Gudrun Gut and Mabe Fratti have worked together on a powerful hybrid album, where taut rhythms fuse with haunted vocal melodies and spoken word, and field recordings meld with extended ambient pieces. Limited edition of 500 copies on Yellow Transparent vinyl LP, digital downloads and streamings.

As part of Umor Rex’s 15th anniversary, we here present an album that builds a dialogue between two lands and two unique artists. Mexico is the origin and conceptual residence of our label, while Germany is where we produce and manufacture our records (Berlin functions as the center of distribution and logistics, thanks to our friends at Morr Music). The intertwining imaginations belong to German producer Gudrun Gut (Malaria!) —a notable figure of the subculture and the German music scene since the early 80s, and also a founder of Monika Enterprise and recipient of the ‘Listen to Berlin’ Award in 2019— and singer, multi-instrumentalist and composer Mabe Fratti (originally from Guatemala, now based in Mexico City). We knew about “Let’s Talk About The Weather” from the beginning, and since the moment Gudrun and Mabe made us part of their project, our excitement could not be greater.

The process started with Gudrun and Mabe having long distance conversations, asking about their whereabouts and discussing the weather. This might seem rather commonplace, but it works as a key thematic component for the entire album. The weather as the new great unknown, perceived through the optics of everyday life. Sound files were methodically exchanged, with Mabe exploring words and vocals, and Gudrun working with field recordings taken from each city. In the end, this joint musical venture would provide a healing effect for both artists during life in quarantine.

“Aufregend”, the opening track of the album, reflects upon a general lack of excitement in modern life. It wonders what the future might hold. Is it cold? Is it warm? Will it be the same? “Air Condition” is an eerie, dazzling collision of climates: the hazy warmth of Mexico City, the deep cold of Uckermark. The last track, which gives the album its name, is a long ambient piece composed of four parts: sound sculptures, field recordings of city life, news and weather forecasts, and private conversations about the climate. It’s kind of a collaborative diary, obsessed with a single, all-encompassing subject.

Produced and recorded by Gudrun Gut and Mabe Fratti between Berlin, Uckermark, Veracruz and Mexico City. Mixed by GGut at Stern Studio Mastered by John Tejada in Sherman Oaks, USA. Artwork & photos by Daniel Castrejón in Mexico City.

Special thanks to Goethe Institute, who contributed to the creation of this album with a Virtual Partner Residency support.

Let’s Talk About The Weather

Gudrun Gut + Mabe Fratti — Aufregend

Dino Spiluttini and Nils Quak - Modular Anxiety
© Umor Rex Records. Release date: January 28, 2014
BUY VINYL: www.umor-rex.org
BUY DIGITAL: www.umorrex.bandcamp.com

Vinyl LP limited edition of 300 copies packaged in an uncoated stock jackets with double sided insert, black inner polylined sleeve, and free download coupon. First 170 copies on gold opaque colored vinyl, remaining copies on black.

Modular Anxiety is a split LP comprised of 10 tracks that presents an audacious face in the land of ambient / drone synth music. One side belongs to Dino Spiluttini (with works on Home Normal and Beatismurder) and the other to Nils Quak (who has released on labels such as Nomadic Kids Republic and Sis Sic Tapes). ≈

It could be argued that for each common trait that binds them, there are twice as many differences that throw them apart. If the same words can be used to describe both sides (spatial, cathartic, acute, deep) one must also concede that they may not even belong to the same genre, even if the two of them do hum and drone profusely, glitch at intervals, and (apparently) constitute their sound from a warm analogue-digital palette. But the differences in character cannot be ignored: Spiluttini’s work is relatively direct and specific, with soaring melodies, taut structures, high frequency grasslands, surprises and electronic nuances full of musical drama sense, while Quak’s – written entirely on a modular synthesizer – sound is somehow more obscure, with a slower sense of time, cooler colors, bubbling textures, piercing notes, a mood of brooding mystery and menace, atonal melodies and phrasings, and an all-around smoky vision and sensibility.  So, the question arises: how come that such contrasting visions work so well together?  Both sides are made of synthetic music that sometimes evokes distorted environments & landscapes, but that hardly accounts for the odd tonal unity and continuity that goes from the A-side (Dino Spiluttini) to the B side (Nils Quak). Yet, they’re both equally friendly to the ear and satisfying in their own way. When considered together, they share a tacit agreement, a subtle and eerie intuition that goes back and forth between them.

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Dino Spiluttini - Anxiety

Announcing the onset of night, Driftmachine —a Berlin-based duo comprised of Andreas Gerth (Tied & Tickled Trio) and Florian Zimmer (Saroos)— have created Nocturnes, a psychoactive, dream-inducing stimulant of sorts: Evoking and maintaining a trancelike state, the duo’s six-part journey into the dark was originally inspired by reading The Rest Is Noise and listening to the music discussed in Alex Ross’ seminal book. The resulting soundscapes, written and recorded since 2012, redefine the lines between insomnia and slumber, between wraithlike dub grooves gone awry, the dancing flicker of a slack-joint bedside lamp, and eerie electronics.

Nocturnes is essentially comprised of six studies in precision: perfectly symmetrical structures that slowly spread their bass-heavy wings, sprawl like digital fungi, shift shape and – paradoxically – seem to drift and to obey the two captains at the helm. It’s an album of hypnotic and mesmerizing electronic landscapes based on various interlocked layers of rhythm. “Getting deeper into the world of modular systems introduced us to new ways of creating music,” they say, and it also allowed Gerth and Zimmer to redefine and rearrange styles and genres they generally feel drawn to – dub, riddims, anything with bass really –, so the heavy bass and percussive elements of Nocturnes don’t come in the colors you’d expect them to: Driftmachine’s palette stays true to the colors of night, a massive scale of gray.

With its meticulously displaced details and intricate harmony layers, Nocturnes also evokes the electronic avant-garde of the mid-70s, think Cluster during the band’s Zuckerzeit era. Nocturnes keeps the balance between intense, dramatic metrics and rather complex, modulated melodies. Also nodding to Krzysztof Komeda’s compositions (especially his score for Rosemary’s Baby) and the haunting, uncanny vibes of Raime, Nocturnes won’t let you sleep: “To us, the album sounds like staying awake the whole night; it unites all the different moods one might go through.”

All songs produced by Andreas Gerth and Florian Zimmer. Mastered by John Tejada.

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Driftmachine - Call Mr Moriba

"Living on Superstition" is the debut LP from New York native Phil Tortoroli a.k.a. James Place. After his initial cassette release “An Entire Matchbook A Night“ (Opal Tapes) in 2014, James Place returns with a harrowing, meditative record of candle-lit rhythms and frost-laden ambience. The album was composed using an intricate collection of analog equipment, including the TR-606, Casio SK-1, SP1200, and a multitude of vinyl and tape-based samples, and mastered by M. Geddes Gengras.

James Place has two points of reference: a palette of quiet, emotional sounds that reflects compositions from both electronic music's early experiments as well as a more contemporary style of hauntological exploration. This blend offers a mirror with which to view the world through - it's as if we've stepped into the long-forgotten attic.

It is his second nexus of inspiration with which Living on Superstition does not bear an allusion to a defined era. Engaging in a bacchanal waltz with deeply-contemplative ambience, the album is peppered with an array of street recordings that create overlapping folds of sound out of everyday vignettes. Intonations of the aquatic environs of Jürgen Müller and Robert Turman inform parts of the album, in addition to extended passages of primitive techno seemingly influenced by the early releases of Juan Mendez’s Silent Servant project.

Living on Superstition is ultimately a collection of midnight material recorded in a Manhattan high rise that, curiously, resembled a prison more so than an apartment. With the 13th floor actually marked as the 14th, an urgent disgust with the opulence of this rapidly gentrifying city is evident as a never-ending parade of brazenly destitute drunks and high-heeled clowns shriek with shallow delight from the streets below. If one listens closely, fragments of that insipid hedonism so common to today's American dream can be heard seeping into the recordings of James Place throughout his waking dream of an album. 

James Place — High Rise (Rainier)

AAAA — X Scroll Era
Umor Rex / catalog UR152 
LP vinyl, digital and streaming 
Release date: September 13, 2024 

Through X Scroll Era, Gabo Barranco, aka AAAA, conducts a rigorous overhaul of the aesthetics and statements of low-profile IDM, trance, and progressive-acid music typical of the early 2000’s. In addition to this inherent and undeniable veneration for the era, the pieces on this album — which originated from recordings and experimental exercises with gear and accidentally became an album — serve also as a kind of retrospective inspection of Mexico City's suburbs (Lomas de Sotelo), with landscapes full of indiscriminate concrete, highways of two and three levels, factories, and parking lots that have supplanted nature with their own detached beauty. It is a sound memory, a specific melancholy that praises skate squads of the area, friends from the past, parties, and substances. It reviews the decline of rave culture but also its resilience and capacity for transformation. What AAAA offers us with X Scroll Era is an almost multigenerational soundtrack, a memory that feels collective and recollects euphoria, ecstasy, and nostalgia.
After several LPs and EPs (Acid Test, Omnidisc, Janushoved) and several years active in the dance and contemplative electronic music circuit (MUTEK, BERGHAIN, iii Points, RBMA), X Scroll Era is the first album by Gabo Barranco, aka AAAA, published on the Mexican label Umor Rex.

All music composed, produced and mixed by Gabo Barranco aka AAAA in Centro Histórico, Mexico City, between January and April 2024. Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studio, NY.
Photos by Mateo Barbuzzi. Design by Daniel Castrejón.

Umor Rex Records © Mexico 2024 / UPC: 796520479906  
Press & general inquiries: editor@umor-rex.com 
Worldwide distributed by Morr Music Distribution GmbH

AAAA - Refugio

X Scroll Era

AAAA - X Scroll Era

Driftmachine & Ammer — Sonic Behaviour
Vinyl LP LTD + DIGITAL
CATALOG UR151 — RELEASED MAY 2024

All music composed by Andreas Ammer, Andreas Gerth, Florian Zimmer; Berlin & Berg 2022—2023. Andreas Gerth / Florian Zimmer: electronics Andreas Ammer: sirens. “Song to Noise” words by Deryn Rees-Jones, taken from Signs Round a Dead Body (Seren) 1998; german translation by Birgit Kreipe; voices: Deryn Rees-Jones & Alexander Hacke “The Siren is a simple device” & “Sonic sculpture” words by Andreas Ammer; voice: Ted Milton. Artwork by Daniel Castrejón. Mastered by John Tejada.

Sonic Behaviour

Driftmachine - Song To Noise (Version)

Sirens is the first collaborative LP of Kara-Lis Coverdale (Tim Hecker, L/B) and LXV (David Sutton). Following their respective solo cassette releases Aftertouches (2015) and Spectral Playmate (2014) on Sacred Phrases, Coverdale and LXV debut on Umor Rex with a collection of multi-textural and multi-source electronic music rich in narrative, melody, and spectral intrigue.

LP limited to 300 copies pressed on virgin vinyl. Packaged in an uncoated stock jacket with double sided insert, black polylined inner sleeve, and free download coupon. This is a pre-order for May 19th street date. PRE-ORDER HERE.

Inspired by the link between seduction and violence, Sirens comprises a series of timbrally vast anamorphic pieces that poise the voice as a newly imagined tool of multiplicity. Processes of sample manipulation, signal processing, routing, and source design inform instrumental writing and performance in feedback until intertwined, flickering between states of conflict and consonance. Apparitions of the schitzophrenic voice are at one moment fractured and cold and at the next full of warmth and vivaciousness, embodying velvet rituals of romanticism in the digital age.

Ultimately, Sirens is music for ambitious dreamers: surreal sound portraits sound like the warmth of the world laid over an ice cold virtual altar. LXV’s vocal truncations and fleshy sound palettes depict the archivation of the breath and aural fantasies of the flesh which Coverdale sets amongst a vast and unconfined landscape of deeper and unknown force. Harmonically active and dynamic orchestrations underpin post-sacred tonalities while brooding pipe organs, sphinx flutes, and hailstorms of metallic percussion characterize uniquely disjointed discussions between disparate compositional ontologies. At times violent and at others serenely peaceful and seductive, these pieces, at their most powerful moments illuminate a felt space between cybernetic energy and the body. 

Kara-Lis Coverdale and LXV — Informant

Nicolás Melmann — Música Aperta

Umor Rex, catalog UR154
Vinyl LP, digital and streaming 
Release date: April 4, 2025

Nicolás Melmann (born in Buenos Aires and now based in Barcelona) explores sound's social and poetic dimensions through transdisciplinary projects. Drawing inspiration from Erik Satie's concept of "furniture music," Melmann's compositions transform the listening experience into havens of calm and contemplation.

Música Aperta is a fusion of acoustic and electronic sounds, rich in beautiful harmonies, where carefully soft elements interplay with delicate raspiness. Made up of three parts, the music unfolds slowly, immersing the listener in time. Música Aperta resonates with echoes of Satie, the meditative minimalism of Arvo Pärt, the roughness of Phill Niblock, and the nostalgic reflections of Richard Skelton.

Another way of listening to Música Aperta is through its digital encore – an extension of the album experience that brings the concept of open music to life – "a work that remains unfinished and open to transformation." The website features a reactive audiovisual interface where images dynamically respond to the music's behavior, translating electroacoustic frequencies into real-time cinematic landscapes. The album blends instrumental and electronic textures while allowing listeners to interact with different layers through a virtual mixer, enabling them to create unique sound combinations and personal sonic experiences.

All songs written and performed by Nicolás Melmann in Château Éphémère 
Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studio, NY
Artwork by Daniel Castrejón

Project supported by: Asylum Arts / The Neighborhood (New York), and Château Éphémère - Fabrique Sonore et Numérique (Poissy).


VINYL LP
A1  Música Aperta I  — (06:30)
A2  Música Aperta II  — (11:17)
B3  Música Aperta III — (18:36)

Umor Rex records 2025 / UPC: 796520479937
Press & general inquiries: editor@umor-rex.com 
Worldwide distributed by Morr Music Distribution GmbH 
Anklamer Str. 30, 10115 Berlin  /  order@morrmusic.com

Música Aperta

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Nicolás Melmann - Música Aperta II

Roughly two years after the release of their initial statement of intent, debut single “Toutpartout PT2” with its hypnotic ripples, Andi Haberl and Florian Zimmer aka Bella Wakame have successfully channeled the magic of a 2024 live recording (captured at Berlin’s Donau115 & Silent Green) into their first proper studio offering. You can hear inspirations ranging from Bitchin Bajas, Jeremiah Chiu to Groupshow (Jelinek, Leichtmann, Pekler), the hypnotic, intricate battle between form and freedom (the fun of momentary formlessness) continues to unfold over the course of 10 new tracks, featuring album guest Indra Dunis (Peaking Lights). Their first single "Shadows of Nambei" was very much inspired by the wonderful band Spirit Fest and their song "Nambei".

You can either shorten the reins, or you can loosen them – and give things more slack. With Bella Wakame, it’s definitely the latter. Constantly challenging each other, they’re tapping a whole new energy. Tons of different energies.

Based on the impulsive, propulsive interplay between drums/sensory percussion (Andi Haberl) and modular synthesizer (Florian Zimmer), the frenzied, free-form results take listeners into completely new dimensions – sonic worlds that don’t really sound anything...  more
credits

released by Umor Rex © 2025
All songs written & produced by Bella Wakame.
(Andi Haberl & Florian Zimmer). Recorded live 2024 in Berlin at Silent Green, Donau 115 & our homes. Live recordings by Tadklimp. Mixed by Tadklimp, Berlin 2024. Words on The Island of Unknowns by Indra Dunis.

Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studio in New York.
Artwork by Daniel Castrejón in Mexico City.

Bella Wakame

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Shades of Nambei

Mercurio is the debut album by Opuntia, the solo project of Mexico City producer Camila de Laborde. After three albums with her duo/band, Camila Fuchs (ATP/Felte, etc.), Camila decides to embark on a new path of musical and interpersonal exploration with Opuntia as her new alias, and with the album Mercurio as a statement of metamorphosis and creative process.

Broadly speaking, Mercurio is a direct impact of beautiful melodies, rhythms, and voices that traverse a leftfield electronic pop axis, sprinkled with elegant nods to experimental transitions. In Mercurio, you can sense the spaces, textures, and echoes, akin to a sort of retro Sci-Fi analogy. Bass hits or percussions carry a weight that bursts forth yet delicately dissolves instantly – perhaps another analogy, akin to liquid metal. From softness to fury across the ten songs, Opuntia proposes an artistic reinvention in constant movement. Speeds and spaces change, but the narrative remains consistent from beginning to end – finding a place, a resolved utopia. Mercurio is darkly joyful, with substantial doses of sophisticated pop.

Umor Rex @ 2024
Opuntia — Mercurio
Vinyl LP LTD + DIGITAL

usic and lyrics by Camila de Laborde (Opuntia).

Mercurio

Opuntia - The starting beat

This album, crafted entirely within a subharmonic framework and meticulously processed through tape manipulation, stands as Concepción Huerta’s sharpest work to date—undoubtedly her most abrasive, intense, and exhilarating. Her signature remains intact: a practice deeply rooted in drone, musique concrète, and hauntingly visceral textures—a kind of soundtrack that evokes powerful, image-driven narratives.

Conceptually, Huerta’s sonic vision evokes an image of open veins, not human veins, but those of the earth itself, the open veins of Latin America. These nervures are, in truth, rivers of lava; fury transmuted into fire coursing beneath the land until it erupts. The album is, in a way, a reflection on dispossession, resource extraction, and colonization. But beyond being a historical commentary—one that some might relegate to a forgotten past—it is also a reminder of the present, of how these practices persist in contemporary, postmodern guises.

It serves as both a tribute to the literary work of Eduardo Galeano, one of the most influential voices of Latin American leftist thought, and a howl from the Lacandon jungle in Mexico, resonating with the Zapatista struggle, the resistance of the Guaraní people in Paraguay and Argentina, and the voices of Indigenous communities across Latin America.

In the 16th century, a book titled Visión de los vencidos (The Broken Spears) was published in Mexico, compiling Nahuatl texts that presented the unofficial history, the account of the defeated. Concepción Huerta’s album El Sol de los Muertos (The Sun of the Dead) is not a call to action nor a reactionary manifesto, but an invitation to reflection, a historical reexamination. It urges us not to accept the official narrative at face value and serves as a warning, to remain vigilant and, within our capacities, resist the resurgence of fascism and colonialism in all its modern forms.

Recorded by Concepción Huerta in 2024 between Berlin, The Hague, and Mexico City. Volcano photography by Magaly Ugarte. Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studio, New York. The cover was risograph printed in Barcelona by Mateo Barbuzzi aka Club del Prado. Design by Daniel Castrejón in Mexico City.

El Sol de los Muertos

cassette or digital

Los Ecos de las Voces del Silencio

Different Forces is the second album by Hamburg-based duo Phantom Horse, following their acclaimed self-titled album debut on Dekorder. These polyrhythmic vehicles are driven under the influence of Cluster and Harmonia, that venerable school of out-there German explorers; the tuneful ghost of Moondog can also be seen on the rear-view mirror, while the landscape rushes by with the hypnotic pulse of 1960’s Minimalism.

Packed in their distinct homelike, warm sound, Phantom Horse effortlessly follow their path to find a melancholic playfulness in the heart of ancient machines. Conjuring the picture of transmogrified humanoid characters, modular and analogue synthesizers, antique drum machines, e-pianos, guitar, tape effects and various percussion devices create a comforting condition that involves the listener in some analogue computer game for a lost jazz world. Their approach on widespread compositions shows an elaborated vigor, an earnest love for slowly evolving melodies. Phantom Horse yet never fail to step on bridges that link the different subspecies of non-academic minimal music - from kraut to Mr. Eno and retour on detour. With Different Forces, Ulf Schütte and Niklas Dommaschk, whose names might be familiar to those in the know, provide their fast motion picture soundtrack for the genesis of a desert or whatever - if you listen carefully, different worlds will come into being.

Buy LP / DL

Phantom Horse — Different Forces

Koen Holtkamp — Voice Model
© Umor Rex Records

Koen Holtkamp’s music is never quite what it seems. There are distinct textures, tones, structures, relationships, and references —the things that bring us back again and again, but the undercurrent remains elusive.

For listeners unaware of Holtkamp’s solo efforts, most will have encountered him as half of the Brooklyn based duo Mountains (Thrill Jockey) —a project which has pushed musical boundaries for more than a decade. Voice Model wades effortlessly into this same ambitious territory, but focuses on the breadth of possibility activated by a narrow band of sonorities. It’s two interrelated works, Scene One and Scene Two, feature Holtkamp on piano, modular synth, bowls, cymbals and processing, as well as contributions by Nina Mehta on Flute and Josh Millrod on trumpet. Both sides, though in clear conversation, weave autonomous worlds - collapsing the ground between the historic efforts of Groupe de Recherche Musicales (GRM), New Age, and contemporary avant-garde practice, while sculpting their own worlds of sonic potential and understanding.

Voice Model’s fascinating intricacy works gradually like the sediment of time, gathering beneath a pool of conflicting streams, and defying the normal expectation of structure and artistry. Though the album fits seamlessly into the larger body of Holtkamp’s output, his hand remains elusive. Sounds appear to have sculpted themselves - to have appeared from an organic inevitability. This is an exploration of discrete encounters within an electronic ecosystem - a world of chance, where the dimensions of time unfold. As its tones ricochet off each other, they lead us not to themselves, but towards a whole. Single tones and textures expand and bleed, generations of influence raise their heads and disappear into the shadows.

Recorded in 2014 and 2015 before being allowed to percolate for the better part of a year, Voice Model finds an artist at the height of his powers —curious, and at equal ease with challenge and invitation. It’s singular and mature and welcomes listeners both seasoned and new to these territories.

—

Recorded and mixed by Koen Holtkamp in Brooklyn, NY 2015/2016
Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studio
Design by Daniel Castrejon

Voice Model

Koen Holtkamp — Scene I

Driftmachine — (Shackleton RMX)
From the album "Radiations" available in LP & Digital
www.umor-rex.org
© Umor Rex Records

The fourth album of Driftmachine is not an album in the classical context, it´s a collection of new studio music, remixes of Shackleton and The Sight Below, and material previously available only in digital formats. LP limited edition of 350 copies pressed on purple colored vinyl, includes a post card with original artwork and free download coupon.

The album starts off with the surprising Shackleton remix of Radiations, a little gem gleaming with all the spacious percussions you can expect from the British producer. Stretching vibrations over tense atmospheres and post-techno broken beats, Shackleton (who generously offered to contribute this track on his own initiative) delivers a fine feat of rhythmic acrobatics, deconstructing Driftmachine’s modular synthesis. The album features Driftmachine’s latest studio track, Vermiform Burrows, a swinging composition very much in line with the duo’s recent rhythm-oriented work. The Sight Below’s remix of Vermiform Burrows offers a very different perspective and interpretation of their music: minutely detailed and nebulous, an expansive ambient-techno track that de-accelerates the original’s beat. Other surprise in store, is Call Mr. Moriba, which was originally offered as a digital-only bonus-track on the debut album Nocturnes (2014), Driftmachine’s critically acclaimed first LP, and is now available in vinyl format for the first time. Also included is the original LP version of Radiations, first published in the Colliding Contours (2015) album. Driftmachine’s Radiations is an excellent showcase of Andreas Gerth and Florian Zimmer’s sound: obsessive, symmetrical, multilayered; a deep and elegant language based on the shaky, unpredictable foundations of modular synthesis.

Produced by Andreas Gerth & Florian Zimmer
Remixes by Shackleton and The Sight Below
Mastered by John Tejada
Artwork by Daniel Castrejon

Radiations

radiations

Driftmachine — Radiations (Shackleton RMX)

Rafael Anton Irisarri from "The Shameless Years"
Available in LP & Digital
www.umor-rex.org © 2017 Umor Rex Records

Post-minimalist American composer Rafael Anton Irisarri makes his Umor Rex debut with bold new album, The Shameless Years. Inspired by a troubled socio-political climate, buried melodies punch their way through a bleak cover of noisy drones, periodically veering into some of Irisarri’s most eerily pertinent music to date.

One of Rafael Anton Irisarri’s most thematically and sonically cohesive records to date The Shameless Years came together in a relatively short burst of creativity starting at the end of 2016. Rediscovering some relatively older tools - namely Native Instruments’ Reaktor, Absynth, and Kontakt software - Irisarri combined them with his collection of guitars, pedals, amps, and analogue processing gear, turning his Black Knoll Studio north of NYC into a powerful writing tool. Completed quickly by Irisarri’s standards, let alone during a period of social upheaval in American society, the record faces down several key personal themes. The title, suggests Irisarri, could in fact be seen as a reflection of the era of shamelessness we’re currently living in; a time of fake news and alternative facts.

Two tracks were completely remotely between Irisarri in New York and Umor Rex veteran Siavash Amini from his home in Tehran, Iran. This music came together at the peak of all the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric happening in the USA, not to mention the banning of Iranians from entering the country, explains Irisarri. The diptych with Amini, ‘Karma Krama’ and ‘The Faithless’, seems bathed in additional waves of sorrow and dread. The wash of symphonic stormclouds of synth drones and processed notes on the latter gradually appears and disappears over the course of thirteen mournful minutes.

‘Rh Negative’ marches gigantic guitars through towering valleys of scarred ambient noise dealing with Irisarri’s own heritage, many of his ancestors having come to America to escape poverty and oppression. The refusal of modern America to extend similar sanctuary to refugees escaping turmoil weighs heavily on the composer. Elsewhere an emotional onslaught of notes buried in mounds of greyscale noise on ‘Sky Burial’ aims to deal with Irisarri’s very own mortality – something he was recently confronted with following health scares, an accident, and a near-death experience in 2016. Pushing 40 as this album was being made, the composer is constantly aware that he’s already outlived his own father, who died at the age of 32. Facing down both intolerance and the void, the epic soundscapes of The Shameless Years are a vast cry of emotion from Irisarri. The clock is ticking - gotta make the most out of it while you still can.

All songs written and performed by Rafael Anton Irisarri, except #5 & #6 written and performed with Siavash Amini. Design by Daniel Castrejón, photos by Camilo Christen. Mastered by James Plotkin.

The Shameless Years

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Rafael Anton Irisarri — RH Negative

Kohl "The Inquisition", from the album "Learned Ethics / Imposed Ethics"
Cassette & Digital © 2018 Umor Rex Records
www.umor-rex.org

Kohl is the dub-based project of New York City artist and musician Nathaniel Young. With Kohl, Nathaniel focuses on enveloping melodies and sounds that are often contrasted with subtle and evolving minimal textures and the rhythmic patterns generated from them. The resulting music is contemplative and warm, invoking reflection while maintaining a sense of motion/evolution. The Kohl project is an outlet for personal transformation; it is Young rewiring his understanding of morality and ethics. Interpretations of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘good’ and ‘evil’. Musically, Learned Ethics / Imposed Ethics is a fine collection of ultra-textural ambient pieces with minimal changes like "The Possibility Of The Infinite", slow tempo tracks like "Moral Supposition", the dance-floor focused "Resolution (Empathy)", and "The Inquisition", which displays Kohl’s signature dub-techno style.

Recorded and produced in summer 2016, NYC by Nathaniel Young. Vocal portions on tracks 3-4 contains dialogue between Nathaniel Young and Warren Mark Way.

Mastered by Dino Spiluttini in Vienna
Design & photo by Daniel Castrejón

Learned Ethics / Imposed Ethics

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Kohl — The Inquisition

James Place "Still Waves to a Whisper"
LP & Digital © 2019 Umor Rex Records
www.umor-rex.org

James Place returns with a new EP Still Waves To A Whisper (fourth release on Umor Rex). Flitting between the dreamworld of hauntological synth music and hypnotic techno functionality, Still Waves To Whisper showcases James Place's continuing development of dramatic (and varied) sound worlds.

Musically, Still Waves To A Whisper contains both some of the most immediately danceable and straight up beautiful tracks of James Place's career. Utilising voice samples from the same source as his last album, Voices Bloom, opener 'Known Cry' is a heavenly coda of sunlight bursting through clouds, warm synths drifting across restrained pulses. 'Timing and Lighting' went through countless live iterations before the current version was tracked for this album, a tunneling exploration of rhythm with a dose of sardonic humor. 'Move In Blue (Homeward Mix)' is James Places' rework of a track from 2017's Voices Bloom, obsessively remixed and revisited, here littered with additional melodies and populated by newly sampled voices. Closing track 'Names' is perhaps the most outright beautiful James Place recording to date. A stripped back rework of a live version of Living On Superstition’s 'Another Mourning In America', the tune is based on a melodic line written after the studio recorded version. Interwoven with a sampled vocal, and rinsed of all of the original song, 'Names' is left behind a stark and compelling descendant. The digital release includes a remix of 'Move In Blue' by Persuasion aka Devon Hansen. 

The title, Still Waves To A Whisper, stems from a conversation between Place and another artist on methods to ease anxieties and the benefits of a focused practice. The hope's for this music to continue that conversation on a larger scale. 

All songs written, produced and recorded by Phil Tortoroli between 2015—2018 in Brooklyn, NY. Vocals by Sam Sally and an unknown guest.

Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studio, NY. Photos & Design by Daniel Castrejón.

Still Waves To A Whisper

James Place — Timing and Lighting

Carl Oesterhelt "Eleven Pieces for Synthesizer"
LP & Digital © 2019 Umor Rex Records
www.umor-rex.org

Umor Rex presents Eleven Pieces for Synthesizer, a collection of synth instrumentals by German composer Carl Oesterhelt. Oesterhelt has been recording a mixture of straddling kosmische and classical traditions for years on his own reel tape machine, overdubbing stacks of analogue gear to create a compelling body of work that brings fresh emotional depth and rhythmic experimentation to the syntax of the modern synthesizer.
 
Born in Munich in 1968, Carl Oesterhelt has worked in a variety of fields throughout a long and impressive career. His discography includes tenures with Neue Deutsche Welle legends FSK, intellectual disco outfit Merricks, and German legends The Notwist. His solo work has travelled even further and wider, taking in contemporary classical and chamber music, music for exhibitions and radio plays, not to mention notable collaborations with saxophonist Johannes Enders and legendary founding member of Faust, Hans Joachim Irmler. 
 
Oesterhelt augments his own analogue arsenal with synthesizers borrowed from musician friends, resulting in almost fifteen different synthesizers –some in fruitful states of disrepair– which feature on the album. Opener “La chapelle de Francis Lai” pays tribute to the French film composer with a synthesized church organ procession, disintegrating kraut-funk-noir which emerges on “Poro Secret Society”. Then, eerie sound effects mash with minimal techno rhythms on “Makonde Pattern”, and –most surprisingly– Oesterhelt turns his keys into a sub-Saharan drum ceremony on “Trinidad Pattern”. The sheer range of Eleven Pieces for Synthesizer is an impressive achievement unto itself. Yet it is Oesterhelt’s instincts as a composer which make these (largely improvised) recordings so compelling. Tensions build and emotions stir throughout each piece with a proficiency perfected through his work for the stage.
 
Musically associates, and directly connected to a heritage of German electronics, Eleven Pieces for Synthesizer touches upon similar ground to the likes of Musik von Harmonia in its pulsations, Klaus Schulze’s sonically adventurous Cyborg, and Tangerine Dream at their earliest and most primitive. The hypnotic ritualism of early African field recordings, or the spiritual regality of European organ music also convey key reference points in the formulation of this collection. Oesterhelt’s compositions here have taken the musically primitive and the emotionally raw, and woven them into a rich synthetic soundworld all of his own.

Eleven Pieces for Synthesizer

Carl Oesterhelt — Simple Theme

Sol Oosel "En allégeance à l'inconnaissable - Une étude en chorégraphie pour le flux d'énergie"
LP & Digital © 2019 Umor Rex Records
www.umor-rex.org

En allégeance à l'inconnaissable - Une étude en chorégraphie pour le flux d'énergie

Sol Oosel — Attunement For A Thunderstorm

Phantom Horse - "Mehr Null"
Umor Rex 2020, UR129

Limited edition of 300 copies on Pink Transparent vinyl LP, digital downloads and streamings.

"Mehr Null" translates to More Zero. The title of Phantom Horse’s third record for Umor Rex could either be seen as a request (to the listener? to the sound engineer?) to expect or to do or to imagine less; or just as the description of a state.

The Hamburg / Nijmegen based duo of Ulf Schuette and Niklas Dommaschk is indeed moving nearer to zero: the arrangements are less illuminated; there’s a significant nod to JD Emmanuel’s working class vision of minimalism. Hitherto walking in the kraut tradition (but moving away more and more), Phantom Horse heads toward the synth swamps where the old-fashioned shamanic disco is not yet abandoned. From the light green melancholy of "Owl" to the unexpected playfulness of the title track, the duo has obviously worked hard on leaving things out. Still, there’s light-footed magic like in "Common Magic", the background music for a comet rain coming into your world. You can find hints to the lower-key film scores by Tangerine Dream, but Phantom Horse’s approach fits more into a factory building where sad robots are working their night shifts on a sea horse machine. It’s the perfect soundtrack to the non hungover day after.

Mehr Null

Phantom Horse — Mehr Null

Record label based in Mexico City, distributed worldwide by Morr Music.

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