "Runnup On'm" with harpist Ahya Simone, the trap/breakbeat-wielding "BookaMagick," and across the pop grooves of "Nothing Simple," where he bobs and weaves with producer/DJ Tammy Lakkis. Guitarist Sasha Kashperko riffs through several tracks, giving the material a loungier feel — "I've always wanted a great guitarist on my tracks," says Saginaw. Ahya Simone returns to elevate "Let's Talk" to the cosmos. Her harp parts represent a natural progression for the Shigeto sound; whereas in the past, he might have collaged string elements together, he leans back in the open space and lets it all flow organically.
Expanding on the title's metaphor, Shigeto is pushing forward with the people around him: "A cherry blossom is regrowing, but it's always different too, and I'm speaking to that with all the different musicians on this record, getting everyone involved and honoring their contributions is part of that cherry blossom philosophy.” More
1
C418 - Subwoofer Lullaby
2
C418 - Living Mice
3
C418 - Moog City
4
C418 - Haggstrom
5
C418 - Minecraft
6
C418 - Clark
7
C418 - Mice On Venus
8
C418 - Dry Hands
9
C418 - Wet Hands
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C418 - Sweden
11
C418 - Cat
12
C418 - Danny
Repress!
Minecraft is a dreamscape, a limitless world where anything is possible. Minecraft is a tool, a means of bringing the imagination to life. Minecraft is a community, a platform on which inventive minds of all ages can share their creations and ideas. Minecraft, of course, is also a game, the most popular and best-selling video game of all time. Created in 2009 by Swedish programmer Markus "Notch" Persson, this cultural phenomenon speaks volumes of our current zeitgeist's love for virtual spaces, but its unprecedented success couldn't be pinned on one factor alone. Countless layers of thoughtful artistry flow through Minecraft's singular experience, not the least of which is its transportive soundtrack. And now for the first time since releasing digitally in 2011, the music of Minecraft will be issued on vinyl and CD by Ghostly International.
Minecraft Volume Alpha, the first installment of a two-part OST, is the work of German composer and musician Daniel Rosenfeld. Using C418 as his moniker, Rosenfeld crafted the sweeping soundtrack and vibrant sound design which helped breathe life into Minecraft's voxel-based universe. Fans and critics were universally enamored with his beatless, nuanced electronic pieces upon release. Popular gaming site Kotaku named it among The Best Game Music of 2011, calling the music "remarkably soothing," and The Guardian has compared Rosenfeld's delicate piano and sparse ambient motifs to legendary artists Erik Satie and Brian Eno. In an interview feature with C418, Polygon distilled Volume Alpha to its essence: "It's not bound by the retro aesthetic of Minecraft's graphics. It transcends them. The album is an attempt to uplift the combined game/music experience into the sublime."
But for all of the critical praise, C418's crowning achievement has to be his insatiable fan base, the seemingly endless swath of players and listeners who treat his music like gospel. They are exactly who this physical release of the Minecraft soundtrack was conceived for, though Ghostly hopes to bring Rosenfeld's music to a whole new audience as well. As any cursory listen of the touching sounds will reveal, this isn't a record meant solely for lifelong gamers and MineCon diehards; anyone in love with ambient, neo-classical, or minimal music needs to hear Volume Alpha. More
Minecraft is a dreamscape, a limitless world where anything is possible. Minecraft is a tool, a means of bringing the imagination to life. Minecraft is a community, a platform on which inventive minds of all ages can share their creations and ideas. Minecraft, of course, is also a game, the most popular and best-selling video game of all time. Created in 2009 by Swedish programmer Markus "Notch" Persson, this cultural phenomenon speaks volumes of our current zeitgeist's love for virtual spaces, but its unprecedented success couldn't be pinned on one factor alone. Countless layers of thoughtful artistry flow through Minecraft's singular experience, not the least of which is its transportive soundtrack. And now for the first time since releasing digitally in 2011, the music of Minecraft will be issued on vinyl and CD by Ghostly International.
Minecraft Volume Alpha, the first installment of a two-part OST, is the work of German composer and musician Daniel Rosenfeld. Using C418 as his moniker, Rosenfeld crafted the sweeping soundtrack and vibrant sound design which helped breathe life into Minecraft's voxel-based universe. Fans and critics were universally enamored with his beatless, nuanced electronic pieces upon release. Popular gaming site Kotaku named it among The Best Game Music of 2011, calling the music "remarkably soothing," and The Guardian has compared Rosenfeld's delicate piano and sparse ambient motifs to legendary artists Erik Satie and Brian Eno. In an interview feature with C418, Polygon distilled Volume Alpha to its essence: "It's not bound by the retro aesthetic of Minecraft's graphics. It transcends them. The album is an attempt to uplift the combined game/music experience into the sublime."
But for all of the critical praise, C418's crowning achievement has to be his insatiable fan base, the seemingly endless swath of players and listeners who treat his music like gospel. They are exactly who this physical release of the Minecraft soundtrack was conceived for, though Ghostly hopes to bring Rosenfeld's music to a whole new audience as well. As any cursory listen of the touching sounds will reveal, this isn't a record meant solely for lifelong gamers and MineCon diehards; anyone in love with ambient, neo-classical, or minimal music needs to hear Volume Alpha. More
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C418 - KI
2
C418 - Alpha
3
C418 - Blind Spots
4
C418 - Mutation
5
C418 - Biome Fest
6
C418 - Aria Math
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C418 - Taswell
8
C418 - Beginning 2
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C418 - Moog City 2
10
C418 - The End
11
C418 - Kyoto
12
C418 - Chirp
13
C418 - Mellohi
14
C418 - Stal
15
C418 - Eleven
16
C418 - Far
17
C418 - Intro
Repress!
As C418, composer and producer Daniel Rosenfeld designs sounds to resonate in both physical and pixelated realms. Best known for his original soundtracks to Minecraft, the single best-selling video game of all time, he’s developed a discography of instrumental music over the last decade that traverses electronic pop patterns, neo-classical dreamscapes, and sparse ambient motifs. The latter element has broken from the “8-bit” pigeonholing of game music and earned him accolades that reference artists like Erik Satie (The Guardian) and Brian Eno (VICE). In 2015, after quietly self-releasing Minecraft Volume Alpha and Minecraft Volume Beta, Rosenfeld partnered with Ghostly International to reissue Minecraft Volume Alpha on vinyl and CD. The release garnered attention from proper music critics and the gaming community alike, becoming one of the most sought after records in the Ghostly catalog. Now, following several restocks of Alpha to fervent fan response, it is time for the soundtrack’s second installment to shine. For the legion of listeners and players to, at long last, have Minecraft Volume Beta in tangible formats. The double LP arrives in August 2020 on standard black and fire splatter colored vinyl, available in regular sleeves as well an exclusive limited-edition jacket with a lenticular cover which gives depth and movement to its 3D-rendered image.
Originally self-released in 2013, Minecraft Volume Beta was C418’s longest batch of music to date at nearly 140 minutes. The collection features tracks that were "silently" added to Minecraft during its music updates and a few that never officially entered the game. The run time is now adapted to fit the double LP format, while digital downloads include the full set. Rosenfeld’s unmistakable abilities are on display; he creates a sweeping variety of musical ideas that mirror the limitless universe of Minecraft. Ghostly International is thrilled to give this unique collaboration its due treatment and hopes to see the creative inspiration which drives Minecraft and Rosenfeld continue to disperse by virtue of this unexpectedly universal music. More
As C418, composer and producer Daniel Rosenfeld designs sounds to resonate in both physical and pixelated realms. Best known for his original soundtracks to Minecraft, the single best-selling video game of all time, he’s developed a discography of instrumental music over the last decade that traverses electronic pop patterns, neo-classical dreamscapes, and sparse ambient motifs. The latter element has broken from the “8-bit” pigeonholing of game music and earned him accolades that reference artists like Erik Satie (The Guardian) and Brian Eno (VICE). In 2015, after quietly self-releasing Minecraft Volume Alpha and Minecraft Volume Beta, Rosenfeld partnered with Ghostly International to reissue Minecraft Volume Alpha on vinyl and CD. The release garnered attention from proper music critics and the gaming community alike, becoming one of the most sought after records in the Ghostly catalog. Now, following several restocks of Alpha to fervent fan response, it is time for the soundtrack’s second installment to shine. For the legion of listeners and players to, at long last, have Minecraft Volume Beta in tangible formats. The double LP arrives in August 2020 on standard black and fire splatter colored vinyl, available in regular sleeves as well an exclusive limited-edition jacket with a lenticular cover which gives depth and movement to its 3D-rendered image.
Originally self-released in 2013, Minecraft Volume Beta was C418’s longest batch of music to date at nearly 140 minutes. The collection features tracks that were "silently" added to Minecraft during its music updates and a few that never officially entered the game. The run time is now adapted to fit the double LP format, while digital downloads include the full set. Rosenfeld’s unmistakable abilities are on display; he creates a sweeping variety of musical ideas that mirror the limitless universe of Minecraft. Ghostly International is thrilled to give this unique collaboration its due treatment and hopes to see the creative inspiration which drives Minecraft and Rosenfeld continue to disperse by virtue of this unexpectedly universal music. More
1
Hana Vu - Look Alive
2
Hana Vu - Hammer
3
Hana Vu - Alone2
4
Hana Vu - 22
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Hana Vu - Care
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Hana Vu - How It Goes
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Hana Vu - Dreams
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Hana Vu - Find Me Under Wilted Trees
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Hana Vu - Airplane
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Hana Vu - Play
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Hana Vu - I Draw A Heart
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Hana Vu - Love
Is there anything we like to be sung to about more than youth? A universal and yet elusive time that has a hold over all of us, it’s often evoked by the same platitudes. We’re told it’s a breathless stream of novelty and ecstasy, and we’re told even more often how quickly it ends. Yet we so rarely hear about its embedded grief. If youth’s ephemerality is part of its magic, doesn’t it make sense that an integral part of the experience might be mourning the days piling up behind you? “I was recently so close to childhood,” says Hana Vu, as she eats a piece of candy in her sun-striped Los Angeles apartment. “At the cusp of becoming a more capable and mature person, I feel grief for my naivete.”
This deep duality informs Romanticism, the newest album from Vu. She’s been making music since high school, with a full-length debut and several EPs behind her of glowy, brooding anthems of abstraction and emotion. On Romanticism, her guitar-driven synthy pop and plush contralto fill out the coming-of-age experience with slick and sorrowful precision. These songs pulse with meaning and jolt with playfulness, anchored by her powerful, sonorous voice. Her voice is a low and silky boom on songs like “22,” accompanied by dissonant guitar strums underlining the angst and dissolution of adolescence. It’s a muscular, soaring chant on songs like ‘Hammer,’ which layers clipped guitar and mandolin strums with an ascending, floor-coating bass. An artist aware of the contradictory compulsions of growth and human nature, she leans into that truth in juxtaposition. Romanticism can feel both reminiscent of guitar-heavy late-aughts indie rock, and expansively futuristic in its layered synth bass. Vu adds, “I’m just trying to convey my perspective as boldly as possible. To succinctly crystallize how it feels to be young, but also to be deeply sad.”
“Do you remember getting older / can you tell me what it's about?” Vu sings on “Airplane,” winking at the desire for tangibles in the unknown. With her previous work, Vu welcomed feedback as she went, but while crafting Romanticism, she shielded herself from outside opinion to preserve a singular vision. For over a year she holed up to work on her songs alone, waiting until she felt the album was fully-formed enough to show it as a whole. The result is a unified collection of songs aching with depth and intimacy. “Do you believe in starting over?” “Airplane” continues. “Can you tell me what it’s about?”
“Being young, there's so much that I experience for the first time, all the time. But as I experience more things, I become more desensitized to those things,” Vu explains. “You get wiser–– I feel quite wiser–– but less fervent, less hopeful.” She captures this liminal state poetically. Many of the songs invoke the contradictory feelings of youth directly–– “I'm just getting old / I'm just 22” on “22”; most of them wander into the existential–– “Forever seems like too much time / but I just got here, stay awhile” on “How It Goes”; and all of them are written concisely while providing windows of grand emotion. Most potently, this album somehow captures the luster of impermanence, in all its building wisdom, in all its funneling hope.
“Being a romantic is different from being a romanticist,” Vu clarifies, and Romanticism does have less in common with lovetorn ballads than it does with 1700s Europe, when artists called for heightened emotion over argued reason and sensory details over logical ones. These songs luxuriate in an intensified, distilled picture of the rush of feelings that follow adolescence. “The nexus of this album is indulging in these sad feelings, indulging in the senses,” Vu says as the sun begins to set through her windows. “It's just not commonplace in society that people really can value the beauty of being so sad, of feeling grief and heartbreak.”
And though it may not be stereotypically romantic, there is a powerful thread of sticky, hopeful devotion. “My hands fall off if they’re not holding on / I'll hold a love until it turns to dust,” she sings on “How It Goes.” “When the airplanes fly / over LA and say goodnight / I dream a window seat /across the world for only you and I,” goes the twinkling “Airplane.” And in the aptly-named “Dreams,” there are the ethereal lines, “love doesn't fade away / and everyone stays the same / and no it doesn't hurt to be alive.”
There’s a great sense of seeking that pervades Romanticism. “There is no answer / but I want one anyway,” she probes in “Hammer.” While Vu isn’t religious, she is spiritual, and music and songwriting are a place where she goes to connect with her spirituality. “I do plead with the world, or the universe, in writing,” Vu says of her writing process. “My writing of songs is where I feel inclined to ask questions and look for answers within myself.” But she also delights in the not-knowing, bathing in the process of asking. That’s where great artists linger, and our luck is getting to watch them turn over these questions in their mind. “What kind of person am I? / I don’t know, I don’t know. / What kind of lesson is life?” Vu sings hauntingly on the electric “Find Me Under Wilted Trees.” “I don’t know, I don’t know…” Romanticism is a lush example of how thrilling it can be to look directly at our feelings, to sing their sorrows and praise. Under Vu’s magnetic gaze, soaking up sadness has never felt so alive.
— Kyle Lucia Wu
Track preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM9nj3Pddrc More
This deep duality informs Romanticism, the newest album from Vu. She’s been making music since high school, with a full-length debut and several EPs behind her of glowy, brooding anthems of abstraction and emotion. On Romanticism, her guitar-driven synthy pop and plush contralto fill out the coming-of-age experience with slick and sorrowful precision. These songs pulse with meaning and jolt with playfulness, anchored by her powerful, sonorous voice. Her voice is a low and silky boom on songs like “22,” accompanied by dissonant guitar strums underlining the angst and dissolution of adolescence. It’s a muscular, soaring chant on songs like ‘Hammer,’ which layers clipped guitar and mandolin strums with an ascending, floor-coating bass. An artist aware of the contradictory compulsions of growth and human nature, she leans into that truth in juxtaposition. Romanticism can feel both reminiscent of guitar-heavy late-aughts indie rock, and expansively futuristic in its layered synth bass. Vu adds, “I’m just trying to convey my perspective as boldly as possible. To succinctly crystallize how it feels to be young, but also to be deeply sad.”
“Do you remember getting older / can you tell me what it's about?” Vu sings on “Airplane,” winking at the desire for tangibles in the unknown. With her previous work, Vu welcomed feedback as she went, but while crafting Romanticism, she shielded herself from outside opinion to preserve a singular vision. For over a year she holed up to work on her songs alone, waiting until she felt the album was fully-formed enough to show it as a whole. The result is a unified collection of songs aching with depth and intimacy. “Do you believe in starting over?” “Airplane” continues. “Can you tell me what it’s about?”
“Being young, there's so much that I experience for the first time, all the time. But as I experience more things, I become more desensitized to those things,” Vu explains. “You get wiser–– I feel quite wiser–– but less fervent, less hopeful.” She captures this liminal state poetically. Many of the songs invoke the contradictory feelings of youth directly–– “I'm just getting old / I'm just 22” on “22”; most of them wander into the existential–– “Forever seems like too much time / but I just got here, stay awhile” on “How It Goes”; and all of them are written concisely while providing windows of grand emotion. Most potently, this album somehow captures the luster of impermanence, in all its building wisdom, in all its funneling hope.
“Being a romantic is different from being a romanticist,” Vu clarifies, and Romanticism does have less in common with lovetorn ballads than it does with 1700s Europe, when artists called for heightened emotion over argued reason and sensory details over logical ones. These songs luxuriate in an intensified, distilled picture of the rush of feelings that follow adolescence. “The nexus of this album is indulging in these sad feelings, indulging in the senses,” Vu says as the sun begins to set through her windows. “It's just not commonplace in society that people really can value the beauty of being so sad, of feeling grief and heartbreak.”
And though it may not be stereotypically romantic, there is a powerful thread of sticky, hopeful devotion. “My hands fall off if they’re not holding on / I'll hold a love until it turns to dust,” she sings on “How It Goes.” “When the airplanes fly / over LA and say goodnight / I dream a window seat /across the world for only you and I,” goes the twinkling “Airplane.” And in the aptly-named “Dreams,” there are the ethereal lines, “love doesn't fade away / and everyone stays the same / and no it doesn't hurt to be alive.”
There’s a great sense of seeking that pervades Romanticism. “There is no answer / but I want one anyway,” she probes in “Hammer.” While Vu isn’t religious, she is spiritual, and music and songwriting are a place where she goes to connect with her spirituality. “I do plead with the world, or the universe, in writing,” Vu says of her writing process. “My writing of songs is where I feel inclined to ask questions and look for answers within myself.” But she also delights in the not-knowing, bathing in the process of asking. That’s where great artists linger, and our luck is getting to watch them turn over these questions in their mind. “What kind of person am I? / I don’t know, I don’t know. / What kind of lesson is life?” Vu sings hauntingly on the electric “Find Me Under Wilted Trees.” “I don’t know, I don’t know…” Romanticism is a lush example of how thrilling it can be to look directly at our feelings, to sing their sorrows and praise. Under Vu’s magnetic gaze, soaking up sadness has never felt so alive.
— Kyle Lucia Wu
Track preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM9nj3Pddrc More
1
Recondite - Rise
2
Recondite - Leafs
3
Recondite - Still
4
Recondite - Riant
5
Recondite - Stems
6
Recondite - Floe
7
Recondite - Abscondence
8
Recondite - Clouded
9
Recondite - Fey
10
Recondite - The Fade
Limited edition "smoky black" vinyl. Download card includes digital bonus tracks. In 2013, following excursions in deep house, acid, and techno that made him "one of Berlin's most compelling artists," per Resident Adviser, Lorenz Brunner brought his Recondite project to Ghostly International for the definitive full-length, Hinterland. The producer looked to his childhood homeland of Lower Bavaria, utilizing field recordings to map the music to the emotions of the region's seasons. Hinterland presented an atmosphere - icy, eerie, melancholic music that crossed intimate melodies with crisp percussion - what would become Recondite's signature. "This is the album that had to come out of Recondite eventually," he said at the time. "It is Recondite." A decade later, the sound remains wholly his own.
More
Tracklist:
1.Come and Go (feat. Vilja Larjosto)
2.Zero to Sixty (feat. Sarah Jaffe) 04:48
3.Faceless
4.Dreaming (feat. Asy Saavedra)
5.Transonic
6.Plateau
7.Long Light (feat. Benoît Pioulard)
8.Cut and Cover
9.Home
10.Rafters
11.Double Take
Seattle-based producer Jeff McIlwain, aka Lusine, returns with his 9th full-length record, Long Light, marking twenty years since he first joined the Ghostly International roster. A cited influence for myriad electronic artists including London’s Loraine James and others, Lusine is known for visceral, kinetically-curious music that fuses techno, pop, and experimental composition. In recent years, McIlwain has pushed his craft skyward with more collaborative, song-forward work. Long Light shines the throughline; his signature looping patterns and textures are dynamic yet minimalist as ever. Structurally straightforward, tight, and bright, the material radiates as the most direct in his catalog, featuring vocal contributions from Asy Saavedra, Sarah Jaffe, and Sensorimotor collaborators Vilja Larjosto and Benoît Pioulard. Lusine found his sound early on, but he’s never stopped pushing and pulling at its potential, patiently deconstructing the distractions and solving the puzzles. With Long Light, a laser-focused, process-driven artist reaches an exceptionally satisfying level of clarity and immediacy.
McIlwain sees the title, taken from the lyrical phrase "long light signaling the fall again,” written by Benoît Pioulard for what became the title track, as a guiding device that reflects several meanings. “There’s this sort of paranoia where you don't know what is real, it's an age of high anxiety and there are all these distractions,” McIlwain explains. “It's like a fun house mirror situation.” Following the long light is the only true way through, and he holds that metaphor to the album’s recording, which also carried a cyclical nature akin to seasons. Like the start of fall, the album completes a period of cultivation; “Music making is a struggle and you have to have a ton of patience.” Long Light is proof that what lies beyond the noise, at the end of the figurative tunnel, is worth all the work it’s taken to get there.
Across the collection, McIlwain identifies the core sonic element, a vocal cut or a simple beat sequence, from which to build everything else off. On the opener “Come And Go,” he multiplies a vocal take from longtime collaborator Vilja Larjosto into a celestial choir, evoking their Sensorimotor standout “Just A Cloud.” It’s the bass hook on the single “Zero to Sixty,” curving around the voice of Sarah Jaffe, whose pliable range and cool delivery provide the source for Lusine’s unmistakable mapping. The chorus is Jaffe’s (“cold-blooded”) line repeated in step with melodic synth pulses and the buzzing deep bass. For the verse, McIlwain unlocks the loop and she completes the thought, giving the track a sense of tension and relief.
“I feel like I am dreaming / You make me feel like I am walking on a cloud / I don’t ever want to feel the ground,” sings Asy Saavedra (of Chaos Chaos) on “Dreaming.” This time McIlwain keeps the phrase intact, making subtle tweaks to the timbre and texture as chimes, clinks, and snaps oscillate.
The album balances vocal pop motifs with some of Lusine’s strongest instrumental expressions, from ambient-minded foreshadowing (“Faceless,” “Plateau,” “Rafters”) to hypnotic head-nodders like “Cut and Cover” and “Transonic.” The latter jumps out as the rhythmic centerpiece; first McIlwain outlines the track’s silhouette before filling in its details one layer at a time. Stuttering synth hums join the kick, then proliferate a step higher, harmonizing at the peak with sparkled bell sounds and a burst of feedback.
“Long Light” has it all: Lusine’s percussive mood-building, rendered with samples from drummer Trent Moorman, and a contortion of tender poetry, courtesy of friend Thomas Meluch, aka Benoît Pioulard (Morr Music, Kranky). “This track has a sort of melody that I haven’t really messed with before,” says McIlwain. “It’s this very droney, mysterious thing, that I really liked, and focused on, and kind of counter balanced with a nasty wavetable patch. Tom just absolutely nailed the feel of the song.”
It is rare to arrive at a landmark work two decades into one’s craft, but through repetition, refinement, and patience, Lusine extends a defining moment, an essential piece to his discography. More
1.Come and Go (feat. Vilja Larjosto)
2.Zero to Sixty (feat. Sarah Jaffe) 04:48
3.Faceless
4.Dreaming (feat. Asy Saavedra)
5.Transonic
6.Plateau
7.Long Light (feat. Benoît Pioulard)
8.Cut and Cover
9.Home
10.Rafters
11.Double Take
Seattle-based producer Jeff McIlwain, aka Lusine, returns with his 9th full-length record, Long Light, marking twenty years since he first joined the Ghostly International roster. A cited influence for myriad electronic artists including London’s Loraine James and others, Lusine is known for visceral, kinetically-curious music that fuses techno, pop, and experimental composition. In recent years, McIlwain has pushed his craft skyward with more collaborative, song-forward work. Long Light shines the throughline; his signature looping patterns and textures are dynamic yet minimalist as ever. Structurally straightforward, tight, and bright, the material radiates as the most direct in his catalog, featuring vocal contributions from Asy Saavedra, Sarah Jaffe, and Sensorimotor collaborators Vilja Larjosto and Benoît Pioulard. Lusine found his sound early on, but he’s never stopped pushing and pulling at its potential, patiently deconstructing the distractions and solving the puzzles. With Long Light, a laser-focused, process-driven artist reaches an exceptionally satisfying level of clarity and immediacy.
McIlwain sees the title, taken from the lyrical phrase "long light signaling the fall again,” written by Benoît Pioulard for what became the title track, as a guiding device that reflects several meanings. “There’s this sort of paranoia where you don't know what is real, it's an age of high anxiety and there are all these distractions,” McIlwain explains. “It's like a fun house mirror situation.” Following the long light is the only true way through, and he holds that metaphor to the album’s recording, which also carried a cyclical nature akin to seasons. Like the start of fall, the album completes a period of cultivation; “Music making is a struggle and you have to have a ton of patience.” Long Light is proof that what lies beyond the noise, at the end of the figurative tunnel, is worth all the work it’s taken to get there.
Across the collection, McIlwain identifies the core sonic element, a vocal cut or a simple beat sequence, from which to build everything else off. On the opener “Come And Go,” he multiplies a vocal take from longtime collaborator Vilja Larjosto into a celestial choir, evoking their Sensorimotor standout “Just A Cloud.” It’s the bass hook on the single “Zero to Sixty,” curving around the voice of Sarah Jaffe, whose pliable range and cool delivery provide the source for Lusine’s unmistakable mapping. The chorus is Jaffe’s (“cold-blooded”) line repeated in step with melodic synth pulses and the buzzing deep bass. For the verse, McIlwain unlocks the loop and she completes the thought, giving the track a sense of tension and relief.
“I feel like I am dreaming / You make me feel like I am walking on a cloud / I don’t ever want to feel the ground,” sings Asy Saavedra (of Chaos Chaos) on “Dreaming.” This time McIlwain keeps the phrase intact, making subtle tweaks to the timbre and texture as chimes, clinks, and snaps oscillate.
The album balances vocal pop motifs with some of Lusine’s strongest instrumental expressions, from ambient-minded foreshadowing (“Faceless,” “Plateau,” “Rafters”) to hypnotic head-nodders like “Cut and Cover” and “Transonic.” The latter jumps out as the rhythmic centerpiece; first McIlwain outlines the track’s silhouette before filling in its details one layer at a time. Stuttering synth hums join the kick, then proliferate a step higher, harmonizing at the peak with sparkled bell sounds and a burst of feedback.
“Long Light” has it all: Lusine’s percussive mood-building, rendered with samples from drummer Trent Moorman, and a contortion of tender poetry, courtesy of friend Thomas Meluch, aka Benoît Pioulard (Morr Music, Kranky). “This track has a sort of melody that I haven’t really messed with before,” says McIlwain. “It’s this very droney, mysterious thing, that I really liked, and focused on, and kind of counter balanced with a nasty wavetable patch. Tom just absolutely nailed the feel of the song.”
It is rare to arrive at a landmark work two decades into one’s craft, but through repetition, refinement, and patience, Lusine extends a defining moment, an essential piece to his discography. More
TRACKLIST
1.1 THE GREATER WINGS
1.2 PORTRAIT OF A CLEAR DAY
1.3 MOONLESS
1.4 SUMMER GLASS
1.5 SUMMER'S END
1.6 LIGHTNING COMES UP FROM THE GROUND
1.7 FLARE
1.8 CONVERSATION IS A FLOWSTATE
1.9 HOPE'S RETURN
1.10 DEATH IS THE DIAMOND
"My hope for The Greater Wings is that it lives as a love letter to my chosen family and as an expression of the depth of my commitment to our shared future. Being reshaped by grief also has me more aware of what death does not take from me. I commit that to heart, to words, to sound. Music is not bound to any kind of linear time, so in the capacity to record and speak to the future: this is what it felt like to me, when we were simultaneous, alive, occurring all at once. What it has felt like to go up against my edge and push, the love that has made it worth all this fight. These memories are my values, they belong with me."
The first album in over six years from American songwriter Julie Byrne is a testament to patience and determination, the willingness to transform through the desolation of loss, the vitality of renewal, and the courage to rise, forever changed. For nearly a decade, Byrne has moved through the world as a characteristically private artist largely outside the public eye. A self-taught musician that has committed her life to her work, she now emerges from a deeply trying and generative period with the most powerful, lustrous, and life-affirming music of her career, The Greater Wings. While they hold the plasticity of grief and trauma, the songs are universally resonant, unbridled in their devotion and joy, held up by the love and alliance of a chosen family. Byrne leans further into atmospheres both expansive and intimate; the lush, evocative songcraft flows between her signature fingerpicked guitar, synthesizer, and a newly adopted piano, made wider by flourishes of harp and strings. It is the transcendent sound of resource, of friendship that was never without romance, of loyalty that burns from within like a heart on fire, and the life force summoned in unrepeatable moments — raw, gorgeous, and wild.
Byrne has narrowly willed The Greater Wings into existence, honoring the legacy of Eric Littmann, her longtime creative partner, producer, and synth player who, halfway through the album's making, died suddenly at the age of 31. The material was written across several seasons, each its own lifetime: imagery from nights on tour, chord shapes found pre-pandemic. Writing continued through lockdown, the converging traumas of isolation, the long horizon of emergence, and the drives cross-country for the collaborations that would give shape to The Greater Wings. Recording began in Chicago in Eric Littmann's home studio space in the winter of 2020 and continued in New York with harpist Marilu Donovan (LEYA) in the spring of 2021; Littmann, true to form, brought a portable recording set up in his suitcase.
In the early summer, they brought the project to Los Angeles, where violinist Jake Falby composed and recorded the first of his integral string arrangements. Eric died a month later, in late June of 2021; in the cataclysm of his death, the record would not be opened again until January 2022. In the winter of that new year, in the fires of grief, Byrne and her closest collaborators reconvened to finish the record with producer Alex Somers (Sigur Rós, Julianna Barwick), immersing fully into sessions in the Catskills of New York, her first ever at a conventional recording studio. The challenge became a balance in both allowing the sound to expand and trusting her instincts amid irrevocable change, to uphold their original vision for the record. "We worked with intense effort, devotion, and deliberate exploration of how our collaboration with Eric continues, even through death."
Byrne will confess the success of her 2017 LP Not Even Happiness was unexpected; nine gracefully road-worn odes to the fringes of life she assembled without any expectation that they'd travel so far beyond their DIY origins. But its hushed closing track, "I Live Now As A Singer," did forecast an intention. She knew the open space — occupied by Littmann's signature palette of synth tones, Falby's strings, and Byrne's robust, drifting voice — presented something new and thrilling, something they'd develop as a live band touring the world, and what would later be understood as the catalyst for material to come. The Greater Wings builds on this revelatory space at every turn.
The title track presents the alchemy of the album with tender, arresting precision. Byrne outlines its namesake on guitar alongside celestial strings, recalling one of their earliest house shows ("There's music in the walls, you were with the moment with your life across the chord") and their first tours through Europe's underground. "Performing reminds me, time and time again that the stage can be a space to inhabit and feel free in." The intricacy of the guitar propels the "The Greater Wings" even further into its own mythology — the lyrics begin to conjure the stages of a quest: "I feel it, the tilt of the planet, panorama of the valley, measure me by what I've risked." The song travels through peaks and lowlands, pink noise, the surreal nostalgia of moonrise where light seems to come from a different age. Above all, the title track pays homage to what is unseen but deeply felt: "We hold the pact: Forever Underground, Name my grief to let it sing, To carry you up on the Greater Wings."
"Moonless" is an ode to the glistening darkness, partially written on an outlying island of southern Portugal where Byrne was completing an artist residency. "I remember walking through the dune systems on the ocean side of Culatra, the noises of the docks, the scent of tidal flats. The land itself, as a coastal formation, in a constant state of movement between erosion and growth." The hypnotic piano ballad is a portal into the lost, late night with beckoning sensorial detail: voices rising through the smoke, the tactility of names carved in the table, wind moving in off the ocean, across skin. Just as the scene begins to feel eternal, Byrne upends notions of the torch song. "Moonless" does not pine for the return of another but instead speaks to the alleviation of no longer waiting for someone's love. "Something I love about being a songwriter, especially as a queer woman, is being able to have the last word in my work, becoming myself line by line. This is a breakup song, and it's the first song I wrote on piano." Her new instrument fades into pools of eventide. A bare constellation of strings end the story like sparks rising in the darkness, then vanishing into ash.
"Hope's Return" reimagines "Love's Refrain," Byrne's 2020 collaboration with Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, adapted here on guitar in the distinct tuning found across most of the album. For the new arrangement, producer Alex Somers contributes bowed acoustic guitar to the bridge, one of many subtle ideas he helped facilitate. "He was the right person to finish the record with," Byrne says. "He's everything they say, there's almost like a divinity to his kindness, and he's also very silly and playful for all his depth and sophistication, he has such a tender heart. It's an intimate process, and I didn't have to conceal anything."
The statement at the heart of the record is "Summer Glass." A luminous, euphoric synth ballad, unbridled in its portraiture of intimacy, memorial, and deeply personal alliance. The song ignites all at once with Littmann's arpeggiated synth as they approach the zenith of their creative partnership; Byrne's voice casts the spell, "I can't say if it was devotion. I just wanted to feel the sun on my skin." The opening lyrics find her at the water's edge. Transfixing and radiant, Marilu Donovan's harp joins the pulse of the synthesizer in a tidal, interlocking cascade — a synergy that embodies years of collaboration. "Summer Glass" opens wide to encompass a universe of references, turning candid moments of laughter, desire, failure, perseverance, inertia, and emergence into legacy. Falby's strings offer a sweeping, incandescent bridge, a step more urgent at the album's apex, before Byrne returns with a final invocation:
"One day the skin that holds me will be dust
and I'll be ready to travel again
For now I want to go further in,
Into moment, into vision, into you
I swore I'd show myself so I could renew
That's not the same as being new forever
The shape of your hand left in the dust of Summer Glass
I want to be whole enough to risk again." More
1.1 THE GREATER WINGS
1.2 PORTRAIT OF A CLEAR DAY
1.3 MOONLESS
1.4 SUMMER GLASS
1.5 SUMMER'S END
1.6 LIGHTNING COMES UP FROM THE GROUND
1.7 FLARE
1.8 CONVERSATION IS A FLOWSTATE
1.9 HOPE'S RETURN
1.10 DEATH IS THE DIAMOND
"My hope for The Greater Wings is that it lives as a love letter to my chosen family and as an expression of the depth of my commitment to our shared future. Being reshaped by grief also has me more aware of what death does not take from me. I commit that to heart, to words, to sound. Music is not bound to any kind of linear time, so in the capacity to record and speak to the future: this is what it felt like to me, when we were simultaneous, alive, occurring all at once. What it has felt like to go up against my edge and push, the love that has made it worth all this fight. These memories are my values, they belong with me."
The first album in over six years from American songwriter Julie Byrne is a testament to patience and determination, the willingness to transform through the desolation of loss, the vitality of renewal, and the courage to rise, forever changed. For nearly a decade, Byrne has moved through the world as a characteristically private artist largely outside the public eye. A self-taught musician that has committed her life to her work, she now emerges from a deeply trying and generative period with the most powerful, lustrous, and life-affirming music of her career, The Greater Wings. While they hold the plasticity of grief and trauma, the songs are universally resonant, unbridled in their devotion and joy, held up by the love and alliance of a chosen family. Byrne leans further into atmospheres both expansive and intimate; the lush, evocative songcraft flows between her signature fingerpicked guitar, synthesizer, and a newly adopted piano, made wider by flourishes of harp and strings. It is the transcendent sound of resource, of friendship that was never without romance, of loyalty that burns from within like a heart on fire, and the life force summoned in unrepeatable moments — raw, gorgeous, and wild.
Byrne has narrowly willed The Greater Wings into existence, honoring the legacy of Eric Littmann, her longtime creative partner, producer, and synth player who, halfway through the album's making, died suddenly at the age of 31. The material was written across several seasons, each its own lifetime: imagery from nights on tour, chord shapes found pre-pandemic. Writing continued through lockdown, the converging traumas of isolation, the long horizon of emergence, and the drives cross-country for the collaborations that would give shape to The Greater Wings. Recording began in Chicago in Eric Littmann's home studio space in the winter of 2020 and continued in New York with harpist Marilu Donovan (LEYA) in the spring of 2021; Littmann, true to form, brought a portable recording set up in his suitcase.
In the early summer, they brought the project to Los Angeles, where violinist Jake Falby composed and recorded the first of his integral string arrangements. Eric died a month later, in late June of 2021; in the cataclysm of his death, the record would not be opened again until January 2022. In the winter of that new year, in the fires of grief, Byrne and her closest collaborators reconvened to finish the record with producer Alex Somers (Sigur Rós, Julianna Barwick), immersing fully into sessions in the Catskills of New York, her first ever at a conventional recording studio. The challenge became a balance in both allowing the sound to expand and trusting her instincts amid irrevocable change, to uphold their original vision for the record. "We worked with intense effort, devotion, and deliberate exploration of how our collaboration with Eric continues, even through death."
Byrne will confess the success of her 2017 LP Not Even Happiness was unexpected; nine gracefully road-worn odes to the fringes of life she assembled without any expectation that they'd travel so far beyond their DIY origins. But its hushed closing track, "I Live Now As A Singer," did forecast an intention. She knew the open space — occupied by Littmann's signature palette of synth tones, Falby's strings, and Byrne's robust, drifting voice — presented something new and thrilling, something they'd develop as a live band touring the world, and what would later be understood as the catalyst for material to come. The Greater Wings builds on this revelatory space at every turn.
The title track presents the alchemy of the album with tender, arresting precision. Byrne outlines its namesake on guitar alongside celestial strings, recalling one of their earliest house shows ("There's music in the walls, you were with the moment with your life across the chord") and their first tours through Europe's underground. "Performing reminds me, time and time again that the stage can be a space to inhabit and feel free in." The intricacy of the guitar propels the "The Greater Wings" even further into its own mythology — the lyrics begin to conjure the stages of a quest: "I feel it, the tilt of the planet, panorama of the valley, measure me by what I've risked." The song travels through peaks and lowlands, pink noise, the surreal nostalgia of moonrise where light seems to come from a different age. Above all, the title track pays homage to what is unseen but deeply felt: "We hold the pact: Forever Underground, Name my grief to let it sing, To carry you up on the Greater Wings."
"Moonless" is an ode to the glistening darkness, partially written on an outlying island of southern Portugal where Byrne was completing an artist residency. "I remember walking through the dune systems on the ocean side of Culatra, the noises of the docks, the scent of tidal flats. The land itself, as a coastal formation, in a constant state of movement between erosion and growth." The hypnotic piano ballad is a portal into the lost, late night with beckoning sensorial detail: voices rising through the smoke, the tactility of names carved in the table, wind moving in off the ocean, across skin. Just as the scene begins to feel eternal, Byrne upends notions of the torch song. "Moonless" does not pine for the return of another but instead speaks to the alleviation of no longer waiting for someone's love. "Something I love about being a songwriter, especially as a queer woman, is being able to have the last word in my work, becoming myself line by line. This is a breakup song, and it's the first song I wrote on piano." Her new instrument fades into pools of eventide. A bare constellation of strings end the story like sparks rising in the darkness, then vanishing into ash.
"Hope's Return" reimagines "Love's Refrain," Byrne's 2020 collaboration with Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, adapted here on guitar in the distinct tuning found across most of the album. For the new arrangement, producer Alex Somers contributes bowed acoustic guitar to the bridge, one of many subtle ideas he helped facilitate. "He was the right person to finish the record with," Byrne says. "He's everything they say, there's almost like a divinity to his kindness, and he's also very silly and playful for all his depth and sophistication, he has such a tender heart. It's an intimate process, and I didn't have to conceal anything."
The statement at the heart of the record is "Summer Glass." A luminous, euphoric synth ballad, unbridled in its portraiture of intimacy, memorial, and deeply personal alliance. The song ignites all at once with Littmann's arpeggiated synth as they approach the zenith of their creative partnership; Byrne's voice casts the spell, "I can't say if it was devotion. I just wanted to feel the sun on my skin." The opening lyrics find her at the water's edge. Transfixing and radiant, Marilu Donovan's harp joins the pulse of the synthesizer in a tidal, interlocking cascade — a synergy that embodies years of collaboration. "Summer Glass" opens wide to encompass a universe of references, turning candid moments of laughter, desire, failure, perseverance, inertia, and emergence into legacy. Falby's strings offer a sweeping, incandescent bridge, a step more urgent at the album's apex, before Byrne returns with a final invocation:
"One day the skin that holds me will be dust
and I'll be ready to travel again
For now I want to go further in,
Into moment, into vision, into you
I swore I'd show myself so I could renew
That's not the same as being new forever
The shape of your hand left in the dust of Summer Glass
I want to be whole enough to risk again." More
Tracklist:
1.1HV ROAD
1.2LOVELY
1.3HOME WORLD 303
1.43 PZ
1.5COMPUTER BREAK (LATE MIX)
1.6FOUNTAIN, GROWTH (FT. TESS ROBY)
1.7LIFE MASK
1.8UNLIMITED <3
1.9TECHNO CREEP
1.10MY SAME SIZE
1.11SOUND GATHERING TRIP
Canadian producer Dylan Khotin-Foote has kept his Khotin alias going for the better part of a decade; the impressionistic electronic project shifts with the movements in his life. Sometimes it leads, like when the club-friendly grooves of 2014's Hello World immersed him in the heart of Vancouver's underground dance scene, and sometimes it follows, like 2018's Beautiful You, a downtempo salve for DJ fatigue. His melodic sensibility and playful ear for atmosphere remain the rippling core of the project's fingerprint; whether beat-driven or ambient, a foggy smear or a dusted and pristine print, a Khotin track has a distinct and instantly recognizable swirl. During and after the 2020 release of Finds You Well, his second LP on Ghostly International, Khotin-Foote settled back into a slower vibe in his hometown of Ed- monton. Even before the pandemic, his pivots to softer production, and away from DJing, left him with fewer opportunities in Vancouver and club bookings overall, and as a self-identifying introvert, he was fine with that. But the change of pace did open space for Khotin-Foote to grapple with concepts of adulthood and career. At his lowest, he almost walked off this musical path altogether; instead, he doubled down on the craft _ the tone, pacing, and dynamism of new material _ arriving at a definitive full-length. With Release Spirit, Khotin releases himself from the pressure of expectation, fusing and refining everything we know about his music. The warmth and familiarity of Khotin's dreamy, dulcet style meet new ideas and frameworks, a natural progression, a modest revelation; Khotin confirms it is okay to move slowly and he's never sounded better doing it. The album title borrows from the "release spirit" mechanic in the video game World of Warcraft. When players die, they are prompted to release their spirit and return as ghosts to find their corpses and come back to life. Khotin sees it as a worthy metaphor for the impending change his return home presented and the resulting process of purging artistic expectations to find his creative self again. On this go- around, he is freer, more playful, and more intentional within his palette of warped synth, breakbeats, and piano sounds _ including the classic Casio SK-1 presets he's used since the start _ mingling with wistful samples, field recordings, and other abstract snippets. For the first time, he enlisted Nik Kozub to do the mix and assist with sequencing. Khotin-Foote has long worked with the Edmonton-based musician and engineer in the mastering phase, as well as their days co-running the label Normals Welcome, and this time was able to involve his ears earlier given their newfound proximity. "I think it's my best sounding record to date." We begin on "HV Road" or Happy Valley Road, where Khotin-Foote spent time during a family vacation in British Columbia's Okanagan Lake. His plans to record crickets at night are quickly foiled by his younger siblings; the cute exchange orients the listener to a core memory of sorts, setting the tone of universally understood warmth and wonder that has defined some of Khotin's most transportive tracks. Hazy percussion takes hold, and we are swept further into the wisp of "Lovely," a grooving, melodic standout built on the interplay between the beat and human voice-like hums. Khotin knows this zone well; equally suited for a reverie or a club warm-up. The bubbling atmosphere and absurdity of "3 pz" offer a cosmic/comic interlude and also speak to reflections on his family's move to Canada two generations ago, and the audio tutorials they used to learn English. "I can only imagine my grandpar- ents repeating some of the bizarre phrases." "Fountain, Growth" finds Khotin in collaboration with Montreal's Tess Roby (Dawn to Dawn) for the project's first-ever vocal track. Roby's soft cadence echoes atop spiraling air pockets of rhythmic production, lending a breezy, almost shoegaze pop feel. Throughout the single and the album, wind gusts between the compositional layers, akin to the roaming spirits of its namesake, curving around the birdsong of "Life Mask" and seamlessly reaching "Unlimited <3." The latter bumps in slow motion; disembodied whirrs from his Casio collide with 808 drums and sub-bass for a vibe that teeters on trap and instrumental hip-hop. Release Spirit rests in a dream sequence. Oscillating synth lines dance around the heartbeat of "Techno Creep," a hyperactive REM state before the digitized ambient sprawl of "My Same Size." In the final pass, Khotin imagines transcontinental travel from the glow of his screen. He recorded "Sound Gathering Trip" to soundtrack a genre of YouTube videos he's taken to that follows train routes through Europe and Japan. The scene is serene and moving; piano keys warble as static-filled sound design shimmers off the rails, from cityscapes to the countryside, an introspective ride through a world beyond his bedroom. It doubles as an apt parting image for Khotin's project as a whole: dreaming big but happiest when riffing on the details, shaping environments from the inside out. Over the last decade, he has stretched from his core in Edmonton, leaving a trace in Vancouver and beyond; but when all signs point home, he loops back to see it all from a different vantage, revitalized, refined, and free. More
1.1HV ROAD
1.2LOVELY
1.3HOME WORLD 303
1.43 PZ
1.5COMPUTER BREAK (LATE MIX)
1.6FOUNTAIN, GROWTH (FT. TESS ROBY)
1.7LIFE MASK
1.8UNLIMITED <3
1.9TECHNO CREEP
1.10MY SAME SIZE
1.11SOUND GATHERING TRIP
Canadian producer Dylan Khotin-Foote has kept his Khotin alias going for the better part of a decade; the impressionistic electronic project shifts with the movements in his life. Sometimes it leads, like when the club-friendly grooves of 2014's Hello World immersed him in the heart of Vancouver's underground dance scene, and sometimes it follows, like 2018's Beautiful You, a downtempo salve for DJ fatigue. His melodic sensibility and playful ear for atmosphere remain the rippling core of the project's fingerprint; whether beat-driven or ambient, a foggy smear or a dusted and pristine print, a Khotin track has a distinct and instantly recognizable swirl. During and after the 2020 release of Finds You Well, his second LP on Ghostly International, Khotin-Foote settled back into a slower vibe in his hometown of Ed- monton. Even before the pandemic, his pivots to softer production, and away from DJing, left him with fewer opportunities in Vancouver and club bookings overall, and as a self-identifying introvert, he was fine with that. But the change of pace did open space for Khotin-Foote to grapple with concepts of adulthood and career. At his lowest, he almost walked off this musical path altogether; instead, he doubled down on the craft _ the tone, pacing, and dynamism of new material _ arriving at a definitive full-length. With Release Spirit, Khotin releases himself from the pressure of expectation, fusing and refining everything we know about his music. The warmth and familiarity of Khotin's dreamy, dulcet style meet new ideas and frameworks, a natural progression, a modest revelation; Khotin confirms it is okay to move slowly and he's never sounded better doing it. The album title borrows from the "release spirit" mechanic in the video game World of Warcraft. When players die, they are prompted to release their spirit and return as ghosts to find their corpses and come back to life. Khotin sees it as a worthy metaphor for the impending change his return home presented and the resulting process of purging artistic expectations to find his creative self again. On this go- around, he is freer, more playful, and more intentional within his palette of warped synth, breakbeats, and piano sounds _ including the classic Casio SK-1 presets he's used since the start _ mingling with wistful samples, field recordings, and other abstract snippets. For the first time, he enlisted Nik Kozub to do the mix and assist with sequencing. Khotin-Foote has long worked with the Edmonton-based musician and engineer in the mastering phase, as well as their days co-running the label Normals Welcome, and this time was able to involve his ears earlier given their newfound proximity. "I think it's my best sounding record to date." We begin on "HV Road" or Happy Valley Road, where Khotin-Foote spent time during a family vacation in British Columbia's Okanagan Lake. His plans to record crickets at night are quickly foiled by his younger siblings; the cute exchange orients the listener to a core memory of sorts, setting the tone of universally understood warmth and wonder that has defined some of Khotin's most transportive tracks. Hazy percussion takes hold, and we are swept further into the wisp of "Lovely," a grooving, melodic standout built on the interplay between the beat and human voice-like hums. Khotin knows this zone well; equally suited for a reverie or a club warm-up. The bubbling atmosphere and absurdity of "3 pz" offer a cosmic/comic interlude and also speak to reflections on his family's move to Canada two generations ago, and the audio tutorials they used to learn English. "I can only imagine my grandpar- ents repeating some of the bizarre phrases." "Fountain, Growth" finds Khotin in collaboration with Montreal's Tess Roby (Dawn to Dawn) for the project's first-ever vocal track. Roby's soft cadence echoes atop spiraling air pockets of rhythmic production, lending a breezy, almost shoegaze pop feel. Throughout the single and the album, wind gusts between the compositional layers, akin to the roaming spirits of its namesake, curving around the birdsong of "Life Mask" and seamlessly reaching "Unlimited <3." The latter bumps in slow motion; disembodied whirrs from his Casio collide with 808 drums and sub-bass for a vibe that teeters on trap and instrumental hip-hop. Release Spirit rests in a dream sequence. Oscillating synth lines dance around the heartbeat of "Techno Creep," a hyperactive REM state before the digitized ambient sprawl of "My Same Size." In the final pass, Khotin imagines transcontinental travel from the glow of his screen. He recorded "Sound Gathering Trip" to soundtrack a genre of YouTube videos he's taken to that follows train routes through Europe and Japan. The scene is serene and moving; piano keys warble as static-filled sound design shimmers off the rails, from cityscapes to the countryside, an introspective ride through a world beyond his bedroom. It doubles as an apt parting image for Khotin's project as a whole: dreaming big but happiest when riffing on the details, shaping environments from the inside out. Over the last decade, he has stretched from his core in Edmonton, leaving a trace in Vancouver and beyond; but when all signs point home, he loops back to see it all from a different vantage, revitalized, refined, and free. More
PINK VINYL!
Tracklist:
1.1HV ROAD
1.2LOVELY
1.3HOME WORLD 303
1.43 PZ
1.5COMPUTER BREAK (LATE MIX)
1.6FOUNTAIN, GROWTH (FT. TESS ROBY)
1.7LIFE MASK
1.8UNLIMITED <3
1.9TECHNO CREEP
1.10MY SAME SIZE
1.11SOUND GATHERING TRIP
Canadian producer Dylan Khotin-Foote has kept his Khotin alias going for the better part of a decade; the impressionistic electronic project shifts with the movements in his life. Sometimes it leads, like when the club-friendly grooves of 2014's Hello World immersed him in the heart of Vancouver's underground dance scene, and sometimes it follows, like 2018's Beautiful You, a downtempo salve for DJ fatigue. His melodic sensibility and playful ear for atmosphere remain the rippling core of the project's fingerprint; whether beat-driven or ambient, a foggy smear or a dusted and pristine print, a Khotin track has a distinct and instantly recognizable swirl. During and after the 2020 release of Finds You Well, his second LP on Ghostly International, Khotin-Foote settled back into a slower vibe in his hometown of Ed- monton. Even before the pandemic, his pivots to softer production, and away from DJing, left him with fewer opportunities in Vancouver and club bookings overall, and as a self-identifying introvert, he was fine with that. But the change of pace did open space for Khotin-Foote to grapple with concepts of adulthood and career. At his lowest, he almost walked off this musical path altogether; instead, he doubled down on the craft _ the tone, pacing, and dynamism of new material _ arriving at a definitive full-length. With Release Spirit, Khotin releases himself from the pressure of expectation, fusing and refining everything we know about his music. The warmth and familiarity of Khotin's dreamy, dulcet style meet new ideas and frameworks, a natural progression, a modest revelation; Khotin confirms it is okay to move slowly and he's never sounded better doing it. The album title borrows from the "release spirit" mechanic in the video game World of Warcraft. When players die, they are prompted to release their spirit and return as ghosts to find their corpses and come back to life. Khotin sees it as a worthy metaphor for the impending change his return home presented and the resulting process of purging artistic expectations to find his creative self again. On this go- around, he is freer, more playful, and more intentional within his palette of warped synth, breakbeats, and piano sounds _ including the classic Casio SK-1 presets he's used since the start _ mingling with wistful samples, field recordings, and other abstract snippets. For the first time, he enlisted Nik Kozub to do the mix and assist with sequencing. Khotin-Foote has long worked with the Edmonton-based musician and engineer in the mastering phase, as well as their days co-running the label Normals Welcome, and this time was able to involve his ears earlier given their newfound proximity. "I think it's my best sounding record to date." We begin on "HV Road" or Happy Valley Road, where Khotin-Foote spent time during a family vacation in British Columbia's Okanagan Lake. His plans to record crickets at night are quickly foiled by his younger siblings; the cute exchange orients the listener to a core memory of sorts, setting the tone of universally understood warmth and wonder that has defined some of Khotin's most transportive tracks. Hazy percussion takes hold, and we are swept further into the wisp of "Lovely," a grooving, melodic standout built on the interplay between the beat and human voice-like hums. Khotin knows this zone well; equally suited for a reverie or a club warm-up. The bubbling atmosphere and absurdity of "3 pz" offer a cosmic/comic interlude and also speak to reflections on his family's move to Canada two generations ago, and the audio tutorials they used to learn English. "I can only imagine my grandpar- ents repeating some of the bizarre phrases." "Fountain, Growth" finds Khotin in collaboration with Montreal's Tess Roby (Dawn to Dawn) for the project's first-ever vocal track. Roby's soft cadence echoes atop spiraling air pockets of rhythmic production, lending a breezy, almost shoegaze pop feel. Throughout the single and the album, wind gusts between the compositional layers, akin to the roaming spirits of its namesake, curving around the birdsong of "Life Mask" and seamlessly reaching "Unlimited <3." The latter bumps in slow motion; disembodied whirrs from his Casio collide with 808 drums and sub-bass for a vibe that teeters on trap and instrumental hip-hop. Release Spirit rests in a dream sequence. Oscillating synth lines dance around the heartbeat of "Techno Creep," a hyperactive REM state before the digitized ambient sprawl of "My Same Size." In the final pass, Khotin imagines transcontinental travel from the glow of his screen. He recorded "Sound Gathering Trip" to soundtrack a genre of YouTube videos he's taken to that follows train routes through Europe and Japan. The scene is serene and moving; piano keys warble as static-filled sound design shimmers off the rails, from cityscapes to the countryside, an introspective ride through a world beyond his bedroom. It doubles as an apt parting image for Khotin's project as a whole: dreaming big but happiest when riffing on the details, shaping environments from the inside out. Over the last decade, he has stretched from his core in Edmonton, leaving a trace in Vancouver and beyond; but when all signs point home, he loops back to see it all from a different vantage, revitalized, refined, and free. More
Tracklist:
1.1HV ROAD
1.2LOVELY
1.3HOME WORLD 303
1.43 PZ
1.5COMPUTER BREAK (LATE MIX)
1.6FOUNTAIN, GROWTH (FT. TESS ROBY)
1.7LIFE MASK
1.8UNLIMITED <3
1.9TECHNO CREEP
1.10MY SAME SIZE
1.11SOUND GATHERING TRIP
Canadian producer Dylan Khotin-Foote has kept his Khotin alias going for the better part of a decade; the impressionistic electronic project shifts with the movements in his life. Sometimes it leads, like when the club-friendly grooves of 2014's Hello World immersed him in the heart of Vancouver's underground dance scene, and sometimes it follows, like 2018's Beautiful You, a downtempo salve for DJ fatigue. His melodic sensibility and playful ear for atmosphere remain the rippling core of the project's fingerprint; whether beat-driven or ambient, a foggy smear or a dusted and pristine print, a Khotin track has a distinct and instantly recognizable swirl. During and after the 2020 release of Finds You Well, his second LP on Ghostly International, Khotin-Foote settled back into a slower vibe in his hometown of Ed- monton. Even before the pandemic, his pivots to softer production, and away from DJing, left him with fewer opportunities in Vancouver and club bookings overall, and as a self-identifying introvert, he was fine with that. But the change of pace did open space for Khotin-Foote to grapple with concepts of adulthood and career. At his lowest, he almost walked off this musical path altogether; instead, he doubled down on the craft _ the tone, pacing, and dynamism of new material _ arriving at a definitive full-length. With Release Spirit, Khotin releases himself from the pressure of expectation, fusing and refining everything we know about his music. The warmth and familiarity of Khotin's dreamy, dulcet style meet new ideas and frameworks, a natural progression, a modest revelation; Khotin confirms it is okay to move slowly and he's never sounded better doing it. The album title borrows from the "release spirit" mechanic in the video game World of Warcraft. When players die, they are prompted to release their spirit and return as ghosts to find their corpses and come back to life. Khotin sees it as a worthy metaphor for the impending change his return home presented and the resulting process of purging artistic expectations to find his creative self again. On this go- around, he is freer, more playful, and more intentional within his palette of warped synth, breakbeats, and piano sounds _ including the classic Casio SK-1 presets he's used since the start _ mingling with wistful samples, field recordings, and other abstract snippets. For the first time, he enlisted Nik Kozub to do the mix and assist with sequencing. Khotin-Foote has long worked with the Edmonton-based musician and engineer in the mastering phase, as well as their days co-running the label Normals Welcome, and this time was able to involve his ears earlier given their newfound proximity. "I think it's my best sounding record to date." We begin on "HV Road" or Happy Valley Road, where Khotin-Foote spent time during a family vacation in British Columbia's Okanagan Lake. His plans to record crickets at night are quickly foiled by his younger siblings; the cute exchange orients the listener to a core memory of sorts, setting the tone of universally understood warmth and wonder that has defined some of Khotin's most transportive tracks. Hazy percussion takes hold, and we are swept further into the wisp of "Lovely," a grooving, melodic standout built on the interplay between the beat and human voice-like hums. Khotin knows this zone well; equally suited for a reverie or a club warm-up. The bubbling atmosphere and absurdity of "3 pz" offer a cosmic/comic interlude and also speak to reflections on his family's move to Canada two generations ago, and the audio tutorials they used to learn English. "I can only imagine my grandpar- ents repeating some of the bizarre phrases." "Fountain, Growth" finds Khotin in collaboration with Montreal's Tess Roby (Dawn to Dawn) for the project's first-ever vocal track. Roby's soft cadence echoes atop spiraling air pockets of rhythmic production, lending a breezy, almost shoegaze pop feel. Throughout the single and the album, wind gusts between the compositional layers, akin to the roaming spirits of its namesake, curving around the birdsong of "Life Mask" and seamlessly reaching "Unlimited <3." The latter bumps in slow motion; disembodied whirrs from his Casio collide with 808 drums and sub-bass for a vibe that teeters on trap and instrumental hip-hop. Release Spirit rests in a dream sequence. Oscillating synth lines dance around the heartbeat of "Techno Creep," a hyperactive REM state before the digitized ambient sprawl of "My Same Size." In the final pass, Khotin imagines transcontinental travel from the glow of his screen. He recorded "Sound Gathering Trip" to soundtrack a genre of YouTube videos he's taken to that follows train routes through Europe and Japan. The scene is serene and moving; piano keys warble as static-filled sound design shimmers off the rails, from cityscapes to the countryside, an introspective ride through a world beyond his bedroom. It doubles as an apt parting image for Khotin's project as a whole: dreaming big but happiest when riffing on the details, shaping environments from the inside out. Over the last decade, he has stretched from his core in Edmonton, leaving a trace in Vancouver and beyond; but when all signs point home, he loops back to see it all from a different vantage, revitalized, refined, and free. More
Tracklist:
1.1PARLAY
1.2PUT ON
1.3OUTSIDE THE CLUB
1.4I NEVA SEEN
1.5ENTERPRISE
1.6KAINT
1.7IN THE PLACE
1.8CRICKET'S THEME
1.9FIFTY
1.10DOCKSIDE
1.11LIL BIT O CHOCOLIT
100% GALCHER was by all accounts a game-changer when it landed in 2013 as an hour of original music from a relatively unknown producer ushered in by the beloved mix series Blowing Up The Workshop. Galcher Lustwerk's signature sound _ a smoky stream-of-consciousness baritone shadow-boxing with beats, informed by funk, rap, rhythm, and blues _ felt like an epiphany, impossibly hypnotic and complete. Resident Advisor writes, "100% GALCHER laid out a louche, lysergic and resolutely black take on deep house." Pitchfork remembers the music's immediate impact: "It's the sort of gem you felt inclined to pass around" _ and by year-end list time, word-of-mouth intensified. It was Resident Advisor and Juno's mix of the year, and earned a top-ten placement in FACT Magazine's albums list, as well as Philip Sherburne's personal rundown for Spin." Since then, select songs from 100% GALCHER have seen small-run pressings, while the album has lived primarily on SoundCloud and YouTube as a low-key cult legend. The gateway into Lustwerk's now well-established catalog, known for its reliability as a late-night listen and its prophetic vision for the near future of underground dance music. RA would later name it a mix of the decade, citing its influence and imagination: "Original in every sense _ unknown, unheard and unbelievably good." In late 2022, marking ten years since he first recorded the material, Lustwerk returns to Ghostly International to release 100% GALCHER as a remastered limited-edition double LP. Lustwerk is a product of the Midwest. Growing up in Cleveland, he'd tape over his parents' cassettes and spend hours at his family computer recording loops and designing artwork for the jewel cases of burned CDs. In high school, he turned to Ableton Live and absorbed every electronic music magazine he could find at the local Borders Books store. As a college student at RISD, he played in noise bands, plugged into Providence's DIY scene via Myspace, and started DJing weeknights at bars downtown. There he connected with Young Male and DJ Richard, who would go on to found White Material Records and offer their third release to Galcher Lustwerk, an alias realized via CAPTCHA test, a perfect artifact of its internet age. By 2012, Lustwerk had drifted to New York City and settled into a graphic design job, quickly growing disenfranchised by office culture. "Some days I felt like a token, other days I felt invisible." At night, he and his friends were carving out their own space, throwing parties in small basements, office buildings, and off-beat karaoke bars in Manhattan, influenced by series such as Mr. Sunday in Gowanus and The Bunker at Public Assembly. The lifestyle started to bleed into Lustwerk's musical vision. He remembers the night it clicked in Providence, partying and listening to tunes with Morgan Louis and Alvin Aronson. He went back to New York and pieced together his bedroom setup: a Dave Smith Tempest drum machine, a Waldorf Blofeld synthesizer, and a TEAC cassette recorder. Early snippets went straight to SoundCloud, where Lustwerk tested the crowd. Comments and messages offered instant feedback. One DM proved to be the greenlight: from Matthew Kent, an invitation to his burgeoning mix series Blowing Up The Workshop. 100% GALCHER traveled fast and far. A phenomenon he could only enjoy for a short period before discovering that nearly all the masters of the tracks got wiped by water damage to his computer. "The only copies were now on the 192kbs mp3 mix I sent Matt." Until now, after Lustwerk revived the lost tracks and handed them to Josh Bonati for remastering. "The original mix was never mastered so I hope older fans can find something new here." Hearing the enhanced set for the first time delineated by tracklist reveals this was a proper album all along. Sly synth interludes (all titled "Stem") clear the air for raspy house anthems like "Fifty" and "Parlay," the set's original breakout. Themes present across Lustwerk's catalog first materialize in this iconic run _ the link between the meditative state of Midwest driving and the solitary comedowns of nightlife. Lust- werk, the narrator, is an elusive character, a secret agent of the club, embodied by the hooks: "One minute I'm on / next minute I'm gone," he reminds us on cult-favor- ite "Put On." These narcotic, one-line refrains stick with you; look no further than the original YouTube upload of "Kaint" to know that fans can't let these phrases go. While recorded alone, 100% GALCHER was a collective moment. A decade later, Lustwerk sees the legacy as shared: "Making music can be an alienating experience, especially for DJs who travel a lot, it's all super isolating. It's easy to express lone- liness in the music itself, but when it comes down to getting things done, putting music out, you def should go on that journey w other people, friends, or maybe just a group of people online, build things with your friends then they can build to help you."
More
1.1PARLAY
1.2PUT ON
1.3OUTSIDE THE CLUB
1.4I NEVA SEEN
1.5ENTERPRISE
1.6KAINT
1.7IN THE PLACE
1.8CRICKET'S THEME
1.9FIFTY
1.10DOCKSIDE
1.11LIL BIT O CHOCOLIT
100% GALCHER was by all accounts a game-changer when it landed in 2013 as an hour of original music from a relatively unknown producer ushered in by the beloved mix series Blowing Up The Workshop. Galcher Lustwerk's signature sound _ a smoky stream-of-consciousness baritone shadow-boxing with beats, informed by funk, rap, rhythm, and blues _ felt like an epiphany, impossibly hypnotic and complete. Resident Advisor writes, "100% GALCHER laid out a louche, lysergic and resolutely black take on deep house." Pitchfork remembers the music's immediate impact: "It's the sort of gem you felt inclined to pass around" _ and by year-end list time, word-of-mouth intensified. It was Resident Advisor and Juno's mix of the year, and earned a top-ten placement in FACT Magazine's albums list, as well as Philip Sherburne's personal rundown for Spin." Since then, select songs from 100% GALCHER have seen small-run pressings, while the album has lived primarily on SoundCloud and YouTube as a low-key cult legend. The gateway into Lustwerk's now well-established catalog, known for its reliability as a late-night listen and its prophetic vision for the near future of underground dance music. RA would later name it a mix of the decade, citing its influence and imagination: "Original in every sense _ unknown, unheard and unbelievably good." In late 2022, marking ten years since he first recorded the material, Lustwerk returns to Ghostly International to release 100% GALCHER as a remastered limited-edition double LP. Lustwerk is a product of the Midwest. Growing up in Cleveland, he'd tape over his parents' cassettes and spend hours at his family computer recording loops and designing artwork for the jewel cases of burned CDs. In high school, he turned to Ableton Live and absorbed every electronic music magazine he could find at the local Borders Books store. As a college student at RISD, he played in noise bands, plugged into Providence's DIY scene via Myspace, and started DJing weeknights at bars downtown. There he connected with Young Male and DJ Richard, who would go on to found White Material Records and offer their third release to Galcher Lustwerk, an alias realized via CAPTCHA test, a perfect artifact of its internet age. By 2012, Lustwerk had drifted to New York City and settled into a graphic design job, quickly growing disenfranchised by office culture. "Some days I felt like a token, other days I felt invisible." At night, he and his friends were carving out their own space, throwing parties in small basements, office buildings, and off-beat karaoke bars in Manhattan, influenced by series such as Mr. Sunday in Gowanus and The Bunker at Public Assembly. The lifestyle started to bleed into Lustwerk's musical vision. He remembers the night it clicked in Providence, partying and listening to tunes with Morgan Louis and Alvin Aronson. He went back to New York and pieced together his bedroom setup: a Dave Smith Tempest drum machine, a Waldorf Blofeld synthesizer, and a TEAC cassette recorder. Early snippets went straight to SoundCloud, where Lustwerk tested the crowd. Comments and messages offered instant feedback. One DM proved to be the greenlight: from Matthew Kent, an invitation to his burgeoning mix series Blowing Up The Workshop. 100% GALCHER traveled fast and far. A phenomenon he could only enjoy for a short period before discovering that nearly all the masters of the tracks got wiped by water damage to his computer. "The only copies were now on the 192kbs mp3 mix I sent Matt." Until now, after Lustwerk revived the lost tracks and handed them to Josh Bonati for remastering. "The original mix was never mastered so I hope older fans can find something new here." Hearing the enhanced set for the first time delineated by tracklist reveals this was a proper album all along. Sly synth interludes (all titled "Stem") clear the air for raspy house anthems like "Fifty" and "Parlay," the set's original breakout. Themes present across Lustwerk's catalog first materialize in this iconic run _ the link between the meditative state of Midwest driving and the solitary comedowns of nightlife. Lust- werk, the narrator, is an elusive character, a secret agent of the club, embodied by the hooks: "One minute I'm on / next minute I'm gone," he reminds us on cult-favor- ite "Put On." These narcotic, one-line refrains stick with you; look no further than the original YouTube upload of "Kaint" to know that fans can't let these phrases go. While recorded alone, 100% GALCHER was a collective moment. A decade later, Lustwerk sees the legacy as shared: "Making music can be an alienating experience, especially for DJs who travel a lot, it's all super isolating. It's easy to express lone- liness in the music itself, but when it comes down to getting things done, putting music out, you def should go on that journey w other people, friends, or maybe just a group of people online, build things with your friends then they can build to help you."
More
Tracklist:
1.1PARLAY
1.2PUT ON
1.3OUTSIDE THE CLUB
1.4I NEVA SEEN
1.5ENTERPRISE
1.6KAINT
1.7IN THE PLACE
1.8CRICKET'S THEME
1.9FIFTY
1.10DOCKSIDE
1.11LIL BIT O CHOCOLIT
100% GALCHER was by all accounts a game-changer when it landed in 2013 as an hour of original music from a relatively unknown producer ushered in by the beloved mix series Blowing Up The Workshop. Galcher Lustwerk's signature sound _ a smoky stream-of-consciousness baritone shadow-boxing with beats, informed by funk, rap, rhythm, and blues _ felt like an epiphany, impossibly hypnotic and complete. Resident Advisor writes, "100% GALCHER laid out a louche, lysergic and resolutely black take on deep house." Pitchfork remembers the music's immediate impact: "It's the sort of gem you felt inclined to pass around" _ and by year-end list time, word-of-mouth intensified. It was Resident Advisor and Juno's mix of the year, and earned a top-ten placement in FACT Magazine's albums list, as well as Philip Sherburne's personal rundown for Spin." Since then, select songs from 100% GALCHER have seen small-run pressings, while the album has lived primarily on SoundCloud and YouTube as a low-key cult legend. The gateway into Lustwerk's now well-established catalog, known for its reliability as a late-night listen and its prophetic vision for the near future of underground dance music. RA would later name it a mix of the decade, citing its influence and imagination: "Original in every sense _ unknown, unheard and unbelievably good." In late 2022, marking ten years since he first recorded the material, Lustwerk returns to Ghostly International to release 100% GALCHER as a remastered limited-edition double LP. Lustwerk is a product of the Midwest. Growing up in Cleveland, he'd tape over his parents' cassettes and spend hours at his family computer recording loops and designing artwork for the jewel cases of burned CDs. In high school, he turned to Ableton Live and absorbed every electronic music magazine he could find at the local Borders Books store. As a college student at RISD, he played in noise bands, plugged into Providence's DIY scene via Myspace, and started DJing weeknights at bars downtown. There he connected with Young Male and DJ Richard, who would go on to found White Material Records and offer their third release to Galcher Lustwerk, an alias realized via CAPTCHA test, a perfect artifact of its internet age. By 2012, Lustwerk had drifted to New York City and settled into a graphic design job, quickly growing disenfranchised by office culture. "Some days I felt like a token, other days I felt invisible." At night, he and his friends were carving out their own space, throwing parties in small basements, office buildings, and off-beat karaoke bars in Manhattan, influenced by series such as Mr. Sunday in Gowanus and The Bunker at Public Assembly. The lifestyle started to bleed into Lustwerk's musical vision. He remembers the night it clicked in Providence, partying and listening to tunes with Morgan Louis and Alvin Aronson. He went back to New York and pieced together his bedroom setup: a Dave Smith Tempest drum machine, a Waldorf Blofeld synthesizer, and a TEAC cassette recorder. Early snippets went straight to SoundCloud, where Lustwerk tested the crowd. Comments and messages offered instant feedback. One DM proved to be the greenlight: from Matthew Kent, an invitation to his burgeoning mix series Blowing Up The Workshop. 100% GALCHER traveled fast and far. A phenomenon he could only enjoy for a short period before discovering that nearly all the masters of the tracks got wiped by water damage to his computer. "The only copies were now on the 192kbs mp3 mix I sent Matt." Until now, after Lustwerk revived the lost tracks and handed them to Josh Bonati for remastering. "The original mix was never mastered so I hope older fans can find something new here." Hearing the enhanced set for the first time delineated by tracklist reveals this was a proper album all along. Sly synth interludes (all titled "Stem") clear the air for raspy house anthems like "Fifty" and "Parlay," the set's original breakout. Themes present across Lustwerk's catalog first materialize in this iconic run _ the link between the meditative state of Midwest driving and the solitary comedowns of nightlife. Lust- werk, the narrator, is an elusive character, a secret agent of the club, embodied by the hooks: "One minute I'm on / next minute I'm gone," he reminds us on cult-favor- ite "Put On." These narcotic, one-line refrains stick with you; look no further than the original YouTube upload of "Kaint" to know that fans can't let these phrases go. While recorded alone, 100% GALCHER was a collective moment. A decade later, Lustwerk sees the legacy as shared: "Making music can be an alienating experience, especially for DJs who travel a lot, it's all super isolating. It's easy to express lone- liness in the music itself, but when it comes down to getting things done, putting music out, you def should go on that journey w other people, friends, or maybe just a group of people online, build things with your friends then they can build to help you."
More
1.1PARLAY
1.2PUT ON
1.3OUTSIDE THE CLUB
1.4I NEVA SEEN
1.5ENTERPRISE
1.6KAINT
1.7IN THE PLACE
1.8CRICKET'S THEME
1.9FIFTY
1.10DOCKSIDE
1.11LIL BIT O CHOCOLIT
100% GALCHER was by all accounts a game-changer when it landed in 2013 as an hour of original music from a relatively unknown producer ushered in by the beloved mix series Blowing Up The Workshop. Galcher Lustwerk's signature sound _ a smoky stream-of-consciousness baritone shadow-boxing with beats, informed by funk, rap, rhythm, and blues _ felt like an epiphany, impossibly hypnotic and complete. Resident Advisor writes, "100% GALCHER laid out a louche, lysergic and resolutely black take on deep house." Pitchfork remembers the music's immediate impact: "It's the sort of gem you felt inclined to pass around" _ and by year-end list time, word-of-mouth intensified. It was Resident Advisor and Juno's mix of the year, and earned a top-ten placement in FACT Magazine's albums list, as well as Philip Sherburne's personal rundown for Spin." Since then, select songs from 100% GALCHER have seen small-run pressings, while the album has lived primarily on SoundCloud and YouTube as a low-key cult legend. The gateway into Lustwerk's now well-established catalog, known for its reliability as a late-night listen and its prophetic vision for the near future of underground dance music. RA would later name it a mix of the decade, citing its influence and imagination: "Original in every sense _ unknown, unheard and unbelievably good." In late 2022, marking ten years since he first recorded the material, Lustwerk returns to Ghostly International to release 100% GALCHER as a remastered limited-edition double LP. Lustwerk is a product of the Midwest. Growing up in Cleveland, he'd tape over his parents' cassettes and spend hours at his family computer recording loops and designing artwork for the jewel cases of burned CDs. In high school, he turned to Ableton Live and absorbed every electronic music magazine he could find at the local Borders Books store. As a college student at RISD, he played in noise bands, plugged into Providence's DIY scene via Myspace, and started DJing weeknights at bars downtown. There he connected with Young Male and DJ Richard, who would go on to found White Material Records and offer their third release to Galcher Lustwerk, an alias realized via CAPTCHA test, a perfect artifact of its internet age. By 2012, Lustwerk had drifted to New York City and settled into a graphic design job, quickly growing disenfranchised by office culture. "Some days I felt like a token, other days I felt invisible." At night, he and his friends were carving out their own space, throwing parties in small basements, office buildings, and off-beat karaoke bars in Manhattan, influenced by series such as Mr. Sunday in Gowanus and The Bunker at Public Assembly. The lifestyle started to bleed into Lustwerk's musical vision. He remembers the night it clicked in Providence, partying and listening to tunes with Morgan Louis and Alvin Aronson. He went back to New York and pieced together his bedroom setup: a Dave Smith Tempest drum machine, a Waldorf Blofeld synthesizer, and a TEAC cassette recorder. Early snippets went straight to SoundCloud, where Lustwerk tested the crowd. Comments and messages offered instant feedback. One DM proved to be the greenlight: from Matthew Kent, an invitation to his burgeoning mix series Blowing Up The Workshop. 100% GALCHER traveled fast and far. A phenomenon he could only enjoy for a short period before discovering that nearly all the masters of the tracks got wiped by water damage to his computer. "The only copies were now on the 192kbs mp3 mix I sent Matt." Until now, after Lustwerk revived the lost tracks and handed them to Josh Bonati for remastering. "The original mix was never mastered so I hope older fans can find something new here." Hearing the enhanced set for the first time delineated by tracklist reveals this was a proper album all along. Sly synth interludes (all titled "Stem") clear the air for raspy house anthems like "Fifty" and "Parlay," the set's original breakout. Themes present across Lustwerk's catalog first materialize in this iconic run _ the link between the meditative state of Midwest driving and the solitary comedowns of nightlife. Lust- werk, the narrator, is an elusive character, a secret agent of the club, embodied by the hooks: "One minute I'm on / next minute I'm gone," he reminds us on cult-favor- ite "Put On." These narcotic, one-line refrains stick with you; look no further than the original YouTube upload of "Kaint" to know that fans can't let these phrases go. While recorded alone, 100% GALCHER was a collective moment. A decade later, Lustwerk sees the legacy as shared: "Making music can be an alienating experience, especially for DJs who travel a lot, it's all super isolating. It's easy to express lone- liness in the music itself, but when it comes down to getting things done, putting music out, you def should go on that journey w other people, friends, or maybe just a group of people online, build things with your friends then they can build to help you."
More
Emeralds _ musicians John Elliott, Steve Hauschildt, and Mark McGuire _ emerged from the rust-pocked, post-millennial Midwest drone/noise scene seemingly unable or uninterested in keeping up with themselves. Their proliferation of material was intimidating; mountains of improvised, home-recorded music were released on limited-edition tapes, CD-Rs, and split LPs. There is and was a sense that the Ohio trio was after something beyond physical mediums. By 2008, their sprawling live sets were a known can't-miss at any underground experimental event. Tiny Mix Tapes reviewed that year's appearance at No Fun Fest: "No one's sawtooths, sines, and other various waveforms were so beautifully sculpted and beamed out into the Plejades as Emeralds'." These basement dwellers were shaping meditative, psychedelic, arpeggiated electronic music in the veins of German kosmische forebears like Ash Ra Tempel, Klaus Schulze, and Tangerine Dream. Made primarily with synthesizers and guitar, Emeralds' music possessed the same astral psyche with a home-crafted punk edge, a distant descendant of that pioneering era, and a bridge to someplace new, someplace scorched. Released on Aaron Dilloway's (Wolf Eyes, etc.) Hanson imprint, Solar Bridge was the first Emeralds album to receive any kind of proper distribution and represents the first attempt to archivally preserve their fluid craft. The first of an inimitable five-LP run before the band dissolved in 2013, Solar Bridge is a moment of glistening primacy that boots up a catalog and legacy that the heads still grapple with. Emeralds begin to make sense of it in the fall of 2022 with a remas- tered Solar Bridge LP release on Ghostly International. Emeralds materialized as a fully formed entity radiating cosmic potential. Their discography evolved and incorporated different qualities and vocabularies, but hearing where it started will always feel different. The density, the patience, and the sheer refinement presented on Solar Bridge legibly demonstrates how and why Emeralds has become a legendary part of the contemporary electronic music canon.
Trackliste
1.1MAGIC
1.2THE QUAKING MESS More
Trackliste
1.1MAGIC
1.2THE QUAKING MESS More
1
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - Have You Felt Lately?
2
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - Locate
3
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - Let If Fall
4
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - Is It Me Or Is It You?
5
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - Check Your Translation
6
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - Pivot Signal
7
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - Unbraid: The Merge
8
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - Then The Wind Came
9
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - There Is Something
10
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - Give To The Water
Tracklist:
1. Have You Feld Lately?
2. Locate
3. Let It Fall
4. Is It Me Or is It You? (Preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LHW7-coLEI)
5. Check Your Translation
6. Pivot Signal
7. Unbraid: The Merge
8. Then The Wind Came
9. There Is Something
10. Give To The Water
"Art is awe, art is mystery expressed," writes Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. "Art is somatic, even if it is experienced cerebrally. It is felt." The central mysteries of Smith's ninth studio album, Let's Turn it Into Sound, have to do with perception, expression, and communication: How can we communicate when spoken language is inadequate? How do we understand what it is we're feeling? How do we translate our experience of the world into something that someone else can understand? For Smith, a self-described "feeler," the answers are inspired by compound words in non-English languages, translation, sculptural fashion, dance, butoh, wushu shaolin, and other forms of sensory and somatic experience. Just like fashion uses lines, shapes, colors, textures, and silhouettes to communicate on a sensual level separate from the conscious mind, Let's Turn it Into Sound strives to use sound to communicate what words alone cannot. "The album is a puzzle," Smith says. "[It] is a symbol of receiving a compound of a ton of feelings from going out into a situation, and the song titles are instructions to breaking apart the feelings and understanding them." The energized "Is it Me or is it You" comes from traversing the gaps between how you see yourself and how another might see you, through a filter of their own projections. The hushed sense of revelation that brackets "There is Something" refers to the feeling of walking into a room and being subconsciously aware of the dynamic present. All the while, Smith interprets these feelings through sound. This auditory interpretation process, driven by earnest curiosity, led Smith to record some thoughts and questions that popped up along the journey in Somatic Hearing_a booklet which accompanies the album. Over three frenzied months, recording alone in her home studio, Smith allowed herself to pursue new experiments to accompany her usual toolkit of modular, analogue, and rare synthesizers (including her signature Buchla), orchestral sounds, and the voice. She created a new vocal processing technique, and gave herself permission to pursue a pacing that felt intuitive, rather one that followed typical song structures. She walked around in the windiest season with a subwoofer backpack and an umbrella, listening to the low end of the album amidst 60mph gusts. She listened to herself, and, in doing so, to an inner community which suddenly opened to her. Underlying the album is a dynamic relationship between what Smith describes as six distinct voices, each a multifaceted storyteller. By acknowledging these characters, she was acknowledging her whole being: the woven plurality of self, the complex process of noticing and resolving inner conflicts, and the joy of finding harmony in flux. "I started to feel so embodied by all of these characters. This is all the felt, unsaid stuff [my inner community] wants to communicate but it doesn't have the English language as its form of communication, and so [this album was a form of] giving space to let it talk and not judge it and just let it play." By not adhering to expected song structures, each song feels even more like a conversation, with each character getting to express themselves in full. More
1. Have You Feld Lately?
2. Locate
3. Let It Fall
4. Is It Me Or is It You? (Preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LHW7-coLEI)
5. Check Your Translation
6. Pivot Signal
7. Unbraid: The Merge
8. Then The Wind Came
9. There Is Something
10. Give To The Water
"Art is awe, art is mystery expressed," writes Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. "Art is somatic, even if it is experienced cerebrally. It is felt." The central mysteries of Smith's ninth studio album, Let's Turn it Into Sound, have to do with perception, expression, and communication: How can we communicate when spoken language is inadequate? How do we understand what it is we're feeling? How do we translate our experience of the world into something that someone else can understand? For Smith, a self-described "feeler," the answers are inspired by compound words in non-English languages, translation, sculptural fashion, dance, butoh, wushu shaolin, and other forms of sensory and somatic experience. Just like fashion uses lines, shapes, colors, textures, and silhouettes to communicate on a sensual level separate from the conscious mind, Let's Turn it Into Sound strives to use sound to communicate what words alone cannot. "The album is a puzzle," Smith says. "[It] is a symbol of receiving a compound of a ton of feelings from going out into a situation, and the song titles are instructions to breaking apart the feelings and understanding them." The energized "Is it Me or is it You" comes from traversing the gaps between how you see yourself and how another might see you, through a filter of their own projections. The hushed sense of revelation that brackets "There is Something" refers to the feeling of walking into a room and being subconsciously aware of the dynamic present. All the while, Smith interprets these feelings through sound. This auditory interpretation process, driven by earnest curiosity, led Smith to record some thoughts and questions that popped up along the journey in Somatic Hearing_a booklet which accompanies the album. Over three frenzied months, recording alone in her home studio, Smith allowed herself to pursue new experiments to accompany her usual toolkit of modular, analogue, and rare synthesizers (including her signature Buchla), orchestral sounds, and the voice. She created a new vocal processing technique, and gave herself permission to pursue a pacing that felt intuitive, rather one that followed typical song structures. She walked around in the windiest season with a subwoofer backpack and an umbrella, listening to the low end of the album amidst 60mph gusts. She listened to herself, and, in doing so, to an inner community which suddenly opened to her. Underlying the album is a dynamic relationship between what Smith describes as six distinct voices, each a multifaceted storyteller. By acknowledging these characters, she was acknowledging her whole being: the woven plurality of self, the complex process of noticing and resolving inner conflicts, and the joy of finding harmony in flux. "I started to feel so embodied by all of these characters. This is all the felt, unsaid stuff [my inner community] wants to communicate but it doesn't have the English language as its form of communication, and so [this album was a form of] giving space to let it talk and not judge it and just let it play." By not adhering to expected song structures, each song feels even more like a conversation, with each character getting to express themselves in full. More
Neon Yellow Vinyl!
Tracklist:
1. Have You Feld Lately?
2. Locate
3. Let It Fall
4. Is It Me Or is It You? (Preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LHW7-coLEI)
5. Check Your Translation
6. Pivot Signal
7. Unbraid: The Merge
8. Then The Wind Came
9. There Is Something
10. Give To The Water
"Art is awe, art is mystery expressed," writes Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. "Art is somatic, even if it is experienced cerebrally. It is felt." The central mysteries of Smith's ninth studio album, Let's Turn it Into Sound, have to do with perception, expression, and communication: How can we communicate when spoken language is inadequate? How do we understand what it is we're feeling? How do we translate our experience of the world into something that someone else can understand? For Smith, a self-described "feeler," the answers are inspired by compound words in non-English languages, translation, sculptural fashion, dance, butoh, wushu shaolin, and other forms of sensory and somatic experience. Just like fashion uses lines, shapes, colors, textures, and silhouettes to communicate on a sensual level separate from the conscious mind, Let's Turn it Into Sound strives to use sound to communicate what words alone cannot. "The album is a puzzle," Smith says. "[It] is a symbol of receiving a compound of a ton of feelings from going out into a situation, and the song titles are instructions to breaking apart the feelings and understanding them." The energized "Is it Me or is it You" comes from traversing the gaps between how you see yourself and how another might see you, through a filter of their own projections. The hushed sense of revelation that brackets "There is Something" refers to the feeling of walking into a room and being subconsciously aware of the dynamic present. All the while, Smith interprets these feelings through sound. This auditory interpretation process, driven by earnest curiosity, led Smith to record some thoughts and questions that popped up along the journey in Somatic Hearing_a booklet which accompanies the album. Over three frenzied months, recording alone in her home studio, Smith allowed herself to pursue new experiments to accompany her usual toolkit of modular, analogue, and rare synthesizers (including her signature Buchla), orchestral sounds, and the voice. She created a new vocal processing technique, and gave herself permission to pursue a pacing that felt intuitive, rather one that followed typical song structures. She walked around in the windiest season with a subwoofer backpack and an umbrella, listening to the low end of the album amidst 60mph gusts. She listened to herself, and, in doing so, to an inner community which suddenly opened to her. Underlying the album is a dynamic relationship between what Smith describes as six distinct voices, each a multifaceted storyteller. By acknowledging these characters, she was acknowledging her whole being: the woven plurality of self, the complex process of noticing and resolving inner conflicts, and the joy of finding harmony in flux. "I started to feel so embodied by all of these characters. This is all the felt, unsaid stuff [my inner community] wants to communicate but it doesn't have the English language as its form of communication, and so [this album was a form of] giving space to let it talk and not judge it and just let it play." By not adhering to expected song structures, each song feels even more like a conversation, with each character getting to express themselves in full. More
Tracklist:
1. Have You Feld Lately?
2. Locate
3. Let It Fall
4. Is It Me Or is It You? (Preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LHW7-coLEI)
5. Check Your Translation
6. Pivot Signal
7. Unbraid: The Merge
8. Then The Wind Came
9. There Is Something
10. Give To The Water
"Art is awe, art is mystery expressed," writes Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. "Art is somatic, even if it is experienced cerebrally. It is felt." The central mysteries of Smith's ninth studio album, Let's Turn it Into Sound, have to do with perception, expression, and communication: How can we communicate when spoken language is inadequate? How do we understand what it is we're feeling? How do we translate our experience of the world into something that someone else can understand? For Smith, a self-described "feeler," the answers are inspired by compound words in non-English languages, translation, sculptural fashion, dance, butoh, wushu shaolin, and other forms of sensory and somatic experience. Just like fashion uses lines, shapes, colors, textures, and silhouettes to communicate on a sensual level separate from the conscious mind, Let's Turn it Into Sound strives to use sound to communicate what words alone cannot. "The album is a puzzle," Smith says. "[It] is a symbol of receiving a compound of a ton of feelings from going out into a situation, and the song titles are instructions to breaking apart the feelings and understanding them." The energized "Is it Me or is it You" comes from traversing the gaps between how you see yourself and how another might see you, through a filter of their own projections. The hushed sense of revelation that brackets "There is Something" refers to the feeling of walking into a room and being subconsciously aware of the dynamic present. All the while, Smith interprets these feelings through sound. This auditory interpretation process, driven by earnest curiosity, led Smith to record some thoughts and questions that popped up along the journey in Somatic Hearing_a booklet which accompanies the album. Over three frenzied months, recording alone in her home studio, Smith allowed herself to pursue new experiments to accompany her usual toolkit of modular, analogue, and rare synthesizers (including her signature Buchla), orchestral sounds, and the voice. She created a new vocal processing technique, and gave herself permission to pursue a pacing that felt intuitive, rather one that followed typical song structures. She walked around in the windiest season with a subwoofer backpack and an umbrella, listening to the low end of the album amidst 60mph gusts. She listened to herself, and, in doing so, to an inner community which suddenly opened to her. Underlying the album is a dynamic relationship between what Smith describes as six distinct voices, each a multifaceted storyteller. By acknowledging these characters, she was acknowledging her whole being: the woven plurality of self, the complex process of noticing and resolving inner conflicts, and the joy of finding harmony in flux. "I started to feel so embodied by all of these characters. This is all the felt, unsaid stuff [my inner community] wants to communicate but it doesn't have the English language as its form of communication, and so [this album was a form of] giving space to let it talk and not judge it and just let it play." By not adhering to expected song structures, each song feels even more like a conversation, with each character getting to express themselves in full. More
"His music filled me with the urge to connect with the world," Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith says of Emile Mosseri. She first heard his work while watching the 2019 film The Last Black Man In San Francisco; just minutes in, she paused it to look up who did the score and wrote to him immediately. "I love Emile's ability to create melodies that feel magically scenic and familiar like they are reminding you of the innocence of loving life." Those talents saw recognition in 2020 with an Oscar nomination for Mosseri's original score to the film Minari. He was already a fan of Smith's and became increasingly intrigued by her impressionistic process as they started to talk. "The music feels so spiritual and alive and made from the earth," Mosseri says. "I think of her as the great conductor, summoning musical poetry from her orchestra of machines." I Could Be Your Dog / I Could Be Your Moon, their two-part collaborative album, introduces an uncanny fusion of their sonics. Constructed using synthesizer, piano, electronics, and voice, this soft-focus dream world is lush, evocative, and fleeting. It finds two composers tuning their respective styles inward as an ode to mutual inspiration, a celebration of the human spirit and its will to surrender to the currents of life. As a full album set, I Could Be Your Dog / I Could Be Your Moon moves fluidly from track to track, panning through textural vignettes. Two roughly 17-minute halves, the set evokes the bittersweet sense of something too bright or rare to last, a short-lived glimpse into a golden hour. There is a dreamy, elemental intention to this music, which Smith and Mosseri say came naturally, as they both embraced intuitive interplay throughout their creative back-and-forth. The stylistic threads of each composer are recognizable yet become more ambiguous as the album progresses, sewn into a singular vision.
Tracklist
1.1LOG IN YOUR FIRE
1.2MOON IN YOUR EYE
1.3BRUSH
1.4I COULD BE YOUR DOG
1.5GLENDORA
1.6BLINK TWICE
1.7MOONWEED
1.8GREEN TO YOU
1.9AMBER
1.10STANDING IN YOUR LIGHT
1.11SHIM SHAM
1.12GOLDEN COW
1.13RADIO REPLACEMENT More
Tracklist
1.1LOG IN YOUR FIRE
1.2MOON IN YOUR EYE
1.3BRUSH
1.4I COULD BE YOUR DOG
1.5GLENDORA
1.6BLINK TWICE
1.7MOONWEED
1.8GREEN TO YOU
1.9AMBER
1.10STANDING IN YOUR LIGHT
1.11SHIM SHAM
1.12GOLDEN COW
1.13RADIO REPLACEMENT More
Tracklist:
1.25°C
2. 0°C
3. 17°C
4.14°C
5. 2°C (INTERMITTENT RAIN)
6. 10°C
7. 6°C
8. 4°C
9. 30°C
10. 36°C
Loraine James' new ambient-minded alias, Whatever The Weather, follows her 2021 solo LP Reflection (Hyperdub). In contrast to her club music sensibilities, this mode embraces keyboard improvisations and vocal experimentation, foregoing percussive structure in favor of shaping atmosphere and tone. From this divergent headspace emerged new coordinates and climates, a new outlet: Whatever The Weather. A longtime fan of ambient-adjacent Ghostly International artists such as Telefon Tel Aviv (who she'd ask to master the album), HTRK (whose singer Jonnine Standish features on Nothing), and Lusine (whom she remixed at the start of 2021), James saw the label as the ideal home for this eponymous album of airy, transportive tracks as they began to formulate. The titling on Whatever The Weather works in degrees; simple parameters allowing James to focus on the nuances as a mood-builder. Her suspended universe fluctuates; freezing, thawing, swaying and blooming from track to track. James describes her jam-based approach for the sessions as "free-flowing, stopping when I felt like I was done," allowing her subconscious to lead. The improvisations have an intrinsic fluidity to them, akin to sudden weather events passing over a single environment - the location feels fixed while the conditions vary. The album opens at "25°C," a sunshower of soft hums and keys. As the longest piece, it serves to establish stability, the inflection point where any move above or below this temperate breeze breaks the bliss. Given James' proclivity for organized chaos in her production, this scene is fleeting, naturally. From that utopia, we plummet to the most melancholic read on the meter, "0°C," its isolated synth line traversing a hailstorm of steely beats and static. Next, the dial jumps for the propulsive standout "17°C." Like a timelapse of springtime in the city, the single accelerates across a frenzy of frames; car horns, screeching brakes, and crosswalk chatter fill the pauses between rapid jolts of multi-shaped percussion. For portions of the work, James leans neo-classical, rendering pensive vignettes of cascading piano keys and warm delay. "2°C (Intermittent Rain)" ends the A-Side on a short and stormy loop; a resulting sense of reset permeates the B-Side's opener, "10°C." The producer mingles intuitively on echoed organ, locking into and abandoning atypical rhythms that suggest her jazz-oriented interests. "4°C" and "30°C" display the range of James' vocal experiments. The former chops and pitches her voice to a rhythmic, otherworldly effect, the latter reveals James at her most straightforward (she cites Deftones' Chino Moreno and American Football's Mike Kinsella as inspirations), singing tenderly and unobstructed for nearly the duration before beats collide in the climax. Whatever The Weather closes at "36°C," while a sweltering heat by any standards the track eases along comfortably on a chorus of synth waves, acting as an apt bookend for this evocative, sky-tracing collection that started in a similar state. Cyclical, seasonal, and unpredictable, true to its namesake. More
1.25°C
2. 0°C
3. 17°C
4.14°C
5. 2°C (INTERMITTENT RAIN)
6. 10°C
7. 6°C
8. 4°C
9. 30°C
10. 36°C
Loraine James' new ambient-minded alias, Whatever The Weather, follows her 2021 solo LP Reflection (Hyperdub). In contrast to her club music sensibilities, this mode embraces keyboard improvisations and vocal experimentation, foregoing percussive structure in favor of shaping atmosphere and tone. From this divergent headspace emerged new coordinates and climates, a new outlet: Whatever The Weather. A longtime fan of ambient-adjacent Ghostly International artists such as Telefon Tel Aviv (who she'd ask to master the album), HTRK (whose singer Jonnine Standish features on Nothing), and Lusine (whom she remixed at the start of 2021), James saw the label as the ideal home for this eponymous album of airy, transportive tracks as they began to formulate. The titling on Whatever The Weather works in degrees; simple parameters allowing James to focus on the nuances as a mood-builder. Her suspended universe fluctuates; freezing, thawing, swaying and blooming from track to track. James describes her jam-based approach for the sessions as "free-flowing, stopping when I felt like I was done," allowing her subconscious to lead. The improvisations have an intrinsic fluidity to them, akin to sudden weather events passing over a single environment - the location feels fixed while the conditions vary. The album opens at "25°C," a sunshower of soft hums and keys. As the longest piece, it serves to establish stability, the inflection point where any move above or below this temperate breeze breaks the bliss. Given James' proclivity for organized chaos in her production, this scene is fleeting, naturally. From that utopia, we plummet to the most melancholic read on the meter, "0°C," its isolated synth line traversing a hailstorm of steely beats and static. Next, the dial jumps for the propulsive standout "17°C." Like a timelapse of springtime in the city, the single accelerates across a frenzy of frames; car horns, screeching brakes, and crosswalk chatter fill the pauses between rapid jolts of multi-shaped percussion. For portions of the work, James leans neo-classical, rendering pensive vignettes of cascading piano keys and warm delay. "2°C (Intermittent Rain)" ends the A-Side on a short and stormy loop; a resulting sense of reset permeates the B-Side's opener, "10°C." The producer mingles intuitively on echoed organ, locking into and abandoning atypical rhythms that suggest her jazz-oriented interests. "4°C" and "30°C" display the range of James' vocal experiments. The former chops and pitches her voice to a rhythmic, otherworldly effect, the latter reveals James at her most straightforward (she cites Deftones' Chino Moreno and American Football's Mike Kinsella as inspirations), singing tenderly and unobstructed for nearly the duration before beats collide in the climax. Whatever The Weather closes at "36°C," while a sweltering heat by any standards the track eases along comfortably on a chorus of synth waves, acting as an apt bookend for this evocative, sky-tracing collection that started in a similar state. Cyclical, seasonal, and unpredictable, true to its namesake. More
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Label:Tresor Records / BMG
Cat-No:TRESOR313EP1
Release-Date:13.10.2023
Genre:Techno
Configuration:12" Excl
Label:Tresor Records / BMG
Cat-No:TRESOR313EP1
Release-Date:13.10.2023
Genre:Techno
Configuration:12" Excl
1
Cybotron - Maintain 04:56
2
Cybotron - The Golden Ratio (Version) 04:43
Territory: WORLD
FORMAT 12” 180g vinyl, printed labels,
A4 printed inlay 170gsm, dl code,
black innersleeve, white outersleeve
TRACKLIST
A. Maintain 04:56
B. The Golden Ratio (Version) 04:43
INFO
Cybotron has re-emerged in our contemporary cybercultural age when artifactual futures begin a transition into a new era of
"Meta".
By combining their knowledge of philosophy, science fiction, and mechanical engineering, at a time when electronic instrument
companies were only just beginning to distribute their products to the masses, two prosumer audio technicians named Juan
Atkins and Rik Davis were able to re-engineer Cybotron – a combination of the words “Cyborg” and “Cyclotron” (an atomic
particle accelerator) – to be used as a home studio performance music that would change the course of independently produced
and distributed electronic music.
Dissolving the boundary between singer, songwriter, and producer, Juan Atkins named Cybotron’s future forward funkadelic
sound “techno” in reference to Alvin To ler’s concept of unlikely “techno rebels” against technocracy. Techno is music that
sounds like technology, and its purpose was to help society survive our collision with a universally felt “future shock” by inserting
an audio virus into the cultural matrix.
Techno’s blueprint spread across the Detroit-Berlin Axis between Metroplex and Tresor. As human society began its transition
from a post-industrial to an information-based market economy, Cybotron enabled a thorough system override of the human
senses towards a tangible man-machine hybridity and showed the world how to channel their emotions and imaginations into
new sound technologies and create new ‘sonic’ spatialities where listeners can transport themselves out of the physical world
into the future. The cover of their debut album Enter (1983) transmitted a fragmented view of a body in motion being digitized
mid-stride, dissolving physical and virtual reality into sonic fiction.
Today, the man-machine hybridity of Cybotron is still the truest form of techno, coevolving in conversation with the technological music they created and inspired. The latest data disk marks a new chapter that reflects a techgnostic musical expression of
the knowledge acquired during their decades-long hiatus. Unlike the dance music industrial replications of the Model 500
formula, acknowledging the content marketing expectations that segments music into specific, sellable genres, this techno
music is self-aware. Cybotron processes dance music tropes spawned from its very own blueprint with a meta-tactical precision
out of sync with our current rave new world.
Cybotron’s return demonstrates a studied engagement with what techno was and should be with a peerless update of Juan
Atkins’ initial inventive idea of do-it-yourself electrically reengineered music xeroxed onto both sides of the 12” – uploaded
directly into the alleys of your mind.
- The Rhythmanalyst
More
FORMAT 12” 180g vinyl, printed labels,
A4 printed inlay 170gsm, dl code,
black innersleeve, white outersleeve
TRACKLIST
A. Maintain 04:56
B. The Golden Ratio (Version) 04:43
INFO
Cybotron has re-emerged in our contemporary cybercultural age when artifactual futures begin a transition into a new era of
"Meta".
By combining their knowledge of philosophy, science fiction, and mechanical engineering, at a time when electronic instrument
companies were only just beginning to distribute their products to the masses, two prosumer audio technicians named Juan
Atkins and Rik Davis were able to re-engineer Cybotron – a combination of the words “Cyborg” and “Cyclotron” (an atomic
particle accelerator) – to be used as a home studio performance music that would change the course of independently produced
and distributed electronic music.
Dissolving the boundary between singer, songwriter, and producer, Juan Atkins named Cybotron’s future forward funkadelic
sound “techno” in reference to Alvin To ler’s concept of unlikely “techno rebels” against technocracy. Techno is music that
sounds like technology, and its purpose was to help society survive our collision with a universally felt “future shock” by inserting
an audio virus into the cultural matrix.
Techno’s blueprint spread across the Detroit-Berlin Axis between Metroplex and Tresor. As human society began its transition
from a post-industrial to an information-based market economy, Cybotron enabled a thorough system override of the human
senses towards a tangible man-machine hybridity and showed the world how to channel their emotions and imaginations into
new sound technologies and create new ‘sonic’ spatialities where listeners can transport themselves out of the physical world
into the future. The cover of their debut album Enter (1983) transmitted a fragmented view of a body in motion being digitized
mid-stride, dissolving physical and virtual reality into sonic fiction.
Today, the man-machine hybridity of Cybotron is still the truest form of techno, coevolving in conversation with the technological music they created and inspired. The latest data disk marks a new chapter that reflects a techgnostic musical expression of
the knowledge acquired during their decades-long hiatus. Unlike the dance music industrial replications of the Model 500
formula, acknowledging the content marketing expectations that segments music into specific, sellable genres, this techno
music is self-aware. Cybotron processes dance music tropes spawned from its very own blueprint with a meta-tactical precision
out of sync with our current rave new world.
Cybotron’s return demonstrates a studied engagement with what techno was and should be with a peerless update of Juan
Atkins’ initial inventive idea of do-it-yourself electrically reengineered music xeroxed onto both sides of the 12” – uploaded
directly into the alleys of your mind.
- The Rhythmanalyst
More
1
VILLALOBOS - EASY LEE
2
VILLALOBOS - THEOGENESE
3
VILLALOBOS - BAHAHA HAHI
4
VILLALOBOS - LA RAJA
5
VILLALOBOS - I TRY TO LIVE (CAN I LIVE)
6
VILLALOBOS - QUIZÅS
7
VILLALOBOS - FUSION THE ENEMIES
8
VILLALOBOS - DEXTER
9
VILLALOBOS - BACH TO BACK
10
VILLALOBOS - Y.G.H.
11
VILLALOBOS - WAIWORINAO
Format: 4x12"LP
Tracklist
A EASY LEE
B THEOGENESE
C1 BAHAHA HAHI
C2 LA RAJA
D I TRY TO LIVE (CAN I LIVE)
E1 QUIZÅS
E2 FUSION THE ENEMIES
F DEXTER
G BACH TO BACK
H1 Y.G.H.
H2 WAIWORINAO
Ricardo Villalobos first album „Alcachofa“ from 2003.
Originally released by Playhouse as a 3x12“ record set, the re-release adds a fourth 12“, the „Alcachofa Tools“. More
Tracklist
A EASY LEE
B THEOGENESE
C1 BAHAHA HAHI
C2 LA RAJA
D I TRY TO LIVE (CAN I LIVE)
E1 QUIZÅS
E2 FUSION THE ENEMIES
F DEXTER
G BACH TO BACK
H1 Y.G.H.
H2 WAIWORINAO
Ricardo Villalobos first album „Alcachofa“ from 2003.
Originally released by Playhouse as a 3x12“ record set, the re-release adds a fourth 12“, the „Alcachofa Tools“. More
1
Altinbas - Hunt
2
Altinbas - Good Intentions
3
Altinbas - Reshape
4
Altinbas - Sphaere
2024 Repress
Tracklisting:
A1 Altinbas - Hunt
A2 Altinbas - Good Intentions
B1 Altinbas - Reshape
B2 Altinbas - Sphaere
Sales Note
Introducing Fuse Imprint - The New Record Label from Fuse Club, Brussels
Fuse Club, the beating heart of Brussels' techno scene, is thrilled to announce the launch of its new record label, Fuse Imprint. Known for its cutting-edge music and unforgettable nights, Fuse is extending its influence beyond the dancefloor and into the realm of music production. The label aims to be a platform for both emerging and established artists, showcasing the best in techno and electronic music.
The inaugural release is a dancefloor-focused EP by Altinbas, aptly titled "Reshape". As a resident DJ at Fuse Club, Altinbas has been instrumental in shaping the club's sonic landscape. His new EP encapsulates the essence of a Fuse night - intense, immersive, and irresistibly danceable. More
Tracklisting:
A1 Altinbas - Hunt
A2 Altinbas - Good Intentions
B1 Altinbas - Reshape
B2 Altinbas - Sphaere
Sales Note
Introducing Fuse Imprint - The New Record Label from Fuse Club, Brussels
Fuse Club, the beating heart of Brussels' techno scene, is thrilled to announce the launch of its new record label, Fuse Imprint. Known for its cutting-edge music and unforgettable nights, Fuse is extending its influence beyond the dancefloor and into the realm of music production. The label aims to be a platform for both emerging and established artists, showcasing the best in techno and electronic music.
The inaugural release is a dancefloor-focused EP by Altinbas, aptly titled "Reshape". As a resident DJ at Fuse Club, Altinbas has been instrumental in shaping the club's sonic landscape. His new EP encapsulates the essence of a Fuse night - intense, immersive, and irresistibly danceable. More
1
Silent Servant - M-87 (04:02)
2
Silent Servant - M-90 (04:32)
3
Silent Servant - M-99 (06:08)
4
Silent Servant - M-00 (04:45)
Territories: World excl. UK + North America
FORMAT: 12" 180g vinyl, generic sleeve, dl card
TRACKLIST
1. / A1 M-87 04:02
2. / A2 M-90 04:32
3. / B1 M-99 06:08
4. / B2 M-00 04:45
Juan Mendez aka Silent Servant is a figure in techno history that needs little introduction. As a member of the Sandwell District collective and the label’s art director he collaborated on works that were responsible for a global focal shift in the genre as their label adapted and challenged the paradigm of minimal techno, taking influence from other sources such as dub, post-punk, and even classical minimalism.
But Mendez’s relationship with music goes back much further than these seminal releases. With In Memoriam, Silent Servant’s latest release on Tresor Records, Mendez writes a deeply personal memoir of a 30-plus year career spent exploring and absorbing the shadowy side of music; a carefully crafted elegy to people, places, and times past and the lasting effect they have on the present.
Across the four tracks, Mendez pays tribute to the earliest Detroit techno and electro, the Belgian EBM movement and the wave music that followed, the monumental dub techno sound from Berlin, and the harder, abrasive sound of the UK at the turn of the last millennium; exploring and referencing the genres that informed his later work. Each track name gives a hint to the timeframe he is revisiting and re-contextualising as the E.P. repurposes the styles that exerted an influence on him.
This E.P. represents a pure distillation of Mendez’s memories whilst also cementing his place in the current and future sound of 21st century techno; aware of where we came from but focused on where we are heading. More
FORMAT: 12" 180g vinyl, generic sleeve, dl card
TRACKLIST
1. / A1 M-87 04:02
2. / A2 M-90 04:32
3. / B1 M-99 06:08
4. / B2 M-00 04:45
Juan Mendez aka Silent Servant is a figure in techno history that needs little introduction. As a member of the Sandwell District collective and the label’s art director he collaborated on works that were responsible for a global focal shift in the genre as their label adapted and challenged the paradigm of minimal techno, taking influence from other sources such as dub, post-punk, and even classical minimalism.
But Mendez’s relationship with music goes back much further than these seminal releases. With In Memoriam, Silent Servant’s latest release on Tresor Records, Mendez writes a deeply personal memoir of a 30-plus year career spent exploring and absorbing the shadowy side of music; a carefully crafted elegy to people, places, and times past and the lasting effect they have on the present.
Across the four tracks, Mendez pays tribute to the earliest Detroit techno and electro, the Belgian EBM movement and the wave music that followed, the monumental dub techno sound from Berlin, and the harder, abrasive sound of the UK at the turn of the last millennium; exploring and referencing the genres that informed his later work. Each track name gives a hint to the timeframe he is revisiting and re-contextualising as the E.P. repurposes the styles that exerted an influence on him.
This E.P. represents a pure distillation of Mendez’s memories whilst also cementing his place in the current and future sound of 21st century techno; aware of where we came from but focused on where we are heading. More
1
Grauzone - Eisbär
2
Grauzone - FILM 2
3
Grauzone - Ich Lieb Sie
2024 repress
The First Authorised, Official Re Edition of this Electronic, New Wave, Cold Wave, Pop, Synth, Post-Punk Classic, Personally Overseen by Stephan Eicher, Everything Original: Art, Tracklist, Cut on 45 rpm - Printed on 350 GSM Paperstock incl. Sticker!
WRWTFWW Records is very honored to announce the official reissue of Grauzone’s essential 1981 maxi single with timeless classic "Eisbär", proto-techno beast "FILM 2", and romantic synth ballad "Ich Lieb Sie", just in time for the 40th anniversary of the Swiss band’s formation. The three-track vinyl is sourced from the original reels, cut at 45rpm, and comes with its iconic artwork on a 350gsm sleeve.
Tracklisting:
A1. Eisbär
B1. FILM 2
B2. Ich Lieb Sie
Info:
WRWTFWW Records is very honored to announce the official reissue of Grauzone’s essential 1981 maxi single with timeless classic "Eisbär", proto-techno beast "FILM 2", and romantic synth ballad "Ich Lieb Sie", just in time for the 40th anniversary of the Swiss band’s formation. The three-track vinyl is sourced from the original reels, cut at 45rpm, and comes with its iconic artwork on a 350gsm sleeve.
Ich möchte ein Eisbär sein…Written by Martin Eicher after a nightmare in which he saw talking polar bears on the walls, and with music by the Grauzone crew consisting of Martin and his brother Stephan Eicher, Marco Repetto, Christian "GT" Trüssel, and Claudine Chirac (on saxophone), "Eisbär" is the most recognizable title from the band, a sublime mix of ingredients reflecting the transitional era it comes from - the raw energy of punk music still palpable, combined with the audacity of early electronics, the warm groove of a disco gem, beautifully fragile lyrics, and one of the best basslines ever. It became a mega hit, totally unplanned, but how could you resist such a track?
"FILM 2" is the ultimate b-side monster, a menacing all-instrumental pre-techno masterpiece, slowly building to a magnetizing frenzy. An instant underground favorite, it was famously heard played at both speeds depending on the scenes and DJs you were frequenting, 45rpm as it was first intended, and 33rpm for the cosmic experience (search Daniele Baldelli’s Cosmic C75 1982 mixtape online for a great example of this).
The maxi single ends with "Ich Lieb Sie", a synth-pop meets doo-wop ballad, a true love song oozing with innocence. Simple, stylish, and just right.
At the crossroads of post-punk, new wave, pop, and electronic experimentation, the Eisbär maxi offers three songs that are technically different but hold the same spirit, the perfect embodiment of Grauzone’s music - wild, unpredictable, and youthful, yet sophisticated, catchy, and ingenious. The magic recipe for the good stuff.
Stephan Eicher went on to be, arguably, the most successful Swiss musician ever, with an international career extending from pop chanson to experimental escapades and collaborations with Moondog, artists Sophie Calle and John Armleder, and author Martin Suter among many other luminaries. Marco Repetto flourished as a techno and ambient producer, releasing multiple projects including releases on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label.
Grauzone and WRWTFWW will continue to collaborate on the band’s 40th anniversary reissue campaign, with numerous projects planned for the year, including a vast selection of music, visuals, and literature never available before.
More
The First Authorised, Official Re Edition of this Electronic, New Wave, Cold Wave, Pop, Synth, Post-Punk Classic, Personally Overseen by Stephan Eicher, Everything Original: Art, Tracklist, Cut on 45 rpm - Printed on 350 GSM Paperstock incl. Sticker!
WRWTFWW Records is very honored to announce the official reissue of Grauzone’s essential 1981 maxi single with timeless classic "Eisbär", proto-techno beast "FILM 2", and romantic synth ballad "Ich Lieb Sie", just in time for the 40th anniversary of the Swiss band’s formation. The three-track vinyl is sourced from the original reels, cut at 45rpm, and comes with its iconic artwork on a 350gsm sleeve.
Tracklisting:
A1. Eisbär
B1. FILM 2
B2. Ich Lieb Sie
Info:
WRWTFWW Records is very honored to announce the official reissue of Grauzone’s essential 1981 maxi single with timeless classic "Eisbär", proto-techno beast "FILM 2", and romantic synth ballad "Ich Lieb Sie", just in time for the 40th anniversary of the Swiss band’s formation. The three-track vinyl is sourced from the original reels, cut at 45rpm, and comes with its iconic artwork on a 350gsm sleeve.
Ich möchte ein Eisbär sein…Written by Martin Eicher after a nightmare in which he saw talking polar bears on the walls, and with music by the Grauzone crew consisting of Martin and his brother Stephan Eicher, Marco Repetto, Christian "GT" Trüssel, and Claudine Chirac (on saxophone), "Eisbär" is the most recognizable title from the band, a sublime mix of ingredients reflecting the transitional era it comes from - the raw energy of punk music still palpable, combined with the audacity of early electronics, the warm groove of a disco gem, beautifully fragile lyrics, and one of the best basslines ever. It became a mega hit, totally unplanned, but how could you resist such a track?
"FILM 2" is the ultimate b-side monster, a menacing all-instrumental pre-techno masterpiece, slowly building to a magnetizing frenzy. An instant underground favorite, it was famously heard played at both speeds depending on the scenes and DJs you were frequenting, 45rpm as it was first intended, and 33rpm for the cosmic experience (search Daniele Baldelli’s Cosmic C75 1982 mixtape online for a great example of this).
The maxi single ends with "Ich Lieb Sie", a synth-pop meets doo-wop ballad, a true love song oozing with innocence. Simple, stylish, and just right.
At the crossroads of post-punk, new wave, pop, and electronic experimentation, the Eisbär maxi offers three songs that are technically different but hold the same spirit, the perfect embodiment of Grauzone’s music - wild, unpredictable, and youthful, yet sophisticated, catchy, and ingenious. The magic recipe for the good stuff.
Stephan Eicher went on to be, arguably, the most successful Swiss musician ever, with an international career extending from pop chanson to experimental escapades and collaborations with Moondog, artists Sophie Calle and John Armleder, and author Martin Suter among many other luminaries. Marco Repetto flourished as a techno and ambient producer, releasing multiple projects including releases on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label.
Grauzone and WRWTFWW will continue to collaborate on the band’s 40th anniversary reissue campaign, with numerous projects planned for the year, including a vast selection of music, visuals, and literature never available before.
More
1
Transvolta - Disco Computer
2
Transvolta - You Are Disco
Dan Lacksman is a Belgian electronic music pioneer who co-founded the Electro Pop Dance formation Telex and is credited for their classic 'Moskow Diskow.' He also worked under the Transvolta name but put out only one single, 1978's impossibly hard-to-find classic 'Disco Computer.' Dan himself has carefully remastered the original for this special 12" reissue. It's still a retro-future sound all these years later with the signature talk box vocals and sleek drum machines under cosmic synths. On the flip is a long version of 'You Are Disco' which is a similar vibe but with a slightly more lively groove and vocal. Two serene dancefloor gems by any standards.
More
1
Liaisons Dangereuses - Mystère Dans Le Brouillard
2
Liaisons Dangereuses - Los Niños Del Parque
3
Liaisons Dangereuses - Etre Assis Ou Danser
4
Liaisons Dangereuses - Aperitif De La Mort
5
Liaisons Dangereuses - Kess Kill Fé Show
6
Liaisons Dangereuses - Peut Être ... Pas
7
Liaisons Dangereuses - Avant-Après Mars
8
Liaisons Dangereuses - El Macho Y La Nena
9
Liaisons Dangereuses - Dupont
10
Liaisons Dangereuses - Liaisons Dangereuses
A milestone in electronic music, is finally receiving its well-deserved re-release: Liaisons Dangereuses’ legendary self-titled debut album still fascinates today, through its innovative sound and the mystery encompassing it. Since its release in 1981, it has become a classic in electronic music. The 10 electrifying songs produced by Chrislo Haas (DAF) and Beate Bartel (Mania D. / Matador) – reinforced by Krishna Goineau’s French and Spanish Speech-Attack-Lyrics – created a unique style. The album – anything other than a Berlin or Düsseldorf ‘thing’ – was propelled to an international favourite. Songs such as “Peut Être... Pas” and “Los Niños Del Parque” played a decisive role in the development of Detroit and Chicago’s house sound, as well as various forms of European techno.
More
1
Il Quadro di Troisi - Sfere di Qi (AtomTM Remix)
2
Il Quadro di Troisi - Raggio verde (Dasha Rush Remix)
3
Il Quadro di Troisi - Non ricordi (Front de Cadeaux Remix)
4
Il Quadro di Troisi - Il giudizio (Il Quadro di Troisi Remix)
5
Il Quadro di Troisi - On the site (Chloé Remix)
6
Il Quadro di Troisi - Beata (Baldelli & Dionigi Remix)
7
Il Quadro di Troisi - Se ne va (Toulouse Low Trax Spiaggia Buia Remix)
8
Il Quadro di Troisi - L’ipotesi (Tropicantesimo Remix)
Following up on their highly acclaimed debut release from 2020, raster presents Il Quadro di Troisi’s “Remixes” album, an eclectic collection of reinterpretations of eight of the group’s tracks. By inviting fellow label artists as well as friends and long-term collaborators to contribute to this, “Remixes” shows a broad spectrum of diversity, ranging from colorful, loop-based renditions by Toulouse Low Trax and Tropicantesimo, to (Italo) disco-inspired versions by Daniele Baldelli & Marco Dionigi and Chloé, to more rhythmical and functional tracks by AtomTM, Dasha Rush and Front de Cadeaux. The album also includes a dub-infused reinterpretation of “Il giudizio” by the artists themselves.
More
1
Setaoc Mass - The Eyes Don't Lie
2
Setaoc Mass - 24 hours
3
Setaoc Mass - Move In Shadows
4
Setaoc Mass - Hide n' Seek
TRACKLISTING
A1. Setaoc Mass - The Eyes Don't Lie
A2. Setaoc Mass - 24 hours
B1. Setaoc Mass - Move In Shadows
B2. Setaoc Mass - Hide n' Seek
INFO
James Ruskin's Blueprint Records welcomes Setaoc Mass to the label's ever-increasing roster of techno artists.
As a DJ and producer, Setaoc Mass is part of a select cut of young artists who are absorbing techno's legacy and carrying the torch into tomorrow. Whilst overseeing his own imprints, SK¦eleven and SKX, his releases push a galvanising brand of techno steeped in a sense of urgency, ever-propulsive with acute detailing and nods to a futuristic space-age. As a selector, the Mancunian's extended DJ sets pull from an expansive spectrum of material both new and old.
Delivering four new techno cuts that form his 'Working Ways EP', it lands on vinyl and digital for release on 27 October. More
A1. Setaoc Mass - The Eyes Don't Lie
A2. Setaoc Mass - 24 hours
B1. Setaoc Mass - Move In Shadows
B2. Setaoc Mass - Hide n' Seek
INFO
James Ruskin's Blueprint Records welcomes Setaoc Mass to the label's ever-increasing roster of techno artists.
As a DJ and producer, Setaoc Mass is part of a select cut of young artists who are absorbing techno's legacy and carrying the torch into tomorrow. Whilst overseeing his own imprints, SK¦eleven and SKX, his releases push a galvanising brand of techno steeped in a sense of urgency, ever-propulsive with acute detailing and nods to a futuristic space-age. As a selector, the Mancunian's extended DJ sets pull from an expansive spectrum of material both new and old.
Delivering four new techno cuts that form his 'Working Ways EP', it lands on vinyl and digital for release on 27 October. More
1
Passarani Presents David Woods - A1. Stereotio
2
Passarani Presents David Woods - A2. Dovetail Shuffle Theme
3
Passarani Presents David Woods - A3. Saturday Romance
4
Passarani Presents David Woods - B1. Starers
5
Passarani Presents David Woods - B2. Videomusic 0300 AM
6
Passarani Presents David Woods - B3. Universale
LP
Tracklist
A1. Stereotio
A2. Dovetail Shuffle Theme
A3. Saturday Romance
B1. Starers
B2. Videomusic 0300 AM
B3. Universale
Ladies, gentlemen, and cosmic disco voyagers, gather 'round as I regale you with tidings of auditory delight! The musical cosmos is set to bestow upon us a celestial gem that shall set dancefloors ablaze and hearts aflutter. It is none other than the enigmatic Marco Passarani aka David Woods of Tiger & Woods, the sonic alchemist who has been tantalizing our senses with his kaleidoscopic grooves.
Imagine, if you will, a voyage through a wormhole that transcends time and space, landing you smack dab in the midst of a euphoric dancefloor utopia. This upcoming opus, Shuffling The Cards Again, promises to be a magnum opus of cosmic proportions. David Woods has summoned their sonic forces to curate a soundscape that defies convention, much like a comet hurtling through the night sky, leaving trails of sonic stardust in its wake.
!
More
Tracklist
A1. Stereotio
A2. Dovetail Shuffle Theme
A3. Saturday Romance
B1. Starers
B2. Videomusic 0300 AM
B3. Universale
Ladies, gentlemen, and cosmic disco voyagers, gather 'round as I regale you with tidings of auditory delight! The musical cosmos is set to bestow upon us a celestial gem that shall set dancefloors ablaze and hearts aflutter. It is none other than the enigmatic Marco Passarani aka David Woods of Tiger & Woods, the sonic alchemist who has been tantalizing our senses with his kaleidoscopic grooves.
Imagine, if you will, a voyage through a wormhole that transcends time and space, landing you smack dab in the midst of a euphoric dancefloor utopia. This upcoming opus, Shuffling The Cards Again, promises to be a magnum opus of cosmic proportions. David Woods has summoned their sonic forces to curate a soundscape that defies convention, much like a comet hurtling through the night sky, leaving trails of sonic stardust in its wake.
!
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What can be said about Joey Beltram’s ‘Energy Flash’ that hasn’t be said already! The track still gets rinsed, week in, week out, across radio stations, clubs and festivals, testimony to the sheer importance of this techno classic. Released originally in 1990 on the R&S Records label, ‘Beltram Vol. 1’ included the aforementioned ‘Energy Flash’, alongside three equally ground-breaking dance tracks that possibly get overshadowed by the big lead track. But tracks like ‘Subsonic Bass’ broke the mould and went on to influence a raft of rave and drum ‘n’ bass tunes, thanks in part to its use of the now legendary ‘hoover’ bass sound. The sinister acid of ‘Jazz 3033’ still sounds as fresh today as it did 33 years ago, and the menacingly titled ‘Psycho Bass’ reveals the EP’s most passive moment, as its solid breakbeat cuts through ethereal tones and chugging synths. ‘Beltram Volume 1’ has been remastered by Beau Thomas at Ten Eight Seven Mastering, and the release comes in an updated sleeve, faithfully recreating the 1990 packaging.
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Valentina Magaletti - A1. A
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Valentina Magaletti - B1. B
LP+ Postcard Insert
Tracklist
A1. A (Time 23:12)
B1. B (Time 23:24)
Shortinfo:
Percussionist extraordinaire Valentina Magaletti recorded live at Colourful Storm's showcase at Cafe Oto in 2021. Intricate, textural longform percussion pieces comprised of traditional drums, found objects, voice and electroacoustics conjured to hypnotic effect. A rare solo recording, following collaborations with Laila Sakini, Yves Chaudouët, Marlene Ribeiro and outings for Blume and Takuroku.
Extremely curious listening for fans of African Head Charge, The Necks, and followers of Magaletti's collaborative groups, including Moin, Vanishing Twin and Holy Tongue. First-time vinyl pressing following a short run of cassettes. Full-colour reverse-card sleeve with postcard and new artwork by Dennis Tyfus.
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Tracklist
A1. A (Time 23:12)
B1. B (Time 23:24)
Shortinfo:
Percussionist extraordinaire Valentina Magaletti recorded live at Colourful Storm's showcase at Cafe Oto in 2021. Intricate, textural longform percussion pieces comprised of traditional drums, found objects, voice and electroacoustics conjured to hypnotic effect. A rare solo recording, following collaborations with Laila Sakini, Yves Chaudouët, Marlene Ribeiro and outings for Blume and Takuroku.
Extremely curious listening for fans of African Head Charge, The Necks, and followers of Magaletti's collaborative groups, including Moin, Vanishing Twin and Holy Tongue. First-time vinyl pressing following a short run of cassettes. Full-colour reverse-card sleeve with postcard and new artwork by Dennis Tyfus.
More