​Chuffed to have stumbled across 72-Hour Post Fight who are making the newest Nu-Jazz I've heard in a while for La Tempesta. A place where a post punk/No wave/experimental edge meets hip hop, ambient & dinner jazz makes for a serious ride, & a killer live show I imagine.

Credits​
Written by Luca Bolognesi, Andrea Dissimile, Carlo Luciano Porrini, Adalberto Valsecchi Produced by Fight Pausa, Palazzi D’Oriente
Recorded at Bleach Recording Studio in Gittana (LC), Italy
Drums on tracks 8 and 11 recorded at Nacho Libre Studios in Gallarate (VA), Italy
Mixed and mastered by Giovanni Ferliga at Tapewave in Milan, Italy
Art direction by Giorgio Cassano, Nic Paranoia
Artwork by Braulio Amado
Graphic design by Nic Paranoia
Management: luca@vaevictismusic.com

72-HOUR POST FIGHT is an Italian genre-bending musical project formed by producers Palazzi D’Oriente and Fight Pausa, joined by drummer Andrea Dissimile and saxophonist Adalberto Valsecchi. The project combines elements of electroacoustic music, downtempo and ambient with jazz, math rock, hip hop and emo. 
Their self-titled first album, released in March 2019 on La Tempesta International, is a single entity without pauses, standing out for its ability to constantly challenge rigid genres’ divisions. Shortly after the release of their debut, 72-HOUR POST FIGHT announced a 100% remixed version of the album, which came out in October 2019. The remix album sees contributions by UK dj and producer Cooly G (Hyperdub Records), experimental jazz extraordinaire Ben Vince (Hessle Audio, 33 33) and italian-parisian Lamusa II (Ninja Tune, RBMA alumnus), among others.
NOT / UNGLUED is a two-track EP released in 2020, marking a decisive change of pace – where previously liquid atmospheres and formless soundscapes dominated, we now find rhythmicity and determination. 72-HOUR POST FIGHT’s mission is clear: recompose to create a new balance.
The band performed extensively following their debut, sharing stage with various international bands at Club To Club, Spazio Maiocchi (Kaleidoscope x Gucci), VIVA! Festival, Club Adriatico just to name a few.

You can stream the Slow Jazz playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube & Soundcloud

​Somehow sensing still vibrating ancient ritualistic drones from far flung places, Floating World Pictures manage to capture their sacred essence, swaddle them in catatonic kosmische, barely conscious jazz, New Age resonance and ambient swaddling, & them offer them to the sonic gods at the Friendly Records alter.

I like to wash, 
By way of an experiment, 
The dust of this world 
In the droplets of dew. 

So Japanese poet Bashō wrote in 1684 about a famous natural spring recorded as “shedding it's clear drops of water with a drip-drop sound”. This act of cleansing and how it is expressed by Bashō offers an absorbing framework for hearing the music of Floating World Pictures. Just as haiku are rooted in close observation of nature and the seasons, a time and a place - a tiny meditation that both seizes the moment and brings about a much wider understanding - so too are the improvised explorations and focused production of Floating World Pictures. 

Floating World Pictures is made up of Chestnutt, a founding member of Snapped Ankles, and Raimund Wong, a sound artist most recognised for his graphic work for International Anthem, TRC and Church of Sound. Written, mixed and produced by the pair at Total Refreshment Centre; their improvised explorations celebrate and embrace the collaborations of TRC and a wider independent network with contributions from Alabaster DePlume, Akihide Monna (Bo Ningen), Cathy Eastburn (Southbank Gamelan Players), Charles Prest & Kamal Rasool (Flamingods), Clémentine March, and Danalogue (The Comet is Coming). 

Their debut album, 'The Twenty-Three Views’, rewards deep listening. Within the earthing drone, new elements continually reach the surface to spin a sensuous, densely populated soundscape. Fragments of field recordings people the texture; sounds of industry, of safe and treacherous harbours, the hammering of ancient crafts and choral layers open windows to imagined or distant pasts. The restorative energy of nostalgia, of memories revisited and half-remembered, play out. 

Raimund Wong and Chestnutt are conduits for unearthed relics, the lost sounds of Tibetan singing bowls and celestial gongs are fragments of melody that reach the surface. Shifting tones bring a richness of aural collage: synthesizers, the reeds of an Indian harmonium, mbira, 11-key balafon, tanpuri and the ceremonial dignity of the Balinese gamelan warped by found sounds. 

The album moves within the creative freedoms of seasoned collaboration, in the shared space orchestrated by Floating World’s philosophy. Synth lines cascade whilst zipping overtones ping and reverberate with a contemplative lightness of touch - both moving and playful as in the Japanese environmental and ambient music of the 1980s. Elsewhere wildness and syncopated rhythms suggest an interest in textural trips of mid-90s UK ambient and leftfield electronic music. 

‘The Village Headman Pleading with the Old Ferryman' is an exotic ecosystem of pulsing bassline and mallet percussion with Alabaster dePlume's saxophone summoning the spirit of the casbah. In a tapestry of sustained chords and wavering, tidal tenor saxophone, there’s deep chimes, submerged concertina, distant clangs, the call of bell buoys and the lash of a drum crash, all shaping the outward journey of the Village Headman. A graceful and unsettling bassline pulls the music rhythmically forward. 

The lamenting 'Fairbairn's Floating World' is an expressive highpoint: mournful and distant phrases fade at their very point of creation, a crackling and fugitive 78 rpm record. Percussive brush strokes and faltering saxophone dance in fading light before the wandering motif swirls again like the worn glory of a 1930s Lecuona Cuban Boys record with the drone leading to a peaceful conclusion. 

The album's closing tracks contain moments of tension: environmental dissonance and a cinematic foreboding with snaking saxophone and heavy, tolling bass. Tropical rainfall and waves wash against the shore; synth overtones are sirens of departing ships, as the narrative continues in a dystopian mood. Surfaces are harder, chiming gongs rain on a built environment rather than a natural world. 

The geographies of Floating World Pictures draw to a close and in its wake the album leaves a cohesive series of sound postcards. Like haiku, they concern the things of this world and the language in which we try to express them - and how beginning to grasp this in musical languages brings to the listener both inspired wakefulness and clarity.

You can stream The New Age of New Age Playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube & Soundcloud

Firing on all cylinders with his new Foam and Sand ambient moniker, Robot Koch reworks his 2020 Nordic Pulse Ensemble recordings with a neoclassical grace and cinematic elegance into the most suitable of Sunday soundtracks.

n 2019 i recorded my album "The Next Billion Years" in Estonia, together with conductor Kristijan Järvi and his Orechestra the nordic pulse ensemble. 
When i released it in spring of 2020 we had a full tour already booked with the full orchestra, to perform the album live. But of course none of this happened, with the pandemic everything came to a stop. there were no shows, and i couldn`t support the album with live shows. 

But the lockdown gave birth to a new side project of mine: Foam and Sand. 
Unable to tour and with lots of time available in my studio i started making ambient music with tape loops, just for myself as i found the process really soothing and healing. 
I released a few tracks under the radar, without anyone knowing it was me and the project started to have a life of its own for a while, until i revealed it in 2021 as an official project of mine. 

And then, 2 year later, i had the idea to revisit my The Next Billion Years album. I felt that there was so much potential in it still. Even when i first made it i felt like i could have made at least two albums out of the material i recorded in Estonia. 

So i decided to revisit it through the lens of my ambient project Foam and Sand. Foam and Sand has its own signature sound . It`s a different musical language that is close to the one i use when i write as robot koch but it is also it´s own unique expression. 
it`s an even more intimate musical approach. Instead of these larger orchestral arrangments that i used on the original album, these new compositions are more minimal, more micro than macro. they are about simplicity, slicing off anything that is not essential. one of the sonic hallmarks of foam and sand is that i embrace the unsteady beauty of tapes in the sound creation process. ​

You can stream the Slow Neoclassical Playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube and Soundcloud

​ Nice to see Amanda Whiting back on Jazzman Records  lending these generally smooth & spiritual leaning jazz composition an even more celestial air with her classically rooted harp playing prowess.

*VINYL TO BE RELEASED IN SEPTEMBER 2022** 

The eagerly anticipated follow-up to last year's incredibly well-received debut album 'After Dark, Welsh harpist Amanda Whiting is back with another glorious offering. 

The trio is joined again by the mesmerising lines of flautist Chip Wickham, resuming their conversation reminiscent of Dorothy Ashby and Frank Wess. 

‘Lost in Abstraction’ was written during a period of the unknown when Whiting, like most, explored her own sense of self. The world paused, with no timeframe, and the fragility of life was laid bare. A time when humanity was left searching for purpose. Freedom and the dependable structures of familiarity were dissolved in most aspects of life. But music stayed constant. Creativity kept weaving its thread, connecting music and its makers in an indissoluble bond. 

The album explores the questions and realisations whilst confined. The spiritual findings, the playful curiousness and the reflective moments of loss. Whiting’s writing indulges the listener with the spiritual ethereal washes of sound demanded of the harp, whilst also embracing her influences across many genres. Classically trained, her roots are evident. But with an emotionally charged energy and spiritual questioning, a new soundscape of modernity has emerged. 

So often associated with Ashby and Coltrane, the harp finds itself in the hands of a new voice which tells the story of a period of time where the world was unified in reflection. 

So what is that feeling when you resonate? 
When your breath steadies and you let go 
Lines no longer restrict or choke 
Energies envelop, yet set you free 
Are you lost or found?

CREDITS
​Amanda Whiting - harp 
Chip Wickham - flute 
Aidan Thorne - bass 
Jon Reynolds - drums 
Baldo Verdú - percussion

You can stream the Slow Jazz playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube & Soundcloud

Kindly opening her secret garden, Sofie Birch gives us a tour of this blooming New Age audio dynamic space where the non-native saxophone helps nutrient fix the ambient flora, & tonal insects flitter unhindered & further cross pollinate the sonic diversity of this wondrous place.

“I imagine Holotropica as a place. 
A point behind closed eyes. 
From a focal point in potential growth / in a flowing dynamism 
A point where nothing happens and everything is. 
Wherefrom everything can be invoked 
from the ether. 
Or brought to life even. 

I imagine an opening between the eyes 
that cuts up through the head 
allowing the light from the stars to propagate into the skull 
into the body. 
Down the abdomen 
where roots twist around organs and slowly grow and tangle up along the spine in shades of green, 
striking buds in the light of the stars. 

Small blossoms that click and pop and coo an organ responsive language of saliva and heat. I imagine an organic atrium placed behind the forehead. where plants tumble out of colorful pots and vases, housing living creatures that talk and chirp and wrap themselves in the trees, stretching their branches in through the window holes. 

I imagine the top of the head to be open towards the sky, full of pink sunlight, like what you see behind closed eyes. White moonlight cooling down the walls, making room for the stars' germ and clatter. Up and down the furs, the skin of the leaves and the moist pit of the oral cavity. 

Every second is lively. 
Crunchy, tickling, gurgling.. 

Where everything moves towards wholeness. 
Where fragments gather in a focus. 

a living ecosystem that connects the heart with the planets, the free thought and the earthbound in inherent gratitude for life and love. 

I imagine this when I breathe in. 
I imagine this place will always be here. 
Also for those who haven’t visited it yet.”  

CREDITS
​All tracks composed and recorded by Sofie Birch, and produced by Sofie Birch and Christian Rohde 
All saxophone recordings by Asbjørn Derdau 

Saxophone on Observatory and Humidity by Nana Pi 
Beats on Observatory by Asbjørn Derdau 
Flute on Surface Pan by A. Fabrin 
Harp on Hypnogogia by Dolphin Midwives 
Outro composition and SH-2000 on Hallu by _iC_iC_ 
Drums on The Sun XiX by iC_iC_ 

Mixed and mastered by Sofie Birch and Christian Rohde 

Artwork by Amanda Baum and Heidi Maribut. 

Supported by KODA Kultur, Statens Kunstfond, Danske Populær, and DJBFA

You can stream The New Age of New Age playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube & Soundcloud

​Largely instrumental, stoic Americana & unhurried cosmic country musings on the nature of being from Gray/Smith with the odd psychedelic scream because life - mostly other people, makes you do that sometimes.

In the Fall of 1971 ABC-TV debuted a new western called “Alias Smith and Jones,” about two outlaw cousins in Wyoming Territory in the years after the Civil War. At the 1994 WFMU Fall Record Fair, John Allen had a box of LPs categorized as “Beard Rock.” On Thursday February 18, 1971 at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester NY, the Grateful Dead debuted a new Garcia/Hunter tune called “Wharf Rat.” On Friday May 6, 2022 the NYC duo, Gray/Smith released their eponymous debut LP. Draw a line between these dates on an Angus Maclise Universal Solar Calendar and you'll start to wonder why you hadn't noticed the connection between these events earlier. 

L Gray, sometimes known as Llilw Gray, started showing up on the fringes of NYC event hustles in the Mid-Teens. There were DJ gigs and live sessions with tapes, electronics and whatnot done in concord with humans like Tom Thayer and Chie Mukai. Odd pulsing events here and there, sometimes whistling like a rotten-toothed record collector being used as the devil's own nose flute. But it was usually dark (very dark) when things were “going down,” so you couldn't really be sure what was happening. It seemed like a beard was involved, and a big one at that. Whisper campaigns linked Gray's name to Keith NNCK, but no one could ever confirm. Still, there was a whisp of Hint House Memories in the air. 

Rob Smith's name is easier to pronounce. And unlike Gray, he can be found playing with actual bands like Rhyton and Pigeons and various ensembles associated with the steel guitar of Barry Walker. These things can be known. And they also carry a whiff of Hint, but by knowing them, we can come close to understanding them. And we can infer then perhaps, at least this time, that where there is a beard, there is Beard Rock. And with the release of the Gray/Smith album we can begin to get some answers to our questions about where and what the music on this album actually is. 

When I asked Gray to describe it, he said it was, “country.” And while I can accept that as true, it does not tell you very much. Because the music here, produced by the duo of L. Gray and R. Smith, is only about as country as it is psychedelic. And it's only about as psychedelic as it is lazy. And it's only about as lazy as it is instrumental. And it's only about as instrumental as it is utopian. And it's only about as utopian as it is urban. And so on. 

There are a couple vocal tracks, but they don't tell us much. They seem based on the presumption that a certain type of country music ceased to exist with the death of Ron “Pigpen” McKernan. But through light fingered application of drums and guitar and sheer weirdness they also offer the notion that this non-existence need not continue. The music offers a hand up from the form-hole in which we find ourselves today, nearly four decades after Ron left the planet. 
 And I don't mean to assure you that Gray/Smith have found THEE fucking answer or anything. But I'll be damned if their questions don't seem like the exact right ones for the pickle in which we find ourselves. And if it's time to saddle up a beard and ride it straight into the exploding helix of a sunset penned in blobs of acid-time by the late Rick Griffin, then let us fucking do it. 

And while we do it, let this magnificently humble Gray/Smith album be our soundtrack. So say we all. 
--Byron Coley

CREDITS
Produced by GRAY/SMITH
​ 
Recorded Winter-Spring 2021 at Gary's Electric in Greenpoint NYC 
Engineered by Robert Aceto 
Mastered by Al Carlson 
Associate Producer Jimy SeiTang 
Additional post-production courtesy of Black Rhombus Sound System 

Front cover photos by Josh Wildman 
Silkscreen by SIWA 

Special thanks to Tom Thayer & Arik Roper 

Dedicated to Tres Warren

You can stream the Slow Folk Playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube & Soundcloud

Great to see Mark Barrott has snuck out a new release. It's a soundtrack to a Japanese documentary that sadly might not see the light of day, but at least his New Age vibrations, ambient piano meditations & electronic meanderings are now with us. Close your eyes when listening & write your own script.

These days I try, whenever possible, to write like a Japanese Calligrapher - prepare the room, the ink and paper and then the make the act of creation as spontaneous as possible. 

I desire therefore, a release mechanism that mirrors this creative process as closely as possible, giving me the freedom to share music quickly and directly with people that care. 

This first Bandcamp focused release is music from a soundtrack I was commissioned to write for a Japanese documentary ‘Jōhatsu…the art of evaporation’. I have no idea if it will ever see the light of day, (post pandemic funding issues), but one of the conditions of my contract was the ability to release the music myself should the documentary remain unreleased by the end of 2021. 

Regardless of its origins, this is the music I wish to make, the emotions I wish to capture and share…the ideal of living simply with Kindness, Grace & Gratitude. 

I hope that this achieves that connection with you. 

MB, Ibiza May '22

CREDITS
​All tracks composed, recorded & performed by Mark Barrott, Ibiza, Jan 2020-April 2022. 
Mixed & Mastered by Lopazz @  mixmastering.de 
Published by Stefan Eichinger Musikverlag and SMV Schacht Musikverlage GmbH & Co. KG 
Art/Design Stuart Hardie 
In loving memory TT 
Thanks: Richard Norris, Colin Morrison, Steve Cobby, Stuart, Lopazz, Gerd, Sara, Pete, Dr Rob, Yuki.

You can stream The New Age of New Age Playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube & Soundcloud

Last millennium lo-fi jams from Ed Wartts on Paradise Is a Frequency, as his raw, funktified proto drum machine rhythms lead the way for cosmic, jazz licked, parallel dimensional synthesized soul explorations into the meaning of love and life.

“It happened one night as I was on my way to a party. Driving along, nice cool summer breeze and I’m listening to my grooves, thinking about my moves at the party. I get this strange and eerie feeling that somebody or something is watching me…" 

~ Ed “Mensah” Wartts 

In all of us, there are the makings of a faint heart murmur - a low, soft pulse quietly waiting to be awakened. The pulse can be heightened, through love, relationships, or traumatic events. It can even be stunted, never to be released or pursued. There are those of us who nurture and recognize that this vibration must surface and, against all odds, will make its mark as a gift that comes from a deep, and sometimes dark place... 

Ed Wartts’ supernatural rendezvous on that cool summer night transported him into the otherworldly. Consumed by memories of missed connections, star-crossed love, and astral projections into the future, Ed’s internal tension between time and space tore open a portal in the fabric of his reality. A shadowy gateway propagating the universe of his expansive compositional stylings and advanced tonal sensibilities: music on the wings of a timeless sound palette brimming with digital keys and MIDI drum programming. 

Ed harnessed the quickly advancing technology of the time into an extraterrestrial language of innermost desire – the plane of his alter ego, Mensah. Unhindered by the previous limitations of structured and expensive studio time, Ed was free to explore the mysterious, and often alien, dimensions of love, destiny, and divinity. Slowly taking shape from within the depths of his Minneapolis and St. Louis home studios between 1982 through 2000, this record of his deeply personal, cosmic journey was never intended for commercial release and only ever materialized on a handful of cassettes shared with close friends and family. 

Mensah’s sci-fi, neo-soul noir has been sleeping peacefully on his hard drive, dreaming of the time when audiences could receive its lush and strikingly contemporary production. Sliding from sophisticated Dam Funk-esque minimal wave (Second Wind; Mellow Conversation; Just Dreamin’) to digital future jazz (Time For the Harvest; Star Streams) and electronic bedroom R&B (Find A New Groove; To Win Yr Love), Mensah conjures reverent, celestial music that transcends the spiritual and the secular to create moods for any sanctuary.

CREDITS
All music and instruments by Ed Wartts 

Ensoniq KS-32 Keyboard 
Kawai K1r Digital Synthesizer Sound Module 
Baldwin Acoustic Piano 
Yamaha DX7 Keyboard 
Kawai R-50e Digital Drum Machine 
Kawai R-100 Drum Machine 
Yamaha JX3P Keyboard 
Boss Dr. Rhythm Drum Machine 

Vocals on 'Find A New Groove" by Lynn Wilson 
Mastered by James Morrison 
Layout Design by Alexander Wolfe 
Original Painting by Stan Solomon

You can stream the Slow Soul playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube & Soundcloud

Continuing his mission to pacify the house music massive, Alex Albrecht  - Melquíades, delivers another masterful mini LP of dreamy ambient beats, this time for Mule Musiq. Perfect for all you zero gravity ravers.

Alex Albrecht is a new artist on Mule Musiq. 

Melbourne based producer and Label owner of Analog Attic. 
half of Albrecht la’brooy, they have released two albums on the sub 
Label of R&S “Apollo”. 

We liked his latest album “Campfire Stories” on his Label. 
It’a a beautiful mixture of New Age, Modern Classical and Electronic Music. It sounds like a Lawrence children. 

This new release is a sequel of latest album. 
Home listening elegant slow House Music. 
If you like Lawrence or Larry Heard or that kind of style, 
You will like it. 

Hope you enjoy.

You can stream the Ambient House playlist on Spotify, Deezer, Youtube & Soundcloud