Demeters Döttrar is the new trio of Ida Skibsted Cramer, Charlott Malmenholt and Astrid Øster Mortensen. Søndag I Spejlet ('Sunday In The Mirror') was mainly recorded in Gamlestaden, Gothenburg between 2022 and 2023 and consists of 8 tracks that lies somewhere in between 90's lo-fi experimental bedroom music and brash text-sound compositions channeled through the ever-inspiring cassette underground. Listening to Demeters Döttrar is like stepping into a parallel universe; a tiny unexplored corner with paper-thin walls or a very delicate bubble that is about to burst any moment. The instrumentation is sparse and mainly consists of guitar, vocals, prepared tapes and occasional harmonica. The recurrence of rain in different forms throughout the recording almost functions as a percussive backbone at times, the one thing except for the sound of the actual room that sort of keeps it all together. With one foot in Sweden and one foot in Denmark, the group is utilizing both countries' language in an uncompromising and peculiarly alluring way. The almost brutal intimacy brings the more mellow Deux Filles moments to mind, though music wise this owes more to Un, early Charalambides and at times groups like Dadamah. A daring, major statement and one of the most beautiful, strange and other-worldly debut albums we heard in quite a while. Mastered by Lasse Marhaug. Gloss laminated covers, comes with insert. Edition of 500 copies.

n their latest transatlantic collaboration released through Forlag For Fri Musik, Blod and Shadow Pattern from Canada merge their distinct sounds with surprising synergy. Recorded during the winter of 2024 across Gothenburg, Sweden and Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, this project sees Gustaf Dicksson's introspective lo-fi folk intertwined seamlessly with Nathan Ivanco's raw and experimental concrete music. Mixed and meticulously arranged by Nathan Ivanco, with mastering by Aaron Hutchison, the album is presented in a limited edition of 300 copies. Each copy features screenprinted artwork on repurposed cover jackets, enhancing the project's minimalist ethos and environmental consciousness. Blod and Shadow Pattern defy geographical boundaries and genre conventions, crafting an ambient and acoustic landscape that invites listeners into a world of subtle textures and emotive storytelling. This collaboration not only showcases their musical dexterity but also underscores the power of international artistic exchange in pushing creative boundaries.

Edition of 250 copies with Yves Klein Blue innersleeve and A4 insert with score. First ever release of Yves Klein’s groundbreaking conceptual symphonie “Monoton-Silence” conceived 1947-1948. Scored for 20 singers, 10 violins, 10 cellos, 3 double basses, 3 trumpets, 3 flutes and 3 oboes, the piece consists of a single 20-minute sustained D major chord followed by a 20-minute silence. The Symphonie ”Monoton-Silence” was a precedent to Klein’s later monochrome paintings and to the work of minimal musicians & composers, particularly La Monte Young’s drone music or John Cage’s 4′33″ and transforms Klein’s monochromatic paintings and sculpture into a monotone auditory experience. Performed April 1998 at Chapelle Ste Reita, Paris Conducted by Philippe Arrii Blachette Yves Klein (1928-1962) was the most influential, prominent, and controversial French artist to emerge in the 1950s. A leading figure of Nouveau Réalisme, Klein developed a ground-breaking practice that broke down boundaries between conceptual art, sculpture, painting, and performance. He is remembered above all for his use of a single color, the rich shade of ultramarine that he made his own: International Klein Blue. But the success of his sadly short-lived career lay in attacking many of the ideas that underpinned the abstract painting that had been dominant in France since the end of the Second World War. Animated by a quest to ‘liberate colour from the prison that is the line’, Yves Klein directed his attention to the monochrome which, to him, was the only form of painting that allowed to ‘make visible the absolute’. By choosing to express feeling rather than figurative form, he moved beyond ideas of artistic representation. His practice revealed of new way of conceptualizing the role of the artist, conceiving his whole life as an artwork. “In 1947, at a time when the consequences of Schönbergian compositional technique were still being heatedly debated and wrestled with in new music circles, the young man from Nice was thinking up a symphony that refrains from all development. It was composed of a single consonant sound – at rest in itself – that is sustained for twenty minutes, followed by a silence of equal length in which the sounding tone completely dissolves, leading beyond reverberations into the immateriality of sound space. Yves Klein himself saw the »Symphonie Monoton« as his central work, whose »subject is what I wanted to make of my life.« Everything that would characterize his future work is already apparent in this symphony. In the reduction to one sound and the following silence, Klein anticipates the effect of his monochromes, while the concept of the symphony points toward his aim of dematerializing art. From today’s standpoint, one might be tempted to see Yves Klein’s work as a precedent for the avant-garde formulations of the ’60s. A great deal of what he introduced would have a later evolution, although much was developing synchronously.” – Valerian Maly “During this period of concentration, I created, around 1947–1948, a monotone symphony whose theme expresses what I wished my life to be. This symphony of forty minutes duration (although that is of no importance, as one will see) consisted of one unique continuous sound, drawn out and deprived of its beginning and of its end, creating a feeling of vertigo and of aspiration outside of time. Thus even in its presence, this symphony does not exist. It exists outside of the phenomenology of time because it is neither born nor will it die, after existence. However, in the world of our possibilities of conscious perception, it is silence – audible presence.” – Yves Klein “Overcoming the problematics of Art”, 1959 “Silence … This is really my symphony and not the sounds during its performance. This silence is so marvelous because it grants happenstance and even sometimes the possibility of true happiness, if only for only a moment, for a moment whose duration is immeasurable.” – Yves Klein “Truth becomes Reality”, 1960

In 1972, trumpeter Baikida Carroll and some of his colleagues from the Black Artists Group (more precisely saxophonist/flutist Oliver Lake, trombonist Joseph Bowie, drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw and trumpeter Floyd LeFlore) took the advice of their friends in the Art Ensemble Of Chicago and left their native Missouri to come and discover the bright lights of Paris for themselves. The following year they would even get the chance to record their only album which would rapidly attain mythical status and a collector’s item: “In Paris, Aries 1973”. Therefore, it was not surprising that they crossed paths with Jef Gilson in the capital. He was always on the lookout for new artists for his recently formed Palm label and had been active on many fronts in jazz since the end of the 50s. The French bandleader/pianist/composer/sound engineer had already recorded, in the preceding months other American musicians who would go on to have great careers: Byard Lancaster, Keno Speller, Clint Jackson III, Khan Jamal… Gilson therefore offered Baikida Carroll the chance to record his first album under his own name, which would be the 13th release on the label. Carroll logically asked Oliver Lake to join him. He also recruited Manuel Villaroel, a young Franco-Chilien pianist from the group Matchi-Oul, who had already released an album on Futura in 1971 and would release another on Palm in 1976. The group was completed with the addition of Brazilian percussionist Naná Vasconcelos, who had just released a well-received album on the Saravah label. They were ready to enter the studio for the 3rd, 4th and 5th June 1974. The first side of the album is divided into two long tracks which send free jazz back to its long-lost African roots. The opener “Orange Fish Tears” indeed rolls out a jungle of percussion of all sorts and sizes -the whole group is involved- which weave and mix together reaching a point where all bearings are lost, lending a sense of wonder to the majestic entry of the brass and woodwinds, flying suddenly out from the undergrowth. “Forest Scorpion” (sic) is a real voodoo ceremony where a venomous percussive groove backs the fiery solos from keyboards and saxophone in a furious trance. A warning; after these two tracks listeners are physically and emotionally wiped out! The other side is more introspective. Deliberately using dissonance and repetition, “Rue Roger” -the only composition by Oliver Lake- in a long dialogue between trumpet and saxophone, could almost remind us of Terry Riley in his favourite ballpark. “Porte D'Orléans”, the fourth and final track on the album, has the group back to their old tricks in a long hallucinatory jam which owes as much to the contemporary music of György Ligeti as to the most angst-ridden Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack music (remember the heavy chords which beat through “Planet of the Apes»). With these two sides, and in under 45m, Baikida Carroll and his musicians show just what they can do, from cerebral to charnel without ever simplifying things. This is an indispensable album if you are a fan of free-wheeling avant-garde music from the Art Ensemble of Chicago to Sonic Youth and including Shabaka Hutchings and Rob Mazurek. For those with good taste, in other words.

The Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra was created in 1971 by an “old hand” of French free jazz, François Tusques. Free Jazz, was also the name of the recording made by the pianist and other like-minded Frenchmen (Michel Portal, François Jeanneau, Bernard Vitet, Beb Guérin and Charles Saudrais) in 1965. But, six years later Tusques had had his fill of free jazz. After having wondered, together with Barney Wilen (Le Nouveau Jazz) or even solo (Piano Dazibao and Dazibao N°2), if free jazz wasn’t a bit of a dead end, Tusques formed the Inter Communal, an association under the banner of which the different communities of the country would come together and compose, quite simply. If at first the structure was made up of professional musicians from the jazz scene it would rapidly seek out talent in the lively world of the MPF (Musique Populaire Française).{French Popular Music, ndlt} Compiled of extracts from concerts given between 1976 and 1978, L’Inter Communal is not the first album from the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra. But it is the one which shows with the most exuberance the “social function” which inhabited free jazz and popular music at the time. All the more so as, to head up the project, the group (made up of wind instruments: Michel Marre, Jo Maka, Adolf Winkler and Jean Méreu) called upon Spanish singer Carlos Andreu. Andreu, claimed Tusques, was a griot “who created of new genre of popular song improvised with our music, based on events going on at the time”. L’Intercommunal can start the festivities: on “Blues pour Miguel Enriquez”, it is first Thelonious Monk who is invoked in an homage to one of the leading figures of the Chilean revolution, and a victim of Pinochet. The circumstances may be serious, the music, though, is not. The musicians light a bonfire to bring together on the same frequency France and Spain, the Americas and Africa: “L’heure est à la lutte” (the time to fight is here ndlt), is the new song offered by the l’Intercommunal Free Dance Orchestra… As if proof were needed that their music is still more than timely!

AFJ-Series is short for Actions For Free Jazz. This was the slogan for Smalltown Superjazzz, borrowed at the time from Don Cherry & Penderek's The New Eternal Rhythm Orchestra track “Actions For Free Jazz Orchestra” from the 1971 album “Actions”. AFJ Series will be a series and a subsidiary label within the Smalltown Supersound label. The inspiration for the label is BYG Actuel, Incus, Freedom and ESP-Disk.

Long awaited repress of Hivemind's acclaimed debut LP, Maalem Mahmoud Gania's Colours of the Night. Easily among the best Gnawa records ever laid to tape, from one of Morocco’s great masters of the form, known among jazz fans for his wonderful collaborations with Pharoah Sanders, Peter Brötzmann, Hamid Drake. Hive Mind Records are proud to present Colours of the Night, the final studio recordings of deep, hypnotic Gnawa songs from the late, great Maalem Mahmoud Gania. The recordings see their first release outside of Morocco on 8 September 2017, and are available as a double vinyl LP and digital download. The release has been licensed directly from the Gania family and comes with the support of all who were involved in the original recordings. Colours of the Night is his first album to receive a vinyl release. Maalem Mahmoud Gania was one of Morocco's most famous Gnawa musicians. Gnawa is a musical and spiritual tradition originating in sub-Saharan Africa that has survived as a subculture within Moroccan society for centuries. The roots of the blues can be heard in its hypnotic rhythms.

New York-based Zoh Amba first cultivated her musical passion in the lush forests of the Appalachian mountains, playing to the woods around her home, before she studied at classical conservatories. Her music honors her roots, full of folk melodies, mesmerizing refrains, repeated incantations and powerfully-executed Free Jazz. Her sound is courageous and bold, soaring from muted hums to squeaky trebles, producing a confident sound imbued with an innate spirituality. On this project, Zoh Amba is joined by legendary artists William Parker (Bass, Gralla) and Francisco Mela (Drums), named the 2021 musician of the year by The New York City Jazz Record, who temper her daring saxophone with a lush percussive foundation and a steady flow. The second installation of this collaboration, O Life, O Light,

Piotr Damasiewicz opens for us the next chapter of his fascinating musical travels. This time, he comes back with his group/project Into The Roots, with whom he has already recorded two very well-received albums: Śpiwle and Watra. The records have not only met with splendid reception on the part of jazz and improvised music fans, but have also brought the artist and his group the grand prix of the Polish Radio Folk Music Festival “New Tradition”. This not only goes to prove the power of the artist’s creation, but also shows that his very personal artistic vision in a natural way transgresses borders of genre and environment. This happens, first of all, thanks to the passionate creative vision of the group’s leader as well as his ready dialogue with various musical traditions, but also owes a lot to the strong emotional and spiritual element of the elaborate whole that each of the records is. In his most recent album, the artist further develops the motifs initiated in the previous records, offering a vision which is strikingly coherent, in spite of its springing from so diverse inspirations. Of course, if we were in need of a label, then the name of „jazz musician” would suit Damasiewicz the best. Yet, this term has come to mean so much nowadays, that due to its generality it means almost nothing. Let us then add quickly that most of his works published under the label L.A.S., all the more those realized within the Into The Roots project, can be counted among those created by musicians representing such forms of understanding jazz and jazz expression, and the special kind of responsibility for sound, such as Pharoah Sanders, Kahil El’Zabar, Don Cherry, or the members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. That is, with those, who, bravely transgressing the beaten tracks of habit and alleged stylistic duties, have reached truly new worlds – not with the intention of dazzling the listeners or achieving commercial success, but in order to seek the source, depth and one’s own truth – often where the world of sound touches upon metaphysics. In Damasiewicz’s case, his thorough come-back to the roots happens not in order to „employ” the roots, but in order to refresh his own story through their creative power. That is why, in his music-making – just like in the music-making of the afore-mentioned musicians – you will not find the tendency to come and draw inspiration from traditional songs for sheer folksiness and then build your own musical story in a random way. The compositions proposed by Damasiewicz come into the world of traditional music in an organic way and, however they sometimes speak their own, say: modern, contemporary, jazz language, at the same time they remain in unceasing dialogue, even more; in unceasing interpretation of a folk, traditional theme. Only, it is done on one’s own responsibility, thus through one’s own language and using one’s very own means of artistic expression. Which is – by the way – the most honest manner. And which is, in the aesthetic sense, simply delightful. The point of departure, or the main inspiration (just like in Śpiwle and the first Watra) is the musical tradition of the Beskid Mountains, and then, further: of the Carpathians, which is „only” the beginning of the music’s way. In mountain spaces and their environment, Damasiewicz feels very much at home. He has found „his own place” there. Again he is realizing an artistic project together with folk artists from Sucha Beskidzka, which has all but become a kind of a symbolic centre on the map of his creative peregrinations with Into The Roots. Traditional music of the Polish mountains is not a mere ornament here, or an occasion for free improvisation. The whole story springs from there and from themes taken from the Beskid music, of course also transformed by the members of his ensemble, constitute a constant point of reference here. They are like a living spring, around which a fascinating dialogue takes place between what is old, and contemporary music narration. A characteristic feature of the leader and his band, is their great mindfulness, but also almost tenderness in relation to traditional music. All that said, Damasiewicz – fascinated and overwhelmed with the tradition – does not pretend to be a village musician, and that’s why he creates his own, so clearly distinct whole. This traditional note of the Beskid music appears here in its original, natural sound, performed by indigenous musicians, known from previous projects of Into The Roots. A strong, indigenous basis is provided here by the singers: Alicja Krzeszowiak, Kamila Krzeszowiak and Paulina Kazimierska (the latter also playing the violin) as well as by Krzysztof Ryt – five-string viola, and Marek Ryt – bagpipes, pipe, French horn. They meet in a collective musical elation, co-created by the members of the leader’s trio: Piotr Damasiewicz – playing not only the trumpet, but also the organ, a harmonium, percussion instruments or even extatically singing, Zbigniew Kozera – double bass, guembri, and Paweł Szpura – percussion. There are also special guests. Michał Żak – flute, shawm, dulcimer – bringing the note of south-eastern areas of Europe and Katarzyna Karpowicz, who, playing the koto, takes us to far-away Japan. Out of this extraordinary cooperation, a broad sound range springs, and the particular instruments have a chance to present both their unique solo sound, as well as their possibilities of section playing, accompanying the improvisation of others. Damasiewicz and friends thus roam from the region of the Western Carpathians – Poland and Slovakia, from the regions of the Babia Góra Mountain and Sucha Beskidzka, from Orava – along the Carpathian arc, with a broad gesture reaching out for new inspirations, sometimes changing directions. So they wander south and east. Thus in their playing appears a whiff of Japanese music, together with the sound of the aforementioned classical Japanese koto, which dominates in two pieces. And surely, no one will be surprised to hear that in the sense of the idea, their music is much indebted to African music. One of the many aspects of this affinity is the instrumentation, especially the sound of the Maroccan guembri, which the ensemble have been using for a long time. Damasiewicz admits that music from Africa was the first and foremost element binding the members of the trio, now occasionally broadened to a quartet. Those echoes of diverse musical quests – stylistic as well as geographic or cultural, exploring tradition – reflect the artist’s curiosity and energy. His travels all around the world – banale as it may sound – are not a tourist’s travels. They are more like expeditions, involving discovery and absorption of specific elements of other cultures and sensitivities. Not for cheap exotics, but because they allow the artist to find in himself new spaces of sensitivity, they co-create his musical world. As a result, they allow his listeners to be fascinated and delighted in new ways. And also in that sense one can say that the ensemble’s leader learns from the greatest masters, being aware that an artist’s responsibility does not consist in copying even the most beautiful patterns or examples but in creating – in the context of earlier traditions – your own thing, your own whole, expressing your own beliefs, likes, sensitivity and inclinations. Because of all those things, listening to Watra II we have no doubts that this a new album of Piotr Damasiewicz, who has endowed it with his characteristic brand, his own personal expression, mood and power. It is a kind of music that is worthy of special concentration, of dedicating your full attention, because, in return, it offers the listeners truly unforgettable impressions. Tomasz Janas

P with a bonus 2-track 7" EP. Remastered by Saidera Mastering in Tokyo. Original gatefold artwork plus an extra 2-page insert with new liner notes by Andy Beta. When 'Ongaku Zukan' (music encyclopedia) was released for the international market in 1986, it was called 'Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia' and contained a few different tracks - including the Thomas Dolby collaboration 'Field Work'. This new reissue is the original edition, boosted with an extra version of opener 'Tibetan Dance' for the heads. As the title suggests, Sakamoto guides us through different musical styles, putting his unique spin on everything from folky instrumentation to jerky, sampled drums and lite, lounge-pop guitars, into dubwise jazz-pop sunshine - all punctuated by Sakamoto's attention to compositional detail - even lapsing into walking bass and big band fanfares mid-way through.     Fans of the Sakamoto's more melancholy, synth-led material will be drawn to 'Paradise Lost' (a plasticky fusion of funk bass and whimsical canned electronic leads) or the disco-inspired 'Self Portrait', a track so melodramatic you can almost imagine it bellowing over the end credits of some '80s teen movie. But Sakamoto also scratches his experimental itch; 'Tabi No Kyokuhoku', despite the overblown jazz chorus, is mostly subterranean, industrial drums and mellotron-esque synths, and 'M.A.Y. In The Backyard' is the Japanese legend's take on 20th Century minimalism, like Steve Reich's 'Music For 18 Musicians' transformed into a General MIDI pop miniature. Even 'Mori No Hito', a soft-paced, romantic pop song at its heart, is spiked with Sakamoto's odd compositional quirks and extraordinary instrumentation, like sampled bells and talkbox vocals.     'Replica' is billed as a bonus track, finding Sakamoto shaping horror movie pads around uncanny jazz blasts. It's a fantastical take on the early '80s pop canon, made by an artist whose unconventional approach still guides so much contemporary music.

Recorded at home between Autumn 2016 and Summer 2017. Thanks to Jess, and my family and friends In memory of Alfie Cassidy-Day

Flower Travellin' Band, 50 motorcycles and others - Beam Penetration and Mad Computer, plus the Minimal Sound of Motorcycles =Regular Edition= 10-inch LP & CD Expo 70, held in Osaka, was a pivotal event for the Japanese people and their relationship with the rest of the world, demonstrating both the nation’s ongoing economic recovery from World War Two and the creative spirit of Japanese society and its artists. The event gained international acclaim for its adventurous architectural design, visual art and electronic music. Some of Japan’s most renowned composers were involved, but also present were the now-legendary rockers, the Flower Travellin' Band. A series of performances, billed as “Night Events” were held at the Expo; the most radical of these was "Beam Penetration and Mad Computer, plus the Minimal Sound of Motorcycles”, but its anti-establishment feel and general madness took the Expo organizers by surprise and it was cancelled after only one night, despite being scheduled for a longer run. An air of myth developed around the event, but a recording of the event has been discovered and this release is the result. And what an event it was: a night-time sound-bomb with a fabled band, electronic sound and 50 motorcycles with horns blaring, spotlights, electronic billboards and a robot ― all flashing, roaring and howling at the night sky. This release comprises a CD, a 10-inch record with fold-out sleeve and large obi, plus fascinating notes in Japanese and English by Kenichi Yasuda, an expert on Japanese rock music, and Koji Kawasaki, a renowned researcher of Japanese electronic music, as well as rare photos. No download code/ticket available. TRACKS: CD “Beam Penetration” (full-length) [45:49] 10-inch (excerpts) Side A “Beam Penetration” [14:52] Side B “Beam Penetration”

Kata No Wadachi is the latest album by Banetoriko, the solo noise project of Tamaki Ueda. Her first release both on An’archives and on vinyl, it follows several albums for the Neurec imprint – 2017’s Beside the Sluice and 2022’s Yorioto Hogiokuri – and several other cassettes and CD-Rs. With Kata No Wadachi, the Banetoriko world, inspired by the Yokai (“strange apparitions” – supernatural figures, ghosts, spirits) of Japanese folklore, is at its most resonant yet. Recorded across 2022 and 2023, the three tracks on Kata No Wadachi have Ueda performing in a particularly elevated manner. Her sound is highly tactile and grittily sensuous, the better to capture the ritualistic repetitions, and hypnotic methodologies, core to Banetoriko. The scrape and scratch of Ueda’s self-made metal instrument, the Banetek, gives these improvisations a unique throb, even as their mood, of introverted focus and elaboration of minutiae, gestures towards broader histories of noise and abstract art. Kata No Wadachi evokes, to some degree, the urban ritual noise of the likes of The New Blockaders, Organum, or Ferial Confine; elsewhere, the abraded, rough-housing textures bring to mind the eighties tape works of Hands To and John Hudak. Ueda embraces the dream evocation that’s possible when loops of blurred texture collide with the gnaw and groan of energised metal, while mantric, dissociated vocals, and the oppressive weight of deep breath, gather around these compositions like a ghost’s shroud. While she’s been making noise for some time, since the nineties, Banetoriko was formalised as a project in 2011, while Ueda lived in Los Angeles. Relocating to Osaka in 2021, she’s carved out an utterly unique space for herself in Japanese noise, and her music contains an absolutely elemental vibration. Framed beautifully with poetic liner notes by Aurélien Rossanino, Kata No Wadachi is an oppressive, yet quixotically blissful trip.

An’archives is proud to present the latest album by Japanese free saxophonist and vocalist Harutaka Mochizuki, Doppelgänger ga boku wo. Since the early 2000s, Harutaka has quietly, yet steadily, released a string of solo and collaborative releases that have allowed multiple perspectives on one of the most singular voices in modern music. In collaboration, he seems to prefer the duo format, and digging through his discography, you’ll find releases where he pairs with Tomoyuki Aoki (of Up-Tight), Michel Henritzi, and Hideaki Kondo. But Harutaka’s solo performances, with their lyricism and physicality, are where the magic truly happens. If earlier albums, like Solo Document 2004 (Bishop, 2005) and Pas (no label, 2014), were raw documentations of solo alto saxophone performances, in recent years, Harutaka’s solo albums have become more complex, more mystifying. Most significantly, they’ve become more personal; there are few musicians extant whose albums feel quite so much like diaristic interventions, and Harutaka’s music now is deeply moving in its intimacy. Developing that thread of revelation, Doppelgänger ga boku wo offers a still richer exploration of many facets of Harutaka’s artistry. The two double-tracked alto saxophone performances here feel consummate, with Harutaka shadowing himself, exploring the possibilities of the multiple self: Doppelgänger is me, indeed. The playing here is rich with affect, but still exploratory, voiced with rigour and intent. Two short pieces for keyboard and voice (about Giacometti and Genêt, respectively) are fragile miniatures, with clusters of chords, and passing phrases, wrapping around Harutaka’s untutored but lovely singing. The ‘karaoke’ performance that closes the album, of “Woman ‘W no higeki’ yori”, speaks to the iterative aspects of Harutaka’s music. A cover of the Hiroki Yakushimaru song, the theme to Shinichirō Sawai’s 1984 film W’s Tragedy, he’s returned to this song several times, and here, his delivery perfectly captures the spirit of what Michel Henritzi, in his typically beautiful liner notes, evocatively details as “one of those sad love songs that accompany lonely sake drinkers in smoky night bars, sharing their spleen.” Gorgeous, human, heartrending - Doppelgänger ga boku wo is Harutaka Mochizuki in element and in spirit.

TAKASHI INAGAKI’s original soundtrack score for filmmaker TAKASHI ITO’s Japanese-language stage adaptation of JEAN GENET’s Prisoner of Love, and its parallel video installation, The Dead Dance.GENET’s final literary work recounts the two years he spent in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan. Prisoner of Love, ‘written some ten years later, when many of the men Genet had known had been killed, and he himself was dying, is a beautifully observed description of that time and those men as well as a reaffirmation of the author's commitment not only to the Palestinian revolution but to rebellion itself.’numbered + handmade in an edition of 200 copies only; 180gr vinyl in custom-made outer (sealed), containing extensive booklet with images from performance + installation + newly commissioned essay by AKIHITO YASUMI (Japanese original + English translation); no digital

Playing up to and into DDS’ freeform aesthetics, O’Rourke renders 40 minutes shearing hyaline synth tones and ruptured rhythm generated at his Steamroom facilities in Tokyo, a modular out-zone trawling that harks back to his iconic Mego releases and some of the more recent Steamroom experiments. It’s an ideal addition to the ever expanding DDS cosmos, following Demdike’s recent ‘Drum Machine’ expo with a slice of purist and screwed modular magick that transcends early electronics and modern styles in pursuit of musical sensations that defy stylistic brackets. 'Too Compliment’ was assembled using a bespoke Hordijk modular system, a rare West Coast-style setup hand made by Dutch engineer Rob Hordijk. O'Rourke focuses on the frequency shifter here, using it to coax out fluxing tone thickets, haphazard frequencies and elongated drone corridors. It's transportive stuff, harking back to the early days of private press academic synth music but also sitting on edge alongside Autechre's recent long-form work, as well as O'Rourke's classic "I'm Happy, And I'm Singing, And A 1, 2, 3, 4” In O’Rourke’s hands, the mass of electronics takes on throbbing, organic dimensions, congealing grey matter and purplish veins of fluid in viscous transitions that glisten and spark with invention as they form new tissue. What comes out is as unearthly as the earliest electronic music, but also blessed with a psychedelc spirit in a way that’s long kept O’Rourke right out on his own, teetering between paradigms yet never settling into any single style. If you’ve always been keen on finding a way into that sprawling soundworld, 'Too Compliment’ is a perfect entry point into a highly rewarding creative macrocosm. --- DDS, 2021

Side 1 1. "Track 1" (4:15) 2. "Suki Suki Daisuki" (New mix) (3:40) 3. "God Hand Jojo" (3:03) 4. "Virus" (3:46) 5. "Mikawa The Mikawa" (3:05) 6. "Ijime" (1:48) Side 2 1. "Junko To Junko" (2:04) 2. "Hysteriya" (3:32) 3. "Noise Brothers" (3:18) 4. "Nikuya No Yo Ni" (3:53) 5. "Track 11" (8:08)Legendary Japanese noise band, Hijokaidan, team up with electronic avant-pop pioneer Togawa. Hijokaidan was formed in Kyoto in 1979 by Jojo Hiroshige and Naoki Zushi, and are undisputed leaders of the Japanese noise scene. Jun Togawa's first recordings as writer producer and singer were in the early 80s, sometimes working with Haruomi Hosono among others. This new and cataclysmic collaboration is produced by  Hiroshige and Togawa. Pressed on translucent red wax, 180g audiophile record, with 48x72cm fold-out poster and full English lyrics. Includes  high-quality digital download code with exclusive bonus tracks - Made in Japan. Released in 2017, these are the last copies available. "For the first time, art-pop goddess Jun Togawa meets on disc noise icon Jojo Hiroshige for a fantastic album, a twin-pronged sonic attack to melt your ears in disbelief. As maddening as one can expect, the music is an invitation to the worlds of both artists – a surrealistic tour de force to knock your loose socks off. Former actress Jun Togawa is an eccentric pop singer, a poisonous flower that sprouted in 1980s new wave bands like Halmens, Guernica and Yapoos. The famous “insect woman” worked with such masters as Haruomi Hosono and Otomo Yoshihide, before lending her voice and lyrics to half the tracks presented here on Togawa Kaidan – including hit song “Suki Suki Dai Suki”. And it feels like a comeback! Pursuing his latest works with pop idols, Jojo Hiroshige is better known as the founder of cult band Hijokaidan, aka one of the most prominent and violent noise-improv acts ever fomented in Japan. His influence over the Japanese underground scene is limitless with more than 200 album credits in his entire output, including Ultra Bide, Acid Mothers Kaidan, Bis Kaidan and many more. Together, they form an unexpected duo, a monstrous and absurd collaboration seeking to water down pop music into an ecstatic cacophony for the sake of it! This striking record sounds like a dragonfly trapped in the emergency staircase of an ever-collapsing structure, trying to survive between guitar shreds and clusters of blistering noise. Every two tracks, Jun’s quirky vocals add a layer of sweetness over the clanky maelstrom created by “God Hand Jojo”, her squeals shattering on a wall of brutal noise. Hearing Togawa and Hiroshige, you will face a virtual onslaught in staggered rows. Now available on vinyl with download codes for exclusive bonus tracks, you may fully experience their take on what music is all about. – B.M."

Reissue of an ultra-limited cdr that popped out quietly on absurd in 2007, this record finds Tetuzi Akiyama and Michel Henritzi joining strengths for a singular set of guitar music recorded at the Alchemy Music Store in Osaka. Captured during the heyday of stylised and pensive improvisation, the music here breaks protocol by avoiding some of the more polite mannerisms of the genre. What starts as a coarse yet beautiful duet of sparse melodic fragments, soon brings into fold the systematic undoing of the bodies of the two guitars themselves. Putting drills, hammers, nails, screws and saws into good use, and with maximum amplification, the two artists manage to bridge the distance between the freely atonal sketches of post-Derek Bailey guitar music and the Fluxus tradition of more overtly disruptive actions. In the process, they craft a singular work that, through raw tactile means, channels some of the violence and expressiveness that runs deep throughout the long tradition of guitar music.