Stunning piece, so much going on - amazing rhythms and sounds

looking forward to the new album and good to hear 'splintered' is getting a wider release.

The Stuff

Fans of the Berlin based Nils Frahm are by now familiar with his beguiling live shows where more often than not fellow touring artists are encouraged to join Frahm on stage – the likes of Rachel Grimes, Rob Lowe of Balmorhea as well as label colleagues Peter Broderick and Ólafur Arnalds have all obliged with fascinating results. It will come as no surprise then that Nils Frahm, an accomplished composer and producer who signed to Erased Tapes in 2009, has extended his collaborative live musings to encompass the recording studio, working for the first time with noted cellist and fellow Berliner Anne Müller to produce 7fingers. 

With their first collective release Frahm and Müller have built a world where modern classical and electronica collide creating an ‘intoxicating and delicious’ collection of songs. Primarily a pianist Nils Frahm provides evidence with 7fingers that he can effortlessly turn electric throwing in loops, samples and glitches to accompany and showcase Müller on cello. Anne Müller, a renowned musician noted for her work with the Wolf-Ferrari-Ensemble, Phillip Boa and recent tours with Agnes Obel, proves an amp musical partner for Frahm. 

As the recognition continues to grow for Nils Frahm’s previous solo piano works Wintermusik and The Bells, 2011 sees a new side to this young talent as he embarks on a detour into strings, symphonies and glitch beats alongside the estimable Anne Müller.



PRESS:

‘The combined talents of wunderkind pianist Frahm and Anne Müller here produce a subtle, seductive chamber music sporadically interleaved with electronic glitches’ **** – Mojo

'Ludwig Van draped in velveteen electronic violence. A record of fractured beauty. A worthwhile venture' (7/10) - Drowned In Sound

‎'Imaginative and surprising collaboration. It teases out goose-bumps in way that alone gives rise to a hope this won’t be the last time we see the two working together' – BBC Music

‘An album that sees headphone electronica, modern classical, and soundtrack music all converge to beautiful, intelligent, often terrifying effect’ Track Of The Day – The Line Of Best Fit

‘One of the most emotionally-evoking neoclassic records of the year’  8/10 – The Silent Ballet

‘7 Fingers is an absolute necessity and will surely stand as one of the better releases of the year’ –  Fluid Radio

‘I can’t recommend it more… Intoxicating and delicious’ – Headphone Commute


Erased Tapes Collection III

Nils Frahm & Anne Müller – 7fingers

Samiyam is Sam Baker, hip-hop producer working out of the same dusty corners of Los Angeles that brought us Flying Lotus, Jonwayne, Gaslamp Killer, Ras G and so many others.

Sam Baker's Album was his debut, released on Brainfeeder in 2011. More
recent credits include production for Captain Murphy's Duality and Earl Sweatshirt's Doris.

Wish You Were Here is his first release with Leaving Records & Stones Throw. It's sixteen tracks ­ instrumentals with three rap tracks featuring
Evidence, The Alchemist and Samiyam, making his debut on the mic. "I'm just trying to show where I'm coming from," he says, "I'm not about futuristic spaceship beats, just straight forward hip-hop."

http://www.stonesthrow.com/leavingrecords

http://www.stonesthrow.com/news/2013/10/samiyam-wish-you-were-here

Samiyam - Snakes On The Moon

Recorded live Sunday 19th May 2013 at Cinefamily, Los Angeles

Doug Shipton - All Will Be Set Right

from 'Walizka' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den201
available on all formats at [http://denovali.com/johnlemke]

Working across a variety of media John Lemke explores all things sonic through live performance, sound design and his work as a documentary film composer. The Walizka EP is his latest solo release on Denovali Records.

Three items in a suitcase, a clarinet, a looper and a microphone - is how it all started. 

A free improvisation with friend & collaborator Łukasz Bernacki (on clarinet) sparked John’s desire to bring his compositional and production approach back down to the most basic elements. Creating simple, yet distinctive rhythms only through tapping contact microphones run into noisy guitar amps became the base for the EP’s three tracks, consequently inspiring its live, lo-fi feel. Written and recorded between John’s native Berlin and his adopted home of Glasgow, Walizka (Polish for ‘suitcase’) somehow absorbs the defining atmospheres of both cities in its core.

Previously released digitally as a teaser for John’s debut album, the Walizka EP actually presents newer material, progressing the electro-acoustic nature of ‘People Do’ towards more dub drenched territories. Refining John’s blend of prepared piano and field recordings with hand crafted beats and swampy bass lines, this deeply moody and danceable release bends genres with refreshing ease.

The EP is furthermore enhanced by a second half of remixes by fellow Denovali artists Piano Interrupted, SaffronKeira and Petrels and the ever elusive Everyday Dust. Far from conventional remixes, these pieces fall more in the category of re-imaginations, complementing the EP’s first, more rhythm anchored half with a coherent ambient counterpart.

Written, performed, recorded & produced by John Lemke in 2013
Mastered by Alex Gámez at Störung Studio
Artwork by Łukasz Bernacki

Walizka

John Lemke - Walizka (Piano Interrupted Remix)

from 'Silence Is A Rhythm Too' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den207
released along with 'Splintered Instruments' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den206
both records available on all formats at [http://denovali.com/matthewcollings]

MATTHEW COLLINGS is a Scotland-based composer. Not only being a solo recording and live artist, he collaborates regularly with artists from all kinds of fields including musicians (e.g. Dag Rosenqvist from JASPER TX and Denovali label mate TALVIHORROS), dancers and filmmakers. He’s responsible for several installations using custom-made software, which have been exhibited at Burning Man Festival in San Francisco or Glasgow's Centre for Contemporary Arts. His work for films includes a specially commissioned live score for Dziga Vertov’s 1929 silent classic, ‘The Man with the Movie Camera’ and an invitation to work on ‘The Invisibles’, a commission from Amnesty International. Before settling down in Edinburgh, he lived in Iceland for six years, where he wrote a number of albums issued under the name of his lo-fi/ambient project “Sketches for Albinos” and where he met fellow collaborator Ben Frost. His music can be roughly described as 'an elemental whorl of electro-acoustic (de)composition' (Boomkat.com), ranging from tiny delicate moments of intimacy to all consuming noise. Strongly influenced by avant-garde guitar music, it calls the minimal music of Steve Reich or Gavin Bryars to mind in like manner. Having received remarkable praise for his debut “Splintered Instruments”, Denovali Records is re-releasing the debut album accompanied by the release of his new and second full length album entitled “Silence Is A Rhythm Too”.

While looking back to an extensive period of creating music with his ambient project “Sketches for Albinos” Collings felt the urgent necessity of starting with a completely different approach to music, as the ambient aesthetic didn’t match any longer with new ideas burgeoning in his head. He wanted to create a more direct sound to involve a much grander and more dangerous range of emotions. The composition process of “Splintered Instruments” came out of personally reckoning with two contrary forces, something vicious and unrelenting challenging with a soft and kind energy – getting to their core and the dynamic interrelation to one another Filtered through melody and vaguely resembling songs, driven by nested rhythm patterns, one can imagine that the first sound Collings picked up on as a leading impulse “was like Sonic Youth’s ‘The Diamond Sea’ meeting ‘Music for 18 Musicians’. I wanted to take songs and kind of dissolve them and then bring them back again, with everything just being on the edge of these various types of structures.”

He worked closely with Ben Frost on the creation of “Splintered Instruments”, who took influence in the physicality and size of sound and helped to achieve him to reach into the deepest parts of human nature, pulling it out in a hybrid-pop-experimental-noise form. According to Collings, the record is “a revolt against machines” understanding the sense of precision as something pretty unnatural. He avoids working with computers only using them for convenience, not as a principle. 90% of the record is organic sourced from or played on acoustic instruments or objects, being drawn to sound of every kind which is more human, more imperfect in its subtle variations. Splintered Instruments '…is not about noise or the decibel levels – it’s about the sheer uncompromised approach to raw sound design' (Headphone Commute).

The title of the record 'Silence Is A Rhythm Too' goes back to a line from a 1980ies punk/new wave song by The Slits called 'In The Beginning There Was Rhythm', though Collings has mostly been pre-occupied creatively by an idea of painter Mark Rothko upon creating the album. Following Rothko’s statement, that the only things worth making art about were romance, tragedy and death, Collings condensed and transferred this thought to the antithesis of life and death represented by noise and silence.
“Silence Is A Rhythm Too” isn’t conceived as the absence of sound like a Cageian silence that is simply a span of time that is empty, but rather how silence and sound can be processed in a composition. Collings interest is musically based on huge densities of sound just as he’s fascinated by opposing forces to wrestle with each other. Silence seems to be harder and harder to achieve in this technologically saturated age and Matthew Collings admits that it reveals the habits of his own hearing, from being obsessed with its opposite: noise. “Silence Is A Rhythm Too” is about trying to find grace, space and expanse as much as tension and menace, and reconciling the two.

Stepping away from song-like structures, which filled his previous record, “Splintered Instruments”, Collings creates more spacious sounds and evokes the impression of time stretched through the three dimensions. Still being intrigued by the idea of materials on the edge of collapse, he catches them up in their dying breath: The record is full of these processes, including prepared amplifiers and electronics pushed to the extreme to coax new sounds, close-micing and high volume. Despite the fact that most of his work is mediated by technology, he’s far more excited by the sound of acoustic. Featuring brass ensembles and a string quartet the instruments and sounds are full of cracks, breath, embedding rough materials informed by luscious intentions. “Silence Is A Rhythm Too” keeps an eye on the small textural details as it is about harmony and physicality in the moment where silence and noise meet.

Silence Is a Rhythm Too

Matthew Collings - Toms

from 'Systeme' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den381
available on all formats at http://denovali.com/bersarinquartett

Finally the 5th album of the imaginary German quartet - as always via Denovali. Although the title "Systeme" suggests a perhaps rather distant-cool album, it is the most personal and concentrated soundtrack so far created by Thomas Bücker from Münster in his "E-Smog-Playground" studio. In 2008, the quartet still flirted with cyrillic-mysterious melancholy and red wine-swilling trakl melancholy. 15 years and four albums later, it seems almost cynical to simply continue at this point. Because: late modernity delivers its very own complex tragedies - in real time.

This feeling of "Something's not right here" runs like a thread through the entire new album. While it still sounds popularly symphonic here and there, there are also many soundscapes that have an observing, almost unmasking effect. Microtonal shifts, polyrhythmic structures, tempo fluctuations and sound aesthetics torn out of context create a fragile, unpredictable foundation - as if Talk Talk, Tim Hecker and Skrillex were making music together and challenging our tolerance for ambiguity. Typical of the Bersarin Quartet: sparks of optimism shimmer through everything. However, sitting back and enjoying doesn't really want to work - necessarily. Because that makes it exciting without freezing in escapism - fortunately.

Systeme

Bersarin Quartett - Autopoesie

~ IIKKI 026 ~

music : øjeRum 
artwork : Irene Zottola
album : Langt Fra Jorden ("Lejos De La Tierra" for the book)
duration : 36.39 mn 
date : December 26th 2024

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Music by øjeRum 

Mastered by Taylor Deupree 
Artwork by Irene Zottola
Design by Sprflxgrfzm

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edition : 
• vinyl: limited to 250 copies / gold LP / hand numbered  / pantone / black inner 
• cd: limited to 150 CD / pantone 
• book: limited to 500 copies / hand numbered / hand stamped / cover embossed / gold hot stamping on the cover

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pre-order : December 06th, 2024 / official release : December 26th, 2024

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Links : 
https://iikki.bandcamp.com/music
https://www.iikki-books.com/
https://www.instagram.com/iikki_laaps/
https://oejerum.bandcamp.com/
https://www.irenezottola.com/

øjeRum - Poppeltræet Med Syv Grene

Some things could be attributed to chance, while others result from human [in]action. Reality has a way of unfolding, but we also can shape it, if we only try. We can create distortion fields in this world, both negative and positive. I prefer to do it with music [and also with these words], feeling the pressure levels of air displaced through this space, seeing my actions evolve our community. The key is to channel it into the right things. The key is to mould this reality by lowering suffering and not creating more insanity spun out by imaginary thoughts. Turkish electronic musician Siné Buyuka expresses her frustration, aggrievement and grief for the loss and devastation of the 2022 Turkiye-Syria earthquake on her latest album, Farewell. Producing under her Sinemis moniker, the music captures the visceral emotional maelstrom through sound shaped by organic pads, pulsating bass, and prickly stabs from semi-modular synths. Buyuka's music is "at once a love letter to the beautiful land that she once called home and a scathing indictment of the governing powers that have so harmed its own people, culture, and freedom." The tension of this cinematic expression is held together by beatless rhythm and sweeping noise that would appeal to fans of Caterina Barbieri, Alessandro Cortini and Helene Vogelsinger. Siné, of course, is more than an artist - she is also the founder and curator of an Istanbul and London-based boutique label, Injazero Records, which put out a benefit compilation two years ago (March 2023) titled re-LEAF with all profits donated to the Ahbap NGO in Turkiye for their wide-range relief operation in an ethnically diverse area home to millions of immigrants and Syrian refugees.

TRACK PREMIERE : Sinemis - It's Not Fate, It's You

'Petrichor' is the third studio album from long-time collaborators James Osland and Andrew Heath, and serves as a natural continuation of their creative partnership following the release of Elysian Fields (2024), also on the esteemed Fluid Audio label.

The two artists were initially brought together by a shared admiration for each other’s work within the ambient music community. Andrew Heath is an established figure in the genre, with numerous albums and EPs released on respected imprints such as Disco Gecko, Whitelabrecs, Rusted Tone Recordings, Elm Records, and White Paddy Mountain. James Osland, meanwhile, is both an accomplished artist and the founder of Elm Records, a boutique label known for its thoughtful curation. His personal discography includes releases on Unknown Tone Records, Whitelabrecs, Flaming Pines, and Dewtone Recordings, among others. Osland’s practice explores the intersection of sound, memory, and place, working across both sonic and visual mediums.

Petrichor began to take shape during an exchange of ideas between the two artists in the late winter and early spring of 2024. As Andrew shared loops and sonic sketches, James found himself listening from his studio, watching the unrelenting English rain from the window. These moments of stillness-quiet reflections on the shifting of seasons-informed the mood and direction of the album.

What emerged is a collection of slowly evolving compositions, revealing gentle melodies, nuanced textures, and soft drones-much like the tender unfolding of early spring leaves. The album carefully weaves together field recordings, organic textures, and synthesis to create immersive soundscapes that capture the subtle beauty and contemplative atmosphere of seasonal change.

James Osland & Andrew Heath - Outside The Light Was Starting To Wane

South African Jason van Wyk is quickly becoming a favourite and prominent artist on these pages. You may even think I’m biased, because I asked Jason to rework one of my tracks. But this relationship is indeed in reverse – I only requested his participation because I admire his sound, and am indeed inspired by his music when I choose to work on my own. There’s something ethereal, delicate, and dreamlike in how his cinematic pads swirl in a cocktail spatial ambience and pulsating rhythm that takes over my heart and bewitches my soul. Stunning harmonic progressions show off true musicianship, while the layered textures keep me occupied with intelligent sound design. This is the culmination of elements that I highly respect in my music. This is why I keep listening to Jason’s music and try to share it with the world. This is why, I’m sure, Mike Cadoo continues to invite him on his label. We last heard from Jason nearly three years ago [time is always speeding up], when in October of 2022, he released Descendants, which inevitably landed on my Best of the Year list in the most coveted category, Music For The Film Behind Closed Eyelids. This is a sacred space, often occupied by the likes of Max Richter, Ólafur Arnalds, and, of course, Jóhann Jóhannsson. With his latest sixth full-length album, Inherent, Jason is back on n5MD, pushing his boundaries forward, featuring even more expansive soundscapes of warm ambiance, haunting piano melodies, and trance-inducing beats. Enjoy this exclusive track, and who knows, maybe Jason will show up on Headphone Community (wink, wink).

TRACK PREMIERE : Jason van Wyk - Remnants

~ LAAPS 045 ~ [SEQ.06 - LP45]

artist : Akhira Sano
album : D-R
duration : 31.24 mn
date : July 28th, 2025

edition :
-  vinyl : limited to 200 copies / white LP / selective UV varnish (front+back) / hand numbered 
- cd : limited to 150 copies / pantone / hand numbered + handcrafted, sealed

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pre-order : June 30th, 2025 / official release : July 28th, 2025
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Sounds, arrangements and Mixed by Akhira Sano

Mastered by Taylor Deupree
Artwork by Jenni Toivonen
Design by Sprflxgrfzm
 
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Links :
https://laaps-records.com/
https://www.instagram.com/iikki_laaps/
https://linktr.ee/Akhira_Sano
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℗ & © 2 0 2 5 - L A A P S - L A A P S 0 4 5

Akhira Sano - Demande Un

Tracklist

01. Crane - Drifting Hours
02. Dalton Alexander -  Nico, Le Petit Chat Noir
03. Adrian Lane - Floating in the Memory Upon the River
04. Hadley Roe - Shadows Fill The Heart
05. Hiroshi Ebina - A Green House
06. Glåsbird - 2007
07. Federica Deiana - Tempest
08. Ishmael Cormack - Always Shifting 
09. Michael Santos -  360 Fade
10. r beny - fragile nowhere
11. Simon McCorry & Wodwo -  By Snail on its Slick of Light
12. Stijn Hüwels -  Décalage 5
13. Slow Heart Music - Solastalgia
14. The Lifted Index - Paresthesia

429. Sleepy Sunday Podcast (Elm Records)

One music legend leaves us...
Tribute for this wonderful artist...
Rest In Peace Susumu Yokota...

FREE DOWNLOAD HERE : https://irezumi.bandcamp.com/track/kodomotachi-irezumi-remix

Original track by Susumu Yokota available on the album "Sakura" & "Skintone Collection" 

Susumu Yokota - Kodomotachi (Irezumi Tribute Remix)

Tracklist

01. The Humble Bee -  13 jan 2010
02. Seaworthy & Matt Rösner - Whispered Surfaces
03. Ambalek - Heage
04. Darren Harper - Brook
05. Old Amica - Signal
06. Stijn Hüwels - Horizon
07. A winged Victory For The Sullen - Atomos
08. Arovane & Taylor Deupree - Neben_Ghost
09. Wil Bolton -  Skymning
10. Lorenz Weber - Nami-makori
11. Bird Battles - Moth River

432. Sleepy Sunday Podcast (Elm Records)

extrait de l'album Novö Piano, sorti en avril 2010 chez Kwaidan.

Matthew Collings - Toms

Denovali

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