Celestial Trax - Listen, Hear, Know, Become, Be (True Aether)
Joni Judén sets out to further obscure the form: 'Listen, Hear, Know, Become, Be' may be his most minimal and monolithic work to date. Exploring close harmony relations and frequency structures, Judén exposes the expressive qualities buried deep in sound and sustained tone. As the ten tracks grow and expand, the sound takes on palpable physical qualities.
Channelers - The Depth of Rest (Inner Islands)
Exploring the gradient between acoustic realism and synthetic reality, real landscapes and fantasy, and creating fantastic re-imaginings of these landscapes. There is also a process of creating scenes to play out these fantasies: extrapolating from the gestures of the landscape and its indigenous nature to create musical scenes of parallel and sympathetic resonance. Gesture responding to gesture, widening the circle until completion. Magical realism as a piece of the dreaming state, the vision state, projected onto the canvas of ordinary perceived reality.
Contagious - Contagious (Morphine Records)
Contagious is a solid blending of avant-garde experimentation and electronic music. Formed by two innovative voices from the Improvisation scene of Berlin (Andrea Neumann and Sabine Ercklentz) and Mieko Suzuki, a well-crafted and creative DJ and musician who’s operating in Berlin venues and festivals since a long time.
Contagious is also the debut album recorded and produced by Rabih Beaini. The Trio wanders in new aesthetic areas, sound is a texture where the processing rigs are constantly developing new forms and evolutions. Structures and grooves implode in noisy fragments, growing into a deep trance state.
Crème de Hassan - Tricontinental Circus (Inervisions Label)
After the release of Technique & Rite in 2017, and the album Terminal Desert release under the name LaBrecque / Barakat earlier this year, here comes the second “official” Crème de Hassan record on Inversions. The album is focused on rhythm and language, and the resulting 11 tracks are short and compact, exploring the possibilities of combining these into improbable hybrids. The tracks include Haitian voodoo rhythms, a Burkinabe flute player aligned with a sequencer and a guitar + synth jam with echoes of the sound of early 1970s Düsseldorf. The languages that are dispersed across the album come from Cambodia, Afghanistan, Kenya, Lebanon, Morocco and include an Arabic translation of Nietsche by friend of the band Ayoub El Mouzaine.
Dark Day - Darkest Before Dawn (Dark Entries Records)
Dark Day is the brainchild of Robin Crutchfield, a NY based musician, performance artist, and writer. Robin’s musical path began in 1977 when he formed the no wave group DNA with Arto Lindsay and Ikue Mori. In 1979 Crutchfield left DNA to pursue his more synthesizer-based solo project. The album is a lost medieval collection of pagan tunes for private ceremonies.
Die Orangen - Swei Orangen (Malka Tuti)
Two years since their debut album Zest, Die Orangen are back with a new album on Malka Tuti, with a matured, developed sound. Having originally forged their partnership in the diverse electronic music scene of Australia, Kris Baha and Angus Gruzman aka Die Orangen recently decamped to the thriving Berlin scene to develop their dark and pulsing industrial-inspired productions. Collaborators Jono Ma (of Jagwar Ma), Alex Akers (of Forces) and Hayley Morgan expand the al-bum into a diverse journey across zones and styles, offering their own observation of the spacious musical world of Die Orangen.