Mark Barrott and Pete Gooding present the fourth volume in their series of stellar collections, showcasing the sunset sounds spun at Ibiza`s Hostal La Torre. Sets, sequences, of music designed to celebrate the passing of another day and welcome the pleasures of night, as the Sun makes way for Sister Moon.
On this occasion, the ceremony starts with a gift from the Golden Girls - a side project of Phil Hartnoll, of Orbital fame. In its original form Kinetic was a prime piece of pumping early `90s trance, here, however, it`s been remixed by David Morley into something far more in line with Belgian rave label R&S` ambient off-shoot, Apollo. Practically beatless, but boasting a big, undulating, bottom-end, it now resembles something from Tangerine Dream`s back catalogue. A slightly kosmische, serene wall of sonically shining sound. The room-shaking riffs are reduced to echoes, while pitter-pattering percussion races. When the familiar hook finally surfaces, it`s accompanied by spirit-stirring, symphonic strings - inducing fierce flashbacks to quality highs, and newly expanded minds and horizons. Man, I can remember the wonder, before it all went pear-shaped.
Next up are NO ZU, a sadly seemingly defunct 8-membered musical monster from Melbourne, Australia, who were absolutely amazing live. Banging out a percussive concoction that they called Heat Beat, their funk was / is most definitely post-punk - channelling `80s no wave New York, the Mudd Club, and in particular the band, Liquid Liquid. Slapping basses, car horns, electronic keys, buttons, cowbells, and anything else that came to hand and seemed to fit, while lifting beats and piano parts from Chicago house. The party-starting call and response repartee of Ui Yia UIa finds them shouting out their star signs of criss-crossing compatibility over a muscular slo-mo stomp. Daphne Camf Rest In Peace.
Bassekou Kouyate is a Malian maestro on the 6-stringed ngoni. A goat-skin covered “hunters harp”, that via slave traders evolved into the North American banjo. With his group, named after this traditional griot instrument, and Zoumana Tereta on lead vocals, he delivers a dizzying display of dexterity on Bala. Generating a super mellow, spiritual groove, his playing countered by equal virtuosity on balafon and bolon. The voices switching between the sweet and the raw, and the song showering you in savannah sunshine, no matter where you happen to be hanging.
American trio, Rare Silk, share their jazz vocal take on Stanley Turrentine`s Storm, where wildlife whistles and chirrups surround soft Synclavier sighs. Slick, smooth, imagine Manhattan Transfer meets Wally Badarou. A marimba doing the mambo, the reeds winding like wafts of smoke carried on warm Caribbean winds. The rhythm that of a gently lapping tide.
The Synergetic Voice Orchestra was a one-off, one-time only outfit led by keyboardist / composer, Yumiko Morioka. A follow-up to her highly respected solo piano work, Resonance, the album, MIOS, was a far more ambitious affair, that brought together a collective of 6 musicians and 3 vocalists. The results moving away from new age and modern classical toward pop. The track, Zebra, is a Jon Hassell-esque fusion heat haze / fog. Riding a slowly rumbling thunder-thumbed bass-line. A snake-charming woodwind cutting through the synthetic shimmer, weaving its seductive spell.
Family Doggo first appeared as the b-side of Paul Woolford aka Special Request`s balls-out 2020 drum and bass single, Spectral Frequency. “Doggo” in comparison is an oasis of calm, albeit packing some serious sub-woofer worrying boom. Stripped back, speaker-rattling, electro-edged introspection, emotive and euphoric without recourse to arms-in-the-air tropes, it`s bleep`s more sensitive, more thoughtful sibling. The awakening of the morning after the night before`s rush.

Margaret Wakeley`s magical Hard To Leave The Island was initially rediscovered and dusted down by the people that power the respected DJ / artist agency, Warm - who took it from Margaret`s 1976 LP, Better Days, and pressed it on a limited 45. A slice of superior soft / yacht rock, it`s a cool cocktail-hour summer holiday serenade. A sophisticated arrangement of brass, jazzy keys, and acoustic strum, topped off by a smart sax solo.
Equatorial Sunrise was / is one of the standouts contained on Pauline Anna Strom`s sadly posthumous album, Angel Tears In Sunlight. Describing herself as a Trans Millennium Consort, the San Francisco-based synth pioneer attempted to blur, blend, past, present, and future, with her novel new age music. The song in question sees wind-chimes, marimba, and talking drum conversing in counterpoint - conjuring the Cafe del Mar classic, Richard Wahnfried`s Grandmas Clockwork. Its calming, time-melting timbres creating a comforting analog bubblebath. Aching with synthesized ethereal emissions, while pinpoints of sound echo into infinity, like signals from distant stars.
The Vendetta Suite is the pseudonym of Gary Irwin, the former in-house engineer at David Holmes` Belfast-based Exploding Inevitable Studio - a hive of musical activity where Timmy Stewart was also a frequent visitor. The 3 amigos mentioned were all stalwarts of the city`s early `90s house and techno scene. Some 30 years later Timmy remixed Gary`s track, Warehouse Rock, into a highly strung - think Malcolm McLaren`s Deep In Vogue - soundclash of reggae and rave. A four-to-the-floor mediation subjected to devastating washes of delay, where bionic bass, Mikey Dread samples and dub sound-effects are softened by bucolic birdsong.
Mark Barrott’s Travelling Music (La Torre Reprise) - an exclusive version of the titular track from his recent E.P. - is all tumbling tones - playful sequences and programmed patterns “blowing” busily, like colourful streamers caught on a tropical breeze. Like the compilation`s opening number, its another ambient, beatless, trance-dancer - suffused with sustained swells and chords that feel like sunrise itself.
Composer / pianist Lola Perrin`s Cloud Sky Fade is an unadorned, unadulterated - save a little reverb - rippling river of cascading classical keys. Her piano rolling, reaching crescendos like crashing surf. Licensed from Lola’s 2006 CD, Fragile Light, its worthy of comparison with Keith Jarrett`s ECM output, and Wim Mertens` beloved The Belly Of An Architect score.
If you look on Wikipedia, you’ll see that Suzanne Ciani has the affectionate moniker of “Diva of the Diode” - reflecting her huge importance in the history of electronic music. While studying at Berkley University in the `70s Suzanne became firm friends with Don Buchla, and subsequently spearheaded the use of his then ground-breaking modular synthesizer. Moving to New York, where she camped out on Philip Glass` studio floor, Suzanne set up her own company employing Don`s marvelous machine to produce advertising jingles. The success of this business eventually led to Suzanne becoming Hollywood’s first female soundtrack composer. In the `80s, Suzanne then started releasing new age records, one of which, 1986`s The Velocity Of Love, was a favourite of DJ Phil Mison, who made it a Cafe del Mar sunset staple. The beautiful Eighth Wave surely should have been the blissed-out musical backdrop to some `80s art house love scene - summoning as it does silhouettes of cinematic protagonists passionately disrobing though a Vaseline-smeared lens. Their hot clinches politely cutting to close-ups of isolated, moonlit beaches, and untamable, tempestuous tides.
JIM is Jim Baron, Crazy P`s Ron Basejam, but in folky, singer / songwriter mode. Coming on like Crosby, Stills & Nash, he covers the Ian Astbury / Billy Duffy penned Phoenix in an ultra-laidback fashion. Turning the gothic rock into a Laurel Canyon-esque lullaby. Singing of love in terms of fire, and flames of desire, backed by acrobatic acoustic picking and sweeping orchestral strings.
You could be forgiven for thinking that Antipodean audio auteur, Geoffrey O`Connor, is some forgotten `80s idol - so authentic is his soothing, swooning, romantic synth pop. Her Name On Every Tongue, however, dates from 2014, and can be located on Geoff`s sophomore solo long-player, Fan Fiction. The track`s vocoder harmonies proving perfect for a sing along on a top-down, Californian coastal drive.
These righteous solar-worshiping rituals draw to a close with John Foxx & Robin Guthrie`s exceptional Estrellita - a highlight from the pairs 2009 album, Mirrorball - where the former Ultravox! and Cocteau Twins founders collaborate on a sublime shot of shoegaze. Generating a glacial glide of layer upon layer of treated guitar. Grounded by womb-like bass vibrations, while Foxx`s choirboy croon soars. Lending the song a prayer / hymn-like air. It`s as close as rock comes to something sacred.

Dr. Rob (Ban Ban Ton Ton)

Tracklisting:
1. Golden Girls - Kinetic (David Morley Remix)
2. NO ZU - Ui Yia UIa
3. Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba feat. Zoumana Tereta - Bala
4. Rare Silk - Storm
5. Synergetic Voice Orchestra - Zebra
6. Special Request - Family Doggo
7. Margaret Wakeley - Hard To Leave The Island
8. Pauline Anna Strom - Equatorial Sunrise
9. The Vendetta Suite - Warehouse Rock (Timmy Stewart's Six Minutes To Sunrise Mix)
10. Mark Barrott - Travelling Music (La Torre Reprise)
11. Lola Perrin - Cloud Sky Fade
12. Suzanne Ciani - The Eighth Wave
13. JIM - Phoenix
14. Geoffrey O’Connor - Her Name On Every Tongue
15. John Foxx & Robin Guthrie - Estrellita

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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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Balmat began our journey in 2021 with the release of Luke Sanger’s Languid Gongue. Now, three years later, we turn an important corner as the Norfolk musician rejoins us with Dew Point Harmonics, the first repeat appearance on the label. Sanger’s new album feels like a natural extension of his inaugural record for Balmat: It’s a bewitching collection of esoteric synth sketches that slips unpredictably between consonant repetition, poignant melodies, and gnarled bursts of noise that catch in the ear like burrs in hiking socks.

That natural metaphor is perhaps not accidental. Despite having been composed on Sanger’s diverse array of hardware and self-written software, many of the tracks were first conceived while Sanger was hiking in a particularly wild and isolated section of the Norfolk coast. The field recording that opens the album, on “6am Beach Walk,” was taken on one of his many early-morning walks there, in which he and his dog might go for miles without seeing another soul. The album’s title was inspired by the overnight condensation covering the long marram grass in the dunes, glistening in the early light (and drenching everything coming in contact with it) before evaporating in the morning sun. Indeed, the concept of dew point—the temperature at which water vapor condenses into a liquid—feels like the perfect metaphor for Sanger’s music, in which foggy ambience is distilled into glistening quicksilver orbs, transient spheres of perfection eventually absorbed back into the atmosphere.

A shapeshifting collection of richly detailed and deeply expressive electronic miniatures, Dew Point Harmonics is both a testament to the mysteries of transformation and an invitation to get lost in the wilderness of your own imagination.

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In January 2025 Al Wootton was invited to Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio in Australia, home to a unique collection of rare vintage drum machines. Al made recordings of multiple drum machines utilising their individual rhythms, characteristics and quirks. These recordings were taken back to the UK and treated with various processes and additions to create Rhythm Archives.

The resulting record is a minimal exploration of rhythm via industrial, dub, post-punk and proto-techno sonics. It is a tribute to these machines and their creators, and resources such as Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio who maintain a huge archive of these and other instruments, prioritising public access and education.

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Restock.

Guangzhou-based producer and DJ COLA REN released her debut LP, 'Hailu' in June 2023, a ful-some ambient, balearic, and downtempo brew with a gorgeous sense of melody and spirituality that offers a soothing escape.

To celebrate the release, we have invited 8 talented musicians to the enchanting realm of ‘Hailu'. This remix compilation serves as a metaphorical exploration akin to the "Chakras," symbolizing the diverse energy centers within the human body. Through the collective reinterpretation of Hailu's original composition by 8 musicians, each imbuing it with unique hues and symbols, the remix re-flects varied spiritual essences and elemental qualities.

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