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Vocals by Elif Satanaya Özbay, Marijn Degenaar, Mark Prendergast, and Stephanie Overs

Artworks by Metahaven

Mastered by James Ginzburg

Holly Childs & Gediminas Žygus, 'Forking; (2021). Courtesy Subtext Recordings, Berlin.

all tracks produced, mixed & mastered by @maxdahlhaus
remixes by @lilianechlela @najibmusic @TSUMUTSUMU @xliks
artwork by Luna Woelle

The core of 'A Cracked System' resonates from the urgent need of change and immediate self-care. “It's an EP with ups and downs, surprises and different states of feelings, all wrapped into soundscapes,” says Berlin producer and audio-visual artist Max Dahlhaus about his new EP, which takes a different sonic paths than previous releases 'Short Morrow' (Infinite Machine, 2021) 'Be A Glitch' (Hyperboloid Records, 2021) or 'Glacier' (self-released, 2022) and which was also heavily influenced by the series of lockdowns.

MAX DAHLHAUS - A CRACKED SYSTEM (XL.IKS BRRR EDIT)

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

Ruhail Qaisar - Fatima 
Cat. Nr: DN019
Format: DL + 48 page photography & text publication (Urdu / English) 
Release Date: January 27, 2023
Buy / stream: dansenoire.ffm.to/fatima

Ruhail Qaisar’s Fatima is a requiem for a dead future. The debut album release by the self-taught artist and producer screams with the trauma and decay of life in his hometown of Leh—a high-altitude plateau region in the contested Ladakh area, extending from the Himalayan to the Kunlun Ranges. Qaisar absorbs this external condition of perpetual conflict between nation states into his internal life and resulting compositions, crossing sound art, noise music and experimental filmmaking. Hauntological drones, power electronics and convulsive post-industrial dissonance create an unnerving sense of fear, anger, and alienation. A broken transistor with a knob tuned to the abyss is bombarded with the cries and bitter laughter of a city’s inhabitants tyrannized, not only by military occupation but the soft-power subjugation of the tourism industry.
 
Following 2016’s Ltalam EP—released under Qaisar’s now-defunct Sister moniker—Fatima serves to transmit memories carried through the events, local mythos and personal recollections of growing up between the remote agrarian villages of Ladakh and the urban center of its joint capital—Leh. The album was mixed between that area, and a DIY home studio in New Delhi, where the artist amalgamates his collected found sounds and field recordings into unrecognizable hybrids. Discordant pads and atmospherics on the dark ambient of “Daily Hunger” is disrupted by a crashing, pounding reverb, while contributor Elvin Brandhi shrieks towards its horrifying conclusion in the squelching, scratching sound of something soft being chewed.
 
An anti-lingual conjuring of metaphysical totems in music, Fatima is a seething chronicle of experience through the dynamics of riots, violence, colonization, unemployment, PTSD, and self-abuse. The cycling tumult of “Namgang” hosts a menacing whisper that echoes the hissing fury of something like Einstürzende Neubauten and Lydia Lunch’s “Thirsty Animal,” while a trouncing distorted bass line on “Fatima’s Poplar” circles a voice that barks, "The Western Civilization Show has been discontinued."

The Bunker, New Delhi
Choglamsar Village, Ladakh

Mastering by Rashad Becker
Mixing by Julien Racine 
Photography by Rana Ghose 
Design by Niels Wehrspann

Fatima

buy / stream

Ruhail Qaisar - Namgang

"I Could Go Anywhere But Again I Go With You"

I Pray For Deliverance, The Size Of My Desires

Icon crash report

RONCE - LOLITA
(DAWN010)
100 limited copies
7inch

@itsronce
Produced by Zoë Villerd
Mastered at Studio Martyrs
Photo by Gabriel Cautain
Design by Hajj
Dawn Records 2019

Ronce - Lolita

Teresa Winter - Emptiness Is Also An Excess [RAVE031]

German Army is as prolific a project as they get. Heading from California, the enigmatic ensemble have been one of the loudest voices in the international tape scene for the past couple of years. Taking a strong stance against imperialism in all forms and with a hefty focus on documenting the global extinction of language, flora and fauna, German Army's music shows art as a political act.

"Hearing Lola Kiepja" showcases an emotive take into the project's noisier heart, bringing forward the anonymous duo's flair for alluring melodies. There is a dark, cosmic quality to the work, with synthetic clusters of lo-fi beauty pushed in a fever-induced fast succession. Hypnotic choirs and synth-driven rhythms drawing you in as droplets on a basin. A thousand lost voices sing around the fire, we follow on the footsteps of the dead.

EN13

Dedicated to Lola Kiepja

German Army is P.K. and G.T.
Recorded in the San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys, United States
2019-2020

Hearing Lola Kiepja

German Army - A Segment Of Me

@a_sonne @minaisb @petrola-80
Read more: pw-magazine.com/2021/premiere-astrid-sonne-minais-b-mistakes/

Exchange

Mistakes

Premiere: Astrid Sonne & Minais B »Mistakes« [Petrola 80]

An indisputably strong mix by Lensk (@anonymouscomplicity) for this Valley Radio. Let this half an hour long show be all you need to dive into Lensk's world and check out their impressive releases and otherworldly mixes. 

Image courtesy of artist 
Lay out by Oliva Rawlings

Valley Radio 050 - Lensk - 'Quiet Loud Snow'

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Contact us for any inquiries through peopleofvalley at gmail dot com

All graphics by Oliva Rawlings

Valley Radio 050 - Lensk - 'Quiet Loud Snow'

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