WHAT YOUR EARS SAY & WHAT THE COVER LOOKS LIKE

WHAT WE SAY

If you need to get out of the house this weekend then pop on your favourite Egyptian headdress, take a left at Saturn & floor it to the heart of the Sun (Ra) as Bitchin Bajas make all my cosmic dreams come true by covering the more accessible side of jazz's cosmonaut in chief for Drag City Records.

WHAT THE RELEASE NOTES SAY

To pour some out for one of their heroes, the cosmos’ own Sun Ra, Bitchin Bajas simply cut a slice of their own DNA and amplify it! Or something like that: they clearly vibe with Ra in hypno-symbiosis, setting the controls of their analog synths for the heart of Sun. Bonus mixtribute: a heartfelt doff to Queen Wendy C, sythnaut and another mother! 

Please note: Physical pre-orders for this product placed after October 13th will ship sometime in late November. Orders placed on or before October 13th have shipped to arrive around the October 29th release date. Thank you for your patience!

CreditsAll songs written by Sun Ra / Arranged by Bitchin Bajas 

Bitchin Bajas are: 
Cooper Crain, Rob Frye, Daniel Quinlivan 

with Jayve Montgomery: 
Akai 4000s on "Space Is the Place", "Lanquidity" and "Opus in Springtime" 

Recorded at Labranza, Chicago on an Otari MX5050 MKIII 8-track 1/2" at 15 IPS, June 2021 

Mixed at Electrical Audio to an Ampex ATR-102 2-track 1/2" at 30 IPS, July 12th, 2021. 

Mastered by Brian Sulpizio.​

IF YOU LIKE THAT THEN YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS

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

WHAT YOUR EARS SAY & THE COVER LOOKS LIKE

WHAT WE SAY

The first single fromIu Takahashi's delicate, lovingly crafted forthcoming minimal/ambient EP is finally here and it's wonderful :)

WHAT THE (EP) RELEASE NOTES SAY

Japan has a long and fine history of ambient music, with environmental, minimal and kankyō ongaku music overlapping, fusing, evolving or regressing as the new generations of producers see fit. What unifies much of the work is an almost ubiquitous sensibility involving a lightness of touch. obsessive attention to detail and rare precision in sound placement, which makes much of the ambient works coming out of the country almost immediately identifiable 

Iu Takahashi:
"All three tracks I created this time have a small number of notes. 
When I listen to ambient music, and when I turn down the volume, sounds of the outside world, such as the chirping of birds and insects, the sound of car engines and train brakes, will unexpectedly fuse with the music in my headphones. It gives me a different impression of the song, a change in the usual scenery, and a feeling of awareness and richness. 
Therefore, I created gaps (or blank spaces) in all three tracks. This is because I wanted to enjoy the coincidence with the outside sounds, rather than drowning them out." 

More about Iu (taken from her website):
Born and raised in Kanagawa, Japan, iu takahashi is a sound artist based in Tokyo. She produces her own musical worldview mainly using synthesizers, ambient sounds, and voices. 

iu takahashi used to do her artist activities as a vocalist before, and now she has created mainly ambient music since 2018, provided her tracks to background music such as exhibitions and introduction videos. 

Inspired by Japanese ambient music such as Hiroshi Yoshimura and Satoshi Ashikawa, iu takahashi, too, creates beautiful works based on Japanese ambient music. 

And under the concept of soundscape, she always keeps in mind to deliver music that is considerate of the listener's thoughts and feelings, or music that is conscious of the unconscious mind.  

Credits
Produced by Iu Takahashi 

Website:  iutakahashi.com 
Bandcamp:  iutakahashi.bandcamp.com 
Youtube:  youtu.be/-L540x1j5xQ 
Twitter:  twitter.com/iutakahashi 
Instagram:  instagram.com/iu_takahashi 
Spotify:  open.spotify.com/artist/4UlECRY6JKXwdnZH6ESGuZ 
Apple Music:  music.apple.com/jp/album/depthscape/1536260248 
Soundcloud:  soundcloud.app.goo.gl/a2W7Ur35xk9sgVD69 

Artwork: Harriet Clare (www.harrietclare.com) 
Mastering: Ian Hawgood (www.homenormal.com)

IF YOU LIKE THAT THEN YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS

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

WHAT YOUR EARS SAY & WHAT THE COVER LOOKS LIKE

WHAT WE SAY

I've never been a fan of marching bands mainly because I always felt the tuba made the sound too clunky and slow swinging, well it's word eating tuba reevaluation time with Theon Cross' debut LP for New Soil that, more than his peers, swaggers effortlessly between jazz, the UK Caribbean music continuum & the grittier urban sounds of young England.

WHAT THE RELEASE NOTES SAY

Theon Cross' new album, Intra-I, finds the gifted tuba player and composer creating a sound system powered by breath. This unique record is an uplifting celebration of Black music that, thanks to Cross' pioneering approach, helps to redefine the sonic possibilities of the tuba. Reflecting his own heritage, the young virtuoso melds jazz with dub, hip-hop, soca, grime and other sounds connected to the Afro-Caribbean diaspora. Additionally, the record - which features Remi Graves, Shumba Maasai, Afronaut Zu, Ahnansé, Consensus and Oren Marshall - is Cross' first music to include collaborations with guest vocalists, adding a further new dimension. 

Theon Cross is at the forefront of the thriving London jazz scene. In 2015 he released solo EP Aspirationsand in 2019 followed it with his acclaimed debut solo album, Fyah. In addition to his solo endeavours, Cross is a core member of Mercury nominated group Sons Of Kemet and has collaborated with Little Simz, Stormzy, Moses Boyd, Nubya Garcia, Kano and others. An incredible live performer who's constantly looking to push boundaries, Cross participated in SXSW Online earlier this year by playing a live set from Abbey Road Studios and, using motion capture technology, as a 3D digital avatar in a VR showcase.​

IF YOU LIKE THAT YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS

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

WHAT YOUR EARS SAY & THE COVER LOOKS LIKE

WHAT WE SAY

​It's nice to hear Matthew Herbert revisiting recognisable musical constructs & deftly navigating the age of virus on his new Accidental Records LP by working remotely with 8 new vocalists & longtime session crew before weaving the results through his classic, round edged, experimental house structures.

WHAT THE RELEASE NOTES SAY

Musca is the next in the series of domestic house albums to follow the groundbreaking LP classics Around The House (1998), and Bodily Functions (2001) both set for a special ‘21st anniversary of the Accidental label’ vinyl reissue on 16th July. 

After the wide expanse of his last big band album The State Between Us made with more than 1000 musicians and singers across Europe, this album instead is inward looking. Born of both intimacy and collaboration, features eight singers, Verushka, Siân Roseanna, Allie Armstrong, Bianca Rose, Melissa Uye-Parker, Daisy Godfrey, Y’akoto and Joy Morgan - all of whom Matthew has never worked with before or met face to face. It also features musicians Nick Ramm, Tom Herbert, Tom Skinner, Finn Peters, Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian and Leo Taylor, who, like the singers, all self-recorded and in isolation from each other. 

Matthew says: “Like presumably many other albums made during the last year, Musca reflects on navigating the challenges and joys of our most intimate relationships whilst the world is in turmoil. Not just with Covid, but with the rise in state and political violence, facebook-friendly fascism, white supremacy and a climate in crisis.” 

Matthew has talked about the need to retreat to an earlier, more familiar way of creating music as a form of solace during an unstable year. Having completed his PhD last year about the ethics of composing with sound and with his next experimental project based on more than one billion sounds, Musca is a moment of introspection, a pause. The album takes its name from musca - the genus part of the latin name for a housefly and includes a variety of sounds from around the farm where he lives, including a synth made from his wife’s dog, one of his pig’s snoring and fox cubs gekkering. 

The 14 track album has been mixed by Matthew and mastered by long term collaborator and Grammy winning engineer, Mandy Parnell (Björk, Brian Eno and Aphex Twin). The artwork is by Sarah Hopper who has done nearly all the artwork for Matthew’s house music output for 25 years. 
  
CreditsAll tracks written, mixed and produced by Matthew ‘domestica’ Herbert 
Mixed at human jerky 
Art by Sarah Hopper 
Mastered by Mandy Parnell 

Published by Soundslike Music/Bucks Music Group UK (PRS) 
© 2021 Accidental ltd 
℗ 2021 Accidental ltd 
www.accidental.co 
www.matthewherbert.com​

IF YOU LIKE THAT YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS

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

WHAT YOUR EARS SAY & THE COVER LOOKS LIKE

WHAT WE SAY

If you need an escape route away from life's pressures, Good Shepherd & Rusted Rail have left the hatch open. The route may be dark & there will be some stumbles along the way, but let his soft voice & dreamy psyche-folk threads guide you to the end of the tunnel. Big up Concrete Islands for the tip.

WHAT THE RELEASE NOTES SAY

Rusted Rail is proud to announce the release of 'Let's See What the East Wind Brings...' by Good Shepherd. Like labelmate Songs of Green Pheasant, Good Shepherd is another mysterious one-man-band from England. The Cambridgeshire-based recording project of Duncan Poyser 'Let's See What the East Wind Brings' is the first (and last) album by this teacher and 'twitcher', whose interest in birdwatching is evident from the artwork that adorns the lush 6-panel gatefold CD sleeve. 

This collection is made up of newer songs that sit alongside works which appeared on two previously-released limited edition EPs on the "classic era" Rusted Rail 3inch disc format: 'Her Darke Aspects' and 'Ah...Good The Sea' (though some of the pre-existing tracks are now longer as they have been freed from the constraints of the 3inch format and now reside snugly on Compact Disc for the first time). Let's See What the East Wind Brings...' takes in buoyant nautical folk, hushed acoustic confessions, glitch-damaged balladry, and sepia-tinted home-made psychfolk stylings transmitted directly from the Cambridgeshire Fenlands. 

Says Poyser of the album: "Let's See What the East Wind Brings was recorded between 2005 and 2010 during my first experiments in multi-track recording on a Tascam 8-track. Throughout, the recordings are steeped in references to birds, an obsession since childhood. What is also evident to me now are the narratives and mantras I was using to steer myself through life at that time, a decade before a diagnosis of autism. I hadn't realised then that my need to escape into headphones and an intense focus on sound was to compensate for my loss of sanctuary, as I never felt I could truly lose myself in birding while I lived in London. So these experiments with guitar and song become a notebook of emotional survival from a boy with a far away look in his eye, trying to connect with a lost love while navigating the tangles of humanity in a city way too big for comfort." 

From songs drenched by sea spray to tunes baked under the summer sun, Good Shepherd's fire-side folk and mountainside melodies highlight his ability to play on the heartstrings, his serene songcraft eventually underpinned by approaching squalls before calm is restored. Let Good Shepherd's hushed midnight musings and elemental music guide you home. 


Good Shepherd - Let's See What The East Wind Brings... 

1. Flown The Other Side 
2. The Beast 
3. Slow Down 
4. Sunday Morning Son 
5. Lungs on Fire 
6. Good Today 
7. Song for Isaac 
8. Angle 
9. There is a Mountain 
10. Sing Again 
11. Nightjar 
12. End of All ​

WHAT YOUR EARS SAY & THE COVER LOOKS LIKE

WHAT WE SAY

​Dive into the ambient shadows of Kelman Duran's weighty, weightless & wild exploration of immigrant angst & stoicism in the face of the populist plagues, free jazz, 20's disquietude, sound sculptures, calls to arms, stirring strings, tears, beat culture & ultimately hope. This album is important, don't ignore it.

WHAT THE RELEASE NOTES & BOOMKAT (WHERE I DISCOVERED THE RELEASE) SAY

dedicated to
6xta, shorty, bronco, abril, jack, marcel, anna, maite, leeana, & arely

Credits
KELMAN DURAN: PRODUCER 
TRACK 1. WRITTEN BY KELMAN DURAN AND STIC MAN 

TRACK 5: ORIGINAL BY ARTHUR BLYTHE​

WHAT BOOMKAT SAID:

Kelman Duran fades to dusk on this killer, smeared new album of steamy, syncopated kicks, spiritual jazz and haunted, weightless textures, nailing a singular sort of ambient dembow folk modernism that comes with our highest possible recommendation - and especially so if yr feeling Nala Sinephro, Space Afrika, Tara Clerkin Trio, Amazondotcom, Klein, Chino Amobi.
A music of margins and shadows full of pent spirit, ‘Night In Tijuana’ was recorded in the titular border city while Kelman was working as a curator for Tijuana's Otras Obras gallery and finds him strafing between enervated ambient rap pressure and gnashing jazz drums with a real sense of purpose that conveys the worries and joys of his Latin diasporic community. Feeding in elements of classical music, sound collage, and a divergent Afro-Caribbean club pulse, it's a sonic representation of his musical fingerprint, that includes his childhood in Washington Heights and time studying at the prestigious Cal Arts institute - a delirious mix of dance culture and vivid, confident fine art.

From the fraught, anxiously gasping but disciplined drums of ‘Freddie King’, to the woodblock ‘Dancehall, Audubon Ballroom’, thru his flip of Arthur Blythe’s modal free jazz stylings in ‘Lower Nile’, to the dusted dembow techno of the title track, his drums and vibes perfectly say it without saying it thru the first two thirds of the album. 
However, it’s the weightless aspects that come to define the album thru its recurrent ‘Aeon’ themes, defining its narrative arc into the final passages, between the smoked gloom of ‘South London BC’ and deftly string-heavy melancholy of ‘For Whitney’, with the ritualistic feel of ‘Night In Tijuana III’ giving way to the noirish masterstroke closure of ‘Last Cinema, (outro) II’, all orienting the album for smoked out nights, harnessing elements of club music to ink deeper elegies.

WHAT YOUR EARS SAY & THE COVER LOOKS LIKE

WHAT WE SAY

Float & shimmy your way into the week as Tristan Arp injects a few glitch leaning riddims into his aquatic ambient & future New Age world to provide a bit of gentle bump and grind to this otherwise peaceful, mind soothing transmission for Wisdom Teeth

WHAT THE RELEASE NOTES SAY

UK label Wisdom Teeth returns with it’s third long-form offering - Sculpturegardening: a new LP by Mexico City-based artist and producer, Tristan Arp. Incorporating elements of ambient, glitch, microhouse and downtempo, it’s an otherworldly record populated by knotty modular textures, blossoming floral melodies, tight pointillist rhythms and glossy acoustic instrumentation. 

The record was born from a process of “collaborating with machines”: using modular synthesisers to generate probabilistic melodies and rhythms, with the artist taking on the role of sculptor and curator. Throughout, the boundaries between the organic and digital are playfully blurred: we hear synthesisers played by guitars; emotive and distinctly human melodies generated by modular circuits; digital percussion drummed by hand; and live cello processed with a digital finish. 

The results sometimes recall Roman Flügel at his most colourful, or Benge’s meandering synth workouts, and even at times echo the dubbed-out cello experiments of Arthur Russell. But really sculpturegardening occupies a sonic world of its own, born from a unique web of happy accidents and incidental arrangements. 
The record’s bright colours and subtle rhythms make it a fitting follow-up to K-LONE’s 2020 LP Cape Cira and Facta’s 2021 LP Blush, and place it neatly alongside the work of label mates Duckett, Benoit B, Steevio and Iglew. 

“With sculpturegardening, my concept was to approach music like gardening. I collaborated with machines inspired by the way a gardener collaborates with the earth. A gardener creates the conditions for the plants to come to life and develop on their own. In a similar way, I created a set of conditions and probabilities for the music to make itself. Who is making the music here? 

“A sculpture garden to me can be a really beautiful environment of balance between randomness and order––between nature and human interaction. Things that are either extremely organized or completely random tend to not resonate with us. On the other hand, something very interesting happens when a balance between the randomness and organization is struck. I invented this verb sculpturegardening to represent creating with the aim of this balance, and the with the aim of building a world in which each piece is a zone, or a sculpture in a garden.” 

The record will be twinned with a physical iteration - a sound installation at an exhibition curated by Tristan Arp titled Nada Se Pierde; Todo Se Transforma. The show opens on 9th October in Mexico City at Avant.dev. The physical sculpture garden will be a collaboration with Mexican sculptor Pablo Arellano. The sound installation will centre around a 4-channel audio system that gives voice to different sculptures and allows visitors to create a mix of the sounds depending on their position in the garden. 

Sculpturegardening is Tristan Arp’s second LP, following 2019’s Suggested Forms, released on his own label Human Pitch.​

IF YOU LIKE THAT YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS

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

WHAT YOUR EARS SAY & THE COVER LOOKS LIKE

WHAT WE SAY

Serene Sunday sounds from Santilli for Growing Bin Records, as he anchors New Age vibes and organic ambient warmth to gentle animistic percussion, lest they dissipate to become one with the universe & escape beyond the range of human hearing.

WHAT THE RELEASE NOTES SAY

Keeping his carbon footprint at a minimum, Santilli sails from Sydney to Hamburg via ten textured vignettes delicately drawn with guitar, bass and organic percussion. Relaxing, reflective and endlessly beautiful, ‘Tidal’ explores elemental inspiration through a humanistic gaze. 

Whether you know Max Santilli through Ken Oath duo Angophora, previous releases ‘Surface’ and ‘In Circles’, or this is your first time making his acquaintance, you’ll agree he’s right at home on the Growing Bin. The multi-instrumentalist crafts exquisite acoustic music in tune with the finer moments of Windham Hill and ECM; a perfect fusion of talent, balance and the emotion shared by each release on the Hamburg label. 

As befits its inspiration ‘Tidal’ is an organic affair, related through bright acoustic guitar, hazy chimes and hand played percussion. Where the Australian draws you in with hypnotic repetition, the subtlety, warmth and tonal variation serve as a welcome reminder we’re living off grid. Though expert fretwork often takes centre stage, especially on the delicate B1 ‘Warm You Give’, it’s the blend of kalimba, woodblock, hand drums and shaker which truly transport the listener through open waters; a rhythmic breeze carrying us through the maritime drones and bowed squall. At times the salt air is spiced with cardamom and cloves (‘Sea’) or lemongrass and galangal (‘Valleys’), as we skirt the Indian Ocean or the Java Sea. ‘Lapse’ provides subtle hints of fourth world jazz as mallets take the lead, leaving the guitar to provide its own shimmering texture. 

Clear your mind, clear your schedule and make some time for ‘Tidal’, an opportunity to breathe in time with the planet. 

CreditsAll instruments* are played and all tracks are written, produced and mixed by Max Santilli at home. 

*Acoustic Guitars, Electric Guitar, Electric Bass, Bow, Juno 6 Synthesiser, Roland Rhythm Composer, 
Drums, Congas, Tabla, Bongos, Udu, Kalimba, Cymbals, Bells, Shakers, Chimes, and other misc percussion. 

Mastered by Sergey Luginin @ Luginin Studio in Moscow 
Distributed by wordandsound from Hamburg 
Sales notes by Patrick Ryder​

IF YOU LIKE THAT YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS

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

WHAT YOUR EARS SAY & WHAT THE COVER LOOKS LIKE

WHAT WE SAY

Oakland's Inner Islands label continue their mission to pacify the masses with 3 new pleasingly hazy & lazy transmissions, the New Age nebula, cosmic country & ambient acoustics of the Golden Brown LP being my pick, but check out the rest too.

WHAT THE RELEASE NOTES SAY

"Gems and Minerals" sees Stefan Beck taking a deeper dive into the lush and pastoral instrumental terrain that he has been refining over the last decade plus of releasing music under the Golden Brown moniker. The earthbound and celestial visions are more vivid than ever, as seen through the lens of Beck’s cosmic-inflected Appalachian folk stylings and deftly dappled production. 

The pieces that comprise "Gems and Minerals" began to take shape during 2020, shortly after the pandemic began to permeate many aspects of life. Beck says of the time, “music became a sanctuary and a safe space in the gloom and trauma of last year (both my wife Sara and I continued to work in person throughout the pandemic, so there was a lot of anxiety around that. Playing music in the morning every day helped set a good tone and intention for the day before venturing out).” The pieces were also largely inspired by the local Colorado landscape and the sense of refuge taken in that space. 

The sounds and moods of the album reflect a certain sense of unease with the restless lead lines on “Gems” and the dark undercurrent of cello on “Spores” played by Sara Beck. But there is also a dreamy serenity, expressed by the floating lap steel on “Finisterre” and the languid riffing on the electric mandola on “Palimpsest”. One may also feel a sense of surrender to the sublime and unhurried rhythms of the natural world on tracks like “Fruiting Bodies” and “The Lyre Tree”. This album is a culmination of experiences interfacing with the difficult realities of the human world, while also endeavoring to find transcendence from that in both imagined and wild spaces. 
Golden Brown is the work of multi-instrumentalist Stefan Beck, based out of Longmont, Colorado. This is his sixth full-length release and his first on Inner Islands.
  CreditsStefan Beck: guitars, lap steel, electric mandola, keyboards 
Sara Beck: cello 

Recorded at home, 2020-21. 
Mixed by Benjamin Price at Studilaroche. 
Mastered by Sean Conrad at The Gentle Ways. 
Artwork by Stefan. Layout by Sean.

IF YOU LIKE THAT YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS

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