The heart. The core of it all. A bloody, meaty muscle the size of a fist, pumping perpetually. Working, all day, everyday, against the clock. Nature’s own metronome. Sometimes you feel it throbbing in your throat, spasmodic, wanting to escape. Occasionally it explodes in warmth, sending sharp little electric needles of euphoria through the body. Now and then it sinks down to the stomach, acid, heavy like lead.

And one day it breaks — it is broken —, it shatters, quartered as if pulled apart by horses. It hurts. And the sharp pain, imploding, feels inescapable. A solitary ache, a blow, a deep hole which cannot be seen or explained. But you try to mend it. You reach for the glue and the duct tape. You pick pieces of gut and tripe and patch it back together. You shield it and harden it with leftover scrap metal. As long as it’s running.

Could heartbreak hardcore become a subgenre? A cathartic, visceral style nudging itself into the tradition of the hardcore continuum, written and produced by heartbroken musicians?

Heartbreak is the painful devastation left behind by the fact that we are no longer one. Most of us don’t know what to do with it. There is no funeral, no mourning. The capitalist structures which surround and smother us have no cure, no solution for heartbreak. There is no time for it: pain is not productive. That is: we cannot value it as we value a commodity, unless it is deeply enmeshed in layers of meta-post-ironic subterfuge, lest we seem vulnerable. Abstraction upon abstraction, we’ve forgotten what pain is and we’ve tried to hide it. Violet does not, because she cannot. Her approach is violent, immersive, euphoric sincerity. That’s the only way to escape.

HEART opens the EP with early-morning IDM inclinations, cushioned by a dubstep-y, wobbly bassline. It melts into angelical, nostalgic pads, topped with a dusty piano that morphs into some sort of brass instrument - and then back, like an indecypherable instrument, yet unknown to those who touch the earth. The track takes inspiration from one of Violet’s biggest influences, Jamal Moss AKA Hyeroglyphic Being and other sonic experimentalists who push the boundaries of palpability.

BREAK delves unbashedly into DnB territories, with a sub-bass piercing the mix in the pad-led oneiric intro — which leads us into a surprise jazz breakdown — and then a drop with a saturated, nasty jungle rave stab, deliberately navigating between opposing frequencies and states-of-being, like one does when heartbroken.

HARD is a no-frills (for Violet standards) ode to techno realness, to those propulsive dancefloor moments which help us believe that it's worth it to keep pushing through the pains of being pure at heart. It’s highly inspired in the UK techno tradition, with a pinch of dub and percussion for days.

CORE comes as an unexpected treat, the record’s closing act. A genreless groover that seems to melt all sorts of influences — from Depeche Mode to DJ Satélite. A fast-paced slow-burner, the track is chock-full of intricate sound design and romantic moments coming from layered pads. Everything, all at once.

If heartbreak is the core of this record, the cover art by Lisbon artists Shcuro and Postmodern Bot suggest tranquil blue skies are just around the corner. After all, we’re naive over here - and Violet still wants to die an optimist.

text by joão biscaia 
credits
released February 14, 2023

mastering by Ten Eight Seven
cover art by Postmodern Bot and Shcuro

NAIVE019 Violet - HEART/BREAK HARD/CORE (preview)

https://soundcloud.com/xxlyv for https://soundcloud.com/sand-circles

https://www.retreatradio.net/continuity

Continuity #27 w/ elly (01/10/23)

Pour cet épisode de notre résidence, nous avons le plaisir d'inviter l'artiste berlinoise Synthtati pour une heure d'expérimentation musicale.
Après avoir participé au premier numéro d'Ex Magazine avec ses œuvres visuelles, nous sommes ravis de poursuivre notre découverte de l'imaginaire de cette artiste à travers son oeuvre sonore.

Ex Magazine invite Synthtati

Head to Head

🛒: amphibianrecords.bandcamp.com/album/tran…-palestine

Instagram: 
https://www.instagram.com/ingerillel/
www.instagram.com/amphibian_rec/

Soundcloud: 
Inger Illel: https://on.soundcloud.com/14f12

For months we have been witnessing genocide and violence against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Our community is based on values of solidarity and empathy and we cannot and won’t stay silent. Thus we are releasing under the ‘Transmission for Palestine’ project, native to our home club - Ankali. Our effort is to raise awareness of the struggle and suffering of the Palestinian people. We believe in anti-colonialism and freedom of the Global South from Western imperialism.
Free Palestine 🇵🇸

All proceedings from this album will be donated to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund and Middle East Children's Alliance.

www.pcrf.net
www.mecaforpeace.org

IMPORTANT!
If you donate - not 100% of your donation will proceed to the PCRF because PayPal and Bandcamp take a decent amount of the earnings.
credits
released January 13, 2024

Artwork by Omar El-Sadek

Mastered by Ladislav Sterba

Amphibian Records 2024

Support

Inom - Bleeding Earth (Presented by Inger Illel)

ART ATTAKK HEADCORE - I NEED CRACK MIXXX

sillybon

Du Breakbeat à l’ancienne ! Spatial et tranchant🔥

GRAE

On The Move

Mad System

Shaketown

Bandcamp [only] https://rubber-denhaag.bandcamp.com/album/bakara

UVB76 — BAKARA | RUBBER007

UVB76 on RUBBER sees Parisians Gaëtan Bizien and Tioma Tchoulanov transposing their sonic con­coctions into the outskirts of club music. Re-thinking industrial reductionism, the duo presents us an experimental signature of clattering tones, field-recordings, and rapidly fluctuating effects. Breakneck rhythms in an ever-shifting dream phase—this is musique concrète at full speed.

1 – Hong
2 – Gauze
3 – Bakara
4 - Kong

All tracks recorded, mixed and produced by Gaëtan Bizien and Tioma Tchoulanov @uvbsoixanteseize
Mastering by Rupert Clervaux @cvx
Graphic design by Ruben Verkuylen
Words by Luke Cohlen

Shaketown

Zenker Brothers

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