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‘Kiwi Animals’ is a personal catalog of local oddities; affectionately recasting the 1980’s New Zealand Top 40 in a parallel universe of misfit pop, gonzo-tronics & voodoo-waves.

Channeling South Pacific gothic sensibilities and edge of world melancholia, the album highlights unexpected electronic tangents from iconic NZ groups Blam Blam Blam & Headless Chickens.

It dredges the C-90 revelations of art avante-gardists’ Drone & Kim Blackburn, along with the bittersweet pop of Rupert & Norma O’Malley. There’s the infectious minimal wave of Ballare and a reprised dance suite from Tom Ludvigson & Graeme Gash.

The furthest depths of Flying Nun’s catalog are also plundered- a brilliant earworm from Stiff Herbert and a mysterious Roger Knox birthday promo. Mining the various disparate seams of a local indie label awakening, ‘Kiwi Animals’ congeals with future/primitive ingenuity and an underlying Antipodean pop mischievousness…

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"The music is based on the environmental & ecological despair happening in front of us, particularly in reference to South India. As with most of my work, the piece started with field recordings taken on location (in this case, on the Kerala / Tamil Nadu border in South India). I had been reading about the severe erosion levels in the territory and was sitting on the beach watching these little streams of sand pour out into the sea. I was watching the tide, not erosion, of course, but it was a very powerful miniature of the sad reality. So the piece is about this little moment of aching tenderness between me and nature, sitting powerless on the sand and watching it disappear into the water." (Dylan Henner)
Credits
Mastered by Ian Hawgood
Artwork by Femke
Music written, performed & produced by Dylan Henner

Watch the tide roll away

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Dreaming doesn’t come easy these shadowed days, which is why Strange To Explain by Woods is such a welcome turning of new colors. 

It presents an extended moment of sweet reflection for the 15-year-old band, bouncing back to earth as something hopeful and weird and resolute. After quickly recording and releasing 2017’s Love Is Love in response to the tumultuous events of their (and our) 2016, Jeremy Earl and company took their time with the follow-up. Parenthood arrived, as did a short songwriting pause. The band went bicoastal when Jarvis Taveniere headed west. The result is an album that not only catches and holds and shares the light in yet another new way, but recognizes that there’s still light to be caught.

A bend beyond the last bend beyond, Woods keep on changing, thoughtfully and beautifully. The colors were always there, like trees blossoming just slightly differently each season, a synesthetic message coded in slow-motion. Recorded in Stinson Beach, the California enclave where the government once tracked one of the largest LSD rings in the world only to be questioned by the neighbors as agents prowled the woods, on Strange To Explain, the familiar jangling guitars recede to the background. John Andrews’s warm keyboards and twining Mellotron rise around Earl’s songs and dance across the chord changes like warm sunlight off the Pacific. The music feels a karmic landmass away from the creepiness of the uncanny valley. 

Just dig into “Can’t Get Out” or “Fell So Hard” and it’s easy to spot the affable hooks and fuzzed-out bass and third-eye winks and fun harmonies that Woods have produced reliably since way back ‘round 2004 (which, in the buzz-buzz world of psych-pop really is a grand achievement). But listen carefully, too, to the sound of our (and their) world in transition, the ambient humming of spring peepers behind “Where Do You Go When You Dream.” Especially sink into the intention-setting opening trio of songs, emerging from (and shimmering inside) an atmosphere that could only be made by musicians who’ve been working together for nearly 20 years, as Earl and Taveniere have. It’s hardly a secret language, but you try verbalizing it.

Depending on where in the time-track one stands, it’s their 11th full length (not counting collaborations, split LPs, EPs, and singles), and the 99th release on Earl’s Woodsist label. By any standards, Strange To Explain is the work of a mature band, capable of both heavy atmospheric declarations like “Just To Fall Asleep” alongside extended-form pieces like the album-closing “Weekend Wind,” unfolding in layers of trumpet and vibraphone and ambient guitars and stereoscopic percussion.

For contemporary heads, it can be nearly a full-time job to filter out all the bad energy being blasted through nearly all media channels from every conceivable direction. But not all media channels. The benevolent, Mellotron-dabbed dream-sounds of Strange To Explain constitute some of the more welcome transmissions on these shores in a Venusian minute. They’re sure to brighten any desert solarium, LED-lit pod, portable Bucky-dome, eco-fit Airstream, or whatever other cozy dwelling your time-mind is currently occupying.

Jesse Jarnow 

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This album became a vessel for a deeper exploration into space and the creation of artificial sonic eco systems.

I explored blending different time feels, programmed and organic elements and both electronic and acoustic instruments with the goal of creating a cohesive aesthetic which produces a unique feeling.

My hope is to immerse the listener into an abstract environment and create an experience which feels comfortable, yet still exotic to this world.

Credits
Matthew Hatch plays flute on 'Australiana'
Percussion/Drums/Synth/Bass on all tracks by Phil Stroud
Mixed/Mastered/Produced by Phil Stroud
Artwork by Phil Stroud

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Neroli reaches release number 50 during its 20th anniversary and celebrates with a special project, an album of songs by some of the label artists and friends. The title reference goes back to 20 years ago when label’s honcho Volcov decided to give the label the name of Brian Eno’s Neroli album, an hour long ambient opus inspired by the oil derived by the flowers of the Seville orange. So after 20 years and 50 releases the label goes full circle and offers an album of delicate and heartwarming melodies and atmospheric songs. The talent of original UK dons Kirk Degiorgio, Dego and Ian o’Brien is enrolled once again to guarantee sophistication and depth. Patrice Scott and Fred P, who had recently released eps on Neroli, are joined here by fellow spacecadet Aybee…all delivering warm futuristic pieces! K15 and Linkwood debut on the label, opening and closing the album with class. And there is even a lost composition by Volcov himself with Detroit’s Gerald Mitchell and Pirahnahead as part of some 2010 sessions that might resurface soon…THE FIRST CIRCLE is complete!

Design by Al White. Manufactured and Distributed by Mother Tongue, Verona.

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Afro-Caribbean voodoo polyrhythms meet bass-weight dub electronics on Vodou Alé, the debut full-length collaboration between Haitian six-piece Chouk Bwa and Belgian production duo, The Ångströmers. The traditional and contemporary collide on this nine-track merger of distinct Haitian mizik rasin (roots music) and rumbling electronic production, forging a thrilling and hypnotic dialogue between minimalist sound design and Afro-Haitian drum talk.

Credits:
Jean Claude “Sambaton” Dorvil
lead singer, fè
Maloune Prévaly* & Edèle “Sasufi” Joseph
chorus
Gomez “Djopipi” Henris*, Sadrack “Mazaka Lakwa” Merzier & Jean Rigaud Aimable
traditional drums and chorus
Riscot “Ti moso” Cedieu & Yves “Tiaye” Figaro
traditional drums on Odjay - Nati Kongo
The Ångströmers: Nicolas Esterle & Frédéric Alstadt
electronics
Michael Wolteche
additional keys on Sali Lento
*additional lead singers on Odjay - Nati Kongo

All songs arranged and produced by The Ångströmers
Recorded by the Ångströmers at Les Ateliers Claus Brussels, November 2018 except Odjay - Nati Kongo recorded at Institut Français de Port au Prince Haiti, April 2017
Produced by The Ångströmers at Ångström Studio, January to December 2019
Mixed by The Ångströmers & HHY at Ångström Studio & la Savonnerie studio Brussels November 2019
Mastering by Nicolas Esterle & Frédéric Alstadt
Lacquer cut by Frédéric Alstadt at Ångström Studio January 2020 Executive producer, artistic advisor & mèt akò la Michael Wolteche Graphic design by Félix Vincent
Picture by Eric Desjeux

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On April 3rd 2020, two weeks into the UK's total coronavirus lockdown and in an attempt to find something positive as a break from ping-ponging between high anxiety and frustrated bemusement, I sent out the call for submissions for a new compilation of music, which had some clear stipulations.

The message read as follows:
Submissions are requested for inclusion on CiS062 - "The Isolation Tapes".
Submissions must have been recorded between:
Monday 23rd March:
The date the UK lockdown was imposed
and
Friday 17th April:
The closing date for submissions to the project.

Submissions *must* be new works recorded by the artist in isolation.
Castles in Space will handle mastering and manufacture, we just need your pre-mixed masters.
Submissions must include an image which represents teh artist or the creation of the piece in isolation.
Release date for CiS062 is 29th May. Profits will be donated to Cavell Nurses' Trust www.cavellnursestrust.org
They assist nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants, both working and retired, when they’re suffering personal or financial hardship. This is often due to illness, disability, older age, domestic abuse and the impact of coronavirus.

The results were positively overwhelming and easily surpassed anything that I could have hoped for. I thought that I *might* be tapping into something, as some conversations with musicians I know and work with were indicating that the enforced period of downtime was proving to be extremely productive. Albums were being finished. Ideas exchanged over Zoom conversations were being laid down on hard drives around the world. There was, quite literally, something in the air.

By the end of the 2.5 week period the window for submissions was open, I had received somewhere in the region of 250 submissions. Pretty much all of them being of astonishing quality and accomplishment. While this was extremely heartwarming and satisfying, it also presented a real challenge in that the editing job was going to be massive and difficult. Further criteria were therefore set to assist the selection process.

1. As a general rule, anything too dark or dystopian was out. There were several sampled politicians and creeped out drone-a-thons, but I quickly came to the decision that this release had to offer something uplifting for the listener. We had to find some light and positivity in the darkness. For me, the tracks that worked best offered a droll commentary on our unprecedented situation without being overwhelmed by it.

2. The works really did have to be conceived and completed between 23rd March and 17th April. That rule was enforced pretty hard. Anything that had been "finished" or had undergone a "final mix" during that time was deemed to not meet meet the criteria for submission. It was important for me to capture the moment in the reaction of the contributors. Hopefully this global lockdown situation will never happen again, so I was viewing this as a one time only opportunity to document something unique.

3. As the submissions rolled in via email, Twitter, Instagram and facebook, it quickly became apparent that the original idea of releasing one cassette volume was not going to be sufficient. There was simply too much good stuff coming in. The scope was therefore quickly expanded out to include a CD volume and a cassette with three sides. 'Side three' being a download only selection.

And so began the selection of around 60 tracks which went forward for mastering by Jez Butler. Jez did a fantastic job of carefully mastering everything to a consistent, steady level. Brightening and de-harshing where necessary. There than began the marathon weekend long session of sequencing what tracks were going to go where. Once a final selection and sequence was decided upon, Nick Taylor was engaged to do his usual superb job on the artwork.

The finished compilation offers more than 60 tracks across CD, cassette and digital download.

The images submitted by the contributing artists add another dimension to the project and are available to see at castlesinspace.com

The Isolation Tapes project is sold in support of the magnificent Cavell Nurses' Trust. A wonderful organisation which helps nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants, both working and retired, when they’re suffering personal or financial hardship. This is often due to illness, disability, older age, domestic abuse and the impact of coronavirus.

It is sincerely hoped that you will find much to enjoy in The Isolation Tapes. It was both an absolute joy and an arduous headache to put together (in a good way). The final edit was extremely difficult and there is certainly enough stuff in the can for further releases if these volumes find some appreciation.

As ever, thanks for listening.
Stay safe and well.
Colin Morrison
Castles in Space. May 21st 2020 

Credits

Mastered by Jez Butler
Artwork and design by Nick Taylor for spectral-studio.co.uk

CiS062CD is also available as a related compact disc volume featuring an additional selection of works.

All tracks are under license to Castles in Space for the purposes of this release and all copyright remains with the artists.

Profits from this album will go to support Cavell Nurses’ Trust (registered charity no. 1160148 and SC041453).
Cavell Nurses’ Trust proudly give money and support to nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants in hardship whether they are working or retired.
If you are a healthcare professional experiencing personal or financial hardship, please contact them today at: www.cavellnursestrust.org / 01527 595999.