If Nine Was Eight
2025 stock Could everything be different? What if, for example, nine was actually eight? Well then, 'If Nine Was Eight' is the third studio album from Ritornell – following up from 'Golden Solitude' (2009, Karaoke Kalk) and 'Aquarium Eyes' (2013, Karaoke Kalk).
Naturally, nine stays nine, that is not going to change. Gently but firmly, Richard Eigner and Roman Gerold (both born in 1983) do it nonetheless: on 'If Nine Was Eight' they create states of suspension and illusion, which not only blur …
Instantanés
2025 stock Montreal stalwart Roger Tellier Craig (of Le Révélateur and Fly Pan Am) returns to Root Strata under his given name to offer a stunningly abstract pair of compositions indicating a severe departure from his earlier work. While Instantanés might at first evoke acousmatic and musique concrète traditions, the two side-long snapshots Roger presents feel far more spontaneous and rustic than those trappings might suggest, or as Luc Ferrari would say "a concrète music of the poor." A studied…
Dancing
Polish graphic artist and experimental producer Aleksandra Grünholz, aka We Will Fail, has definitively left behind the disturbing minimal techno visions of the recent past to embrace more hybrid musical forms. While the influence of minimal techno is evident to some extent, references to club culture are often dampened by disturbing post-industrial inserts, evident dub roots, and even a vision that borders on the most imaginative classical-contemporary culture.
Next To The Entire All
Next to the entire All is an astonishing work by Danish experimental sound quartet We like We, consisting of Katrine Grarup Elbo (violin), Josefine Opsahl (cello), Sara Nigard Rosendal (percussion) and Katinka Fogh Vindelev (voice). Although classically trained, all four share a desire for exploring, experimenting and shaping a sound of their own, something which is truly present on this album. Both instrumentation and composition feel glued together with an abundant sense of playfulness and vis…
The Yellow Box
As trans-Atlantic alchemists pulling from a shared dialectic that somehow encompassed both postmodern deconstructionist tendencies and a delightfully subversive sense of poptimism, it’s easy to see how David Cunningham and Peter Gordon immediately hit it off upon initially meeting each other back in the late-1970s at the height of their youthful transgressions. Having initially worked together on the second Flying Lizards’ LP fourth wall, with its ingenious fusion of dismantled rhythms and rearr…
Mont-real Split
Mont-real (Split) brings together Sam Shalabi and the duo of Mike Gangloff & Liam Grant for a two-track release on Carbon Records. The split, out October 24, 2025, showcases Shalabi's singular experimental approach alongside Gangloff and Grant’s free-folk, string-driven improvisation, bridging Montreal’s avant scenes with Appalachian-influenced drone and psych.
Neverlasting
Bilders' Neverlasting, released in October 2025 via Carbon and Grapefruit, is an album of literate, restlessly inventive art-rock led by New Zealand poet and songwriter Bill Direen. Blending hard psychedelia, gothic folk, and lyrical commentary on personal and planetary adversity, the record’s 15 songs showcase Direen's songwriting at once timeless and deeply rooted in the underground spirit of Aotearoa.
Star Dream FM
Dylan Henner’s album "Star Dream FM" is an experimental ambient suite woven from choral textures, marimba, processed voice, and impressionistic electronics. Presented as a fictional radio transmission of Henner’s adolescence, its 41 minutes blend memory and invention, immersing listeners in shimmering sonic vignettes that blur the boundaries between personal nostalgia and collective dream.
Social Gathering
Mentioned on Julian Cope's essential guide Jap Rock Sampler, Food Brain released their debut album in 1970, gathering influences from prog, proto-hard and psychedelic music. By far a supergroup consisting of Shinki Chen (Speed, Glue and Shinki), Hiro Yanagida (Milk Time) and Hiro Tsunoda (Flied Egg), the band showed an incredible interplay on their nine instrumental pieces, generating a cult following aboard.
Space Hymns
A generous and off-the-track psych-rock experiment, Space Hymns originally saw the light in 1971 on influential UK company Vertigo, home of the most forward-thinking prog bands of the time. Enlisting the pure genius of the future 10 CC Kevin Godley (drums, flute) and Lol Creme (lead guitar, synth), the band was led by esoteric frontman Ramases (aka Kimberly Barrington Frost). The vocalist had a vision in the mind to late sixties where the Egyptian Pharaoh informed him he was his new incarnation.…
Definition
Definition was the only album by the American psych folk band Chrysalis, released in 1968 on MGM Records. Together with their Velvet Underground label mates, Chrysalis, were considered pioneers of the art rock movement, thanks to their sublime vocal melodies and baroque arrangements -- ageless psych acid folk gems!
Black Industrial Research Group
Black Industrial Research Group delivers a limited edition self-titled 12" vinyl, handmade and numbered in an edition of just 100 copies, released in conjunction with live shows in London, Bristol, and Cardiff during November 2025. This rare artifact anticipates an extensive box set featuring original works by Dubmorphology, Klein, Nkisi, and Kodwo Eshun, further consolidating the project’s singular approach within the experimental industrial landscape.
The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography
William E. Jones's The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography is the original soundtrack to the eponymous film, issued on a handmade, numbered seven-inch vinyl in a strictly limited edition of 100 copies. The release features new texts by Jones and Jarett Kobek, extending the film’s provocative exploration of political and sexual imagery into the medium of sound.
The Procrastinators 1995-1997
Procrastinators were a locally cherished ‘77 infused punk rock band active from 1994 to 1997 in Portland, Oregon. For whatever reason, the rest of the world has taken its sweet time discovering this gem. Featuring Portland all-star Chris Carey (RIP) who would later grace his presence in many local bands including Poison Idea, Deathcharge, Religious War, Defiance, etc etc, this is a great document of how it all started with this very important figure in the scene here along with many others who w…
Earth of the Slumbering and Liquid Trees
Benjamin Tassie’s Earth of the Slumbering and Liquid Trees is an immersive 70-minute composition featuring performances by Zubin Kanga on keyboards, blending sampled historic organs, analogue synthesizers, and real-time digital processing. The work, part of the ‘Cyborg Soloists’ research project, was recorded live in Amsterdam and surrounds listeners with a multi-layered soundscape exploring themes of ritual, memory, and environmental transformation.
Stable Processes with Slow Ornaments
Theo Alexander’s Stable Processes with Slow Ornaments, released by Flung Records in 2025, is a 36-minute single-movement work for viola, bass clarinet, and eight tape players. The composition fuses acoustic and electronic textures, unspooling as a patient meditation on resonance, memory, and the slow shifts of sound in space.
Clear and Stormy Horizons
Eden Lonsdale’s Clear and Stormy Horizons is a contemporary chamber mini-album released in 2025, featuring five compositions that drift between melancholy, tension, and delicate lyricism. Written and recorded during lockdown, these works showcase Lonsdale’s evocative use of varied instrumentation and emotional clarity, marking another intriguing chapter in UK-based new music.
Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights?
Refracting beatifically through realities and mirages flickering along his aural parade route, Animal Collective’s Geologist rides the high country on a hurdy gurdy of many colours. Via the mystery science of musical engagement, we take his sonic kaleidoscope of encounters into our own experience as we listen. That’s the beauty of Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights?, the debut solo transmission of the heart and soul and life and times of Geologist.
Reality Is Not a Theory
Reality Is Not a Theory by Mark Fell and Pat Thomas is a vivid collaboration exploring the friction between theorized structure and lived musical experience. By fusing Fell’s technologically limited triggers for creativity with Thomas’s exploratory improvisation, the album reimagines not only electronic and jazz vocabularies but also notions of time and agency, rendering a shifting landscape where each moment is both calculated and unexpected.
The Birds of Marsville
The Birds of Marsville, the seventeenth album from Friendly Rich, is a whimsical and experimental sound guide to 76 imaginary birds inhabiting the fictional island of Marsville. Featuring orchestrion, chamber ensemble, and a playful mix of genres, the work brings together carnivalesque sonorities, witty narratives, and a centuries-spanning tradition of birdsong composition.