Half-speed mastering.

Demdike Stare and Andy Votel.

‘Investigations of the secret dialogue between the trickling of pond waters and the faint percussive reverberation of stalactites and stalactites. Rocky sediment played as tubular organs, glockenspiels, xylophones, stone marimbas. Crystalline timbral variations and subtle microtonal passages recall the chimes of Tibetan gongs and bells, the scales of Java and Bali. Amidst muffled pauses and silences, trills and rings, echoes and tremolos, hisses and pops of vibration, Maioli — often responding directly to polyrhythms created by dripping and falling water — builds his most imaginative sound-world.’

Says Maioli: ‘Beginning in 1986, my daughter Luce and I started experimenting with sounds in the spectacular caves of Toirano. We lived in this Ligurian town for three years at the beginning of the 1990s. A total immersion in prehistory. There are traces in the Upper Paleolithic of repeated percussion on stalactites and stalagmites. Not all stalactites and stalagmites make sounds when struck, but some reveal truly extraordinary and incredible sounds, from powerful low gongs to subtle, crystalline sounds. We also recorded (exceptionally) these fantastic sounds in the caves of Borgio Verezzi by hitting the stones directly with our hands or with special clappers so as not to damage them, with the supervision of the speleological guides.’

Deep-fried rural psychedelia, primitive drum-machine grooves and woozy country-funk — including unlikely covers of The Blackbyrds, Michael Hurley and Jimmy Cliff — by Matt Valentine (MV) and Pat Gubler (PG Six), locked down in Vermont with pals S. Freyer Esq, Jim Bliss, Coot Moon and Carson ‘Smokehound’ Arnold.

Roiling, cascading, highly charged, deeply emotional piano improvisations by this Dutch-born, Columbia-trained chemist, who was an early follower of Gurdjieff.
Nyland released sixteen transcendent albums — nowadays pretty much vanished — of spiritual pianism on his own Gage Hill Press, starting in the mid-sixties. Each LP came with stunning woodcut artwork by Nyland’s wife, Ilonka Karasz (who also designed covers for the New Yorker); and highly refined black-and-white photography.
Piano Studies 337 is a particularly tempestuous performance that Nyland himself recommended to Ansel Adams as a good entry-point to his music.

Expert, highly entertaining survey of DIY punk in its late-seventies heyday.

Six songs juxtaposing torrents of sliced and processed audio with the warmth of the human voice.
With Norah Jones, Josh Mease, Clare Manchon, Natalie Beridze, Pascal Le Boeuf, and Desmond White. 
‘Answers the question of what a collaboration between Björk and Venetian Snares would sound like, if both were more aware of the drawbacks of both diatonic tedium and ceaseless harmonic wasteland, respectively.’