Taken from 'Fringe' LP/Download (E064, Ecstatic 03/09/2021)

A gorgeous swell of intimate soundscaping from Felisha Ledesma on this simmering stunner for Ecstatic, despatching two extended, richly absorbing pieces weft from everyday detritius; synths, strings, voicemail, found sounds - hitting a similar spot for us as Ulla’s diaristic 'inside means inside me’ but with a more defined play of sound-as-light that gently and memorably tugs at the earlobes and heartstrings. 

Exploring a music of presence and ultra subtle inference, ‘Fringe’ is the 2nd release by Ledesma, student of Berlin's estimable Universität der Künste, following from a debut for Enmossed x Psychic Liberation earlier this year. Using AMQR - a software synthesiser built by Ledesma together with Ess Mattisson - both pieces here shimmer with elusive timbres that occupy a realm that feels lost between worlds - neither electronic nor acoustic, but more a sort of observational sound that radiates togetherness and warmth. 

Operating at insightful levels of synaesthesia, Ledesma poetically turns ostensibly humdrum sources into clouds of smoke - emails, voicenotes, walking along the water, a poem attached to an email, walking alone in New York during lockdown, going for a swim at sunset in the desert - all turn into a smudge of memory. When ‘Beamsplitters’ opens with a tangible human presence - a voicemail from a friend - it startles with its earthly pull, eventually getting lost in a tangled spool of found sound leaving just a trace of iridescent, intimate reverie. 

On ‘Golden Mirror’ Felisha gently diffracts a lonesome guitar phrase into a humming thizz with a steeply uncanny ability to jog the memory in a similar way to how olfactory stimulus can conjure feelings of nostalgia. It’s a trick familiar from an emergent new realm of lower case composers creating something like submerged, small scale symphonies that work counter to notions of classical excess or anodyne ambient, instead focusing on microcosmic, highly peronalised sort of worldbuilding that’s impenetrable, yet somehow entirely open.

Felisha Ledesma - Golden Mirror [E064]

A Year Ago

The boys Lakker continue on a fierce roll. Between the multiple EPs and 12"s as a pair, and Eomac's still-impeccable solo record (not to mention his Berlin session for us!), you have to wonder: do they ever quit? This one another spooky, tremulous slab of dark techno. R&S sure know how to pick 'em.

Lakker "Math Fall" - Boiler Room Debuts

Void Cadet

ulla - table

Andrea Taeggi—Zimní Král (12" vinyl LP)

The music on this record was made using a vast array of rare analog machines Andrea had the chance to work on at the Willem-Twee synthesis studio in Holland (built with the iconic Studio di Fonologia RAI as a blueprint). Most of the percussive sounds come from an Analog Computer, which has been rarely used only as a music instrument (its main purpose was flight simulation). In fact, during the Cold War times it was also used as measurement tool by civil engineers and even by the army. 
To my knowledge, very few artists have given a new context to the such device, which I have found absolutely unique-sounding and gave me enough inspiration to compose a whole new album focused on it. 

At present, no one has ever officially released music recorded at the Willem-Twee synthesis studio.

The music on this record further explores cyclical, minimal and hypnotic concoctions – a particular  investigation focused on unusual rhythms that Andrea had already started on his well-received ‘Mama Matrix Most Mysterious’, released on Type in 2015. Think walls of subfrequencies, snappy rollercoasters of the mind, labyrinths in hyperspace & snakes eating their own tails.

Zimní Král means “Winter King” in Czech and was the epithet given to Frederick V Elector Palatine (king of Bohemia), the last of a legacy to actively support alchemy as a means of studying reality, the self and their inter-reflections.

All music by Andrea Taeggi
https://andreataeggi.wordpress.com

Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M Berlin

Forthcoming on SM-LL Sept 1st, 2018
http://www.sm-ll.com

Dinergy (SM-LL, Sept 1st)

Ghostride The Drift - B1

Taken from th album 'Ecstatic Computation' releasedas LP and Download

Ecstatic Computation

Caterina Barbieri 'Fantas' (EMEGO 259)

From "Ses Kondi" cassette album.
Released on ORILA records, summer 2019.
https://soundcloud.com/orila
orilarecords.bandcamp.com/album/ses-kondi

Ses Kondi

Lord

Get this + the original here https://carmenvillain.bandcamp.com/

So High You're Mine (2020 Rework)

Taken from the album Caterina Barbieri - Fantas Variations released as 2LP and Digital

Fantas Variations

Bendik Giske 'Fantas for Saxophone and Voice' (EMEGO 279)

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