EXPLORER LOST

A L _ W E S H A Y A

Carl Gari & Abdullah Miniawy - Al Weshaya

Taken from the album ‘Darraje’

Curious instalment of dystopian techno and middle eastern modes from Jonas Friedlich a.k.a. Carl Gari and Egypt’s Abdullah Miniawy for The Trilogy Tapes. Slow, dread-filled and impassioned, the four tracks on TTT039 summon a looming spectre of post-revolutionary tristesse with gloomy sonics and indecipherable yet understandably wounded songwriting, ripe for comparison with Muslimgauze meeting Omar Souleyman.

A _ B O D Y

Body Sculptures - Turning Field

Taken from the album ‘A Body Turns to Eden’

Body Sculptures is a contemporary project that brings together five unique voices in European experimental electronic music today. The formative element is the collaborative pact between Sweden's Northern Electronics and Denmark's Posh Isolation. Last year marked both Body Sculptures' debut live performance —a highly notorious set at Berlin Atonal Festival 2015— as well as their debut recording, The Base Of All Beauty Is The Body. The disparate elements that have come to inform the project thus far are further refined and encoded in their new LP, A Body Turns To Eden. The aesthetic singularity of the project is owed to the distinguished backgrounds of the five contributing artists. Each perspective entails a varying set of working methods and sonic preferences, though it is the sensitivity with which the diversity of these practices are framed in Body Sculptures that assures the project its own space. Infamous for his caustic, pneumatic techno under the moniker of Varg, Jonas Rönnberg is the co-owner of Northern Electronics and is involved in the project Ulwhednar (with Abdulla Rashim). Erik Enocksson is a highly regarded Swedish composer who has scored countless independent productions. His orphaned soundtrack to the film Apan, remastered and reissued by Posh Isolation last year, was widely and favourable received. Frederikke Hoffmeier's industrial and experimental project Puce Mary has been the subject of much veneration in recent years. The frenzied corrosiveness of both her recordings and live shows are increasingly charting the limits of intimacy. Ossian Ohlsson is from the industrial outfit Vit Fana, and has appeared across a number of compilations spanning both Northern Electronics and Posh Isolation. Loke Rahbek is the co-founder of Posh Isolation. As a member of Damien Dubrovnik and Lust For Youth, as well as under the moniker of Croatian Amor, he has developed a reputation for engulfing performances and compositions. The combinations of acoustic and electronic instrumentation, the soiled traces of genre, and the mixed modes of experimentation, are here pitched as an eternal requiem, letting the play between the project's orthodox and unorthodox methods reflect a sharp fatalism. Each song presents familiarity and intimacy within an aura of claustrophobia. And as if out of a cruel awareness of this fact, unease blooms into a comforting form. A body turns to Eden is an essential piece for anyone with interest in Scandinavian electronic music today. A body turns to Eden as a conscience turns to an ideal confessor, A body rolls from a pyre / a conscience longs for a blasé saint.

B E A U T Y

Mark Pritchard - Beautiful People ft. Thom Yorke

Taken from the album ‘Under The Sun’ 

The lead single from Mark Pritchard’s stunning recent album, Under The Sun, comes equipped with an alternative instrumental mix where luscious violins and gentle xylophones replace the full bodied, solemn, bassy synth-line. If you didn’t catch it first time around, now is your chance to get acquainted with some of 2016’s most timeless music. Pritchard’s approached his latest productions in an orchestral fashion, delectable loops are still prevalent, though it's more about strong sections, and, of course the wondrous tones of Thom Yorke make for an typically emotional listen.

https://bleep.com/release/75405-mark-pritchard-beautiful-people

I T S _ D A R E

Douglas Dare - Doublethink

London-based singer-songwriter and pianist Douglas Dare grew up in the small coastal town of Bridport in South West England. Encouraged by his mother, a piano teacher, he began composing instrumental music at a young age but didn’t take up songwriting until 2008 while studying music at university in Liverpool. His elegantly moody, piano-based songs and haunting voice drew comparisons to artists such as Thom Yorke and James Blake, and in 2013 attracted the attention of London independent label Erased Tapes, who specialise in avant-garde music. Following the release of his acclaimed debut album Whelm in 2014, Douglas toured the world, first supporting the likes of Ólafur Arnalds, Nils Frahm and Fink, and then headlining tours across Europe. His second album Aforger, set for release on October 14th, was mixed at the iconic Abbey Road Studios and produced by long-time collaborator and Dare’s live drummer, Fabian Prynn. The album, which sets music to Dare’s original poems, is a marked evolution from his debut; not only sonically, with both a brass ensemble and choir featured in a number of songs, but also lyrically he’s head in a more candid and vulnerable direction. Inspired by recent events and revelations encountered in his life, Aforger questions the boundaries between reality and fiction and Douglas looks forward to integrating these ideas into his visuals and live performance. This autumn we will see him return to the live circuit for a series of select shows in London and beyond Supporting Wild Beasts.

R A W _ L O S E R

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

A side DJ LOSER

A1 TNCUITL A2 Anniversary anthem 02 A3 παραλογιζομαι αγαπη μου

B side RAW AMBASSADOR

B1 Cave B2 Game Over B3 O.G.

Produced and recorded in Thessaloniki / Frankfurt by DJ LOSER and RAW AMBASSADOR

PABLO UY - Artwork

B L A C K _ M A R B L E

Black Marble - Frisk

Vinyl/CD Notes:

White vinyl edition is limited to 500 copies worldwide

Vinyl housed in a 350gsm machine finish jacket with a black dust sleeve

CD is inserted in to a 4-panel digipak

On October 14, 2016 Black Marble will release their second full-length, It’s Immaterial. Their first for Ghostly, It’s Immaterial follows up their EP Weight Against the Door (Hardly Art) and highly acclaimed debut full-length A Different Arrangement (Hardly Art). Still featuring Chris Stewart at the helm along with select collaborators as supplementation, the project's recent shift in locale from East Coast to West Coast lends a great deal to the overall feel of the new album: the light and dark elements of shadows, the salt and sting of evening’s high tide sea spray, a beautiful thing left on a shelf too high to maintain. The general mood is that of creating something new, but going back in time to do it. Like attempting to flesh out a song that you woke up humming but can’t find because it doesn’t exist yet.

With the end of the East Coast chapter of Stewart’s life on the horizon, It’s Immaterial was recorded in a period of mental and physical transition, trapped between spaces and unable to move on until the snow globe flurry of ideas floating around him settled just right. It’s Immaterial is soaring and muted all at once. It's a collection of songs pieced together from perfect seeming snippets heard while passing open doors. It's a framework in which your imagination creates its own version of what you need to hear but didn’t have a way to describe – like a favorite song heard on an unlabeled mixtape by a band you can’t uncover.

Y E R M A N D E 

Forming a totally logical next step in Mark Ernestus’ pursuit of outernational rhythm & dub sound dimensions, in Yermande he basically channels, edits and diffracts highly complex drum patterns by cracks hot Sabar drummers with floating, earthen vocals in six arrangements that bristle with a discipline and energy which has been deeply preserved and learnt thru the ages; in effect helping to knot the loop of influence between West African drum traditions, Caribbean synthesis and diffusion, and digitised Detroit futurism.

Beyond redundant dichotomies of world music as happy/dark or raw/polished, Mark Ernestus’ Ndagga Rhythm Force are making music that matters from myriad emotive and physical aspects, relate-able to your own rituals and feelings.

A P O L L O _ S O Y U Z

Detroit’s Füxa makes a triumphant return to the label with a very special release, teaming up with the Neil Mackay, of the then newly refromed Loop. A mini-LP of further explorations to seek out a psychedelic tinged cosmos, with guitar and instrumental rock now joined by the tripped out kick of the dance floor for a perfect meeting of mind and (purple) hearts.

The return of Loop in 2013 after over 20 years since their disappearance was naturally greeted with much interest and excitement. The success of their curation for All Tomorrow’s Parties final weekender and subsequent world tour was soon lost when the band appeared to disband as quickly as it returned. Teaming up with the band’s former bassist and groove merchant Neil Mackay seems a natural and perfect direction for Füxa’s Randall Neimann and sure enough together they collaborate as if old masters.

W I D E _ O P E N

Episode 1: The Conquistador

S U P E R _ S O N I C

British Airways Concorde made just under 50,000 flights and flew more than 2.5m passengers supersonically. With a take off speed of 220 knots (250mph) and a cruising speed of 1350mph – more than twice the speed of sound - a typical London to New York crossing would take a little less than three and a half hours as opposed to about eight hours for a subsonic flight. In November 1986 a British Airways Concorde flew around the world, covering 28,238 miles in 29 hours, 59 minutes.

Concorde used the most powerful pure jet engines flying commercially. The Aircraft's four engines took advantage of what is known as ‘reheat’ technology, adding fuel to the final stage of the engine, which produced the extra power required for take-off and the transition to supersonic flight.  Concorde’s fastest transatlantic crossing was on 7 February 1996 when it completed the New York to London flight in 2 hours 52 minutes and 59 seconds.

Concorde measured nearly 204ft in length and stretched between 6 and 10 inches in flight due to heating of the airframe. It was painted in a specially developed white paint to accommodate these changes and to dissipate the heat generated by supersonic flight. A team of about 250 British Airways' engineers worked tirelessly, together with the relevant authorities, to ensure safety on board and Concorde was subjected to 5,000 hours of testing before it was first certified for passenger flight, making it the most tested aircraft ever.

S O C I A L _ L I S T