Ethereal Transects - The Lore of Celestial Objects
The latest installment in the Folklore Tapes canon sees the collective cast its gaze skyward - to the glittering orbs that steal their way silently across our night sky. Ethereal Transects is a compilation album and booklet exploring the lore of celestial objects through experiments in sound and vision. Each contributor has researched a particular orb and - inspired by the tapestry of its myth and legend - fashioned an original soundscape in its likeness. The result is an audio voyage around the…
Below Sky
**65 copies** With over 40 releases under his belt, including works published on labels such as Angoisse, Constellations Tastu and No Rent Records, as well as collaborations with Celer and Skin Graft, it is safe to say that John Daniel has left a visible mark on the ambient scene via his Forest Management project over the years.Forest Managementʼs solo release for Vaknar, titled Below Sky sees him conjure a downcast and brittle set of saturated loops, coming across as a series of dissolving memo…
Turra (MiniCDr 3")
"I was searching the Turra along with Andrea Marutti to capture sounds for a forthcoming music release, when the refrain of the Archiaro carillon came to my mind. Without rehearsal, and availing myself of the natural reverb of the Turra, I gave voice to my soul." - Tommaso Cosco"Turra is a single long conceptual piece that can be thought as a derivative / sound musical approach to the concept of askesis, I do not mean aescetism but interior activity or communication of the soul and the will whic…
The Subliminal Relation Between Planets (Live in Archiaro)
"Performed and recorded live in Archiaro (Catanzaro, Italy), The Subliminal Relation Between Planets presents outstanding sensory-emotionally ecstatic droning textures with a great feeling of floating sensations. The concept perfectly fits the symbolical significant musical harmony of the spheres (Pythagorean Greek theory on mathematical principles). In this magic live and largely improvised performance built on synthesised sounds and electronic treatments, Andrea Marutti invites the audience to…
Sleepless Nights | Lysergic Mornings (MiniCDr 3")
"We welcome back the italian artist Andrea Marutti (also known under the Amon or Never Known aliases, head of the sadly defunct Afe Records label too). Andrea was the very first artist to have a 3″ on Taâlem, and that was exactly 18 years ago! Here he proposes a rather psychedelic yet dark and ambient journey in two parts." - Jean-Marc Boucher"Sleepless Nights | Lysergic Mornings is particularly important both for Taâlem and me, because it comes exactly 18 years after my Traces 94-95, which on D…
Garden of Reality
**300 copies** Conceived in the cultural cellars of Bangkok, Thailand, and Geneva, Switzerland, this 9-track LP by Jerome, aka Yantra Mandir and The Dude of Stratosphear, casts a wide net over experimental meditative ambient music, progressive drone, Brahmanic accents, and ritual oscillations.Together, this work represents a 20 year journey in Geneva of musical production, artistic expression, and the melting pot of experiences fused with the rich legacy of Indian spiritual sounds.The LP is part…
All Other Voices Gone, Only Yours Remains
**CD version, 200 copies** All Other Voices Gone, Only Yours Remains unites the UK’s The Humble Bee, America’s Offthesky, and Spanish photographer and artist Nieves Mingueza. Iikki focus on dialogues between visual artistry and musical artistry, and All Other Voices Gone, Only Yours Remains is a heavenly episode. Opener For Her Breath Is On All That Hath Life is a delectable, swirling dream, the thrill of a new romance, where Cupid’s arrow inflicts a purple bruise that looks more like a gorgeous…
In Tenebris Ratione Organi
**100 copies** "The organ: in popular association, both the ‘God Instrument’ and the ‘Devil Instrument’, a purveyor of myriad densities and shades of massed tone, elemental fire and inexhaustible air, capable of inspiring wonder, awe, profound mystery and sinister darkness. The essential nature of the organ, as a synthesizer layering sound upon sound, is controlled by an alchemy very similar to that which generates electronic music. The natural hybridization of these phenomena allows one to expl…
Witchcraft & Black Magic In the United Kingdom
**200 copies** "Witchcraft has had a fascinating and turbulent history in the UK. Through periods of persecution and prejudice, it has survived to the present day and many people still practise the tradition now. From the 7th Century onwards, attitudes towards the practise began to change. During the medieval period, fears over so-called ‘black magic’ began to emerge. This referred to the power of witchcraft to bring harm to others. An association was also drawn between witchcraft and the devil.…
Reactions
Reactions is the debut album from First Tone, the musical partnership of New Orleans-based artists Turk Dietrich (Second Woman, Belong) and composer Duane Pitre (Important Records). While the project has been at work quietly sculpting their sound for years, Reactions is the first available set of recordings. Those familiar with the respective works of the two artists will be happy to find a collection of music that is very much of the duo, and yet totally unlike anything they've produced before.…
Traveller On the Road
**300 copies, clear LP** With perhaps the most impactful, harrowing take on minimalist drone since they released Kevin Drumm’s Imperial Distortion over a decade ago, Hospital Productions finally release the first proper new album from Skin Crime in years, a quietly harrowing, Japanese ghost story-inspired album of darkest ambient and industrial shadowplay inverting noise convention and exploring ideas of tense, slow-burn patience instead of aggressive intensity.Described by the label as “the mis…
Floating Frequencies / Intuitive Synthesis III
ELEH's Floating Frequencies/Intuitive Synthesis Volume III was originally released in 2008. Pure tone, pure sound, pure analog. Dedicated to Pauline Oliveros. Re-released on cassette by Cassauna in an edition remastered by the author. The trilogy began back in 2006 with the second volume arriving the following year and the third in 2008. The original editions were dedicated to La Monte Young, Charlemagne Palestine and Pauline Oliveros which gives an indication of where ELEH has been inspired. Fo…
Floating Frequencies / Intuitive Synthesis II
ELEH's Floating Frequencies / Intuitive Synthesis Volume II requires dedicated and careful listening. High volume and / or headphone use is highly recomended for maximum experience - especially on the B side, which is focused on ultra low end bass pulses being slowly modulated by bass frequencies well below the level of human hearing. Side A is a detailed account of the emerging frequencies resulting from the carefully crafted meeting of 7 sine waves. re-released on cassette by Cassauna in an ed…
Floating Frequencies / Intuitive Synthesis I
The first ELEH release was recorded between 2004/2005 using analog synthesizers, HP tube oscillators and guitars, and is now re-released on cassette by Cassauna in an edition remastered by the author.The trilogy began back in 2006 with the second volume arriving the following year and the third in 2008. The original editions were dedicated to La Monte Young, Charlemagne Palestine and Pauline Oliveros which gives an indication of where ELEH has been inspired. For those unfamiliar with the ELEH so…
Lower River
**500 copies** Beacon Sound presents Lower River, the debut solo album by Michael A. Muller. Conceptually, the album explores the place where time, space, and self are occluded — a field of pure energy and creation similar to ‘the flow’ or zen state where ideas stream without impediment. Inspired by Muller’s own remote travels throughout the US and Europe and the personal exploration of a meditative practice, it’s a sonic exploration of what it means to deeply listen versus to merely 'hear', to …
No Eye Has an Equal
Recommended if you like: Steve Roach, Fennesz, Kara Lis Coverdale, William Basinski, Tim Hecker, Deepchord, in the dronier moments. A "reflection on how diversity can [create] a sense of infinity”, No Eye Has an Equal sees the Siena composer delving into his extensive archive of electroacoustic compositions, and presenting four radical reconceptualisations of his own material; each one a view into the deeply personal atmospheres he has created, and perfected, over a decade of composing.Opener Br…
Bioluminescence
"Rod Modell and Walter Wasacz join forces as Shorelights once more to deliver a marvel, an opus on deep sea meditations. The acts herein are engrossing artefacts of sensory exclusionism — not deprivation, for the music is divine enough to take over all sense and sensibilities upon listening. Numbness teases at your fingers as the mind drifts away with the current.Bioluminescence is indebted to all the merits of total submersion; deep drone, glimmering upper reaches, and clattering echoes paint t…
All Other Voices Gone, Only Yours Remains
**300 copies** All Other Voices Gone, Only Yours Remains is the result of a dialog between Nieves Mingueza and the musicians The Humble Bee and Offthesky initiated by Iikki, between October 2018 and June 2019.The complete project works in two physical imprints: a book and a disc (vinyl/cd) that can be experienced in different manners... Tthe book watched alone, the disc listened to alone, or the book and the disc watched and listened to together.Nieves Mingueza is an experimental and independent…
Twelve Atmospheres
**2019 stock** David Janssen is best known for his work as Ted The Loaf in Renaldo & The Loaf. When the band split up in 1987 after The Elbow is Taboo, Janssen took a long break from music until his return in 2006 as The Darkening Scale. After the first two solo albums under this name, he started a new collaboration with Sylvie Walder as The Tapeworm Vessel.This project produced three albums, the first one being Twelve Atmospheres which is now available on CD for the first time. It was originall…
Octopus
Harpist Hélène Breschand performs two challenging works by Eliane Radigue and Kasper T. Toeplitz with results intended for deep listening. The first sees Hélène perform Occam Ocean XVI for acoustic harp, drawing out a rich array of sonorities from a single pitch across its 27 minute duration. The first nine minutes are intensely meditative, with the effect of drawing our eyelids to half mast in the manner of best Eliane Radigue music, before that hypnagogic traction gives way to flurries of pitt…