ambient/vapor

Asha’s Awakening

Circuit Board

Endless Summer

The Internet Is Like Eating Plastic

Kathy Left 4 Kathmandu

https://bigzen.bandcamp.com/album/up

In the club, but not of it club.. the ice giant, Uranus.

3 more tunes where this came from on the EP - Digi only

thank you love you

Uranus

Myth Dawn Age

I SHOULD CALL THEM

pussy suicide

want

television

Availability

Take Me Home

Physical: geographic-north.com/cassette/transformative-nature/
Digital: geographicnorth.bandcamp.com/album/transformative-nature
Catalog #: GN45
Neon Fog Cassette, limited to 100
Mastered by Sean McCann

Café Ale is Los Angeles-based musician and producer Alejandro Cohen. An irreplaceable fixture in LA’s sprawling music scene, Cohen has contributed his deft auditory touch to projects ranging from the hallucinatory Balearic bliss of Pharaohs (100% Silk, International Feel, ESP Institute, Holy Mountain) to the fuzz-drench auteur pop of Languis (Plug Research, Pehr). In addition to his acclaimed musical output, Cohen is responsible for corralling a wholly inclusive and globally-minded stable of tastemakers as director of dublab, Los Angeles’ long-running radio station.

Spanning eight shimmering sketches, 'Transformative Nature" marks Café Ale‘s debut set of recordings. With help from a revolving cast of collaborators, Cohen has crafted a tantalizing medley of evocative, rhythmic burners suited more for a breezy sunset than the dance floor. 

Opener “Devout” is an uplifting drift of noise and melody, floating down a river of serrated drones and serene piano keys. “Push-me Pull-U” unfurls its noir-ish, neon-flecked careen through saxophone-littered vistas. “Subir Es Lo Mejor” slithers with a muted and stuttering house beat, perfectly balancing rhythmic meditation with hypnotic transcendence. “Hymn” dials the narrative back into a warbled and woozy ambient symphony of synthetic beauty.

“Stranded” plays out like an autumnal raga for an unseasonably warm backyard house party, while “Dress’n Up” nods to some grand and cosmic melodrama. “Dead Child Song” brings a disarmingly moving melody of love and loss, countered by closer “Fallen Angel,” a curiously shoegaze-y traipse through a slurred and heady, effects-laden dream sequence. 

A captivating statement that shows Cohen’s dynamic, wide-ranging, and wholly unique approach to dance music.

Café Ale - Subir Es Lo Mejor

Physical: geographic-north.com/cassette/tokonoma/
Digital: geographicnorth.bandcamp.com/album/tokonoma
Catalog #: GN46
Cassette, limited to 100
Mastered by Sean McCann

For more than a decade, Jon Porras has carved out a sprawling, emotionally evocative niche of sound using a variety of sonic elements and associations in his solo work on such seminal imprints as Root Strata, Important, and Thrill Jockey. But Porras has also been associated with a number of celebrated collaborations, with musicians Evan Caminiti (as Barn Owl), Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Ellen Fullman, Stephen O’Malley, Jacob Felix Heule, and visual artists Paul Clipson and Wilhelm Sasnal.

Tokonoma is Porras' fifth solo work, ending the almost four-year silence since his last release. More than a comeback though, the album serves as one of Porras' most enlightened works to date, touching on the dark, expansive tones explored on past releases and shedding light on Porras' bright future.

Assembled gradually from layers of Yamaha DX7, physical modeling instruments, synthetic voices and analog tapes, processed with complex programming and outboard patching, the six pieces explore the musical possibilities of improvising against mathematically generated patterns. Through these chance operations, MIDI programming and other generative principles, Tokonoma uses algorithmic tools to reexamine composition in the age of information overload.

"Generative Counterpoint" opens the set with a run of effervescent synth tones that beam up into the sky with unending hope and optimism. Deep throbs of rhythm pulse into the space as waves of color wash across the frame. "Stochastic Return" turns the narrative into more modern classical territory, performed by an entire virtual symphony of synthetic sound but conducted with entirely human sensibilities and emotions. "Still Life" continues the vibrant minimalism with a heaving hum of shimmering tones and meditative repetition.

On "Dissolving Boundaries," Porras examines an ever-evolving pattern of piano miniatures that shift and modulate into the infinite. "22/7" is perhaps the most pointillistic piece of the set, perfectly balancing moments of total sound and near-silence in a forceful blitz that's both highly complex and genuinely natural. "Ultraviolet Interval" closes the tape with a blur of phased color and chopped beauty that eventually dissolves into a cloud of static white noise.

The Internet Is Like Eating Plastic

raveena

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