Exemplary of Inga Copeland (Hype Williams) aka Lolina’s increasingly freeform, ephemeral style of composition of the last few years, her Geneva live show sees her coolly drifting between clouds of frothed percussive loops, bleeps, and church bells to screwed grime abstraction, janky blatz and dadaist synth-pop for nearly 50 wonky minutes. Keener observers will recognise mutant versions of songs from ‘The Smoke,’ released the same year of this performance, stitched in with her naturally unpredictable forms, which most brilliantly and boldly sound unresolved and frayed in a DIY, off-the-cuff way that many artists wouldn’t have the gall to perform live in front of an audience. It practically sounds as though she’s in her own space and doing what comes naturally, offering a candid snapshot of her stream-of-consciousness in unfettered flow. Never hectic, more stoned and endearingly carefree, the set washes out with a lolling sort of lo-fi psychedelia that feels freer, less contrived than more conventional sorts of psychedelic music (don’t get us started on soundalike “psych” bands that couldn’t be further from it), primed with a sort of aleatoric unpredictability and canny wit, and snagged with her patented, from-behind-the-ear hooks that light up the set at opportune junctures.

You are tuning into something that has been playing on an endless loop. These recordings come from a time when the dystopia called but life stood still, imagining other horizons. Love and new life in a place once used to house the dead. This was all we had: a shared dream. Dragging the harmonium from the top bedroom and down to the court, playing it until the fabric tore and it would no longer breathe or sound. Gold echoes reflecting on the roof. A memory, entombed. The familiar sound of the ferry engine roaring and the cold salt water blasting out beneath us as we went out to Inis Oírr, the smallest of the islands, like we did most summers. Love as a refusal to die, yet. This album survives as a vanitas—a reflection on the transience of life and certainty of death. A love letter to a dead city. Dripping paint over lost texts. Enticing the shadow self and embracing the anima, attempting divination. Live from an archive of past performances. All recordings are both dead and undead in that every time they are played back, they are re-lived. A mortuary of crystallised feelings, doubtful (self-imposed) exile and the long-gone sentiment of any romance in isolation. ‘But there it is, either you love or you don’t.’* *Samuel Beckett, First Love

Murk and mystery are the keys to Mosquitoes’ unique ability to suck the listener into a wormhole that pulses with menace. Little is known about this new-ish UK unit, but all signs point to an intriguing future. The proof resides within the grooves of Drip Water Hollow Out Stone, Mosquitoes’ 5-song 12” EP on New York City’s fearless Ever/Never Records. Yes, the record’s title functions as a concise explanation of a timeless natural process -- but it also reveals the name of each track, small gestures that gradually erode the listener’s sense of physical bearing. The murk radiates and pervades. “Drip” tosses you into the deep end and taunts you to try to swim. Strangled vocal cries and seemingly random guitar/drum patterns suggest the disorienting tactics of avant-rock legends US Maple. There is a disturbing logic afoot, even as the sounds seem to disappear into a maelstrom of their own making. “Water” quite literally buzzes with a malevolent grace as rhythms click and sounds reverberate like deep-sea sonar. “Hollow” channels the throbbing and whirring anxiety of latter-day Sightings, an all-too-rarely seen influence on contemporary noisemakers. It’s a testament to Mosquitoes’ peculiar aesthetics that they can hold their own in such rarefied company. On the flip, Mosquitoes’ put their heads down and burrow deep into into the listener’s skin. “Out” is an amorphous mass of distended sonics featuring short-circuiting guitars, unpredictable sound-swells and stuttering vocals attempting to communicate in an unspoken language. A perfect place-setting then, for the molten eruption of the final track, a fitting cap”Stone” on a mesmerizing outing from Mosquitoes, courtesy of Ever/Never Records. 

Mosquitoes are essential seneschals. What court, you ask? New Jupiter. Yep, they guard the threshold of the whole planet. Representatives of the Hexerei and Braucherei Guild beamed up for a brief exchange to learn something of their Suicide-inflected sound. But, that sure isn’t Scion retroactively influencing Rev. - Tom LaxCaustic dubs and wailing voices that search for space in the static; nervous skittering that fidgets under a layer of dust in a hollow acoustic space. - Jennifer Lucy Allen , Quietus

Bruce Russell and Noel Meek return with their second harsh noise collaboration. Their first, 'Classical Music' (2018) was an all-electronics wrestling bout that simulated engine testing on a long-haul passenger jet. Their new album combines guitar, violin and electronics and was recorded in a wood workshop. You can hear the power tools, even though none were actually used. Extreme noise can sometimes be associated with offensive, racist or extreme-right views. The New Zealand duo have chosen to spotlight that problematic tendency by recording their new record in Christchurch, scene of that country's worst right-wing terror atrocity, and calling it 'Say No to Hate'. It is an affirmation of life and collaborative solidarity, one of the signature characteristics of the fully international scene from which it springs. --- Released on LP, February 2020 Edition of 200 copies Ikuisuus Records

"Corulu Flatdas Gasigo" was originally planned for release in 2003 but the project got stuck in limbo. 20 years later, an envelope was found in Finland, containing the only existing master on a cd-r plus all the cut & paste style graphics on xerox paper. Luckily the cd-r still functioned and the project will now finally be completed by Artsy Records. Miguel Tomasin: Voice, percussion & organ on A1Moncho Conlazo: Electric guitar & marmonioAnla Courtis: Electric guitar & pacalirtePacu Conlazo: Mapuche percusiónRecorded & mixed at Valuba Mafiforo Studios,Buenos Aires, Argentina 2002-2003

Fernand Schirren was an exceptional musician and composer, rhythm teacher to Bejart and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, silent film accompanist of the Brussels Musee du cinema (now CINEMATEK) from its founding in 1962 until the 1980s, and eccentric collector of pipes and romantic postcards. He chose anything but a traditional historical-oriented approach, and left his avant-garde stamp on the film, dance and music worlds at home and abroad. This compilation gathers never before published works that Schirren specially composed for the short films 'Dimanche' by Edmond Bernhard in 1963, 'Masques' by Jean-Marie Buchet and Marc Lobet in 1959, and Cartoon Circus by Benoit Lamy and Picha in 1972. Some of the most intense and curious soundtracks cinema ever gave us. A1 Composed by Fernand Schirren for the short film Dimanche by Edmond Bernhard in Brussels, Belgium, 1963 B1 Composed by Fernhand Schirren for the short film Masques by Jean-Marie Buchet and Marc Lobet in Brussels, Belgium, 1959 B2 and B3 Composed by Fernand Schirren for the short film Cartoon Circus by Benoît Lamy and Picha in Brussels, Belgium, 1972

Edition Telemark proudly presents the first vinyl LP since 1989 by Munich's long-running ensemble for experimental music, PHREN, formed in 1968 by Michael Kopfermann. Informed by the musical avant-garde at the time and especially the problems discussed by other improvisational groups, Kopfermann developed his own approach to improvisation and tone production and sought to find instruments and playing techniques that allowed him to realize what he had in mind. His thinking centered around the treatment of noise and the eschewal of a separation between noise and tone, as well as methods for overcoming the limitations of the pre-conceived tones of the tempered system. This ruled out quite a few instruments, and also electronic techniques available at the time were deemed to primitive for the tones he sought to produce. After initially experimenting with Turkish cymbals stimulated by cello bows, Kopfermann settled on a range of instruments that included traditional string instruments, e.g. viola and violoncello, and certain wind instruments like the flugelhorn and the helicon. All instruments were prepared, the string instruments with thicker gut strings and unusual tunings, the wind instruments with longer elbow pieces. The preparations, along with the development of new and uncommon playing techniques, allowed the players to create and improvise on previously unheard noisy tones that are not static and pre-conceived but substantially individual. Over time, the number of musicians in the ensemble expanded up to six and the activities under the PHREN moniker became morefold, most notably with the formation of the PHREN theatre group led by Carmen Nagel-Berninger. Still, even during the sextet years, trios and duos of varying instruments were played, often called "analytical" because they were meant to focus individual voices against the background of the larger ensemble. From early on, PHREN published about their actitives in written form and on LPs and later CDs, mostly in their own PHREN-Verlag. This new LP thus compiles recent recordings from 2010 and 2018 of the duo of Carmen Nagel-Berninger (prepared viola) and Inge Salcher (prepared flugelhorn). The duos heard here are not so much meant as analytical studies, but rather as fully valid, improvisationally generated pieces, applying the musicians' long-term experience with their music in a way that doesn't sound reduced despite the small line-up. Edition of 300 with printed inner sleeve and extensive liner notes on the history of the PHREN ensemble and its duo line-ups in German and English by Reinhard Kapp, Carmen Nagel-Berninger and Inge Salcher, as well as a detailed discography.

Heavy Machinery Records is proud to present 'Expressions of Interest' the brilliant debut album from Melbourne post-punk specialists screensaver. screensaver balance frenetic energy with unsettling tonalities to create rhythmic gloom that rides the new wave to the synth-punk. Spending three years in an incubatory state, the band began as a trans-Pacific collaboration between Christopher Stephenson (Spray Paint / Exek) and Krystal Maynard (Bad Vision / Polo) in 2016. By 2019 the pair had recruited Giles Fielke (Low Tide) and James Beck (Personal Touch / Rat Columns) on bass and drums respectively to form the band as it exists now. ‘Expressions of Interest’ is the debut album from screensaver, released on Heavy Machinery (AU) and Upset the Rhythm (UK) Records. Sonically, the 10-track album is rich and detailed, and pays homage to its era of inspiration: late 70s-mid 80s post-punk and new wave. From electronic-driven krautrock, to post-punk full of tribal toms and dirge-y synths, to death-disco with touches of EDM, 'Expressions of Interest' is an album that is both fierce in attack and destined for the dance floor. Maynard’s vocal style is equal parts haunted and commanding, her lyrics exploring themes of social degradation, frustration and repetition, whilst exposing the fragility of our bodies/minds on the whole. Praise for ‘Expressions of Interest': “Though screensaver's lineup comes close to a supergroup of Australian post-punk talent, with members who have played in EXEK, Rat Columns, and other acts putting their stamp on these time-tested sounds, it's Maynard's voice that immediately distinguishes them from their peers. A vibrato-heavy alto snarl in the vein of Siouxsie Sioux or Adult's Nicola Kuperus, it's a refreshing -- and imposing -- change from the deadpan vocal style of many post-punkers in the 2020s.” – Heather Phares, All Music “E.O.I is a potent set of dark post-punk inflected with industrial, motorik prog-rock and other styles, combining angular guitars, buzzing keyboards, driving rhythms and hypnotic song hooks.” Don Yates, KEXP “Sonically, screensaver are an amalgamation of goth, synth, and post punk. On a macro level The Cure, Joy Division and Siouxsie and the Banshees, are some of vocalist Krystal Maynard’s musical influences as a teenager. However, on a micro level you'll find Constant Mongrel and Nun, UK label mates Es, and almost anything and everything released on Nihlistic Orbs. At the same time, this band is like no other.” - Tristan Birrell, 4ZZZ “Most bands trying to do this particular sound don’t have this level of attention to detail that screensaver have, in particular I enjoy the subtle and not so subtle use of percussive synth sounds. Great lyrics, maybe not the most uplifting but indeed an accurate representation of the new dark age we live in. ‘When the well runs dry, you act surprised’. Expressions of Interest is a studied, devotional love letter to the bands that have inspired them, not merely a genre exercise.” - James Vinciguerra (Total Control/Trevor) 

Electronic musician Xopher Davidson releases Lux Perpetua via Daydream Library Series. A noted protége of Maryanne Amacher, Xopher recorded these two tracks in 2020 utilizing vintage synths within the beloved music studios of Mills College in Oakland, California. Xopher builds his experiments in electronic sound from a basis in painting, photography, and film, and through an interest in electronic circuits going back to building radios and homemade circuits as a kid. He has built and explored the sound world of a homebrew modular synthesizer comprised of surplus laboratory equipment: various oscillators, pulse generators, filters and an 'analog computer. He has released 4 albums as ANTIMATTER : Transfixion, Antimatter Vs. Antimatter, Our Lady of the Skies, and Reset. As an audio engineer, Davidson has worked on projects composed / performed by: the League of Automatic Composers, John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, Subtropic, Diamanda Galas, Kid 606, DJ Rupture, Darwin's Bitch, Once 11, Mix MasterMike, Hans Grusel, Phoenecia, Jonah Sharp, We, Zbigniew Karkowski, and Iannis Xenakis.

Lake From The Louvers is a new solo work for concrete sounds, electronics and instruments from Australian composer-performer James Rushford, who has spent the last fifteen years honing his singular approach to composition and performance through solo works and collaborations with artists such as Oren Ambarchi, Crys Cole, Will Guthrie, Graham Lambkin and Klaus Lang.Created primarily during a stay at the La Becque, an artist residency on the shores of Lake Geneva, Lake From The Louvers draws inspiration from the play of shadow and light on both the surface of the lake and the window through which Rushford viewed this lacustrine landscape. While the lake is itself at times directly audible in the form of field recordings, the image suggested by the record’s title is less directly represented than translated into sonic structures inspired, as Rushford explains, by ‘the passing of shadow through a fixed space’. The movement of light across these two flat surfaces, lake and window, finds its sonic equivalent in these eleven pieces, in which fragments and particles of sound – highly amplified crunches, synthesized squawks and pings, harp notes – ripple across the length of each track. Fixed sets of elements define each piece, often moulded into ephemeral ensembles in which individual voices consistently fade away and reappear.Rushford’s performances on various keyboards provide the unstable, wavering foundations of many of these pieces, with microtonal tunings adding a woozy, seasick edge to his stately, often stunningly beautiful playing. Each side of the LP ends with an extended keyboard work: the first for groaning, sighing church organ, the second for a psychedelic cloud of detuned synthesizer tones in which harmonic fragments sink into their own melancholic recollection. Elsewhere the record makes use of elements as varied as microtonal harp, skittering drum machines and synthetic marimba, establishing a sound palette remarkable for its breadth, as well as its sparkling, glittering quality. Where many of Rushford’s solo projects have taken the form of long works with a sombre cast, Lake From The Louvers is strikingly bright and accessible, a series of sonic glimpses in which, like a late Monet, the shimmer of light undoes the distinction between image and reflection, foreground and background, surface and depth.

Since the early 1980s the Eureka, California based duo Psyclones freak out in music. As one of the most long-standing DIY duos, Brian Ladd and Julie Frith created a body of work, that flirts with Ambient, experimental industrial sounds, New Wave, Post-Punk, Synth-Pop, and all that electric jazz. Besides a few hard-to-find vinyl releases, they published their music regularly via cassette tapes on labels like their own imprint Ladd-Frith or other famed 1980's underground tape labels like Cause And Effect from Indianapolis, legendary San Francisco based Subterranean Records, Sound of Pig from New York, Insane Music from Belgium or the Spanish label Auxilio De Cientos to name but a few.Now, Notte Brigante is dropping “Tape Music 1980 – 1984” – a detailed compiled sampler on Psyclones early output, that was scattered over diverse tape releases. A nine tracks long trip into the work of a highly underrated band, that never lost their drive to explore new avenues in sound. “Tape Music 1980 – 1984” displays their artistic impulse with a strong, minimal leaning post-punk feeling, spreading the early magic of a once new genre, that liberated rock music briefly from its bombastic male driven professionalism. Psyclones liberated large, while adding the repetitive patterns of drum machines, witchy female singing, cool male chanting, Tuxedomoon-ish weirdness, darkish synth sounds and dubby big city Angst to their cocktail of music. All balancing between icy wave coolness and nonchalant neon funk. Insane Music for sane people, smokers, rain lovers, midnight movers and all those cats, that can’t cope with the pre-written consumer life reality. If you chose to eat “Tape Music 1980 – 1984”, make sure to wear shoulder pads, bring an ashtray and turn your inner fog machine on.Music recorded on cassette by Julie Frith and Brian Ladd between 1980 and 1984. LP mastered today from the original recordings.

Hoof Stand is the third vinyl output by Primorje, the collaborative project between Giovanni Donadini (Ottaven, Canedicoda) and Matteo Castro (Mercury Hall, Lettera 22, also founder of Second Sleep label). Keeping their focus on a minimal yet disruptive 4-track recorders-based set-up, in the nine tracks making up this 12" the duo sew up rough textures of oblique tape loops intertwined with dub echoes and slowed down tempos, giving shape to what appears to be the sinister, syncopated sound of a degraded materiality. Hoof Stand comes in 300 copies on black vinyl featuring cover art by Federico Lupo.

In October 2018 we took several recordings in and around Eddie Prévost’s home village of Matching Tye in Essex, where he has been living for the past fifty years. The majority of the pieces that made it to this LP took place in All Saints Church, High Laver, the burial site of John Locke. This fact was notable in the choice of title for this set of recordings, and it seemed necessary to put forward Eddie’s own take on Locke that he offered in our correspondences: “Scholars of Locke’s philosophy will be familiar with the idea of mixing labour with materials as a fore-running notion of possessive individualism and basis for private property. Such ‘mixing’ is a persuasive description of a creative act. But the theory is more worthy of a social dimension.” As for the individual titles for each of the studies on the LP, each takes ideas and elements from music past. For example, MaxPlus makes a nod towards bebop pioneering drummer Max Roach who offered an earlier hit-hat study. Eddie utilises such examples, offering further creative insights which can then be woven back into the common wealth of sound. The final track, returning to the bowed cymbal method of the first, was recorded outdoors on a breezy green, and is pictured on the back cover of the sleeve. It was an attempt to capture the playing in its ‘metamusical’ relationship with the untempered sounds of the external environment. Eddie has written about Metamusic in his book The First Concert (Copula, 2011): invoking childlike ‘protomusical’ behaviour, or the sense of music that a person might possess before the inevitable influences come to play any role in their productive, and appreciative, musical development.* Ross Lambert provided a few words along side his cover drawing entitled ‘The Metamusician’: “The eyes would symbolise for me things like searching, examining, closeness or friendship I think; engagement with the world. Decisions in making the image were completely intuitive, this is just me looking for the meaning, post-analysing, post rationalising.” - Daniel Kordik & Edward Lucas, March 2019 A set of solo percussion studies played in locations near Eddie's home in Matching Tye. Artwork by Ross Lambert. 

"'Pleasure Island' is British composer Tim Parkinson’s disquieting and joyous Slip debut: play time in end times. Titled after the Disney adaptation of ‘Paese dei balocchi’ (or the Land of Toys) in Carlo Collodi’s ‘The Adventures of Pinocchio’ (1883), 'Pleasure Island' is a metaphysical playground of organic and digital cohabitation, its inhabitants pacified by toys and comforts. Alongside Dawn Bothwell, Suze Whaites, Laurie Tompkins, and Francesca Fargion, Parkinson exerts an uncannily emotional pull from an unlikely but potent alliance of ultra-minimal aesthetics, dead-beat drums, junk electronics, and mechanised mantras. Voices are hemmed in by electronic sound. People buffeted around by machines. Words surrounded by garlands of digital interference. Time repackaged as countdown. Tim’s trash-opera ‘Time With People’ continues to be performed around the world, past champions of which include Object Collection, a.pe.ri.od.ic, Edges, and NEC, and he is a co-curator of London’s longstanding ‘Music We’d Like To Hear’ series. Despite decades of fiercely independent production, this is his only piece conceived of first and foremost as an album. --- Tim Parkinson / keyboards, stylophones, drums, percussion, midi, electronics, sounds, vocals Francesca Fargion / vocals on 'Happy Birthday' Dawn Bothwell / vocals Laurie Tompkins / vocals Suze Whaites / vocals --- Recorded in London Oct–Dec 2017 & Newcastle May 2018. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Artwork by Rick Pushinsky.

Ultra limited LP release, comes with 6 pages booklet, featuring two tape works pieces by conceptual artist John Perreault (b. 1937). The first work, “A Recorded Message,” features a tape loop with what sounds like a mechanized recording of someone saying “this is a recorded message” mixed over a soundscape of ambient sounds of automobiles and city streets. The second piece, “Traffic,” is a fairly straightforward field recording of traffic sounds made on West 10th Street between Bleeker and Hudson in New York City from 2 o’clock to 3 o’clock in the afternoon on September 25, 1969.

Contemporary and historical Porest recordings channelled from behind the somnambulistic event horizon. The now sound... The bleak oblique. The minimal and the maximal. Filmic chamber drones, meditative radio massage and forged spiritual violence bury pop ephemera into the swirling murk of de facto instrumental nihilism and orchestral context-free drama. Layered field and radio recordings back electro-acoustic experiments via electric saz, strings, balypso, reeds & synths. Big drones, small ensembles and mood-anthems recorded by Porest and friends between 1995 and 2020 in West Oakland, Germany, Sumatra, Syria, Hanoi and London. --- Mark Gergis: bağlama drama, balypso, bass, breath density, edits, electronics, gravel, horn, hot volume, foley, glass, moroccan fiddle, site- recordings, organ, percussion, pulse wash, radios, recorder, reverb, synthesizers, tapes Jerry Blue: electric guitar - No Terracotta Relief Heco Davis: clarinet - Liminal Treason, saxophone - One Million Dollars Erik Gergis: washtub bass & brushes - One Million Dollars, synth -(Terlok), accordion - Liminal treason Peter Valsamis: co-arrangement/production & percussion - (Terlok) Jeremy Wilson: Marimba - One Million Dollars --- Discrepant, 2021

The piece develops while complex layerings of chords and musical sentiments shift in and out of focus, yet all take center stage all the time. Ending the piece, Palestine excitedly shouts out that the organ is still the best synthesizer ever made. In typical Palestine fashion, his performance made the whole church resonate, an effect that can be repeated easily when listening at home, because this record demands volume and lots of it. Brooklyn-born Charlemagne Palestinehas long been hailed as one of the originators of modern minimalist and experimental music. He very firmly describes his music as maximalist. His immense body of work features many solo albums, collaborations, performance-driven video works and much more. In his work in performance, music, video and related media since the late 1960s, he uses certain emblematic objects such as teddy bears, cognac and scarves. They serve as signatures, he calls them symbols of identification."