The Quietus Albums Of The Year So Far Chart 2019

The title of this group’s second album may suggest a mystical journey, but what you hear across these nine tracks is a thrilling and direct collaboration that speaks to the mastery of the individual members: London jazz supremo Shabaka Hutchings delivers commanding saxophone parts, keyboardist Dan Leavers supplies immersive electronic textures, and drummer Max Hallett provides a welter of galvanizing rhythms. The trio records under pseudonyms—“King Shabaka,” “Danalogue,” and “Betamax” respectively—and that fantastical edge is also part of their music, which looks to update the cosmic jazz legacy of 1970s outliers such as Alice Coltrane and Sun Ra. With the only vocals a spoken-word poem on the grinding “Blood of the Past,” the lead is easily taken by Hutchings’ urgent riffs. Tracks such as “Summon the Fire” have a delirious velocity that builds and peaks repeatedly, while the skittering beat on “Super Zodiac” imports the production techniques of Britain’s grime scene. There’s a science-fiction sheen to slower jams like “Astral Flying,” which makes sense—this is evocative time-travel music, after all. Even as you pick out the reference points, which also include drum \'n\' bass and psychedelic rock, they all interlock to chart a sound for the future.

"DEAFKIDS is one of the most exciting bands I have heard in a very long time. They are a unique psychoactive journey of Brazilian polyrhythmic percussion, hypnotic chanting, and aggressive repetitive raw punk all echoing out from another dimension. Having had the blessed opportunity to play several shows with them in Europe and Brazil I can say that without a doubt, they are something new and mind blowing created from something old and primal. Their youthful energy is contagious and their wisdom and deep knowledge of sound is beyond their years. Although raging and distorted, these sounds are medicinal, like some sort of sonic Ayahuasca. You have to surrender to it to find out where it is leading you. We are so lucky and proud to be able to work together with them and release their insane sounds in our corner of the universe. They are beautiful people making beautiful noise." — STEVE VON TILL, SEPTEMBER 2018 DEAFKIDS announce Metaprogramação their third full length release, and first studio album to be released with Neurot Recordings due for release on March 15. While their previous release, Configuração do Lamento, captured the group delving deep into their own diverse and discordant musical world, Metaprogramação pushes these elements to entirely new extremes. DEAFKIDS imprint a future-primitive psychic scenario into their music by weaving a fabric of electronic pulses, barrages of delay and noise, wailing guitars, and frenzied rhythms that ricochet aggressively across the speakers. Songs are urgent yet fluid, melting and dissolving into one another, culminating in a wild psychedelic journey that's bound to reach one's mind through the body while intoxicating both. About Metaprogramação, the band offer the following statement... Deceived by perceiving our so-called individuality as a form of freedom, we are programmed to live and continue living as a fragmented and binary model of nature. Experimental numbers in a worldwide political power-game where human lives and its complexities, connections, necessities and environments are lowered in terms manipulated by algorithms, mind control and brutal force upon our conditions, our rights and our true will. Shaping, overwhelming and fragmenting our tunnels of perception to the point where the excess of information becomes diffused and the whole contained within each being is more and more dispersed, confused and disconnected, reflecting an insane image of ones identification with an artificial reality - where in some bizarre way, all these schizophrenic, corrupted and truculent theatres of domination and submission that appears all over human relations seems to make some sense - and of non-identification with what would be our inner reality, the telepathic level behind the veils where boundaries and divisions between us and the plane of consciousness, between you and the other don't really exist. A level of reality where we might have the power to start learning how to reprogram ourselves by our own tools, being able to visit our internal hall of mirrors beyond space and time and deal with the negative roots of our condensed emotions and traumas trough a new perspective of relation and control with our thoughts, paths and everything we're connected with. We must unite as one and resist against the violent symbols of oppression, including what's imprinted on our own self, that must be daily sacrificed. Metaprogramação offers a vertiginous, sensory insight on these inner conflicts and aspects of the animal being. D O N O T A L L O W Y O U R S E L F T O B E P R O G R A M M E D “#1 Best Avant-Garde Albums of 2019.” – Cvlt Nation “#17 Best Albums of 2019.” – The Quietus “…one of the most exciting bands I have heard in a very long time.” – Steve Von Till, Neurosis/Neurot “…a fusion of future-primitive soundscapes, Afrobeat and tribal polyrhythms, and industrial wasteland electronica thematically investigating the concept of metaprogramming…” – Decibel Magazine “Somewhere between Neurosis and Sepultura lies Brazil’s DEAFKIDS, a self-described ‘noise-punk’ outfit that more than lives up to that descriptor…” – Revolver Magazine “Arranged with genuine cinematic vision and accuracy…it’s a DEAFKIDS record, from here on that means something.” – The Wire “It’s hard to know where to start with an album as stunning as this. It’s noisy, it’s industrial, it’s pummeling, and it’s ultimately completely satisfying…a wondrous journey of noise that is ear shattering, danceable and gnarly at every turn. 9/10.” – Louder Than War “Hook by hook by hook Metaprogramação is pure musical immersion… 8/10” – Metal Hammer

Black To Comm is the solo project of German sound artist Marc Richter. Through his output both as an artist and through his eclectic Dekorder label, Richter has established himself as a singular voice of new music. Operating at the fringes of drone and ambient genres, his music is darkly magical and deeply atmospheric, underpinned by a signature surrealism. A relentless sonic explorer, Richter approaches the studio as his instrument, using sampling, analogue production and digital manipulation to offer an almost infinite choice of tones and textures. Audio fragments are liberated from their original context and sculpted into surprising new shapes, creating work that transcends time or genre. Seven Horses For Seven Kings sees Richter reaching out again into the limitless field of sound, summoning forth his darkest and most visceral work to date. Seven Horses For Seven Kings was completed during a particularly prolific period for Richter. Working on a broad range of commissions since his last album - from writing for film and theatre works to composing for art installations, apps and sleep music - generated a flurry of new ideas and influences. Site-specific residencies in particular let Richter shift his focus from melody and song architecture to more abstract sound art. Extensive touring would equally come to inform a key shift in Richter’s music, simulating the raw, unpredictable energy of live performances on record. Rather than ironing out mistakes in samples or his own playing, he exploits or even forces such imperfections. While rhythm has been largely absent from previous Black To Comm releases, here the music seems totally bound to it, from the fractured techno breaks of ”Fly on You”, to the pounding war drums of “Rameses II” and pulsing Mellotron sounds of “Angel Investor”. The album’s breath-taking pace drives Richter’s music to new levels of intensity. Richter’s creative practice is informed as much by careful, attentive listening as it is studio experimentation. Pieces often begin life as a single sound that catches his ear, be it a record from his extensive collection, or something in the natural environment. Samples and instrumentation are sometimes presented authentically, a deliberate reference to an era, place or player, and at other times are twisted beyond recognition. Samples from contemporary artists like Nils Frahm are bent and compounded with fragments of early recorded music and medieval song. Richter blurs the lines between organic instrumentation and digital production to the extent that the two become inseparable. Being able to separate sound from context gives Richter complete command of the emotional impact of his music, imbuing pieces with meaning or stripping it back as he sees fit. While Richter questions whether instrumental music needs to have deeper meaning beyond its sonic qualities, he accepts that the wider world inevitably bleeds into his art. Reflecting the violence and unreality of modern life, Seven Horses For Seven Kings is unashamedly dark, undeniably angry. But rather than be consumed by such emotions, Richter employs them as ecstatic release. Through his mastery of sound, he achieves transcendence through noise, beauty through intensity.

Can a music made with the modern tools of digital music and contemporary production sound eerily as if created with the same equipment that Stockhausen, Henri and Berio all availed themselves of in the radio studios of the 50’s and 60’s - and yet sound bright and fresh to the ears of today's listeners? Robert Worby shows us how, with Factitious Airs. - CARL STONE This album focuses on recorded sound and structures made with recorded sound. How the original sound was produced and the objects used in the production of the sounds is of secondary interest. Tiny details in the sounds are important and what might appear to be insignificant, dull or uneventful is often salient. Acute, obsessive listening brings these elements to the fore.  In the process of making these structures, meaning begins to emerge and unfold. This is always highly subjective, ambiguous and uncertain and might fleetingly resonate with many ideas, objects, narratives and situations that are not connected with sound. Inspiration often comes from existing music but also from the entire history of ideas and, again, a tiny detail might produce a kind of creative resonance. Curiosity is predominant and drives forward the process of composition.

日本語は英語の後に続きます。 ----- "Theon Cross is bringing tuba back to jazz's center." Rolling Stone "With 'Fyah,' Theon Cross Makes An Electric Statement From London's Jazz Underground" NPR Voted #4 Best Jazz Album of 2019 by MOJO Magazine. As one of the key players of the London jazz scene, Theon Cross has been dominating airwaves and stages recently. He's part of a thriving family network of young London-based musicians who have regularly supported one another in stretching and re-shaping the boundaries of the jazz genre. Additional side-projects include performing and recording with individuals such as Makaya Mcraven, Sons of Kemet, and featuring on Gilles Peterson’s compilation album We Out Here. Within all this noise, Cross has also been leading his own trio project with Nubya Garcia and Moses Boyd. The band released an EP back in 2015 and are now following up with a full studio album, ‘Fyah’. Cross makes the tuba his own, mixing together early New Orleans bass line influences as well as the synth soundscapes and rhythms from modern grime and trap. His innovative style brings a new dynamic to the scene as he paves the gap between more traditional jazz styles and dance music. ----- ロンドンが生んだ世界屈指のジャズ・チューバ奏者テオン・クロスのすごさは、仲間たちと作り上げてきた独自の感性と技術だ。アメリカのジャズ・ミュージシャンがヒップホップからの影響を避けられないように、イギリスのミュージシャンはイギリスのラップ音楽であるグライムや、イギリスのエレクトロニック音楽でもあるダブステップ、さらには移民たちが持ち込んだアフロバッシュメントやソカ、ダンスホール・レゲエなどの影響を色濃く受けている。そのイギリスならではのトレンドをチューバの生演奏の中に落とし込めるのがテオン・クロスの特徴だ。オクターバーなどのエフェクターをチューバに繋げたりしながら、グライム的なベースラインをその打ち込みで作られたイギリスならではのサウンドのフィーリングをチューバという不自由な楽器で完璧に再現してみせる。その上でその低音域の太い音色を効果的に活かしながら鋭くリズミックにソロ・パートでも難なく魅せる。 2018年以降、テオンが起用されたサンズ・オブ・ケメット『ユア・クイーン・イズ・ア・レプタイル』、 シード・アンサンブル『ドリフトグラス』、モーゼス・ボイド『ダーク・マター』といった現行のイギリスのジャズの傑作だけでなく、シーンの中心にいるヌバイア・ガルシアやジョー・アーモン・ジョーンズ、ネリヤ、エズラ・コレクティヴらが自身の最高到達点を更新した。今作『ファイア』は、そんなイギリスのジャズ・シーンの隆盛を記録した重要な一枚としても記憶されることになるはずだ。

From the outset of his fame—or, in his earliest years as an artist, infamy—Tyler, The Creator made no secret of his idolization of Pharrell, citing the work the singer-rapper-producer did as a member of N.E.R.D as one of his biggest musical influences. The impression Skateboard P left on Tyler was palpable from the very beginning, but nowhere is it more prevalent than on his fifth official solo album, *IGOR*. Within it, Tyler is almost completely untethered from the rabble-rousing (and preternaturally gifted) MC he broke out as, instead pushing his singing voice further than ever to sound off on love as a life-altering experience over some synth-heavy backdrops. The revelations here are mostly literal. “I think I’m falling in love/This time I think it\'s for real,” goes the chorus of the pop-funk ditty “I THINK,” while Tyler can be found trying to \"make you love me” on the R&B-tinged “RUNNING OUT OF TIME.” The sludgy “NEW MAGIC WAND” has him begging, “Please don’t leave me now,” and the album’s final song asks, “ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?” but it’s hardly a completely mopey affair. “IGOR\'S THEME,” the aforementioned “I THINK,” and “WHAT\'S GOOD” are some of Tyler’s most danceable songs to date, featuring elements of jazz, funk, and even gospel. *IGOR*\'s guests include Playboi Carti, Charlie Wilson, and Kanye West, whose voices are all distorted ever so slightly to help them fit into Tyler\'s ever-experimental, N.E.R.D-honoring vision of love.

It could be handfuls of reds It could be turning Caravaggio’s Boy with Basket of Fruit to face the wall It could be a commission by the Guggenheim entitled Deforms the Unborn It could be the demon Vetis, whose friends call Him The Life Promiser It could be that in 1918 a pregnant Mary Turner was hung upside down from a tree by a lynch mob while they cut out her fetus & that this could happen today, as it did then, without consequences for whitey It could be handfuls of natural pearls It could be collaborations with master Haitian drummers It could be doing the wrong thing together forever It could be long lists of how The Devil’s acts towards children before, during & after their possession It could be short lists of produce, insects & imagined blues musicians It could be handfuls of an insane 9 year old's feces smushed on the lunch table It could be a psychedelic Chicago house song about a pig & about your parents It could be your dad’s new husband gave you his boyhood viola It could be a collaboration with master Yoruba drummers It could be handfuls of cactus spines & a poison dart It could be your sister has cancer & they keep chopping parts of her body off It could be a conscripted arco bass piece that was a dedication to Turkish feminists It could be Jack Smith has a film called Normal Love It could be scisssssssors, air conditioner tubes, glasses of ice & seashells It could be handfuls of hot pink Make Noise 1/8inch audio cables It could be that Nature is making it clear to us that we deserve it and that we are making it clear to Her that we are ready, ready to go It could be a short novel called The Rhythm Section Talked about Drugs, The Horn Players Talked about Ass & The Strings Talked about Money It could be improvised vocals by Elliot Reed & orchestrated vocals by Eugene Robinson It could be that European religious paintings of male martyrs depict them surrounded by chubby, adoring angels, everyone’s tearful mothers & converted sex workers dutifully sponging out their holy & shallow wounds It could be that European religious paintings of female martyrs depict them with their nipples being torn off, throats branded & their naked torsos flayed while they are totally alone aside from the men torturing them It could be handfuls of Diamanda Galás & Roy Orbison action figures It could be that despite the confusion of this life, people who can still truthfully call themselves human try to push through 2019’s collecting horror It could be slowed down & fuzzed out field recordings of disappearing frogs It could be flat purple & black or glossy black & purple It could be mescal in a bottle & baby on a boob, hair dyed blonde for nobody, nobody move It could be handfuls of that you just have to stop being a wuss & deal with it It could be…

autechre.warp.net/releases

Our first tape release is from a dear friend and a fearless long-time sound activist. Ondness is one of many aliases of Bruno Silva. You may know him from Sabre (with Carlos Nascimento) or solo as Serpente; under the Ondness alias he’s been putting out music on Where To Now?, Seagrave or Sucata Tapes (a sister label from Discrepant). “Not Really Now Not Any More” is a beautiful resilient piece, mastering the fine line between album and mixtape. Both the title and the contents of “Not Really Now Not Any More” have been inspired by the idea that we are constantly floating around unfinished ideas. The title is taken from a graffiti that inspired Alan Garner to write “Red Shift” (Mark Fisher wrote about it in his book/essay “The Weird And the Eerie”). The typo and the idea around “not really now not any more” serves this album perfectly well. During its ten tracks, Ondness is constantly going back and forth on the way he explores soundscapes and how they can pair up with their own resolution. Nothing in “Not Really Now Not Any More” is really finished but also it isn’t unfinished. It’s a subtle idealization of the importance of accepting how things are. “Torre” starts and ends the album as two different songs sharing the similarities – not only the title – that encapsulate the whole essence of “Not Really Now Not Any More”. “Esquina, Espera” points out this whole idea of never-ending construction, it’s dub-ska-industrial-techno perfectly crafted to make the listener feel the freakish anxiety that we have to be everywhere right now. It’s pop-up music, constantly moving and fading away, reappearing with a new idea and then leaving it out in the open. It tells the listener about how it lacks ideas because it contains too many ideas. Those ‘too many ideas’ make this a perfectly fit record for 2019. Music that is everywhere and nowhere. But it's not loud or trying to show off. It lets the listener peel its skin and find the magnificent sci-fi extravaganza that “Not Really Now Not Any More” inspires. Going nowhere being somewhere. Do you feel me?

In the depths of winter in 2017, Liz Harris—better known as the ambient folk musician Grouper—traveled to Murmansk, a post-industrial city in the Russian Arctic, for an artistic residency. *After its own death* is based on recordings created there and in another stint in the Azores, Portugal, and it’s the Arctic atmospheres that prevail. In these slow, lonely tracks—12, 16, even 21 minutes long—Harris’ multitracked vocal harmonies dissipate like foggy breath over drones so minimalist they evoke whiteout conditions. Gone are the acoustic guitar and piano of Grouper albums like *Ruins*; instead, overdriven synths buzz like flickering fluorescent bulbs at an abandoned border crossing. “After its own death: Side A” presents the core themes that will recur again and again—ethereal bell tones, growling bass, sounds of nature, and echoing footsteps—and the remainder of the album proceeds like a succession of half-forgotten memories, elements jumbling together and peeling away until all that’s left is a fuzzy outline of the deepest melancholy imaginable.

After its own death 0 - 7:48:544 Cloudmouth 7:48:544 - 8:19:489 blue room 8:17:503 - 11:27:011 Night-walking 11:27:011 -16:41:254 Funeral song 16:41:254 - 26:00:991 Thirteen (version) 26:00:991 - 28:39:125 Crying jar 28:39:125 - 29:29:394 Entry 29:29:394 - 37:33:056 Walking in a spiral towards the house 37:30:846 - end Weightless Walking in a spiral towards the house 0 - 3:14:509 Night-walking 3:14:509 - 8:37:153 Funeral song 8:37:153 - 12:59:510 Thirteen 12:59:510 - end Walking in a spiral towards the house “Crying Jar” features Michael Morley, Gabie Strong, and Christopher Reid Martin. Thanks to Matt, Marcel, Sergio, Fridaymilk, Jefre, and to Kassian. Organizational support from ZDB/Tremor, Unsound, Barbican, and the Goethe institute. For Aihna.

Widely acclaimed by fans and critics alike as one of 2019's most adventurous and accomplished albums. “What a fabulously rich listen this record is” – The Quietus “After four decades, Membranes have released their greatest album” 9/10 – Classic Rock “Ambitious and epic…including a full choral backing group along with guest spots from Kirk Brandon, Chris Packham, Shirley Collins and Jordan” 8/10 – Vive Le Rock

PREVIEWS soundcloud.com/kontramusik/km053-johanna-knutsson-tollarp-transmissions-preview Tollarp Transmissions is a deeply personal and moving album created by Johanna Knutsson. Closing herself off from the flutter of the outside world in her Berlin studio, Johanna has painted a series of melancholic yet warm pictures of her childhood for Kontra-Musik. Johanna grew up in the small hamlet of Tollarp in the south of Sweden, surrounded by fields, forests and silence - a priced commodity not to be found in Berlin. Each track is named after a physical memory of Tollarp, the intro Vramsån, for instance, is named after a stream close to Johanna’s home and heart. Befittingly, the first timbres of Vramsån remind one of Tuba Mirum from Mozart’s Requiem, solemnly played by an old ice cream truck. A sound every child in Sweden knows. Tollarp Transmissions is not a grand Requiem, however. It’s a heartbreaking Reminiscence. A crisp winter night blasted with stars. A child's neck bent upwards in amazement, creaking snow beneath her feet. The stars singing to her in voices no-one else can hear. Change of scene. A summer’s day is slowly dying. The low humming of sated insects. Bursts of muffled laughter from a nearby porch. The shadowy forest marching slowly on the neatly trimmed lawns. The difference between hiding and getting lost is obscured by the silent trees. Change of scene. A mighty storm ravaging the barren forest and the sleeping fields. A branch crashing rhythmically against the windowsill of the blacked out kitchen. The grownups are tense, the child secretly enamoured with the wind. Change of scene. The stars are silenced by the lights of the city. She must sing to them now.

The debut full- length album from Lafawndah, ​ANCESTOR BOY,​ announced today and releasing on 22nd March 2019 via her own label imprint CONCORDIA, is a bracing statement of intent, heralding an artist unbound in scope, scale, and intensity. She opens 2019 with bold single DADDY, plotting new territory onto her own highly personalized map of influence – a map drawing the club, composition, and pop into thrillingly unresolved, ultramodern erotics. Lafawndah’s 2018 was filled with myriad musical highlights and successes - including a celebrated performance featuring peers Tirzah, Kelsey Lu and more at London’s South Bank in December, growing from her acclaimed HONEY COLONY mixtapes. Meanwhile her heart-stopping inter-generational music & film collaboration with japanese ambient legend Midori Takada in Le Renard Bleu (with KENZO and Partel Oliva) continues to echo into new forms, with a full production performance titled ‘Ceremonial Blue’ premiering at the Barbican, London in April. And streaming now, her achingly beautiful self-directed video for JOSEPH - a lullaby and an ode to newborn life co-written with Jamie Woon and also featuring on ANCESTOR BOY - has set Lafawndah apart as an independent director with a singular vision spanning multiple media and artforms. Having in her prior self-titled and TAN EPs upturned geography, in ANCESTOR BOY Lafawndah digs deep to unravel geology, mining emotions of the deep past and future. The album’s physicality is elemental; its memory, mineral. It is a becoming- of- age story for a people yet to come, created out of a need to find the others. In the middle of the album’s sonic and lyrical onslaught is the desire to share the uncertainties of growing up when you don’t belong anywhere. Crafted with the aid of fellow travelers Nick Weiss, Aaron David Ross, and James Connolly, ANCESTOR BOY’s maximalism- it’s overflow of detail, of feeling, of ideas- serves to amplify a frequent lyrical motif: the sensation that one body, one lifetime, isn’t big enough for what you’re feeling. The record is pregnant with memories shared across more than one mind, recalling the storytelling antagonisms of Nina Simone at her most strident and unpredictable. In response, the rhythmic aggressions of her music have grown even more determined and psychedelic, drawing a line in fire between Jimmy Jam’s turnt industrialism on Control ​and the furious unease of ​Red Mecca-​era Cabaret Voltaire. With a palate equal parts chrome and dirt, ice and depth, Lafawndah’s finesse with song architecture imbues the LP with an uncanny addictiveness: anthems loaded with trap doors. ANCESTOR BOY imagines a pop music that is neither imperial nor local, but a freedom of movement; a residue, perhaps, from the album’s nomadic creation between Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York, London, and Paris.

On her fifth proper full-length album, Sharon Van Etten pushes beyond vocals-and-guitar indie rock and dives headlong into spooky maximalism. With production help from John Congleton (St. Vincent), she layers haunting drones with heavy, percussive textures, giving songs like “Comeback Kid” and “Seventeen” explosive urgency. Drawing from Nick Cave, Lucinda Williams, and fellow New Jersey native Bruce Springsteen, *Remind Me Tomorrow* is full of electrifying anthems, with Van Etten voicing confessions of reckless, lost, and sentimental characters. The album challenges the popular image of Van Etten as *just* a singer-songwriter and illuminates her significant talent as composer and producer, as an artist making records that feel like a world of their own.

It’s 2019 and we are on the verge of great change, unease and turbulent futures. 2019 sounds like the future doesn’t it? It’s the year we would have quoted for a sci-fi. Objects Limited have found some music perfect for these times. Let’s introduce Jtamul, a 21-year-old linguistics student and producer who grew up among the woods of North-East Turkey. ‘Lubuni’ reflects those solitudes of being in natural surroundings and of going against societal norms. ‘Lubun’ means queer person in Lubunca, a secret slang that has been used by the LGBTQ community in Turkey. “‘Lubuni’ is the name of that solarpunk fairy princette I’m trying to portray in the EP. I’m trying to open up a virtual space for myself to portray the being I always dreamed to be. A portrayal of myself as a digital fairy princette, who is showing off their vulnerable and tender side as an escape from the strict norms and forms of society that I live in at the time.” Jtamul has brought the future and it is an ocean of tongues, a sweet cacophony of incidental human noises lulling you somewhere into the dreamscape. ’Tsiqvi’ opens ‘Lubuni’ with a throat clearing choir and gentle synth lines swoon the listener, leading into “Bulanik” a track that conjures up imagery of an android learning human speech. Artwork by Melih Aydemir.

If you are yet to hear Spaceship, think Kevin Shields lending Tangerine Dream a hand on the soundtrack to a late night BBC2 Open University geology broadcast (or a Radiophonic Workshop/ Mica Levi/ Vangelis supergroup playing on the vidscreen as Deckard and Rachael drive off into the countryside). Spaceship is Mark Williamson, a musician and sound artist based in West Yorkshire working with field recordings, portable synthesizers and found sounds. He has previously released albums, digitally and on CD, through Apollolaan, Forged River Recordings, The Dark Outside and wiaiwya, and has contributed to compilations for A Year in the Country, Linear Obsessional and Woodford Halse. Williamson has also worked with Luke Turner of the Quietus, providing field recordings to accompany readings from his book ‘Out of the Woods’. Williamson’s compositions have featured as part of Cities and Memories’ The Next Station and Sacred Spaces projects. Spaceship's vinyl debut, 'Outcrops' is released by wiaiwya on 24th May. Focussing on a series of sandstone outcrops above the West Yorkshire town of Todmorden, Outcrops is an exploration of the geological history of the Upper Calder Valley and Cliviger Gorge. Revitalising an enthusiasm for geology that saw Williamson complete an undergraduate degree in Earth Science in the 1990s, each track was created to invoke a particular phase of that history, namely the interbedded sandstones and siltstones of the Millstone Grit, the formation of the Yorkshire coal measures and finally the glaciation of the valley during the last ice age. The album was recorded in the field, in a series of small caves where Williamson created the pieces that make up the album whilst almost encased within the landscape he was describing. These recordings were then treated to minimal editing and post production in Williamson’s home studio at the base of the hills where the recordings were made. In this way the album becomes analogous to many of the local stone buildings, the materials from which they were built often having travelled just a few hundred yards to the site of the building’s final construction. Finally, whereas last year’s The Last Days (The Dark Outside Recordings) was about Williamson leaving his Essex home of the last twelve years, Outcrops is about the discovery of somewhere new. “emotive expressionism of maudlin fugues and bittersweet folk melodies” – the Wire “a lovely set of ... modern pastoral pieces” – Electronic Sound “spectral drones augmented with simple piano and synth, recalling Eno and Boards of Canada at their most minimal” – Shindig “he lugs harmonium, guitar, zither, bells and even a battery powered synth or two to his various locales, where he delights in the songs of sparrows, finches and warblers that greet him” – the Wire

1.Haar 2. First Of The Tide 3. Sillocks 4. Spoot Ebb 5. Flattie 6. Groatie Buckies 7. Creels 8. Lump O’ Sea 9. Sule Skerry

THE SKY UNTUNED was recorded in one take at St Andrew’s Church, Raveningham, Norfolk, UK on 10th December 2018. The seven tracks were composed and developed during a hectic period of commissions, tours and musical adventures including: York Mediale Festival & The National Centre for Early Music, Laura Cannell’s Modern Ritual UK Tour, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Bergen Kunsthall in Norway and The Cut Arts Centre in Suffolk. THE SKY UNTUNED takes as it’s starting point the theory of the music of the spheres, in which the universe is constantly making sound that humans cannot hear. The music is teased out of the land and sky and performed using Cannell’s signature minimalist chamber sounds, utilising extended instrumental techniques of overbowed violin (with deconstructed bass viol bow wrapped around the violin to produce drone and melody), scordatura violin tunings and double recorders (inspired by medieval stone carvings). “It is not the result of one commission but a performance drawn from the ideas that have travelled in my thoughts wherever I’ve been over the past 18 months. The ones which wouldn’t leave my heart and head, the ones which demanded to be played over and over through internal speakers, the ones which need to be explored and performed as if it’s the first time every time. LAURA CANNELL BIOGRAPHY Straddling the worlds of experimental, chamber, folk, early & medieval music, Laura’s semi-composed, semi-improvised compositions draw on the emotional influences of the landscape and explore the spaces between early and experimental music that is rooted in but not tethered to the past. Cannell is an artist whose original and singular vision sets her apart from her contemporaries, whilst her music exists as a culturally vital exploration of the link between medieval, traditional and modern musical idioms. Laura has released four solo albums since 2014, successfully carving out a unique path with her work, receiving critical acclaim from the contemporary music press and regularly being included in numerous Album of the Year lists (including The Guardian, MOJO, BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction, The Wire and The Quietus). Recent projects include creating music for film, broadcast work for BBC Radio 3, “Reckonings” (2018) a duo album with Andre Bosman, tours with the cellist Lori Goldston (Earth, Nirvana) & collaborations with This Heat drummer Charles Hayward & Mira Calix, as well as commissions for Hampton Court Palace, The Immix Ensemble at Tate Liverpool, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra & The Zuckerman Museum of Contemporary Art (US). As well as numerous live performances in the UK & Europe. www.brawlrecords.co.uk www.lauracannell.co.uk [email protected] Album release date: 26 April 2019

Where the overdriven dancehall of Kevin Martin’s The Bug is violent and explosive, his King Midas Sound project is more like smoke wafting over the wreckage, thanks to the ethereal vocals of the English-Trinidadian poet Roger Robinson. Over time, their music has become wispier and wispier, and *Solitude* is their most immaterial offering yet—a hazy array of disorienting synth drones overlaid with halting spoken-word meditations on loss and loneliness. Over the course of this intensely private, almost claustrophobic album, Robinson surveys the scorched earth of a failed relationship, intoning his innermost thoughts in a low baritone: reminiscing on his love, ruing their breakup, and jealously following his ex-lover’s every move. The effect is like eavesdropping on the musings of a not-entirely-sympathetic narrator, being pulled into his world almost against our will. It’s a harrowing album, and Martin’s cryogenic dub pulses and nearly beatless streaks of metallic sound offer cold comfort: The long, dark night of the soul was rarely as chilling as this.

Recorded in Kingston, Jamaica for their own Equiknoxx Music label, ‘Eternal Children’ is the first time all 5 members have appeared on record together, with all three producers - Gavin “Gavsborg” Blair, Nick “Bobby Blackbird” Deane, and Jordan “Time Cow” Chung - cooking up for their vocalist Shanique Marie, alongside the ruder styles of regular spars, MC’s Kemikal and Alozade. As such the album expresses the collective’s shared experience both at home in sunny JA, as well as on the road and their 2nd home in Manchester, home to DDS but where they’re also keenly supported by an extended family including Swing Ting’s Balraj Samrai and MC Fox, plus DJ Jon K, and their mastering engineer Nick Sinna. The resulting 8-track album is a bounty of eclectic productions tweaked for good times. Cherry-picking from dancehall, hip hop and even pop ballads, they effortlessly balance experimental tendencies with classic forms in each song. Opener ’Solomon Is A Cup’ places Shanique Marie and Kemikal’s timeless, poetic storytelling in abstract sound design to absorbing effect, while two highlights ‘Brooklyn’, and the ear-worming hooks of ‘Manchester’, featuring Brent Bird and Swing Ting’s Fox, perfectly display the diversity of their bonds with the Caribbean diaspora. Listeners snagged on the weirdness of Equiknoxx’s DDS albums will probably want to head to the album’s more wayward productions; namely their dark, scudding ‘Corner’ and the percolated pearl of ‘Good Sandra’, complemented by the witty pen of Kemikal and Gavsborg, while it all comes together most soulfully with Shanique’s blazing delivery on the rugged bounce of ‘Move Along’ and her balmy pop-soul duet with Bobby Blackbird, ‘Rescue Me.’ - Boomkat 2019

“With Ela’s music I feel emotional, engaged… I can’t help but feel she’s always looking for a sense of belonging and it seems to inform all the music that she makes. Glasgow must have more of that belonging feeling than most cities because she’s spent the most time here, an exotic bird in a rainy city she maybe finds a lttle bit of comfort in. It’s a pleasure to have her here, in this awful time to be living in Britain, her illuminations feel important and hopeful. A stubborn light; someone making great timeless music out of the humdrum of the everyday.” - Stephen Pastel Movies For Ears is a retrospective collection of works by Polish-born, Glasgow-based artist Ela Orleans which navigates almost two decades of songwriting in the heart of the global pop underground. This remastered collection casts an ear over what Orleans might call the ‘pop sensibility’ within her back catalogue. Released previously on a number of small DIY labels, Orleans’ music coincided with the explosion of auto-didactic musicians finding their voice in the age of the blogosphere, artists emboldened by the democratisation of music-making afforded by the internet. From the outset, Orleans’ childhood studying formal music mixed with cut-up techniques, sampling, sound-art and experimentation to create a distinctive signature cloaked in an innate melancholy and playfulness. Fully remastered by James Plotkin, featuring extensive sleeve-notes and rare photos from Orleans’ archive, Movies For Ears presents an appraisal of the musician’s work, painting a portrait of an artist with an uncanny ability to evoke emotions and ghosts of memories in the listener. Each song pulls sunshine from its surroundings, moments of pleasure plucked from eulogies. The Season employs a hypnotic loop with Orleans’s prophetic voice heralding the season we’re doomed to repeat. In fact the singer is often cast as the changing protagonist in her songs: on Walkingman, a hazy ballad heavy with ennui, the narrator is laden with the world’s weight, forever pacing a groundhog day world blank, a pissed-off actor in a Kafka-esque melodrama. On Light At Dawn we’re in a seedy kitsch bar-room go-go scene, a ghostly rock’roll romance with shimmering percussion, pole-dancing in a Lynchian half-dream. Movies For Ears’ moods straddle memory and fantasy: scratchily invoking half-remembered exotica, the flickering shadows of europhile cinemas screens, a delicately woven world anchored in Orleans existential meditations on longing, intimacy, solitude and the search for love. These rich textures in every song don’t overpower some crystalised moments of emotion however: on In Spring Orleans sings simply “I have been happy two weeks together,” summarizing that feeling of elation when emerging from a depression, a long winter. It’s a moment that perfectly illustrates the lightness of touch and clarity in the singer’s voice. The power of the loop and Orleans’ weaving songwriting that breaks its spell is illustrated perfectly by I Know. Over an aching chord progression, the vocal takes flight into bittersweet loneliness, Pachelbel’s Canon played at a wedding where only one person shows up. The repeated refrain “I know, I know” ascends to the heavens as the chords descend to the dumps and the listener is left in the middle, happy but not knowing why, maybe a little changed, two weeks together. On Movies For Ears, Ela Orleans lets us into a secret: the rare moments of joy to be found in the joins of the loop, the spaces between things, the spring after the winter are the moments that last after the day has faded.

The award winning Danish producer and live performer, also known for her extensive compositional & soundtrack work for video games, international theatre and dance productions – as well as her own installation projects, debuts on the Avian label with ‘Entangled’. Forged in the unique crucible of SØS Gunver Ryberg’s multidisciplinary practice ‘Entangled’, stalks a hard line at the edge of techno’s stormiest sector. A thrilling meeting of divergent disciplines and sound system metrics with a keen skill for the composition of uncompromising club works, Ryberg’s technique lies in the vital declaration of her own borders in every setting. Comprised of six club focused pieces, the mini LP applies itself to rhythmic intensity with a deft touch. Galloping granulated walls envelope you at every turn as brittle melancholic pads ease you from one moment to the next. ‘The Presence_Eurydike’ is the gentlest form that Ryberg is willing to present, whereas ‘Trispider’ builds a monumental terror out of a raw pulse. It’s at these moments that you sense the careful composition and orchestral drones, and how keenly Ryberg’s rough modulation is meant to alter states. Displaying varying approaches to form and structure across the record, the music riffs on the brooding atmosphere characteristic of the artist’s collected work by breaking up the havoc on ‘Entangled’ with a series of four microcompositions spliced between each of the tracks. Finely textured and rendered in detail they give a glimpse of Ryberg’s capacity for mesmerising sound design – or to put it another way, they give a sense of what’s barely contained by the rhythmic works. This is an expansive and hard hitting rumination on the more caustic, atonal end of the Techno genre – a truly dynamic and immersive listening experience.

When science fiction turns science fact the effect can be truly momentous.The state demands that no-one wants an unlicensed machine-hum from an outbuilding; no-one wants clever prose mapping the future, no-one wants “music” that is attention-seeking, soul-defining, beneficial, Biblical, baroque and beautiful. No-one told Jane Weaver that. Jane Weaver’s multi-layered synthetics evolved into a welcoming slew with 2014’s ‘The Silver Globe’, continuing through to 2017’s ‘Modern Kosmology’. ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ is a re-imagined journey through parts of both albums, with new ambient pieces primed and polished; with new tangents explored in a lab-friendly blossoming of the Weaver vision that travels yet further into the psych of our future.. A continuous experience with one-line observations set in glorious sense-stimulating sound. “Startling.” Drowned In Sound That source material was then united in an expansionist experiment in late 2018. The ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ tour fused unrelated sounds set off against sympathetic new textures, tones and drones ; hot-housed into an idealistic soundscape that formed the conducive parts of the imminent album of the same name. “(A) beguiling spiritual medium for immaculate psychedelia.” The Guardian “With one eye on the dancefloor and another on those sprawling existential questions we may never truly answer.” Quietus

Listen to the album on Spotify: spoti.fi/2GDoiv5 Listen to the album on Youtube: bit.ly/2WjZuix ‘Gentle Persuaders’ is the Love Love debut from London based neo-noise-jazz outfit Sly & The Family Drone. In the form of a four track long player, Sly vomit forth a smooth serving of curious and clattering noise not devoid of fun. With the ingredients of shattering baritone saxophone, splurges of analogue noise, rolling drum derangements and snarling feedback it is immediately clear that these formidable noise-mongers have honed their methods of ear-attack adeptly. Textural spaces are peppered with bouts of densely packed controlled-chaos creating a tension that builds almost imperceptibly until the crushing pay-off that comes with the final track. The politest of bludgeonings, ‘Gentle Persuaders’ has a real sense of cohesion and style, at times subtle and at others shudderingly direct. With their unusual and interactive live shows, the group cut their teeth stunning the audiences of punk and noise scenes across the UK and Europe. Now, Sly & The Family Drone present their most complete recording to date; a rush of sheer ataxia ushering in a new age of noise.

Fresh from the six person strong spiritual jazz band extravaganza of 2017’s warmly received album The Animal Spirits, synth wizard James Holden offers up yet another addition to his archive: an album of solo synth work written to accompany the critically-acclaimed documentary A Cambodian Spring, which following international film festival success, a programme of UK-wide screenings and a near-worldwide slot on MUBI is currently available to buy on DVD, Blu-Ray, download and stream. Standing in contrast to Holden’s recent impulse towards live collaboration (which as well as his newly-expanded touring band The Animal Spirits has also encompassed collaborations with Moroccan Maalems Mahmoud and Houssam Guinia and tabla player Camilo Tirado), the UK electronic stalwart’s first film soundtrack is a solo studio affair, drawing on his favourite go-to analogue instruments to showcase the many sides of his diverse musical leanings throughout fourteen tracks of pulsing melancholy, foreboding drone and even the occasional burst of beatless trance. The starting point for the soundtrack was the emotive ‘Self-Playing Schmaltz’, the closing track of Holden’s 2013 album The Inheritors, which documentary director Chris Kelly had used in an early rough cut to soundtrack what would eventually become the shocking and dramatic denouement of the whole film. Holden’s haunting, decaying synth lines seemed to line up perfectly with the fraught images of a community in breakdown, and it was this serendipity that prompted Kelly to invite Holden to work on a whole new original soundtrack for the rest of the film. The signature Prophet 600 sound palette which dominated ‘The Inheritors’ also features heavily here, supplemented by a cranky old Hammond organ which was inadvertently sacrificed to the cause when the ominous rumbles coaxed out during the three-part ‘Disintegration Drone’ turned out to be the sound of the aged machine’s internal speaker cone tearing itself to bits (thus neatly mirroring the on-screen disintegration of Cambodian society during the post-election Cambodian Spring uprising). But the musical highlight here is undoubtedly the soaring, uplifting arpeggios of the ‘Solidarity Theme’, where trance functions as the international musical language of solidarity to accompany the moment that land rights campaigners Srey Pov and Tep Vanny are freed from prison, a rare glimpse of hope set against what is an otherwise rather sombre narrative as we watch the forces of international development inexorably destroy the homes and community of the Boeung Kak lakeside area in Phnomh Penh. Holden’s first foray into the world of film soundtrack is certainly powerful and arresting when viewed in context, set against the striking collection of images assembled by ‘A Cambodian Spring’ director Chris Kelly to produce a number of genuinely emotive moments, both tragic and uplifting. But as a stand alone album release it also has much to offer, with cleansing, contemplative drone and euphoric melodies alike. When viewed chronologically, Holden’s desire to engage with a broad spectrum of electronic music may mean that his back catalogue can occasionally appear somewhat schizophrenic, but in the case of ‘A Cambodian Spring’ the epic documentary format and the wide-ranging human emotions on display here provide the perfect format for Holden to showcase the full breadth of his musical tastes. The ‘A Cambodian Spring OST’ vinyl release also includes sleeve notes by Imaginary Cities author Darran Anderson.

With great pleasure we present the mini album Wild Chamber by upsammy. In many ways Spring seems to the perfect seasonal match for upsammy: no matter the tempo nor intensity, her style is colourful, restorative and carries a tangible promise of new beginnings. So Wild Chamber arrives at the right time, but it is an evergreen package – eight songs to slot into different situations, to speak to different moods, yet come from the same heart. A mini-LP that captures dawn mist, reflecting-pool shimmer, and occasional flashes of brilliant blue light. Swells of bass sag and yawn, time signatures switch up and break down, drums stutter and charge, and gossamer melodic trails are traced like ice skates atop a thawing lake. Innumerable shards of ideas are present, yet the music is airy and uncluttered. Wild Chamber is upsammy at her most pure, sketching sonic miniatures with a precise eye and an inquisitive ear quite unlike anyone else’s right now.

With a slight line up change in the drum department we see RAKTA tighten up their more tense, soundtrack natured developments alongside their more sparse and vulnerable elegance. They consistently manage to create a tripped out creep chamber with room to explore as the aura builds to nightmare crescendos juxtaposed with shaking silences. Simultaneously eerie and serene. With each new release we see more and more of what makes this group so essential in the canon of modern music. Jensen Ward ------- Inicialmente orbitando ao redor do pós-punk, o Rakta foi gradativamente compondo um universo sonoro abstrato e particular. Falha Comum, seu terceiro álbum, consolida esta direção unindo técnicas da música experimental com certos aspectos estruturais da canção para inventar o seu próprio ser em um pequeno manifesto sobre as ruínas do mundo. Ao lado do baterista e percussionista Maurício Takara (que firmou-se na banda após a mudança de Nathalia Viccari para Buenos Aires), Carla Boregas (baixo e eletrônicos) e Paula Rebellato (sintetizador e voz) criam uma atmosfera de transe expansivo. Mas de o que é esse transe? Nas músicas de rave acelerada, as batidas eletrônicas eliminam a rigidez entre corpo e alma, abrindo o indivíduo para ser "possuído por uma selvageria sagrada". Na ambient music, o caminho para o cosmos é uma imersão profunda em um espaço psicoacústico imaginário. Já no dub, o som torna-se incenso, um aroma sagrado que preenche o ambiente e possibilita o estado de desativação total. Ao mesmo tempo em que articula-se com estas três dinâmicas, o ritual cósmico do Rakta tem uma liturgia só sua. A voz fanstasmagórica arrebata e desaparece, como uma alucinação ou miragem. A acumulação dos loops percussivos do baixo e ritmos repetitivos da bateria não evocam o relaxamento meditativo. Ao contrário, há um caos discreto, uma tensão permanente, uma violência sempre à espreita. O mantra raktiano não diz respeito a uma calmaria transcendente, mas à concentração como dispositivo político de ação e transformação — abrir e fechar-se em si. Em “Estrela da Manhã”, somos lembrados: há um labirinto e a guerra está sobre nós. Vemos o mundo acabar pela janela. Mas o que fazer das nossas ruínas? Falha Comum está nesta encruzilhada à procura de modos para revirar os escombros da existência em um mundo cada vez mais sem sentido. Não há respostas. Mas persiste, ao longe, uma esperança inútil e necessária: edificar o espírito sobre essas ruínas. O riso do qual “笑笑” é antes de tudo uma vitória sobre o medo. O fim está no começo e no entanto continua-se. GG Albuquerque

Budokan Boys is the brainchild of Vienna-based composer Jeff T Byrd and New Orleans-based writer Michael Jeffrey Lee, and is proof that not all long-distance relationships are unhealthy. The duo formed in New Orleans in 2012 to play a single show, which they had little time to write and rehearse for. No matter: what they created was an intense, uncompromising set, which featured Byrd’s synth and saxophone loops and Lee’s bizarre, heavily treated vocals. Following their debut album, That’s How You Become A Clown, released last fall by Tymbal Tapes, Byrd and Lee spent two happy weeks in the southwest, and in between mineral soaks in Truth or Consequences, wild nights in Juarez, and bouts of crippling anxiety, they created DAD IS BAD, their new album, is out now on Baba Vanga. An eclectic, caustic collection, DAD IS BAD sees the boys ditching their usual slapdash songwriting approach to deliver eight tight, devious tunes. Byrd’s lurid, galvanizing compositions--equally the result of session improv and careful post production--move nimbly between no-wave, dad-rock, hip-hop, r&b, spoken word, and psych-folk, while Lee screeches and croons his way through a series of acerbic folktales and bonkers (but psychologically astute) monologues. Populated by lonely bots, bemused prisoners, slippery southerners, and internet trolls with hearts of gold, among other pariahs, DAD IS BAD is hellish, funny, and, in places, horribly moving. Call it crumbling world music.

YERÛŠELEM is the newest entity created by Vindsval and W.D.Feld (BLUT AUS NORD). First utterance ‘The Sublime’ is a world of interlocking miniatures, music in which a familiar centre has collapsed and been restructured into new forms, where ghosts are created by absence. The project’s name speaks of an incalculable vastness of contemplation within: YERÛŠELEM’s sound is a congruent melding of powerfully bass-heavy Godfleshian clank and grind, the sacred ur-texts of Coil and Autechre, stark neo-gothic guitar leads with intimations of fusion, the freshness-into-fetid-air experimentation of back-end ‘90s Mayhem and Thorns, post-punk urbanity, psychedelic dreamgaze, subterranean industrial pulses and the crunching rhythmic crispness of modernist electronica. Eternal searching has culminated in a new vocal and lyrical clarity which moves further towards communication than anything previously recorded by the pair. Is this spiritualism or lack thereof? Prayer or anti-prayer? Self-renewal from without or within? With ‘The Sublime’ YERÛŠELEM have created a realm unreal and all too real, the definition truly undefined - the source as unfathomable as it ever was.