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Following on from 2018’s Tape 1 & Tape 2, Dutch producer and musician Eelco Topper returns to Soundway Records for the next two installments of his Felbm project. As before these will be released as two separate digital EPs and then together on one vinyl LP.

Tape 3 & Tape 4 is an intimate, emotional, lilting and melodic solo project with a restorative, therapeutic nature. They were composed and recorded by Topper with just those aspects in mind as a personal remedy for the ailments of modern life. With a breezy and soothing quality these fourteen lo-fi, instrumental, jazz-infused sketches written on guitar, with cascading keyboards, vibraphone and drum machine, seem perfect for the second half of 2020, a year in which we could all surely use some curative and uncomplicated music. With echoes of the dreamier end of 1980s English indie-pop, minimal ambient music and Brazilian bossa-nova, Topper’s musical storybook includes touches of The Durutti Column, echoes of Ethiopian Tezeta, hints of Antônio Carlos Jobim and Baden Powell, whilst all set firmly in the summer fields of Germany and the Netherlands.

In Topper’s own words: “most of the compositions on Tape 3 originated at home, with a small and basic setup of a keyboard, a guitar, a rhythm box and some small instruments lying around the tape deck. Inspiration came from the emptiness after a stranded relationship, finding balance, peace and strength within yourself again. Somehow I feel some optimism can be found in these songs that perhaps reflects how I experienced this process.” - Bandcamp

The Jakarta-based venture explores Indonesian identities through deconstructed tribal sounds... Divisi62 artists are constantly reinterpreting and reinventing Indonesia's cultural traditions: a worthy initiative in a county where widespread ethnic diversity has complicated national identity. - Nisa Kreems | Bandcamp

DIVISI62 is a sound and visual arts label aiming to reach new heights in the continual construction of the Indonesian identity. Emphasizing the cross-wiring of world heritage, DIVISI62 is initiating homegrown narratives into global consciousness. Singular and plural - The Attic

Foward moving, Futuristic, Rooted in the ancient. Definitely a must checkout for all electronic music lovers! C30 super-ferric cassette tape with hand-numbered cases and screen printed sleeves. Includes download card.

1988 is the follow up to Knxwledge’s official debut album Hud Dreems (Stones Throw, 2015). The same year Hud Dreems was released Knx worked with Kendrick Lamar on To Pimp a Butterfly, earning the producer his first Grammy. A duo with Anderson .Paak called NxWorries was formed around the same time. Their single “Suede” became a viral hit, vaulting the singer to R&B stardom, and their album Yes Lawd! followed through on that song’s immense promise. Knx and Paak have quietly continued collaborating, and some of the new work is heard on 1988. A prolific artist in the extreme sense of the word, Knxwledge continues to redefine instrumental hip-hop almost in real-time with a stream of beat tapes numbering in the hundreds on Bandcamp, and video remixes on Instagram.

This prolific output began early. 1988 takes its name from the fact that much of the new record was created that very year, when Knx was an infant. As the story is told, little baby Knx was left alone by his mother for just a few moments and crawled to a family member’s vintage SP–12 sampler. When his mother returned he had already produced his first beats and nearly mastered the machine. These tracks, all produced before nap time while rocking a Nike diaper, were stored over the years on floppy discs, then brought to his studio in recent months where they were finished up, mixed, and mastered. – Stones Throw

Singer, songwriter and heartbreaker Keaton Henson is releasing his electronic side-project Behaving on vinyl for the very first time. Entirely self-made and recorded in the dark with lyrics laid down off the cuff, Behaving is an unsettling, introverted exploration of love, ego and the creative process.Conceived in the shadow of his yet untitled follow-up to 2013’s Birthdays, Behaving has previously only been released digitally and follows vinyl editions of Henson’s Dear, Birthdays and Romantic Works.

Released in an edition of 1000, each copy comes with an exclusive art print that has been hand-signed and numbered by Henson, with five very special copies also including a hand-written missive. – The Vinyl Factory

Jim Jarmusch wasn’t the first but was close to saying it best: ‘Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.’ The culture that fuels our virtuosity is founded upon the art of theft. And this is what O$VMV$M do. This is the debut LP from Young Echo members Sam ‘Neek’ Barrett and Amos ‘Jabu & Zhou’ Childs, under their estranged cut’n’paste, analogue-fondling moniker. Only two months ago, this idiosyncratic Bristol duo had released a No Corner backed EP called Memoryz Of U. It was a practice in sonic splicing; falsifying originality by disassembling samples to their lowest denomination and refashioning them into something wholly different. Now, their eponymous album on Idle Hands consists of brief vignettes of lo-fi synth slurs and esoteric experimentalism. – Crack Magazine

Mere months after dropping Higgins Ultra Low Track Glue Funk Hits 1972-2006 on Planet \xB5, Aaron Funk strikes again with this little slice of audio lobotomy. Released under the moniker Vsnares, 2370894 is, in many ways, an homage to the prevailing sounds of British experimental electronic music (which could mean a whole shitload of things, really-- I'm thinking Skam, v/vm, Rephlex, etc). The album is comprised of tracks both unreleased and left over from the sessions for other Venetian Snares releases, and is a slight detour from Aaron's usual speedbreaks assault. The dark atmospherics and menace of Printf or Doll Doll Doll has been traded for a more playful, loose vibe, but despite this being an odds-and-sods sort of album, it's amazingly cohesive, and far from your standard tossed-off amalgam of half-baked leftovers. - Pitchfork

Born in Assam, Gauhati, in Northeast India, but currently based in New York’s storied borough of Brooklyn, jitwam spent his formative years in New Zealand and Australia, before living in monasteries in Thailand, orphanages in South Africa, and washed out apartments in London. Of everywhere and nowhere, his music draws influence from a litany of iconoclasts including, but not limited to RD Burman, Moondog, The Velvet Underground, Yayoi Kusama, Jay Electronica, Jay Dilla, Moodymann, Leon Thomas, Madlib and Asha Bhosle.

Across the album he utilises knowledge acquired through years spent digging through dusty crates, and talents honed as a multi-instrumentalist, producer, and vocalist. A series of stumbling, jazz/soul-rooted beat sculptures, each buried beneath a haze of fuzzy psychedelia, broken microphone blues, and articulated through a freestyled process he describes as “first thought, best thought”, ज़ितम सिहँ solidifies jitwam's spot as a major emerging talent.

Recalling the fourth world dreamscapes explored by oddball songwriters like Connan Mockasin, Clarence Clarity, Jai Paul, Silicon, and Unknown Mortal Orchestra, it represents a time of transition and remembrance for jitwam, while still fulfilling the core qualities he looks for in song. In his words, “Music is a refuge. A shelter from the storm. A place you can go to close your eyes.” – Jitwam | Bandcamp

Claude Speeed returns to Planet Mu, two years after the 'Sun Czar Temple' EP, with his second album 'Infinity Ultra'. He describes the record he's been creating since he started making computer music as one "conceiving an interior territory: an abstract space to process the oppression, confusion and insanity of the contemporary age; and to formulate an honest emotional and artistic response - a psychic jumping off point into an uncertain future." 

'Infinity Ultra' takes inspiration from sleep paralysis, monumental artworks, children’s anime, abandoned places, ghostly rave pasts and terrifying silicon valley futures, and the limitless anger of the digital present. These influences have been channelled into an impressionistic burst of varied creativity: Shimmering VSTs; monolithic noise; euphoric blocks of colourful sound; trance stabs and the citrus rush of hardcore; towering drones, and skynet math rock – all rendered against cold, sinister space and nostalgic synth melodies.
 
The album reveals the artist’s Scottish roots, viewed at a hazy distance from his Berlin home - a series of memories of Glasgow’s experimental psychedelic underground, its DIY rock scene and defiant club hedonism. These genre relationships are blurred and at times they contrast with audible brutality; the result is a hybrid, sculptured way of rendering music – minimal specifics, maximum emotions.

Brute is the second studio album of Kuwait musician Fatima Al Qadiri. A protest album inspired by events such as the 2015 Baltimore protests and the Ferguson unrest, the album regards the authoritarian power of law enforcement in the United States and the illusion of democracy existing in the western part of the world. Its cover art by Josh Kline, Babok Radboy, and Joerg Lohse is a photograph of one of the "police teletubbies" found in Kline's art piece "Freedom," which was intended to present how civil rights were being destroyed in the 21st century. Brute features samples of the Ferguson protest, an MSNBC report of Occupy Wall Street by Lawrence O'Donnell, and an interview with a former member of the LAPD regarding the power of the police. - Wiki

Released by Hyperdub in March 2016, Brute garnered significant media coverage for its unique political message and was listed in the "Top Ten Protest Albums Of 2016" by Shadowproof, where Kevin Gosztola described it as "the kind of album that will carry even more resonance in the era of President Donald Trump."

Dark Entries and Honey Soundsystem Records have teamed up again to release another volume of gay porn soundtracks by San Francisco-based musician and producer, Patrick Cowley. Perhaps one of the most revolutionary and influential people in the cannon of disco music, Cowley created his own brand of Hi-NRG dance music coined "The San Francisco Sound." Born in Buffalo, NY on October 19, 1950, Patrick moved to San Francisco at the age of 21. He studied at the City College of San Francisco where he founded the Electronic Music Lab. During this time Patrick, along with his classmates Maurice Tani and Art Adcock, would create radio jingles and electronic pieces using the school's equipment, first a Putney, then an E-MU System and finally a Serge synthesizer. He would make experimental instrumental songs by blending various types of music and adapting them to the synthesizer. – Bandcamp

Mount Kimbie present an exclusive live session recorded for WXAXRXP, featuring some of their best loved tracks and a guest appearance from Mica Levi. 

“"Live shows and clubs and festivals, for me, have taken on an entirely different meaning the more the world has changed over the past 18 months," Matthew Barnes said around the time of his last album, Compassion. "It can feel a lot more like a shared and beautiful experience." A year later, the producer's DJ-Kicks mix also reflects obliquely on the power of live music experiences. It's inspired by DIY nights he went to when he was younger: events driven by the urge "just to share music between people", where "DJ etiquette" was ignored and artists instead seemed to be "cook[ing] up their personal mixtape in front of you."

Forest Swords' first licensed mix is his own personal mixtape. A patchwork of sounds and moods with a few of Barnes's own "voice note" field recordings thrown in, it's casually and playfully eclectic, hinting at influences and nodding to his peers. There's only one Forest Swords track, the scratch-itching exclusive "Crow." But with its sombre mystical mood, clever combos of acoustic and electronic sounds, and the odd bright shot of pop, the mix as a whole has many of the qualities that define Barnes's own music.” – Resident Advisor

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“Moriyama is the first release on Palto Flats by Nagoya-based experimental producer Foodman. A 5 track 12” focused on deep, tactile rhythmic and offbeat tracks, Moriyama tilts on some of the producer’s most dance-friendly work. “Mizuboro,” (meaning water bath) elicits the feeling of soaking in a tub of warm bassy synth pads, metronomic patterns of woodwinds and skittering percussion suitable for latenight winds. Elsewhere, on “Soudesu,” Foodman experiments with traditional instrumentation & vocal forms to create a special post-ambient/dance hybrid of familiar sounds reconfigured.

Named after the district he lives in, Moriyama represents some of Foodman’s most direct, accessible work - a full helping.” – Bandcamp

“Nagoya-based artist Takahide Higuchi will release some of his most "direct, accessible work" to date, the label says, with an emphasis on "deep, tactile rhythmic and offbeat tracks." It's the second release of the year for Palto Flats, the New York label that's perhaps best known for reissuing rare Japanese albums from the '80s—Mariah's Utakata No Hibi, Midori Takada's Through The Looking Glass and Yasuaki Shimizu's Kakashi among them.” – Resident Advsior

 

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