Break Down
Brachliegen are proud to present Break Down, the first release from Sakostamu, the collaborative project of Vasilis Sakkos (Casual Nun) and Tasos Stamou. The pair layer chanting vocal groans, wandering bells, weaving drones and haunting plucked strings through a four track tape recorder; this ritualised process builds a rich textual palette, burrowing deep to create a den of sonic transcendence, a place where shared cultural histories and individual wounds are broken down and confronted. A work …
scree
Scree is two heaving slabs of feral tone from Heavy Cloud, inspired by the immense natural forces at work on the Cornish coastline. Tidal waves and searing sunlight batter and erode, crack and burn the ever shifting topography of the country’s precarious fringe over 21 minutes of processed heavy electronics. Scree is a pair of noise ‘landscrapes’ in-spirited by the Cornish coastline, formed over time from eroding loops and voices, processed field recordings and found sounds. Heavy Cloud observes…
Bunker Archaeology Vol. 2: Concrete Tombs
Concrete Tombs is the second volume in Axebreaker’s Bunker Archaeology dyad of cassettes, following vol. 1: Military Landscapes released on Outsider Art. Concrete Tombs is a work of anti-fascist power-electronics drawing upon cultural theorist Paul Virillio’s “Bunker Archaeology”, in which the architect and aesthetic philosopher writes about the ominous bunkers of the Third Reich which linger on France’s coasts as ruins. Axebreaker melds field recordings of howling winds with a dirge of thick el…
pearly
Pearly is a fizzing, hallucinatory noise release from Tom Betteridge, consisting of two oleaginous sound poems, entirely improvised with minimal stitching and post-processing. Phantasmatic vocal improvisations are mulched into something oblique to speech, becoming sharded utterances part-lost in swathes of noise. Working with cassette tape recorders & close miking techniques, Betteridge upends the standard listening hierarchy of aural objects; tipping the scales, the human voice brushes against …
Welsh Noise Volume II
Welsh Noise Vol. II is a collaboration between Megzbow and Vinegar Tom, constructed primarily from field recordings taken in Pembrokeshire during the summers of 2021 and 2022. Fragments of additional audio are lifted from the film work of Margaret Tait. Sounds are processed, stretched and sequenced across nine tracks of droning collage which draw upon the internal rhythms of country life. The yearning growls of Ronnie the cat commingle with the sounds of cowmen at work, crackling log fires, DIY …
Issue 104: The Secret World Of Modular
This month’s Electronic Sound lifts the lid on the secret world of Modular Synthesis and we’re bundling the issue with a double CD featuring 31 modular tracks, many of which have never been available on a physical release before.
Our cover feature is a pick ’n‘ mix of modular goodness, including an interview with 1960s pioneer Morton Subotnick, who created his legendary ‘Silver Apples Of The Moon’ on a Buchla. We talk to contemporary talents Loula Yorke, Andrew Ostler, Philippe Petit and Vicky …
Habitat II
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 …
Locum Windsock
The Darkening Scale is the solo project of David Janssen aka Ted The Loaf of Renaldo & The Loaf. A purely digital affair, DS started in 2006 when RATL was on hold. The Entomology of Sound was the first album and came out as digital file and a very limited CDr. David says about it: "Back in 2006, much to my surprise, I found myself making music again after a long gap. Starting at the bottom of a steep learning curve, The Entomology of Sound was the first result". Several albums followed, one of t…
Music For An Unprepared Autoharp
Kevin Tomkins is best known for his work in Whitehouse and his own group Sutcliffe Jugend, now called Sutcliffe No More. He also worked with Bodychoke, Inertia and Patient K. Most of his music has its background in the power electronics scene that evolved in Great Britain around the label Come Organisation and the group Whitehouse. Power electronics is a style of noise music that typically consists of static, screeching waves of feedback, analogue synthesizers making sub-bass pulses or high freq…
Visceral Underskinnings
Hastings of Malawi are Heman Pathak, David Hodes and John Grieve. They recorded the album in one night in 1981 with no plan and no idea of what they were doing. They played drums, clarinet, synthesiser and piano but also made use of things that they found lying around the studio – old records, cookery books, telephone directories and a telephone. The recordings were played down the phone to randomly dialled numbers and the reactions added to the recording. All three had been involved in the reco…
Fishes
Geins't Naït was founded in Nancy, France, in 1986 by Thierry Merigout and Vincent Hachet, both students at the Architecture School of Nancy. A year later Laurent Petitgrand joined the band. Their sound is often described as an equivalent of bands like Einstürzende Neubauten, Coil or Test Dept., but Geins't Naït is not pure classic Industrial. While Geins't Naït offers rough pieces of music as an extension of its punk attitude, Petitgand refines them to create some musicality within the post-ind…
Drainage, In Six Parts
Francisco Meirino is a sound artist based in Switzerland. His music explores the tension between programmable material and the potential for its failure. His interest lies primarily in what is not supposed to be recorded : the end of life of electronic devices, electrostatic noise, magnetic fields and the unconventional use of music hardware and sound systems and how to exploit these sonic failures in radically different ways in his sound pieces. His music combines intricate textures, sonic prec…
Never Existed Before Consequently It Will Never Exist After
Maurizio Bianchi is an Italian pioneer of industrial music and dark ambient, originating from Milan. Bianchi was inspired by the music of Tangerine Dream, Conrad Schnitzler and Throbbing Gristle. He wrote about music for Italian magazines before beginning to release his own cassettes under the name of Sacher-Pelz in August 1979. He released four cassettes as Sacher-Pelz before switching to his own name or simply "MB" in 1980. Bianchi corresponded with many of the key players in the industrial mu…
Seismograf
*150 copies limited edition* In line with his recent body of work, Uwe Zahn bundled minimal compositions telling narratives situating in the melodic realm of ambient music. On first sight, it seems common that one can enter or construct such stories through the melodies these compositions offer. However, melodies never stand on their own – maybe only theoretically – but in fact truly reveal their magic through the sonical context they’re embedded in. To Zahn, a crucial part of his practice is al…
Continuing A Worn Out Tradition III
*300 copies limited edition* Archaic Vaults – a label operating between London and Berlin, run by Severin Black – present its first vinyl release: a compilation of ›durational ambience, field recordings, oversaturated improvisations and spatialised synthetic loops‹, featuring Suburban Crooked Collective, Burning Pyre, Ciaran Jacob & Flora Yin-Wong, Chantal Michelle, YL Hooi and more: A diverse cohort of familiar and new collaborators alike.
The Ape Of Naples
2023 re-cut from original Peter Christopherson approved masters. Double LP version. Pressed using the original Ape Of Naples plates approved by Peter Christopherson. The Ape Of Naples is Coil's highly celebrated final album completed by Peter Christopherson following the tragic death of John Balance in 2004. Often noted for being a fan favorite, The Ape Of Naples uses Balance's final recordings and material recorded at Trent Reznor's studio in New Orleans to create a deep, heavy masterpiece.The…
Outside Supercolor
"Lionel Palun and I met in 2003 in a context of social struggle. Aware of an inevitable downfall, we decided to discuss our respective practices. Sound for me and image for him. Then there were the basic questions: "What does it do if you connect a video output to a sound input?"; "What does a sound output do to a video input?" Then the tinkering that goes with it, like opening a Scart socket and plugging directly into it. And to finish, we discovered that as always, everything has already been …
The Shell That Speaks The Sea
"I first met David Toop some 20 years ago. I think we were in touch shortly before that, but our first meeting took place when I invited him to Australia to perform and to speak as part of REV, a festival held at Brisbane Powerhouse. It was a memorable meeting, I vividly remember his solo performance and the edition A Picturesque View, Ignored, documents an improvised meeting during that time. Over the years, David and I have shared an interest in both the material and immaterial implications of…
Portrait Of An Atmosphere
"Portrait of an Atmosphere was recorded with the intention of crafting a long duration work of constituent parts; a suite of related compositions to be listened to as a singular narrative. It focuses on acoustic elements to achieve the kind of sound immersion that is central to our practice, without using the typical palette of reverb and delay. It is rewarding for us, that in the absence of these tools, it still enters the dream-float realm, attaining that sense of something 'other'. It is at o…
Vessels
"I could smell the curves of the river beyond the dusk and I saw the last light supine and tranquil upon tide-flats like pieces of broken mirror, then beyond them lights began in the pale clear air, trembling a little like butterflies hovering a long way off." - William Faulkner.
This is the third and final instalment of Jeremiah M. Carter’s album triptych, »Vessels«. Following »Rejoice« and »Speak You Also«, all three album’s where conceived within a 6 month period during ferociously exalting …