from the "Soundness of Mind" CS (NNF373)
Not Not Fun / 2021

SOUNDNESS ON:
https://liilasounds.bandcamp.com/album/soundness-of-mind
https://midheaven.com/item/soundness-of-mind-by-liila

Liila "Whale Song For No One"

From "Eight Fantasies" (Trona, 2022)

buy here: https://halles.bandcamp.com/album/eight-fantasies
https://les-hall.es

Les Halles returns with his first new material since 2019’s Golden Hour tape for Hare Akedod. Its origins are something of a mystery to its maker. Floating textures and smeared cloud loops, born of long nocturnal sessions, inspired by a 2022 trip through the California desert. Eight Fantasies is Les Halles’ inaugural release on his new collaborative label / platform, Trona, which will showcase his work and that of an inner circle of peers. As ever, his signature sound is rich with emotion, dreams, and memory, lilting on the winds of change and dissipation. May this be the dawn of many more fantasies to come. (Britt Brown, Not Not Fun)

-

Lieven Martens (Edições CN) on Eight Fantasies:

« A January night in the Gulf Stream, quite some time ago. I sat on a stone wall. Watching the bioluminescence spectacle in the ocean. The moon shone mildly. Fish, and other mammals weaving faiths below the waves. Colors flashing in the breakers.

The hiss.

I cried that night for no reason. Did that ever happen to you? In my mind there was a melody playing by Tatsuro Yamashita. Did that ever happen to you? It was not a sad melody - Rainy Walk. But still I cried.

Tears foretell early morning rain.

Over the course of the past few months, Club Brugge’s esteemed midfielder Casper Nielsen, cried twice. With a reason. Raining his soul over the television screen.

Ssssshhhh.

My partner throwing little pebbles in the water. Flashes of fluorescent light. Like a kid splashing with paint on a deep blue paper. Dripping ohs and aahs.

This music - the best music. Brings rain. A silver rain. May your day water by the tears of Baptiste Martin. »

- 
credits
released November 4, 2022

Music by Baptiste Martin.
Recorded in Brussels, 2022.
Master & Cover by Trona.

Total duration: 32'43.

℗ 2022 TRONA.

Les Halles - View On Golden Gate

This composite track consists of edits from many different Harry Bertoia compositions included in the Complete Sonambient Recordings box set available on Important Records.
This 11 CD box set contains a 114 page book. Digital downloads are also available directly from the label. 
Purchase the box physically or digitally here: 
http://importantrecords.com/


Harry Bertoia Complete Sonambient Collection - Composite Mix

Taken from the album 'Takt der Arbeit' released as LP and Download.

Takt der Arbeit

Felix Kubin 'Geburt Eines Schiffes (excerpt)' (EMEGO 243)

*

Cloud Cover from the album Beauty Data Pollution by Perfume.

Melbourne, June 2018.

Full album available at:  https://perfume.bandcamp.com/album/beauty-data-pollution

*

Cloud Cover

Extract from 'Empire' EP, out FEB 14, 2019 on Shelter Press
Order: https://shelterpress.bandcamp.com/album/empire

SHELTER PRESS / SP107

—
Following the release of his album Stadium, out on Shelter Press last October, Eli Keszler returns with a brand new EP, Empire. Recorded between September and December 2018, this three-track EP is about finding stillness, tranquility and beauty in a dystopian landscape. In some ways, it continues the concepts explored on Stadium since it's also an EP inspired by cityscapes, architecture and, as Eli himself notes, "the illusion of order during declines." 

Eli started touring for Stadium at the start of October 2019 with a performance at legendary New York venue, The Kitchen, the day before he orchestrated a five-camera shoot — check out this remarkable concert-length film: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNLdBYvpiJk). 

Eli will continue to tour starting this month with three solo performances as part of Kevin Beasley's exhibition “A View of the Landscape” commissioned by The Whitney Museum in New York on Saturday January 26th at 6pm, 7pm and 8pm. 

He'll also be performing live at Mutek, Phi Center, Montreal on February 23rd, Fort Worth Modern Art Museum on February 28th (in duo with Nate Boyce), Gnration, Braga, Portugal on March 29th and Rewire Festival, Den Hague on March 30th. You can also catch him performing in Oneohtrix Point Never's band at Pitchfork Midwinter 2019, Chicago on February 17th and Myriad, The Roundhouse, London on March 8th. And, he'll be teaching at CAMP in the Pyrenees in April. 

For those new to Eli, his sound lies at the intersection of jazz, improvisation, fusion, modern classical and electronics. Although the music press has often tried to identify his work in terms of specific genres, he remains boldly on his own musical and aesthetic path. 

Stadium received record of the year from Boomkat and placed in countless end of year lists. Since copies of Stadium are sold out, a repress of the album will be released the same day as Empire on February 14th.

Empire

Enter the Bristle Strum

ELI KESZLER 'ENTER THE BRISTLE STRUM' (SP107)

Lifted - 2
Format: LP / Digital
Label: PAN
Cat.No. PAN 85
Release Date: 07 June 2019
Buy: bit.ly/2W0yIL6 / bit.ly/30OhkwC

PAN welcomes back the Lifted ensemble for a second cross-continental adventure off the grid, simply titled Lifted 2.

Lifted’s latest release expands on the expression of improvised fusion that brought about the spectrum of styles explored on their 2015 debut album for PAN. Expansion is a key theme to Lifted 2, primarily in the musicians involved; Lifted is now a core group of Future Times boss Max D, Matt Papich aka Co La, Jeremy Hyman and Motion Graphics. Expansion also relates to musical ideas Lifted explore and the studio techniques executed.

Whereas the way they approached the idea of improvisation on Lifted 1 was framed in jazz terms, the seven-tracks on this second LP step even further into the vivid unknown. Zero boundaries for the exploratory impulse. “On this record we went a lot deeper into our kind of studio technique,” Lifted say. “We tried to cultivate the sound using the studio as a primary tool, almost a member of the group in a way.”

As with the debut Lifted LP, listening to Lifted 2 is an open invitation to experience the worldwide creative framework surrounding these artists. The collaborators for each track, whether present in the studio or online, show what a fluid and freeform exercise Lifted can be.

Max D’s international crew of Future Timers play deft roles throughout Lifted 2. Jordan GCZ and Dawit Eklund both return for ‘Lifting’ alongside 1432r’s Sami, NYC’s Will DiMaggio and Sao Paulo’s Repetentes 2008. Beatrice Dillon and Bass Clef, two highly-decorated artists from the UK underground, make telling contributions which mark the latest in a long line of celebrated creative collaborations for the pair. Further input comes via Aya, vocalist and bassist for crucial Japanese experimentalists OOIOO, and Martin Kasey, a friend of Papich with a background in Baltimore theatre, summoned for Lifted duty to provide some striking saxophone blasts.

How do all these collaborations manifest on Lifted 2? It’s a sort of inverse process full of blind takes with the results more bruised than polished. “The song stays fluid until the end. We pile the ideas really high and then decimate them,” Lifted say. “We delete until the songs are crystallizing; lay a grid of silences to organize the tracks. The breathing spaces become definitive.”

These seven tracks adroitly weave through mood and vibe, demanding heads lock in with an initial blast of whip sharp percussive hits and contemporary no-wave blowouts before letting off steam with soothing ambient synthesis. “Black Pepper” acts as the album centerpiece, an unhinged mangle of SH101 basslines, freeform flute & saxophone and multiple percussive sources brought to order by Papich’s studio dubs. “Rose 31” edges closest to the kind of jazz fusion that inspired the project from the off, Lifted utilising the various classic instruments deployed by the greats of the game. Closer “Near Future” smartly foregrounds Motion Graphics’ stunning piano talents, gradually stripping away all other elements until all that is left are his swirling notes.

The album is mastered by Rashad Becker, featuring photography by Traianos Pakioufakis and artwork by Johannes Schnatmann & Bill Kouligas.

http://p-a-n.org

Lifted - Near Future (PAN 85)

Schleswig-Holstein is a thin land bridge between the mighty hull of the North German lowlands and the long pointed head of the Jutland peninsula, with the gentle Baltic Sea on one side, and the rough North Sea on the other. Numerous lakes, deciduous forests and wide corridors have shaped this region since its formation during the last ice age. The varied landscape, covered with fertile clay and littered with countless large and small granite blocks, is the legacy of the glaciers.

Fascinated by the cultural and geographical history of his homeland, Phil Struck recorded sonic impressions after hikes, wanderings, daydreams, historical readings and childhood memories. Schleswig-Holstein Aufnahmen is the distillation of these diaristic recordings, made between 2017 and 2019, using a sampler, synthesizer, and worn flea market records. Much like the cyclical musings of W.G. Sebald, or Cluster’s pastoral electronic miniatures, these works are intrinsically tied to the landscape of which they were born. The wobble and crackle of the samples is evocative of the craggy scenery of the lowlands, and also describes the patinated atmosphere of memory, found in the work of Vladislav Delay, Pole, Caretaker, Philip Jeck, Ken Jacobs, and Bill Morrison. The painting adorning the album cover was done by Struck’s great grandfather who was also seduced by this meandering windswept land.

Limited edition of 100 LPs with risograph printed artwork.

Tracklist:

A1 Horizonte (Intro) (2:12) 
A2 Baizubai (5:41) 
A3 Speckenbeck (2:05) 
A4 Grube (7:00) 
A5 Feuermachen (2:52) 
A6 Weiher (3:30)  

B1 Sommertage (6:45) 
B2 Wogen (11:24) 
B3 Jens (3:49)

Buy Limited Edition LP: https://www.seance-centre.com/shop/phil-struck-schleswig-holstein-aufnahmen

Buy Digital: https://philstruck.bandcamp.com/album/schleswig-holstein-aufnahmen

Phil Struck - Baizubai (21SC)

Nick Klein has released a fine line of killer vinyls through labels like Bank Records NYC, L.I.E.S, Viewlexx and recently the tasty "No Shortage of Rope" on Helm's Alter. His record for us is called "Actor Network Theory" and is a monumental trip touching down in darker ambient stuff and slower techno for that party you need to go to when all this lockdown bullshit is over. Klein is based in Holland nowadays.

300 copies. OUT IN NOVEMBER 2020!!! 
Distro through Boomkat. Digital will be available.

NICK KLEIN - SPIDER IN BROWN POWDER (iDEAL190 LP)

It makes less sense to say that Maths Balance Volumes formed in 2002 than to say that, since that year, they have been collapsing into something, again and again. Just as the three members fell together with no plan or allegiance to any style or genre, each track falls together as the broken pieces of songs and sounds meet to make a temporary and frightening whole. Things make their way into a Maths Balance Volumes song when they don’t or won’t work anymore, when they have escaped their owner, or hidden away where nobody is supposed to find them. When things fall together—when the wooden creaks and radio hisses gather for a minute alongside bass lines and melancholy voice—there is a beauty that sounds like it was made by nobody and for nobody.

The city of Mankato, Minnesota has been the steady gathering point for the band since its beginnings. Mankato had always provided an ominous backdrop: built on stolen Dakota land, the city was the site of the largest mass execution in US history, when 38 Dakota prisoners were hanged on in 1862 in a straightforward act of genocide. But in their music of the past twelve years, Maths Balance Volumes has made music in and of a hometown overshadowed and unsettled by its history, music for a world in which things have never been okay. Traditional American folk genres seep in at times, but never as the incarnation of a living popular culture—only as ghosts or unliving effigies.

A Year Closer tells us already in its title what its theme is: approaching death, time ticking away and getting closer with each track of the record. We are told in the first song that our protective mask isn’t working, warned by the storm clouds and a ticking bedroom clock in “Dark Skies.” We hear fears of death approaching in the sad words exchanged by lovers who see they will run out of time, or already have, as in “We Had Time” or the romantic lament of “When I Drink.” In “Work Last Monday,” all of life passes with cold automatism in an “office apartment,” as a narrator broods over early onset dementia, remembers the details of rituals for respecting the dead, and thinks of how a hole is opening up in reality itself. The singer of “Over the Hill” isn’t apparently afraid of growing older and becoming a “man,” but only leaks a few disjointed details of his plans for disappearing, collapsing, turning into a tree, and finding a home. “Angel of Mercy” tries to resurrect the Christian promise of a life after death, anxiously asking if anyone is up there waiting for us after the oblivion of this world. 

But these are just the moments when A Year Closer speaks in words clear and audible enough to be understood. The giddy, agitated voice of “The Price” speaks only to itself in a private language, hidden away in a tin can somewhere. Musically, A Year Closer is a series of pieces that make symphonies out of separate processes of decay and disappearance: unidentified cracking and creaking objects, broken equipment, and lost melodies that seem to have escaped other songs and wandered into the room looking for a place to hide. These are the moments that the listener of Maths Balance Volumes always knows are coming, waits for, and settles in temporarily for a moment of repose. Maybe this is the meaning of A Year Closer: while waiting for the worst, things come together, a “we” with no name but with a rhythm, a tenuous but definite harmony to share as the clock ticks. Even if, when the lights are turned on, it turns out nobody was there. - Paul Buchholz

Taken from PP48 A Year Closer LP coming soon

A Year Closer

Purchase

Maths Balance Volumes - Dark Sky

Moving away from the American surf pop manipulations of his debut 'Lady's Mantle', Jake journeys through a nocturnal city-scape meandering the dimly lit streets via club back rooms and decadent boudoirs; his ode to the endless night and those who take residence under it's cloak.

A psychedelic map of ASMR rattles, drones and tones melting in-and-out of the night with the heaving intensity of an open window on a busy city street, lubricating familiar rumbles with sensual tones, mirroring the blurry high of a low-light encounter.

A1. on occasions of this kind
A2. fleeting touches
A3. reservoir of memory
A4. melting like the stars

B1. red as the print of a kiss
B2. the dimness of the sealed eye
B3. like sweet thoughts in a dream
B4. silent sailing

Limited edition of 500 copies pressed up on transparent red vinyl.
Mastered by Stephan Mathieu at Schwebung Mastering.
Release date: October 23rd

@jake-muir

Jake Muir - the hum of your veiled voice (sferic007) [Preview]

Label based in Berlin, est. 2008. http://www.p-a-n.org

Lifted - Near Future (PAN 85)

PAN

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