Reiko
**100 copies limited edition** "The idea behind Reiko is that it is a story about a city "scarred by the effects of climate change and burdened with the imminent threat of viruses" and a girl "who has her own demons. Anxiety, depression, a dead-end job. Wandering the streets, swallowed by a mass of commuters." Music for the end of times, but are we aware of this impending end? You could think this results in top-heavy depressing music, and while it is dark, it is not without hope. Nobuka has gue…
Sol Invictus
**250 copies limited edition** "Jon Doe One is the alias of Belgian composer and double bass player Hannes d’Hoine. His portfolio includes work with many different people and formations (you may know him as a member of Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung). Apart from that, he has composed music for dance, film, theatre, and other performances. As Jon Doe One he previously released two titles on Entr’acte. Sol Invictus is released on the Dutch Esc.rec. label. The liner notes tell the tale of d’…
Hoek
**50 copies limited edition** In 2012 Roel Meelkop was asked to participate in an exhibition in the small town of Hoek van Holland, which is part of the greater Rotterdam area. Hoek van Holland, or as most people call it, ‘de Hoek’ (literally Corner of Holland, or ‘the Corner’) was originally built in the late 19th century as a defence for the Port of Rotterdam. In World War II it became part of the defence line of the Nazi’s called the Atlantikwall. They built vast underground bunkers in the du…
Outside Words
**200 copies limited edition** Hannes Buder (born 1978 in the former GDR) is a musician, composer and improviser in the field of experimental music. His works concentrate on issues of movement, authenticity, intuition, minimalism, and slowness. Buder's current projects include the bands 'Zug Zug' with Todd Capp and Andrew Lafkas, 'Gravity' with Hannes Lingens and Andrew Lafkas, the duo Nothingness with Sarah Jegelka, and his solo projects. Beyond that he has collaborated with Audrey Chen, Tony B…
Invisible Cities
The 2014 debut solo collection by French wind-walker Baptiste Martin aka Les Halles remains a masterpiece of soft light and subdued yearning, woven from grainy panpipe samples, tape hiss, and spectral delay. Recorded late at night in a tiny room in Montpellier, Invisible Cities quivers like a candle by the sea, its fragile illumination flickering against an expanse of sky, silence, and sorrow.
The pieces feel both ancient and immediate, glimpsing currents behind the veil, at the threshold of pre…
Invocation
Tip! * Originally released as a hand-made cassette edition on the band’s own label, Soundimage in February 1990. This is a remastered vinyl reissue, limited to 300 copies, with new artwork done by Martin Franklin * A trip to Ambient paradise on exotic percussion, spacey keyboards, dreamy flutes, following a roadmap guided only by the vibes. Originally recorded in the late ’80's, with contributions from Mykl O’Dempsey, Ramesh Singh and Phil Escott these songs were the first approaches of Martin …
Unseen Descending And Lamentations
"Unseen Descending And Lamentations shows the naked, minimal approach of Dirk Serries, alone on a chair with his guitar and a huge array of effect pedals. I've witnessed this set-up many times and each time it has the same enchanting atmosphere. This album, containing two lengthy parts, is more of the same goodness. This is music to enjoy with your eyes closed, in a very comfortable position. Just let your mind wonder off, along with the drones and soundscapes. Somewhere along the line you wi…
Continuum I
Continuum was a collaboration between Steven Wilson and Dirk Serries (VidnaObmana, Fear Falls Burning) that resulted in two releases, Continuum I (2005) and Continuum II (2007), originally issued by US label Soleilmoon in limited editions that sold out almost instantly. The project was motivated by their immense passion for a wide-range of musical styles, ranging from spacious ambience to pounding doom metal. On 10th June 2016 both albums of their collaborative ambient and drone music project b…
Epitaph
“Epitaph is the swansong of music I like to name my vintage ambient. For more than 30 years I’ve been trying to seek perfection, from synthesizers to electric guitars, a bumpy ride for sure with lots of doubts, frustrations, extreme self-criticism and a few highs and lows but the call kept on strong. This is what I breathe, this is the heart of who I am. But that momentum has arrived to depart from this, not that I’ll abandon my ambient music completely and forever. I do see this expanding as an…
Microphonics XXVI-XXX Resolution Heart
"The final instalment in Dirk Serries‘ long-running series of releases, Resolution Heart sets a fittingly uplifting mood for the end of a process that started with the first Microphonics CD in 2008. Presented on heavyweight vinyl (with a limited boxed art edition available too), the LP bids farewell to Serries’ eight-year exploration of the dynamics of tone, texture and timbre, the music delivered with a distinctly different atmosphere than when in his alternate drone guise of Fear Falls Burning…
Loput
**200 copies limited edition** "Stopping to pull one’s pockets inside out and dusting them. The residue sparkles in the wind. It takes this to enter the next room. And then continuing to spin blue light and petals into yarn."- Olli Aarni
Summer
**300 copies limited edition. White vinyl** "Summer was conceived as an entry point for Sonae to access and wrestle with difficult themes, to engage with them authentically, artfully, personally. It was also the starting point for a collaborative audio-visual project with video artist Jennifer Trees (the confronting multimedia installation that premiers in September 2021 at Stadtgarten, Cologne). Summer articulates these ideas using the unique musical and sonic language that Sonae has been dev…
The New Backwards
"The New Backwards" was conceived by Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson in 2007, revisiting stray tracks which hadn't seemed to gel with the material he had chosen for the more somber "Ape of Naples" from 2005, Coil's initial posthumous release, a sort of requiem and a kiss-goodbye to his then recently deceased partner John Balance. Significantly different to its sister release, this album collects the brilliantly chaotic and outrageously rhythmic material from the original sessions for the album tha…
Echo Transformations
On "Echo Transformations", Banabila conceptualizes a virtual space and skates around ideas with freeform glee. He's been working as a composer for theater and TV for many years, and has an impressive catalogue of solo albums, as well as collaborations with Scanner and Machinefabriek - this album feels like an opportunity for him to flex his inter-dimensional muscle. The loose framework is hinged around the fourth world stylings of Jon Hassell, but Banabila has more in mind than reverberated mari…
The River Of Appearance
** 2021 stock ** This Vidna Obmana work is a surprising return to textural composition, particularly since intervening collaborations with Djen Ajakan Shean and Steve Roach have revealed the more restless side of Dirk Serries compositional persona. Still, an overarching focus on melody and dynamics distinguishes Appearance from earlier program works such as the Trilogy, combining mood with movement in far more obviously "musical" ways. Slow strings and piano, and gentle and sparse repeating line…
Revealed By Composed Nature
Tip! ** 2021 stock ** Vidna Obmana (née Dirk Serries) recorded Revealed By Composed Nature in 1989 and 1990. It was his first vinyl album, intended as a sequel to his cassette releases. However, the pressing was of such poor quality that much of the emotional intent was lost. Serries digitally remastered the album and presents it here on CD. He also restored the original depth of emotions. Through a unique process, Serries creates synchronized loops through the internal sequences of the instrume…
The Shape Of Solitude
** 2021 stock ** "A collaboration with yet another guitarist, The Shape of Solitude takes Vidna Obmana's music nearer the realm of the Avant-Garde. This collaboration with guitarist Serge Devadder demonstrates Vidna Obmana's willingness to lead the audience, not persue them; fans of his gentle soundscapes or tribal grooves will find themselves challenged by this CD. The source for all the pieces was the guitar. Devadder's already contorted riffs were bent even further by Vidna Obmana's studio wi…
Tracers
** 2021 stock ** In the early years of 21st century, vidnaObmana teamed up with US experimentalist David Lee Myers, of Arcane Device fame, for a collaborative album that showcases their shared fascination for processing and recycling sound. “Tracers” is the audio evidence of this meeting. A few years later this material was mastered by Dirk Serries and got the new design based on Martina Verhoeven’s artwork.
Soundtrack For The Aquarium
Tip! ** 2021 stock ** Vidna Obmana (whose real name is Dirk Serries) evokes the sunless wet gloom of his native Belgium in this CD which, as its name says, is music composed by Obmana as background sound for an aquarium installation. It has seven sections of his atmospheric (or rather, aquatic) ambience, dating from '92 and '93. Obmana stays with his familiar repertoire of long, floating electronic drone tones over percussion and sound effects. When he uses tonality, he favors somber open eleven…
The Trilogy
** 2021 stock ** A rare treat much-anticipated by out-of-the-loop Obmana fans, The Trilogy collects a trio of full-length recordings self-released by Vidna's Dirk Serries, featuring hands down the composer's finest, most accomplished textural works to date. While three discs might seem excessive for a compositional style relying heavily on looping and repetition, the pieces never seem indulgent or overlong (indeed, they occasionally seem almost too short), with each disc sketching out an emotion…