WHAT WE SAY:

Armed with his portable recorder, Melbourne's modern day Quasimodo, Cale Sexton headed to the city's Federation bells for a sound source, before encircling these most ecclesiastical of sounds with his secular synths to fine, floating and free thinking electronic effect for Heavy Machinery Records.

WHAT YOUR EARS SAY:

WHAT THE RELEASE NOTES SAY:

Cale’s Sexton’s unique approach to hardware electronica has earnt him a reputation as one Melbourne’s most inventive and original musical artists. Sexton’s cosmic compositions are studies in feel, restraint and sonorous exploration. Musical ideas are carefully considered and sculpted, then launched and encouraged to evolve through their own conceptual trajectory. This organic process imbues Sexton’s work with a deep sense of both inner and outer space. 

On Sustain, Sexton applies his magic touch to Melbourne’s outdoor musical instrument - the Federation Bells, reimagining the iconic sound sculpture as the centre of a totally new sonic universe. Sexton has expanded his hardware-led approach to integrate with the computer-controlled Bells sequencing interface, producing a remarkably congruent synthesis of musical technologies. Sustain is concerned with the evolution of sounds, and Sexton’s soaring instrumentation is presented with a fetishistic level of tonal focus. Ideas are explored and manipulated in a tastefully uncluttered musical environment. The bell elements are so elegantly integrated into the composition that it’s easy to forget that this giant outdoor instrument is the backbone of the work. This is no mean feat when one considers that this public percussion robot has sometimes been described as atonal or harmonically difficult. Rather than attempt to circumvent these limitations, Sexton leans into the weirdness of the bell tonalities, coaxing a complementary sound palette from his highly malleable electronic instrumentation. 

The result is a fascinating form of hybrid interdimensional exotica. Slow-burn stereoscopic swells creep between purring synths and plangent percussion, while sizzling widescreen pads ebb and flow like a lingering smoke haze - occasionally clearing to reveal glimpses of strange psychotropic gremlins and portals to adjacent planes of existence. Anyone who was lucky enough to attend the live premiere at Birrarung Marr will have experienced the warm psychedelic vibes that this work emanates. The most inspiring art engages both the brain and the heart to contemplate fresh realms of experience. Sustain succeeds in provoking the imagination and exuding positive feeling in equal measure. This is a record that rewards deep immersive listening, so relax, engage your reality-expanding paraphernalia and dive on in. 

- Miles Brown  

Credits:Composition for computer-controlled bells and electronics 
Featuring the Federation Bells, Melbourne 

Cale Sexton - Federation Bells, Roland Tr 808, Roland Boutique Tr08, Roland 606, Elektron Octatrack, Elektron Digitakt, Roland Juno 106, Roland Hs60, Roland Sh32, Yamaha Dx7, Nord Rack 2, Vermona Mono Lancet, Vermona Filter Lancet, Roland Re201, Alesis Midiverb, Lexicon Reflex, bass guitar, guitar 

Composed, performed and recorded by Cale Sexton © 2019 
Mix by Cale Sexton and Corey Kikos 
Bell recordings by Harry Williamson 
Mastered by David Walker at Stepford Audio Melbourne 
Curated and produced by Miles Brown 
Art and design by Luke Fraser at Grin Creative 

The music on this album was commissioned by the City of Melbourne.
federationbells.com.au
​

IF YOU LIKE THAT THEN YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS:
Mostly instrumental, uptempo ambient and slow beat driven, atmospheric electronic music. Perfect headphone music to assist disengagement from the rat race. Equally suited to late night reality escapism.

​Smartlink to the playlist on Apple Music, Deezer, Soundcloud and Youtube.

WHAT WE SAY:

The new LP from Iu Takahashi is a lesson in the ambient arts. Mixing & maximising her minimal sound palette with a rare sonic precision; spectral vocals, perfectly placed pads, succinct strings & finessed field recordings harmoniously inhabit this temperate & most welcoming of audio ecosystems.

WHAT YOUR EARS SAY:

WHAT THE RELEASE NOTES SAY:

Themes for looking back at where you've been and what you'll leave behind.

Credits:​
Produced and recorded by Iu Takahashi 
Mastered by Joel Shanahan 
Artwork by Haruna Mitobe 

Distributed by Regional Attraction

IF YOU LIKE THAT YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS:
Smartlink to other streaming services.

WHAT WE SAY:

Using her various wind instruments, field recordings & electronic know-how Lea Bertucci not only transcends musical genre but also societal ills - too often the media focus of any country, to champion the front page forgotten good folk & celebrate the beauty of the American landscape.

WHAT YOUR EARS SAY:

WHAT WE SAY:

On a palm fringed island in warm turquoise waters, there is a Music From Memory tiki bar with The Zenmenn as it's house band playing New Age pop, blue eyed soul, exotic easy listening & barely upright smooth grooves for love drunk honeymooners & Hawaiian shirt clad locals. It's a magical place.

WHAT YOUR EARS SAY:

WHAT WE SAY:

Not all desert blues is created equal and Samba Touré is that bit bluesier, a shade more hypnotic, a few watts more powerful & dives half a fathom deeper into the African Diaspora's westward musical journey whilst remaining firmly anchored in Binga & his Songhoy roots on his new Glitterbeat Records LP.

WHAT YOUR EARS SAY:

WHAT THE RELEASE NOTES SAY:

During the 15th and 16th centuries the Songhoy people ruled the largest empire in Africa. It stretched across the entire western Sahel, famed for the glory that was Timbuktu. People called it the city of gold, known across the world as a centre of culture and learning.

But there’s another place that lies a little under a hundred kilometres south of that history, one whose name few people know. Binga is the region that encompasses the vast space below the Saharan desert in Mali. This is where guitarist and singer Samba Touré grew up, and it still owns his heart – Binga is the title of his fourth Glitterbeat album.
“I never left Binga,” he explains. “I went to [the Malian capital] Bamako in my youth to find some work and help my family. Even if it’s complicated or dangerous to travel to the north now, it’s still my homeland and always will be. I have a house there. It’s my culture and my heritage. This is my region and it felt right to name this album after it. It’s pure Songhoy music.”

With Binga, Touré has made sure those roots show proud and strong.
“I wanted to put them in the forefront, to go back to something more natural and closer to the band on stage, to show how we really are. It was important to me. This isn’t an influence, it’s my natural style.”
With his bass player having moved to the US, it was a stripped-down combo of guitar, ngoni, calabash and other percussion that entered the studio to record Binga. The result captures the lean tautness of the sound. The only addition on a few tracks was harmonica, but that wasn’t “so far from the traditional fiddle sound we used to have on some albums, it accompanies the music in the very same way.”
That paring-back to the bare bones gave the musicians space to create what Touré calls “a communion between the instruments.” As always, the groove is the foundation, the circling, mesmerising riffs of Touré’s guitar and the heartbeat rhythm of the calabash. It’s relentless, mesmerising, and the voice and the commentary of the ngoni revolve around it. This is music without embellishment, the very essence of Songhoy.

“Our music naturally has very few solos,” Touré explains. “I think they’re a very western thing. I've never played very long ones and I feel more like a creator of songs than a guitarist singer. The ngoni is also reserved here, compared to previous albums. Each one accompanies the others, simply.”

The result is stark, graceful, even austere at times. But that only emphasises its power. Instru-mental flourishes appear, but they’re only brief, sharp flashes, like the conversation between guitar and ngoni at the end of “Sambalama.” The focus is kept squarely on the power of the songs – all sung in Sonhgoy, unlike previous albums.
Touré has never shied away from describing the realities of life in his homeland. Mali, he says, has gone from “one coup d'état to another, from one rebellion to another, from one inter-ethnic massacre to another, nothing has changed, and I would even say that everything has worsened in recent years. Then the health and school systems are very, very behind, nothing is being done…” The darkness swirls, impossible to ignore. He’s written about the situation before, on Albala and Gandadiko, but little has changed.

““Sambamila” has this kind of mood, because I feel so sad that I’m still not able to go to my village in full security. And “Fondo” covers something I sing about in all my albums, the immigration of the youth for what they think to be a better life, whether it's to another country, or simply to the capital. In “Atahar,” I sing about the malfunctioning of the Malian school system, which between repeated strikes and closures due to COVID is in a lamentable state. I didn’t have a chance to go to school as a child and it makes me sad that today, 40 years later, the Malian authorities still neglect our children, our only wealth and hope for the future.”

Touré’s words are as lean and muscular as his music on Binga. There’s the force of the heart behind them. A communion, not just of instruments, but also voices, the power of the Songhoy soul. When he looks at the area where he grew up, he doesn’t see anything bucolic, only a vision of the poverty that remains.

“In many villages they still live like in the old days, sometimes walking kilometres to get a single bucket of water, there are a lot living without electricity,” he points out. “I don't wish them a simpler life, but on the contrary, more development and future prospects for their children.”
Yet the album is far from shadowed and sorrowful. “Sambalama” is a joyful statement of standing tall and hoping for better days to come while on “Kola Cissé” Touré offers a praise song the memory of the late head of the Malian Football Federation. Two old Songhoy pieces bookend the disc, “Tamala” and “Terey Kongo,” and both are filled with light, celebrating the history of the Songhoy people.

Binga is the music of a realist. It’s a cry from the soul, but even more, an affirmation of a nation’s history, and Samba Touré’s pride in it. For him, it could never be anything else.

“I never left my roots. How could I even do that? I’m a Songhoy man and a Malian citizen first. I deeply love my country and its culture; they are all the parts of who I am.”

IF YOU LIKE THAT YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS:

A laid back selection of global grooves.

Smartlink to the playlist on Apple Music, Deezer, Soundcloud and Youtube.

WHAT WE SAY:

Faint rhythms provide the flimsiest of muso-skeletons to stop Lawrence's aquatic ambient tones & new age of New Age vibes for Mule Musiq from evaporating into the ether before they can work their soothing magic on those fortunate enough to be within earshot.

WHAT YOUR EARS SAY:

WHAT THE RELEASE NOTES SAY:

it’s happening again: dj, producer and dial records co-owner lawrence produced his fourth album for mule musiq. and once more, another very special one.
the berlin-based artist wrote nine new arrangements specifically for “studio mule”, the new audiophile listening bar that mule musiq's head-honcho toshiya kawasaki recently opened in shibuya, tokyo.
it features an exquisite vintage hi-fi sound system, a small record shop, craft liquor and beer as well as an extensive natural wine collection.
“toshiya's wine and listening bar was the inspiration for the project. i followed the idea of listening to music in this (for me imaginary) place on a magic vintage sound system, slightly drunk with an always special drink in my hand!
the music is therefore also very eccentric and “tipsy”, improvised on acoustic instruments, synthesizers and computer, combined with recordings i did in berlin's central tiergarten park.”
lawrence acknowledges the imaginative superstructure above his new album and his mode of operating during the recordings. the records is called “birds on the playground” and features deep pulsating music, that unfolds its true absorbing character when the auditor listens care-fully to the detailed storytelling of lawrence.
like always his tunes got a special, radiant pulse, that somehow is a signature sign of most of his productions. playful cosmic grooves, light-hearted, crafted with love and yet freshly unset-tling in some moments.
his arpeggiated melodies remind partly on the music of hans-joachim roedelius. in other sec-onds they display a jazzy spiritual character and drift into meditative areas, that sound to a degree like long forgotten japanese folk music spheres.
as “birds on the playground” isn’t aimed straight for the dancefloor, the overall coating of the music is a relaxed, cautious one, that goes beyond the average definition of ambient music. each track builds up gracefully, in order to present a mesmerizing musical architecture, that offers new sound dimensions with any fresh listening turn.
as the record is made for mule musiq`s latest public space enterprise, everyone who is close-ly connected to the label was involved.

mule musiq’s core artist kuniyuki was in charge for the mastering. and the labels visual draw-er stefan marx painted the cover artwork. “when i saw the record cover for the first time, i had to think a bit of an extremely funny new year's eve party from over 10 years ago, when stefan and i founded the imaginary band “the dead sea”. this record would have been a wonderful soundtrack to the bustle during that night.” lawrence reveals.

it must have been a party beyond hysteric spheres, where all guests dance and talk dearly at the bar, while the music slows down their body functions enough to hear a sound that takes everybody away to a place, that must have been home in that very moment. 

IF YOU LIKE THAT YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS:
Love is the answer. Love for yourself. Love for others, Love for the planet. Spread the word.

Smartlink to the playlist on Apple Music, Deezer, Soundcloud & Youtube.

WHAT WE SAY:

Waking in a sweat, crazed by dreams of the distant days of dance, Yoshinori Hayashi leapt into the studio & manically pieced together the remembered fragments of his restless night before they slipped from his mind forever. Dig deep into your muscle memory & start the week moving to the dream state sounds, forgotten rhythms & free spirited flow of his new LP for Smalltown Supersound.

WHAT YOUR EARS SAY:

WHAT WE SAY:

Somewhere far far way on a little known moon, there is a New Age(less) commune & zero gravity spa that regenerates the dying cells of the visiting creatures lucky enough to know of its existence, & where this new LP from J Foerster & N Kramer for Leaving Records is on infinite loop.

WHAT YOUR EARS SAY:

WHAT THE RELEASE NOTES SAY:

Habitat, an environmental music collaboration by Berlin based composer Niklas Kramer and percussionist Joda Foerster, is inspired by the drawings of Italian architect Ettore Sottsass. Each of the eight tracks represents a room in an imaginary building.
Habitat will be released this spring via Leaving Records.

In Habitat the duo layers, loops and merges sonic textures and patterns into fluid blocks without the restraint of statics. African log drum, Bolivian chajchas, vibraphone, kalimba and various other percussion instruments are processed, pitched, harmonised and filtered through modular synth and script based sample cutting to form a collage of asynchronous layers.

By using acoustic instruments and expanding their sound into abstract shapes, Habitat evokes a vague intimacy, a curious state of comfort in the unknown.

Credits:

_ Written and produced during summer 2020 by Joda Foerster & Niklas Kramer
_ Instruments used: African log drum, Bolivian chajchas, vibraphone, kalimba and various other percussion instruments, Various Sythesizers
_ Production techniques: live recording, script based sample cutting and processing (norns), analog tape bouncing
_ Composition: No grid, asynchronous loops, driven by textures
_ Mastered by Matthew "Matthewdavid" McQueen
_ Artwork used with permission by Ettore Sottsass.
"Casa Molto Normale" - Technica Mista Su Carta - original painting 61x46cm - VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021

IF YOU LIKE THAT YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS:

Love is the answer. Love for yourself. Love for others, Love for the planet. Spread the word.

Smartlink to the playlist on Apple Music, Deezer, Soundcloud & Youtube.

WHAT WE SAY:

There's a fragile beauty to the pained and haunted vocals of Dave Anderson that thread their way through the more substantial, ever inventive string work of Seabuckthorn in Mt Went's low lit, gloomy alt-folk outpouring on Lost Tribe Sound.

WHAT YOUR EARS SAY:

WHAT THE RELEASE NOTES SAY:

Mt Went is the collaborative project between Andy Cartwright (Seabuckthorn) and Dave Anderson (Von Braun). Mt Went is two friends from different musical pursuits, who have managed to create two well-crafted and beautifully weathered indie albums over the last ten years.

Even though nearly a decade lapsed between the making of 'Sheltering Sky' and 'Lit Way Down' the two albums feel inextricably linked to one another. 'Sheltering Sky' was recorded back in 2010 when Cartwright and Anderson still lived in same small UK town, Witney, Oxfordshire. Yet it has never seen a proper release and sat unattended for nearly a decade until Cartwright revisited the sessions in 2018 to give them a proper polish. While doing so, both Anderson and Cartwright rekindled a fondness for the material and decided a follow-up was in order. That follow-up became 'Lit Way Down,' an album built from many long distance file swaps in the increasingly rare moments of downtime, with Cartwright now living in the French Alps and Anderson still in the UK. 

Dave Anderson: vocals, lyrics, guitars, piano
Andy Cartwright: guitars, effects, synths, percussion, mixing
Photography on expired film by Andy Cartwright
Layout, cover and book design by R. Keane
Mastered by James Plotkin
Sheltering Sky recorded in 2010.
Lit Way Down recorded in 2019.
© Andy Cartwright I Dave Anderson I Lost Tribe Sound LLC
℗ Settled Scores LLC (ASCAP)

IF YOU LIKE THAT YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS:
A laid back and open minded look at the world of traditional, indie and acid folk,  Americana, singer songwriters, cosmic blues, global roots & electro acoustic fusions. Smartlink to the playlist on Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube and Soundcloud.