Pulse 02(coloured vinyl 12"+ MP3 download code limited to 200 copies (comes in different coloured vinyl, we cannot guarantee which one you will receive))
Joachim Spieth - "Subtle" (Nitechord remix) (4:45)
Review: Past Inside the Present's 'Pulse' series is an investigation into ambient tech and beat-driven ambient sounds. Who better for the job on this second edition than master craftsmen ASC and Joachim Spieth? ASC opens up with 'Tidal Disruption Event', an understated, underwater rhythm with jittery percussive patterns and bright shards of melodic light piercing through the mix as more coarse soundwaves break over the top. Spieth's 'Subtle' is just as artful and delicate a mix of persuasive rhythm and melodic beauty. A classy Nitechord remix closes out this fascinating EP.
Review: The inaugural 9128.live label release came from the UK's Jo Johnson and Hilary Robinson, featuring subtle, harmonic drones and manipulated piano, originally aired as part of the duo's set for the CALMA (Madrid) takeover on 9128.live, April 2020. Released digitally in 2020, the set is now available on 12" vinyl, split into two long-form compositions.
Sanderson Dear - "A Place For Totems" (extended version) (6:10)
Review: Sanderson Dear's Stasis Recordings released the original Time Capsule compilation in 2020 - a 20-track exploration of ten different ambient techno artists exploring two ideas each in compact form for a box set of 7"s. Now the label has revisited some of the project's standout moments and offered a chance to enjoy extended versions gathered on a single 12". From Maps Of Hyperspace shaping out atmospheric halls of synth work on 'Beta' to Glo Phase offering some gorgeous, sparkling grooves on 'Fire Flies', there's plenty of ground covered on this release. Of course the mighty John Beltran is a big drawer too, and his typically stellar 'The Descendent' doesn't disappoint in its full extended version.
Review: The Disintegration Loops man William Basinski has linked up with acclaimed experimental composer Janek Schaefer for this new collaborative record on Temporary Residence Limited. What they cook up is a suite of very unassuming songs that are all dedicated to the late and great avant-garde composer Harold Budd. The record was eight years in the making and is as timeless as ambient gets with 42 minutes of gently undulating sonic terrain gently and quietly detailed with subtle skill and placid melodies. It is as beautiful as it is absorbing once you really give yourself over to the sounds.
Harmonies In Hesitation (feat Marine Eyes) (10:53)
Interactions In Isolation (8:20)
Halvings In Hypnosis (10:06)
Strategies In Struggle (9:03)
Lamentations In Light (8:18)
Formulas In Fathoms (9:25)
Review: Anyone who's cast even the most casual eye over their ever expanding catalogue will have realised that one thing Past Inside The Present do best is bring artists together for unexpected and inspired collaborations. Departing in Descent is the first collaboration between James Bernard and Bvdub but their creative conversation effectively started as far back as 1994 when the latter bought Bernard's Atmospherics album in 1994 when it was "mistakenly stocked" in his local house music store. He says it was and remains his favourite ambient album, so when the pair found themselves crossing paths for one night in LA years later, a collaboration was the only logical conclusion. The results are more organic and friendly on the ear than some ambient offerings, with real instrumentation meshed with walls of woozy synths and delays, but no less fantastical and ambitious for it.
Review: Now here's a rarity for you. Not even many of the most committed megafans know that Brian Eno, Holger Czukay and J.Peter Schwalm, accompanied by Raoul Walton and Jern Atai, performed a secret live music show, outside the esteemed Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, situated in the city of Bonn, in August 1998. Forming a part of the opening party of Eno's Future Light-Lounge Proposal multimedia installation, this furtively-recorded album hears an exclusive slice of incidental "high-altitude food music", of course made during Brian Eno's airborne ambient era. Now reissued via Gronland, this five-piece cut of sophisti-ambi-krauttronica makes for a welcome surprise.
Review: Originally released in 1998, Mixmaster Morris & Jonah Sharp's Quiet Logic surprisingly flew under the radar when it came out.- perhaps because of the huge amount of electronic music being released at the time. The pair have some of the most important albums and tracks in their respected genres and are arguably two of the most important figures in the electronic music chill out scene from the 90s, and when you add the input of Haruomi Hosono from Yellow Magic Orchestra on two tracks, it becomes an even more essential listen. Chill out heads unite!
Review: Berlin-based producer JakoJako aka Sibel Kocer's debut album for Mute - after appearances on a stream of leading German labels including Tresor - is described as a distillation of ideas that she's been exploring for many years. In reality, that means working on a minimal set up, away from the computer while restricting herself to just a Eurorack and a Waldorf Iridium Core, in the search for spontaneity. She found it, for sure, as the results - recorded in Vietnam during the Tet Lunar New Year celebrations - are a feast of glistening arpeggios and lush modular textures, stripped back but full of expression and personality. 'Ghi-ta' will appeal to fans of vintage perky ambient productions the Pete Namlook/Mixmaster Morris collaboration Dreamfish, while 'Gio' has a touch of Tangerine Dream's classic widescreen sensibilities. Bold tones, bold debut.
Review: Pivotal electronic musician Jean Michel Jarre is venerated for his massive live shows, which incorporate projections onto the sides of big buildings, fireworks, and the like. According to Sony, Jarre was also the first 'western' musician to perform in post-Mao China, which led to a longstandingly solid relationship between him, his management team, and the tourism and events industries of Beijing and Shanghai, which led to him continually performing in those cities over many years. 'The Concerts In China', originally released in 2014, collects the live audio of all of these performances, and is once again set for a re-release.
Review: Who doesn't love a good compilation? And a good compilation is exactly what we have here, as put together by the golf standard digger that is JD Twitch. Ever since he first head out to the land of the rising sun to DJ he has been bewitched by it. Sub-titled 'A Beginners Guide to Japan In The '80s' this assemblage of ambient, cosmic and electronic sounds is beautifully escapist, taking you right out the Far East in an instant with its curious melodies and gentle ear worms. There is a purity and beauty to the music that is utterly cleansing with all of Japan's most legendary names included.
Review: In 2005, Jan Jelinek "pitched" his electronica/kosmische vision to the potent collective fan by way of ten ecosystemically-informed, prepared ambient numbers. Spanning Bibio-esque reversy guitar and sloshing exotica, this one existed for an inordinate period as a digital download, in which much time elapsed until now, its 20th anniversary - at which point we hear it available again, arriving for the first time on vinyl. Modelled on the sonic prototypes of his German rock forbears, this early electronica work from Jelinek amounts to a fearsomely intricate revue, expanding on krautrock's organic textures and unremittingly restless feel.
Review: Ilian Tape have tapped up Jichael Mackson here for a double album of expressive and forward thinking electronic sounds. The atmosphere generally futuristic and intriguing, with tracks like 'Shangri La' riding on gentle breakbeats amongst air pads, 'Banana Jazz (Quartett)' is a high speed and live sounding jazz-breakbeat workout, 'A Jichalicious Something' is dubby and IDM inflected lushness and 'Good Morning Sunshine' is an interplanetary trip with distant cosmic pads and organic piano chords soothing mind, body and soul.
Review: A founder member of Ultravox and all round synth pop godfather sits at the piano on his lonesome here, after many years of collaborating with Harold Budd and Ruben Garcia. The Arcades Project is a step backward into more refined, quiet artistry and minimal compositions with a candlelit late-night vibe and engaging and emotional flow. A text by Walter Benjamin formed part of the inspiration for the work and is "a sort of stroll through new ideas emerging from the city life of Paris in the 19th and early 20th century." The resulting sounds delightfully airy and inquisitive.
Review: Jo Johnson is a rising name in the realm of modular ambience; here she presents her latest four track mini-album for Mysteries Of The Deep. 'The Wave Ahead' is an implicit homage to the likeness of sound waves and the moon-guided waves of the Earth's oceans, producing a nighttime calmdown for polyphonic synth in five tracks. For Johnson, both kinds of wave are nearly one and the same - 'diaphonous' - and the realisation is made manifest here in a stellarly arpeggio-heavy, sinewave-surfing LP, which recalls the work of Steve Hauschildt or Hannah Peel.
Review: Building on a career's worth of 90s freeform punk, 00s underground techno and every minimalistic and healing sonic contour in between since then, Jo Johnson returns to the fore with her latest record Red, White & Yellow. "Waves" and "tidal forces" are the first verbal associations that spring to mind, as we're dunked into many a sequent swell and ruminant ripple of sound. In the hat-trick of tracks that is 'It Just Is The Love It Feels', 'Inside Eyes Sparks Fire Under Ice' and 'Unfolding & Folding', we hear a holy trinity of sorts, eschewing isolable tempi or affects for a deeply warming kind of minimalism.
Review: Guillaume Lespinasse should be a familiar name to fans of the Brothers From Different Mothers label and the alternative French electronic/dance music scene that has been in rude health for ages now. As one half of celebrated live duo The Pilotwings, regulars on said label, we can safely consider him a master of the immersive slo mo sound, veering towards a more cosmic, almost tropical end as oppose to the heavier, progressive tones many opt for at that tempo.
Here he's stepping out alone to offer this richly detailed collection of ambience and obscurity, packed with the kind of noises that really make you want to stay in a moment forever. In many ways, the arrangements opt for a maximalist approach to serenity. And tracks don't stand still - they evolve, and develop, switch and change things up, at times sounding like opiate drone, in other moments 1980s movie accidentals.
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