Ethereal Transects - The Lore of Celestial Objects
The latest installment in the Folklore Tapes canon sees the collective cast its gaze skyward - to the glittering orbs that steal their way silently across our night sky. Ethereal Transects is a compilation album and booklet exploring the lore of celestial objects through experiments in sound and vision. Each contributor has researched a particular orb and - inspired by the tapestry of its myth and legend - fashioned an original soundscape in its likeness. The result is an audio voyage around the…
Interiors Three - Empty Time
**300 copies** Cobwebbed keys and dust mite spectres perfuse the dimensions of rooms 14-19 in the third and final volume of the Tape Loop Orchestra’s ongoing Interiors investigations, subtly refining the Tape Loop Orchestra sound from vast and moor-like to minimalist and economic. Big tip if you’re into Tim Hecker, William Basinski, A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Richard Skelton.Again accompanied by a booklet of evocative 'found' images, TLO vicariously probes our relationship to space and tim…
I Suppose I'm Your Future
**200 copies on 180g black vinyl, silk-screened artwork** After having released several solo works of both artists, Dauw announce the first collaborative full album by The Humble Bee and Benoît Pioulard, I Suppose I'm Your Future.Both artists hold a very special place in the history of the label. The Humble Bee was already present from the very beginning and, in hindsight, definitely has put an important mark on the musical aesthetics we've been developing throughout the years. On the other hand…
Slow Spark, Soft Spoke
**200 copies on heavyweight clear vinyl, silk-screened artwork** Shortly after releasing his highly acclaimed The Benoît Pioulard Listening Matter (Kranky), Pioulard left on tour to Europe in order to promote the album. This tour took him to several distinctive places ranging from urban Brussels to rural France and the mystic capital city of Iceland, Reykjavik.Once returned to Seattle, these new impressions and memories formed the inspiration to make Slow Spark, Soft Spoke. Not surprisingly, the…
Patience
**65 copies** Patience is a split release that sees Grant and Rachel Evans aka Quiet Evenings, as well as Roman Kurhan aka Monotronique, each showcase a single, continuous piece of gracefully slow moving ambiance.Monotronique, usually known for his rhythmic and up tempo electro, (which he thoroughly displayed on his debut album Heat Absorber via Opal Tapes this year), turns to a new side of his diverse sonic arsenal, displaying a serene loop of gauzy organ piano intervals that manage to leave a …
Below Sky
**65 copies** With over 40 releases under his belt, including works published on labels such as Angoisse, Constellations Tastu and No Rent Records, as well as collaborations with Celer and Skin Graft, it is safe to say that John Daniel has left a visible mark on the ambient scene via his Forest Management project over the years.Forest Managementʼs solo release for Vaknar, titled Below Sky sees him conjure a downcast and brittle set of saturated loops, coming across as a series of dissolving memo…
Turra (MiniCDr 3")
"I was searching the Turra along with Andrea Marutti to capture sounds for a forthcoming music release, when the refrain of the Archiaro carillon came to my mind. Without rehearsal, and availing myself of the natural reverb of the Turra, I gave voice to my soul." - Tommaso Cosco"Turra is a single long conceptual piece that can be thought as a derivative / sound musical approach to the concept of askesis, I do not mean aescetism but interior activity or communication of the soul and the will whic…
The Subliminal Relation Between Planets (Live in Archiaro)
"Performed and recorded live in Archiaro (Catanzaro, Italy), The Subliminal Relation Between Planets presents outstanding sensory-emotionally ecstatic droning textures with a great feeling of floating sensations. The concept perfectly fits the symbolical significant musical harmony of the spheres (Pythagorean Greek theory on mathematical principles). In this magic live and largely improvised performance built on synthesised sounds and electronic treatments, Andrea Marutti invites the audience to…
Sleepless Nights | Lysergic Mornings (MiniCDr 3")
"We welcome back the italian artist Andrea Marutti (also known under the Amon or Never Known aliases, head of the sadly defunct Afe Records label too). Andrea was the very first artist to have a 3″ on Taâlem, and that was exactly 18 years ago! Here he proposes a rather psychedelic yet dark and ambient journey in two parts." - Jean-Marc Boucher"Sleepless Nights | Lysergic Mornings is particularly important both for Taâlem and me, because it comes exactly 18 years after my Traces 94-95, which on D…
Sleepwalker
UK ambient pioneers O Yuki Conjugate release their first new album for over a decade. Sleepwalker documents the group's recent live shows, doubling as a soundtrack to a film of the same name by founder member Andrew Hulme. Comprising 10 new tracks taken from 24 live shows in nine countries across Europe, Sleepwalker captures OYC's current musical direction, a blend of plangent keyboards, abstract guitars and electronic rhythms, presented in OYC's inimical style.
Vientos Eléctricos
**300 copies** An ambient journey to the inner reaches of the sound modulation. Weird rhythms that remind to Craig Leon, blended with synth sequences close to the kosmische Berlin School and experimental guitars giving an organic touch. An LP of experimental minimal electronics with ambient traces. A cyclical cloud that renovates de orography of places already explored by artists such as Dieter Moebius, Steve Hauschild, Conrad Schnitzler, Cluster, Harmonia...Mecánica Clásica is a new project bou…
Particle / Matter-Wave / Energy
Kompakt welcomes veteran contemporary experimental producer Marcus Schmickler with the release of his spectacular noise / techno fused medallion entitled Particle / Matter-Wave / Energy.Marcus Schmickler’s fifty plus release discography is one of the most fascinating in his field. From his studies under Cologne based Stockhausen collaborator Johannes Fritsch to his releases through legendary imprints a-Musik, editionsMego and Mille Plateaux, over the years Schmickler has been behind innumerable …
Alchemy - An Index of Possibilities
This collection features the gorgeously ethereal Words With The Shamen mini album (recorded 1985) together with several rarities recorded by David Sylvian during this period with Ryuichi Sakamoto.Also featuring the likes of Jon Hassell, Holger Czukay, Steve Jansen, Robert Fripp, etc., Alchemy - An Index of Possibilities is yet further proof that David Sylvian's musical touch is as light and blessed as ever - taking you on a smoky journey through drifting territories that never once belies it was…
Shadow Position
"There are 4 tracks, 4 different windows to look out from our studio in Düsseldorf into the street and their different layers of sound. 4 horizons, 4 spy holes in the door, 4 eyes and 4 shopping windows. 4 landscapes.Witness the electric city and the power house. Strafe F.R. is sitting inside the fuse box. The electric chirp of the night. The socket in which we sleep. The dog comes, in order to devour Strafe F.R. First he eats the rebellion and next he bites the Strafe.The house and the body, bo…
Skin / Glove
Skin / Glove is the second LP by Belgian musician Mathieu Serruys, following the release of his B.A.A.D.M. debut On Germaine Dulac back in 2014. Compiled over the course of a fortnight, the record features material recorded over the past five years: creaks of ice buckling under heat, thick hums like nauseating headaches, plumes of evaporated organ hymns, frostbitten crackles of dying tape loops. These disparate sources are unified by the pervasive corrosion of pain and time, which presses into t…
Dialogue Ordinaire Avec La Machine
**Limited edition of 300 vinyl copies, comes with a 30x30cm 4-page booklet. Gatefold cover** 2019 has been a fantastic year for the late, great master of electroacoustic music, Luc Ferrari. We’ve witnessed the release of two astounding LPs of archival works - Photophonie, via Transversales Disques, and Music Promenade / Unheimlich Schön, via Recollection GRM, not to mention the incredible, sprawling volume, Complete Works, published by Ecstatic Peace Library. Now we’re thrilled to see yet anoth…
Pangalactic Performer
Canadian synthesizer wizard John Mills-Cockell is proud to present a 3CD boxset collecting his classic albums Heartbeat, A Third Testament, and Gateway. The anthology includes the final studio recordings of Syrinx including an exciting unreleased single Marigolds. Collectors will enjoy an entire lost album of incredible studio recordings entitled Neon Accelerando and the long-awaited theme to A Stationary Ark.Founding member and composer for Intersystems and Syrinx, John Mills-Cockell continues …
Plants of the Bible
**250 copies** "Here is the first physically graspable music available by this mysterious Western Massachusetts duo, whose sound has been called 'Synthetic ASMR love balladry,' by more than one canny listener. Asking them to describe themselves, we received this missive: 'Plants of the Bible started in a bedroom in Florence with a tape machine and a poem about an unkillable dog android before it quickly spiraled out of control into a real band with a real record. Their first album is a dreamy ca…
All Other Voices Gone, Only Yours Remains
**CD version, 200 copies** All Other Voices Gone, Only Yours Remains unites the UK’s The Humble Bee, America’s Offthesky, and Spanish photographer and artist Nieves Mingueza. Iikki focus on dialogues between visual artistry and musical artistry, and All Other Voices Gone, Only Yours Remains is a heavenly episode. Opener For Her Breath Is On All That Hath Life is a delectable, swirling dream, the thrill of a new romance, where Cupid’s arrow inflicts a purple bruise that looks more like a gorgeous…
Dream Rooms
Dream Rooms, the new release from the shadowy Italian project Ambienti Coassiali, is an organic development rising out of the ashes of the surreal synthesised tone poems they released in the late 1980s, developing into cult favorites, spoken of with quiet reverence.Spread out over two sides, Dream Rooms is a immersive listen, ambience that’s frigid but not dark; a cold morning in the valleys. Recorded with a vintage EKO Ranger guitar from the early 1970s, loops extend to infinity, echoing into t…