Boomkat new releases list

*Immense, dark and unbelievably heavy analogue productions somewhere between Eleh, Pan Sonic and Eliane Radigue on this limited edition vinyl pressing. It doesn’t really matter when this music was made or by whom, all you need to know is that only 400 copies have been made for the world, housed in a suitably anonymous white-on-white embossed sleeve* Suum Cuique (pronouned Soom Kwi-Kwe, Latin for “To Each His Own”) follows the remit of Young Americans to explore uncharted, experimental, and personal synthscapes, guided by the hand of intuition with an entirely analogue array of machines. There’s a confidence and ability to these productions which elevates them above the masses of lo-fi synth meanderings currently murmuring in the underground, occupying the tantalising space between Eliane Radigue and James Ferraro, or Thomas Köner and Daphne Oram, creating a dialogue between their shared and opposing aesthetics to give an emotional response with deeply chilling and engrossing results. In ‘Lithic Reduction’ concrète textures grind like a millstone to release powdery clouds of analog dust, settling only to be dispersed by gusts of blackened distortion, whereas ‘Red Binary’ is distinctly electronic, revolving around muted radar bleeps like the resonance from SAW II soundtracking a speckly pill experience that’s starting to go west. The album’s centrepiece, the aptly titled ‘Entropy’ nods to the sublimely stoic work of Eleh, radiating microtonal bass shifts while a bitter northerly wind builds in intensity. Brilliantly out of place, ‘Cyclic Redundancy’ opens the flipside with a majestically submerged slab of completely obliterated and submerged 4/4, like an unholy collusion between Mika Vainio, Sandwell and Bernard Parmegiani soundtracking a trade union rave in the 1950’s, before ‘Even In Death…’ conjures imagery of a eulogy given by a Mongolian throat singer with crows circling overhead. Strictly limited copies, catch it while you can.

The outer limits of contemporary kosmiche and experimental synth music continue to be explored with a screen printed and hugely limited transmission from Seattle’s hotly tipped Brother Raven. As a rite of passage, they’ve already released a handful of cassettes on local imprint Gift Tapes and the ace Taped Sounds outlet (home to Oneohtrix Point Never, Uton, and James Ferraro among others), before dropping these two sides of “space music with the positive-vibe ambiance of early new age”. They also cite Inuit mythology and time travel among their influences, with slightly more discernable traits inherited from the early ’80s synth music of J.D. Emmanuel. The duo of Jamie Potter and Jason E Anderson have a charmingly naive sound, wandering through an array of Multi and Micro Moogs, Polysynths and Yamaha keyboards recorded to tape, with the slightly unusual addition of a Roland SH-101 and SH-1, which we’d assume are responsible for the interjections of fragile proto-techno pulses which crop up in between their freeform strokes. Overall, the effect of ‘VSS-30’ is like progressing through an early 8-bit commodore game, eager to progress towards the next level, but happy to vibe off the dayglo graphics and sounds. The recording to tape adds that unmistakable analogue warmth that makes this one of the finer records of its kind to hit our racks this year. Limited to 150 copies and highly recommended to fans of KFW, OPN or Skaters.

*Featuring previously unreleased and specially commissioned material from Black To Comm, Thomas Köner, BJ Nilsen, Francisco Lopez, Chris Watson, Jana Winderen and more – housed in an oversized french-language booklet* This specially compiled release features 14 exclusive compositions exploring the aesthetics of wind and wind storms from Chris Watson, BJ Nilsen, Francisco López, Black To Comm, Thomas Köner, Jana Winderen and more. It comes with a French-language booklet with interviews with the contributors but unfortunately our French game is weak so we’ll head straight to the sounds within, a rather magnificent collections focussed on that most primal and deeply evocative element. Köner’s ‘The Weary Seer’ deploys the movement of air very subtly, reserving it for tantalisingly slow and breathy background imagery in a wider scene of darkly spiritual, cavernous ambience, sharply contrasting with Tetsuo Furudate’s visceral cyclone in ‘Mr G. I., He Is Still Calling Me In The Wind’, a Merzbow-esque display of noise mystery. Mike Harding’s excellent ‘Broken Window’ focusses on the serendipitous nature of wind, capturing pressure changes from the titular pane, while Black To Comm’s psychedelic ‘Scorpions Rising’ features whistling and autumnal gusts. Francisco López offers the uncomfortably close and wickedly indecipherable field recording treatments of ‘Untitled #240’ and the always magical BJ Nilsen seems to investigate the dynamic connections between electrical distortion and wind in the attentive ‘Wind Amp’. Finally, Chris Watson closes the set with another incredible field recording – ‘Ravenscleugh’ recorded in the Cheviot Hills, Northumberland, a brief but marvelously symphonic composition. Very highly recommended.

Keith Kenniff’s second release for the Western Vinyl imprint (and his third full-length in all) finds the Helios man returns to the project’s inclinations toward nostalgic piano compositions. Famous Places features a list of tracks named after locations that have played an important part in Kenniff’s life to date, each one being loaded with a particular significance relating to memory. A close-miced recording technique accentuates the simplicity and intimacy of Kenniff’s melodious musings, and while the piano solo is clearly the medium the Goldmund project is predominantly concerned with, Kenniff frequently adds contextual details to his recordings, setting his keywork among billowy, abstract drones, a few quietly mixed-in additional instruments and occasional percussion (as put to good use on the outstanding ‘Dane Street’). Like Harold Budd before him, Goldmund blurs the lines between ambient music and contemporary-classical and creates intensely atmospheric and very cinematic vignettes (Kenniff’s music has accompanied manifold films, advertisements and television broadcasts). Famous Places ranks as another first class entry into Kenniff’s discography.

*Long-awaited Important edition of this amazing Kosmische album – newly mastered from the original tapes and made in an edition of 500 copies for the world* Chances are you won’t have heard of J D Emmanuel before. This record in particular was a private pressing released back in 1982 and owned by a select few punters who quite clearly did their research. In recent years the record’s reputation has spread, with rumours circulating that it was a transcendent blend of Terry Riley, The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Popul Vuh and early Kraftwerk – but finding it was about as easy as looking for a connection between Wolf Eyes and The Spice Girls. Then, without fanfare, the album re-appeared as a limited edition on the Belgian ‘Dreamtime Taped Sounds’ and we knew as soon as we got our grubby mitts on a copy that this was something that simply had to be heard to be believed, that would stun just about everyone we know with its almost meditative electronic explorations. I’m sure many of you remember Delia Derbyshire’s amazing ‘Electrosonic’ LP (that lasted about two weeks…) and this album gives us the same kind of chills, it’s just THAT sound, it’s impossible to put your finger on but even more impossible to re-create. With the amount of retro-electronic music coming out at the moment you’d think someone would have nailed it, but no, it’s still these records that emerged at the time, that came from people genuinely excited by the technology and the possibilities this technology could inform that really hit you where you need to be hit. Using three Sequential Circuit Pro-1 synthesizers, a Crumar Organ and some delays (recording direct to tape) Emmanuel manages to conjure up deep, distorted faraway lands, astral plains and shimmering multi-coloured skies – the soft synthesizer tones dictating the journey perfectly. Whether with bubbling, almost sequenced-sounding synth bass, or with organ-like improvised phrases, Emmanuel never takes a wrong turn and this is an album that will rarely leave your turntable (trust me, it’s been welded to mine since I got it). The sensitivity and simplicity of the music is almost impossible to convey, suffice to say we think it’s one of the best (and most unexpected) things we’ve heard this year so far, and followers of early electronic music, Kraftwerk and the Radiophonic Workshop need to get a hold of one right away. Stunning stuff, and incredibly limited – we only have a few so be quick if you want to secure yourself a copy. ESSENTIAL PURCHASE.

Super expansive 10xCD box set (seriously, this thing weighs a ton) featuring 169 tracks charting the history of Indian film music with complimentary hardback book housed in an opulent boxset. This is easily the most comprehensive collection of Indian Film Music we’ve ever seen. As anyone who has witnessed a Bollywood or Indian film will testify, among the quaintly loved-up but often lousy storylines are glorious musical sequences, colourfully choreographed and packed with memorable hooks. The thing that’s most impressive about this set is how far back it goes – starting with super-obscure recordings from the 1930’s and 40’s, followed by by two discs covering the golden period of the 1950’s, two discs covering the 1960’s and then some wildly evocative 1970’s recordings spanning a further two discs. Basically this is an absolute treasure trove of gems waiting to be discovered – we’ve only had a quick skip through each disc so far and the quality is top notch, covering legends such as Lata Mangeshkar, Ashok Kumar, and Asha Bhosle to newer stars including Shreya Ghoshal and Hema Sardesai, coupled with heavily researched book written by Rajiv Vijayakar. It’s every bit the definite article of Hindi cinema and should excite connoisseurs and fans alike – don’t miss.

Their fourth album together, celebrated folktronic cut-up merchants The Books return on a new label for The Way Out, their first release in half a decade. The album seems to switch between sample-driven collage pieces and more conventionally composed songs. In the former camp you’ll hear tracks like the single, ‘A Cold Freezin’ Night’, which takes the form of mosaic of mischievous children’s voices rattling through teases, name-calling and casual death threats. You’ll hear more Avalanches-esque voice-splicing littered throughout the album, as heard on the new-agey self-help soundscape of ‘Chain Of Missing Links’, the complex cello/guitar-led soul patchwork of ‘I Didn’t Know That’ or late-coming highlight ‘The Story Of Hip-Hop’ – a kind of meeting between Four Tet and People Like Us. On the songs front, ‘Beautiful People’ stands out, with its upbeat rhythmic signatures, warm crackling arrangement and harmonised vocals. The arrival of a swirling brass finale underlines just how lovely this piece is. Along similar lines, tracks arriving a little deeper into the sequence ‘All You Need Is A Wall’, Thirty Incoming’ and the elegiac blues of ‘Free Translator’ all make for glorious songwriting exercises, with samples, instrumental sources and vocals all gelling into a flow of warm, swelling signals. Recommended.

Sincere Void is the first major release from Brooklyn musician Jonas Asher. Having previously released via small cassette or CD-R runs, this luscious new collection of ambient compositions finds Asher not only receiving the backing of the ever-influential Root Strata label, but also fellow abstract electronics maestro, Taylor Deupree, who masters the album. The content of this music feels a little grittier and more coarsely analogue in character than anything you’d be likely to hear on 12k, but there’s a clear thread of common ground between Grasslung and the kind of micro-ambiences that label specialises in. Opening cut ‘Scarred Hands We Drift’ has to be one of the most immediate and all-round beautiful short-form drone pieces of the year, almost sounding like pop music with its levitating chord interchange and vibrant sonic character. From here onwards the album opens up to involve more obviously physical and acoustic sounds, whether that be the gravelly loop fragments of ‘Roland Park Noose’ or the glitchy architecture of piano composition ‘Tired Of Remembering’. Striving for more grandiose planes, ‘Feeding Your Vanity’ recalls The Sight Below, while the exceptional ‘When We Were Young’ reverts to a more humble mode dominated by tremulous synth lines and glassy, slow-shifting organ-like figures. Excellent stuff – limited to 500 copies.

The UK’s first lady of Funky offers two hip melting joints for Hyperdub. She’s taken 2 minutes out from updating her facebook and twitter to grace us with another pair of effortlessly astounding riddims following last years killer ‘Narst/Love Dub’ set, which everyone rightly got the gush over. Again there’s a masterful balance of light and dark, or sensuality and feisty aggression, at play here. ‘Up In My Head’ is helplessly loved up, caught in the raptures of swooning strings and sumptuously swung bass with those cascading machine rhythms yearning for able bodies to lock into their sinuous grasp. And if that’s the foreplay, tings gets nastier with ‘Phat Si’, unloading the G-ruffest subs under metalic synth spasms and constantly unstable percussion imbued with that most unattainable element of squashed music found everywhere from Chicago house to Jungle, a febrile tension of psyched and hypersexual dancefloor interplay. Cool as f*ck, and ESSENTIAL, no less.

Cast your mind back a few months and the hypnagogically attuned among you may remember Forest Swords’ immense debut for Old English Spelling Bee, a record that was described by some as capturing the spirit of Burial and Ennio Morricone in one densely fogged package. Following in the same dub drowsy and tape rendered aesthetic is his ‘Rattling Cage’ 2-tracker for No Pain In Pop. The ‘Rattling Cage’ fuses distant marimba tinkle with arcing guitars, spectral wurlitzer and mournful vocals in a rustic dub pop quilt. ‘Hjurt’ on the other hand builds a sublime tension through a spiky/spooky post-punk drum break and jangly, Shadows-on-smack riffage with a liminal dubconscious ambience that hits the spot, dead on. Highly recommended.

Following his peakin’ Funky drops for Tempa and Rush Hour, TRG goes dark and techy with two steely focussed actions for Hemlock. The imagery is set with the title for ‘Tower Block’, taking the vibe pan-ghetto sci-fi with a blend of frisky Latin shuffles and calculated Zomby-esque motions craftily nodding to the Dutch Bubblers sound. ‘Bton Brut’ stays in that occluded Nether zone with cranky dry textures and haunted pads circling proper tricksy future techno rhythms like a darkside version of Rishi Romero’s ‘African Forest’. Severely ON IT gear. Well recommended!!!

TV Victor is an alias of Udo Heitfeld, an underground Berlin figure with deep roots connecting to Moritz Von Oswald and Thomas Fehlmann, who has been working for the Tresor imprint and associated labels since the late ’80s. For Tobias Freund’s NSI label he offers three relatively recent experiments, time stamped around early summer 2009. The A-side is 10 minutes of looping rhythms submerged under a matrix of filters and dub FX while layers seem to peel and fray in the ether, reminding at times of the MvO Trio album. On the other side we’re lulled into the trickling triplet patterns of ‘010709’, featuring more rhythmic movement than the claustrophobic flip and affected with off-balance mixing trickery for a sublimely psyched experience akin to Wolfgang Voigt’s Gas releases. The sole rhythmic anchor for ‘100609’ is a lone kettle drum buried in the background while layers of acousmatic ambience seep to the fore with the spectral grace of Philip Jeck. Highly Recommended.