IM097 - @forces-music - Inertia
Label: Infinite Machine
Release Date: July 1st, 2022
Format: Digital
Mastered by Fausto Mercier

Infinite Machine is happy to welcome interdisciplinary artist, Forces, to the IM family with the release of Inertia, Joonas Siren’s fifth album since he began putting out music in 2018. With previous cosigns from Aphex Twin, Zuli & Daniel Ruane, Forces is known for creating sharp digital textures and ever-surprising rhythmic structures using live coding software such as SuperCollider and TidalCycles. 

With a background in fine art, Forces is never one to shy away from conceptual thinking about his output and this album is no different. Engaging with the work of theorist Franco Berardi (particularly recent book ‘Futurability’), Inertia tries to soundtrack the political malaise of the last few decades and the growing sense of powerlessness and inability to avoid the many crises generated by the structures of capital. 

Forces opens up proceedings with ‘Algorithmic Governance’, where doom-laden bass drones pulse and groan over erratic drum hits which play in alien time signatures, outside of the realm of full, human comprehension. The algorithmic control of the track’s title could refer to Franco Berardi’s interest in social media, a force which simplifies and monetises social communication, or it could refer to his approach to co-creation with his software of choice. With many compositions, Forces sets up rules or parameters in his code but allows elements of randomisation and evolution, inviting SuperCollider’s algorithm to become a co-author alongside him.

‘Morphogenesis’ begins life as a straight-forward, hard techno composition but things are not as simple as they may first seem. Over its 5 minute duration, the stable 4/4 beat seems to collapse in on itself, potentially nodding to the mood of our current socio-economic moment. This is followed up by the formidable ‘Swarm’, a masterclass in algorythmic synthesis that’ll slice your brain in half on first listen. A stuttering of buzz saw-styled synth tones sweep, stretch and pitch bend themselves in ways that would be almost impossible to achieve within a classic DAW. 

Named after the Berardi book that inspired Forces, ‘Futurability’ takes things in a slightly softer direction. Reminiscent of early Tim Hecker releases (with an added cybernetic edge), ‘Futurability’ has a sedative yet uneasy tone to it, as if the song is reflecting the dual sense of concern that things should change in society but our helplessness to actually change them, especially in the ecological or economic arena.

A tale of two halves, ‘Soul at Work’ starts out as a blissfully serene piece of what you could describe as code-based shoegaze which is then chewed up and spat out by algorithmic distortion and disorientating glitches from the midway point onwards. 

Forces ends Inertia on a more hopeful note with the David Graeber-sampling ‘Horizon of Possibility’. Unlike ‘Soul at Work’, the lush drone work is left intact on this arrangement - maybe signaling the potential existence of different structures that are more positive and robust for all.

With Inertia, Forces pushes his singular musical style even further, to more hyperbolic and emotive heights. Embracing the eccentric randomness of the SuperCollider software and working in concepts from contemporary theorists, this album is a mediation on the current moment created alongside technology that also feels hyper-relevant to today.

Inertia

PRE-ORDER

Forces - Spiritual Automata (IM097)

Holding the tension of opposites is a theme running throughout the work of Angelo Harmsworth, and the six pieces comprising Vent are certainly no exception. Inspired by the different and oftentimes clashing forces comprising our weather systems, the New Mexico-born but now Berlin-based musician and producer envisioned his “compositions as micro-ecologies,” wherein “powerful waves push off one another.” The patterns emerging from this captivating music represent some of Harmsworth’s most complex to date. Swells of foreboding frequencies and jarring maximalist textures may bear down on listeners, yet an undercurrent of bliss–so deeply submerged it borders on the subliminal–manages to infuse even the most tumultuous moments of Vent with a calming groundedness.


And also like the climate, especially in the age of the Anthropocene, this cassette unfolds in ways that are profoundly unpredictable. An artist known for his ability to span the divides separating underground noise, sound design, ambient and industrial, Harmsworth ensures that each successive piece makes a radical break from what preceded it. This quality becomes particularly apparent when contrasting sides. The nearly harsh-noise, distortion-charged moments punctuating Side A are nowhere to be found on Side B, which reveals moments of vast, spectral beauty that reflect his roots in the desert landscapes of the American Southwest.


Of course, this kind of sonic breadth only comes with experience, of which Harmsworth has plenty. Steadily recording and releasing experimental music since the early 2010s, he has worked with some of the sub-underground’s stand-out imprints, including Angoisse, Bathetic Records, Total Black, and Opal Tapes. Placed in the context of his impressive catalog, Vent can be seen as both a continuation of what came before and a bold new development.



Angelo Harmsworth is a musician & sound artist whose works tends to fluctuate between austerity and decadence. Currently based in Germany, he has been published by a network of experimental labels in addition to his own imprint, Lime Lodge.

releases July 26, 2022

Recorded by Angelo Harmsworth
Audio finalized by Glyn Maier
Artwork by Angelo Harmsworth
Design by RJM Vanderheyden
Text by Justin Farrar

VENT

ENXPL15- ANGELO HARMSWORTH - A1. AEROSOL

Corin Ileto - Utom Summoning
AMORE & Dinamarca - Fight
Wahono - 3’20" 
BAGVS - CLD03.8035  
Arca - Else (Galtier Remix) 
Nova Varnrable - Dunk 
COLLO - Angel, Darling 
Koonduku - Lavender
Yaeji - After That 
Melalti ESP - KITA VS MEREKA (Salamanda Remix)
NEW YORK - Skinny Jeans
Maara - The Forbidden Plum
Janet Jackson - Rock With U 
Kidkanevil & Daisuke Tanabe - SGstep 
Melania Millenium - ZAINAL 
Silvio DJ - Stårs
séverine - HEAVENSGATE 
Frank Ocean - Start 
Skream, Kelis - Copy Cat 
Definé - Topia 
Cor2Pel - hyper careful sweet 
Ingrate - There Is… 
Marbelite - something in the water
KABLAM - Miasma (Mobilegirl remix)
Skrillex, Starrah & Four Tet - Butterflies   
Hey Arnold - I want ben bondy & dogs

Martyyna - Written In The Scars
Label: Infinite Machine
CAT#: IM113
Format: Digital
Release Date: June 7th, 2024

Martyyna’s debut album Written In The Scars is an ironic play on the cliché that our destiny is written in the stars. More likely, our life’s stories are influenced by the scars we carry within us and by our coming to terms with them. Martyyna looks for such confidence on the single This Time, where a reverberating clock chime intertwines with her hazy vocals submerged in sampled water droplets, owl calls, or birdsong. Emerging at times only to repeat a hopeful wish: “This time... don’t make me cry.” A music video for the track, shot in the Canary Islands’ desolate and burned-out land, serves as an inspiration for the album's visual design and the future AV set with Igor Lorok presented at the Lunchmeat Festival in September 2023. The album cover views the body as a similar landscape, recording the imprints and bruises of past happenings and absorbing them into itself. The story of finding the strength to keep going continues on the second single, Distorted, inspired by data loss after Martyyna’s first live-set. Past feelings of anger and misery melt into a complex and stuttering production, her deepened vocals intertwine with jittering synth arrangements, slowly rising in pitch and gaining courage. Distant, muffled echoes are trying to break free, regressed traumas are coming to the surface, demanding attention.

After a process of healing, overcoming and getting lost in a dream, the voice of Martyyna fuses with that of the Czech producer Oliver Torr on Sunshine Girls and with the musician Portento’s on the closing track Invitation. The album ends with light, calming duets – two voices finding harmony at last, extending a euphoric invitation. An invitation to breathe in. To rest. To finally not be scared of one’s own self.

On Written In The Scars, Martyyna delves deeper into her work with vocals, first introduced on her EP AWAKEN, and perfects her layering of textures, tonal shifts, gradation of rhythms and deconstruction of string instruments. Rather than awaking, however, she’s now plunging into more atmospheric dreamscapes. Crafted with both chaos and care, Martyyna’s tracks are made of diverse building blocks reflecting her mood shifts and despairs as well as her meticulous craftswomanship gained working as an architect. Only here, forming physical structures in her waking life is interchanged with sonic worldbuilding of her dreams.

Martyyna - Distorted (IM113)

DJ COMEDOWN_vakuum RADIO

formforum.bandcamp.com/album/running-on-envy

Ujstin Echno - Running On Envy (Glazmo Mix)
Ujstin Echno and Tony Perez - Boquila
Ujstin Echno - Running On Envy (Ponk Mix)

Boquila: @romanian_soundbath + @t0nyp3re
Glazmo Mix mastered by @oliver_torr

Ujstin Echno - Boquila (w/ Tony Perez) [formforum, 2024]

FROM CLAM018 | LIFEPOD5 - The Bravest Selfie Ever

https://clam-pressure.bandcamp.com/album/the-bravest-selfie-ever

@adrianocava

LIFEPOD5 - IG AUTO-FEED

this fleeting feeling

Photosynthesis

Circuit Reverie

"If you had to live your life over and over again for eternity, how would you live it? What does making choices mean? The contingencies of a life unravel my senses."

Throughout the course of 10 tracks of ‘Wiederkunft Eternal LP‘, the debut album by German producer thirdworldlabour, a digitally cold climate dominates throughout while a specific kind of affectivity is captured in each track. The sound design ranges from emotionally brutal (within) and uncanny (diminished spirits) to blissfully divine (a seamless float to another dome). An emphasis of using chopped vocal samples together with choir-like ambience often creates an ethereal atmosphere which subsequently is shattered by seemingly primitive and at times overtly mechanistic drum programming. Repeatedly Cryogenic synth melodies are paired with unwavering percussion that evoke connotations of fully automated, industrial production processes (many fathers/ancestral transition). Whereas in other parts, steady vocal arpeggios prevail in a textural landscape which seems to dissolve itself into non-physicality (disintegration II).
Reflected in the works title, the album draws upon the concept of the 'Eternal Return' which has its origins in non-western philosophy. The concept relates to the notion of pre-determinism and assumes that time and space are infinite progresses in which the individual is living their life over and over again in a never ending recurrent cycle.
Wiederkunft Eternal examines said concept within the expressive potential of sound and specifically tries to investigate the relationship between hope and despair as central themes in human experience.

all tracks by @thirdworldlabour
mix & mastering by @wimdehaen
visuals & cassette design by Ver
instagram.com/psalmsofver/

LP/CASSETTE

THIRDWORLDLABOUR - DIMINISHED SPIRITS

Record Label based in Mexico City.
Founded in Montréal, Est. 2011 by @xwolfcultx.

for sync & licensing - gavin@syncsmith.com

Bookings: allen@awesome-agency.com
Temporary Contact: iinfinitemachinee@gmail.com

Martyyna - Distorted (IM113)

Infinite Machine

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