MZ.412 - 'The Nar Mattaru Curses'
CD £9.50 Adv (£11.50 after) - OUT 21st AUG

     

For almost four decades, MZ.412 have forged some of the most uncompromising ritual industrial and dark ambient soundscapes the world has ever known.

"The Nar Mattaru Curses" gathers obscure recordings from their whole career including previously unreleased or buried tracks, recorded between 1989 and 2017 in the legendary Nar Mattaru studio in Sweden.

Raw hymns of apocalyptic industrialism, occult malevolence, and crushing sonic sorcery that never made the original albums.

An essential transmission for devotees of black industrial and dark ambient music.

• CD in matt digipak, with artwork by Abby Helasdottir.

VA - 'Tarkovsky'
5CD Boxset £32 Adv (£35 after) - OUT 4th SEP

    

This boxset contains the original soundtracks to the five core works of Andrei Tarkovsky, the master of Soviet cinema: "Ivan's Childhood", "Andrei Roublev", "Solaris", "Mirror", and "Stalker", composed by Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov and Eduard Artemyev.

Vol 1: IVAN'S CHILDHOOD (Иваново детство, 1962). Composer: Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov. Deeply romantic yet sorrowful and sweeping.

Vol 2: ANDREI ROUBLEV (Андрей Рувлёв, 1966). Composer: Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov. An evocative with a profound, choral-heavy resonance.

Vol 3: SOLARIS (Солярис, 1972). Composer: Eduard Artemyev. A ground-breaking work of early electronic music, crafted on the ANS synthesizer.

Vol 4: MIRROR (Зеркало, 1975). Composer: Eduard Artemyev. Dense, slow-moving, disorienting mood pieces with Baroque sensibilities.

Vol 5: STALKER (Сталкер, 1979). Composer: Eduard Artemyev. Indian classical music with eerie layers of synth tones and choirs.

• Deluxe matt-laminate boxset containing 5 x CDs in individually-printed card sleeves. Each album is accompanied by an artcard featuring the original Soviet / Japanese cinema posters on its release.

VA - 'Shoot And Crucify'
CD £11 - OUT NOW!

        

The third tape on the fledgling Cold Spring label, 'Shoot And Crucify' was released back in 1988 in an edition of just 50 copies (CS003). It features some of the very earliest works of many now-influential and essential Industrial / Noise / Experimental artists.

Features: ETHNIC ACID (Anthony Di Franco of Ramleh, AX), SATORI (Dave Kirby + Rob Maycock), THU20 (Guido Doesborg, Jac Van Bussel, Jos Smolders, Peter Duimelinks, Roel Meelkop), DEATH PACT (Korm Plastics boss Frans De Waard + Midas Tapes boss DMDN), REDEMPTION INC. (Neil Campbell of Astral Social Club), BASQUADECK SHELF (Neil Campbell + Mark Turner of ESP Kinetic), L.S.D. (Final Muzik boss Gianfranco Santoro), RADICAL CHANGE (Roberto Vicentini), WELL CRUCIAL (Matthew Kinnison of Cindytalk, Richard Youngs + others who went on to form A Band, Stewart Walden of Smell & Quim, Neil Campbell, members of The Strolling Ones), DAVE KIRBY (Satori, Psychopath), KAPOTTE MUZIEK (Frans de Waard), PSYCHOPATH (Dave Kirby + Rob Maycock, pre-Satori), MERZDOW SHEK (Mario Marzidovsek), NOSTALGIE ETERNELLE (Dieter Mauson of Occupied Head, D.S.I.P. + Stefan Heinze of Inox Kapell, Ferien Vom Ich), and THE STATE (Steven Tanza of Bourbonese Qualk).

The 'scene' at the time was built on the mail-art network, exchanging an explosion of ideas, sounds and art around the world via the (then very cheap) postal system. Just a handful of these 19 tracks have since been reissued, but the vast majority have remained locked in this analogue time capsule for nearly 40 years. Compiled by Rob Maycock. Remastered by Martin Bowes (The Cage).

• CD in matt digipak with new artwork by Abby Helasdottir (and a nod to the original tape art).

KEIJI HAINO & STEVE NOBLE - 'Cafe OTO'
CD £11.50 Adv - OUT NOW!

       

Legendary Japanese experimentalist Keiji Haino (Fushitsusha) and London's fearless drummer Steve Noble (Æthenor) took to the stage at Cafe OTO in 2012 for a monumental concert - with Haino's extreme treatments of electric guitar, and feedback, with Noble on a lot of percussion...

While Keiji Haino theatrically sweeps between bleak and uninhibited paranoia, deep-level zoning and bluesy contemplation, Steve Noble's huge set up and graceful approach brings space, light and shade - so much so that at one point Haino unplugs his guitar and picks up a small wooden flute. Dynamic, dramatic and surprisingly uplifting.

"The sounds came across as random explosions, with passages of near-silence abruptly giving way to percussive clatters and sustained guitar roars. Then suddenly, they leaped into full chaotic freak-out mode, with Noble sending his small gongs and bowls flying as he pummelled the skins, unleashing a veritable thunderstorm of raucous sound...

Meanwhile, Haino switched on the fuzz and feedback, his guitar screaming like a beast possessed, with molten solo after molten solo cascading out of the amps. Just as quickly, they'd revert back to contemplative mode, Haino twisting and twitching his strings with the delicate touch of a brain surgeon. The interplay between the two was bewitching..." (Londonears)

• CD in matt digipak

SUN RA | MERZBOW - 'Strange City'
2CD £14.50 - OUT NOW!

         

Officially licensed from Irwin Chusid of the SUN RA estate, Cold Spring negotiated rare and unreleased tracks from the SUN RA archive to be remixed and treated by Masami Akita (MERZBOW). The tracks incorporate the jazz power of SUN RA, carried into brutal excess by the legendary Japanese noise artist, MERZBOW.

Originally released by Cold Spring a decade ago and long sold out, the music was spread across vinyl and CD, with completely different music on each format. The tracks are now collected together here for the first time, from the original masters and presented in the order originally intended (the vinyl format dictated the order due to optimal sound quality restraints).

"The constant and destructive waves of noise make this decisively a Merzbow record, but its cosmic mood and rhythms prove that Sun Ra lives in its DNA" (Pitchfork)

Also included (for the first time on any release) is the bonus two minute track 'Granular Jazz Part 5', a special composition created for the Stuart Maconie's "Freak Zone" (BBC Radio 6), which was only broadcast once, ahead of Merzbow's show at Manchester's legendary FAC251, September 2016.

• 2CD with expanded artwork in a 8-panel double digipak - comes with an 8-page booklet featuring a new essay by Gydja. Orders from Cold Spring come with 2 free stickers (one Merzbow, one Sun Ra).

VA - 'Salò or The 120 Days Of Sodom' -
CD £11 | T-Shirt £18 | LP BROWN | £25 - OUT NOW!

The first time on any format for Pier Paolo Pasolini's controversial 1975 vision of the Marquis De Sade's 120 Days Of Sodom, featuring beautiful and discordant classical compositions, in stark contrast to the shocking and cruel events unfolding onscreen.

Three weeks before the scandalous release of "Salò, or The 120 Days Of Sodom", Pasolini was brutally murdered in Ostia, Italy. In the wake of the tragedy, legendary composer Ennio Morricone wrote 'Addio a Pier Paolo Pasolini' (Goodbye to Pier Paolo Pasolini) for the late filmmaker, included in the final edit.

Following the narrative of one of Pasolini's defining cinematic moments, the soundtrack opens with Ennio Morricone's "Son Tanto Triste", descends into the melancholic minor chords of Bach, Chopin, Orff, Puccini, and Graziosi, incorporates sinister renditions by the cast, and includes Morricone's own sombre tribute to the director.

Disgusted by the flood of crass sexploitation movies which filled the space opened up by his "Trilogy Of Life", Pasolini turned to the most nihilistic thinker in European history for what became his final film. His version of De Sade's 120 Days Of Sodom, amplified with motifs from Dante's Inferno, confronts the ultimate implications of fascism in a series of sexual and moral atrocities. "The only true anarchy is power".

The CD was released on Friday 13th February 2026, exactly 249 years since the Marquis de Sade was arrested and imprisoned in the dungeon of the Vincennes fortress for charges of "debauchery and immoderate libertinage" that scandalised his contemporaries.

• CD in matt-laminate gatefold ecopak
• White Gildan Softstyle t-shirt with red / greyscale print
• Black Gildan Softstyle t-shirt with red / greyscale print
• Ltd 500 copies on brown vinyl in gatefold matt-laminate sleeve (second + final pressing!)

Warning - graphic artwork (as to be expected).

Ltd Brown LP	CD - £11	Ltd White Shirt - £18	Black Shirt - £18

ANDREW CHALK & DAISUKE SUZUKI - 'The Years After' CD (Siren Records) - £14.50

A nod to 'The Days After' (2003), the first collaborative album from drone-ambient maestros Andrew Chalk (Mirror, Ora, Ferial Confine) and Daisuke Suzuki. "After having found the earliest version of 'The Days After' in my archives last autumn, there was an excitement that grows with the beginning of something in the creative process and the sparkle of an idea that can never be recreated. Furthermore, there was a moment when trial and error emit a spark like the striking of a flint. I thought it was worth releasing, and Andrew agreed. Then, we asked that our most trusted mastering engineer, Denis Blackham, bring the album to a new life. Denis' amazing mastering skills made the album what it should be: a powerful piece of work that feels fresh and full of energy. It's been 23 years since then. We have come a long way together. It's been a long road, but we've been there for each other every step of the way. That's why the album is called 'The Years After'. Actually it's 'Twenty-three Years After'... I couldn't be happier." (Daisuke Suzuki). Ltd x 200 copies in an outsized tip-on matt card sleeve.

CATHOLICS AGAINST ARCHITECTURE - 'Columns' CD (Fourth Dimension) - £11.50

Catholics Against Architecture is Chris Connelly (Finitribe / Pigface / Rev Co.). Here he has crafted rivulets of subdued noise, location recordings, tender guitar work, tape manipulation and all kinds of other sounds into sonic collages, spoken word, fractured melodies, with vocals reminiscent of David Bowie. From its occasionally lo-fi stature (due to being recorded on antiquated reel to reel and various cassette players in a state of disrepair) to its jittery blend of free jazz, tone poetry, labyrinthine textural currents and found sounds, passages of hiss and mature songcraft, "Columns" points to an artist perfectly at ease. An artist continuing to explore new trajectories and remain true to his place as someone far more than the sum of his parts. Thematically bound to an anti-religion stance which makes sense in these especially turbulent times where rampant polarisation is galvanised by religion as well as politics, "Columns" stands as a testament to something that can never be compounded enough. The title itself subtly refers to the columns found within churches as well as the columns of smoke generated by religious war. Ltd x 300 copies in a digipak.

DAVID JACKMAN - 'Mausoleum' CD (Siren Records) - £14.50

"Mausoleum" is the latest release by Jackman, following the eight-part David Jackman / Organum Electronics Subscription Series issued by Die Stadt 2023-2025. While continuing concerns explored throughout the series, "Mausoleum" also recalls aspects of earlier Organum recordings such as "Horii" and "Rasa". The spatial placement of sound, use of low frequencies, and distinctive sense of duration remain central to the work. The recording is built from recurring elements including tanpura, layered bass drones, bells, gongs and sustained organ tones. Carefully positioned and developed over time, these materials form a work that is both highly structured and spacious. "Mausoleum" stands as an individual work within Jackman's catalogue. The album presents a particularly focused balance of form, pacing and sonic detail, resulting in a compelling and immersive listening experience. Ltd x 500 copies in a digisleeve with design once again by Jonathan Coleclough.

DEMOGORGON - 'Lambda Dark Space' CD (Zazen Sounds) - £12

Born within the Greek underground of the 1990's and created by a figure connected to well-known names of the domestic extreme music scene, Demogorgon now re-emerges from the shadows, after almost 30 years of silence, through an entirely different dimension of sound. Leaving behind conventional musical boundaries, the new album enters the realms of Space Ambient and Dark Ambient, built upon analogue synthesizers, deep frequencies, vibrational sound, gongs, and atmospheric structures conceived through visualization and inner states of consciousness. An evolution and transformation of a project whose roots have always been connected to occult philosophy, spiritual exploration, and the deeper dimensions of artistic creation. A functional and meditative soundscape, exploring cosmogony, matter, space, and the invisible currents behind existence. Demogorgon returns after three decades. Not to repeat the past, but to continue the journey through another dimension. 8-panel digisleeve.

DIE WEISSE ROSE - 'The Evenings And Other Songs About Sex, Violence and Nihilism' LP BLACK (Steelwork Maschine) - £29

A world on fire. A journey through its embers. A demand that art must turn into action. After 17 years since the last studio album Die Weisse Rose finally return with their most uncompromising and immersive work to date. "The Evenings And Other Songs About Sex, Violence and Nihilism" traces a fractured journey through collapsing landscapes, where intimacy, brutality, and existential disillusionment intertwine. Each composition unfolds like a chapter or a Polaroid: evenings that blur into one another, moments of tenderness ruptured by violence, and an ever-present undercurrent of nihilism that refuses its own resolution. Die Weisse Rose construct a raw and cinematic sound, where classical instrumentation collides with field recordings, degraded textures, and analogue decay. Art must transcend observation and be turned into action. Thomas Bøjden's vocal delivery moves between intimate confessions and incantatory intensity, while Cornelius Waldner's (Sagittarius) piano work shifts from fragile minimalism to percussive force. Aloma Ruiz's (Current 93) violin threads through the record like a nervous system. At times mournful, at times violently expressive while weaving all the compositions together. Field recordings anchor the album in a physical world, grounding its abstractions in a lived reality. Bøjden's lyrics make the album a sonic and poetic documentation of a world that is aflame. Ltd x 250 copies on black vinyl, housed in a gatefold cover with inner printed sleeve.

DIE WEISSE ROSE - 'The Evenings And Other Songs About Sex, Violence and Nihilism' LP PINK (Steelwork Maschine) - £32

Coloured LP edition of the above release. Ltd x 250 copies on pink vinyl, housed in a gatefold cover with inner printed sleeve.

DIEUX DES CIMETIÈRES - 'Mercy & Severity' CD (Misantropia Records) - £12

"Mercy & Severity" continues Dieux Des Cimetières' journey towards mythological, esoteric and occult concepts. Borrowing its name from the teachings of The Hermetic Order Of The Golden Dawn, "Mercy & Severity" reflects upon the symbolism of the Middle Pillar: light and shadow, white and black, good and evil, mercy and severity, and a pillar between them, in the centre of the cosmos, that finds a balance between the two. Musically, the Finnish act continues on a logical trajectory from previous albums. Esoteric neoclassical combines with martial industrial to create an album that is on one hand majestic and powerful, but on the other emotional, tender and beautiful - and seeks a chemical marriage of the two. Ltd x 200 copies in a 6-panel digipak.

GOVERNMENT ALPHA - 'Apophenia' CD (Xerxes) - £12.50

The brand new studio album from Government Alpha (Xerxes boss Yasutoshi Yoshida)! Apophenia is the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things, e.g. cognitive bias, seeing faces or objects in clouds, gambler's fallacy, false positives etc. "The latest masterwork of harsh noise from the Japanese OG, Government Alpha highlight his ever-increasing proficiency in the realm of extreme electronic experimental destruction. Apophenia, recorded in summer 2024 and winter 2025, are fresh new works, detailing earsplitting frequencies and sweeping harsh noise layers. Gov't Alpha's exercises of extreme audio torture focuses on steady, streaming cacophonous punishment. It attacks the listener with various sound frequencies that never let up, electrocuting the audio landscape with continuous flowing noise, blips, drones, screeches, and barrages. The colorful paintings and art cards provide a contrast to the extremes found within with (welcome) torture: pure audial annihilation. Merging the harsh noise aesthetics of Japanoise with stream of consciousness collections of electronic snippets and sound manipulations, GA creates dense and detailed mini epics that stretch to nine and ten minute territories. But you won't seem to notice the time expansions as the ebb and flow remain engaging, and slightly hypnotic. It holds your attention while scrubbing out your eardrums" (THC Zine). Comes in an outsized card sleeve with 6 artwork inserts and a sticker of the album cover, finished with an obi strip.

GOVERNMENT ALPHA - 'The Human Race Was Restored To Life Repeatedly' LP (Urashima) - £24

Government Alpha, the project of Yasutoshi Yoshida, is one of the central figures in Japanese harsh noise, emerging from Tokyo's early 1990's underground scene. Through his Xerxes label, he developed a style that is both extreme and meticulously constructed, balancing ferocity and precision with remarkable control. Even at its most chaotic, every sonic eruption feels carefully placed. Originally released on cassette in 1994, "The Human Race Was Restored To Life Repeatedly" captures a pivotal stage in Yoshida's artistic development. Raw, unstable, and charged with experimental energy, it already reveals the defining characteristics of his later work. These recordings reflect a deeply physical, hands-on approach to sound creation - worn electronics, manipulated tapes, feedback, and metallic objects become sonic material, each noise bent, reshaped, and reassembled into new forms. A precise balance between violence and composition. Remastered by Lasse Marhaug. Ltd x 199 copies.

MODELBAU - 'The End Of The Continuum' CD (Lumberton Trading Company / Fourth Dimension) - £11.50

"Analysis Reveals Nothing Of Substance" (March 2026) brought together the minds of Frans de Waard (Modelbau, Kapotte Muziek, Beequeen, Goem, Freiband, Shifts) and Steven Wilson (Bass Communion, Porcupine Tree) into a space that proved their own slightly different takes on such music exemplified a unique synergy rich in scope. On "The End Of The Continuum", Frans gathers nine solo compositions effortlessly moulding wonderful shapes from sinewy electronic tones, spacey bleeps and bloops, iridescent babbling, penumbral shifts and a minimalist soundbed. There's as much emphasis on space as there is on sonics which might sit comfortably at the edge of the known universe. Somewhat more penetrable than similarly-inclined music, this is deep listening given a lift to the point one could drift away for endless days to it. Besides the nine cuts there's an additional exclusive remix by BASS COMMUNION that catches Steven Wilson adding his own sounds and providing the lengthiest piece on the album. The perfect finale to an album once more compounding the fact there are still places to explore in the world of experimental ambient music. Ltd x 300 copies in a digipak.

NAM-KHAR - 'Antimon' CD (Zazen Sounds / Cyclic Law) - £12

"Antimon" is the latest ritual transmission from the long-standing collective Nam-Khar. Founded in 2009, the project has continuously navigated the liminal intersections between ritual ambient, psychoacoustic exploration and esoteric introspection, employing an arsenal of ethnic instrumentation, analogue synthesis and immersive visual elements to construct deeply transformative sonic environments. Following the completion of the acclaimed Tibetan Trilogy ("Secret Essence", "Sur Chöd", "Dok-Pa"), "Antimon" signals a significant evolution in the project's sonic language while retaining the spiritual and ritualistic essence. Contemplative analogue drones and ritual sound structures merge with glitches, sequenced pulses and vast floating textures, forming a sonic coniunctio where organic and synthetic elements dissolve into one another. Drawing from Carl Jung's fascination with alchemical symbolism as manifestations of archetypal structures within the collective unconscious, "Antimon" approaches alchemy not as historical curiosity, but as a metaphorical framework for psychic transformation. The ancient transmutation of lead into gold becomes a symbol for the purification and integration of the fragmented self, mirroring the process Jung identified as individuation. In this sense, "Antimon" operates as an act of sound alchemy, a catalyst intended to accompany processes of introspection, confrontation and inner metamorphosis. A ceremonial descent into the hidden architecture of the psyche where ritual sound becomes a vehicle for transformation. Digipak.

OF THE WAND AND THE MOON - 'Vargqld' LP GOLDEN (Steelwork Maschine) - £32

Revived with a modified collection of tracks for vinyl, this is a compilation of the finest compositions from the first Of The Wand And The Moon albums, recorded between 1999-2003: "Nighttime Nightrhymes" (1999), ":Emptiness:Emptiness:Emptiness:" (2001), "Lucifer" (2003), plus a few tracks from the "Midnight Will" EP (2000), and "Sonnenheim" (2005). The title "Vargqld" means "Wolf-Time" in Icelandic / Old Norse. One of the brightest stars of the Neofolk scene, Of The Wand And The Moon is the brainchild of Denmark's Kim Larsen, playing melancholic, acoustic dark folk music with thematic influences spanning runelore, Aleister Crowley, Norse mythology, esoterica, and paganism. First released on CD (Old Captain, 2023), the LP is available in four coloured editions, each limited to just 100 copies! Golden (THIS), Dark Green, Neon Lime, and Black (for a total quantity of 400 copies). Each colourway comes with a different A2 size poster. Tracks: A1. I Crave For You (Alternative Version), A2. In The Colours Of Night, A3. A Dirge, A4. She With Whom Compar'd The Alpes Are Vallies (Alternative Version), A5. Lost In Emptiness, A6. My Devotion Will Never Fade, B1. I Shall Feast, B2. Brace Your Self, B3. Honour, B6. Can I Erase The Demon?, B5. Vargqld.

RUMIL VILDANOV - 'Kino Variants 1967-1986' 2 x LP (Von Archives) - £25

The first-ever collection to illuminate the vast body of work created by the Uzbek composer Rumil Vildanov during the second half of the 20th Century. Offering a rare glimpse of liberated creative spirit operating behind the Iron Curtain, this engrossing double LP provides an unprecedented immersion into the work of one of the most celebrated composers from Uzbekistan, often described as the "Ennio Morricone of Central Asia". Comprising a startling range of electronic and electroacoustic experiments, evocative chamber works and orchestral works, and more discrete instrumental efforts (all created to accompany moving image), totalling an incredible 82 pieces in total, this remarkable sonic journey into Vildanov's inner world and towering talents, which have, until now, remained almost entirely unheard beyond the time and place within which he worked - contributes a significant historical counterpoint to standing perceptions connected to artistic expression under Soviet rule, placing the composer's engrossing contribution to post-war music within the broader context it deserves. Meticulous audio restoration and mastering by Andrea Marutti. Ltd x 300 copies with printed inner sleeve.

SOLMANIA - 'H•A•D•A•Y•R•O' LP (Urashima) - £24

Originally released on cassette in 1985, 'H•A•D•A•Y•R•O' is a landmark of radical Japanese noise music. It documents the early vision of Solmania and the singular sonic approach of Masahiko Ohno and his personal sound laboratory. For years, it remained a cult artifact among collectors and underground enthusiasts. At the heart of the album are his self-built guitars, transformed into extraordinary sound-generating machines. Their tones scrape, roar, and vibrate with an almost organic intensity. Alongside these, Ohno also employs tape, radio, turntable, and voice - expanding the palette into a raw, multi-source field of sound, with drums and keyboard performed by Tomioka Akira. Layered noise, distortion, feedback, metallic harmonics, low-end resonance, and electrical abrasion intertwine into dense, evolving structures. Despite its industrial harshness, it's not simply about volume or aggression, but about exploring texture, repetition, and transformation. A balance between construction and controlled collapse, its hypnotic passages take on an almost ritualistic, sculptural quality. Ltd x 199 copies.

TEMPLE OF 334 - 'Sanctum' CD (Zazen Sounds) - £12

Temple Of 334 is a newly formed Ritual Dark Ambient project, yet the presence behind it is far from new. Created by a figure whose path within the Greek underground reaches back to the late 1990's, the project represents a new chapter of artistic and spiritual exploration, shaped through decades of experience, inner study, and involvement within the domestic scene. "Sanctum" opens the gates to a sonic temple where ritual atmosphere, dark frequencies, symbolism, and introspection converge. Sound is approached as a vehicle for contemplation, inner movement, and the exploration of unseen dimensions. Rooted in occult and philosophical inquiry, Temple Of 334 seeks the threshold between the sacred and the unknown, allowing vibration, silence, and atmosphere to become instruments of transformation. The birth of a new ritual entity carrying the experience and spiritual weight of a path that began more than three decades ago. The Temple opens. The first manifestation begins. Gatefold digisleeve.

WAELTAJA - 'Centuries Of Sorrow' CD (Misantropia Records) - £12

Originally a digital album self-released on Waeltaja's Bandcamp (2024), this album now gets the CD-proper treatment. An Epic dungeon synth / dark ambient journey from the cold north, "Centuries Of Sorrow" offers three lengthy tracks with titles such as 'A Grievous Procession Towards The End' and 'Lost In The Caverns Of Misery'. Bleak, atmospheric, heavy and sorrowful. Finland's Grim666 also records as Patient Omega and Voidwind. Digipak with new artwork.

WAELTAJA - 'Omega Monolith' CD (Misantropia Records) - £12

"Omega Monolith" is the brand new album from Finland's Waeltaja (aka Grim666 of Patient Omega and Voidwind). Four long dungeon synth anthems with a dark ambient spine, weighing in at just under an hour. The cold, misanthropic windswept north bears down once again... with track titles like 'To Walk Among Bones And Ash and 'Prayers Of Extinct' setting the bleak tone. File alongside Mortiis or Vinterriket. Digipak.

ORGANUM - 'Raven' CD (Siren Records) - £14.50

"Raven" was the first new Organum album release since "SOROW" in 2010 (Siren Records) and was recorded in 2017. For its realisation, Organum was comprised of David Jackman, Alan Jones, and Daisuke Suzuki. "Raven" is composed of striking piano-keys, church bells, temple gongs, a crow, a raven and a rook and is divided into 13 parts. Sounds appear from silence and then return again into that silence. "Raven" is a work within those very silences. You can contemplate emptiness intently after the sounds have ended. As in Basho's Haiku poems: "The old pond, a frog jumps in, then silence again". This album is similar to Organum's first 12", "Tower Of Silence", and a listener will reflect that absence and emptiness are the permanent essences of Organum's music, within the chaos and flux of its phenomena. Less is more and Organum leave with us only the bare essentials. "Raven" is neither a hymn, nor a requiem. Ltd x 500 copies, packaged in a white tip-on outsized cardboard jacket with insert.

ORGANUM ELECTRONICS - 'Organum Electronics' CD (Siren Records) - £14.50

The first volume of Organum Electronics, the ultra heavy Drone Noise project of British artist David Jackman. The difference from his main project, Organum, is that it literally uses electronics as a material for creating sounds. "In the birth of the universe, time stands still amidst a wild and untameable energy. Radiant light bathes and purifies solid stone pillars, both ancient and modern. Wild vibrations touch our most innermost core and perception. Organum Electronics exists in the clear moment of the present but its mysterious compositions lay hidden in a timeless past. Modulating oscillations mirror our most fundamental sense of being, as though a living and breathing entity would, communicating with a life-force and language we have all but forgotten. With Organum Electronics, the minimal approach lies in the single long-form piece of electronic sounds. Ltd x 500 copies in a digisleeve.

NURSE WITH WOUND - 'Alice The Goon (Expanded Edition)' 2 x CD (United Dairies) - £20

"Alice The Goon" was a single-sided LP originally released on White Noise label for the Festival Ultimes Musiques, May 1995. On its original three tracks, Nurse With Wound stretched a single bad dream into half an hour of delirium: queasy not quite easy listening that mutated from lounge lilt to industrial throb, like a Popeye cartoon left to rot in a dripping underground cinema. "Alice The Goon" sits in NWW's catalogue like a particularly vivid hallucination; a miniature suite that twists the very idea of background music into something sly, menacing and oddly seductive. Personnel and production add to the record's peculiar charge. Stapleton is joined by long-time conspirators (including Diana Rogerson, Peat Bog, Michael Dawson and Elephant in various incarnations across editions), with everything produced and mixed in classic NWW fashion: hands-on, collage-driven, unconcerned with genre boundaries. Too structured to be pure noise, too disfigured to be ambient, too slyly humorous to sit comfortably as "industrial". Instead, it occupies that characteristically NWW zone where reference points - easy listening, cartoon scores, avantgarde tape music, occult ritual - are all present but never settle into a single frame. This expanded edition contains several unique mixes by Colin Potter, Andrew Liles, Matt Waldron, Diarmuid MacDiarmada, Señor Coconut and various unreleased material from the original sessions. Presented in a deluxe 8-panel double digipak, featuring the original release art, alongside older renditions by Babs Santini.

ANDREW CHALK - 'The End Times' CD (ICR) - £10

Fragile, melodic tracks from Andrew Chalk (Mirror, Ora, Ferial Confine) that weave in and out of focus in an almost hallucinatory manner, evoking many different moods and emotions. "Andrew Chalk is still making incredibly beautiful and distinctive music, as The End Times is a characteristically sublime and immersive dreamscape of tender melodies, elegantly shifting moods, and vividly detailed textures... the most prominent features throughout are the quivering, liquid-like character of the notes and the ephemeral brevity of the pieces. Rather than evolving and expanding, these 13 pieces instead feel like a series of enigmatic mirages that offer a fleeting and flickering glimpse of heaven before dissolving back into nothingness. Given all the gentle, blurred sounds and the tone of meditative reverie, it is deceptively easy to mistake The End Times for ambient music, yet it reveals itself to be considerably more than that for those willing to fully immerse themselves in Chalk's slow-motion fantasia of beautiful details and small yet significant events... he is without peer at sculpting compositions until nothing remains but a fleeting and fragile moment of simple poignant beauty" (Brainwashed). Mastered by Dennis Blackham. Matt digipak.

DISSECTING TABLE - 'Purification Of The Soul' CD (E-Klageto / Psych.KG) - £11.50

Dissecting Table is the exclusive brainchild of Tokyo's Ichiro Tsuji - UPD Organization label boss, the first vocalist of Gudon and a maverick of the Japanese noise world. This work consisting of 6 longform tracks (50 mins) was recorded using a studio-made synthesizer system via line recording, with additional devices, corrugated iron sheet performance, and violin. "Framed by Buddhist traditions, the three-eyed, snarling guardian of the teachings armed with sword and noose, Tsuji himself seems unprotected from despair, a state of suspended animation, mental damage, distractions, and blackout etc. Hence, perhaps, his self-deprecating insults like 'Bullsh*tter' and 'Moron'. His medicine here is a loop of imbecilic, murmuring mantras over bubbling noise and electronic fluting. To impulsive chugging and ticking, he can't stop his inner demons... Noise crashes, clunky and stereophonic, trilling alarmingly. Is this the élan vital of robots, automatons, and other tin-metal idiots, the industrial age in its demented final state?... 'Last Words' bubble up, mouthless, as impulsive foolishness, chirping, twittering, as an electronic wah-wah. Finally, Tsuji intones another monastic-shamanic mantra, to the undiminished, impulsively buzzing and twittering mess". Ltd x 199 hand-numbered copies in an A5 gatefold card sleeve.

CEDAR SPIRITS - 'Cedar Spirits' CD (Glass Throat Recordings) - £13

Cedar Spirits is a collaboration between artists Pythagamus Olaf Marshall (Novemthree) and Chet W. Scott (Cycle Of The Raven Talons, Blood Of The Black Owl, Ruhr Hunter), well-known to those who love ritual, dark folk and nature inspired music (Novemthree featured on our "John Barleycorn Reborn: Rebirth" compilation). Through this organic and purely acoustic presence, the Cedar Spirits express a growth of spirit, light of life within a deeply respectful musical craft, created with mountain dulcimer, Sacred Horns and the ocarina just to name a few. An honoring of the Mother through every note and every word. "The sounds of the Cedar Spirits are elemental, drenched by rain, warmed by the sun, in deep connection with the woodland soil. There's a lovely, distinctly modern pagan feeling in Cedar Spirits, one that leans less on man-made tradition, and more on a direct communion with the environment, channelled through a uniquely American musicality that combines influences foreign and native... Possibly the best bit of wyrd witchery you’ll hear this year" (Evening Of Light). Presented in a stunning 6" x 6", 6-panel outsized textured grey card sleeve, beautifully enhanced with smoked dark matte brown foil stamping throughout.