Ohio's James A Donadio returns to Diagonal via his StabUdown Productions moniker, delivering the hyper spiritual "Tinge of Ascension" 9 track LP. This album is about the beauty of building something new by surrendering everything once learned. It's the culmination of 12 months working with a reappraised creative ethos. Throughout the process, Jimmy's interest in Krishna Consciousness & Dharma Yoga was deepening. Both went on to become deeply infused in this music. All tracks are ethereal in nature. Tempos are varied and rendered irrelevant. Jimmy's masterful use of sampling is on display as ever but the samples do not overburden. Tracks vary in energy but a bracing spirituality unites them all. Bráulio Amado (who has recently worked with Frank Ocean and Andre 3000) and Guy Featherstone (Diagonal's own aesthete force of nature) unite once again to deliver sleeve art which perfectly renders the music's preoccupation with the search for inner peace and purpose.

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LP4, the final chapter in the "13" series welcomes the return of several Diagonal regulars. Not Waving delivers an elegant ambient piece. EVOL and L/F/D/M embody the sound of the label as much as anybody else and they do not disappoint here. Dale Cornish, occasional Powell collaborator, makes his Diagonal debut with a club track inspired by fabled early label parties. Last but definitely not least, James Ruskin, UK techno grandee, provides a remix of several Russell Haswell tracks in one which sounds like peak Underground Resistance!

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Diagonal Records proudly welcomes a new face to the label. Off the back of recent 13th birthday celebrations, Diagonal is now looking to the future with an exciting release from Australian upstart, Jonus Eric. Jonus has recently appeared on Gerd Janson's iconic Running Back label. This 12" EP features centre label artwork by Guy Featherstone inspired by Peter Saville's work for Factory Records. The "Diode" EP comprises 6 tracks of sample – laden, psychedelic house music. EP opener, "Darkwhirl" brings to mind Theo Parrish, a regular reference point across the release. "Crimewave" offers an irresistible, funk soaked bassline. "Shapeshift" is when things get gnarly! "Antibiotics" reimagines a classic Todd Terry rave cut whilst EP closer "Polarity" provides a 90's IDM inspired finale.

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Diagonal celebrates 13 years inbusinessvia a 4 x 12" run featuring label stalwarts and influential collaborators. This is LP2, the second in the series. Like LP1 before it, this 12" comes with a coloured, elastic H band. All four LPs will be accompanied by these meaning customers can combine the records and complete their own 4 x 12" set!

This plate welcomes Regis back tothe label he inspired into existence, this time turning his attention toPowell's "Nomad". The result is techno bliss! Streetwalker (Beau Wanzer & Elon Katz) offer up a gloomy ballad, StabUDown Productions, a label mainstay, delivers the beats we love him for. There's a gripping and unsettling DJ tool from Patino and a beat-fest from Novoline. DIAG050 LP2 has it all.

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Diagonal celebrates 13 years in business via a 4 x 12" run featuring label stalwarts and influential collaborators. This is LP3, the second in the series. Like LP 1 & 2 before it, this 12" comes with a coloured, elastic H band. All four LPs will be accompanied by these meaning customers can combine the records and complete their own 4 x 12" set!

Jim O' Rourke leads the line on plate 3 with 'ror bypass', a gripping, mediative blend of modular enhanced percussion and field recordings. Kae Tempest and Powell unite to offer up uneasy, restless poetry. Simon Pomery, an early label regular via his Blood Music project, delivers 12 minutes of epic psychedelic immersion and Sote closes out proceedings with "Ataraxy", an extreme computer music masterclass.

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Diagonal celebrates 13 years in business via a 4 x 12" run featuring label stalwarts and influential collaborators. LP1 includes a new Autechre mix of Russell Haswell's 'Heavy Handed Sunset'. Ae have developed their earlier remix (released in 2016) into a tense, brooding chugger! Turner Prize winner Wolfgang Tillmans teams up with label boss Powell to deliver peculiar pop music. To complete the set, NHK and Viviankrist both turn in moments of beauty whilst Russell Haswell channels Cybotron. This 12" is what Diagonal is all about!

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Diagonal welcome the return of Iranian composer and sound artist, Ata Ebtekar (SOTE), for his first outing for the label since 2019's "Parallel Persia" and "Artificial Neutrality". His catalogue runs to 15 albums (both under the Sote moniker and as Ata Ebtekar), plus a clutch of 12"s, remixes and a number of other projects via Mute, Opal Tapes, Warp and more. "Soundsystem Persepolis" is Ata's response to the iconic performance at Persepolis by Iannis Xenakis in 1971. It's a five track collection of a futurism, a pummelling, rhythmic and harmonically complex trench of computer music.

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Diagonal welcome back a label mainstay, Kohei Matsunaga (AKA NHK yx Koyxen). "What You Know" is Kohei's first outing for the label since 2016's "Self Split EP" and it's a full length long player packed full of euphoric beauty. Nobody crafts a catchy, optimistic hook like this guy and we're truly proud to be putting out yet another NHK banger.

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Stunning document of a one-off performance by Powell and London Contemporary Orchestra at Barbican Centre, London. Captured from a three-hour multi-channel recording of unheard music. Unique acoustic rendering of a unique moment in time. Performed in January 2022 alongside works by Jon Cage, Alvin Lucier, Micah Levi First music on Diagonal after a brief pause for growing up and babies. Special edition PMS 910c art by Guy Featherstone. Mastered by Russell Haswell.

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Khadim is a stunning reconfiguration of the Ndagga Rhythm Force sound. The instrumentation is radically pared down. The guitar is gone; the concatenation of sabars; the drum-kit. Each of the four tracks hones in on just one or two drummers; otherwise the sole recorded element is the singing; everything else is programmed. Synths are dialogically locked into the drumming. Tellingly, Ernestus has reached for his beloved Prophet-5, a signature go-to since Basic Channel days, thirty years ago. Texturally, the sound is more dubwise; prickling with effects. There is a new spaciousness, announced at the start by the ambient sounds of Dakar street-life. At the microphone, Mbene Diatta Seck revels in this new openness: mbalax diva, she feelingly turns each of the four songs into a discrete dramatic episode, using different sets of rhetorical techniques. The music throughout is taut, grooving, complex, like before; but more volatile, intuitive and reaching, with turbulent emotional and spiritual expressivity.

Not that Khadim represents any kind of break. Its transformativeness is rooted in the hundreds upon hundreds of hours the Rhythm Force has played together. Nearly a decade has passed since Yermande, the unit's previous album. Every year throughout that period — barring lockdowns — the group has toured extensively, in Europe, the US, and Japan. With improvisation at the core of its music-making, each performance has been evolutionary, as it turns out heading towards Khadim. “I didn’t want to simply continue with the same formula," says Ernestus. “I preferred to wait for a new approach. Playing live so many times, I wanted to capture some of the energy and freedom of those performances.” Though several members of the touring ensemble sit out this recording — sabar drummers, kit-drummer, synth-player — their presence abides in the structure and swing of the music here.

Lamp Fall is a homage to Cheikh Ibra Fall, founder of the Baye Fall spiritual community. The mosque in the city of Touba is known as Lamp Fall, because the main tower resembles a lantern. Soy duggu Touba, moom guey séen / When you enter Touba, he is the one who greets you. After a swift, incantatory start Mbene sings with reflective seriousness. Her voice swirls with reverb, over a tight, funky, propulsive interplay between synth and drums, threaded with one-two jabs of bass. Cheikh Ibra Fall mi may way, mo diayndiou ré, la mu jëndé ko taalibe... Cheikh Ibra Fall amo morome, aboridial / Cheikh Ibra Fall shows the way forward, he gives us strength, he gathers his disciples... Overflowing with grace, Cheikh Ibra Fall has no equal.

Interwoven with Wolof proverbs, Dieuw Bakhul is a recriminatory song about treachery, lies, and back-biting. Over moody, roiling synths and ominous, lean bass, Mbene throws out fluttering scraps of vocal, as if re-running old conversations in her head. The music shadows her despair to the verge of breakdown, at one moment seemingly so lost in thought and memories, that it threatens to disintegrate. Bayilene di wor seen xarit ak seen an da ndo... Dieuw bakhul, dieuw ñaw na / Stop judging your friends and companions... A lie is no good, a lie is ugly.

Khadim is a show-stopper; currently the centrepiece of Ndagga Rhythm Force live performances. The song is dedicated to Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, aka Khadim, founder of the Mouride Sufi order. Serigne Bamba mi may wayeu / Serigne Bamba is the one who makes me sing. The verses name-check revered members of his family and brotherhood, like Sokhna Diarra, Mame Thierno, and Serigne Bara. Though Islam has been practised in Senegal for a millennium, it wasn’t until the start of the twentieth century that it began to thoroughly permeate ordinary Senegalese society, hand-in-hand with anti-colonialism. The verses here recall Bamba’s banishment by the French to Gabon, and later to Mauritania, in those foundational times. During exile, his captors once introduced a lion to his cell: gaïnde gua waf, dieba lu ci Cheikhoul Khadim / the lion doesn’t budge, it gives itself over to Cheikh Khadim. Deep, surging bass, steady kick-drum, and simple, reverbed chords on the off-beat lend the feel and impetus of steppers reggae. A reed plays snatches of a traditional Baye Fall melody; the dazzling polyrhythmic drumming is by Serigne Mamoune Seck. Mbene compellingly blends percussive vocalese, narrative suspense, exultant praise, introspection, and grievance.

Nimzat is a devotional tribute to Cheikh Sadbou, a contemporary of Bamba, buried in a mausoleum in Nizmat, in southern Mauritania. Way nala, kagne nala... souma danana fata dale / I call upon you and wonder about you... If I am overwhelmed, come to my aid. The town holds special significance for Khadr Sufism. An annual pilgrimage there is conducted to this day. The rhythm is buoyantly funky; the mood is sombre, reined-in, foreboding. Punctuated by peals of thunder, Mbene sings with restrained, intense reverence; huskily confidential, steadfast. Nanu dem ba Nimzat, dé ba sali khina / Let us go to Nimzat, to seal our devotion.

Mbene Diatta Seck: vocals.
Bada Seck: bougarabou, thiol, mbeung mbeung bal, tungune.
Serigne Mamoune Seck: bougarabou, khine, mbeung mbeung, tungune.
Text by Mark Ainley (Honest Jons).
Mastered by Rashad Becker.
Everything else by Mark Ernestus.

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Experimental dub techno duo Dialog present their first officially released live recording. Captured at the intimate French festival Pe:rsona, from the team behind the Positive Education events, the recording captures Samuel van Dijk (VC-118A) and Rasmus Hedlund exploring mechanical rhythmic impulses and organic tones and textures—malleable metallic and elemental forms passing through chasms of processing and shrouded in womb-like melancholic hum. Across two sides of immersive, head-nodding sonics, Dialog take the principles of dub techno into forward-thinking territory with a distinctly tactile approach to sound design—a mind-melting listen for casual chillers and committed voyagers alike.

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An exclusive 7" re-release of this psychedelic funk ballad from Tulsa's "Outback" Band. As featured on Now-Again's 'More Loving On The Flipside' compilation, "Strangers (In Our Homeland)" epitomises the expression of social & political change during an era of psychedlia infused music. In partnership with the two surviving members of Outback, both Symphonical & Now-Again are proud to showcase the voice of independent artists.

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