Modular synthesis

During summer lockdown 2021, it was forbidden to have dancing at parties. And so when exemplary north-east London record shop Hidden Sounds asked me to DJ at a sitting-down event, it seemed like the perfect workaround, and a wonderful excuse to explore some deep corners of my record collection. 
Think blankets, incense, rugs, chess, cushions, fungi, tea and 50 people laying around in a cosy space for a psychedelic, horizontal, evening listening session - pure bliss!
Here is the whole thing.
Www.hiddensounds.co.uk

Shroom Sessions at Hidden Sounds August 6 2021

Monad XVI

Kneeling (Original Mix)

Tulip Space

In Place of Matter

Please Touch

Spore

Sheltering Skies

Sky Crash Over Me

Just to Feel Anything

Illusion Self

Buy/stream: https://kompakt.fm/releases/agartha_lp_dl

‘Where is Agartha? What is the specific region in which it lies? Along what road, through what civilizations, must one walk in order to reach it?.’ Saint-Yves d’Alveydre in 1886

Agartha, the debut full-length album by Japanese producer Wata Igarashi, is a mysterious, divine thing. Named for the mythical secret kingdom, understood as a complex maze of underground tunnels, perhaps designed by Martians who colonised the Earth tens of thousands of years ago, it’s a similarly mystical, perhaps even cosmic trip – but this time, exploring an inner, deeply personal cosmos. Beautifully detailed and bustling with rich incident, it takes Igarashi’s music to new places, which still retaining his unique sonic imprimatur; in this respect, it’s perfectly at home with Kompakt, a label that’s always encouraged artists to make the visionary music they need to create, to take risks and make sideways steps into uncharted territory.

An eloquent producer and DJ, Igarashi has been releasing techno for eleven years now, appearing on such imprints as The Bunker NY, Delsin, Midgar, and Time To Express; he has also self-released his productions via his WIP net label. Throughout, Igarashi has consistently explored his unique approach to techno and electronic music, one that’s eloquent and poised, even when it shifts into more psychedelic terrain; he’s a master at balancing the sensual and the functional, and he has an unerring ear for the right texture, the right tone, at the right time. He brings all of this into Agartha, his most thorough-going expression of self to date.

For Agartha, Igarashi had a strong concept he wanted to explore. Visualising specific scenes from an imaginary film based on the titular secret kingdom, he created soundtracks for those scenes, spending time during the pandemic in his studio, working away carefully at the ten tracks here. Given his background in creating music for television and advertisements, Igarashi is well-placed to explore the marriage of the sonic and the visual in such intimate ways, but freed from commercial concerns, he let his imagination run riot. He also drew on a rich palette of musical influences – techno is in there, of course, but you can also hear the smoky, improvised jazz of the likes of Miles Davis (to whom the album’s title is an indirect nod), and the minimalism and systems music of Steve Reich.

The latter is particularly pronounced on the gorgeous, beatless drift of “Floating Against Time”, where an arpeggiated sequence lingers, lovingly, around your ears for nine blissful minutes, coasting across swooning drones and waves of ambient noise. “Ceremony Of The Dead”, originally composed as part of a Sony 360 Reality Audio spatial sound concert, is a deep pass into systems composition, with various patterns overlaid and interlocking, before a wordless vocal rises from the depths, a gorgeous counterpoint to the swarming textures that gather across the track. On the other hand, tracks like “Burning” and “Subterranean Life” nudge toward Fourth World territory, painting deluxe dreamscapes of uncertain provenance; the title cut is an abstract drift-world, Igarashi painting an alien tableau dotted by shape-shifting creatures.

Agartha’s conceptual framework means that everything on the album sits perfectly together; listening to it in one sitting is a dizzying, lush experience. Its imaginings of inner landscapes recall, in some respects, the nautical, aqueous mythologies of the Drexciyan universe, though from different perspectives. But the result is Igarashi’s own creation, a deluxe, enchanting trip through the visionary Agartha of this unique producer’s cinematic mind’s-eye.

Agartha

Wata Igarashi - Floating Against Time

Episode 42: outlier

Track from NE96 Ulwhednar - Area 08

Out on 2xLP and digital December 8th.

Mastered by Giuseppe Tillieci at EnissLab, Rome

“The collaborative project of Northern Electronics' founders, Anthony Linell and Jonas Rönnberg, has never ceased to confront with their coupling of industrious delirium and pensive austerity. By now we know that only adrenaline can make sense of the toxic ensemble of purposes at the heart of Ulwhednar. Meditating on higher flights of thrill and disorder than their previous record, and with an acknowledgement of their Stockholm roots, 'Area 08' induces fever and anticipation with every gesture.
The opening tracks make a raucous yet resolute introduction to proceedings, eventually issuing one of the album's most exquisite moments of reprieve with 'Akalla/Broken Swords'. However, it is the second half of 'Area 08' that formally admits their latest work has crossed a threshold yet unexplored by the pair. A suite of villainously propulsive tracks spit embers of caustic balms as they careen out of reach with the engorged march of 'Commuter Madness'."

'

Area 08

Ulwhednar - Terra Nova/C20 Drive

Premiere of the track "The Night Has Passed Already" by Vanity Productions, taken from his upcoming album on Northern Electronics.

"...Recorded during the weeks after Christian's sister’s passing, it resonates internally as the maelstrom of melancholy, transforming grief into distorted tunes. Minimalistic and bleak at the core, yet possessing vague and undeniable romanticism, morbid intensity and density, a tangible memo filled with love unexpressed, a ride through a tunnel drowning in light."
-
Artist: Vanity Productions
Track: : "The Night Has Passed Already"
Album: "The Night Has Passed Already"
Label: @northernelectronics
Format: CD + DL
Release date: January 26, 2024
Pre-order: https://northernelectronics.bandcamp.com/

Music by Christian Stadsgaard
Mixed By Malthe Fischer and Christian Stadsgaard
Mastered by Giuseppe Tillieci at EnissLab Rome
Artwork's photo by Christian Stadsgaard

꒰ঌ ໒꒱

Premiere: Vanity Productions - The Night Has Passed Already [NE99]

This was the last two hours of my opening set for @kicks-hugs-berlin at Renate back in December, unfortunately the recorder didn't catch the beginning of the set so we just jump straight in to the groove.

Anthony Linell @ Kicks & Hugs x Renate Dec 2nd '23

Anthony Linell & Mattheis live at Draaimolen Festival 2024

instagram.com/3saggila

Fragments from the opening hours of our annual NE night which took place at our much beloved Tresor in May.

Many thanks to all the Tresor personell and appreciation to everyone in attendance for making this happen.

Trailcam's debut album 'Drumlin Loop' is out on CD June 27th

northernelectronics.bandcamp.com


Trailcam aka E-Saggila at Tresor, Berlin May 30th 2025

buy
https://deathinvegas.bandcamp.com/album/honey

Witchdance Dub ( Richard Fearless Dub ) 

Death in Vegas 'Witchdance Dub'

Emerald Fluorescents

https://www.instagram.com/monkeybrewing?igsh=NDhlN2V0enhkc3pp&utm_source=qr

The future:

08/11 Ormside, London (UK)
21/11 NE x Headframes, Kiruna (SE)
12/12 Tresor, Berlin (DE)
19/12 Under Bron, Stockholm (SE)
20/12 Astron, Athens (GR)
31/01 Industrial Copera, Granada (ES)
13/02 TBA Tblisi (GE)
06/03 Under Bron, Stockholm (SE)


Requests/Booking:

booking@northernelectronics.se

The cohesive array of depth charged devices that Anthony Linell has produced is formidable. From his opening statements as Abdulla Rashim on his early label of the same name, right through to his recent work that puts his aliases aside, there is a robust and rigorous intent that compounds the elemental strategies of techno's models to apprehend his singular vision.

Presiding over Stockholm's Northern Electronics label with Varg (Jonas Rönnberg), Linell dispenses with mechanisms of attention on all fronts. Marked by an indefatigable self-reliance, the label presents exactly what it means to display, and no more. Carving an idiosyncratic platform for his music is as great of a warning as there could be that Linell's leveraging little toward the benefit of the audience. By his measure, the familiarity and comfort of contemporary techno is stripped back to its rushing heart, the senses left tailgating the strobe in a fit of intuition over decision. The greater this is exposed the colder it gets, and its in these extremes that Linell's caustic rhythmic precision hits. Live, it comes off as a galvanizing strike from the outside; analysing the room as a DJ, it's a case of being pursued through the dark.

Just as the brevity of Linell's output in the eyes of techno is exalted as it is brought into focus, the background to this blurs as you start to decipher his other projects. Lundin Oil skirts the fringes of noise and experimental music, and in collaboration with Varg as Ulwhednar, this is perhaps even more pronounced.

Purposively ricocheting between the techno world and experimental electronic music, Linell forges a distinct passage that gathers the aesthetically uncompromising motifs and missions from across this spectrum. It's this combination and resolve that's brought Linell to the world's attention, however little that attention has been solicited.

Emerald Fluorescents

Anthony Linell

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