Back in stock
The World Is But a Place of Survival: Ethiopian Begena Songs
The begena is a ten-stringed lyre central to Ethiopia’s Amharic heritage and Orthodox Tewahido Church. Reserved for spiritual music, it is revered for its mythical origins and unique buzzing sound. Symbolically crafted, the begena is believed to ward off evil and connect players to the divine.
Wet Lands Dry Me
K.W. Cahill records and plays electric guitars, lap steel, melodica and karimbas on May to June 2025 time. Mastered by Andrew Weathers.
We're all sitting here and no one's listening. We're just talking over each other while the world spins out of control. Who are you gonna believe if the walls were gone? If everything turned up empty fields? Us just standing around looking at each other and nothing blocking us or protecting us from each other or from ourselves. I'm at war with myself first. Let …
To Material Past
Akhira Sano is a Tokyo-based artist working across sound, drawing, installation, and video. His practice finds generative potential for music in life's fleeting incidents, etching meaning from unassuming spaces and resonances. With releases on 12k, LAAPS, IIKKI, and The Trilogy Tapes, Sano has steadily carved out a distinctive voice within minimal and experimental music - one that privileges attentiveness and patience over spectacle.
"To Material Past", Sano's debut for SWIMS, carries this threa…
More Rags, Ballads, and Blues 1971-1985
More Rags, Ballads, and Blues 1971-1985 unveils Allen Ginsberg’s intimate musical experiments from the First Blues era, collecting rare recordings and performances in a candid, engaging tribute to his cross-disciplinary storytelling. Collaborations and unguarded rehearsal takes reveal the gentle wit, poetic fervor, and sonic curiosity that defined his work during these pivotal years.
Let Me Perish Without Return: Lament and Longing from the Fading Russian Empire, 1889-1917
Tip Our next release with Gary Sullivan's Bodega Pop project - rooted in a passion for digging for music in bodegas and cell-phone stores across NYC's boroughs. This edition focuses in on early recordings found in Russian neighborhoods in Brooklyn & Queens. "At the turn of the last century, the Russian Empire stood at a crossroads, caught between the weight of its imperial past and the promise of a radically altered future. Recorded during a period of profound cultural transformation and unrest,…
Earthbound
From 2019 to 2022, Gorgun drafted the record twice, then deleted most of her sketches. By the time she opened a new session, she had gone through an accidental electrocution, a cancer diagnosis, and an allergic collapse that nearly suffocated her. During treatment, chemotherapy left her in a cognitive fog known as "chemo-brain," forcing her to relearn the craft of composition from scratch. While rebuilding her own focus, she watched her friends, relatives, and musical heroes battle illness, reco…
Sottobosco
Recorded live may 03 2018 at Porgy&Bess, Vienna recorded by Wolfgang Racher & Gerald Domjan mixed and mastered by Martin Siewert
released March 14, 2022 Konrad Bauer - trombone Georg Graewe - piano John Lindberg - double bass
The Appointed Cloud
Yoshi Wada has often said that The Appointed Cloud is his favorite of his own works, and listening to this remastered edition makes clear why. Staged at the Great Hall of the New York Hall of Science in 1987, the piece was Wada's first large-scale interactive installation, featuring a custom pipe organ and homemade instruments controlled by computer through an interface and software designed by engineer David Rayna, known for his work with La Monte Young. The space itself—designed for the 1964-6…
Gleann Ciùin
Organ, cello and electronics performed by Claire M Singer. The captivating second instalment in a triptych of albums that delves into two intertwining narratives. Gleann Ciùin -which means "quiet glen" in Scottish Gaelic (pronounced gly-ow-n kyoon) -is released on CD / digitally by Touch on7th November 2025.
The follow up to 2023's Saor, the heart of this album lies a profound exploration of the artist's personal journeys across the rugged, awe-inspiring landscapes of the Cairngorms in Aberdeens…
Fantail Vision
Slowdown Records will release a box of six new Merzbow albums. The box "Fantail Vision" consists of six new Merzbow albums from 2020-2022: "Mukogenerator","Mukomodulator", "Mukotronics", "Hinawave", "Animal Mukomodulator", "Magnetic Rain". The recordings include not only recordings that are being released for the first time, but also some that have been digitally distributed on Soundcloud and Bandcamp. Merzbow has released five original albums on Slowdown Records to date, "Kaoscitron", "Indigo …
Italia New Wave
2025 repress on yellow vinyl. What exactly happened in the Italian underground/post punk scene of the '80s, is not entirely clear. Therefore, this collection of 13 incredible tunes helps track down the feeling and focuses on the blurry images of a period that was mixing influences from the UK/USA scenes with a more "national" approach to new music developments. The damage began in 1977 when a series of urban/suburban musical agitators, whether skilled or complete amateurs, decided to embrace ins…
Italia Synthetica 1981-1985
Brand new version on white vinyl ! No CD available this time ! Italia Synthetica 1981-1985 represents the musical mutation that occurred after the post-punk hangover gave way to more frigid emotional shores, in-line with the synth-wave moment that was sweeping Europe and the white cliffs of Albion. This scene flourished in Italy between 1981-1985, and the musicians that came out of it are still revered today (particularly in the US). Robotic rhythms and intuitions that, besides sharing common gr…
Still Life
First time on vinyl. Originally released on cassette in the spring of 1985, together with the eigth issue of Komakino fanzine -- included here in its original format. Relatively well-known names coexist with bands that lasted only a season. Still Life was and remains a half hour of pure abstraction. An intense and precious post-punk overdose! Features Karnak, Limbo, Janitor Of Lunacy, Panoramics, and De Stijl.
Afterglow
Special discounted pricing. Originally released on cassette in the winter of 1984, together with the 7th issue of Komakino fanzine—included here in its original format—Afterglow is more than a compilation: it’s a cultural time capsule, a tangible distillation of the hopes, noise, and fragile alliances of Italy’s burgeoning post-punk and new wave underground. Across 14 tracks from 8 groups, the album reveals the very spirit of the Afterglow operation. Some bands had already found their way into t…
The Other Side of Futurism
First time on vinyl. Originally released on cassette in the spring of 1984 together with the fifth issue of Tribal Cabaret fanzine -- included here in its original format. This is an invaluable document focusing on the obscure side of the '80s Italian post-punk scene. A composite picture drawn by a bunch of different and often under recorded groups from various Italian regions and cities. All together they contribute to defining a prominently dark yet vivid soundscape based on different approach…
The Missing Boys - Selection Of Sardinian Wave 1980-1989
*2026 stock* “The Missing Boys” is a film born from the need to tell the story of the emergence and affirmation of a forgotten music scene, like much of the youth movement that spread in metropolitan areas as well as in the provinces more than forty years ago, dealing with the same critical issues of everywhere. It’s a story of mostly unknown bands, who from Sardinia, especially from Cagliari and Sassari, interrupt the blissful isolation of an island, only apparently distant from that revolution…
Allegato Sonoro - Amen This Is Religgion N° 2
This 1984 release marks the beginning of the intense split-tape activity that characterized and distinguished the Amen fanzine. From Alessandria, Viridanse debut here with 4 tracks that already prefigure the sound of a band destined to leave their mark on the Italian New Wave scene. On the B side, the debut of The Art of Waiting from Bari, 6 tracks of pure Gothic Rock from one of the cult bands of this music scene.
Eye
*250 copies limited edition* Mariska Baars, aka soccer Committee is a force to be reckoned with: whoever heard one of her albums, or was lucky enough to see her live, knows that no one masters the art of peeling away every unnecessary layer of a song like she does. From the very first notes of 'Eye, it’s clear that Baars is at the peak of her powers. The most traditional songs here remind us why we fell for her songwriting in the first place: they’re delicately strong and quietly fierce. Other p…
Adela
*300 copies limited edition* A debut that is not a debut. Eva Fernández Suárez and Thomas Barrière have both been around for a while, just not as a duo. Eva is originally from the Asturias region in northern Spain but has been residing in France for quite a few years now. As a solo singer, her work is firmly rooted in classic folk-inspired material, more specifically in the bleak, bare-bones, and stripped-down kind. With her slow, rhythmic delivery, perfectly placed melodic nuances, and a vocal …
Mono Tono
*Special discounted pricing. 2026 stock* Skiantos had a void in their minds, and that was all they needed to revolutionize Italian music. They imported demented rock to Italy, drawing on an all-American, nonsensical movement (from Frank Zappa to Devo), fueled by the explosion of English punk. Before Skiantos, the only demented aspects of Italian songwriting had been the perverse (and perverted) obscenities of Squallor, who, while hilarious (sometimes even from a purely compositional standpoint),…