Gondwana Records is delighted to announce ‘still, there is the sea’ the debut album from Canadian composer and singer Ambre Ciel
Ambre Ciel is a composer, violinist, pianist and singer who hails from Montreal, Canada and is a purveyor of dreamy, expansive, spacious pop music that draws influence from the contemporary classical influenced artists such as Agnes Obel, Patrick Watson, Sufjan Stevens and Thom Yorke. As well as the impressionist world of Debussy and American minimalists such as Phillip Glass and Steve Reich and in addition mentions ‘music that breathes’ from such artists as Gyða Valtýsdóttir, JFDR, or the collaborative work of Jónsi and Alex Somers.

Track Listing:
A1. the sun, the sky
A2. eau miroir A3. cycle A4. atlantis
B1. dream / mirage
B2. sometimes
B3. pièce no.8
B4. fragment of

Listen: listen.k7.com/8728b887-285c-48b6-9b5a-2427a6c24d4c

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After releasing four albums under his Sonny Ism alias, the Melbourne singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and mix engineer Xavier Bacash flips the script and starts again with the debut album 'Into The Doldrums' from his new project, Now Always Fades, due for release through his Northern Underground Records label. Recorded in the wake of returning to Australia with his family after spending seven years in Copenhagen and Stockholm, Into The Doldrums sees Bacash building on the beautifully melancholic downtempo, deep house, and synth-pop sensibilities he's explored as Sonny Ism. Inspired by The Durutti Column, Massive Attack, and Everything But The Girl, the album sees him painting shades of post-punk, ethereal pop, trip-hop and street soul into nine aesthetically consistent songs. From the early morning ambience of 'Into The Doldrums' to the heaving breakbeat soul of 'Close To Greatness' and the sundown strut of 'A Pain I Used To Feel', Into The Doldrums unfolds with the logic of a hazy, sunkissed daydream. Although Bacash has served as the primary voice on his Sonny Ism albums in the past, this time around, he opened things up, inviting fellow Melbourne-based vocalists Lili Hall, previously from the experimental group Squaring Circles and Tilly Vickers-Willis, to join him in his process across most of the record. "The creative rationale of NAF has been to create an opportunity for me to investigate where my songwriting can go whilst collaborating with other vocalists and learning from their process too," he says. "It's opened up new possibilities and realms of artistic creation which I couldn't reach with my own vocals, whether we're that's lyrically, tonally or in regards to inflections in vocal delivery. Its also quite Darwinian as a process because, sometimes as an artist you can write a song that you love, but at times be forced to sing on it yourself because its for your output, but really it would suit someone else's voice better". Through recording Now Always Fades, Bacash unlocked the template for what he sees as the next stage in his musical journey. "I like the idea that in the future, although I might be the common denominator as the artist, I can keep working with a changing landscape of vocalists to keep the listener guessing as they work through the music - kind of like how a director approaches their films," he explains.

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(1xLP, black vinyl, 140g, black inner sleeve, shrink-wrapped with front sticker) Norwegian electronic pioneer Lindstrøm returns with Sirius Syntoms – seven tracks of melodic, cosmic disco and shimmering synth grooves. This album marks a more focused and open sound than his previous work, with warm analog textures, pulsating rhythms, and hypnotic basslines at the core.



Combining the uplifting energy of house and the introspective tone of ambient synth music, Sirius Syntoms blends dancefloor elegance with emotional depth. The lead single “Cirkl” sets the tone for a record that’s both refined and playful.


This is also the relaunch of Lindstrøm’s Feedelity label, with artwork by longtime collaborator Ole Martin Lund Bø. For fans of cosmic disco, nu-disco, synth-driven house, and electronic explorations with heart and soul.

Tracklist
A1 – Cirkl (5:11)
A2 – Thousand Island Man (4:33)
A3 – Moo)n (4:52)
A4 – Sharing an Orange (With Omar S on the Train From Minehead to London) (2:51)

B1 – These Are a Few of My Favorite Strings (7:10)
B2 – Solveggen! Nå! (5:10)
B3 – Sirius Syntoms (5:21)



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When you’re running a label, a demo occasionally comes across your desk that makes you reconsider everything you thought your label was all about. For Balmat, such was the case with this stunning album from Stephen Vitiello, Brendan Canty, and Hahn Rowe. It sounds like nothing we’ve released so far—and that very otherness opened up a whole new world of possibilities for us.

Fans of ambient, experimental electronic music, and sound art will be familiar with Vitiello, a New York native, long based in Virginia, who has collaborated with a cross-generational list of greats: Taylor Deupree, Steve Roden, Lawrence English, Tetsu Inoue, Nam June Paik, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Pauline Oliveros, and many more. On labels like 12k, Room40, and Sub Rosa, he has explored a wide range of minimalism, microsound, lowercase, ambient, improv, and other styles. But this album is something different. It may begin in ambient-adjacent territory, but it quickly veers off, and it just keeps zigzagging, taking on elements of krautrock, post-punk, dub, and the groove-heavy interplay of groups like Natural Information Society and 75 Dollar Bill.

This stylistic turn is thanks in large part to Vitiello’s choice of collaborators. “We’re coming from three different schools,” Vitiello says: “sound art, art rock, and punk rock.”

Active since the early 1980s, Rowe—a violinist, guitarist, and producer/engineer—has played with, or manned the boards for, a frankly jaw-dropping list of musicians: Herbie Hancock, Gil Scott-Heron, the Last Poets, Roy Ayers, John Zorn, Glenn Branca, Swans, Live Skull, Brian Eno, David Byrne, Anohni, R.E.M., Yoko Ono, and many more. But he might be most closely associated with Hugo Largo, a one-of-a-kind New York quartet—two basses, vocals, and Rowe’s violin—that in the late 1980s helped lay the groundwork for what would eventually become known as post-rock.

Canty, of course, is the legendary drummer of Fugazi, the visionary DC post-hardcore group, as well as Rites of Spring before them, and, currently, the Messthetics, a Dischord-signed instrumental trio with guitarist Anthony Pirog and Fugazi bassist Joe Lally.

Vitiello’s trio first collaborated on First, a 17-minute piece released on the Longform Editions label in 2023. Second picks up where the freeform drift of First left off, channeling the trio’s exploratory energies into more intentionally structured tracks and—in a real first for Balmat—some almost shockingly muscular grooves. “Sometimes my projects are more conceptually driven,” Vitiello says, “but I think this was more musically geared. I just wanted to open up the references and bring in an incredible drummer, bring in some melodies, and I’m sort of the center.” But his collaborators, he stresses, are “vastly creative in making anything I might suggest better.”

Like its predecessor, Second took shape in phases, shifting between improvisation and collage. Vitiello laid down the skeleton of the music at home, sketching out initial ideas on Rhodes keyboard and acoustic and electric guitar; he then fed the parts through samplers and his modular system, recording 10- or 20-minute jams. Once he had edited them into more structured forms, he hit the studio with Canty, who added not just drums but also bass and piano; finally, Vitiello took the results of those sessions to Rowe, who played violin, viola, electric bass, and 12-string acoustic and bowed electric guitar, and assisted in some of the final structuring and mixdown.

A few more surprises along the way: Reanimator’s Don Godwin, the studio engineer where Vitiello recorded with Canty, contributed what he calls “resonant dustpan”; and none other than Animal Collective’s Geologist, who just happened to be in the studio that day, sits in on hurdy gurdy on “Mrphgtrs1,” the album’s gorgeous, stunningly atmospheric drone closer. “I love these chance encounters,” Vitiello says. “Somebody I admire, a group I admire—that was an unexpected gift.”

An unexpected gift is a great way of describing Second as a whole: three veteran musicians venturing outside their usual zones and finding a new collaborative language together. The results can’t be neatly slotted into any given genre; they belong not to any given category, but to the spirit of conversation itself.

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Ransom Note Records welcome illustrious French Electronic duo Froid Dub to the fold for their new 12” vinyl release, Tears Maker Chant. Head honchos of the wonderful Delodio label, Stéphane and François mark the 50th release for R$N Recs, and this is without a shadow of a doubt an incredibly special one. So, sit back and ready yourself for some inimitable Froid Dub cuts; laid back but pounding, graceful yet aggressive but above all, thoroughly danceable.

Opening proceedings is the acid tinged Just One, a masterclass in making people dance at under 80bpm. Achingly gorgeous polysynth chords rain down, hovering like a film overhead the saturated 303 line that wobbles along in the low end. First single On The Nose enters next, with a delightfully soft, round bass that feels like bouncing around a padded room. Inside a Zorb. On MDMA. More echoed, analogue motifs dart from left to right, confirming with strong conviction that our chaps from Paris put the Dub in Indubitably Fantastic.

Digital Pond closes side A of the 12”, a low slung, nonchalant piece of mood music. Idiosyncratically “French” , brittle chords piece the sound stage, evoking past Italo Disco spaces, but remaining conscientiously chug-dubbed out. Second single Control (Special Mix) opens side B... with a capital B. For Banger. Another Space Echo heavy workout in the lower frequencies of the audio spectrum, this is testament to the old adage that less is often, a hell of a lot more (to paraphrase).

The titular Tears Maker glides into view next, with its frantic 808 patterns and spacey melodica, setting the scene for the majesty to follow. This epically proportioned tune is probably going to be a little passe come the end of summer, because it’s going to be played at festivals the world over relentlessly. Be warned! Finally Terri’s Dub brings matters to a close, with its angular, stands and woozy vocals, we’re given the space and tie to contemplate what has just happened to us on two mere sides of vinyl.

Artwork by Sylvia Tournerie, mastered by Krikor Kouchian.

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ARSENE returns to his native Chicago with a 4 piece slab of the real windy city house sound - this time appropriately sized up to 12" & including the full length version of "JACK SHIT". The other 3 bangers on the EP are "THE BREEZE OF YOUR SHIRT", "SMACKING YOUR HEAD" and "DX DAYS".

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