Through the sublimely shot images and the stunning and engrossing audio material, ‘Machine Rooms’ really does set the bar for a conceptual album, with both aspects of this beautiful looking package really complimenting the other, and enhancing the synesthetic vision of the whole entity. – Fluid Radio

It is from this penchant for collaboration that Ian set about reworking Wolfskin, enlisting Aaron Martin to help him reinvent the project. The eventual fruits of their labour yielded ‘Wolven (A Modern Interpretation)’ which features Aaron’s cello alongside further layers of organ, keys and guitar fed through various tape reel machines. Wolven doesn’t just portray the original recordings from Wolfskin in a different light – it also takes another look at the concept of dreams and nightmares. This time, the album strives to literally tread the pathways in Ian’s dreams – not without its terrifying moments along the way but always accompanied by a comfort pillow to keep you from harm. The dream-like serenity of Wolfskin remains, joined this time by kaleidoscopic visions of stars, night and never ending bottomless lakes filled with stars, both actual and reflected. Despite the obvious darkness, a child-like innocence prevails.

A split release between Hibernate and Komu, Wolven (A Modern Interpretation) is a double disc package limited edition of 500. Disc 1 is a reworking with Aaron Martin on cello, and mixed in with interpretations by Dag Rosenqvist, Spheruleus, Pillowdiver, y0t0, and Hakobune. Mastered by Rafael Irisarri. The second disc is an entire album reworked by Brock Van Wey aka bvdub.

The sleeve has been beautifully designed by Ian M Hazeldine with photography by Eirik Holmøyvik.

Since Ian Hawgood sets the musical bar as high as can be, and doesn’t create anything remotely approaching standard, you can be sure of special music. Across years, across periods, Wolven will, with all probability, still sound pretty amazing fifty years down the line. – Fluid Radio

Disc 1 Preview:

Disc 2 Preview:

Darren Harper met the analog recorder. Reflections on loss, surrender, hope, and indifference. Experiments for ReVox A77, Fender Telecaster, Piano, Field Recordings, and Ableton Live.

All tracks W/P by Darren Harper 2012/13

Photo: Barker Reservoir, Nederland, Co. Autumn, 2012 by Darren Harper. Mastered by Seth Chrisman.

01. Upon The Edge Of An Imaginary Sea, I remembered How Things Once Could Be (4:52)
02. Still (4:02)
03. A Breath, Release (7:08)
04. Pastorale Loop (6:52)
05. Meander; Between (6:28)
06. Submerged; Alone & Revealed (5:04)

The album features friends from all over the world including martin siewert (radian, trapist), hideki umezawa (pawn), james yates (epic 45, pattern theory), fabian pollack, giulio aldinucci, all tupolev members and patrick pulsinger, who provided several self-recorded synth samples.

Serza is presented live either by alexandr vatagin (cello, synth, laptop) solo or as a trio: alexandr vatagin (bass, nordlead, laptop), martin siewert (guitar, devices) and david schweighart (drums).

Born in ukraine in the early 80ies, vatagin moved to austria in the beginning of the 90ies, and only started to make music another decade later. he plays in tupolev and port-royal and founded the project quarz, which recently released its first album on cronica. he has collaborated with b. fleischmann, stefan nemeth (lokai), steven hess (pan american), philippe petit (strings of consciousness), bernhard breuer (elektro guzzi, metalycee), alexander schubert, kutin (dirac), nicolas bernier and many others and played concerts all over western, central and eastern europe. his solo works and works he was involved in were released on valeot records, morr music, cronica, n5md, mikroton, moozak and many more.

Through Glass emerged from thoughts about the power of the light filtered through glass: as the light, so the sound can be reflected in a thousand directions, giving rise to previously inaudible material, with a mysterious and intense charm. Attilio Novellino explores the intersection between noise, dissonance and melody, with a physical and emotional approach to his compositions, aiming to create an unconventional and uncontrollable beauty. Guitar, electronics, deep basses, field recordings, piano and harsh distortions are used to build dreamy and melancholy soundscapes, to draw floating layers and to launch drone textures that become noise, streaked by misty romanticism, characterized by a pronounced emotional side that combines post-industrial visions, deep-sea creature lights, nocturnal glows, blurred pictures and old memories.

Over the last years, Attilio Novellino has performed at festivals and art events such Flussi Festival and Diagonal Jazz / Diagonal Visual, playing, during the last edition, a fully improvised set with Ahleuchatistas, as a duo with his live partner Leastupperbound.

‘Ivory’ is the third solo-record by Vienna-based ‘soundworker’ Peter Kutin. The guitar is the instrument that creates / triggers most of the sound we can hear on this record, real-time transformed by Peter’s laptop. Only for three tracks other instruments were used additionally: a viola, a korg synth and a double bass, the latter being played by Matija Schellander on the sparkling ‘after the plague’ (#4).

‘Ivory’ developed while Kutin was writing music for old silent movies for the Austrian film-archive. Somehow one can still hear the filmscore, the cinematographic idea within the music. The album offers sounds that will thrill our ears, allows journeys through different sonic spaces, creates pictures inside the listeners head; ‘world without end’ might be the only track that almost reaches the format of a ‘pop-track’, while most of the other tracks want and need you to listen closer. The minimal final anthem ‘lonesome monster’ seems to move only in its spectrum, not in metrum. The partial-tunes sing the song. A piece of music that stretches time, positioning itself somewhere besides Stars of the Lid’s orchestral style.

Peter Kutin’s works range from modern compositions / installations presented in neat gallery places to live-noise performances in dirty clubspaces. At solo live performances as ‘Kutin’, he creates impressive, sparkling sonic glooms, dense soundscapes and walls of sound mainly using guitar and laptop.

Besides his activities as solo musician, he founded the band ‘dirac’ that released acclaimed records on labels such as Spekk (Japan), U-Cover (Belgium) and Valeot. His solo works were released on U-Cover and Karate-Joe (Austria) so far. He further works on the projects ‘Mimu’, Kutin-Roisz (with Billy Roisz) and composed music for theater-companies such as ‘God’s Entertainment’ or for the Austrian film-archive as well as for various film-directors.

Kutin worked and collaborated with artists like Billy Roisz, Dieb13, Heribert Friedl, Taku Unami, Kazuhisha Uchihashi, Manuel Knapp, Martin Siewert, Glim (Andreas Berger) and many more.

Wim Dehaen AKA Franck Condon is a sound artist originally from Leuven, Belgium currently residing in Olomouc, Czech Republic. His work focuses on musical application of mathematical techniques and visual representation of sound. In particular, frequency domain manipulations of sound are used extensively.

Previous work includes installation art at Ithaka XX festival and various live performances. Together with Geert Simonis, he is a founding member of art collective Collectief Tactique Triste and cassette imprint Vloekbandjes. Currently, he is involved in doctoral studies concerning combinatorial and organic chemistry.

Whilst obtaining my master’s degree in chemistry, I took a semester of theoretical courses. The concepts taught influenced me to make one track about each course. Every track is named after a part of the course that was particularly stimulating to my imagination.

The tracks were based on the topics between parentheses.

Purity Hall (polymer chemistry & physics)
Kristalveld (advanced inorganic chemistry)
Deceptive Simplicity (advanced NMR spectroscopy)
Umpolung (advanced organic chemistry)
Equilibrium Unfolding (nanostructured biomacromolecules)

The sounds were created by intensive spectral processing of varied sound sources. In particular, multiplication in the frequency domain (convolution) was prominently used.

1. Grohs – Untitled
2. Seth Cooke & Dominic Lash – Live at Cafe Kino, Bristol, 9th January 2013
3. Pausal – Fruition
4. John Chantler – Tone Works

Seismology is the second music event to be staged by The Ologies. It will include acts ranging from remarkably original analogue synthesis from John Chantler (Café Oto), classically influenced ambient artists Pausal and live improvisations from Seth Cooke (Bang the Bore) & Dominic Lash, among others.

TheOlogies are Joe Evans from Runningonair Music and Matt Poacher from Mountain*7 & The Liminal. As a joint project, The Ologies was started to introduce something different into the geographical area where they both lived. Despite its size and the presence of a university and an art college, Winchester has relatively few music venues and very little in terms of catering for experimental music – The Ologies series was set up to counter this. The Ologies does not favour any particular genre of music but instead aims to host highly contrasting work, both within and between each event.

he Bull Head Emperor known as the Gozu-Tenno is a fearsome protector deity found in Japanese esoteric Buddhism. His chief features emphasize his nature as a deity associated with epidemic disease, a Japanese god of the plague, a devastating infectious disease that killed many throughout Europe during the middle ages. Devastating, fearsome, esoteric, it’s these three words that summarize Chihei Hatakeyama’s latest album for Rural Colours. Drawing deeply on spiritual philosophies Chihei has created an album of vast depth, a depth that appears endless as layer upon layer of sounds are compiled into vast swelling and all together heart felt waves of sound.

Zen Lu is an experimental electronic musician, sound artist, new media artist, events curator living in Shenzhen (Guangdong, China). Zen Lu’s minute, meticulous and minimalist digital music style as well as events organized by him and his label have played a major role in bringing a new wave of artistic activities to Shenzhen and changing the cultural landscape of the city which has been long considered a cultural desert. During the whole 2012 he was busy co­organising the biggest autumn festival in Shenzhen, called “ChoP Festival ­ Polish Experimental Music in China”. After the busy time Zen finally had some time to start thinking about his new album. He came back to his hometown, where he grew up, and recovered the memories from his childhood creating an amazing EP called “River”

“Man Asleep” is an electronic experiment with a wide variety of instruments. The idea is to deform and reform the classic sounds of various instruments and vocals and to reuse them in an electronic and atmospheric setting. With an emphasis on experimentation the original musical output of the instrument is reshaped and distorted beyond recognition. A second constant is the use of housemade sounds and field recordings, varying from recordings from nature (rain, fire, footsteps in snow) to the use of selfmade wooden and plastic sound reproducing equipment. These field recordings and homemade sounds infuse the soundscapes with a more tangible and less elusive sensation.
Instruments and software: cello, violin, banjo, flute, duduk, percussion, house made sound devices, FL Studio, Audition.

Painstakingly constructed by multi-instrumentalist Kevin Scott Davis during more than two years of spiritual struggle and rebirth, ‘betacicadae: mouna’ is a lush, transcendental narrative in sound. It is a cohesive whole that employs a broad spectrum of textures and extends far beyond formula like “drone” or “field recordings.” The sounds absorb, project, embrace, and comfort the listener in imaginary geography—surreal, dreamlike spaces beween earth and otherworldliness. ‘mouna’ is an intimate personal statement, but also a universal musical narrative of redemption. Source material for each track began with field recordings: a farm in Oregon, a rainforest in Hawaii, different cities. An array of acoustic and electronic sounds were generated from scratch: instruments included guitars (electric, bass, lap steel), wood flute, vibraphone, harp, violin, percussion, synthesizers, effects pedals, and digital software.

Elegua Records is proud to present this debut release by betacicadae. Beginning with photographic images by Davis, the design, printing, and construction of the album’s physical editions are approached with the care and depth of feeling that the music deserves. Taking the label’s handmade DIY approach to limited editions a step further, clear vinyl and compact disc editions of 100 will include one-of-a-kind screen printed, stamped, and individually numbered inserts and transparencies. The physical editions will also include a unique download code with access to high-quality digital files of the album and bonus material.

Already Drowning, a song-cycle inspired by various myths & folktales about female water spirits, marks something of a departure for Aidan Baker. While still retaining his trademark sense of ambience & texture, the tracks on this album are much more structured & song-oriented, embracing a minimalist post-rock, slowcore style & featuring a different guest vocalist on each track.

Aidan Baker is a multi-instrumentalist, classically trained in flute, although his primary instrument is the guitar. Using various electronic effects combined with prepared &/or alternate performance methods, Baker creates music which generally falls within the ambient/experimental genres, but draws on influences from shoegaze & post-rock, contemporary classical & jazz. Over the course of the last decade, Baker has released numerous album, under his own name, with his duo Nadja, & with various other group projects, on such labels as Alien8 Recordings, Important Records, Broken Spine Productions, & Robotic Empire. He is also the author of several books of poetry. Baker has toured extensively around the world, appearing at such international festivals as FIMAV, SXSW, Unsound, & Pop Montreal. Baker, originally from Toronto, Canada, currently lives in Berlin, Germany.

TRS are on another level altogether when it comes to creative packaging!!! This latest offering comes in an edition of 100 uniquely handmade copies. Inside each copy is a stamped and printed, 9″ x 15″ heavyweight page from a 100 year old apothecary’s ledger, with all the original hand written prescriptions adhered thereon. Woven into this page in places are twigs. Each page is then tied up with antique string with an attached old, large, brass clothespin. Folded in three and hubbed in the center for the factory pressed disc, each of these pages with it’s printed vintage paper insert comes in a large antiqued envelope. Each envelope is printed, and distressed with Piedmont Pines ash, pastel, and ink… and hand stamped and sealed with blood red sealing wax.

The Ashes Of Piemonte, “Winter’s Fire”, is a seamlessly collaborative effort between Wil Bolton(Cheju), and Lee Anthony Norris(Norken). Working from their respective homes in the UK and Italy the two have woven together a moody, cinematic homage to the historical tragedy known as the Massacre Of Piedmonte. Inspired also by the famous poem by John Milton, “On The Late Massacre In Piedmonte”, this is a spatially atmospheric blend of organic synthy electronics, melancholic field recordings and sampled voiceovers, that suits the somewhat darkly medieval subject matter perfectly. A sensitively rendered soundtrack to a nightmare long gone…

The Ashes Of Piemonte, “Winter’s Fire”, is a seamlessly collaborative effort between Wil Bolton(Cheju), and Lee Anthony Norris(Norken). Working from their respective homes in the UK and Italy the two have woven together a moody, cinematic homage to the historical tragedy known as the Massacre Of Piedmonte. Inspired also by the famous poem by John Milton, “On The Late Massacre In Piedmonte”, this is a spatially atmospheric blend of organic synthy electronics, melancholic field recordings and sampled voiceovers, that suits the somewhat darkly medieval subject matter perfectly. A sensitively rendered soundtrack to a nightmare long gone…