Métron Records announces Mycorrhizal Music, the forthcoming album from composer and multi instrumentalist Ess Whiteley. Currently a PhD candidate in Composition at the University of California-San Diego, Whiteley’s practice spans recordings, installations, performances, and scores, a body of work as diverse as the fungal webs that inspire it.

Across seven tracks, Whiteley explores interconnected sound worlds shaped by mycelium networks, rhizomatic structures, and other unseen systems that sustain life. Rooted in experimental electronics, minimalism, ambient and IDM, the record imagines sound as ephemeral connective tissue capable of reshaping how a listener might experience time, memory, and futurity.

At the core of Whiteley’s work is an excavation of what lies beneath perception, the felt but unspoken currents of emotionality and subtle experiences that dwell in the unconscious.

Mycorrhizal Music channels these hidden threads into a speculative ecosystem of kinship and exchange, where joy, play, and spirituality interlace like branching hyphae beneath the soil. Mycorrhizal Music has been conceived as kinetic ambient music, designed to move with the listener while walking, riding trains, driving, cooking, where everyday rhythms align with shifting sonic textures, reminding them of hidden, interconnected, mycelial webs of spiritual vitality beneath the surfaces of daily activity.

Guided by a vision of speculative ecology and interspecies resonance, it thrives in contrasts: tracks like Rhizomatic Harpists and Whispered Messages in Tapestried Fields of Fluid Motion pulse with fluid momentum, while Kaleidoscopic Patterns of Emptiness Dancing drifts into fragile stillness.

With artwork by Kenta Senekt and mastering by Brandon Hocura, Mycorrhizal Music extends Métron Records’ ethos of cultivating subtle, interconnected sound worlds. The album will be released on LP and digital on 5/11/25


Credits:

Written, Recorded and Produced by Ess Whiteley

Mastered by Brandon Hocura

Artwork by Kenta Senekt

Violin: Amir Norouz Nasseri

Vocals: Natalia Merlano Gómez

Synthesizers, piano, trumpet, drum programming and all other instruments: Ess Whiteley

Special thanks to Jack Hardwicke, Jessica Goodchild and King Britt

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New 2025 repress. run of 300. some slight artwork edits.

Japanese pianist Yumiko Morioka initially released Resonance, her first and only solo recording, on Akira Ito's ‘Green & Water’ imprint in 1987. Whilst by no means a commercial failure, the album was mostly found in the background of Japanese TV documentaries, maternity clinics and healing shops before drifting into relative obscurity.

By 1994, Morioka had relocated to America and her solo music career had given way to the joys of starting a family and her new life in California. It was, and still is, a shock for her to learn that Resonance had gained the attention of a new audience outside of Japan through blog posts and YouTube album uploads.

After hearing Resonance for the first time ourselves back in early 2017, we tried for months to track Morioka down about a reissue. This news reached her at a particularly trying time in her life following the devastating loss of her home in the 2017 California wildfires.

Her home had recently been razed, destroying all of her possessions, musical equipment, scores and recordings. Morioka was lucky to escape with her life; her quick thinking neighbour raised the alarm in the middle of the night giving her just enough time to escape safely before then tragically watching her home burn to the ground.

In the aftermath, Morioka returned to Japan in an attempt to rebuild her life. She found work writing music for commercial projects and pop acts before recently opening her own chocolate shop in the Jiyugaoka neighbourhood of Tokyo - back where it all began.

‘’Space and time moved at a different speed than now’’ – Yumiko Morioka

A lifelong student of the piano, Morioka was born in Tokyo in 1956. A child prodigy, she took up the instrument under her mother’s tutelage at just three years old and by her teens she had won multiple piano scholarships. Her talent was so obvious that she was invited to train in America, eventually graduating from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with a piano major during John Adams’ reign as head of composition.

After graduation, Morioka returned to Japan but struggled to find her place musically, working mostly on commercial songwriting assignments. Frustrated, and at times embarrassed by her musical output, she turned to the works of Brian Eno and the surroundings of her coastal home in the Izu Peninsula south of Tokyo for inspiration. It was here that she began to work on the compositions that would eventually become Resonance.

Recorded on a Bösendorfer grand piano, much of Resonance was made in an attempt to soothe her creative soul. Constructed from unwritten improvisations with additional instrumentation added later, Resonance explores the space between notes. As such, it's a record that feels open and inviting, permeated throughout with a sense of confident serenity.

The sparse, delicately played notes are allowed to reverberate and echo through the spaces between themselves, giving each track a feeling of both grandeur and intimacy. Like the great pioneers of classical and ambient music, there's a timelessness to Resonance - a comforting, familiar feeling, as if these melodies have always existed.

Resonance drew influence from the popular environmental music culture prevalent in Japan during the late 80s, but it was also heavily inspired by Western musicians such as the avant-garde Parisian composer Erik Satie. Listening today, it still feels fresh and pertinent; a warm, contemplative reflection of a travelled woman.

Resonance has been lovingly remastered by Séance Centre's Brandon Hocura and given new artwork by Métron Records’ label head Jack Hardwicke.

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“Growing up has always been a solitary journey, marked by forward-looking anticipation, anxiety, unripe potential, aspirations, and closures.”

London based Chinese composer and multi-instrumentalist Li Yilei returns to Métron Records with NONAGE, their second full length release following 2021’s OF. An introspective reflection on the journey through childhood, this new work brings together samples from old Chinese TV shows, mechanical children’s toys and an array of acoustic and electronic instruments - some of which were designed and built by Li themselves.

The Chinese title for "NONAGE" is "??", which translates to “childhood” or “disheveled hair”, and refers to the carefree phase of life when children let their hair down, both figuratively and literally. For Li, nonage is a place that they always revisit - to learn about fear and fearlessness, love and despair, grief and glee, curiosity and mistakes.

“I remember pressing piano keys like touching flowers, reading scores like looking at paintings, writing like how I would talk to myself, greeting death like how I would greet life.”

Initially conceived as an archiving project, the record retraces and reimagines fractions of Li’s childhood memories through smell, location and colour, and brings to life the lingering feelings that remain into adulthood.

Compositions are built around a variety of unusual sources: damaged instruments such as a toy piano, a hand cranked music box, bird whistles, a broken accordion and anything else Li could find that evoked nascent recollections. Interspersed throughout are samples from Li’s childhood piano jams, moments of contemplative transmigration where previous incarnations of self and memory meet the present.

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‘’OF is a word that can be used as a preposition to express the relationship between a part and a whole. It is an unfinished tone, a broken sentence, a start and a whole. It is sustainable, full of potentials and longings.’’

London based performance and sound artist Li Yilei shared an experience familiar to many migrants during the past year of COVID-19 chaos. With their UK visa set to expire, and family back in China, Li made a last-minute dash to return to their nation of birth. Able to board one of the last few flights to China during the initial turmoil of the coronavirus outbreak, Li made it back to Shanghai for a two-week stint in a quarantine hotel.

Though Li had already begun creating OF, the reality of the pandemic began to seep into the recordings. Each of the 12 tracks is a study in horology, using metaphorical sound transcriptions and atmospheric extractions to focus on the temporal relationship between experience and surroundings. Li’s awareness of their own understanding of time became increasingly heightened during quarantine and the emotional involvement found within these new realities informed many of the sounds created.

‘’I tried to portray each song as a short, scattered poem - a moment that I captured to represent each hour.’’

Composed using analogue synthesisers, vocal samples, field recordings and string instruments such as the violin and guqin, Li indulges in moments of grief, panic, healing, cessation, melancholy, vastness, hope, joy and emptiness as they explore the acoustic relations between humans and the many forces of nature.

The art of the Song Dynasty, with its ancient traditions of poetry and timekeeping, were also great sources of inspiration for the album - whilst paintings from the period, specifically those of flowers and birds, are common themes throughout the tracks. Indeed, it is within the vastness of time that the album artwork comes to relevance. The eighth emperor of the Song Dynasty, Huizong, was a revered artist and a scene from his work ‘Finches and Bamboo’ adorns the album cover.

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Lucy Sissy Miller is a French/British singer-songwriter, performer and artist based in Paris. On her latest release for Mêtron Records, Pre Country, she renders her own personal take on country music, an ambient and airy ode to her love of Americana. Across 16 tracks, Miller recollects about love-like friendships, breakups, mermaids and missing girl mysteries - the album acting as a movie-like homage to girlhood and desire.

“With this album I really enjoyed blurring the lines between fiction and reality, a bit like what movies are able to do to us. I hide a little bit of personal truth behind each song.”

Influenced by the tones of Laurie Anderson and Imogen Heap, as well as the imagery found in Twin Peaks and Paris, Texas, Pre Country is a rich and explorative record that mixes a wide range of sonic sources. Though very much rooted in folk music, Pre Country is laced with layers of autotune, bringing an other worldly and haunted presence to the work.

“It’s an album about memories and how we stitch up these moments, making them movie-like to make sense of these experiences.”

The record was crafted with notes from journals, poetry, voice memos, transformed and collected sounds and here it carries the many layers of desire, loss and fear that Miller wanted to convey in the songs, communicating an unsteady, explosion of feeling whilst remaining delicate and personal.

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Introducing: Temporary Blessings, the new project by stalwart Naarm / Melbourne trumpet player and composer Liam McGorry. Assembled to realise McGorry's compositions drawing on 1960s Italian & French soundtrack music, Temporary Blessings brings together trusted instrumentalists and fellow travelers from Melbourne's rich enclave of cinematic soul. With Liam at the helm, the group is composed of members of Surprise Chef, Karate Boogaloo, Saskwatch and Let Your Hair Down. The resulting recordings realise McGorry's sonic visions of film noir, giallo, library music and cinematic soul, captured live in one room with what the maestro describes as "a shared spirit". The recordings, produced by paragon Henry Jenkins, bring together emotive string arrangements, tough horns and a steadfast rhythm section with an acute attention to detail McGorry has developed over years in the saddle.

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Lapalux (Stuart Howard) is a UK-based experimental electronic music producer known for his emotionally charged sound design, intricate textures, and immersive sonic storytelling. With releases on Brainfeeder and widespread critical acclaim, Lapalux has built a loyal global following and earned consistent airplay on BBC Radio 1, BBC 6 Music, and NTS. His work has been championed by DJs including Mary Anne Hobbs, Benji B, and Tom Ravenscroft, and praised by outlets such as The Guardian, Resident Advisor, XLR8R, and Clash. Lapalux's music occupies a unique space between IDM, ambient, and leftfield electronica — rich in atmosphere, detail, and feeling.On the Grid is Lapalux's latest EP — a deeply intricate, hardware-driven exploration of rhythm and emotion that fuses fragmented IDM with warm analogue tones and deep dynamics. The EP showcases Lapalux's continued evolution as a producer, balancing intricate sound design with powerful melodic undercurrents. It follows years of refinement in the studio, drawing on his signature use of modular synthesis, Digital and analogue hardware and organic imperfections. With a limited vinyl pressing and strong fan demand, On the Grid stands as a key release in Lapalux's catalogue and a compelling addition to any store's forward-thinking electronic selection.

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Balmat 17 marks both a return and a new frontier. It is the second album on the label from Patricia Wolf, whose 2022 album See-Through is one of the most beloved in Balmat’s catalog; it also marks the first time that Wolf has turned her hand to a film soundtrack. The results are every bit as magical as fans of the Portland, Oregon, composer’s music might expect.

Hrafnamynd—Icelandic for “raven film”—is a new feature-length documentary by experimental filmmaker Edward Pack Davee. Shot on a mix of film and digital formats, and incorporating his father’s Ektachrome slides from the 1970s, the autobiographical film works on multiple levels at once: a reminiscence of his childhood in Iceland, an exploration of landscape and folklore, and a documentary study of the island nation’s ravens—including a talking raven named Krummi.

Wolf is the perfect artist to score such an unusual film. Mixing ambient music and field recording—including extensive experience documenting bird song—Wolf brings an unusually empathic perspective to her music. In the context of Hrafnamynd, her airy melodies, pensive atmospheres, and vivid textures intuitively complement the film’s grainy film stock and blown-out colors. Friends for years, the two artists further bonded when Wolf asked Pack to film music videos for her songs “Woodland Encounter” (from See-Through) and “The Culmination Of” (from I'll Look For You In Others). Pack used Wolf’s previously recorded music as placeholders as he began assembling a rough cut of the film, which made her a natural choice to help him complete his idiosyncratic vision with an all-new, bespoke score.

But Wolf’s soundtrack also indisputably stands alone as a full-length album. Largely created using the UDO Super 6 synthesizer, it features a carefully distilled palette of warm, string-like pads and darkly glistening mallets, rounded out with the very occasional introduction of nylon string guitar. Musically and stylistically, the album’s 11 tracks represent both a continuation of the ruminative sound of See-Through and also an extension into new expressive modes. Few musicians, ambient or otherwise, are as skilled at balancing melody with atmosphere, or at finding ways to eke fresh at finding ways to eke fresh, surprising sounds out of an intentionally reduced toolkit. Meditative, immersive, and emotionally generous Wolf’s Hrafnamynd soundtrack evokes a range of ambient classics from decades past while confidently marking out its own verdant patch of ground.


Artist’s Statement:
Edward and I have been friends for years, but we really started to get to know one another better after I hired him to make music videos for my songs “Woodland Encounter” and “The Culmination Of.” For those projects we got to spend a lot of time hiking in various locations around the Pacific Northwest with his camera, very nice lenses, and tripod. Keeping quiet, hidden, and vigilant we searched for wildlife, good light on the trees, meadows, lakes, rivers, and skies. Edward was already an appreciator of my music and I was already in awe of his filmmaking talents so it felt like a great fit. Although we work in different areas of art our styles compliment one another. We both tend toward slow and careful pacing, with a focus on emotion and introspective reflections on life and the landscapes around us. For this reason, Iknew that I could trust Edward to create videos for my music. We saw so many beautiful and unexpected things on our filming days, but I was moved to tears once I saw how magnificent and poetic it all was. His video work from the cinematography, to the editing, and color correction helped bring my inner vision to life.

A few months after that, Edward surprised me with an invitation to work on the soundtrack for his new film, Hrafnamynd. I enthusiastically said yes. I had always wanted to work on a film, and I knew that his filmmaking style would be inspiring to write music for. I had recently acquired an UDO Super 6 synthesizer but hadn't used it much. I decided that this would be the synth that I'd use for the film. It has the ability to sound very modern, but can also sound so warm and fuzzy, like a synth from the 1970s. It turned out to be the perfect instrument for this project as the film itself straddles time from the ’70s to today.

When Edward sent me the rough cut of the film, he used placeholder music to help give me an idea of the emotion and energy that he was hoping to achieve for each scene. For many of the scenes, Edward used music from my albums as temporary tracks. This told me that he trusted my work and style and therefore I should just trust my intuition with how to proceed. I wanted to make sure that everything that I made was a direct reflection of what was happening on screen, a mirror of its emotion and energy so people could really lock into the film psychologically. This process took my composing to unexpected places—like being led by a strange cat or a raven that seemed to have something to show me. I found that the approach made the music so much more dynamic than my usual style. I really enjoyed being influenced by the action and dialog on the screen. Thankfully, Edward was very happy with the work. I made sure to handle this project with the utmost care because this is about his life and his family, and an exploration of the experiences that made him an artist and filmmaker. While watching the film many times over, I found myself thinking about my own family and my early memories with them and how the place where I grew up has influenced who I have become. I found that his film invites the viewer to reflect on their own lives in a similar way. I hope that this music and film can guide others to contemplate on the history of their beingness and the people and places that shaped them.

Another aspect to this project is the splendor and wonder of Iceland itself. I had the opportunity to visit Iceland for the first time in 2023. I got to play a show there for the Extreme Chill Festival and met many friendly and brilliant Icelanders. I also got to collect field recordings that I used in the film. It's a fascinating place and culture that easily captures the hearts and imaginations of anyone who visits. Whether you spend your time in the city immersed in its impressive arts scene, or venture out into the wilderness to behold its wondrous landscape, it will leave a lasting impression. The soundtrack is also a love letter to Iceland itself.

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French DJ/producer Simo Cell is gearing up to drop a new 4-track EP on his label TEMET. He reimagines the Blog House/French Touch 2.0 movement, presenting a futuristic evolution of its iconic sound with a distinct Simooo twist and the raw energy of contemporary club music. It's a big day! Meet FL Louis, a (real) puppet designed by Simo Cell and the robotic voice behind the music. Stay tuned, clips coming soon!

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Second offering from Leo Gibbon’s MUDLINE imprint sees the producer reunite with grime’s perennial wild card, Trim, for a two-sided pressure test that flexes both restraint and raw power in equal measure.

On Side A – Orbit Step, Gibbon leans into the emotive end of the 140 spectrum — all reflective pads, sci-fi shimmer, and subbed-out swing — with Trim delivering a rare, inward-facing performance. It’s grime as meditation, anchored by subtle tek textures and lyrical ambiguity. The accompanying acapella, exclusive to the vinyl, is a potent bonus.

Side B – Danny and Darren flips the script entirely. It’s a no-frills, floor-ready juggernaut — grime at its most ballistic. Trim in full yardman mode here, riding the riddim with relentless intent. It’s sweaty, chaotic, made for late sets and soundsystem abuse.

Instrumentals included on both sides, giving extra room for exploration and dubplate mischief.

A bold second chapter from MUDLINE, Orbit Step builds on the promise of Happy Lovers and underlines Gibbon’s growing prowess in crafting versatile 140 tools with personality — while Trim, as ever, shapeshifts with ease.

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Tracklisting
A1 OBEDEYA - BEMINE
A2 DJ FRANKIE - MACUMBA
B1 OBZERV - ANNIHILATOR
B2 DJ SACRED - SWIRL ON 20s

Sales Note
The long awaited first release of ULTRALOW has finally arrived, on wax! A four track VA, each one a different style (for the real ones that can handle). Featuring artists from London, Argentina and Ukraine, always in support of the underground, ULTRALOW
MOTHERFUCKERS will take up space in your collection

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New Environments & Rhythm Studies finds Andrew Pekler returning to the humid zones he explored on previous albums such as Sounds From Phantom Islands and Tristes Tropiques. Split between longer immersive compositions and shorter glimpse-like sketches, these 12 tracks feature new juxtapositions of Pekler's familiar palette of synthetic field recordings, warm, undulating electronic textures, shifting percussion patterns and serene melodies.

As with much of his recent work, Pekler's compositions here are structured around the beguiling effect of synthetic and non-synthetic sounds mirroring, mimicking and modulating one another. The teeming atmospheres within tracks such as Globestructures, Cymbals In The Mist or Globestructures: Option II are, despite their seemingly anthropogenic nature, entirely synthetic. Elsewhere, the lopsided grooves of Cumbia Para Los Grillos or Fabulation For K are derived from recordings of crickets and other insects which Pekler loops and uses to trigger electronic percussion – producing a pleasantly skewed rhythmic base for the fragments of melody which are layered on top. The six Rhythm Studies also follow the same principle – a playful interweaving of the organic and synthetic.

New Environments & Rhythm Studies is a further attempt to re-describe past tropes which laid claims to authentically represent music and sound from beyond the Western world (exotica, ethnomusicology, field recording) as undertakings of the imaginary.

Written and produced by Andrew Pekler, mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi, artwork by Morgan Cuinet, graphic design by Dmytro Nikolaienko.

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2024 Repress!

Rhythm Section International proudly presents it’s 8th offering from local boys Chaos in the CBD. Born in New Zealand, but based in Peckham for the last few years (literally just around the corner from Henry Wu and Bradley Zero), these brothers have made a real mark on the scene here in London town and with their latest set of productions are set to take this message further afield.

Having already released internationally on labels such as ClekClekBoom (Paris), Hot Haus (London) and Amadeus (Montreal), the duo’s approach to production has matured immeasurably in the last year, as is evident in the restrained potency and poetic subtlety on the 4 tracks across this accomplished EP, Midnight in Peckham.

Taking it’s title from the locale the boys have come to know as home, the record channels a delicate late night energy - equally indebted to the hypnotic incantations of Ron Trent as it is to the hazy suburban atmospheres of Burial. These 4 classic cuts pay homage to deep house in it’s truest sense - at once sublime, melancholy and meditative . Chaos in the CBD have clearly taken their cue from the mid-west masters of the genre but have not been afraid to let their own influences and environ creep in, and in doing so have created something that is unmistakablely London and infact, timeless.


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2 x catastrophic cosmic chronic compositions from the 2016 psychic mirrors debut album. re-mastered loud for 7" club play. brought to you by Amnisa & PPU records. includes 5x7 band promo photo.

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Cousin and Priori return for their second outing via naff & Moonshoe, solidifying their cross-continent connection and drifting out further into rhythm and shadow. ‘Fly in Amber’ unfolds across five tracks, each a different tide or tempo. Enchanted voices and melodies coil through dusted passages that feel both grounded and weightless.

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