PSYCHIC TV - 'A Prayer For Derek Jarman'
CD £11.50. OUT NOW!

      

Unavailable for almost 30 years in its own right, this collection from the Cold Spring archive has been remastered / repackaged with new art. This classic album exists as a document of the soundtrack work PSYCHIC TV created for the many films and videos of Derek Jarman. Another demonstration of why PSYCHIC TV were one of the most important groups in the world.

The titular track, 'Prayer For Derek', is intended as an invocationary prayer, based on Tibetan rituals; a collage of sounds including field recordings of the lulling waves running aground on the shingle beach opposite Jarman's Prospect Cottage in Dungeness, Kent alongside bird song, crying babies, and massed ritualised chants to aid the late film director in his after-life journeys. Other tracks feature elongated drones, washes of dissonance, melancholic guitar chime, evocative piano scoring, Burroughs cut-ups, gothic chants, and familiar snarling dogs.

• CD in matt digipak with 8-page fold-out booklet, with detailed liner notes by Genesis P-Orridge (1997); Astorical anecdotes and background facts for completeness.

SONOLOGYST - 'Planetarium'
2 x CD £13.50. OUT NOW!

          

An aural exploration of the solar system by Sonologyst, using data from NASA's probes.

On the latest album by Sonologyst, raw data from radio waves, electromagnetic fields, and plasma fluctuations, utilising data sonification files provided by NASA, are transformed into a haunting soundscape, unveiling the ambient music of planets, solar winds, and the cosmic beyond.

As the newest addition to Sonologyst's series of sonic documentaries, this work deepens his exploration of the sonic spectrum, converting cosmic phenomena into immersive auditory experiences.

NASA and other space agencies have captured "sounds" from the cosmos by recording non-audible signals like radio waves, electromagnetic waves, and plasma (ionized gas that's prevalent in space) wave fluctuations. These are converted into audio frequencies we can hear using a process called data sonification. Spacecraft like Voyager, Cassini, and Juno are equipped with special instruments (e.g., plasma wave antennas, magnetometers, radio wave receivers) to detect radio waves, plasma waves, and electromagnetic fields.

These signals can provide data on phenomena like solar wind, planetary magnetospheres, and charged particles. Since many of these signals are outside our hearing range (radio waves might have frequencies far below the audible range (20 Hz to 20 kHz) or far above it, while magnetic and plasma waves are often in the range of milliHertz (mHz) to kilohertz (kHz), also outside human hearing.), they are converted using various techniques, including frequency scaling, sampling, filtering, and amplitude modulation. Some events, like plasma wave bursts, happen over long periods. Scientists may speed up the playback so we can hear the changes in a shorter time frame.

After conversion, the resulting sounds are often enhanced to make certain patterns, pitches, or changes in intensity more noticeable. This may involve amplifying certain frequencies or adding layers to represent multi-dimensional data. This processing helps bring out subtle differences that might otherwise be hard to discern.

• Double CD in a matt-finish gatefold ecopak, with a bonus disc of the raw source material from NASA's probes.

All purchases direct from Cold Spring will receive a small pack of original stamps from the golden age of the space race - one original Soviet stamp celebrating the Venera 14 probe to Venus, and a further random stamp from anywhere in the world again celebrating Mankind's missions into space. All stamps are authentic and original and can be neatly stored away within the package.

MARC AND THE MAMBAS - 'Three Black Nights Of Little Black Bites'
Ltd 2LP Black / Red Splatter (sold out) | Ltd Red 2LP (sold out) | Black 2LP £25 Adv - OUT 8th AUG.

 

The complete recordings of the legendary Marc And The Mambas run of three live performances given at The Duke Of York's Theatre in London's West End in 1983. Restored from the original VHS tape recordings made by the late Peter 'Sleazy' Christopherson (Throbbing Gristle, Coil), these remain the only recordings that exist of Marc And The Mambas performing live.

Originally released in 2012 on Marc Almond's (Soft Cell) own Strike Force Entertainment label as a CD/DVD set (long sold out), this edition, presented on vinyl for the first time, contains the 17 tracks from the SFE CD release, expanded to include the two bonus DVD-only tracks: 'Près Des Ramparts De Séville' and 'Jacky'. Completely remastered for vinyl by Martin Bowes (The Cage Studios).

A combination of the chanson and torch songs which he still sings today, over piano, strings and woodwind-accompanied compositions. "It's quite a spectacle, especially when Almond hits his sweet spot of sinister lyrics, declared pompously over a droned string arrangement... Early signs of the full-on showtune and classical rearrangements that make up Almond's current albums are evident"(Record Collector).

Presented on heavyweight double vinyl in a deluxe glossy gatefold sleeve featuring the extensive reminiscence by Marc Almond himself from the 2012 release.

Also included is a reproduction of the 16-page programme printed for the three concerts in 1983. The stunning cover painting by Val Denham is exclusive to this release.

• Ltd x 150 copies Red / Black Splatter 2LP (via Cold Spring only! SOLD OUT!)
• Ltd x 350 copies Red 2LP (SOLD OUT!)
• Black 2LP

LTD RED / BLACK SPLATTER 2LP	LTD RED 2LP	BLACK 2LP £25
SOLD OUT	SOLD OUT

LITTLE ANNIE - 'With'
CD £11.50 | LP Black £22 | LP Green £24 - OUT NOW!

   

This collection features the cream of Little Annie's collaborations with some of the greatest names in the 'alternative' music world: MARC ALMOND (Soft Cell), COIL, SWANS, BONNIE "PRINCE" BILLY, BABY DEE, KID CONGO POWERS (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The Gun Club, The Cramps), PAUL WALLFISCH (The Ministry Of Wolves, ex-Swans), and LARSEN.

A common atmosphere brings these tracks together; lamenting torch songs, esoteric electronics, melancholic pianos, avant-garde lounge... a collection for dark, candle-lit corners of smoky cabaret bars and secret speakeasy clubs.

Anne Bandez (known as Little Annie / Annie Anxiety), is a versatile American singer, painter, and performance artist renowned for her extensive collaborations across various music genres since the late 1970s. Her artistic journey has seen her work with a diverse array of avant-garde musicians, contributing significantly to the experimental music scene. Annie's career is a testament to her adaptability and innovative spirit, seamlessly blending music, visual arts, and literature to create a unique and enduring artistic legacy.

Mastered by Martin Siewert (known for his incredible mastering for the likes of Hermann Nitsch, Thurston Moore, Lydia Lunch, Mika Vainio, Keiji Haino, and more).

Cover paintings by Little Annie.

• CD in matt-laminate 6-panel digipak

• Ltd Ed 250 copies on green heavyweight 180g vinyl in a matt-laminate sleeve (via Cold Spring only!)

• Black heavyweight 180g vinyl in a matt-laminate sleeve

LTD GREEN LP £24	BLACK LP £22	CD £11.50

ANDREW OSTLER - 'The Blind Sublime'
CD £11.50 - OUT NOW!

     

Andrew Ostler continues his artistic evolution towards choral beauty, orchestral textures, ambient drones and low woodwind, into the realms of Jóhann Jóhannsson, Arvo Pärt or Stars Of The Lid.

Building on the string arrangements of his previous LP "Dots On A Disk Of Snow", and taking a heavy dose of sax drone from an earlier album still, this record also adds a full choir, taking the music to another level of spiritual intensity.

"This is music of transcendence, and perhaps transformation... A glimpse of something profound: not merely music, but a reflection of the sublime itself - blind, unknowable, and utterly captivating" (Chain D.L.K.).

On the first three compositions the drones are, for the most part, relatively gentle, while chant-like choral arrangements drift and weave around and above them. 'Affirmation' is quietly confident, with a surge of intensity around the midpoint; 'Confession' is perhaps more tentative, the shifting canon of the voices threatened by a distant storm of distorted synth shredding; 'Adoration' restores the straightforward choral beauty, building to an unashamed cadence.

The immense final track 'Meditation' is a quite different affair. Here the drones are more intense slabs, the choir is more demonstrative in its emotion, and the ultimate climax the more devastating for it. The journey is longer, but the rewards are greater for the committed.

Originally released on Andrew Ostler's own Expert Sleepers label on limited edition blue vinyl last year, Cold Spring are very proud to press this gem onto CD for the first time.

• CD in matt-laminate digipak

BU.D.D.A. - 'Diese Anmut Von Trophäen' CD (Attenuation Circuit) - £11.50

Bu.d.d.A. (Bund des dritten Auges) was born in a dark room in Barcelona. It evolved quietly until Sascha Stadlmeier (Emerge) and Chris Sigdell (B°tong) took Bu.d.d.A. on the road. This album of mesmerising ambient music sees Stadlmeier and Sigdell doing the unexpected... playing real instruments. "Diese Anmut Von Trophäen" ("This grace of trophies" in German) features not only trademark Bu.d.d.A. tracks, but also guest appearances by such illustrious figures as Bees from COMMON EIDER KING EIDER, DREKKA and BEBAWINIGI. Think of Earth meets Troum together with Brian Eno on LSD. Rooted in the core duo of b°tong on guitar (this time more plucked than bowed) and synthesizers and EMERGE on violin, plus effects and field recordings, this release gains additional dimensions by adding the mournful piano work of Drekka. Vocals, too, are a new addition to Bu.d.d.A.'s sonic palette - while the humming chant of Bees supports the drone structure of the piece, highly expressive female vocalist Bebawinigi turns loose one of her energetic multi-tracked outbursts and gently, but decidedly sets the atmosphere on fire. Bu.d.d.A. refine their common musical language and at the same time depart in several exciting new directions at once. "Massive music here, all dark and heavy, but it never collapses under this weight" (Vital Weekly). Ltd x 300 copies in a matt-laminate mini-LP sleeve with three inserts.

EMERGE - '20' 3 x CD Set (Attenuation Circuit) - £20

In 2003, Sascha Stadlmeier released music under the name EMERGE for the first time: a 7" vinyl on Drone Records entitled "relativity/profundity". Now, 20 years later, EMERGE celebrates his anniversary by re-releasing the two sides of that 7", alongside a collection of unreleased and obscure tracks. But the main part of this release is made up of tracks composed by colleagues, collaborators, and friends of EMERGE from the global experimental underground music network as gifts for his artistic anniversary - all utilising recycled, reworked sounds from the original Drone Records single. To survive, we need to find better ways of living together than those organised as markets. The experimental sound underground points the way: trading and sharing as well as collaboration and collectivity are the rule. As a listener, Sascha Stadlmeier was shaped by this underground, a scene which empowered him to create his own sound over the last two decades. The artists on this album are all connections he made along the way: Ralf Wehowsky, Satøri, Carsten Vollmer, Philippe Petit, Doc Wör Mirran, B°tong, Re-Drum, Kryptogen Rundfunk, PBK, Drekka, Emerge, Grodock, Claus Poulsen, Gerald Fiebig, Anja Kreysing, Circuitnoise, Philip Nußbaum & Gehirn. Implosion, Opening Performance Orchestra, and many more. The response to EMERGE's call for contributions to this project was so enthusiastic that this triple CD is paralleled by the download release "20+", containing 21 additional tracks (download code included with all orders). File under: dark ambient, drone, musique concrète. Ltd x 300 copies in a chunky 6-panel foldout digisleeve.

FALLEN SUN / SACHER-PELZ / THOMAS BEY WILLIAM BAILEY - 'Acousmatomisation' CD (Attenuation Circuit / Grubenwehr Freiburg) - £11.50

For this collaborative album with Malaysian industrial / noise project Fallen Sun and U.S. sound artist Thomas Bey William Bailey, Italian Industrial music overlord Maurizio Bianchi has reactivated his early project name Sacher Pelz. With its 'scientific' approach, the track names which reference physics could come from a Bernard Parmegiani album as well as from techno avantgardists Dopplereffekt / Arpanet. A journey through the interferences of tones (sometimes extreme in their frequency) and noise; sound masses coalesce, solidify, pulsate and drone, eventually disintegrating into particles, which in turn regroup and morph into new structures. "While much of the album uses digital means, there's an odd piece, 'Concrete Absorption', which sounds like old-fashioned industrial music, with rusty tape loops and many stomp boxes. That's an interesting material diversification, but it fits right in, mainly because it's followed by the Merzbowian approach of 'Particle Deterioration'. Maybe this album has more analogue power than I anticipated? A great album" (Vital Weekly). Ltd x 200 copies in a gatefold digisleeve.

KREYSING / EMERGE - 'Ressourcen' MCD (Attenuation Circuit) - £10

The water we drink, the fuel we burn, the psychic energy we invest in keeping up with the rat race - all of these resources are limited, and when they run out (or if we burn them up too fast), the results may be deadly on an individual as well as collective level. With its brooding, ominous, apocalyptic soundscape, "Ressourcen" by Emerge and Anja Kreysing is a memento to our inability to use our resources sensibly. As a basic resource for the composers, Gerald Fiebig wrote a short text (in German) meditating on various aspects of individual and collective, fossil and immaterial resources. Anja Kreysing fed the text into a speech software that read the text out loud. Some comprehensible fragments of the text are featured in the composition, but mostly the human text, spoken by a machine, was the resource that got processed to create the sounds from which Kreysing and Emerge created the 26-min piece. "The listener isn't allowed to grasp for breath, with the continuous bending of sounds, morphing into something new all the time, and with speech fragments popping in and out. At one point, everything morphs into a beat or two, but the stretching and pitching are going on and on. It is a powerful work" (Vital Weekly). Ltd x 200 copies in a gatefold digisleeve.

MARGOLIS / FIEBIG / EMERGE - 'Tripolar Exercises' CD (Attenuation Circuit) - £11.50

Ten years after their first meeting, several live collaborations and shows across Europe, Al Margolis (aka If,Bwana), Gerald Fiebig, and Emerge set about composing this joint album. The common denominator of their practices is the drone, present in the interludes of this album, for which Emerge supplied sounds that were processed, or 'recycled', by Margolis and then joined by other lifeforms via field recordings supplied by Fiebig. The three main pieces of the album tend to exploit other approaches. They were composed over distance, with one participant recording a track, the second one adding another, and the third one adding the final track and mixing the piece (with the sequence of the contributors changed). The choice of obscure sound sources gives this album its particular texture, in which 'chance meetings' and a quasi-surrealist approach play a significant part. "The three primary pieces are excellent pieces of electro-acoustic music, where improvisation is re-modelled into composition... The range is between very acoustic to much more inspired electronic sounds. Consequently, when they use more acoustic sound, the music takes a more improvised turn, and when it's more electronic, it seems (!) more composed. Each piece doesn't feel like a few layers of sound but rather a more complex affair. It results in a delicate release of some excellent music" (Vital Weekly). File under: drone, electroacoustic, musique concrète. Ltd x 200 copies in a gatefold digisleeve.

MARRASMAA - 'Noidat' CD (Corvus Records) - £11.50

"Noidat" (Witches) is a meditative journey that is as dark as it is beautiful. With the sound of kantele at its core, Marrasmaa's music draws inspiration from Finnish nature and ancient shamanic traditions, creating a folk-ambient soundscape where time slows and the mind can drift. Marrasmaa tell of ancient sagas and myths, of pagan healers, shrouded in mystery. Hallucinogenic mushrooms enable shamans to fall into a trance, taking them to other dimensions and into the Beyond, from where they draw their strength. The sacred, hidden places in the woods, where the spirits of mother nature and the ancestors are worshipped, where Will-o'-the-wisp, the wandering lights of the forest, can lead you to safety... or lead you astray. Flood-printed, matt-laminate digipak.

MAURIZIO BIANCHI - 'Bacillusmetrial Entopathogen' CD (Attenuation Circuit / Grubenwehr Freiburg) - £11.50

The three long tracks (74 mins), as well as the sound sources which made up this album, point to the concerns with physical defects and decay present in Maurizio Bianchi's works since its very early stages - the heritage of old school industrial's rather nihilistic outlook. Musically, M.B. makes the most of the underlying concept of inevitability: ambient loops overlap and circulate, pumping sound into the listener's ear like a heart pumps blood into organs, but gradually they slow down and die away. And from track to track the sound textures become harsher and more uncomfortable - not in a harsh noise kind of way, but in a more subliminal manner. Yet somehow the relentless pulsing of the music is strangely comforting: as long as you can still hear these sounds, you are not dead yet. "An exciting work, harking back to [M.B.'s] early days. It is almost as if he dusted off his old equipment and tried to make new music with those machines. It works very well! The bleak sound isn't fully there yet in the opening piece, 'Bacillus, ' which is more of a demented ambient soundtrack. It is bleak but still very pleasant. In the other two pieces, 'Metrial' and 'Entopathogen', one quickly recognises that single sound feeding through some delay pedal, some tape-delay perhaps, some vague, almost erased trace of a melody, and it's reminiscent of, say, 'The Plain Truth'. The titles refer to diseases and have that dark science-fiction soundtrack quality to them. This new [work] I rank among his best" (Vital Weekly). Ltd x 200 copies, with CD in matt-laminate card slip, housed in a 7" PVC sleeve with insert, showcasing the fact that M.B. is not only a prolific sound artist, but also a visual one.

THE MIDNIGHT SHADE - 'The Midnight Shade ' MCD (Corvus Records) - £10

The debut of The Midnight Shade, who merge noir jazz with typical elements of atmospheric black metal and blackened doom. The three lengthy pieces (22min) manage to evoke the atmosphere of old noir movies with a more modern and urban feel, typical of big cities. Acoustic and electric guitars are accompanied by bass, Rhodes piano, synths, drums, trumpet, and flugelhorn. Flood-printed, matt-laminate digipak.

DAVE PHILLIPS - 'Post Homo Sapiens' CD (Attenuation Circuit) - £9.50

Dave Phillips has often been classified as a noise musician, and this is true to the extent that high volumes and extreme frequencies play an important role among his musical strategies. However, the quieter moments full of foreboding (of ecological disasters, for example) are equally important, especially in this album. "Post Homo Sapiens" is not just about full-on sonic assaults, but also a lot about atmosphere and suspense - hence it is no coincidence that one track of the album is dedicated to Jerry Goldsmith, composer of myriad film scores such as "Omen" and "Alien" However, rhythmic, quasi-industrial noise parts also have their place in this album, as well as the dissonant microtonal droning of the opening piece "Biosemiotics", which sounds somewhat like Tony Conrad's early-60's string experiments, possibly played by crickets. Conrad explained his interest in the drone in socio-political terms, namely from his interest in the dismantling of any and all forms of organised culture. This concern may well be shared by Dave Phillips as he urges us to shift our attention from the narrow focus of our human-made culture to the larger natural world of which we are only a part. "Ritual protest music". Sealed card sleeve.

KAYNO YESNO SLONCE - 'Requiem For The White Wind' CD (Corvus Records) - £11.50

"Requiem For The White Wind" is the third album of the Bulgarian folk/ambient band Kayno Yesno Slonce, whose driving force is Veselin Mitev from Isihia. On "Requiem For The White Wind" you can hear genuine Balkan music that flows from the bottom of the soul; music that carries within itself the timeless glory of the Bulgarian mountains. The voice of the bagpipe makes us close our eyes, transport us to another time and listen closely to the rhythm of our hearts. Sacral choirs carry long forgotten voices that tell us of old mountain legends. Many traditional instruments were used in the recording process, such as bagpipe, kaval, duduk and drum. Ltd x 500 copies in an A5 digipak.

ROSE ROVINE E AMANTI - 'Sogni, Visioni E Premonizioni' CD (Corvus Records) - £11.50

The fifth studio album from Italy's Rose Rovine E Amanti, titled "Sogni, Visioni E Premonizioni" (Dreams, Visions and Premonitions), features 12 new songs that blend epic romanticism with neofolk, power rock and medieval influences in the group's own unique style. Deeply inspired by Vladimir Soloviev's short-story "Tale Of The Antichrist" (1900), and others' mystical visions, it is the band's most apocalyptic album to date. Features guest appearances from Andrew King (ex-Sol Invictus), Arthur Rosar (ex-Abigor), and Angelina Sapareska (Angelie). Comes in a digipak with a special lyric booklet, with notes for each song.

THE STONE TAPES - 'Revolutions In The Head' CD (Attenuation Circuit) - £11

The Stone Tapes here is: Edward-Ka Spel (The Legendary Pink Dots), Frans De Waard (Beequeen, Frieband, THU20, Shifts, Kapotte Muziek etc), plus Big City Orchestra members dAS, Ninah Pixie, and Philip Knight. "Revolutions In The Head" represents an almost transcendental stream of 60 minute soundtracks created over several days for a TV station in San Francisco. The concentration involved was almost terrifying, but the satisfaction displayed when that clock hit the magical 60 minute mark seemed like a glorious release. Big City Orchestra instigated the project and were joined by Frans while Edward Ka-Spel joined for the last part of the penultimate session, having literally just got off the train from London and connected his devices mid-session. When the music was over, there seemed to be a general consensus that this meeting of minds needed to be heard by a wider audience. "A 40+ minute transcendental head trip breathing a calm, blurred atmosphere of circular, hence the 'revolutions' in the title, synth waves, frequencies and radio sounds. That 'revolutionary' circular sound aspect is more or less the central theme here, embellished with, at times Nurse With Wound-like sounds, reversed tones, modified analogue squeaks and bleeps, static and a quieter bit with sequenced chords... a very listenable and pleasant sound sculpture" (Vital Weekly). Ltd x 300 copies in a digisleeve.

TIBETAN RED / THE OVAL LANGUAGE / DAS SYNTHETISCHE MISCHGEWEBE - 'The Breath Of The Hydra' CD (Attenuation Circuit) - £11

A three way collaboration between artists residing in Germany, France, and Catalonia. This is the culmination of an on-and-off exchange which began in 2016; of audio material, ideas and suggestions. Salvador Francesch (TIBETAN RED), and Guido Hübner (DAS SYNTHETISCHE MISCHGEWEBE) meet again after a concert at LEM Festival, Barcelona. Since then, working together became evident, as was the choice of including Klaus-Peter John (THE OVAL LANGUAGE) with whom several collaborations have already seen the light of day. The meeting of their different sound worlds and their extremely particular fashions of creating them merge and melt in a whole, able to blur clear distinctions with only an occasional sneaking out of a head and a hissing tongue... the scent and direction respectively in the brooding heat that forges shape and carves direction. "All three composers here share a love for the methods of musique concrète; cutting and pasting with sound to tell a story and that is what they do best here... They work their way through all the material at a careful pace, not fast, not slow... There is some great flair used in creating this music and altogether a great collaboration, free of ego!" (Vital Weekly). Ltd x 300 copies in a 6-panel digipak.

SHE SPREAD SORROW & LUCA SIGURTÀ - 'The Grimorian Tapes' CD (Helen Scarsdale Agency) - £12

"Don't be scared by death", Alice Kundalini (aka She Spread Sorrow) calmly instructs at the beginning of her collaborative Grimorian Tapes with partner Luca Sigurtà. The words slither from her lips with a subtle, sinister unease, compounded by the unsettling quality of her whisper. The fear of death, this most profound condition, has long been a subject of philosophical, spiritual, and existential inquiry. To fear death is undeniably human; to transcend that fear is often seen as reaching a higher plane of existence. At least, that's the intention behind the rituals, the spells woven into the fabric of The Grimorian Tapes. Industrial culture has historically turned to personal ritual, obscure texts, gnostic scriptures, and heretical thought as a means of detaching itself from the corruption of hegemonic western culture. The Italian death industrial duo of She Spread Sorrow and Luca Sigurtà present The Grimorian Tapes as part of this tradition, drawing from a lineage of artists such as Coil, Psychic TV, Current 93, Cranioclast, and Metgumbnerbone. The arrangements manifest out of crumbled tape loops, disconcerting tone-bent half-melodies, and creaking utterances that might not be out of place at a Fox Sisters séance. Throughout, Kundalini's vocals shift from eerie whispers to guttural incantations to extended technique chanting, all intensifying the otherworldly atmosphere. Drawing inspiration from the Black Pullet, an 18th-century French grimoire filled with instructions for making talismans and magical artifacts, Kundalini weaves her own take on the book's esoteric themes into the shadowy tape loops that comprise The Grimorian Tapes. Seductive symbols and ideas, which speak to a long-forgotten language of metaphysical mystery. It's this sense of transmutation, hidden knowledge, and occult wisdom that lends The Grimorian Tapes its dark, ritualistic intensity. 6-panel digipak with reverse board printing.

PAOLO L. BANDERA - 'Riconnessione Iconoclastica Sacrale' CD (Unexplained Sounds) - £12

Italy's Paolo L. Bandera has been propagating unconventional sounds and deviated cultural streams for decades with SIGILLUM S, together with Eraldo Bernocchi and other various acolytes. On top of this, he has been generating noise textures in solo configuration as SSHE RETINA STIMULANTS, and participating in many mutant projects by friends (THE SODALITY, IUGULA-THOR, ENSEMBLE SACRE GARCONS, SIDRA and more). "[The album] discusses the reconnection (Riconnessione) with divine urges obscured by iconoclastic power, in erotic-mystical ecstasy, and a longing that screams from nostalgia to wish fulfilment, feminine in the 'Church of the Virgin' and radically environmentally conscious. Accompanied by archetypal animal symbols, mental coordinates, key emotions, and multisensory performances - like his own. It seeks to reform the light inside and outside, through a gravitational bending of electromagnetic waves by massive bodies, a subject of present and future catastrophes that become super dense and act as lenses. With droning glissando curves, dystopian impressions, through iron-like percussive sounds, a roaring, "breathing", abyssal groaning or singing wave. From resignation to sacred Risorgimento. With whistling and roaring wooshes, a slow, donging heartbeat, an organ-like sustained tone. Nietzsche's The World Is Deep comes to mind... But from this deep dream, it has not yet awakened, trapped in nightmarish loops, disturbed by alarms" (Bad Alchemy). Ltd x 200 copies in a 6-panel matt digipak.

FRANCESCO PAOLO PALADINO with DOROTHY MOSKOWITZ + EDWARD KA-SPEL + LUCA FERRARI - 'Monastir' CD + Booklet (13 / Silentes) - £17

Written and rewritten over three years of meticulous work, "Monastir" is first and foremost a tribute to Andrei Tarkovskij. Conceived in poetic verses by Francesco Paolo Paladino (A.T.R.O.X., Nosesoul), the story was later adapted to suit the vocal artistry of Dorothy Moskowitz, with contributions from Luca Ferrari and Edward Ka-Spel (The Legendary Pink Dots). In this work, Paladino sought to merge the scent of science with that of religion, choosing an ambiguous setting that could hold every kind of question and unresolved doubt. The textures of the participating artists were woven almost magically into the composition. An invisible score made of a precious material - a musical euphoria where shadows reveal the unmistakable silhouettes of kindred spirits.

"A cosmic operator (Edward Ka-Spel), tasked with cleansing the Universe, stumbles upon the remains of a mysterious monastery scattered in Jupiter's skies during his work shift. The monastery once housed a community of cloistered nuns devoted to cosmic solitude. Among the ruins, he discovers the diary of Suona Menfrem (Dorothy Moskowitz). Through her words, he uncovers the secrets of her soul - her love for a woman millions of light years away - and learns why the monastery was abandoned. The nuns' mission, after reaching Jupiter via traditional propellants, was to replace them with the energy of prayers. Menfrem's writings reveal the mission's failure: the prayers, as fuel, lacked purity and truth. The absence of human forms in the ruins suggests an extreme act - the nuns may have sacrificed themselves, dissolving into the cosmos to become prayers (pure energy). The cosmic operator has no way of knowing whether this act opened new cosmic or moral horizons for them. Yet, he returns to Earth with Menfrem's manuscript, which grants him a new vision of the universe he traverses daily". Ltd x 250 copies containing the CD in PVC sleeve, housed in a 24-page 8" book, and finished with a printed hand-numbered vellum wrap.

KOKUM - 'Obscured Instinct And The Pale Folklore' CD (Eighth Tower Records / Unexplained Sounds) - £12

An evocative sonic journey crafted by the Hungarian musician, Kokum. This album traverses the shadowy corridors of dark folk music and the pulsating rhythms of new wave post-industrial soundscapes, creating an otherworldly and mesmerizing experience. Kokum, a visionary artist who utilizes only his voice, field recordings, and the sounds of everyday objects, manipulates these elements with a myriad of electronic effects, blending organic and synthetic sounds into a seamless, immersive narrative. The album's atmosphere evokes the rituals of an ancient, unidentified tribe whose origins remain shrouded in mystery, possibly from a forgotten corner of Earth, or perhaps from an entirely different planet hinting at a fusion of primordial wisdom and futuristic knowledge. "Obscured Instinct and the Pale Folklore" is a compelling exploration of primordial and timeless instincts where the past converges with cults of the future. "KOKUM take us into the realm of dark ambient, leading to caverns lined with bones of unknown origin, as if pulled straight from an ancient pagan horror tale" (Electronic Beats). Ltd x 200 copies in a 6-panel matt digipak.

MASKHEAD - 'Painful Persuation' CD + 3" CD Tin Boxset (Aussaat) - £20

Maskhead is celebrating its 10th anniversary with this special boxset: "Painful Persuation" (the band's own spelling). This album offers great insight for the sleazy and noisy world of Maskhead. There are all those elements included which make this Finnish artist one of a kind: self made oscillator manipulations, fast driven pedal torturing and metal junk spanking (recorded in the old boiler room of an abandoned house). It's sleazy, it's insane, it's the celebration of Maskhead! CD and 3" CD (both CD-proper) presented in a velvet-lined tin box with 6-page booklet and sticker. Ltd x 125 copies only - very few in stock!