Taken from the album 'TO BEAT OR NOT TO BEAT' released as 2LP

COH 'BECHA-KPACHA (Matmos Crunchtime Mix)' (eMEGO 197X)

Kaitlyn's solo debut Euclid (primarily written on a Buchla Music Easel synthesizer) was inspired by her love of mbira music, early electronic music pioneers like Laurie Spiegel, Oskar Sala, and Terry Riley, and euclidean geometry. Each of the first six songs on Euclid were initially structured using euclidean geometry, an idea which Smith explored while attending a class at the San Francisco Conservatory. As Smith explains, "We each chose a 3D shape and assigned our own guidelines to the different components that make up the shape. For example each point of the shape represents a different time signature, each line between the points represents a pitch, each shape within the closed lines represents a scale, etc. And then you play the shape." Despite their heady geometric origins, the songs have a playfulness and warmth that makes them inviting and memorable. In addition to the buoyant grooves of Smith's synthesizers, some of the songs feature wordless vocals, which energize the otherworldly songs, while grounding them with Smith's earthly presence.

She slows things down for the second half of the record, which features a collection of twelve short pieces, Labyrinths I-XII. Originally composed as new soundtracks to old silent films she found online, Smith says the tranquil Labyrinth pieces are "intended to feel like one is walking through a holographic labyrinth and encountering different experiences such as hang gliding, viewing microbes under a microscope, ice fishing in Alaska, and watching glaciers collapse." Despite their brevity, most of these songs feel like mini odysseys, effortlessly casting a cinematic hue on the the listener's world.

Throughout Euclid Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith consistently delivers sonic puzzles draped in a warm Pacific mist. At times these songs feel so alive — like the musical analog to roots growing deeper and stronger, leaves on branches bending towards the light, or the sun peeking over the horizon, briefly igniting the air with a primordial swirl of warm and cool colors.

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - Wide Awake

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© and ℗ 2015 RVNG Intl. / www.igetrvng.com

Artificial Dance

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Savant - Stationary Dance

Taken from "Tardis" out February 12th 2016
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Weaver's Cave

Taken from Irma Vep's forthcoming LP 'No Handshake Blues', released January 13th 2017 via Faux Discx and Comfortable on a Tightrope.
PRE-ORDER: www.fauxdiscx.com/shop/irma-vep-no-handshake-blues
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ON TOUR IN THE UK NOW!
Monday 9th January - The Hope and Ruin, Brighton w/Jon Collin
Tuesday 10th January - The Nest, Bath w/Jon Collin
Thursday 12th January - Pilgrims Pit, Stoke w/Jon Collin
Friday 13th January - Foodhall, Sheffield w/Jon Collin
Saturday 14th January - Fuel, Manchester w/Jon Collin & dbh
Saturday 28th January - Soup Kitchen, Manchester w/Duds, The Foetals
Wednesday 8th March - St James Wine Vaults, Bath w/Jon Collin
Friday 10th March - Gullivers, Manchester w/Jon Collin
Friday 14th April - Fat Out Festival, Islington Mill, Salford

IRMA VEP – A Woman's Work is Never Done

Lyrics by Plato's Symposium
Diotima's speech
Music by Venus Volcanism & Tripolar Cell

Tripolar Cell & Venus Volcanism-Diotima

'Yellow Rain' is taken from Normil Hawaiians' debut album 'More Wealth Than Money' (1982). Remastered and reissued this December through Upset The Rhythm.

www.upsettherhythm.co.uk/
normilhawaiians.com/

Normil Hawaiians had a transformative 1982. With two 7” singles and a 12” EP under their belts they suddenly found themselves disillusioned with the increasingly generic sounds surrounding them, so they forced the hand of change and began reaching out with that very hand. The band’s true constant in Guy Smith soon found himself with a new crew of musicians, Simon Marchant, Noel Blanden and Mark Tyler. Normil Hawaiians’ communal take on post punk quickly sprouted leaves from its mouth, and began carving out a new furrow. Greater emphasis was awarded to improvisation within the group and as a result their songs embarked on longer, freer journeys towards the beaten bounds. They wanted these new songs to bear the weight of their new collective spirit so comfort zones had to be left behind. Tape loops, echo boxes, extended percussive sessions and duteous faith in the tones emanating from a particular old wah-wah pedal were all employed by Normil Hawaiians to stretch their sonic fabric into wild and redolent new dimensions.

With Illuminated Records interested in the band’s new visionary approach, Normil Hawaiians relocated from their South London dystopia to a rural idyll in the Welsh hills, determined to develop further this raw language for themselves. They booked into Foel Studios near Llanfair Caereinion for an extended period of time, set the tapes rolling and didn’t look back. They were somewhere they knew they could experiment; at a studio that understood the results would be uncertain. Dave Anderson, who managed and engineered at Foel was exactly the right person to work with them. Anderson had come from an experimental background himself, having played in Hawkwind and Amon Duul II. Normil Hawaiians were encouraged to explore their ideas beyond limitations with Anderson happy to leave the tape recording to capture their embryonic improvisations taking shape. Anderson even joined in on bass for several of those sessions as the ensemble strove to find its authentic voice, supplemented further when their cellist friend Klaus dropped by to spend a spell with them.

At this very moment Normil Hawaiians existed solely for the music, living together in a small cottage in the studio’s shadow, sharing everything together and working long days to nurture and then burnish the music they had discovered between them. This is how the band’s debut album ‘More Wealth Than Money’ was formed, through trial and close listening, through cultivation and patient growth. Of course there were significant amounts of mushrooms involved too and several UFO sightings, but when the sheep began to march in time to the music Normil Hawaiians knew they were creating something unique.

On December 1st, 35 years since the album first appeared, Upset The Rhythm will be reissuing the newly re-mastered ‘More Wealth Than Money’ album, alongside a further full-length collection of demos and unreleased tracks from the album’s overlooked corners. Both the 2xCD and DLP versions also come with a booklet contextualizing the release, full of anecdotes and photos from all band members. This release follows on from 2015’s ‘Return Of The Ranters’, Normil Hawaiians’ lost final album from 1985, which ultimately saw the light of day in a different age through Upset The Rhythm too.

More Wealth Than Money

Normil Hawaiians - Yellow Rain

Order 2xLP: https://bit.ly/2KvvQBJ

Chandra Oppenheim was a child star like no other. As the daughter of famed conceptual artist Dennis Oppenheim. By age nine, Chandra was staying up late at her parents’ art-world parties, collaborating in her father’s projects, and performing her own plays at downtown hotspots such as The Kitchen and Franklin Furnace.

This set the stage for Chandra’s course-altering collaboration with members of The Dance, who were looking to form yet another project and found their muse/fuse in 10-year-old Chandra. Transportation EP, originally released in 1980 by The Dance’s own label, ON/GoGo. Balancing on razor- wire guitars, liquid bass lines, and dub-style melodica, the Chandra band unveiled their first four songs: “Opposite”, “Concentration”, “Subways”, and “Kate.”

At age 12, the post-punk pre-teen took the stage with her band for the first
time at New York’s legendary Mudd Club. A whirlwind of press coverage
ensued from glossy magazines like Vogue and Paris Match to the influential underground zine Non LP B Side and a Soho News cover story.

The infectious, propulsive “Get It Out Of Your System” opens Chandra’s second EP with one of her most commanding performances. “Stranger” slows the pace with stop-start rhythms, woozy synths, and the harmonized return of the melodica, while its lyrics find her being followed by a mysterious character revealed to be a woman. “Tish Le Dire” sounds like The B-52s in an eerie alternate universe with instructions on speaking up to your parents or authorities to the point of threatening suicide.

Chandra stepped away from the band at age 14 to focus on her education. Sadly, the second EP was shelved and would not see the light of day for decades.

Chandra’s trip continues with this new deluxe reissue from Telephone Explosion Records. Returning her debut EP to its original four- song, single-record release at a dancefloor-ready remastered 45 RPM, the expanded edition also adds to the second EP with a pair of never released songs from her 1983 four-track cassette demos. “Day Without Success” and “They’re All Alike” find Chandra’s dreamlike vocals driven by minimal wave synth zaps and pulsating drum machines. 

Words by Jesse Locke. 

“Transportation EPs" will be released on gatefold 2xLP / digital on December 7th, 2018.

Chandra - Day Without Success (Previously Unreleased)

White Noise - Love without sound

R. Elizabeth is the recording name of London-based artist and academic Rachael Finney. Every And All We Voyage On is her
solo recording project’s second full length and is a focused distillation of her practice in sound art and her knack for pop
minimalism. It follows a long sold out release on Where To Now? Records and a prolonged period in which she concentrated
on artist residencies exploring her interest in recorded sound and voice. Immediate and natural, Every And All We Voyage On
manages to sound joyful while tackling complex themes, handling everything with an improvisatory touch. The songs are full of
air and light; infectious, melodic and off-the-cuff.
Recorded using a single 80s Casio keyboard, reel-to-reel tape manipulation, piano and vocal, Finney’s practice with R. Elizabeth
belies a studious attention to detail. Her academic work is often focused on analysing sounds – particularly voice and language –
divorced from meaning and R. Elizabeth challenges the listener with overtly emotional tropes: sweeping portmento lap-steel
guitar keyboard tones on Back From Ten suggest a nostalgic melancholy when it intersects with the narrator closing her eyes,
realising she has nothing left to give. The lilting vocal cloaked in reverb is disarming, with an almost child-like surrender to the
undertow of the song. On Tragedy And Trade there’s a rough grace to the mixing with visceral, manipulated tape sounding like
the artists’ hands are literally in the speakers wrenching the melodies in mid-air. When it intersects with chants about the “gaps
and the silences” it has an eerie, hauntological effect. R. Elizabeth is constantly playing with sound and song: a Wonderland of
perceived emotion, the listener’s perception of what they’re hearing constantly in flux, it’s deceptively simple and deserving of
repetitive listening.
Cut Piano opens the album and introduces a documentary-feel which the album upholds through-out. It’s the sound of the artist
mangling a tape of her own piano recording, twisting it out of shape and suggesting a bend in reality. We’re listening to the artist
becoming a ghost in her own machine, a 3rd or 4th generation copy of an emotion rendered a long time ago, chilling and playful at
the same time. An Image Is Different bursts out of this with a sunny Casiotone beat, a melodic contrast that also introduces
Finney’s vocal. It flitters between a gorgeous repetitive melody ruminating about the nature of reality and a seemingly careless,
conversational tone. The effect is joyful, but you don’t really know why. The lyrics instruct someone (you? The artist?) to “go
outside and break someone’s neck, make it feel so real” before ending with R. Elizabeth nonchalantly stating “I dunno, to be
honest I don’t really care” as if on the phone to someone they’re bored with. It would be jarring if it wasn’t so catchy and uplifting.
The title track is a slow-tempo meditation with droning synths providing the background to slow, dragging tape sounds and
grounding, just-out-of-focus vocals bunkering down in the mix. The methodology suggests the work of Broadcast: there’s a
loping bassline that propels the track forward but the duet/duel between Finney’s haunted vocal and the soloing tape warble
provides aural snakes for the listener’s ear to follow.

R. Elizabeth - SPIRITUAL TO SYMPHONY (from Every And All We Voyage On)

Jennifer Touch - Behind The Wall

Equally at home on and off the dancefloor, its cold sensuality is both vibrant and brooding. Showcasing her unique sound in the saturated world of electronica, Touch successfully draws from electropop and disco influences, combining 80’s vintage synths with industrial soundscapes, delivered with a visceral post-punk snarl.

Chandra - Day Without Success (Previously Unreleased)

telephoneexplosion