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Cardinal Fuzz (Europe) and Feeding Tube Records (USA) are proud to present for you - ‘The Great Mountain’, the debut album from Waterless Hills.

Waterless Hills are drummer Andrew Cheetham (now playing with Richard Dawson, Kiran Leonard, Irma Vep, Yerba Mansa, Desmadrados Soldados de Ventura etc). The recordings feature himself plus two further members of the Manchester Underground wrecking crew - dbh (Kiran Leonard band, Irma Vep band, Jim Ghedi band, his own bad self) on violin; Gavin Clarke (DSDV) on bass – and augmented by Cambridge-based avant-folk musician C Joynes on electric guitar.

The album was recorded in one day direct to 1/4” tape at Hallé St Michaels, Manchester. All tracks were wholly improvised, and the tapes document a slowly-evolving interplay and, at times, ‘on-the-edge’ exchange between the players. The results were eventually shaped into an imaginary soundtrack to an orientalist western loosely themed around Freya Stark's 1935 travelogue 'The Valleys Of The Assassins' and the surrealist occult art of Ithel Colquohoun. The album itself is closely paired with Waterless Hills’ debut release, an 8” lathe of two pieces captured at the same session and released in an edition of 99 copies on All Saints Day 2019 by Sonido Polifonico (www.sonidopolifonico.co.uk). This debut release garnered spins on the BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction, Stuart Maconie’s BBC 6 Music show Freak Zone, and Jeff Conklin’s Avant Ghetto show on WFMU, together with favourable reviews from Byron Coley in Wire magazine.

Recorded direct to 1/4" tape by Patrick Crane at Halle St Michaels, Manchester
Mastered by Dominic Tanner at Bojanic Audio & Mastering

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We’re delighted to announce the release of Night Gestalt's new album "Sudden Rituals Vol. 1" on February 27th, Preceded by 3 singles on the 6th, 13th and 20th February.

In the words of Olof Cornéer the composer/producer behind Night Gestalt:

‘With this album I had a very simple idea, what happens if you mix A with B? I wanted to be the mad scientist and in order to do that I had to let other people in on the creation of the music.

Some of these rituals took place in my studio in Stockholm, some over the internet. It was also a way for me to approach people I have admired for a long time. As a composer/musician/producer it’s really interesting to chat about music with people you think are doing interesting stuff. But to make music together with them is even better. Hopefully that’s how this album sounds in the end too. Playful, welcoming and inclusive. But also dark and psychedelic.'

The creation process started with a collaboration of deep bleeps (from Night Gestalt) and Swedish folk violin from Lisa Rydberg and, as the album progressed, waves of textured synth and strings, ambient brass, acid dub and a collaboration with Persian Setar master Behdad Babaei all underpinned by synth driven bleeps and patterns.

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a collection of songs written over the course of five years, as an incidental meditation on grief, heartbreak, and the roles we all play in the world we inhabit and the worlds we hope to build.

this album is dedicated to all those showing up to do the difficult work of being human, even and especially when that work means having to face the big fears and the big hurts; to all of the wounded places where a lack of presence and care has led to cycles of trauma; to the mysterious forces of dream and beauty that keep us pushing forward and striving toward the light; and to my ancestors, some of whom are pictured on the cover of this album, as they prepared to leave their homeland in Marmara, Turkey at the onset of genocide, and whose gifts traveled magically through space and time into my own body.

the woman on the far right of the photo holding a bouzouki (a traditional Mediterranean folk instrument) is my proyiayia, my great-grandmother, Anthoula Basil.
Credits
all songs written, performed, recorded and mixed by Dana Anastasia in Snoqualmie, WA.
album art by Dana Anastasia
mastered by Camelia Jade Lazenby in Chimacum, WA.

special thanks to all of my Patreon donors and everyone else who contributed mightily to make this project possible... Robert S. Field, William Stone, Caldon Glover, Jac Amari, Anthea Karanasos, Ruairi O'Cumascaigh, Alex Eisenberg, Sarah Wheatley, Damian Cade, Bryan Noyes, and everyone else who's offered encouragement and support to me over the years. I truly couldn't have done this without you <3

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ISLE008.5 shows Parisian artist D.K.'s concern for the nostalgia-tinged 90s electronica and second room IDM that inform not just his compositional practice but also our own tastes here at the label. Recorded live at the intimate South Korean venue The Edge, this limited 12" births fleeting moments in a late night music bar into physical form. Propulsive rhythmic tension, heavy doses of reverb and glassy, cavernous sound design across six movements.

Jazz plays a big part in this weeks show with it's latest beat led mutations sitting comfortably next to more organic fusion endeavours and just for good measure there's some Welsh folk and percussive led, slow house beauties

Benoit B - Vestigia Flammae feat. Elen Huynh (Into The Light)
Knxwledge - Learn (Stones Throw)
On-Ly - Double Edge (La Sape)
Rejoicer - Pre Memory Circle (Stones Throw)
Tim Jackiw - Elara (Bandcamp Self Release)
Collocutor - Pause Reprise (On The Corner)
Majid Bekkas - Chahia Taiba (Act Music)
Web Web - The Upper, Part 1 & 2 (Compost)
Cynefin - Ffarwel I Aberystwyth (Self Release)
Linkwood & Foat - Es Vedra (Athens Of The North)
Koichi Sakai - Wono feat. Afla Sackey, Yoruba Soul Mix (Olindo Records)

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Dead Melodies and Zenjungle join forces on this dark noir ambient album

Far beneath the lofty empire of steel and brick, a perpetual blanket of darkness reigns harbouring mankind's darkest sins. And amidst this grotesque illusion of grandeur, in which the elitist grip ever tightens, the forsaken's demons awake from their slumber wreaking havoc in the eternal shadow. Man's greatest creation and ruin rolled into one in an endless labyrinth of forgotten secrets, unsolved mysteries and stories that are yet to be told.

Step into the haze of the low lying smog and lose yourself in these noir tales from the darkest corners of the city, courtesy of Dead Melodies and Zenjungle.

Recommended for fans of Dark Ambient Noir Jazz

Credits
Tom Moore/Dead Melodies:
Electric guitar, bass guitar, acoustic guitar (picked), ebow, synths, keys and field recordings
Phil Gardelis/Zenjungle: Tenor saxophone, alto clarinet, electric guitar, acoustic guitar with bow, synths, noises, field recordings
Written, produced, recorded: Tom Moore & Phil Gardelis
Artwork & Mastering: Simon Heath

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Six Organs of Admittance is back with a new record, new techniques in sound generation, and a new energy. Arriving three years after Burning the Threshold, Companion Rises has a driving force only hinted at previously. Due out on Drag City on February 21st 2020. 
 
Methodologically, Companion Rises sometimes recalls the early-mid lo-fi Six Organs records, with digital processes substituting for the analog techniques of yore and, instead of Ben Chasny’s hand percussion overdubs, algorithmic programs generating rhythms. Ben Chasny created all sounds and programs, all the recording and mixed the entire record, also like some earlier ones – but don’t mistake this for a simplistic return to an older sound. Just one listen makes it clear that this new Six Organs of Admittance release is entirely in the present. 
 
Sonically, the songs are bursting with ideas, harmonically rich, gorgeously arranged; utilising synthesizer and guitar distortion for unique colouring effects while crafting contrasting versions of the song within itself, overlaying electric and acoustic treatments that interlock like two shards to form a single key. The rush of excitement is palpable, track after track. 
 
Thematically, Companion Rises navigates a similar Stellar-Gnosticism as 2012’s Ascent, while exploring a completely different set of stories. Whereas Ascent was locked into a narrative concerning a sentient Jupiter, Companion Rises presents a handful of folk-tales whose topics span in scope from panspermia to specific constellations, all written in a way that eschews old new age presentation tropes and embraces the now. One thinks of Octavio Paz’s oft-used metaphor of the concentric circle, as Companion Rises returns to a similar place but much farther out from the center.
 
With Companion Rises, Ben Chasny has created a Sci-Folk record that feels very much right-place, right-time as we welcome in the new decade. Listen to the first single “Two Forms Moving” above and preorder the new album for February 21st.

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ISAN’s Robin Saville reveals an ambient album, which merges the Electronica aesthetics of his main project with field recordings, drones and acoustic instrumentation.

A lot of things have been written about what happens to the mind when the body starts moving. Instead of reciting poems of the inevitable self-help books, let’s get straight to the point: For many, taking walks on a regular basis is both liberating and empowering. It is not necessarily so much about the exercise, but rather finding one’s own rhythm in life. Robin Saville – of ISAN fame – is such an ambler His walks inspired him to base his third solo album – his first one for Morr Music – on the out of the way places he came to see and experience while being out and about.

Clocking in at just under 40 minutes in total, "Build A Diorama" is both a subtle culmination and a poignant antipode to what Saville has achieved together with Antony Ryan as ISAN. While the aesthetics might seem similar in places, Saville opts for a decisively different pace when it comes to writing and producing. Progress is steady, and change, however, is slow – like looking at a diorama for a long period of time in the ever so slightly changing light or as a flaneur focussing on one particular spot, a found object so-to-speak, waiting for the mind to orchestrate it appropriately, giving it sense and meaning.

Built around quiet field recordings, Saville’s six compositions transform this highly personal and, therefore, difficult-to-convey experience into a comprehensible exploration of beauty. Where ISAN almost exclusively uses electronics, Saville deliberately expands this well-established palette with acoustic instruments like bass guitar, chimes and glockenspiel, aiming for an even more suitable musical manifestation of what the walker sees and feels once he fully engages in his passion. Ranging from blissfully pulsing pads allowing for complete associative freedom ("The Deepdale Halophyte Economy") to the playful minimalism of an orchestra dominated by busy bells ("Bosky"), Saville’s "Build A Diorama" is not just a valuable addition to his musical output, but an essential audio guide for those striving to explore, learn and understand. 

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‘Continuation’ is a remarkable work in which the interplay of emotional experience and life motion experienced by band leader Tamar Osborn (also known as Tamar Collocutor) is channelled and explored by Collocutor.

The band’s third LP assuredly strides forward following the critical acclaim awarded to ‘The Search’ from 2016 (a work that gained the enthusiastic praise of Mulatu Astake and Gilles Peterson among others).
Whereas ‘The Search’ invoked a journey ending in hope and new beginnings, ‘Continuation’ looks at the aftermath of the unexpected. This is an album about coping with grief, loss and bereavement: The music charts the many (and sometimes surprising) emotional states encountered, moving from acknowledgement, trying to keep ‘normal’ life going, the need to sometimes put a pause button on and let the waves of feelings crash and roll, sudden anger and confusion, finally to moving (perhaps with uncertainty) forward.

Tamar Osborn has led Collocutor through a line-up shift from septet to quintet for ‘Continuation’. The modified line-up creates space for the musicians to express themselves through the shades of ‘Continuation’'s movement. The quintet brings in more group improvisation, based on just a few motifs and so giving the musicians more space to converse. 
Tracks like  ‘Lost & Found’ and in particular the album’s title track, ‘Continuation’ (the only piece with 3 horns) hark back to the intricate arrangements of ‘The Search’. 

It’s a deeply personal album, the writing of which acted as Tamar's way of processing and understanding experience and the need to channel her feelings. 

In listening truly ‘Continuation’ bares that rare and precious gift of a morsel of the human experience being illuminated by artistic genius. 

Tamar Osborn - Baritone Sax (1, 3, 4, 5), Bass Clarinet (2 & 6), Flute (5)
Josephine Davies - Tenor Sax (2, 5 & 6)
Mike Lesirge - Tenor Sax (1, 3 & 4), Alto Flute (3)
Suman Joshi - bass
Marco Piccioni - guitar
Maurizio Ravalico - percussion

All composed sections written by Tamar Osborn

Recorded & Mixed by Sam Jones

‘Deep Peace’ recorded at Heath Street Baptist Church, London (August 2018)
All other tracks recorded at Lightship 95, Soup Studio, London (January 2019)

Mixed at Secretsundaze Studios, London

Mastered by Frank Merritt at The Carvery

Co-produced by Tamar Osborn & Sam Jones

Thanks to Brixton Hill Studios for being our rehearsal home, and David and Ed at Soup Studio for all their help

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Tabansi Studio Band – Wakar Alhazai Kano & Mus’En Sofua: four incredible slices of almost- undiscovered late-70s/early 80s Afrobeat magic, but not Fela’s Yoruba/Pidgin Afrobeat.

This is Igbo and Hausa Afrobeat- two very different and rarely heard styles. For the first time anywhere, BBE is proud to reissue back to back two LPs that are so elusive that many Afro heads doubted their very existence until now.

The beats are laid down by the seven legendary Martins Brothers – of ‘Money’ fame- whilst vocals are courtesy of a multi-lingual Igbo legend, Prof. Goddy Ezike, one of the most extraordinary voices out of Africa, up there with Youssou N’Dour and Salif Keita, whose half-century career has, like fine wine, simply improved his voice.

Wakar Alhazai Kano and Lokoci Azumi Ta Wuca (tracks 1 and 2) draw on Northern Hausa music, with its Islamic inflections and skipping 12/8 time signatures more typical of the string and wind-based instrumentation of Kano and the broader sub-Saharan musical palette.

Kama Sofos and Aka Ji Ego Ga Anu Nwam (tracks 3 and 4) are sung in Igbo, with all the percussive wonders that Igbo culture has to offer, filtered through a jazzy Afrobeat improvisational spectrum.
Never before. Never again. New Afrobeats, in old bottles.