tokyo based h.takahashi follows up his raum lp for where to now? with sonne und wasser, a continuation & development of his unmistakable brand of meditative pulse minimalism.

for fans of lee gamble, tomoko sauvage, mark fell, rkss, holly herndon, christian marclay take note here and dive in.

london based artist ben vince is best known for his minimal & transcendent saxophone soundscapes. with assimilation we find ben treading new ground with his recorded output, moving away from the limitations of solo saxophone, instead embracing collaboration and communication to forge new paths. whilst vince’s sax work still undeniably holds ‘assimilation’ together, the new territories explored by working with an artistically diverse range of collaborators allows new life and influence to flow through ben’s work. the album features collaborations with micachu (mica levi), rupert clervaux, merlin nova, valentina magaletti, and cam deas. ben vince has also recently collaborated on a 12inch with joy o (forthcoming on hessle audio).

h.takahashi, tokyo based architect and sound designer follows up his revered collection where to be? on where to now? records with raum, a full length lp suite of meditative pulse minimalism. raum draws its cues from a melting pot of closely connected yet wholly individual strands of minimalism - from the japanese minimalist works from the likes of hiroshi yoshimura and satoshi ashikawa, to masters such as erik satie and john cage, and ambient leaders brian eno and roedelius, takahashi soaks this historical influence and rings it out it through a modern filter to create a record of stillness, ethereal beauty, and transcendent energy. takahashi composes all of his music on his iphone, and this is no gimmick, rather a conscious decision which allows takahashi to constantly create on the go without the constraints of space, and for takahashi raum serves as a mediation on the relationship between sound and its environment. for takahashi this creative process feels something like an invisible phenomenon taking over & mutating these constantly changing spaces into abstract sound, creating a brief pseudo space which expresses and highlights the features of the environment for a moment in time.” although perhaps quite an abstract statement of intent, when deeply immersed into takahashi’s pieces this idea of slowly gliding through different architectural spaces is naturally conjured through the gentle repetitive pulse which runs through his work and the playful unstructured tonality of objects which weave around this forward (or upward) motion. raum was created across the city of tokyo, be it a café / park / office / road / platform / subway these pieces explore the power sound holds to emotionally enhance and mutate the listeners environment. the power of the music presented is in that which is barely there, embracing space, silence, and cyclical repetition. the music is to help us function - it s music to work to, to sleep to, to help us find a sense of space and oneness within a world that is increasingly wild and untameable.

the mighty lutto lento returns with an lp proper for where to now? big.
where to now? cordially invite you into lutto lento’s ‘dark secret world’. after a string of releases on labels such as ftd, proto sites, dunno recordings and ourselves, we now find polish artist lubomir grzelak ready to present a fully realised, full-length distillation of his distinctly exuberant and unique electronic narratives.

ypy is the work of osaka based koshiro hino. having recently released on labels such as nous, his own label birdfriend, and the legendary em records koshiro now presents the 7 track lp 2020 for where to now? records. the lp leads with the slow building, off kilter title track 2020,where flurries of eastern horns skitter beneath evolving layers of wonked yet beautifully balanced percussive movements, coming off like a technoid homage to the fourth world works of eno & hassel. as is the case with much of hinos music, as the piece develops it takes on heavier and heavier modes of experimentation and excitement turbines whirr and fizz alongside layers and layers of percussion, constantly teetering on the edge of no-wave breakdown whilst never losing sight of the rhythmic backbone, recouping from every moment of collapse with total grace.

u has always displayed an unironic conformity to his own absolutely genuine/occasionally challenging ideal as to what a release should entail. after a series of predominantly, and (in the most loving sense) maybe begrudgingly, dance floor oriented eps, vienna orchestra is a long overdue insight into his core fascination as a musician, making complex and intriguing experimental pieces that belie the humble mode of their creation, recording from vinyl records and manipulating the audio on old school samplers. this lp is an insight into scores of hours of twiddling with loops and sequences to create music far removed from its source material (dusty classical records acquired on a trip to vienna). this is a dense, blunted world, which holds the sound of a musician indulging their own ear’s obsessions and insatiable curiosity.

nicola ratti holds a rich history in the world of experimental and minimalist composition, having released music under his own name on labels such as kning disk, anticipate, preservation, holidays, and senufo editions and in recent times concentrating his energy into his collaborative project ‘bellows’, work which has seen the light thanks to entr’acte records and most recently boomkat editions. his latest solo work ‘pressure loss’ finds ratti at a potential turning point in his musical career, exploring rhythm and tonality with a new vigour, in a way which embraces the fluid and consistently evolving modern world of electronic music, yet still references a history of electronics, limiting his sound palette to work only using the serge and arp modular synthesizer.

ketev is the realm in which berlin based sound artist yair elazar glotman employs his unique ambient technoid soundscapes to explore the balance between darkness and light, fragility and strength, and tension and release. ‘traces of weakness’ follows up the solo contrabass lp ‘Études’ for subtext records, and continues to expand on the themes explored on previous ketev albums for where to now? and opal tapes. ‘traces of weakness’ was recorded at ems stockholm using their buchla modular synth, and processed with reel-to-reel tape manipulations including personal archived field recordings. the sleeve photography comes courtesy of yair’s father, the artist yehoshua shuka glotman.

‘etra’ is the second lp from portugese manuel carvalho, and can be seen as an extension of the ideas and themes explored on his debut 12” ‘citadel’ for paralaxe editions. here across 9 tracks manta breathes life and light into the potentially heavy exploration of the manifestation of the human ego in architecture, and our perceptions of inner/outer space. the weight of such ideas manifests itself in an sound realm where radiophonic interstellar explorations collide head on with a smooth yet brutalist techno vision. the vinyl lp includes a download code.

paint en pointe is a compilation of selected compositions by eugene ward, otherwise known to most as dro carey / tuff sherm. the tracks have been taken from a series of performance collaborations with choreographer patric kuo over a 5 month period. the performances, which occurred monthly in the latter half of 2014, took place in spot81 gallery in chippendale, sydney. kuo and ward, along with a roster of dancers, were invited to create new dance works that responded to the exhibition occurring during the given month. throughout the series many ensemble types were explored, ranging from solos up to large groups of as many as 16 dancers. patric kuo is a sydney based dancer/choreographer originally trained in all styles, but presently heavily draws his influence from hip hop and contemporary dance. coming from a performing arts and commercial dance background, kuo has expanded his ideas about communicating to an audience, moving away from the traditional entertainment relationship towards an approach that includes engagement more informed by performance art