Music for Six Rooms

Akari is the third album from Tokyo duo Illuha. Following 2011’s debut Shizuku (12k1067) and 2013’s Interstices (12k2028), Akari takes the next artistic step for the band. While Shizuku was recorded in the US and completed separately by the artists, Interstices captured the duo creating their exceptionally detailed music together live during a Japaneses tour. Akari, in turn, is the first studio album where Illuha recorded and mixed together, throughout the entire process. The beautiful st-robo studio in Tokyo put a collection of amazing equipment at their fingertips, from vintage mics and outboard gear to a vast collection of instruments, both acoustic and electronic. Their writing sessions were numerous and long with details meticulously obsessed over for nearly a year. The result is the most bewildering music Illuha have created to date. An album swimming with the most delicately tactile sounds and instrumentation that draws the listener in with hushed, motionless attention.

While Illuha’s Corey Fuller and Tomoyoshi Date are often drawn to the most sparse notes of Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric pianos, acoustic grand piano and guitar, the breadth of instrumentation is partially what makes Akari so abosrbing. They have succeeded in creating their own universe of sound, so beautifully recorded, where each element not only has its own space but connects and interacts so fluidly with the other sounds. It is as if they are placed perfectly by nature, the compositions are fluid and organic, a far cry from anything calculated or structured. It is this open space that the music exists in which in turn defines the music itself. There is ample room to breathe within this forest of gentle tines, bubbling analogue synthesizers, clicking percussion and quiet field recordings. This is subtlety at its most refined; hushed without being saccharine, distant without being morose.

Akari is the Japanese word for light. Conceputally the duo used this word as a guide, as if they were searching through the dark, trying to keep the light alive, as if one is cradling a candle doing everything in their power to keep it alight in a storm. It is this almost visceral sense of sheltering, of protection, that gives Akari a very human and personal sound whose intensely deep focus is as impressive as it is arresting.

Akari

Structures Based on the Plasticity of Sphere Surface Tension

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Structures Based On The Plasticity Of Sphere Surface Tension

http://www.mixmag.net/music/exclusive/prem-djrum

Have a ganders of Djrum in The Lab LDN last year. It was fun, real fun.

The London selector treated us to an hour of delicious jungle riddims, upping the office lairy levels and setting off our Friday night just right.

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Systol Nightshade

obscure

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The Smallest Measurable Space

Bandcamp: ochre.bandcamp.com/album/beyond-the-outer-loop
Spotify: open.spotify.com/album/6gOkTOsw1ax9UYZ5zVghOu
Apple: itunes.apple.com/us/album/id1203813166
http://ochremusic.com

Beyond the Outer Loop

Port Authority

Bandcamp

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.

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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

B2. Inner Structure

Triptych 4 solo piano.
Recorded at Rattlesnake point. 
Written, performed, recorded by Kara-Lis Coverdale.
Mastering by Jay Hodgson. 
Artwork by Jon Estwards http://bit.ly/R2S2Vv 

Special thanks to EVE, ROB, & NORDY 

Kara-Lis Coverdale - Circles, Apparition

from 'ΠΟΛΙΣ' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den344
available on all formats at http://denovali.com/subheim

Subheim adds a new chapter to his catalog of shadowy raves with ΠΟΛΙΣ - the fourth long player, arriving in October 2020 on Denovali Records. Pronounced "Polis," the Greek word for "city," ΠΟΛΙΣ doesn't so much evoke the rapid cadences of life in a modern metropolis as it does the unspoken tension between longing to escape and being trapped in some kind of concrete stasis - living together with millions of souls in an expansive emptiness.
 
Subheim uses ΠΟΛΙΣ as a vehicle to depart from traditional songwriting structures, crafting each track as a piece of a larger sonic collage. Songs come out of nowhere, abruptly come to end before they even get a chance to start or introduce new motifs and surprise reprises long after we expect the next track to cue up. These stutter-start forms reflect the four years it took for the record to take shape: a series of failed musical experiments, indecision, balancing an unstoppable creative drive with the unavoidable emotional ebb and flow of life.
 
Though this is clearly Subheim working at a new level, listeners will recognize the sound of ΠΟΛΙΣ instantly as his, with both hints of the IDM/electronica of Approach era and the unmistaken human element that is present in all his work. The natural, off-grid time feel of the record is effortlessly augmented with field recordings and found sounds, this time around with the addition of more grit and power, and with heavier use of analog synthesizers.
 
Despite the album being born out of a feeling of alienation from one's surroundings, it's impossible to ignore the sense of hope that runs through this LP. In ΠΟΛΙΣ, we hear an arrival at a deeper understanding of oneself, an inner peace amidst the decay and a cautious optimism that comes from someone who just happens to feel most at home in darkness.

Subheim - ΠΟΛΙΣ

Subheim - Old Blade

Independent record label/event series, co-founded in 2008 by Sam Barker and Ned Beckett.

We focus on irregular, experimental dance music beyond the realm of 4/4 beats, spanning across various genres such as Techno, IDM, Electro, Breakbeats, Rave, Bass & House.

LSR026
Dopplereffekt - Neurotelepathy is out now:
https://leisuresystem.bandcamp.com/album/neurotelepathy

LSR025
JakoJako - Lux EP
https://leisuresystem.bandcamp.com/album/lux-ep

LSR024
Dream Sequence - Do You Still Think About It?
https://leisuresystem.bandcamp.com/album/do-you-still-think-about-it

LSR023
JakoJako - Aequilibration
https://leisuresystem.bandcamp.com/album/aequilibration

Selected past events:
27.04.18 - Berlin, LS.33 @ Säule
31.08.18 - Berlin, LS.34 - 10th Birthday @ Berghain + Säule
19.10.18 - Amsterdam @ ADE
23.11.18 - Berlin, LS.35 @ Berghain
15.12.18 - Paris @ Rex Club
23.08.19 - Berlin @ LS.36 @ Berghain
01.09.19 - Barcelona @ Brunch-In the Park
18.10.19 - Amsterdam @ ADE

The Smallest Measurable Space

Leisure System