falk records will be releasing ‘spaces’ from icelandic experimental producer aaiieenn this august. aaiieenn is the solo project of electronic musician hallmar gauti halldórsson. halldórsson first came to music though being a mover and shaker in iceland’s punk and hardcore scene where he was the “harsh noise guy” with local band distill the world. with aaiieenn however, halldórsson moved away from the guitars and screaming to a fully electronic world of experimental synth music and gorging on the mathematical possibilities and expanses of arpeggio/sequencer driven ambient music. ‘calab-yau’ and ‘continuous property 1’ drip shards of pure crystalline sound into deep crevasses as harmonic droplets ping of gleaming surfaces coated with spongiform bass. the light and effervescent ‘euclidean’ evokes classic ambient works aphex twin, while ‘manifold’ is more direct with a muscular and sturdy bassline. spaces closes with the fluttering and lush ambient sounds of ‘zariksi’ that are carried into the skies by a pulsing and gliding techno beat.

limited 2018 repress on smoke blue vinyl.
on the heels of his critically acclaimed debut full-length >bad vibes<, shlohmo embarks deeper into darker realms on his latest venture self-described as night time backyard noises, >vacation< builds on the aesthetic shlohmo established with mixes for fact and fader, in which broken cassette tapes and warped found sounds melded into melodic beats packed with veiled emotion and latent mystery. from >the way u do< verges on r&b pop, to the enigmatic >wen uuu<, which simultaneously pulls at the heartstrings with a quavering vocal sample while churning forward in a passionate, indisputable groove, and the pastoral >rained the whole time<, which takes cues from the ubiquitous burial, this is a poignant set of originals. a stellar cast of remixers: nicholas jaar, teebs, airhead, salva and groundislava, contribute to take >vacation< to the next level.

rq’s debut lp for blu mar ten music, ‘solid ground’, occupies a darkly dreamlike hinterland, located somewhere between the retro-futurism of photek and alice coltrane’s jazz psychedelia. fragmented, distant beats, rippling modal patterns and restrained astral basslines provide rhythmic and harmonic anchors to a constellation of timbres and textures.