From KMRU & Aho Ssan's Limen LP

Vinyl & digital album: https://kmruahossan.bandcamp.com/album/limen

Released on April 29th, 2022

Last year, Kenyan sound artist Joseph Kamaru (aka KMRU) and French digital alchemist Niamké Désiré (aka Aho Ssan) were invited by Berlin Atonal to collaborate on a project for the festival's Metabolic Rift edition.

The duo had already been working together, but the offer provided the momentum to shift the conversation into another gear. Initially, they looked for thematic connections within their individual practices that might match Kamaru's meditative soundscapes with Désiré's crumbling cyberpunk expressionism, and surprisingly for two artists renowned for their grasp of minimalism, it was the opposite that drew their attention. Watching the world shift as it reacted to the spiraling pandemic, Kamaru and Désiré were moved to experiment with volume, physicality, and intense emotionality.

“I never made something so extreme," Désiré says of the duo's first recording, 2021's 'Ruined Abstractions', an extended composition that matches dense, powerful low-end drones with fractal digital fuzz and smokestack bruit. It set the mood for a back-and-forth that resulted in their seismic debut full-length, "Limen", described by the two acclaimed artists as an attempt to scrutinize the yin and yang of destruction and creation.

Cacophonous, concrete crunches fanfare the album's opening piece 'Resurgence' - the result of their Berlin Atonal commission - but the track refuses to languish in wrecking ball devastation. Instead, powerful synthesized harmonies ring from beneath the rubble, before stifling everything in a humid fuzz of dense, emotionally-charged cinematic electronics.

Influenced by the prescient post-apocalyptic mood of Katsuhiro Otomo's "Akira" and the mythological phoenix, an immortal bird said to be reborn from the ashes of its dying predecessor, "Limen" is an album that sonically snapshots the anxious, floral beauty of an explosion or the colorful intensity of a raging fire. It's rooted in concepts of duality - the idea something unsettling can be viewed from a different angle and re-interpreted.

On the album's epic, 21-minute centerpiece 'Ruined Abstraction I + II', swirling electromagnetic interference paints a haunted parallel vista that dissolves slowly into subtle, orchestral tones and booming, widescreen thuds.

Almost angelic closing track 'Rebirth' meanwhile is the most unashamedly beautiful composition Kamaru and Désiré have written together, but its choral bliss is doused in petroleum noise and saturated distortion.

"Limen" is an album that seeks to lift a veil of silence from the world, replacing it with maximalist bombast and vivid passion. It's a dynamic piece of work that finds its creators pushing themselves to the limits, deconstructing history as it detonates around us. 

All tracks written and produced by Joseph Kamaru
and Niamké Désiré; mastered by Joker

Published by Multiverse Media Publishing
© & ℗ Subtext / Multiverse LTD 2022

http://subtextrecordings.net/

Limen

KMRU & Aho Ssan - Rebirth

From Jonnnah's new album The Next Kingdom, out May 19th on Second End Records.

https://secondendrec.bandcamp.com/album/the-next-kingdom-lp-ser001

@jonnnah

The Next Kingdom LP (SER001)

Premiere: Jonnnah - The Deepest Void [Second End Records]

Written & Produced by Conna Haraway
Vocals Written & Performed by Sensational
Vocals Written & Performed by L V J
Mastered by Ike Zwanikken
Artwork by Sentient Gallery

Conna Haraway – Cortisol (with L V J)

Entropia-Entalpia - Hantent Mes Pensées

XENIA REAPER - qx5136

APPX:14 – Sseq – Intensity

Cat: APPX14
Title: Intensity
Artist(s): Sseq

Featuring Artist(s): excel dj, Mariam Khundadze
Description: EP, Mini Album
Label(s): Appendix.files

Format(s): Limited Edition 12” Lathe Cut Vinyl, Digital, Stream

Tracklist:
01. Scar Gel
02. Shell
03. Pan
04. Rely
05. Hard Reset
06. Take it Softer
07. Bonds we share
08. I like you but I’m lazy

Credits:
Written and produced by Beqa Ungiadze
Mastered by Ike Zwanikken
Artwork by Amos Turner

Featuring vocals by Mariam Khundadze on ‘Rely’
Featuring excel dj on ‘I like you but i’m lazy’
Using samples from Recovery Girl’s stems on “Bond we share”.

All rights reserved to Appendix.files
Copyright Appendix.files

Intensity

Bond we share

Genus Aix - Chrome Flower

we are excited to present a debut compilation album by soak music label, an international community focused on contemporary sound as a means of emotional liberation & self-inquiry

the outcome is 24 tracks by beloved artists, featuring various kinds of music, ranging from lamebient & downtempo to quirky sound-design, raw sonic intimacy & processed emo. Whatever that is, it’s something we are proud to share, aiming at fostering a sense of unity, artistic freedom & love 💗

all proceeds will be donated to Dara Charity in Kazakhstan.
credits
released January 24, 2025

@d-towards

Mastered by yeyo
Artwork by Arsenii Iy
Curated by a b & marat koshkin

d. towärds - hazy downtempo

XENIA REAPER returns to INDEX:Records with ‘Gambling’ – a requiem to noughties trance-euphoria, with a contemporary ambient twist. A collection of nine deep, emotionally-explosive tracks that wrench your heart, as much as your gut.

Exclusive to this edition is a made-to-order transparent 12” LP lathe, cut by Disc Archive in Berlin – super limited though, so get your pre-order in ASAP if you’d like a piece.

Written & Produced by XENIA REAPER
Mastered by Ike Zwanikken
Artwork by Lucas Dupuy

Gambling

XENIA REAPER – You Really [INDEX:019]

spotify

Nihil

T RUsiINerS

Subtext Recordings is a Bristol founded / Berlin based label curated by james ginzburg.