Kindred spirits Passepartout Duo and Inoyama Land embody the essence of play – charting a new chapter and reinvigorating the environmental music and electronic landscape.Passepartout Duo is formed of Nicoletta Favari (IT) and Christopher Salvito (IT/US), who since 2015 have been on a continuous journey travelling the world’s corners, engaged in a creative process they term “slow music”. Having been guests of many notable artist residencies and with live performances in cultural spaces and institutions, their evocative music escapes categorisation. With no fixed abode their musical pilgrimage brought them to Japan first in 2019, which prompted a deep connection to Kankyō Ongaku ‘environmental music’, a genre in which Inoyama Land is often associated with, soundtracking the duo’s first immersive experience. In 2023 the duo revisited Japan and set out to reconnect in particular with the music of Inoyama Land, performed by Makoto Inoue and Yasushi Yamashita. The highly revered album ‘Danzindan-Pojidon’ (1983) produced by Haruomi Hosono amongst other well publicized and acclaimed reissues (Light in The Attic Records’ Grammy-nominated compilation ‘Kankyō Ongaku’), produced a global resurgence and admiration of the environmental music movement. Nicoletta took the lead to seek out Inoyama Land and in making contact successfully their intrigue and eagerness to meet was warmly reciprocated, and the group scheduled to meet in the form of a spontaneous improvisation session.“We’re deeply concerned with what it means to be a duo, and what it means for people to connect through music.”'Radio Yugawara' was recorded in 2023 in Makoto Inoue’s hometown of Yugawara where his family runs a kindergarten, whose space has doubled as a Sunday recording studio. Upon arriving a circle of four tables was set up in the school’s auditorium - the tables were carefully populated with children’s instruments: a full set of handbells, a glockenspiel, a xylophone, recorders, melodicas, and harmonicas. Surrounding the tables were racks hanging all sorts of bells and wind chimes and within this environment each performer set up their own electronic instruments. Dialling into each other, a simple set of playground ‘game rules’ was devised where time was divided into three separate sessions (1) ‘only electronic instruments’, ‘only acoustic’, and ‘a mix of both’, (2) ‘revolving duets’ each taking turns to play through a cycle of ‘four duos’ and (3) ‘anything permitted’, accumulating to more than three hours of material which was then carefully distilled into succinct tracks. The alluring album opener ‘Strange Clouds’ oscillates into view, setting a lush scenery built from a bed of synthesisers and the first glimpse of the chromaplane, the hand-built analogue instrument designed by Passepartout Duo, featuring a touchless interface and endless organic sounds that underpin the album’s 11-track inlets. Percussive pulses act as the heartbeat to ‘Abstract Pets’ before earthy sub-swells open the pathway to glistening glockenspiels and wind chimes. The atmosphere shapeshifts with ‘Simoom’ and ‘Tangerine Fields’ with swirling synth lines and subliminal beats resembling changes in weather patterns. At the centre points the idyllic ‘Observatory’ and ‘Mosaic’ could illuminate the deepest oceans before the hypnotic, arpeggiating synth lines in the otherworldly ‘Xiloteca’ propel the album towards ‘Solivago’, with its gentle lullaby of playful ambience. The reflective closer ‘Axolotl Dreams’ resolves their somewhat chance meeting with elegant pastoral chord strokes and uplifting synth swells, sending final signals upwards into the ether. 'Radio Yugawara' is a unique one-off transmission from a specific place and point in time, unlikely to ever occur again. The respective duo’s approach can really be described as “tuning in”, a tuning into each other, to themselves, and to the surrounding nature of Yugawara. Like waves that travel off-world, sounds travel through the universe and can be lost forever if we don’t seek them out. In finding a harmonic affinity within their instruments and a spiritual kinship in their interwoven performance, Radio Yugawara at its core is an interpretation of feeling, of close human interaction and the true essence of discovery. “The album is both a transmission from a location, but also a tuning into the surroundings and to each other. Music in this kind of ephemeral moment is much less about active creation and more about discovering something which is already there in the air.”  

Brilliant Experimental album by the Merzbow co-founder, recorded in 1989 - with sticker and insert

Originally named „Merz“, this album should have been Merzbow's first vinyl release, but never came out on vinyl. So actually "Yantra Material Action" is „Material Action 1“, recorded in 1981 - with sticker and insert

After two and a half years out of print, Corsano/Orcutt's most popular album, Made Out of Sound, returns in a limited edition pressing. Best of 2021 — The Guardian, Pitchfork, Wire, Aquarium Drunkard, Stereogum, Magnet & Raven Sings the Blues.Pitchfork : "It’s a joyful noise. This is one of the more uplifting records of experimental music in recent memory. There’s something about how Orcutt and Corsano push each other that leads to work that pulses with the life force—these pieces bring to mind sunlight hitting a maple leaf, cells dividing under a microscope, a deep thirst quenched. Mark Richardson"Wire : "When you listen to Made Out Of Sound, you feel encouraged to immerse yourself in every note, cherishing the beauty of this otherworldly space. Joshua Minsoo Kim"

Finally on CD!!!  In a trajectory full of about-faces, Music for Four Guitars splices the formal innovations of Bill Orcutt's software-based music into the lobe-frying, blown-out Fender hyperdrive of his most frenetic workouts with Corsano or Hoyos. And while the guitar tone here is resolutely treble-kicked — or, as Orcutt puts it, "a bridge pickup rather than a neck pickup record" — it still wades the same melodic streams as his previous LPs (yet, as Heraclitus taught us, that stream is utterly different the second time around). Although it's a true left-field listen, Music for Four Guitars is bizarrely meditative, a Bill Orcutt Buddha Machine, a glimpse of the world of icy beauty haunting the latitudes high above the Delta (down where the climate suits your clothes). I've written before of the immediate misapprehension that greeted Harry Pussy on their first tour with my band Charalambides — that this was a trio of crazed freaks spontaneously spewing sound from wherever their fingers or drumsticks happened to land — but I'll grant the casual listener a certain amount of confusion based on the early recorded evidence (and the fact that the band COULD be a trio of crazed freaks letting fly, as we learned from later tours). But to my ears, the precision and composition of their tracks were immediately apparent, as if the band was some sort of 5-D music box with its handle cranked into oblivion by a calculating organ grinder, running through musical maps as pre-ordained as the road to a Calvinist's grave. That organ grinder, it turns out, was Bill Orcutt, whose solo guitar output until 2022 has tilted decidedly towards improvisation, while his fetish for relentless, gridlike composition has animated his electronic music (c.f. Live in LA, A Mechanical Joey). Music for Four Guitars, apparently percolating since 2015 as a loosely-conceived score for an actual meatspace guitar quartet, is the culmination of years ruminating on classical music, Magic Band miniatures, and (perhaps) The League of Crafty Guitarists, although when the Reich-isms got tossed in the brew is anyone's guess. And Reichian (Steve, not Wilhelm) it is. The album's form is startlingly minimalist — four guitars, each consigned to a chattering melody in counterpoint, repeated in cells throughout the course of the track, selectively pulled in and out of the mix to build fugue-like drama over the course of 11 brief tracks. It's tempting to compare them to chamber music, but these pieces reflect little of the delicacy of Satie's Gymnopedies or Bach's Cantatas. Instead, they bulldoze their way through melodic content with a touch of the motorik romanticism of New Order or Bailter Space ("At a Distance"), but more often ("A Different View," "On the Horizon") with the gonad-crushing drive of Discipline-era Crimson, full of squared corners, coldly angled like Beefheart-via-Beat-Detective. Just to nail down the classical fetishism, the album features a download of an 80-page PDF score transcribed by guitarist Shane Parish. And while it'd be just as reproducible as a bit of code or a player piano roll, I can easily close my eyes and imagine folks with brows higher than mine squeezing into their difficult-listening-hour folding chairs at Issue Project Room to soak up these sounds being played by real people reading a printed score 50 years from now. And as much as I want to bomb anyone's academy, that feels like a warm fuzzy future to sink into.. — TOM CARTER 

Originally released and sold on their fall 2009 US tour, Flower-Corsano Duo’s “The Chocolate Cities” stands as one of the group's most spirited releases. Recorded live in Cambridge, England and Geneva, Switzerland these recordings capture the power and energy being harnessed by the duo at a time of frequent touring, just after the release of their monumental double-LP “The Four Aims.”Michael Flower is perhaps best known for his work in Vibracathedral Orchestra, along with a slew of other bands, collaborations, and solo work. Meanwhile, Chris Corsano is well known as one of the premier drummers of modern times, and a frequent collaborator of Joe McPhee, Bill Orcutt, Bill Nace, Paul Flaherty, and many more. As a duo Flower and Corsano present an endlessly shifting and transforming sound, meshing elements of free jazz, drone, and ecstatic psychedelia into something all its own. While Corsano guides with his nimble and dynamic drumming, Flower plays amplified Japan Banjo (also known as a Shahi Baaja) providing melody, lead, and drone, often simultaneously. Gripping even in its quietest passages, thoughtful even in its most unrestrained crescendos, “The Chocolate Cities” documents a duo at the height of their collective prowess.Saved from the obscurity of its original CDr format and presented for the first time on vinyl with stunning new artwork by Chris Corsano, “The Chocolate Cities” stands as testament to the power of two magnificent players even 15 years on.

Noise;Iron hoofs, iron wheels, iron dinOf drays and trams and feet passing;IronBeaten to a vast mad cacophony. In vain the shrill, far cryOf swallows sweeping by;In vain the silence and greenOf meadows Apriline;In vain the clear white rain— Soot; mud;A nation maddened with labour;Interminable collision of energies—Iron beating upon iron;Smoke whirling upwards,Speechless, impotent. In vain the shrill, far cryOf kittiwakes that flyWhere the sea waves leap green.The meadows Apriline— Noise, iron, smoke;Iron, iron, iron. - Richard Aldington, 'Whitechapel' -- In 2005 I performed a set at Whitechapel Gallery as part of the first 'Wormhole Saloon' night. It was an 8-speaker surround-sound piece, but this basically just involved me playing four pre-prepared cassette tapes out of four walkmans whilst playing cello, violin and other bits and pieces over the top. Recently I found those four cassettes but I no longer have any recollection of what I played alongside, so this piece is a sort of collaboration with myself from nearly two decades ago, playing with the source material and adding new instrumentation on top.

Reaching, unthinking, I run my handAgainst the grainCatching fragments, taking passengersSharp delvers, of the greater wholeThough not of my aimingStill finding their markIn meA map, or suggestionNeedle-sharp in fleshThat should not yieldYet sometimes welcomesAnd meldsScrap and remnantSliver and crumbBlood and sapBone and seedSo that gradually, so slowlyAnd slightAs if barely noticingA solitary stem may rise from the throatThen branching, reaching, unthinkingRaise blooms to the sunAnd roots to the soilBelow. -- Written, recorded and produced by Oliver Barrett, 2018-2024

"I found this photo in an old scrapbook of my Granpa’s. He kept a lot over the course of his life - family photos, holidays, newspaper clippings from Lincolnshire where he grew up before moving to Nottingham (and eventually Bristol) with my Gran. This scrapbook spanned a few months of his mid-teens in the early 1930’s and included several pages of photos from a family holiday to Norfolk, including this one. Something about this photo stood out right away – the framing, the tow-rope sloping out of shot, the way my Granpa looks both as I remember him but also so youthful at the same time. I love how the angle makes him seem almost like a giant, striding across the Norfolk broads; tiny cattle seemingly unconcerned as he passes by. Then there’s the caption - Self towing “Snug” - in his slightly runic handwriting that always made me think of Tolkein, and which you can still see traces of in books I have of his from later life, when tremors in his hands made made his penwork spidery and less precise. A “snug” is a small, roofed vessel of the kind that you might spend an hour or two in upon a river or boating lake - similar to a canal boat. At least this is how I understand it from the pictures in the scrapbook – I’ve looked but can’t seem to find any reference to the term online. Maybe it’s a Norfolk colloquialism that’s fallen out of use - judging by the quotation marks it seems like it was a new term for my Granpa too. The final photo on the page is captioned “Finale: “Snug” breaks down”. Maybe the towing didn’t help, or maybe that was why the towing was required. My Granpa died when I was 11. I remember him being quiet and self-contained and I remember him taking me round all of the old oil paintings in Bristol Museum on the occasional day when he’d look after me, giving me little bits of information about each one. I didn’t appreciate that much then, but I do now. I started this album a year or so ago, and finished it up in the two weeks after my Gran died, aged 104, three decades after the death of my Granpa. This album is in loving memory of them both."

Hardworking families, grown-up politics, making tough choices, focussing on the challenges ahead, fully-costed policies on the global stage, stabilising the growth economy, rolling up our sleeves, stopping the boats, getting it done, smart motorways, secure future, no magic money tree, no straight bananas, strong and stable, a clear plan, mutually-assured destruction, starting to see the benefits, taking back control, out of order.

Written between 2014-2024. "A mountain-dwelling religion called Shugendō emerged in Japan as a syncretism between Vajrayana Buddhism, Shinto and Taoism in the 7th century, which stressed ascetic practices. One of these practices was sokushinbutsu (or sokushin jobutsu), connoting mountain austerities in order to attain Buddha-nature in one's body. Ascetic monks in Japan practiced nyūjō (入定), which caused their own death by adhering to a wood-eating diet consisting of salt, nuts, seeds, roots, pine bark, and urushi tea. They were then buried alive in a pine-wood box full of salt connected by a tube for air, and would ring a bell signaling they were alive. When the bell stopped ringing, the air tube would be removed. The practitioners of sokushinbutsu did not view this practice as an act of suicide, but rather as a form of further enlightenment."-- Recorded, arranged and produced by Oli Barrett. Some field recordings on part 1 by Ben Gaymer.

"Then arose Breas, the son of Balar, and he said: "It is a wonder to me", said he, "that the sun to rise in the west today, and in the east every other day". "It would be better that it wer so", said the Druids. "What else is it?" said he. "The radiance of the face of Lugh of the Long Arms", said they." – from 'The Fate of the Children of Tuireann' by Eugene O'Curry (1863)

One longform piece in two parts, or two longform pieces making one whole. Manipulated synthetic chamber choir, scrawled strings, restless sines, fielded recordings, rapturous devotions, mangled tape and discordant barrage. Written, recorded and produced by Oli Barrett. Additional creative commons sounds sourced from Rutger Muller, Martin Sadoux, Manuel Calurano, Dredding, greysound and Urkki69, then manipulated beyond their original intention. Apologies and thank you.

A piece, split into four parts, attempting to imagine and evoke the interior world of a Common Swift (apus apus) in its first four years of life. After dropping from its nest and taking its first flight, a swift will spend this period almost entirely airborne, going months or years at a time without ever landing and then only briefly. Feeding and even sleeping in flight, swifts will only come back down for an extended period when they are old enough to mate. Even after this point, the vast remainder of their lives will be spent in the air, during which time they can travel over a million kilometres. I’ve always loved swifts, but they’ve held special meaning for me ever since I moved into my current flat in North Somerset a few years ago and realised that some were nesting in the roof here. Not three feet from my desk where I wrote and recorded this piece, I can hear them shuffling and rustling above me in the early summer. Seeing them scream and swoop overhead with seemingly boundless freedom for a couple of months of the year is one of my favourite things about living where I do. Common swifts spend most of the year in Africa, arriving back in the UK and across the rest of Northern Europe in late April / early May to breed and raise chicks. I started writing and recording this album when they left at the start of August in 2022, with the aim of finishing it by the time they returned. I heard my first swift of the year last week, so I think I just about managed it.

Three pieces named for three people alleged to have been the executioner of King Charles I. The execution of King Charles I in 1649 was the defining act of the English Civil War, resulting in a temporary abolition of the monarchy and symbolising a significant step towards potential democracy in this country (one day, maybe). The identity of Charles I's executioner has never definitively been proved, as the executioner and his assistant wore face masks and wigs in order to avoid identification. Numerous people have been alleged to have carried out the act (including, implausibly, Oliver Cromwell himself) but there is no overall consensus. I've chosen two of the likeliest candidates - Captain William Hulet and Richard Brandon, who was the common hangman at the time - as well as one fringe candidate, parliamentarian soldier William Walker, who confessed to carrying out the execution several times and who has the same name as the Victorian diver that I previously devoted an entire album to; a coincidence too large to ignore. I'm not condoning murder, obviously. But it would have been nice if the royals had taken the hint in 1649. "We fought for the public good and would have enfranchised the people and secured the welfare of the whole groaning creation, if the nation had not more delighted in servitude than in freedom." - Prosecutor of Charles I, John Cook, shortly before his execution for "high treason" following the restoration of the monarchy with Charles II in 1660.

Broken harmonium, unbroken harmonium, ms-20 mini, strings, microbrute, feedback, extraneous gumpf.Slowly exhaled, July 2019 - January 2023.

Grapefruits has a changing line-up around the fixed core of Oliver Barrett and Max Bondi. For this iteration, Grapefruits were: Oliver Barrett / amplified celloMax Bondi / synth and tape loopsDavid McLean / saxophoneSimon Trevethick / drums Recorded by Shaun Crook at Cordyceps Is Your Friend, Cafe OTO, 6th March 2015.Tracks 2 + 3 reinterpreted by Oliver Barrett, December 2021.Mixed and mastered by Oliver Barrett.