Wether asteroid 99942 Apophis is actually a threat to earth, it is still uncertain. Whatever the outcome of its passing would be, is that earth is but a small dot on an infinite four­dimentional canvas, and the vastness of its destruction would leave the ever­changing universe indifferent. Just thinking of this generates both a sense of cosmic agoraphobia and a weird, doom­laden form of calm. In this sense, the four tracks contained in Black Rain & Shapednoise’s Apophis EP fell like an embracement of fear as a destructive form of communion. In the summer of 2014, doomy electronics veteran and Ike Yard member Stuart Argabright (Black Rain) and broken noise fanatic Nino Pedone (Shapednoise) have teamed up in Nino’s studio in Berlin to generate a bunch of supermassive bulbs of noise, whose chaotic energy is constantly reshaped by nonlinear broken beats. Their sense for groove and space makes us contemplate the beauty of collapse from the apparent safety of our metal homes. The three original tracks come along with a remix by Demdike Stare's Miles Whittaker, who’s deconstructed the inorganic rhythmic force of the original track through mutated jungle tropes, turning its anxious feel into a rioting piece of post­dystopian hardcore.

Black Rain & Shapednoise - Metal Home

Black Rain & Shapednoise - Interceptor (Miles ramen reshape)

Black Rain & Shapednoise - Interceptor

“Peau froide, lèger soleil”, is the result of a three­year recording process, initiated by Mika Vainio and Frank Vigroux after a series of shared live experiences. Sprawling after a show in Paris in 2012, their collaboration is an exercise in sensitive intensity, drifting the whole space between minimalist meditations and maximalist kinetics. Vainio’s signature brutalist electro grooves resonate all throughout the record, constructing a psychic scenario for Vigroux’s researches in spatial abstraction and tonal radicalism. Densely built though free from structural limitation, this album is an intense 9­track motion, serving as the third installment in Cosmo Rhythmatic’s catalog and acting as new chapter in the label’s construction an uncompromising sonic identity.


Vainio & Vigroux - "Peau froide, léger soleil” (CR03)

After quite a wait, Italian producers Simbiosi finally follow up their debut album on Actress’ Werkdiscs with a new work on Cosmo Rhythmatic. A five-tracker that keeps up with their tradition of condensing slowed-down hardcore techno bits into punishing vignettes, but at the same time has them thoroughly explore all sorts of rave byproducts as sonic raw matter. At the same time, they choose to never abandon their taste for minimalism and noise, layering heavily distorted synth stabs on top of crippled raw beats and warped down basslines. Like an acid percolator grinding neural matter into a new chemical ardor, or a malfunctioning cybernetic body on the verge of self-destructing on the dancefloor.

Indastria EP

Simbiosi - Dixentra (CR05)

In physics, entropy is a quantity generally described as the measure of disorder within any kind of thermodynamic system, including the universe. It counts the microscopic states that system can assume when open, interacting with others or getting altered by external conditions.
Thus, entropy makes for the perfect description of the way Ilpo Väisänen (Pan sonic, I- LP-O IN DUB) and Dirk Dresselhaus (Schneider TM, A S S, Locust Fudge) have approached music creation since the establishment of their collaborative project Angel (now die Angel) in 1999. Allowing energy to flow freely through machines, bodies and different acoustic conditions, they’ve generated a powerful archive of mutating sonic states. A kind of creative attitude that favors exploring the physical complexity of unstructured electronics.
That’s where the title for their first release on Cosmo Rhythmatic comes from, “Entropien” being the Finnish word and the German plural for entropy. Getting back to the stripped down set of their beginnings (modular synths, effects, and processed guitar), they’ve come out with one of their most, intense, rawest and noisiest albums to date, showcasing an impressing scale of dynamics while attacking the senses with belligerent tones. Oren Ambarchi also shows up on two tracks, intertwining his drums, field recording, and guitar within the duo’s discordant layers.
Entropien I is dedicated to Mika Vainio. May your soul rest in peace.

die Angel - Terminen Kevat (CR06)

Track off "Irregular Territories" the début EP of hyper junglist future sickness by Bristolian sound artist Sophia Loizou for Cosmo Rhythmatic.
Fragmented and reimagined Jungle breaks collide with interference patterns and unknown environmental elements to create intricate, esoteric spaces. These complex systems define the emergence of sonic ecologies that are not bound by a single temporality.

Sophia Loizou - The Interior Life Of Another (CRO7)

Mika Vainio and Franck Vigroux’s Peau Froide, Léger Soleil was a dense and complex record, a collection of sonic sculptures forged in the heavy tonal matter. It was the product of a lengthy creative process, articulated through studio sessions and live performances. The result was a huge amount of material that the duo actually decided to partition into more than one release, the album being the first in line.
The new 6-tracker EP Ignis makes for the first posthumous release from the two producers, after the untimely passing of Vainio in 2017. As a second chapter, it differentiates itself from the first
offering by including more spacious tracks and somber drones, driven by a never-resolved tension that infects every bit of sound, morphing from the horrific ambient of “Ne te retourne pas” to the unquiet sine wave meditations of “Un peu après le solei” to the harsh noises of closing track “Feux”. Standing out is the relentless drum barrage of “Luxure”: a frantic descent into a neverending percussive maelstrom.
The overall quality of these six compositions makes Ignis stand out as a testament to the collaboration between two of the bravest explorers of sound to ever grace the European scene and to the genius and creativity of the one and only Mika Vainio.

R.I.P. Mika Vainio.

Ignis

Vainio & Vigroux - Luxure (CRO8)

King Midas Sound — Solitude
Format: 2xLP / CD / Digital
Cat.No. CR09

Buy album: bit.ly/2WuIsPc

King Midas Sound have returned! 
Reverting to the original duo of Roger Robinson and Kevin Martin, ’Solitude’ is their first release since the Fennesz collaboration ‘Edition1’(Ninja Tune), which dropped in 2015.

Solitude is a meditation on loss. A loss that has been enforced and unexpected. It’s about processing the irrational and incessant feelings of rejection and loneliness, like listening to the tenderness of love disappear and it being replaced by skewed logic. Kevin Martin provides a predominantly beatless musical backdrop, simultaneously minimal and menacing, but periodically extremely beautiful. It stalks the isolated characters created by Robinson’s haunting vocals, as the poet shapes, the protagonists troubled lives into increasingly desolate narratives.

For the artwork, the pair has here collaborated with Japanese contemporary photographer Daisuke Yokota. His mastery of monochrome tone and texture perfectly matches the word/sound power of KMS, mirroring the same obsession with atmosphere, density, and finish.

A soundtrack of pure melancholy which demands total immersion, radiating desolation and dread. The appeal of Solitude is in the oppositional binaries it drives on: technology and emotion, talk and drones, overt and hidden feelings, love and melancholy. Immerse yourself in its mourning.

Words: Roger Robinson
Produced: Kevin Richard Martin 
Cover Photography: Daisuke Yokota 
© Cosmo Rhythmatic 2019

King Midas Sound - Zeros (CR09)

King Midas Sound - In The Night (CR09)

King Midas Sound - Too Late (CR09)

King Midas Sound - Alone (CR09)

King Midas Sound - Lies (CR09)

King Midas Sound - Who (CR09)

King Midas Sound - Missing You (CR09)

King Midas Sound - The Lonely (CR09)

King Midas Sound - Bluebird (CR09)

King Midas Sound - Her Body (CR09)

King Midas Sound - X (CRO9)

King Midas Sound — Solitude
Release Date: 14th February 2019
Pre-order album: https://bit.ly/2CQ63Rf

King Midas Sound have returned!
Reverting to the original duo of Roger Robinson and Kevin Martin, ’Solitude’ is their first release since the Fennesz collaboration ‘Edition1’(Ninja Tune), which dropped in 2015.
Solitude is a meditation on loss. A loss that has been enforced and unexpected. It’s about processing the irrational and incessant feelings of rejection and loneliness, like listening to the tenderness of love disappear and it being replaced by skewed logic. Kevin Martin provides a predominantly beatless musical backdrop, simultaneously minimal and menacing, but periodically extremely beautiful. It stalks the isolated characters created by Robinson’s haunting vocals, as the poet shapes, the protagonists troubled lives into increasingly desolate narratives.
For the artwork, the pair has here collaborated with Japanese contemporary photographer Daisuke Yokota. His mastery of monochrome tone and texture perfectly matches the word/sound power of KMS, mirroring the same obsession with atmosphere, density, and finish.
A soundtrack of pure melancholy which demands total immersion, radiating desolation and dread. The appeal of Solitude is in the oppositional binaries it drives on: technology and emotion, talk and drones, overt and hidden feelings, love and melancholy. Immerse yourself in its mourning.

Words: Roger Robinson
Produced: Kevin Richard Martin 
Cover Photography: Daisuke Yokota 
© Cosmo Rhythmatic 2019

Tracklist:
1. You Disappear 
2. Zeros
3. In The Night
4. Too Late
5. Alone
6. Who
7. Lies
8. The Lonely 9. Bluebird
10. Missing You 11. Her Body 
12. X

Solitude

King Midas Sound - You Disappear (CR09)

Tunes Of Negation - Reach The Endless Sea
Format: 2xLP  
Cat.No. CR10
Pre-order: http://bit.ly/2MYQDkp

As it has become a somewhat common occurrence in his discography, Shackleton’s Cosmo Rhythmatic debut as Tunes Of Negation opens with a song. Its structure and, most importantly, themes, can be integrally traced within his rhizomatic net of creations, consistent with a process that’s regularly wandered through spiritual depths by means of sonic perseverance. Sung by Heather Leigh, the double – cantos continuum of “The World Is A Stage” and “Reach The Endless Sea” deal with time, or rather its illusory, treacherous nature, as well as spiritually investigating ideas of immortality, memory, and grief.

Ultimately, it is a meditation on the non-finitude of life and spirit, and the limits of perception in dealing with it. It could be argued that the whole record, as well as Shackleton’s whole body of work, represents an attempt to break those limits and trespass beyond human experience, incorporating an immense vocabulary of music traditions in order to ditch linear narratives and the established grammar of electronic music.

Shackleton’s usual arsenal of resonating woods and metals, ceremonial polyrhythms and astral melodies acquire a freer, more spontaneous character by the intervention of keyboardist Takumi Motokawa and mallet player Raphael Meinhart, whose symbiosis with the producer generates a truly beautiful and multi-directional flow of energy. The sacral austerity of the music is paralleled by its sheer, seductive, harmonic power, one that draws new trajectories in time and space with its seemingly endless layers of arpeggios, beats, and drones.

For all their complexity and propulsion, these are indeed Tunes of Negation. The title, inspired by a poem by 13th Century mystic Jalalu’l-Din Rumi, is a description of what Shackleton himself hopes to achieve with the music, to “aid transmutation and enter into the light”.

Music written and composed by S. Shackleton except track 3 by S.Shackleton and T.Motokawa. Words for tracks 1 and 2 by S. Shackleton and H.Leigh.
S. Shackleton does the programming, electronics, synthesizers, and all related stuff.
T. Motokawa plays harmonium, keys, percussion, gongs.
R. Meinhart plays mallets and percussion.
Guest vocals on tracks 1 and 2, Heather Leigh.
Artwork by Zeke Clough.
Mastered and Cut by Rashad Becker @ Dubplates and Mastering. 
© Cosmo Rhythmatic 2019

Tunes Of Negation - Nowhere Ending Sky (CR10)

Vladislav Delay - Rakka
Format: LP/DGTL
Cat.No. CR11
Pre-order: http://bit.ly/35ZwaBQ

It’s been 5 years since “VISA”, Sasu Ripatti’s latest release under his iconic Vladislav Delay moniker. Time of the study, of exploration and reconstruction, a time in which his sound, his methods, and practice have never ceased to evolve. It is now time for a new release which he titled Rakka, and it only makes sense for it to find a home on Cosmo Rhythmatic.

Ripatti makes it very clear that Rakka is not a ‘nature recording’, though it is inspired by the time he spent in the wilderness above arctic circle and tree lines, and the feelings and thoughts that traversed him while there. The music on the album is thus directly inspired by the arctic tundra: the elemental struggle to survive or thrive, the living creatures’ fight for existence. The raw, undefined, uncontrolled and uncorrupted power that exists within it.

Ripatti remakes these values into music, in monumental yet humble forms. Reductionist though not minimal, setting each part to prove its meaning, stripped from the meaninglessness of hooks and melodies. Sounds feel like carved off the flesh, leaving the bones bare. Beats emerge as ripples, as the motion of isolated forces, thwarting with the icy textures and backgrounds and trembling with strenuous energy.

A truly extreme ecosystem of sound, unleashed in the album as much as in the new Vladislav Delay live set, visually given life by Ripatti’s wife, artist Antye Greie-Ripatti (AGF).

Written and produced by Sasu Ripatti
Artwork by LCR
Graphic Layout & Type by Pasquale Ascione
Mastering & Cut @ Dubplates & Mastering
Publishing by Warp Music LTD
© Cosmo Rhythmatic 2020

Vladislav Delay - Raajat (CR11)

Vladislav Delay - Rakka
Format: LP/DGTL
Cat.No. CR11
Pre-order: bit.ly/35ZwaBQ

It’s been 5 years since “VISA”, Sasu Ripatti’s latest release under his iconic Vladislav Delay moniker. Time of the study, of exploration and reconstruction, a time in which his sound, his methods, and practice have never ceased to evolve. It is now time for a new release which he titled Rakka, and it only makes sense for it to find a home on Cosmo Rhythmatic.

Ripatti makes it very clear that Rakka is not a ‘nature recording’, though it is inspired by the time he spent in the wilderness above arctic circle and tree lines, and the feelings and thoughts that traversed him while there. The music on the album is thus directly inspired by the arctic tundra: the elemental struggle to survive or thrive, the living creatures’ fight for existence. The raw, undefined, uncontrolled and uncorrupted power that exists within it.

Ripatti remakes these values into music, in monumental yet humble forms. Reductionist though not minimal, setting each part to prove its meaning, stripped from the meaninglessness of hooks and melodies. Sounds feel like carved off the flesh, leaving the bones bare. Beats emerge as ripples, as the motion of isolated forces, thwarting with the icy textures and backgrounds and trembling with strenuous energy.

A truly extreme ecosystem of sound, unleashed in the album as much as in the new Vladislav Delay live set, visually given life by Ripatti’s wife, artist Antye Greie-Ripatti (AGF).

Written and produced by Sasu Ripatti
Artwork by LCR
Graphic Layout & Type by Pasquale Ascione
Mastering & Cut @ Dubplates & Mastering
Publishing by Warp Music LTD
© Cosmo Rhythmatic 2020

Vladislav Delay - Raataja (CR11)

Tunes Of Negation Like The Stars Forever And Ever
Format: 2 x 12" Gatefold /DGTL
Cat.No. CR13
Pre-order: https://bit.ly/33DiEWA


Shackleton’s open-ended musical project Tunes Of Negation featuring Takumi Motokawa, Raphael Meinhart, and a guest appearance from Heather Leigh is back on Cosmo Rhythmatic after its acclaimed debut last year. 

While Shackleton’s output has often attempted to cross all musical borders, the newest manifestation of Tunes of Negation suggests themes of impermanence, rebirth, and transcendence with a fiercer dedication than ever before. In attempting to balance shadow with light, ‘Like The Stars Forever And Ever’ runs from sombre or gentle passages to dissonance through to uplifting finales and the whole range between. 

As always, Shackleton’s music feels ceremonial and narrative, at once commenting and facilitating the journey of all entities engaged in ritual listening. The fragility of life and the awareness of an inevitable end are transcribed musically in all their discordant, fearful, and mournful aspects. However, this does not at all make the album an overtly gloomy, depressing affair. In every track, the music ends up soaring towards a sense of ecstatic dissolution. A representation of a bewildering cosmic love in the transient, mortal nature of all things. A re-assimilation of energy towards new forms. 

There are no attempts to solve ultimate mysteries though, rather celebrate mystery in all its power, beauty, and contradictions. Shackleton’s ever-masterful embroidery of tonal and atonal percussions, of acoustic and electronic organs, of electronic sound design and physical ambiance, is—as always in his style—organized in compositions in which hypnotic repetition is the basis for evolution and ultimate change. The feast of life, death, and rebirth. Of fluctuation between multiple states of being and non-being. Like the stars, forever and ever.

Tunes Of Negations - Your Message Is Peace (CR13)

Vladislav Delay - Rakka II
Format: LP/DGTL
Cat.No. CR14
Pre-order: http://bit.ly/3dLkry3

In 2020 Cosmo Rhythmatic released ‘Rakka,’ which presented Sasu Ripatti’s glorious return to his most famous alias: Vladislav Delay. Nonetheless, the album contents made it evident that this eventual comeback was not intended as a revival. Ripatti was reactivating the project and a steadfast evolution in its sound, a new approach to both the emotional and environmental characteristics of electronic composition.

The inspiration for this new course was given to Ripatti by a series of ventures into the wilderness of his native Finland, confronting “The raw, undefined, uncontrolled and uncorrupted power that exists within it.” The result is a hyperbolic, extreme ecosystem of sound populated by fast-moving drones, dense clouds on noise, and tectonic bass rumbles with hints of harmony birthed by harsh tonal contrasts. The sheer intensity of the music was only matched by the rigor of its craft.

2021 sees the coming of the second chapter in that very same journey. ‘Rakka II,’ once more on Cosmo Rhythmatic and made of that very same impassioned matter. Tho while on the first one, Ripatti seemed intent to portray the elemental forces as free, unabashed, and unconstrained by musical structures, here he appears to compile some of it in beats and progressions that have something in common with the wildest sides of dance music. It’s like consciousness tuning in with the non-human after struggling with its apparent distance and hostility, accepting its uncoded structures, and finally finding a common language for reconciliation.

As Ripatti puts it, Rakka II is a romantic summer vision full of hope and optimism;  after the brutalist vibes on the first one, the storm has passed and skies are clearing. 
Rakka II is ultimately another masterful achievement in an already stellar career and an unquiet blast of energy for chaotic times.

Vladislav Delay - Rakkn (CR14)

Cosmo Rhythmatic is a Berlin-based label curated by Shapednoise with the collaboration of Ascion and D. Carbone.
The imprint presents the abstract, noisy and organic side of REPITCH Recordings.

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