In 2017 Brooklyn's Bryce Hackford spent a week at the PRAH Foundation in Margate (UK) recording rhythmic foundations and the environment around him. After his residency, eleven musician friends contributed their performances to what would become Safe (Exits). All of these contributions, however, were made in isolation and the task of mixing them together became the crux of the production.

Bryce's records largely explore improvisation with electronics, using recording as the compositional medium, and feature the occasional contributing musician. Eleven make Safe (Exits) more of a chance ensemble record, with players in unlikely combinations, from disparate backgrounds both personal and musical, pushing a collage aesthetic beyond sampling. The poetics of these sounds is the focus of this album.

Safe (Exits) attempts to create a rare space where rhythms get propulsive enough to make one dance yet become subtle enough to make them nod into the serene vistas of distant, contemplative waves.

Safe (Exits) is Bryce's first album since 2015 and second release with Spring Theory.

Featuring: Gabi AsFOUR, Brian Close, Matt Evans, Adrian Knight, Kiki Kudo, David Lackner, Frank Lyon, Camilla Padgitt-Coles, Bernardo Risquez, Viktor Timofeev and Justin Tripp
credits
releases April 9, 2020

Mastering by Rashad Becker & Helmut Erler at Dubplates & Mastering
Artwork by Leah Beeferman
Design by Kais Dhifi

Buy on Bandcamp

Bryce Hackford - Safe (Exits) [ST014]

Film by Emma Pryde => http://hoop-earring.com
Bandcamp => https://spring-theory.bandcamp.com/album/hoop-earring
Spotify => https://open.spotify.com/album/0u3u98zr15hsj0NCGdjumn

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I suppose the ultimate crux is that I came to terms with growing past and through a place of comfort.
 
Hoop Earring is a fantasy, one about spiritual enlightenment and realization. I think about Hoop Earring as a filter with which to look through - Hoop Earring is an island. A lot changed from when I initially started writing these songs and it all feels like it happened while I was in a faraway place. Hoop Earring is like ​The Younger Dryas of my ​emotional ​life.
 
In Janet Murray's, "Hamlet on the Holodek", she explains that fiction is a way to deal with everyday problems by making us be involved enough to care but detached enough to be able to retreat if the suffering is too much. I relate this to Hoop Earring in that it became somewhat of a coping mechanism.
 
I don't have much else to say, other than that I'm proud of the album and that I'm happy to share it.
 
Thanks y'all,
@sagecaswell

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Buy 12''/Digital

Sage Caswell - Hoop Earring

https://mogwaa.bandcamp.com/album/mogwaa-pilgrim

@mogwaa
@spring-theory

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For its 12th release, Spring Theory is excited to present a four-tracks EP from Mogwaa, from Seoul, South Korea, his first on the label. The music is by inspired by his experience of living in Peru and Vietnam (more below), and the artwork is a picture of a tapestry I found in Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia. So this record is just an ode to what happens when different worlds meet in an unexpected way and human open-mindness allows colors to fade out on each other to create new tones.

In his own words: “The first track is kind of ode to Lima, Peru. It was the first country that I lived besides Korea so everything was so new to me. And it made lost in thought of their culture: colonial era, dictatorship, and even japanese president. And second track I made it remembering where I lived in Vietnam, a place where the Mekhong river find its way to the sea. Which is full of mangrove forest and mango trees. And third one is scenery of my neighborhood: at some point I could find feelings from my Seoul neighborhood in Peru and Vietnam. And last one is kind of nostaligia for Peru and Vietnam looking forward to coming back someday.

As they influenced me a lot, at some point I could say they’re my holy land so I’ll make a pilgrimage when I’m really exhausted.”

[ST012] Mogwaa - Pilgrim

Masks is New York duo comprised of Max Ravitz aka Patricia (L.I.E.S, Opal Tapes, Ghostly) and Alexis Georgopoulos aka Arp (RVNG Intl, Mexican Summer, DFA, Smalltown Supersound). The aptly titled EP2 is (yes, you guessed it!) their second release, preceded by their Opal Tapes debut Food Plus Drug (II) — which gained support from Legowelt, Mount Kimbie and Boomkat  — and a compilation appearance on esteemed Beats In Space 15 year anniversary 3xLP.

On paper, it might strike one as a strange duo. Ravitz’s work leans heavily on house and techno, but his recent work has been focused towards emotive melodies of IDM. And Georgopoulos has been busy creating minimalistic classical music for RVNG and most recently made waves with his critically-acclaimed album Zebra, which combined elements of 4th World and cosmic jazz.

All the tracks making up EP2 were made as live performances. No overdubs. Nothing "in the box". Just classic hardware and a strong vibe.

Opener "In This Room" is the sound of a NY summer sunset, pivoting on a hypnotic rotation of orange-hued chords. "Emotional Response" displays a different side of the group. Combining a 909 with a piano tug, it could provide that perfect soundtrack to a cathartic cry on the dancefloor.

On the flip side, "In Another Room" is dreamy techno par excellence, before sliding into an acid chugg for the ages. Bookworms smears the sun of "In This Room" into a 4am whirl, all purple lights and mountains of fog.
 
The cover artwork features the artwork of Sanou Oumar, a recent emigrant from Burkina Faso, West Africa. He graduated from the University of Ouagadougou in 2007 and moved to the United States to seek asylum in 2015. He currently lives in the Bronx and works in Harlem, New York. In 2018, Oumar had his first two-person exhibition (with Matt Paweski) at Gordon Robichaux in New York, and in 2019 (with Elisabeth Kley) at South Willard in Los Angeles, curated by Matt Connors.

[ST013] Masks (Arp & Patricia) - EP2

Avalon Emerson - Honest Gangster

Avalon Emerson - Church of SoMa

Avalon Emerson - Church of SoMa (HNNY Remix)

Avalon Emerson - Synagogue of SoMa

Avalon Emerson - Let Me Love & Steal

L.U.C.A. _ Blue Marine
Paul McCartney _ Blue Sway
Soft Rocks _ Free Ride-rrr
Lindtsrom _ Arp She Said
Harry Baldi _ Can't Kick This Feeling
Ptaki _ Krystyna
Eddie Kendricks _ Girl You Need a Change Of Mind
Sly Mongoose _ Bad Pulse
Idjut Boys _ One For Kenny
Apiento _ The Orange Place
Baptiste & Pierre Colleu _ Dolphin Kid
Junior Byron _ Dance To The Music (Dub Version)
Skyy _ First Time Around (Cosmo Vitelli Remix)
Cesaria Evora _ Angola (Carl Craig Remix)
Pional _ In Another Room
The Durutti Column _ Sketch For Dawn

[MIX] Look Both Ways & Never Tell A Lie

San Francisco/Paris-based label Spring Theory is back with its fourth release. Called Sweet Bitter Love, it's a four track EP of manic sample-driven house from Keita Sano, a Japanese producer who's been on a roll lately with releases for like-minded imprints Discos Capablanca, Mister Saturday Night, and Strictly Groove Recordings.

Sweet Bitter Love kicks off with the tripped-out flair of "Once I Found a Diamond." It's an uplifiting bongo-led cut with dubby melodics that sound like the kind of thing Sleeping Bag Records would have put out in the early '80s. Jacques Renault provides a leaner peak-time version — complete with hard-hitting snares and growling bass — via his "Once I Found a Diamond (Jacques Renault Trouble Funk Remix)."

Things take a turn for the delightfully weird on the EP's namesake "Sweet Bitter Love." Starting like a straightforward house cut, it explodes into a psychedelic collage of spaghetti western guitars, tribal calls, displaced jazz fills, and other forms of cleverly sampled soundtrack exotica. The release wraps up with yet another curveball on "Bouzouk." Here Sano lays out a subwoofer-knocking NY garage house rhythm that takes a left turn with frenzied bouzouki playing charting arpeggios through a haze of echoing foreign voices.

Taken as a whole, Sweet Bitter Love is that rare idiosyncratic bomb of an EP that will keep your dancers moving and your trainspotters guessing — In other words, it's Spring Theory through and through.

Sweet Bitter Love

Once I Found A Diamond

https://spring-theory.bandcamp.com/album/sleep-quarters

Buy it on Bandcamp

Paper USB

Spring Theory is proud to announce its latest release, an LP from San Francisco-based experimental producer and label alumni Aria Rostami. Titled Agnys, it's an intensely personal and introspective reflection on friendship, loss and rebirth in our hyper-connected society. A rumination on a collaborative project started with Rostami's now deceased production partner, roommate, and friend Shawn Dickerson, it utilizes a melodic and ambient techno sound palette to take the listener on a journey that touches on the uncanny permanence that information technology lends to the tragic fragility of the human experience.

Mirroring the time distortion of the information age, and how new and old exist simultaneously on the internet, Agnys is a record that unfolds in reverse. The deep and minimalistic b-sides, "White-White," "Soroban" and "Beghilos" guide the aesthetic experience. Unified by an emotion of retrospective nostalgia, they were all created by editing and contorting aspects from a single recording made from Dickerson's piano — a dusty and detuned standup made sometime before The Great Depression that now sits in Rostami's bedroom. "This plays with both the idea of sameness (something old, something that's been done, something bland) and newness (something re-contextualized)," explains Rostami.

By contrast, the warm embrace of "Clepsydra," the symphonic dancefloor grandeur of "Seven-Segments," and sharp punchiness of "A Square Tablet Strewn With Dust" reveal Rostami's own take on the sonic structure of the B-sides. "The A-sides are a reinterpretation of the world made by the B-sides much like the B-sides are a reinterpretation of Shawn's interests and ideas. In this way, the listener works backwards to the source."

"The internet became a key player in our relationship. The web dissolved old walls of discovery and opened itself up through search terms and piracy. We were discovering electronic music we couldn't even conceive of." says Rostami. "For Agnys, I took ideas that are new, ideas that are old, and ideas that are just old enough to be recycled again and focused on certain points that I thought Shawn and I could have explored more if we had had the time."

Simply put, Agnys is a beautiful record from one of San Francisco's most talented producers. We're excited to release it, and we're very excited for you to hear it for yourself.

Aria Rostami -  Clepsydra

https://spring-theory.bandcamp.com/album/miles

Miles

"I need to get one!"

Keita Sano - Miles (SNIPPETS)

Hoop Earring 

Pre Order

Sage Caswell - Y'all

@sagecaswell:

I suppose the ultimate crux is that I came to terms with growing past and through a place of comfort.
 
Hoop Earring is a fantasy, one about spiritual enlightenment and realization. I think about Hoop Earring as a filter with which to look through - Hoop Earring is an island. A lot changed from when I initially started writing these songs and it all feels like it happened while I was in a faraway place. Hoop Earring is like ​The Younger Dryas of my ​emotional ​life.
 
In Janet Murray's, "Hamlet on the Holodek", she explains that fiction is a way to deal with everyday problems by making us be involved enough to care but detached enough to be able to retreat if the suffering is too much. I relate this to Hoop Earring in that it became somewhat of a coping mechanism.
 
I don't have much else to say, other than that I'm proud of the album and that I'm happy to share it.
 
Thanks y'all,
Sage

Sage Caswell - All of Gardens

Sage Caswell - Danny's Telephone Voice

Sage Caswell - Introduction to WS

Sage Caswell - Ray of Light 95'

@mogwaa
@spring-theory

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For its 12th release, Spring Theory is excited to present a four-tracks EP from Mogwaa, from Seoul, South Korea, his first on the label. The music is by inspired by his experience of living in Peru and Vietnam (more below), and the artwork is a picture of a tapestry I found in Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia. So this record is just an ode to what happens when different worlds meet in an unexpected way and human open-mindness allows colors to fade out on each other to create new tones.

In his own words: “The first track is kind of ode to Lima, Peru. It was the first country that I lived besides Korea so everything was so new to me. And it made lost in thought of their culture: colonial era, dictatorship, and even japanese president. And second track I made it remembering where I lived in Vietnam, a place where the Mekhong river find its way to the sea. Which is full of mangrove forest and mango trees. And third one is scenery of my neighborhood: at some point I could find feelings from my Seoul neighborhood in Peru and Vietnam. And last one is kind of nostaligia for Peru and Vietnam looking forward to coming back someday.

As they influenced me a lot, at some point I could say they’re my holy land so I’ll make a pilgrimage when I’m really exhausted.”

Mogwaa - Drizzle

Mogwaa - Paramita

Mogwaa - Ocean Watch

Mogwaa - Camino De Los Vagabundos

In This Room (Bookworms Remix)

Emotional Response

In Another Room

In This Room

In 2017 Brooklyn's Bryce Hackford spent a week at the PRAH Foundation in Margate (UK) recording rhythmic foundations and the environment around him. After his residency, eleven musician friends contributed their performances to what would become Safe (Exits). All of these contributions, however, were made in isolation and the task of mixing them together became the crux of the production.

Bryce's records largely explore improvisation with electronics, using recording as the compositional medium, and feature the occasional contributing musician. Eleven make Safe (Exits) more of a chance ensemble record, with players in unlikely combinations, from disparate backgrounds both personal and musical, pushing a collage aesthetic beyond sampling. The poetics of these sounds is the focus of this album.

Safe (Exits) attempts to create a rare space where rhythms get propulsive enough to make one dance yet become subtle enough to make them nod into the serene vistas of distant, contemplative waves.

Safe (Exits) is Bryce's first album since 2015 and second release with Spring Theory.

Featuring: Gabi AsFOUR, Brian Close, Matt Evans, Adrian Knight, Kiki Kudo, David Lackner, Frank Lyon, Camilla Padgitt-Coles, Bernardo Risquez, Viktor Timofeev and Justin Tripp

Spring Theory

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