@viiaan
A dream-infected drum rack madness for urban explorers and shapeshifters.

Mastering by SIM.
Artwork by Bruno Lauzon Tanzi and Nela Paki in collaboration with artist Marilou Lyonnais Archambault.

VA [CC003]

Alvin88

Viiaan - Alvin88

Racine - Amitiés
Cat. Nr: DN022
Format: CD / DL
Release Date: January 21, 2022
Buy / stream: dansenoire.ffm.to/Racine

There’s a lived-in quality to the sound of Racine’s Amitiés. Named after the French word for friendship, the Montréal-based Quebecois artist follows an extended time spent indoors to contemplate what it means to be isolated and in one’s own body, while also staying connected. The album is a follow-up of sorts to Quelque chose tombe (“Something Falls”), released in February 2020 and a kind of accidental prophecy for the crisis that was to come.
Amitiés disintegrates before your very eyes. Opening with a roughshod iPhone recording of Racine playing his parent’s harmonium, the creaky acoustics of "Mon amour je ne guéris jamais" slowly degrade into digital simulations of dreadful organic beauty. That track and the rest of the LP gives the feeling of an abandoned building; a sense of frayed, earthiness dusted with the wisdom of time. And yet, it’s almost entirely made from simulations. Clipped Native Instruments violin patches punctuate the churning atmospherics of “Arête coincée dans une amygdale”. The lonely gongs and bells of “Grosso” resonate in a gust of synthesised ambient. Vocal plugins and the very occasional YouTube samples of a recorded voice are sped-up, glitched, pitched and scrambled into indecipherability. These vocal apparitions rise and fall into the sonic ether like individual ghosts of human contact. They’re bold and expressive, deeply melancholy and yet full of the potential for joy and an awareness of life’s beauty.

It’s in this dearth of social interaction—the heady psychosis of too much solitude—that Amitiés’s tone and mood lies. A score for the numb dissociation from internal chaos and alienation, the album’s sense of acute distress is assuaged only by the small network of collaborators and influences it draws from. Long-time friend and peer Justin Leduc-Frenette (aka Keru Not Ever) contributes drum programming to “Mon amour je ne guéris jamais”. A last-minute reworking of the untitled “Sans titre” by German duo Arigto matches the weight and timbre of Racine’s sooty post-classical soundscapes.

Ultimately, Amitiés is a very human response to an inhuman environment. It’s an intimate homage to friends and the mysterious effects of distance, while somehow finding healing in hardship.

Mastered by Rashad Becker, artwork by Niels Wehrspann

@julienracine

Amitiés

Racine - Arête coincée dans une amygdale

Bottomfeeder

Never Die

You Are My Sun

tender, exit

Do Something To Forget

GARGANTUAN COLLAPSE - MODERN GRIEF 
(DAWN021)
50 limited copies
CD
@gargantuan-collapse
Produced by @modern-collapse & @gargantuang
Mastered by @lastrackqlf
Photos by Melchior Tersen
Dawn 2024

Modern Grief

Imsouane

@user-785062598
@fomo-pr

"This fall (15th of November), Danish artist Sortblod is releasing his debut album ‘Nye sange’ ('New songs'), consisting of 5 songs with lyrics (in Danish) and vocals, and 5 instrumental compositions. The songs oscillate between themes of love and care, while also attempting to understand various forms of despair and their origins. Amid a collage of sounds, including ceramic keyboards, acoustic guitars, sine wave synths, and homemade beats, the listener is often guided by a present and bright vocal. Through these intimate tones, the album explores how the cute and lingering might soften some of the harsher aspects of society.

The instrumental part of the album is, amongst many other things, inspired by Ohio-based sound genius Galen Tipton, ambient legend Pauline Oliveros, and a general TikTok-paced stream of consciousness. On the album it is often the contrast between the fast and the slow that seems to emerge to the surface, commenting on our consumer society and asking questions about how to create an alternative way of thinking and being."



premiere: Sortblod - Sharing Is Caring [self-release]

I AM Vibration (1)

SUMMER STROLL

Beneath the violet desert sky, sound becomes light and rhythm turns to gold.
EaSTeRn HoRiZoN – 8D aRaBiaN invites the listener on a journey across glowing dunes and cosmic horizons — where Arabic rhythm meets modern 8D sound design.

Each track moves in circles of light, echoing the spirit of oud, darbuka, and desert wind, blending with deep ambient synths and hypnotic beats. This album captures both motion and stillness — the pulse of the East in infinite rotation.

Created & Produced by: AmmaR IbRaHiM

aRaBiaN 8D RhyThM VI

B3 . JEAN REDONDO - Gen

CONTACT INFO//
96BackMusic@gmail.com for personal email/ Having a chat
matt@shabbydoll.co.uk regarding bookings

Do Something To Forget

96 Back

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