Jolta - Sunset Surrender from the EP Sunset Surrender available digitally out now via Republic Of Music Records.
Robert Aiki Aubrey & Ariel Kalma - Mille Voix from the album FRKWYS Vol. 12: We Know Each Other Somehow out now via RVNG.
Various Artists - Menage A Trois from the album Nekromantik (Original 1987 Motion Picture Soundtrack)out now via One Way Static.
Various Artists - "Mixtape" from the album Future Disco Vol 8: Nighttime Networks out now via Future Disco..


Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe & Ariel Kalma - Mille Voix

The First expanded and early glimpse of Majestic 12. this collects just about every mix made of Communion and some outtakes from Majestic 12 as proper B-Sides

Communion [NO S0N4R ]

A selection of tracks from Rupert Clervaux & Beatrice Dillon's 'Studies I-XVII for Samplers and Percussion'. 

Available on LP and as a download.  All LPs come with the download included.

II – by Rupert Clervaux & Beatrice Dillon

From the album The Kid out October 6, 2017 on Western Vinyl

Pre-Order The Kid
BLEEP https://bleep.com/release/86790-kaitlyn-aurelia-smith-the-kid
Norman Records https://www.normanrecords.com/records/166212
Bandcamp https://kaitlynaureliasmith.bandcamp.com/album/the-kid
iTunes hyperurl.co/8n4qa5
WV http://westernvinyl.com/shop/wv170

In 2017, the musical term “electronic” is nearly obsolete given the ubiquity of computerized processes in producing music.  Even so, the prevailing assumption is that musicians working under this broad umbrella must be inspired by concepts equally as electrified as their equipment.  Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith has demonstrated in her still-blooming discography that this notion couldn’t be further from the truth, and that more often than not, rich worlds of synthesized sound are born from deep reverence of the natural world.  Smith (who by no coincidence, cites naturalist David Attenborough as a contemporary muse) has embodied such an appreciation on The Kid in as direct and sincere a way as possible by sonically charting the phases of life itself.  The album, which punctually follows up her 2016 breakthrough EARS, chronicles four defining cognitive and emotional stages of the human lifespan across four sides of a double LP.

The first side takes us through the confused astonishment of a newborn, unaware of itself, existing in an unwitting nirvana.  Smith’s music has always woven a youthful thread befitting of the aforementioned subject. Here she articulates it in signature fashion on the track “An Intention,” which serves not only as a soaring spire on The Kid, but on her entire output.  There is playfulness here, but it's elevated by an undertone of gravity into something compelling and majestic that is fast becoming Smith’s watermark.  The emotional focus of side two is the vital but underreported moment in early youth when we cross the threshold into self awareness.  The subject is profound enough to fill an entire album, but rarely makes its way into a single track, indicating Smith’s ambition to broach subtler and deeper subjects than the average composer.  This side offers up another highlight in the form of “In The World But Not Of The World” which serves its subject well with epiphanic, climbing strings and decidedly noisy textures over a near-Bollywood low end pulse.

Side three emphasizes a feeling of being confirmed enough in one’s own identity to begin giving back to the formative forces of one’s upbringing, which is arguably the duty that all great artists aim to fulfill.  This side ends with the exploratory album cut “Who I Am & Why I Am Where I Am” recorded in a single take without overdubs on the rare EMS Synthi 100 synthesizer. This humble piece of sound design serves as a contrast to side four’s verdant orchestral moments, all written and arranged for the EU-based Stargaze quartet by Smith herself.  This final side represents a return to pure being, the kind of wisdom and peace that eludes most of us until the autumn of life.  On “To Feel Your Best” this concept is voiced in the bittersweet refrain “one day I’ll wake up and you won’t be there” which Smith intended to be a grateful acknowledgement of life rather than a melancholy resentment of loss. The song has both effects depending on the mood of the listener, and both interpretations are equally moving.

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith belongs to an ilk of modern musicians who are defined by their commitment to creating experiential albums despite the singles-oriented habits of modern listeners, and here she represents her kind proudly.  The subjects on The Kid are not simple to convey, and yet through both emotional tone and lyrical content, Smith does just that. There is a similar gravity to both birth and death, and rarely is that correlation as accurately and enthusiastically mapped as it is here.  As Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith explores her existence through music, she guides us in gleefully contemplating our own.

The Kid

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - "To Feel Your Best"

Midori Hirano - Close to Life
From the album “Mirrors in Mirrors”

Release date: 5th March, 2019
Pre-order “Mirrors in Mirrors” here: https://daisart.bandcamp.com
© Daisart / daisart.info

From the liner notes:

If you stand between two mirrors facing each other, you’re faced with a curious and unique visual sensation – endlessly repeating reflections bounce off one another into an infinite, spiralling prism. Any movement from your vantage point derails the point of focus, and transforms the illusion in real-time before your eyes. Light bends, and with it, colours slip in and out of dominance, in an
Escherism of endless space, despite no change to the dimensions you inhabit in that ever so concrete space between two mirrors.

Midori Hirano speaks of “waning lights” and “edges blending into fog” as some of the sensory indicators inspiring Mirrors In Mirrors – her debut on Daisart – and these Impressionistic sentiments are deeply imbued within Hirano’s delicate, restrained compositions. The hallmarks of modern classical, electronica and ambient are adopted as an assemblage to explore nuanced tones and techniques less dictated by those stylistic underpinnings, perhaps somewhere hovering between – but never too far away – keenly aware of form and
function.

An emphasis upon the piano is an immediate point of reference for placing Hirano’s work within a broader context, but important to point out is the subtle and careful use of synthesisers and effects processing throughout the record – sometimes providing a more detailed background terrain, sometimes taking centre stage. Whichever instrument she turns her hands to, Hirano has crafted a record with enough dedicated focus and space to allow the listener to immerse oneself in her devised temporal expanse, an Impressionistic liminal space of Mirrors in Mirrors.


Written, produced, recorded and mixed by Midori Hirano in Berlin, Germany 2017-18. 
Mastered by Sean McCann of Recital Program.



“Mirrors in Mirrors” comes in a first edition of 200 x 12inch 145gm black vinyl (incl. download) with Pantone printed inner and outer
sleeves designed by Jeroen Wille and Rudd Ruttens [ruttens-wille].

Midori Hirano - Close To Life

Release date: 15/04/19 (01/04/19 on AI Bandcamp)

If you would like to review this release, please email info@astralindustries.co.uk

Format: 180g vinyl//mastered by Noel Summerville//original artwork by Theo Ellsworth.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Belgian artist Bernard Zwijzen, aka Sonmi451, has for over a decade now been quietly making some of the most luscious ambient we’ve heard here at AI-HQ. We are delighted to announce him as part of the Astral family with this six-track EP - Nachtmuziek - sit back, tune in and drift away.

Pre-order

A1. Probe

Release date: 07/10/19

If you would like to review this release, please email info@astralindustries.co.uk

180g vinyl//mastered by Noel Summerville//leaflet inside//original artwork by Theo Ellsworth//written and produced by Shorelights (Rod Modell & Walter Wasacz)//executive produced by Ario Farahani.

Side A

Credits :
Cover design by nibo
mastered by - bo kondren
all tracks written and produced by david letellier
Tracks 5 & 7 contain keyboard samples
by Vincent Feuillet.

© 2006 Raster-Noton.
Archiv für Ton und Nichtton.


Nn-Peaks

From the album 'Intimate Immensity'
Out on Hands In The Dark on 26th March 2021 (LP)
www.handsinthedarkrecords.bandcamp.com

TOMAGA - Intimate Immensity

Purchase: bit.ly/3oh8DpK
Catalog #: GN59
January 22, 2021
CASS+DIGI

Ever the aural adventurer, Carmen Villain has long traversed a boundless array of sounds, deftly moving from art nouveau pop to fog-laden avant-dub. Yet at every artistic turn, the Norwegian-Mexican’s chameleon-like charm seldom loses its alluring, organic beauty. Fresh off her contribution to 2020’s A Little Night Music… compilation, Carmen joins Geographic North’s Sketch for Winter series for its 9th installment. Perlita, named after Carmen’s grandmother living in Puebla, Mexico, is a sweetly somber reflection on the ever-present cycle of and hibernation and reemergence.

The A side begins with “Everything Without a Shadow”, a wide-angled and windswept vista of expansive permafrost and still-glowing embers of a recently extinguished fire. A sign of life in an otherwise desolate place. “Two Halves Touching” continues to drift through the frigid scene, lightly pulsing underneath a muted but vibrant tundra until coming upon echoes of voices chanted into the snowdrift. “Light in Phases” follows the cue with hurried hesitance, uncovering a sonic slush of radiant zither, blurred voices, and calm resolution.

“Things That Are Solid” begins to thaw the B side, strolling through newly uncovered verdancy, welcoming murmurs peeking out of the snow. With “Molina”, any last remnants of Winter have disappeared, leaving only a solemn suite of piano motifs breaking ground like seedlings bursting to life. With help from Johanna Scheie Orellana on flute and alt-flute, the album’s closer “Aqua Azul'' floats along with unencumbered motion like a happy stone skating across a tranquil pond.

Carmen Villain - "Everything Without Shadow"

"Vaporware 05" from Donato Dozzy Plays Bee Mask 2xLP due out late August.