In this age of technologically aided imitation, dub techno - like far too much new house & techno, is often sent spiralling in ever decreasing stylistic circles by  software savvy, creatively challenged producers knocking out pale imitations of dance music history. So it's great to hear Brendon Moeller distilling the genre's essence, sneaking it out of the club & into Berlin's living rooms with this after the after party LP of refreshingly mutated, brain cell repairing, sleep encouraging, downtempo deepness for Constellation Tatsu.

Artwork by Robert Hruska

Editor's note: The label could probably do better with the release information :)

If you spend time drifting through multi-verses, radiating love, in awe of the interconnectedness of all things & curiously searching, always searching, then you might want to tune into Silent Spirit's suitably good natured, new age of New Age Ambient soundtrack, it sounds like he's doing the same thing.

I wrote this album during an intense period of self-reflection and growth. “Thanks for a Great Season” is my most intimate and narrative Silent Spirit album yet. Evoking the archetype of a lost wanderer, I invite the listeners to walk into an unknown forest with me, through the thickets and into a clearing of serene compassion and self-acceptance. In this record, I hope to remind the listeners that seeing clearly takes effort and intention, and if we allow our eyes and hearts to dilate and surrender, the stars are always there to guide us.

Cheers,

It is important to me that this album can be as accessible as possible, for a limited time you can name your price and pay what you can!

For the next week all proceeds of this album will be donated to the Land Conservancy of West Michigan.

CREDITS
All songs written and recorded by Silent Spirit
Album art by Stephanie Ellis
Mastered by Hunter P. Thompson

Piano on "Self Actualization" performed by Ryan Hay

The New Age continuum is mutating & flourishing under the wayward guidance of J Foerster, N Kraemer & Leaving Records. Seemingly composed in the spa of an orbiting ashram, where sounds warp, fold in on themselves & distort in the low gravity conditions this is otherworldly, somewhat weirdy, oddly comforting wellness music from the warmer, cuddlier end of the Berlin spectrum.

Habitat (what we might now properly refer to as Habitat I) arrived, fully-formed, in 2021—the product of a conscientious, exploratory, and decidedly Covid-era collaboration between two Berlin-based experimental musicians: the composer N. (Niklas) Kramer, and percussionist, J. (Joda) Foerster. Inspired by the Italian architect, Ettore Sottsass, Habitat’s simple, albeit beguiling conceit (following in the footsteps of canonical ambient releases like Music for Airports and Plantasia) was that each track ought to represent a room in an imagined building. Taken quite literally, tracks like “Curved Hallway” guided the listener through a kind of psychogeographic labyrinth, at once welcoming and slightly uncanny.

Habitat II operates on a similar premise. But if Habitat I charted the perplexing intricacies of an imagined, self-contained structure, Habitat II expands the conceptual realm. Think now, not only of rooms in a hypothetical home, but of the winding hallways and grounds of a mid-century structure—perhaps slightly past its prime, but not at all an inappropriate venue for a late-night soiree. How might these features be imagined, mapped, and rendered enticing for a listener? We begin, appropriately, with “Seating (Welcome),” which, in its fluttering, aetherial suite of static, winds, and percussive depths, gently hypnotizes in the vein of Terry Riley, beckoning our entry. The clarity here, the directional flow of air, recalls the dignity and gestural simplicity of the Bauhaus school.

Of significant note is the Wasserspiel (track seven)—”water fixture” (loosely translated), like the sculpture by Lily Clark, which graces the record’s cover. In an album grounded by analogies, Wasserspiel constitutes an especially mimetic highlight: a cascading, shimmering, font of radiance that does not (to its strength) rely upon a sample or found-sound reference to running water. Instead we are left with the distinct impression of the glimmer of flowing liquid, and of the attendant, refractory evening sunlight. Indeed, fountains (the most common and domesticated form of Wasserspiele)—their simultaneous kitsch and abundance—may very well epitomize the kind of cultivated, sixties home-shopping catalog aesthetic that undergirds the Habitat series. These habitats, wherever they are, however they appear to you (and there is indeed ample room for interpretation)—we can all certainly agree that they are vaguely utopian and achingly nostalgic.

Of their compositional process, Kramer and Foerster reference their mutual interest in improvisation, and, furthermore, a kind of “first thought best thought” approach to recording and indexing ideas. Relying primarily on a sampler with a 15 second limit, their process emphasizes the organic layering of asynchronous (though, crucially, harmonious — perhaps even “hospitable”) loops. Suffice it to say, many rooms have been lost to the aether, casualties of a mercurial recording process. Those rooms that remain in Habitat II have been cultivated, furnished, and decorated. And they eagerly await your entry.

CREDITS
Music by J Foerster / N Kramer
Mastered by Matthewdavid
Artwork by Lily Clark
Design by Max Winter
Bio by Emmett Shoemaker

Great to see Lemon Quartet back on Last Resort after an appropriately leisurely three year break since the ambient jazz joys of their Crestless LP. I'm also happy to report things haven't sped up, the notes still drift through the speakers with little sonic competition as they explore those distant, episodic memories we place so much stock in, despite the fact that with each passing year they become an increasingly uncertain hippocampus Chinese whisper.

Memory is malleable. The day you met the person you love, what color shirt was she wearing? At precisely what angle did the sunlight strike his face? How exactly did they glow? These little details are precious, but the strange thing is, the more you cherish them, the more they change. Each recollection is another potential touch point where stories can shift—each replay degrades the truth. Reality’s rough edges smooth, with time. Objectivity is a myth: cameras and recording devices all contort image and sound. There’s no way to know exactly how things were. And yet we still tell the stories, to try to capture how things felt, even though the truth is always slipping through our fingers.

Lemon Quartet’s second album Arts Fests eems to unconsciously circle this thematic territory. Full of loose, yet lush repetition, it seems to function like memory—each dizzy melody recalling and rewriting what came before, subtly shaping each piece as time passes. Not that they seem especially concerned with the passage of time anyway. They space out, they work in the realm of feelings, scribbling melodious abstractions that feel familiar. Rich with compassion, harmony, and gestures toward ecstatic—if not objective—truth, it’s full of the sort of pieces that demand you return to them, but sound a bit different each time, new details overtaking familiar comforts. Are you hearing them for the first time? Or just for the first time in a long time? Either way, drift away, and try to remember…

If you need a sedentary soundscape to soundtrack your day of rest page turning & frequent trips to the kitchen, or some Sunday escapism before the daily drudgery resumes tomorrow, then dust off your space pod & reach for the stars with the low gravity ambient, deep space dub & distant galaxy exploring electronica of Chicago trio Purelink for Peak Oil. Return to ground control is optional.

The latest by Chicago trio Purelink unspools an alchemical suite of fractal ambient, dusted dub tech, and interstitial electronica, born from a spirit of unity and flux: “All hands on the mixer, forever finding the sound.” Since forming in 2020, Tommy Paslaski (aka Concave Reflection), Ben Paulson (aka kindtree), and Akeem Asani (aka Millia) have convened regularly in a shared studio to workshop, swap samples, and hone their collective muse via “the endless possibilities of a laptop,” seeking “something different than we would make on our own.”

Distilled from extended compositions prepared and performed across 2022 in Chicago, Kansas City, New York, and Los Angeles, Signs captures their chemistry at its most liquid and immaterial, mapped in mutating systems of glitch, glass, rhythm, and space. It’s music alternately subdued and subterranean, elevated and remote, attuned to the flickering sentience of outer spheres.

Cover art by Ezra Miller.

Carlos Niño has found a good home at the jazz scene disruptors International Anthem. On his new LP he opens the door of the bus to take his cosmic muso mates on a trip to spiritually active, universally attuned, capitalism transcending, love encouraging, ecosystemic appreciating New Age Nu Jazz lands that have been rarely visited, but are now sign posted for other well meaning souls to come & create as they please.

Liner Notes by Marcus J. Moore:

Over the past few years, concert patrons have stopped the musician Carlos Niño after gigs to ask two simple questions: “Are you a shaman?” “I hear the medicine in your music, can I come to your next ceremony?” The queries are fair enough: Looking at Niño, a tall man with a wild beard and kind eyes, one would think he’s from some faraway time and could maybe cast spells. Once you get to know him, you find that he’s just an incredibly sweet guy with a laid-back demeanor, and that he isn’t some guru claiming to have an all-access pass to the otherworld.

So what does he say to those wondering if he’s a spiritual teacher?

“I’m just chillin’, on fire,” he declares. “I'm not rolling with or out any kind of religious or traditional focus, rules or doctrine. I'm just presenting something that has a lot of energy, and is intended to be an opening for those of us who are journeying, creating musically, and for those who gather with us.”

Indeed, there’s a communal essence to Niño’s self-described Energetic Space Music. As leader of Carlos Niño & Friends, he encourages his collaborators to improvise without preconceived ideas of what the sound is supposed to entail. His new album, (I’m just) Chillin’, on Fire, features more than a dozen musicians and includes a who’s who of sonic experimentation — everyone from guitarist Nate Mercereau and saxophonist Kamasi Washington, to New Age cornerstone Laraaji and hip-hop legend André 3000 playing his now trademark flute. On purpose, Niño lets the music drift and the unity ensue, making (I’m just) Chillin’, on Fire another highlight in a recent run of sublime work.

But where albums like 2020’s Chicago Waves (with multi-instrumentalist Miguel Atwood-Ferguson) and last year’s Extra Presence hovered in the speakers, (I’m just) Chillin’ forges ahead in certain spots through energetic drums equally indebted to jazz and electronic funk. It eschews genre, but the tenets of ‘70s underground jazz are present. Fifty years ago, acts like Brother Ah, the Ensemble Al-Salaam and Mtume Umoja Ensemble crafted music that scanned as Spiritual Jazz yet flared in many different directions. They leaned into the transcendence of the music overall, not artificial terms used to market it. (I’m just) Chillin’ emits the same emotion: On “Mighty Stillness,” when the experimental violinist V.C.R proclaims her “ancestral right” to rest, she evokes Black women like Jeanne Lee, Jayne Cortez and Beatrice Parker, innovative vocalists from indie scenes who embodied the same freedom. Then on “Love Dedication (for Annelise),” Niño uses subtle bass (from Michael Alvidrez) and a serene piano loop (from Surya Botofasina) to speak of endearment in broad terms. “Love is unconditional — everywhere, everything, flowing always,” he observes. “Totally alive, no upper limit.” Though he hesitates to embrace comparisons to the spacious arrangements heard on indie labels of the ‘70s like Strata, Strata-East and Tribe (only because of how much he respects their legacies, not wanting to claim any space in their fields), there’s no denying his stature as an anchor in the jazz, hip-hop and beat scenes in Los Angeles over the last nearly 30 years, and how his influences are alive in what he makes.

“All of those labels to me are hugely influential,” Niño says. “When I think about Strata-East, I immediately think of Pharaoh Sanders, and I think of one of my favorite albums of all-time, Live at the East (on Impulse!), and how The East and that movement is a huge influence. I'm not from that community. I don't claim any direct connection to it, but my awareness of it and my appreciation of it is gigantic.”

The vocals for (I’m just) Chillin’ were compiled unconventionally. “I was like, ‘I'm going to turn on the mic, and you're going to listen all the way through the album and record anything you're feeling at any moment,’” Niño says of the creative process. “It was completely open to their interpretation.” He found that the vocalists Cavana Lee, Maia, Mia Doi Todd, and V.C.R interpreted the music in similar ways: “People who are not even in the same room, who did not hear what the other person did, they all created these really cool weavings — and it was so fun.”

While the album compiles live and studio arrangements recorded in places like Venice, Leimert Park and Woodstock over the past three years, it feels harmonious, as if captured in one space with all musicians present. This highlights Niño’s ability as a conductor and producer. That he could winnow such vast experimentation into a seamless set is a worthy feat on its own. Much like Niño’s other LPs, (I’m just) Chillin’ is an immersive listen that requires attentive ears to fully absorb. In a world dominated by social media and the 24-hour news cycle, it seems we’re all in a hurry for no reason in particular. By creating music with tender messages and leisurely pacing, Niño nudges listeners to slow down and appreciate life’s natural wonders, to savor the journey and not rush so quickly to the destination. In turn, his art conjures pastoral images — endless fields, boundless oceans, ripples crashing along the shoreline. It urges you to simply look up: notice the wind rustling through the trees, listen to the birds sing a glorious song. This is real life, the stuff you can’t quite capture with a smartphone camera. As a conduit, Niño embodies the water he cherishes so deeply. He’s not just the bandleader, but a vessel for everyone’s ideas to shine through.

“Creativity, to me, is an expression of a being's state, and their states of being,” he says. “It's really reflecting or reporting how they feel. The deeper ‘why’ is what I'm getting to with all this, what is inside that feeling, and it's not uncharted territory. I'm one of these people who's very into organizing, curating and offering; it's a deeply sharing kind of thing. It's a living thing; it grows. Sometimes it gets sculpted. Sometimes it gets rocked by forces outside of its maneuvering. Sometimes it looks one way. Sometimes it looks another way, but it's alive.”

CREDITS
Produced, Mixed, Edited, and Arranged by Carlos Niño.

Bells, Chimes, Cymbals, Drums, Field Recordings, Flutes, Gongs, Kalimbas, Keyboards, Leaves, Plants, Rattles, Shakers, Sound Design, Synths, Voice, and Whistles throughout by Carlos Niño.

Mastered by David Allen.

Cover Photo by Annelise.
On The Cover and Insert: Tile VI (Fall in or Fly Away), Ceramic, by Aparna Sarkar.
Art Direction and Original Elements by Nep Sidhu.
Graphic Design and Layout by Craig Hansen.

01) Venice 100720, Hands In Soil
Jamire Williams – Drums
Josh Johnson - Alto Saxophone and Pedals
Nate Mercereau - Guitar Synth and Pedals
Andres Renteria – Congas

Recorded Live in The Townhouse Courtyard in Venice, California by Don Hernandez, on Wednesday, October 7, 2020. Congas added in January 2021.

02) Mighty Stillness
Jamire Williams – Drums
Josh Johnson - Alto Saxophone and Pedals
Nate Mercereau - Guitar Synth and Pedals
V.C.R – Voice
Cavana Lee – Voice
Mia Doi Todd – Voice

Recorded Live at The World Stage in Leimert Park, California by Tomoaki Soto on Friday, November 6, 2020. Voices added in December 2022.

03) Love Dedication (for Annelise)
Surya Botofasina – Piano
Michael Alvidrez – Bass
Annelise – Voice
Cavana Lee – Voice
Maia – Voice
Mia Doi Todd – Voice

The basis of this piece was Recorded by Jesse Peterson during the Sessions for Surya's Album Everyone's Children. Bass and Voices added in December 2022.

04) Flutestargate
Deantoni Parks – Drums
Nate Mercereau - Guitar, Guitar Synth and Pedals

05) Maha Rose North 102021, Breathwork
Laraaji - Electric Kalimba and Voice
Photay - Buchla and Drum Machine
Lionmilk – Flute
Arji - Chimes and iPad

Recorded Live at Maharose North, in Woodstock, New York by Stu Pender on Wednesday, October 20, 2021. Thanks to Luke Simon, Diego Gaeta,
Mekala Session, and V.C.R. for their additional Vibes.

06) Transcendental Bounce, Run to it
Deantoni Parks – Drums
The Growth Eternal - Synth Bass
Nate Mercereau - Electric Guitar, Guitar Synth and Effects
Sibusile Xaba - Acoustic Guitar
Maia – Voice
Cavana Lee – Voice
Mia Doi Todd – Voice
V.C.R – Voice

07) Taaaud
Jamael Dean - Piano and Wurlitzer
Nate Mercereau - Guitar Synth and Pedals
Sibusile Xaba - Voice

Contains a Sample of "Duat" by Jamael Dean, from his Solo Piano Album Ished Tree, used with permission from the Artist.

08) Spacial
Jamael Dean - Piano and Wurlitzer
Sibusile Xaba – Voice

09) Am I Dreaming?
Dntel - Modular Synthesizer
Luis Pérez Ixoneztli - Aerophones, Drums and Percussion
Surya Botofasina – Keyboards

Thanks to Maya Luma for her energy toward this piece.

10) Etheric Windsurfing, flips and twirls
Adam Rudolph - Drum Machine, and Gimbre
Jesse Peterson – Synthesizers
Maia – Voice
Alakoi Peete – Percussion
Surya Botofasina – Keyboards

11) Boom Bap Spiritual
Surya Botofasina - Keyboards and Piano

Based on the piece "Beloved California Temple."

12) Woo, Acknowledgement
Mark Ives – Clarinet
Nate Mercereau – Zither
Surya Botofasina – Keyboards

This piece originated as the second half of a Remix made for the Woo piece "Paradise In Pimlico" (from the Album of the same name, released by Quindi Records). Clive and Mark added to the Remix, then Carlos decided to focus on and develop this part.

13) Sandra’s Willows
Aaron Shaw - Tenor Saxophone and Flute
Surya Botofasina – Keyboards

These pieces were recorded by Jesse Peterson at Carlos Niño’s Home Studio, Composed in the moment for a Film Project by Sandra de la Loza. She and her partner William were present in the Studio.

14) One For Derf
Aaron Shaw - Tenor Saxophone and Flute
Surya Botofasina – Keyboards
Michael Alvidrez – Bass
Maia – Voice
Jamael Dean – Piano
Pablo Calogero - Bass Clarinet
Andres Renteria - Hand Drums

Dedicated to The Great Derf Reklaw.

15) Conversations
André 3000 - Flute and Voice
Nate Mercereau - Guitar, Sampler and Synthesizers
Maia – Voice
Cavana Lee – Voice
Mia Doi Todd – Voice

Thanks to Recording Engineer Ken Oriole and to Jesse Peterson who can be heard playing Gimbre through Pedals for a few moments.

16) Essence, The Mermaids Call
Nate Mercereau - Electric Guitar
Clive and Mark Ives - Multi-Instruments and Voices

Co-Produced by Woo. Thanks to Laraaji and his piece "Essence" - the inspiration for the genesis of this one.

17) Eightspace 082222
Aaron Shaw – EWI
Andres Renteria - Hand Drums
Annelise – Percussion
Diego Gaeta – Keyboards
Kamasi Washington - Tenor Saxophone
Nate Mercereau - Guitar Synth and Pedals
Surya Botofasina - Keyboards and Piano

Thanks to Linafornia, Banch Abegaze, Nes Abegaze, Scottie McNiece, Alejandro Ayala, and Andrew Maxwell for their support of this Concert.

Early underground acid house tropes & deep ambient techno trips are stripped of their club purpose & put on an opiated intravenous drip until their electrocardiogram pulse is closer to the grave than the rave. Classic sounding, deeply hypnotic,  electronic purity from Acid Drones via Offen, that will persuade even the most chemically active brains to admit the party is over & it's time for bed.

Acid Drones is a new recording and live project by Thomas Lea Clarke, a musician, journalist and ex resident DJ of the Art School Club in Glasgow, now based in Berlin.
This is Acid Drones debut album.

Credits
Music by Acid Drones.
Recorded and mixed by Thomas Lea Clarke in Turkey, France and Luxembourg between 2020 and 2023.
Mastered by Enrico Mercaldi
Artwork by Percy.