All new work from OLAibi, a Japanese percussion-based experimental music project by AI from Osaka, an ex-member of OOIOO who regularly works with Takagi Masakatsu. In her music, OLAibi incorporates ancient Okinawan influences and melds electronics, steel drums, pianica, exotic percussion instruments and her voice into dizzying technicolor dream states. Since her childhood, AI was deeply inspired and mesmerized by Africa, and discovering Western African drums in later years mainly triggered her further musical activities. Using her manifold cross-cultural influences, she's created this deeply personal work, excavating her current feelings and sharing them with the outside world. -- Land where the water never dries up. Land where the soil is fertile. These were the only conditions for me. The earthquake. That attacked Japan. I was looking for a place to dwell. One day I stumbled upon an old estate agent man who gave me an old map. “I’ve never been there but you go and have a look.” I went there following the map, I got there but it didn’t seem right. It was a jungle. No space to enter. I entered into the dark woods clipping the branches in front of me one by one with a nata sword which I had with me. I had no idea where the borders were. It didn’t seem like there was no infrastructure. I had no idea this jungle even would fulfil my conditions. What sort of future had I imagined, I decided to live here to make this place my home. It's my 9th year since I have lived here. I can say that I live like a human. I spend about £7 a month on electricity. It’s for some pendant lights to avoid insects and musical machines to work. And wifi to connect to the outside world. At first I tried so hard to live harmoniously with nature. I tried not to chop down trees and stopped cooking meat dishes. After 8 years you finally realise that you change the organic system inevitably by simply just existing. Only humans cannot fit in this world. And I cry from the sadness and helplessness. We sway. We are creatures that sway. We try to adjust to fit in this world finding the harmonious point swaying. That made me feel less tearful and got up to live for the next day. I name all my music of food or flavour. Not to forget that everything I make is given from nature. The languages I chose in my music I call them -Fate community language. I mix up and use the phonetic of all the different foreign languages, And all I have to do is to follow the word souls and my instinct. - OLAibi -- OLAibi - all music & recording Written & recorded in spring 2020 -- Artwork design by Oliver Barrett

Zongamin takes a snapshot of lock-down, like a faded picture of a day at the fun-fair, scrunched-up and torn-up at the edges. Exotica, disco, dub and kosmiche stylings are doused in bleach and tumble in a bath of mud and frothing sea water. Tape loops circle around, conjuring dusty clouds and moments for reflection on times passed. Like the work of General Strike and Hype Williams, Zongamin molds his explorations in multi-genre goo, but bypasses obvious pastiche, instead unearthing a form of latent, submerged funk. Download includes original artwork by Susumu Mukai -- All tracks by Susumu Mukai (Zongamin) -- Recorded on 4,5,6 June 2020.Mixed and mastered by Susumu Mukai and Drew Brown. Artwork by Susumu Mukai / layout by Oliver Barrett

Spanish artist Victor Herrero dusts the cobwebs off his old computer hard drives and rekindles himself with a series of unreleased solo recordings, self-recorded over 2015-2018. The cherry-picked selection of tracks offers an exquisite corpse of past moments in time, recollected and reordained to reflect the awkward present under covid-19 lockdown. In it, the strings of his nylon string guitar gently weave mellow melodic refrains in a rough and ready aesthetic. Little movements, laments and circling dances are given time and space to grow, allowing his songs to sing from the ground upwards and seep into oneiric states. Victor is a DIY troubadour, conjuring the ghosts of Spanish guitar maestros Francisco Tárrega and Fernando Sor and the haunting of times past. As we listen to this we can imagine him sitting on the edge of our sofa in dim candlelight, whisky in hand at 4am, with the sunrise slowly peeking its head above the horizon. A really special collection. -- Victor Herrero - guitar & recording -- Recorded in Tangier, Porto, Sweden & Cádiz Artwork by Marcela Mico Artwork design by Oliver Barrett

Experimental vocalist Juliet Fraser shares her lock-down adventures on the 'TC Helicon VoiceLive 3'; twenty-two tracks of loops, refrains and laments fizzing with creative energy. "The TC Helicon VoiceLive 3 and I first worked together back in 2015, on a piece for voice and ensemble that took advantage of my many-buttoned collaborator’s ability to transform my voice in real time. Though the experience of frantically trying to press the right button at the right time whilst singing quite complicated notes wasn't altogether easy, I was left with a lot of curiosity for what this machine could do. I felt our adventures had only just begun. Fast-forward to March 2020: I decided to take the plunge, to order my own and make this reunion a lockdown project that might save morale and sanity. What's documented here are my little experiments, recorded over a 6-week period as I got to know the beast, fiddling around with the several hundred preset vocal effects, the manifold possibilities of individual effects (such as harmony and hardtune) and the loop function. Each track was made very fast, with no time for critical reflection." - Juliet Fraser

Okinawa-based artist Kanako Horiuchi centres her practice around her voice and the sanshin - an Okinawan musical instrument and precursor of the mainland Japanese shamisen – but opens the aesthetic possibilities of the instrument wide open, including excursions into electronic music, Senagelese music, minimalism and more. On 'Hope' she explores both the opaque nature of our current times and the glimmer of hope we can find in different places. ‘Darkness’ dives into the present with industrial synth washes and electronic drum cycles, before setting new co-ordinates on with the help of a drifting Okinawan Taiko on ‘Break Away’. On ‘Hope’ she shares vocal refrains with her 2 year old daughter, telling the tale of a buddha's arrival, world peace, mothers and the sea appearing. On final track ‘thanks’, recorded in Senegal before lock-down, she returns her instrument to folkloric traditions of the country, embracing the hope that can be gained through travel, exploration and generational love between mothers and children. “I never thought the covid-19 pandemic would affect my personal life, but it did. Somehow I wanted to formalise my thoughts and feelings I have had over this period into music. Okinawa, the county of Japan once used to be an independent country /kingdom, totally independent from Japan and any other country, has gone through and still has been going through the many layers of dark long history. I believe there are many places like Okinawa in the rest of the world. I wanted to make the music of Hope.” - Kanako Horiuchi Mastered and artwork by Oliver Barrett

"In Another Place is constructed from the sounds of found materials, domestic objects and self-made mechanisms. Working between Lucerne, Montreal and Huddersfield, we followed simple cues as instructional starting points, responding to a single word to create a sonic response within a specific time-frame. These prompts became starting points for materially engaged, sonic exploration. Each take was a dislocated, improvisation to no-one, confined to our private studios and homes, our headphones and recorders. Sounds include recordings of ceramic hobs, seaweed, styrofoam, kitchen foil, balloons, resonant tubes, scrap metal, motors, water pumps, spark gaps, lightbulbs, water, wooden dowels and sand paper. The results were layered, re-situated and mixed by matching time-frames and timbre. In Another Place explores the musical potential of everyday materials through disconnection, interpretation and serendipity" - (Tim Shaw) -- "What if COVID-19 had never swept the globe? What if our lives were operating as normal? There would’ve been Anne-F Jacques from Montreal as ame’s fourth artist-in-residence collaborating, in different scales, with a gang of sound artists and musicians; Julia Eckhardt, Phil Niblock, Tim Shaw, Tania Caroline Chen, Yorkshire Sound Women Network and myself right now, here at Dai Hall, a venue for underground experimental music and art scene in Huddersfield. The luxury of chaos (I miss that now) would’ve been followed by high-spirited laugher. When Keiko invited me to make a mini album for Takuroku, I romanticised this hypothesis, the ‘what-if’ theory. Every event has a cause. This Takuroku opportunity has given us a chance to thrive, to get back to our individual creative zone, to listen to the world once more. Thanks to Cafe OTO." - (Ryoko Akama) -- Recorded by Tim Shaw, Anne-F Jacques and Ryoko Akama -- Mastered by Anne-F Jacques Artwork design by Oliver Barrett

French artist Bruno Duplant gifts us a 36 minutes long piece insaisissable(s) instant(s)', a reflection both on time and the complex emotions under covid-19 lock-down. With field recordings of voices, birds and dogs, electronic bips & clicks and lingering piano notes, he draws his curtains and welcomes us to his discreet aural world. "Time has only one reality, that of the Instant. In other words, time is a reality tightened on the instant and suspended between two nothingness. Time will undoubtedly be able to be reborn, but it will first have to die. He will not be able to transport his being from one instant to another to make it a duration. The instant is already loneliness ... It is loneliness in its most stripped metaphysical value. But loneliness of a more sentimental order confirms the tragic isolation of the instant: by a kind of creative violence, time limited to the instant isolates us not only from others but from ourselves, since it breaks with our dearest past."Gaston Bachelard, L'intuition de l'instant, Editions Gonthier, méditation, 1932, p. 13-15. Dedicated to Reinier Van Houdt -- Bruno Duplant - field recordings, electronics, piano -- Cover design by Oliver Barrett from a photo by Bruno Duplant.

"Recorded over three separate afternoons.  Paper is a latest piece in my series for “prepared” violin. This one uses paper weaved across the strings, the resulting sound is that of a woodwind instrument (I hope). It is then improvised. Orlando GibbonsFantasia IV- I first played these Fantasias in 2011 for F-IRE Klang Codex concert series run by Lucy Railton and Fred Thomas. Around the same time I began performing at Oto in Lucy’s Kammer Klang and in some way I will always associate the Gibbons Fantasias for Treble Viols with Lucy and the early days at Cafe Oto.  Slow Changeis a process piece, a journey of the bow going across the string from the bridge to the end of the fingerboard, the sound is slowly changing, other strings get involved as the bow gets higher on the fingerboard. " - Aisha Orazbayeva -- Aisha Orazbayeva - violin, preparations, recording, mixing -- Artwork design by Oliver Barrett

Using 7 days in a week of lock-down as his aural canvas, John Butcher renders his daily thoughts, feelings and experiences with a rich array of solo works for Tenor saxophone, Soprano saxophone and Saxophone driven piano. John’s work and remarkable technique is usually brought to life by the milieu of tempered environments and interaction with both other players and the audience. Alone, enclosed within 4 walls with a microphone, he unveils a side to his practice that is rarely revealed. There’s tense tonal passages that meet glimmers of melodic lines. Moments of slow, searching refrains that roll out, before the next day sputtering in warbler-esque lexicon. On ‘Thursday’ spirals of notes ascend, descend and wind around as if battling with gravity. Driving a piano with his saxophone, he conjures vaporous fogs of sound, capturing dense subjectivity in thick clouds. Like Steve Lacy’s solo experimentations documented on ‘Lapis’ and ‘Straws’, ‘STUCK’ offer an aural vantage point into John’s complex inner worlds. A rewarding experience on several listens. --- John Butcher / saxophones & recording --- Tenor saxophone (1, 6) Soprano saxophone (2, 4, 5) Saxophone driven piano (3) Recorded at home, London, June 1-8, 2020. Artwork design by Oliver Barrett

"out of the vast void, immerging resonances receding again" - Johnny Chang A new piece by the Viola Torros, the ongoing research project by composer-performers Catherine Lamb and Johnny Chang, which seeks to realise and arrange the compositions of a pre-medieval composer, Viola Torros. A real pleasure to release this work following their stunning double CD on Another Timbre in late 2018.Viola T. was an anonymous composer who worked outside of the religious and academic establishments of her time. In her own practice, she documented her works in a minimally effective way, just enough to communicate with her fellow collaborators but barely enough to preserve a legacy for later generations of enthusiasts of her music.The concept of ‘research’ referred to by the Viola Torros Project involves studies of various relevant musical styles of the pre-medieval period (arabic, byzantine and indian modes), and investigating possible evolution of melodic and harmonic developments as V. T. might have discovered. Choosing one aspect of such a musical style to focus upon, details are discovered and presented in an arrangement for two violas, often with additional augmentations. -- Johnny Chang & Catherine Lamb - violas & arrangement -- Originally recorded by Bryan Eubanks, Düsseldorf 2017 Edited in 2020 by Johnny Chang Artwork design by Oliver Barrett

Anything to do with crisps (especially Tyrells) gets our resounding support here at OTO. Two of the most mischievious experimentalists in our community - Louie Rice & Luciano Maggiore - share with us an extended piece cyborg text piece that acts as an instructory rhythmic prompt to munch on the salty snack. Florian Hecker has experimented with similar computer voicings before, but there's not quite anything comparable to this gloriously dry, candid and obscene opus. Concrete poetry for the flaccid digital age (and for fans of crisps). "58 minutes of music assembled using recordings of an online digital voice synthesiser reciting an exhaustive list of permutations of the words NO PA PA ON. Pauses in speech are punctuated with a bass tone and could act as a prompt to eat a crisp." --- Recorded by Luciano Maggiore & Louie Rice in Norwich and edited in London, 2020 --- Text generated usinghttps://textmechanic.com/text-tools/combination-permutation-tools/combination-generator Synthesised voices generated usinghttp://onlinetonegenerator.com/voice-generator.html Additional audio material generated usinghttp://onlinetonegenerator.com/frequency-sweep-generator.html NO PA / PA ON is a performance series that started in Cafe OTOs project space and is often mispronounced.

If the "WTF' & 'OMG' superlatives were created for anything, it would surely be to fill the tiny liminal gap that Goodiepal's wildly experimental practice exists in. Beyond any pre-conceived expectations of what lock-down music or art could mean, here he has treated us to this. Jump into the speedrun...

Japanese electronic artist Foodman locks his fingers to his sampler for 7 jams recorded in real time - jump on and ride the rainbow! Often described as a footwork and juke artist, Foodman is clearly on his own tip, spinning out punctuated, splattering rhythms like a juiced up fruit machine playing out. Synthetic pan pipes, squirts of bass and sherbet tinged melodies dance around like a master gamer effortlessly slaying an end boss. Foodman describes the music on 'Skikaku' as inspired by the shape of a square, but to suggest that this could lead to any 4/4, dry or dogmatic electronic music is disengenious. Foodman attunes his rhythms to the body and to dancefloors, making music that dances with multiple limbs and in multiple colours. Recommended equally to fans of Just Dance, Skittles and Ripatti.

Argentinian electronic artist Aylu's taste for wacked-out humour, interstellar synths, awkward funk bass lines and pointillistic computer music is tied together on elastic bands, thrown around and webbed into this kaliedoscopic new suite. Moments of hallucinogenic ambience emerge then elapse, tumbling into wiggling rhythmic patterns. The ghost of Jaco Pastorius haunts the mainframe, battling in real time with pinball machine synths and splattering digital percussion. The James Ferraro 'post-internet music' influence in Aylu's music is apparent, but there's something about her work that feels more rooted in the physical world. When sounds of percussion rattle like builders hard at work, and voices appear both singing and yawning, it serves as a perfect metaphor for practice; music that is made from hard graft, but with tongue firmly lodged in cheek. "I like the temporal nature of music, being something that develops over time, which makes it different from a photograph or a painting. You can step into a narrative in a fictional world, not because it tells a story per se – I am not telling a concrete story in my music – but as a space you can enter and navigate. I like creating virtual, fictional worlds." - Aylu (interview in KRAAK's Avant-Guardian)

London-based Aircode (Julia Svensson) weaves radical autonomist Marxist feminist ideology with her stripped back avant-electronics. Elapsed bass notes rumble over a dank tunnel exterior, as if the last remaining memories of a night at the club. Discordant jazz piano notes appear like little matches being lit in a thick fog of darkness, while dubbed percussion and electronic counterpoints are phased in a series of dulled hues. The singular narrative of exploration in opaque space is sustained throughout, and is brought to an end by Julia - manipulating her voice through a series of mutated fx - reading an extended passage by Silvia Federici: “With the demise of the subsistence economy that had prevailed in pre-capitalist Europe, the unity of production and reproduction which has been typical of all societies based production-for-use came to an end, as these activities became the carriers of different social relations and were sexually differentiated. In the new monetary regime, only production-for-market was defined as a value-creating activity, whereas the reproduction of the worker began to be considered as valueless from an economic viewpoint and even ceased to be considered as work. Reproductive work continued to be paid - though at the lowest rates when performed for the master class or outside the home. But the economic function in the accumulation of capital became invisible, being mystified as a natural vocation and labelled “women’s labor.” […]Most importantly, the separation of production from reproduction created a class of proletarian women who were as dispossessed as men but, unlike their relatives, in a society that was becoming increasingly monetarized, had almost no access to wages, thus being forced into a condition of chronic poverty, economic dependence, and invisibility as workers. As we will see, the devaluation and feminisation of reproductive labor was a disaster also for male workers, for the devaluation of reproductive labor inevitably devalued its product: labor-power. But there is no doubt that in the “transition from feudalism to capitalism” women suffered a unique process of social degradation that was fundamental to the accumulation of capital and has remained so ever since.Also in view of these developments, we cannot say, then, that the separation of the worker from the land and the advent of a money-economy realised the struggle which the medieval serfs had fought to free themselves from bondage. It was not the workers - male or female - who were liberated by land privatization. What was “liberated” was capital, as the land was now “free” to function as a means of accumulation and exploitation, rather than as a means of substance. Liberated were the landlords, who now could unload onto the workers most of the cost of their reproduction, giving them access to some means of subsistence only when directly employed.”- Silvia Federici, 2004: 74-75. Caliban and The Witch -- Julia Svensson (aircode) - all music & recording -- Text: Silvia Federici - Caliban and The Witch, available to purchase here Artwork design by Oliver Barrett 

「Small Stone」  "In Japan during the Covid-19 lock down we saw a movement. It was created from a woman who raised her voice to say NO via SNS to one of the controversial bills, a revision of the public prosecutor's office law* that was about to go through the Lower House without a fair public hearing. This tiny voice of hers went viral and formed an online demonstration to protect our democracy. It is very rare in Japan for the public to be actively involved in any policies. Alas the bill was temporarily suspended because many finally stood up. When we threw lots of small stones, the mountain got moved a little. However we shouldn’t celebrate yet. We need to be calm and grounded and observe what the government will do.” says Kyoko Koizumi, an actress and a producer whom I respect dearly. Her phrases sums up things that do not change so easily.  *A proposed legal revision that would raise the retirement age for prosecutors became the centre of controversy this week when it was taken up by the Lower House. Unlike officials in other administrative organizations, prosecutors have wide powers to investigate, arrest and indict anyone, even prime ministers and other high officials. They must remain highly neutral and independent from other authorities and political powers. Since the proposed revision could allow the Cabinet to intervene in the personnel affairs of prosecutors’ offices, many experts fear it could jeopardize the independence of prosecutors and the separation of powers.   「Serene」 The music of Eric Dolphy lives with Breathing. We never forget the day May 25th 2020 for the world we can freely breath in and out.  「Two Blue Kites」 June 4th 1989 , it is a very memorable day for me.  31 years ago I took part in a demonstration for the first time ever in my life. It was a small resistance held in Tokyo. I was with the Chinese people raising my voice out loud in the crowd. I couldn’t do anything but I felt that I had to do something.  In the beginning of the 90s I was going back and forth between Tokyo and Hong Kong making music. I was offered to make music for a film portrait the night before the Chinese Cultural Revolution called “ The Blue Kite”. The producer of this film invited me to make the music for the film. The film director was banned from making this film in mainland China and he escaped to Japan via Hong Kong. The film was finally completed in Japan. Hong Kong was still in British colony then. This film made my film music career begin.  June 4th 2020 The Hong Kong government banned the public to organise and attend the candlelight rallies to mark the Tiananmen Square massacre. Despite the harsh policing and the Covid-19 regulation many people (still) defied the ban and tried to attend the commemoration. I was thinking of many of my friends there at the moment.   I wonder how this little country, Hong Kong, that “brought me up” and “ shaped me who I am today” will be from now. My heart is full of concern for its future. The film The Blue Kite is still banned in China to this date." - Otomo Yoshihide In Japanese / 日本語訳 「Small Stone」 日本では、ステイホームの期間中の5月8日、一人の女性の発言をきっかけに、現政権がやろうとしていた三権分立をゆるがすようなひどい法案(検察庁法改正案)に対し多くの人々がSNSを使って異を唱え、それがデモのような効果をもたらし、5月18日国会での法案決議を阻止するに至った。 「小さな石をたくさん投げたら山が少し動いた。が、浮き足立ってはいけない。冷静に誰が何を言い、どんな行動を取るのか見守りたい。」 敬愛する女優でありプロデューサーの小泉今日子が5月19日にSNSで呟いたこの発言は、そのうねりのことと同時に、しかしそう簡単に現状は変わらないことも表している。 「Serene」 エリック・ドルフィーが作る曲は呼吸とともにある。2020年5月25日は忘れてはならない日だ。 みなが伸び伸びと息ができる世界のために。 「Two Blue Kites」   6月4日は個人的にも忘れられない日だ。31年前のこの日、わたしは初めてデモに参加した。東京でおこなわれた小さなデモだった。東京に住む中国人たちと一緒にわたしも声をあげていた。いてもたってもいられなかったのだ。 90年代初頭、わたしは香港と東京を行き来して音楽をつくっていた。そんな中1993年、文化大革命前夜の北京を描いた「The Blue Kite」という中国映画の音楽を作ることになったのが、わたしが映画の世界に入る切っ掛けだった。中国で作ることを禁じられ、香港経由でフィルムを持って日本に脱出した監督が東京で完成させた映画で、香港のプロデューサーがわたしを誘ってくれたのだ。当時香港はまだイギリス領だった。 2020年6月4日、香港では天安門事件31周年の集会が新型コロナを理由に禁止されていたにも関わらず、多くの人たちが集まり追悼集会が開かれていた。きっと多くの友人もそこにいるのだろう。わたしを育ててくれた香港はどうなっていくのだろうか。 「The Blue Kite」は今でも中国での上映が禁止されている。

Switch that light off.Switch that light off.Still the night appears in her relentless bright stupor. A collection of unsung sleepless nights. A percussive collage of low-fi frequencies documenting a journey that never took place. Il silenzio non arrivaIl conto è salatoIl sole riscalda i fallimentiNiente ma tutto è cambiato --- Valentina Magaletti played and assembled percussion, drums, field recordings, vibraphone, toys, and oscillators. --- Produced and edited by Leon Marks. Special thanks to: Tom Relleen, Marta Salogni, Evelena Ruether, and João Pais Felipe for the love and support. Cover design by Oliver Barrett.

Naima Karlsson treats us to deep searching improvised recordings on 70s organ and vector synth. Originally recorded in Jan 2020 for an installation by Gery Georgieva at Cubitt Artists in London, Naima later reworked the piece, transmuting the material into '[Vital organs] I. Heart Protector. In it, slow winding motifs and melodic washes find their feet in a melancholic dirge. Lines of sound open up and unfurl, revealing over time a fragile inner structure. Like the work of her grandparents, Naima's music is rooted in the soil of the earth but gradually lifts itself skywards, finding solace in both the physical and digital world. The track is accompanied by a video collage by Naima: "The video is a collage of still and moving found images that journey through the organ track on an internal and universal scale. Taking influence from the title, protection and the body are prominent themes. The images search for fluid interconnections between micro and macro bodies in the physical, digital and astral realms such as far-off stars, cell phone devices, Dogon astronomy drawings, bodies of water and our central heart space." - Naima Karlsson -- Naima Karlsson - All instrumentation & video collage -- Naima will be donating 50% of her profits from this release to the Movement for Black Lives. Recorded by Maxwell Sterling2020