New Arrivals
How To Get Rid Of The Darkness
*2023 stock* "Gianni Mimmo who runs Amirani Records from Italy and has performed in the KFJC Pit, here is joined by Pierfrancesco Mucari in a series of unaccompanied saxophone duets. These inventive and engaging duets bring to mind some of the duet work of Julius Hemphill and Oliver Lake, if only somewhat less raucous. I also hear a soupcon of Anthony Braxton.
These duets seem to be neither fully written out but nor entirely improvised. They play sopranos and an alto, the musical range of which…
Avalanche Zone
*300 copies limited edition* Originally released in spring 2021 by US label L.I.E.S. on vinyl, Anthony Di Franco of Ramleh returns to Fourth Dimension Records with a timely and well-deserved reissue. Featuring three additional tracks to the original six, 'Avalanche Zone' is a weighty and abrasive follow-up to 2018's 'Weapon Design' that's propelled by cranium-crunching bass, icy and portentous textures, battlefield rhythms and just the faintest nod to Anthony's love of both old school noise and …
For the Lives Once Lived
Several years ago Gary Mundy of Ramleh/Broken Flag (and far more besides) declared to me that he wished to do one new Kleistwahr album every year until he's no longer able to do them. Fourth Dimension Records has subsequently fulfilled a promise to honour this plan as much as possible and is managing to keep up so far. How Gary manages to keep pulling new ideas out of the proverbial hat at this rate is anybody's guess, but the latest album, 'For the Lives Once Lived', illustrates very clearly th…
Sferics
"2022 was a shit show. I moved three times. I lived in San Francisco for a sudden moment in time. About eight months to be exact. But I jumped through a wormhole . An atmospheric anomaly that rippled across and through my familial center, taking us into a chaos of cardboard boxes, temporary living spaces, a collapse in our art practices, only to be pulled through the other end of the time warp, re-emerging back where we convened in 2019 in Tucson, Arizona--but now it is 2023 and life has changed…
Hits For The Bin
Nice Music is thrilled to announce the long awaited new full length release from Melbourne/Naarm-based producer Andrew Cowie as Match Fixer. Tantalising with a string of self-released tracks over the last 3 years and following the cloistered urgency of instant NM classic 'Attempts' (2017), 'Hits For The Bin' populates the glowing expanse of his sound world with restrained beat structures, cloaked in Cowie’s signature lush drift and squelched melodic riffing. A foaming wave of relief when compare…
I-I
We are thrilled to introduce the world to the innovative sounds of the Japanese improvisational music trio ‘I-I’. Composed of three exceptionally talented musicians, Kazuhisa Uchihashi (guitar, daxophone, pedals), Mitsuhisa Sakaguchi (synthesizers, pedals) and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto (percussion). This dynamic ensemble has embarked on a remarkable musical journey with their homonymous debut album. "There's no inspiration from others. We just played." With this raw and unfiltered approach to music, ‘I…
INRI (Industria Nacional del Ruido Infinito)
Inspired by the scenic beauty of his studio's surroundings at Lake Pátzcuaro in Michoacan, MX, Dellarge delves deep into the depths of his artistic consciousness to craft a spiritual album that encapsulates the essence of the place. "INRI" stands for Industria Nacional del Ruido Infinito (National Industry of Infinite Noise) and serves as a vessel for Dellarge's innermost self-expression and reflections on the potential of humanity. Drawing inspiration from various sources, Dellarge found creati…
Decon Sound - Deconceptualize 1
*2023 stock* "Stefan Römer performs quotations from cultural or musical theoreticians commenting on performances by two iconic musicians, Syd Barrett and Conrad Schnitzler. The quote functions as an instruction for the sound performance. Stefan Römer explicitly attempts to reach a similar psychedelic state of mind to that of the referenced artists, using an LSD substitute. The performative staging of textual citation, instrumentation comparable to the historical events, musical performance, and …
ReCoder Sound
*2023 stock. 100 copies limited edition* This album takes reference to the German underground film "Decoder" (1984) and its sound track with the main actors Christiane F and FM Einheit (Einstürzende Neubauten), also William S. Burroughs, Dave Ball, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge etc. There are many reasons why it is helpful to look back to this manifest of medial resistance, today we are recoding.
My Strong Will
My Strong Will is a new album of "Ethiopian Classical Music" by Girma Yifrashewa. Recorded with Bulgarian musicians and the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra in Sofia, Bulgaria, the album is a return to where Yifrashewa completed his own conservatory training in the late 1980s and early 1990s, across both sides of the fall of Communism. Guided by Yifrashewa's piano, these chamber works bring the music of Ethiopia into a Western Classical format, uncovering meditative and emotional new vistas for both…
I Predatori Di Atlantide
I Predatori Di Atlantide (AKA Atlantis Inferno) is a post-atomic movie directed by Ruggero Deodato in 1983. It narrates the adventures of Mike Ross (Christopher Connelly), Washington (Malik Farrakhan) and of a group of characters bound to the events revolving around the sinking of a Soviet submarine, close to Florida shores. A series of twists will bring the group on an island, just submerged from the abyss which is the mythical Atlantis. The score, unreleased if we pay exception to a 7” vinyl o…
Ingrid Linnea
Swedish singer and composer Elin Piel returns to Mystery Circles after making a debut appearance on the Las Vegas-based ambient label back in 2020. Piel's sound deals in microscopic layers of textural detail slowly shifting around delicately embellished melodies - 'Tunnlar' is a perfect opening statement in this sense as glassy synth phrases pass through prismatic DSP and faint flickering interference skips around in the background.
Saor
Following her previous solo works Solas (2016), Fairge (2017) and Trian (2019) Saor [pronounced Sieur: meaning "free" in Scottish Gaelic] is the first release in a triptych of albums, inspired by escapes to the peaks of Claire M Singer's homeland of Scotland. Saor perfectly encapsulates Claire's experimental approach to the pipe organ, exploring rich harmonic textures and complex overtones creating ever-shifting melodic and rhythmic patterns, which conjure visions of the Scottish dramatic landsc…
Sainte Anthony's Fyre
A wild, loud, raw New Jersey hard psych beast that’s been a favorite target of record collectors, dealers, bootleggers, and swamp dwellers for the past two decades, originally released on the Zonk! label.
Halos of Preception
"'Halos of Perception' was inspired by Lerkenfeldt's encounter with a member of Cave Clan, an Australian "urban exploration" group who probe abandoned forts, drains, bunkers and tunnels, searching out places that most people ignore or purposefully avoid. Her friend would travel underground to visit a small room and read alone by candlelight, prompting Lerkenfeldt to consider how sound travels through concrete tunnels, and how people used to put on underground shows. She recreates this nervous at…
Nippon Acid Folk 1970-1980
A counterculture movement united by an expansive, experimental and deeply soulful sensibility, Japan’s rebel protest music challenged the status quo and changed the country’s music industry in the process.
Trap
Michal Vaľko, aka Line Gate makes a return to mappa with his third cassette for the label. Once again the material is deeply minimalist, but shows marked evolutions in the Slovak, Prague-based artist’s unique trajectory. This time comprising two relatively short pieces (compared to the 40- and 60-minute works previously published on mappa), 'Trap' is perhaps Line Gate’s darkest yet. Whereas previously his works focused on psychoacoustic phenomena, or highlighted the sacredness and timelessness o…
Defragmentierte Assoziationen
*200 copies limited edition* Abstracke presents Cristov's debut LP. The Hamburg-based artist and designer Christoph Lohse delivers an amazing record inspired by technology and dystopia. German futuristic electronics, mechanical synths, primal rhythms... a cold, sometimes industrial sound, balanced with the jazzy acoustic drums and percussions performed by Manuel Chittka. Influenced by Ike Yard, Craig Leon, Monoton, and the German kraut maestros renewed by people like Kreidler, Die Wilde Jagd, To…
Lados B
On October 15th and 16th, 2020, drummer Daniel Villarreal was joined by guitarist Jeff Parker and bassist Anna Butterss for two afternoons of recording in the backyard of Chicali Outpost in Los Angeles. For all three musicians, it was the first ensemble recording session they’d done in-person since the pandemic locked the world down just seven months prior. Some choice moments from these sessions made it onto Villarreal’s critically-acclaimed 2022 album Panamá 77, but most of the music remained …
The World Was Turning Before
*200 copies limited edition* Bill Seaman, Tim Diagram and Stephen Spera talked about making music together during the composing of the Architectures of Light album which Tim released on his Handstitched imprint. Over the course of a few months this evolved into the new LAAPS album — "The World Was Turning Before" which focuses on a balance of sound making and collecting processes explored individually as well as between the three. The network of images of sonic imagination started forming into m…