E30325iX

2025: Club Diaries

CD + Digital

Abssys - Mis Huesos Son De Colores En El Inframundo

Xquisite Releases is honoured to present the swirling debut by Amman based artist SKYLA. @skylawala

SKYLA - Myah Jawfiyeh

SHALT's debut 'Seraphim' LP is out in September 14 on Astral Plane Recordings

Pre-order: https://SHALT.lnk.to/Seraphim

Video by Nick Zhu and Tea Stražičić: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwQlUd5qJc0&feature=youtu.be

1) Conceived on Ash
2) Preserved in Amber
3) Seraph
4) Fleeting
5) Ardour
6) Charred, Cleansed

With four APR releases under his belt, SHALT turns in his longest statement to date in Seraphim, a mini-epic that unfolds over six intricately arranged, brilliantly colored acts. Once again focusing in on the intersection between the technological and the natural, the London-based producer builds a narrative around an angelic being, a visage displayed by accompanying video work by Los Angeles' Nick Zhu. More concretely, the album delves into the contradictions inherent in technological development, ruminating over the capitalist myth of scarcity, coming (and present) ecological disaster, and the contemporary path of medical research.

Sonically, Seraphim features a fusion of the sensibilities featured on Acheron, Inertia and ʃælt, noisy effects and a barrage of rugged percussion juxtaposed with passages of melodic bliss. It's music preoccupied with technology, but with a naturalistic ethos at its core, emphasizing our confusion over humanity's influence on the world (even when uncynically trying to perform good deeds). That ethos is embodied in the baroque ambience of "Seraph", as well as the impactful, multi-layered crack of "Fleeting". It's deeply visual music and like the best sci-fi, deals with lasting contemporary issues under the guise of futurity. As described by the Bureau of Linguistical Reality, we are living in shadowtime and Seraphim is a nod to the distinct intellectual, moral and temporal crisis of our time.
 
Seraphim features album art work and vinyl design by Isaac Chabon and accompanying video work by Nick Zhu and Tea Stražičić. It will be released digitally and in a limited LP press.

Pre-order

SHALT - Fleeting [APR115]

The final release will be accompanied by a physical release of 200 customised letters, designed and produced by Min Jong Kim.

Music produced & collaged by Inwoo Jung @wellsgoodness
Mixed by Inwoo Jung in conversation with Timm Roller @tmmmrllllr
Mastered by Timm Roller
Cover artwork by Inwoo Jung
Photography by Johann Husser @johannhusser
Text written and compiled by Inwoo Jung
Graphic design/production by Min Jong Kim @lazydogjumpsoveraquickbrownfox

Inwoo Jung – Transmitter and Receiver

Committed To A Lost Cause

* Announcing CANVAS010 *

Alpha Maid - CHUCKLE 

Format: Digital/Vinyl
Cat.No: CANVAS010
Release Date: 19th of March 2021

Alpha Maid - SUM1  (VIDEO):
https://thewire.co.uk/video/watch-alpha-maid-sum1

Pre-order available at canvas-index.bandcamp.com/album/chuckle

CHUCKLE is the first solo release by Leisha Thomas as Alpha Maid on the C.A.N.V.A.S. label, following a contribution to the recent Apocope compilation LP. The signature Alpha Maid genre prevails—the sincere, strong vocal style, aligned with a UK indignant and iconoclastic artistic lineage, set against dredging, grungy instrumentals reminiscent of North American open plains or urban sprawl. As if desert rock had occurred in mundane and claustrophobic South London rather than the Southern States. Alpha Maid observes and reflects on an urban, smoggy, UK surrounding, although appears to drive through it on an open interstate highway in a really wide car.

Alpha Maid's vocals vacillate between sometimes candid, close and unclouded, then drifting towards fragmentary, cutting and pasting in the manner of unstable media or limited bandwidth.

Opening with a quote—found footage from broadcasted media—‘i knew the figures’, pointing to a setting of British media harassment and scrutiny, WOWOWOW conveys amazement and disbelief, faced with the bare and flagrant injustices of the time and place. Vocals are swallowed by the cavernous reverberation, while slow paced stoner rock-like drifting instrumentals amble underneath.

CHUCKLE follows Alpha Maid's debut EP Spy, released via the ever-transforming collective and label CURL, of which Alpha Maid is a member, alongside the founders Coby Sey, Mica Levi and Brother May. Whilst Spy expressed revulsion in the face of creeping surveillance and the increasingly concealed and deceptive nature of power, CHUCKLE embodies the spirit of internal disorientation and realisations, exacerbated by a backdrop of social crises and injustices reaching levels beyond our grasp or comprehension.

Electronic interventions, eclectic instrumentation and found footage intersperse Alpha Maid's trademark sound. Brief interludes reminiscent of Scandinavian metal themes, undistorted but purveying doom—opening MILD WEATHER and closing NEWLY WOKE & THOUGHT PROVOKED—contribute to the creation of an atmosphere of eerie dread. Within that, there is regular respite to be found—NEWLY WOKE & THOUGHT PROVOKED feels light, rural, nearly folk, delivered with clarity of mind and of pace amongst the otherwise smoggy and moody overlying theme of the EP. The title of the track, however points to a familiar context of confusion amongst cosmopolitan and globalised socio-political contagion. NEWLY WOKE & THOUGHT PROVOKED, in harmony with the nature of the whole release, is fresh, melodically simple, optimistic and yet suspended within a murky atmosphere of cataclysm and wonder.

Lugh O'Neill

Music by Leisha Thomas
Trumpet on 'MILD WEATHER' and 'NEWLY WOKE & THOUGHT PROVOKED' performed by Jovis Lane
Flute on 'DOGGY' performed by Niazy Hazeldine
Drums for 'SUM1' recorded by Ben Vince at Roundhouse, February 2020

Mastered by Chris Pawlusek

Artwork by Fennella McCallum
Graphic Design by Zuzana Pabisova



www.c-a-n-v-a-s.com

Buy DL/LP

Alpha Maid - SUM1

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