Flinch & bones - hymns of woe
Dissolves in mouth
Mopes denounced

Spreading grey
Draft, limestone
No beat after beat
Dread, lone

Lung branches - hold still
Sink below, fleets 
As the fossil trails afield
As the rot curves unreeled.

Farewell has merely become a part of life we already live. Standing in front of fading realms, fragil, as it is ephemeral. Fleeting memory, monody, chromatic grief, maladies - from warm skin to cold stones. De-seeding the stasis that allows the uninterrupted heartache to go on.

'Only Autumn Returns' captures bittersweet remembrance as a poignant tribute to the the depth of human transience and the enduring power of impermanence.

Only Autumn Returns

Appropriate Savagery - Lying on a Marble Altar Encircled with Gold (For A.)

LAWRENCE ENGLISH / WERNER DAFELDECKER, Tropic of Capricorn, LP
Hallow Ground
Ltd. orange vinyl / digital, catalogue nr. HG2301
Release date: November 24, 2023

Tracklist:
1. Tropic of Capricorn I (20:00)
2. Tropic of Capricorn II (19:26) 

Credits:
Composed by Werner Dafeldecker & Lawrence English
Field Recordings - Lawrence English 
Treatments - Werner Dafeldecker
Cover photo by Lawrence English

https://hallowground.bandcamp.com/album/lawrence-english-werner-dafeldecker-tropic-of-capricorn

Tropic of Capricorn

Lawrence English / Werner Dafeldecker - Tropic of Capricorn II

Whisky soaked, nocturnal, brooding. Aging’s album ‘Troubles? I Got A Bartender’ was a noteworthy, film-noir infused suite that quietly slipped out on cassette in 2015 by a then budding Manchester avant-jazz ensemble, led by David McLean.

In 2020, amidst the pandemic’s tempest and winter's gloom, the idea manifested of showcasing McLean’s slow burning, wistful soirée in a new light via a curated effort

by Berlin’s Vaagner label, which invited a series of hand-picked artist to rework selected compositions from the album, rendering its mournful, smoke-tinged resonances into new shapes.

Showcased here, is one of these efforts, by Manchester based Craig Tattersall aka A Humble Bee.

VAA07 | Aging - Vampire Body Blues (The Humble Bee Rework)

(Gallego) 
O vento, coma os soños, disipa os nosas néboas soterradas
Leva as nosas pedras ennegrecidas, rechinando de pena.
O lóstrego fragmentaos e esnaquízaos. Para que a terra poida voltar a dixerilos.
Durante unha noite o raposa aconsella antes de que se pechen as portas dos soños.

_
(fr)
Le vent, comme les rêves, chasse nos brumes enfouies
Charrie nos cailloux noircis, grinçant de chagrin.
Le tonnerre les fragmente et les égrène. 
Pour que la terre les digère à nouveau. 
Le temps d'une nuit la renarde avise et conseille avant que la porte des songes ne se referme.

Raposa

MUSIQUE INFINIE - I
Cat #: OUS044
Release date: December 8, 2023
Distributed by Kudos: https://kudosdistribution.co.uk
Label Bandcamp: https://ousooo.bandcamp.com

«This album unites our love for a musical essence built on harmonic structures and borderless emotionality.»  — Musique Infinie / @musiqueinfinie

Musique Infinie is a duo comprising Noémi Büchi and Feldermelder, a new collaborative project intertwining two distinct compositional approaches and merging them into a massive core. While Büchi combined her background in classical and electro-acoustic music with a bold approach to composition on her highly acclaimed debut album ‘Matter’ (-OUS, 2022), multi-disciplinary artist Feldermelder has been expanding his artistic practice into unexplored realms for over 20 years. Together, they engage in a challenging, concerted exploration of the elementary forces that unfold between them. 

Their debut album, titled ‘I’, is the product of hybridization, with compositions initially guided by simplicity, then radically expanded and transformed into intricate forms and extraordinary arrangements. The prospect of stylistic classification is transcended through eclecticism, in material that assimilates elements of classical music, jazz, folk and film music into the vocabulary of experimental electronic music. Representing an imposing, enveloping vortex of sound, the pieces that make up ‘I’ create a paradoxical world, both formidable and euphoric. Eschewing calculations and expectations, these works progress through ruptures and recurrence, displaying compositional richness through modes of music production that span analogue, acoustic, and orchestral idioms. In this, Musique Infinie reflect the density of our contemporary world, in all its violence, decadence and fragility, but also its power, its ingenuity and its beauty.

Composer and sound artist Noémi Büchi creates forms of electronic, symphonic maximalism. Her music is defined by a delicate synthesis of textural rhythms and electroacoustic-orchestral abstraction. She explores the potential of consonance and dissonance, contrasts rhythmic physicality with disruption, and playfully emphasizes irregularities, creating an expansive listening experience marked by detail and elevation.

Feldermelder is a polymathic creative whose artistry spans composition, sound design, installation and code. He is co-founder of -OUS Records and an active member of Encor.studio, a collective specialising in creating immersive audio-visual installations. Through his work, he explores the idea of secrecy and its impact on our lives, using music and sound to create a thought-provoking and immersive experience for his audience.


Written and produced by Manuel Oberholzer & Noémi Büchi
Mixed by Maurizio Borgna
Mastered by VFBM
Cover imgage by David Houncheringer
Graphic design by Fichtre & Musique Infinie
This is OUS044

@feldermelder
@noemibuchi

Musique Infinie - 5 - Broken Mind Circuit

Tape available directly from Imprec.com 

Melbourne/Naarm-based musician and curator Rama Parwata, known for being the backbone drummer in bands such as Kilat, Whitehorse and Rinuwat, releases his second major solo album titled ‘Ceases’ on Cassauna/Important Records.

Parwata's gripping new electro-acoustic work is a sonic exploration within the realms of post-free-jazz and experimental electronics. At its core, ‘Ceases’ navigates the liminal spaces between rhythm and noise, structure and chaos. The album traverses a vast emotional and conceptual landscape, touching upon themes of impermanence, transformation, and the cyclical nature of existence. 

At the forefront of the album is Parwata's emotive compositional and performative approach, which serves as both anchor and catalyst for the album's journey. The percussion performance is cymbal heavy accompanied by deeply meditative drones and slow moving melodies. The wash of sound touches on a spiritualism akin to Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme Part 4: Psalm”, albeit with a modern electronic vision á la Tim Hecker.  With a keen sense of textural intricacy Parwata favours the emotional expression of electro-acoustic composition, weaving complex poly-textures that ebb and flow with hypnotic, prayer-like intensity. Each performative gesture creates a visceral immediacy that draws the listener deeper into the celestial, otherworldly sonic framework.

The diverse array of electronic elements, meticulously crafted and seamlessly integrated into the fabric of the album are a testament of Parwata’s capacity for acousmatic composition. From pulsating synthesizers to glitched-out samples, the electronic timbres in "Ceases" serve as both sonic embellishments and structural foundations, blurring the boundaries between organic and synthetic, acoustic and digital. Honing in on the electronics, a listener could be convinced they were hearing anything from spiritual-jazz, 90s rave, dungeon synth or doom.
Through judicious composition, Parwata imbues each sound with a sense of transcendental allure and paints a soundworld that has a distinct ‘outerness’. At times the narrative is pointedly bleak but over a few passages the sonic language often bends toward rejuvenation; finding respite in cadence. The title itself suggests a sense of cessation, of endings and beginnings intertwined—a motif that reverberates throughout the album.

Rama Parwata - Doubts Of Our Connection - from Ceases - April 26, 2024

melting beth (glorybox edit)

Cetacean Cloud

Taken from the album 'Microphone Permission' released as LP and digital.

Microphone Permission

Jasmine Guffond 'Forever Listening' (EMEGO 273)

For this rare solo audio release, multi-disciplinary artist Phoebe Collings-James lays out, overlaps and tangles a curious and often contradictory selection of material over a bed of slowly tumbling electronics. Like picking up someone's phone and briefly eavesdropping on their photos, diary notes, recordings & what they've been watching or listening to ‘Can You Move Towards Yourself Without Flinching?' renders an aural tapestry with a bracing question .

Like her compelling collaborative work 'Sound as Weapon, Sounds 4 Survival' with Last Yearz Interesting Negro, Phoebe's placement and arrangement of audio is masterful in its sleight of hand, inviting numerous interpretations, without losing its ability to beguile.

TR080 - Phoebe Collings-James - 'Can You Move Towards Yourself Without Flinching' [excerpt]

Taken from the album 'Teum (The Silvery Slit)' released as LP and Digital

Okkyung Lee 'Teum (The Silvery Slit)' (excerpt) (SPGRM 003)

As you can imagine we are under huge pressure at the moment and are working flat out to ensure Cafe OTO survives this. The impact of this situation is extremely acute for small venues like ours and we need all the support we can get to pull through. Please donate what you can, if you can. Thank you. 

Cafe OTO opened in April 2008 with the aim of providing a home for creative new music that exists outside of the mainstream. It comprises one large cafe/performance space open during the day serving food and drink with an evening programme of live music almost seven nights a week. 

OTOROKU is part of OTOProjects - a not-for-profit Community Interest Company (CIC) that has been set up to manage the programme at Café Oto. Any profits from OTOROKU are put back into supporting what we do and will help us to continue programming the best musicians and performers from all over the world.

www.cafeoto.co.uk

TR080 - Phoebe Collings-James - 'Can You Move Towards Yourself Without Flinching' [excerpt]

cafeOTO

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