FURTHER RECORDS - Forced Exposure

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An innate facet of the human condition is the very personal way we choose to process our own fatality. Faced with dealing with the feelings of anxiety, death, and fear after nearly drowning whilst diving in the South Atlantic in his youth, Brazilian composer Ricardo Donoso chose to channel them into his creative process. The result was Scuba Death, a project that was fully realized on Donoso's widely acclaimed 2014 Further debut, Nitrogen Narcosis (FUR 077LP). After spending time devoted to establishing his Kathexis label as well as delivering a trilogy of albums under his given name for the Denovali label, Donoso returns to Further with a second Scuba Death offering, The Worm At The Core. The 36 minutes of The Worm At The Core expand on the creeping conceptual thrust of that Scuba Death debut, the title referencing the work of late 19th Century American philosopher William James. In his 1902 book, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature, James described the knowledge we all must die as "the worm at the core" of the human condition, further adding that this universally-shared fear informs all our urges, be it creative or destructive. Donoso continues to funnel this innate fear for positive, creative means on The Worm At The Core, which presents an important element of continuity from his previous journey to the depths as Scuba Death. The melodic strains that signaled the end of Nitrogen Narcosis on ten minute closer "Rapture Of The Deep" resurface to shape the opening movements of The Worm At The Core on "Paradox Of Finitude". There are, however, subtle shifts present here, Donoso opting to look to land rather than water for sonic inspiration with the six tracks based around location recordings of thunderstorms. These field recordings still play an integral role in the Scuba Death panorama along with Donoso's deft craft of analog equipment and sampling, whilst Rafa Selway's expert cello play is heavily incorporated throughout The Worm At The Core, further adding to the album's inherent organic qualities. The results are another evocative slow, ebbing pulse of an album encompassing the low BPM dub techno swell of "Cracks In The Shield" and "A Panic Rumbling Beneath" and richly textured soundscapes rife with haunting emotion such as "Mortality Salience." Reverse board jacket with insert design by Daniel Castrejon. 180 gram vinyl.

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Anterior Space may strike some listeners of a certain age as an echo of the gilded age of "armchair techno" exemplified by Warp Records's Artificial Intelligence comps. The convergence of the cerebral and the blissful in the four epic compositions HOLOVR (aka Jimmy Billingham) finesses from his analog and digital synths are similar to early-'90s pieces by Black Dog, B12, and others. Discussing the creation of Anterior Space, which is the first HOLOVR release to not feature beats, Billingham reveals, "Dropping drums gave me a bit more freedom in terms of tempo and rhythm, and it was actually really liberating. Having fewer elements in a track also meant it was possible to record live, which is my preferred way of working, as you can capture an actual snapshot of time and a natural, in-the-moment negotiation of the different elements of a track. I'd know a track was ready if I could sit there and listen to it looping round for long periods of time and really get lost in it, and then I'd try and capture a nice section of that in the space of 10 minutes or whatever." You can hear this on Anterior Space's opening 11-minute track, "Into Light". Its subtle gradations of warped tones and implied rhythms teem with hyperactive elegance. The slow, mobile-like rotation of synth baubles over a foundation of yearning, icy drones on "Apparent Motion" creates the illusion of a shimmering stasis, but there's actually a great deal happening here. "There's lots of subtle variation in the tracks, with pattern length differences and parameter tweaks," Billingham says. "I'm really into the hypnotic effect that you can get from this; the feeling of constant change within something that is otherwise staying the same." Thankfully, all these elements on "Apparent Motion" coalesce into a celestial chill-out zone and serve as an aural icepack for your overworked mind. On "Temporary, Autonomous", the lightest of acidic squelches prod this track into a similar rarefied ether as the less propulsive cuts on Plastikman's Sheet One (1993). Eleven-minute closer "Involution" is a gradual procession of globular ambience that seems always to be changing and yet also emitting a steady-state glow. Billingham also records under the aliases Tidal, Venn Rain, Journey Of Mind and Holographic Mind. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering; Artwork by Chloe Harris; 180 gram vinyl in reverse board jacket.

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Parisian producer Jonathan Fitoussi presents his debut album for Further Records, Imaginary Lines. Fitoussi finds inspiration from Rebecca Solnit's Storming The Gates Of Paradise: Landscapes For Politics (2007) and the concept of Harmony Of The Spheres to create six ravishing interstellar evocations. Referring to Solnit's work, Fitoussi states, "This idea that the constellations are an imaginary representation that man drew in the sky to serve as landmarks in space and on Earth is greatly appealing to me, and works very well with the story behind this album, on which each song title bears the name of a constellation," Fitoussi says. "With Imaginary Lines, I wanted to work with this idea as its core; on one hand geometrical and linear, like the shape of the constellations, characterized by the use of repetitive sequences, and on the other hand, through sections of improvised organ to evoke the more spiritual dimension." Imaginary Lines sounds like it was made with acute academic rigor yet it is also lavishly beautiful and sensuous. "I like having a mixture of a solid base to work from," Fitoussi says, "which is characterized here by a repetitive sequence, that leaves room for improvisation as well. This is something that recurs often in my work: creating a stable structure which then allows me to create spaces within it." To manifest Imaginary Lines, Fitoussi mainly employed an EMS Synthi AKS synthesizer and a Yamaha YC45D organ, which he processed through tape echo with two tape recorders. In addition, Fitoussi says, "many of the sounds were also fed back into a large metallic resonator (similar to the Ondes Martenot), which produced beautiful reverberations." "Aquarius" starts the album with its wind-chime and vibraphone-like pulsations reminiscent of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells (1973). "Triangulum" offers a Philip Glass-like repetition of lustrous synth chords. Subtle modulations and gradual intensification foster the sense that something momentous is about to happen - which it does with "Orion", whose brisk percolation and glassy tones recall Harmonia's Deluxe (1975), but shot into deep space. "Oiseau de Paradis" and "Andromede" evoke the feeling of effortless ascension through smooth, celestial oscillations, with the latter coming off as slightly more hectic, generating the illusion of pursuit. "Cassiopee" brings the album to a close with a more downcast, contemplative mood, with swirling tones and cyclical motif. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering. 180 gram vinyl & reverse board jacket with insert.

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Everyone's looking for inner peace of some kind - even warmongers. As most intelligent people know, music is one of the most effective ways to achieve that blessed, blissed state. Muara, the debut album by Seattle producer Monadh (Jake Muir) offers yet more crucial aid in the war on stress. Muara (Javanese for "estuary") is an ambient album in the purest, chillest meaning of the term. Its seven tracks are awash in aquatic signifiers and textures; each one is a rejuvenating dip in healing, icy waters. This doesn't mean Muara should be filed in new age sections of record shops (not that there's anything wrong with that). Rather, what the album most resembles is the ambient output of artists like Biosphere, Loscil and The Sight Below - musicians who uncannily make the listener warm to cold tones. "The way I make music is really stream of consciousness," Muir says. "My friend calls it 'slow improv.' I happened to be watching a lot of older Japanese cinema, especially samurai stuff, from the '50s to the '70s while making the album." Natural habitats also played a significant role. Muir notes, "My favorite music is informed by mood and place." This deep into the 21st century, it's not easy to create ambient music that sounds vital and untainted by hackneyed tropes. Monadh succeeds in this difficult task, through a combination of his field recordings from the Pacific Northwest and meticulously chosen samples mostly lifted and pitch-shifted from library records of a pastoral and romantic bent. He also cites Andrew Pekler's Sentimental Favourites (2011) and Biosphere's Shenzhou (2011) as inspirations. Right from the first track, "Ammophilia," the listener can feel tensions dissolve as Monadh coaxes a gentle whirlpool of dark blue drones with an undertow of poignant melody swirled into the mix with utmost subtlety. "Calanque" seems to be emerging from a fathomless cave, like a palliative gas, a calming ether. It's the chillest of chillout cuts, inducing a peace beyond peace. And so it goes throughout Muara, with slight variations in intensities and moods, but overall maintaining a watery tonal float on which listeners can glide into mentally stimulating relaxation. By the time the final track "Convection" surfaces, the listener feels perfectly centered. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering. Artwork by Chloe Harris. 180 gram vinyl. Reverse board jacket. Includes download code.

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Robert Witschakowski takes a break from rewiring the rules of electro with his prolific The Exaltics project to deliver the eerie soundtrack album, Acanthosaura. Working with Nico Jagiella - with whom he co-runs the Solar One label - the pair have created the soundtrack for a world of flickering shadows, dark ambient textures and ominous bass tones. It's the first Crotaphytus release in six years and according to Witschakowski, a project stemming from his love of reptiles and movie soundtracks. Like previous Crotaphytus releases on Solar One, Acanthosaura is a deeply atmospheric affair. With each track title a reference to different types of lizards, from the death-paced drums of "Cyclura Cornuta" to the slow-motion ebm-disco groove of "Xenosaurus Platyceps" and the murderous subs of "Caiman Latirostris". In between, the dark ambient passages of "Conolophus Subcristatus" and "Amblyrhynchus Cristatus" as well as nods to The Exaltics's spaced-out electro in "Iguana Delicatissima". However, Robert insists that the album remains true to the project's ethos: "Crotaphytus is always dark and haunting. The project has no rules and that gives us the total freedom to make everything with it. I make also different styles with The Exaltics, but I have a concrete vision every time. With Crotaphytus, we let it flow and see where we land at the end. For this album, we tried to create an atmosphere like you are in a deep jungle, chased by giant lizards. Ambient has really the power to transport feelings. I guess this is subliminal in us from watching films. Most soundtracks have a lot of music without beats, so we collected tracks with beats and also ambient ones." You can hear the sound of the jungle at night as "Xenosaurus Platyceps" draws to an end or on the dusky dread that sets in on album closer "Amblyrhynchus Cristatus". "I'm a sucker for atmospheric music. I need to imagine things by hearing music. Other worlds, fantasy, come down from a daily struggle. I could say half of Crotaphytus, the atmosphere, that is me, and the other half, is the power Nico gives to the project," he points out. Mastered by Alden Tyrell & cut by Christoph Grote-Beverborg at Dubplates & Mastering. Artwork by Chloe Harris. 180 gram vinyl & reverse board jacket.

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Human Rays - Stockholm, Sweden producer Robin Smeds Mattila - says that the music on A Tension was made during nocturnal sessions in a studio full of mostly cheap analog and digital gear, all in one take. "I kind of let the mood guide me and just go with it," he says. The result is a gripping four track suite of emotionally charged minimal ambient that was created quickly but sounds like it was rigorously sweated over for many weeks. After a handful of releases that explored noisy, quasi-industrial techno, Mattila deviates into a more abstract, melancholy mode with A Tension. His creative process involves experimenting "to see how far I can push a sound with a pretty lo-fi setup. Improvisation and limitations are part of the thing that makes it interesting." This approach yields riveting dividends right from the start on A Tension. On "Condensity", the sparse pinging and distant, muted beats commingle with what sounds like rough wind or waves, hinting at the Arctic vibes that Biosphere conjured on Substrata (BIO 005LP, 1997). It's at once chill and chilling, tranquil and unsettling. "Between The Hours" places spindly, woody beats beneath a dramatic sweep of synthetic strings, ebbing and flowing like Fripp & Eno's monumental "An Index Of Metals" on Evening Star (1975). "Neverendless" might be even more redolent of the North Pole than "Condensity", its severely minimal isolationist ambience suggesting Mick Harris' none-more-cold Lull or Thomas Köner's Permafrost (1993). On "Manual Litany I", Mattila takes what sounds like a sentimental synth melody and smears it into a mantra of compelling drudgery. He notes that the track draws inspiration from William Basinski, who's famous for his series of profoundly poignant Disintegration Loops albums (2002-2003). "It's an attempt at making an organic loop, so it's just me playing the same thing over and over on a synthesizer and letting the mistakes become part of the composition together with just playing around with an effects processor." From these simple, humble means, Mattila forges a record that triggers subtle, intricate feelings. A Tension is that rare kind of music that freezes out all extraneous stimuli and submerges you in a frigid netherworld in which calm and disquiet exist in iced-out harmony. Mastered by Helmut Erler at Dubplates & Mastering. Artwork by Chloe Harris. 180 gram vinyl & reverse board jacket.

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Some records just barely nudge your consciousness, but they do so in such an intriguing manner that their tentativeness and ephemerality lure you in deeper than you expect. Such is the case with Overflow Pool by Will Long's project Mogador. This prolific producer -- who is best known for his profoundly meditative ambient music under the name Celer -- favors the long-form, beatless approach to composition, as he lets his rigorously honed tones unspool with a gentle insistence. Overflow Pool consists of two lengthy pieces full of lingering, aqueous chords spaced out by suspenseful lacunae. Each piece revolves around episodes of briskly struck piano chord-clusters that are left to decay to near-silence for maximal contemplation. These are followed by a lower-keyed retort, as if to keep the listener from becoming overly optimistic after the preceding burst of Harold Budd-on-uppers tones. Similarities to Brian Eno's Thursday Afternoon (1985) are also evident, as Mogador methodically doles out morsels of oceanic calm geared to align your chakras like some 21st-century Steven Halpern LP. It sounds ideal for flotation tanks, deep-tissue massages, and general relaxation. Long observes that Mogador differs from his Celer output "because it's completely unprocessed. This is a pure room recording with no extra effects; only piano and reeltoreel delay." The Yokohama, Japan-based musician says that his primary aim with Overflow Pool "was to make something that doesn't happen all the time -- it's so sparse, that it blends into the room. It happens so seldom that it's easy to forget about. You just catch it here and there. That's the feeling I wanted." It's a feeling that's all too rare in modern music -- peacefulness without sentimentality. 180-gram LP in reverse-board sleeve. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering. Artwork by Nao Watahiki.

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180-gram LP. Includes printed inner sleeve. Like some ingenious combination of John Cage's chance operations and the numbers station data stream captured on The Conet Project, Strategy's Information Pollution immerses listeners in baffling sonic waters. It's a riveting work that converts the enigmatic effluvia of shortwave and dispatch radio chatter into thrumming, static-riddled clouds of ambience. An undercurrent of unease wafts through Information Pollution's four lengthy tracks, as barely audible molecules of aural junk never meant for public consumption are repurposed into an unsettling strain of inverted chillout music. Information Pollution was born out of restraints. After moving into a new house with little space to set up his studio properly, Strategy (Portland producer Paul Dickow) could only work with a few devices at a time. He'd acquired an old Akai reel-to-reel tape deck with tube preamps from his father, who'd recently cleaned out his own studio. Using radios, homemade effects boxes, and the tape deck, Strategy recorded these sound collages live to tape, without touching any synths or deploying any samples. "I discovered a lot of ghostly shortwave sounds," Dickow says, "but also ambulance, parking, and school bus dispatch channels on forgotten frequencies that I think might have been once used for police or broadcast TV." The result falls somewhere between Philip Jeck's eroding turntable symphonies and William Basinski's poignantly decaying Disintegration Loops. Dickow explains that he uses the term "Information Pollution" to classify "any spam, broadcast saturation, junk mail, invasion of unwanted information [that enters] the socialemotional public realm." As with the material Strategy created with cassette tape loops on his previous Further release, 2015's Noise Tape Self (FUR 096LP), "there's a sense of machines having their own life, beyond our control." But instead of chaos, Strategy has produced an artful alchemization of discarded tones. Although Information Pollution sounds unlike anything in Strategy's sprawling catalog, he likens the album to his activities within Portland's '90s/early-'00s experimental/noise scene. The reason he hasn't issued anything in this style till now? He wanted to wait until he was sure he'd "given it the necessary rigor and study." With this album, Strategy has shaped the random output of radios into a gripping document. As Dickow puts it, "This is the audio equivalent of photographing the oil slicks that appear in the puddles of parking lots."

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CD in reverse-board digipak. Italian DJ and producer Manuel Fogliata hasn't released a lot of records since emerging in 2006, but the few he has put out have all been worth tracking down. Perhaps best known for his work alongside Donato Dozzy in creating the much sought-after Aquaplano records at the tail-end of the 2000s, Nuel has been just as consistent and impressive on his solo outings. Whether taking on metallic electro or syrupy, bass-heavy ambience, Nuel's attention to detail and his keen ear for a groove have made each release something to treasure. Nuel's only previous full-length, Trance Mutation (Further Records, 2011), is a masterpiece of minimal repetition. While initial impressions might suggest little in the way of continuity between Trance Mutation and the colder, more mechanical sounds of Hyperboreal, Nuel's ability to go deep into a particular mood -- a particular sound -- links the two. Recorded using just one semi-modular synth -- the boutique and sadly discontinued Ekdahl Polygamist -- and a handful of pedals, Hyperboreal came together in just a few days while Fogliata was staying with Giuseppe Tillieci (aka Neel, famed mastering engineer and one-half of Voices from the Lake) at Tillieci's apartment in Rome. Hyperboreal begins ambiguously, with the fluttering dissonance and shadowy aggression of "Steppin' Stone" immediately setting the mood. The opener's flutters become a swirling mass on "Polaris" and a venomous rattle on the title-track, before "-Om" evens out the maddening, almost frantic pulsations into a bed of twitching feedback and resonant echoes. There's even a hint of a regular beat, barely audible beneath the buzzing tones of synthesized electricity. "Intensity plays a fundamental role in what I do," says Fogliata, and listening to the opening half of Hyperboreal, one would have to agree. These are not casual sonics. Penultimate track "Be Well" lifts the shadows somewhat, and though closer "The Rest Is Noise" seems to return to a darker place, it does so with the memory of sunlight, warmth, and life. As its title suggests, this is an album for colder climates; for stark, inhospitable landscapes. At first, it seems a truly unsettling void of vaporous tones; a blizzard of sound refusing to coalesce and refusing to make sense. Slowly, though, Hyperboreal opens itself up, emerging patiently from an abyssal darkness into a beauty as still, as sharp, and as breathtaking as an Arctic dawn. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering.

$23.50 IN STOCK

180-gram LP version. Includes printed inner sleeve and offset printed insert sheet with liner notes. Italian DJ and producer Manuel Fogliata hasn't released a lot of records since emerging in 2006, but the few he has put out have all been worth tracking down. Perhaps best known for his work alongside Donato Dozzy in creating the much sought-after Aquaplano records at the tail-end of the 2000s, Nuel has been just as consistent and impressive on his solo outings. Whether taking on metallic electro or syrupy, bass-heavy ambience, Nuel's attention to detail and his keen ear for a groove have made each release something to treasure. Nuel's only previous full-length, Trance Mutation (Further Records, 2011), is a masterpiece of minimal repetition. While initial impressions might suggest little in the way of continuity between Trance Mutation and the colder, more mechanical sounds of Hyperboreal, Nuel's ability to go deep into a particular mood -- a particular sound -- links the two. Recorded using just one semi-modular synth -- the boutique and sadly discontinued Ekdahl Polygamist -- and a handful of pedals, Hyperboreal came together in just a few days while Fogliata was staying with Giuseppe Tillieci (aka Neel, famed mastering engineer and one-half of Voices from the Lake) at Tillieci's apartment in Rome. Hyperboreal begins ambiguously, with the fluttering dissonance and shadowy aggression of "Steppin' Stone" immediately setting the mood. The opener's flutters become a swirling mass on "Polaris" and a venomous rattle on the title-track, before "-Om" evens out the maddening, almost frantic pulsations into a bed of twitching feedback and resonant echoes. There's even a hint of a regular beat, barely audible beneath the buzzing tones of synthesized electricity. "Intensity plays a fundamental role in what I do," says Fogliata, and listening to the opening half of Hyperboreal, one would have to agree. These are not casual sonics. Penultimate track "Be Well" lifts the shadows somewhat, and though closer "The Rest Is Noise" seems to return to a darker place, it does so with the memory of sunlight, warmth, and life. As its title suggests, this is an album for colder climates; for stark, inhospitable landscapes. At first, it seems a truly unsettling void of vaporous tones; a blizzard of sound refusing to coalesce and refusing to make sense. Slowly, though, Hyperboreal opens itself up, emerging patiently from an abyssal darkness into a beauty as still, as sharp, and as breathtaking as an Arctic dawn. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering.

$21.00 IN STOCK

How does one deal with the world's nightmarish montage of bad news -- the glut of information that incites feelings of futility and insanity? One way to cope is to plunge deeper into the madness, at least temporarily, for a dip into the healing pool of catharsis. Few people in music today provide a more immersive alternate reality on record to combat our own horrible one than Decimus (former No-Neck Blues Band guitarist and synth player Pat Murano). Musical categories dissolve in the mind as one tries to ascertain what's going on in Decimus's sonic universe, realized in a series of 12 LPs dedicated to the zodiac of Roman poet and rhetorician Decimius Magnus Ausonius (c. 310-c. 395). As with some of the most advanced and individualistic musicians (Coil, Demdike Stare, Mnemonists, Nurse with Wound), Murano instinctively generates sounds that seem to bypass normal listening responses and flow directly to the subconscious. Deep immersion in Decimus 7 leads the listener to a disturbing, mind-altering realm. Each aspect of these two epic, side-long pieces feels as if it's controlled by a malevolent super-being hell-bent on subverting conventional notions of music. The A-side's untitled track sounds like an alien transmission trying to fight through static and command the listener's soul. Grossly distorted Chrome-like grumbling and icy synth motifs waft over artfully spluttering drum-machine beats, establishing a disorienting, unsettling tone. With alchemical zeal, Murano fills the stereo field with perilous atmospheres, warped and distant melodies, Doppler-effected drones, and bleating percussion. When he brings in a trudging, sludgy 4/4 beat wreathed in mysterious mumbles and aural effluvia, it's like an unlikely collaboration between :zoviet*france: and Severed Heads. Side B's untitled piece starts with distant, bludgeoning beats hitting with unpredictable tempos and force. Four minutes in, a semi-familiar, bulbous rhythm coheres into a bizarre strain of slow-motion trance music, swathed from all directions with slithery, bleepy synth tones and machine-elf utterances geared to enhance your DMT trip. Things inevitably tilt toward chaos and return to the enigmatic static that opened the album. By record's end, you have no direction home... nor even a concept of what "home" is anymore. This may be the ultimate distillation of Decimus's chthonic genius. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering. Artwork by Chloe Harris.

$20.00 IN STOCK

In May 2013, at a nondescript Seattle space called 1927 Events, two-thirds of Magic Mountain High -- Germany's David Moufang aka Move D and the Netherlands' Jordan Czamanski of Juju & Jordash -- teamed up for the kind of live performance during which you say to yourself, "I hope to hell somebody's recording this." Thankfully, somebody was doing just that, and the 99-minute Live in Seattle is the sterling result. People throw around the word "deep" to describe electronic music with cavalier frequency, but in the case of Moufang and Czamanski (who also records as Jordan GCZ), that adjective barely encapsulates the kind of fathomless sound they create. Live in Seattle captures them working at the zenith of their improvisational powers for a rabid crowd. The show begins with anticipatory cymbal taps and a beautifully morose melodica motif that wouldn't sound out of place in an Ennio Morricone soundtrack. A few minutes in, faint pulses enter earshot and a minute later the clap-enhanced beats and synth-bass burst into the forefront to form a strutting mid-tempo rhythm with a subliminal drone swirling beneath it. Masters of dynamics, Moufang and Czamanski incrementally intensify and ingeniously arrange the elements, especially that underlying keyboard drone, until you're in a state of panic and ecstasy. Over the course of the set, the two producers flaunt their expertise for pacing. They avoid the obvious and subvert expectations throughout the performance, sporadically letting the beats drop out in order to luxuriate on a particularly alien organ oscillation, a sinister bass rumble, an ominously pulsating synth, an unsettling thumb-piano motif, or a mind-warping 303 acid ripple, to name just a handful of examples. Of course, Moufang and Czamanski also keep things danceable for stretches of time, and about 78 minutes in, they even shift out of their foundation of oddity and into heavenly techno mode with a gloriously ascendant melody. For their well-deserved encore, Moufang and Czamanski reprise the intro's mournful melodica reverie and then infiltrate it with a series of percolating and disorienting bleeps and a celestial drone worthy of new age legend Laraaji. This stellar ambient coda reflects Moufang and Czamanski's exceptional, eccentric musicality. Techno is not known for its live albums, but Live in Seattle sets the standard for the format, with its abundant, sublime tunefulness, textural richness, and enchantingly enigmatic tangents. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering.

$23.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Includes insert with liner notes. In May 2013, at a nondescript Seattle space called 1927 Events, two-thirds of Magic Mountain High -- Germany's David Moufang aka Move D and the Netherlands' Jordan Czamanski of Juju & Jordash -- teamed up for the kind of live performance during which you say to yourself, "I hope to hell somebody's recording this." Thankfully, somebody was doing just that, and the 99-minute Live in Seattle is the sterling result. People throw around the word "deep" to describe electronic music with cavalier frequency, but in the case of Moufang and Czamanski (who also records as Jordan GCZ), that adjective barely encapsulates the kind of fathomless sound they create. Live in Seattle captures them working at the zenith of their improvisational powers for a rabid crowd. The show begins with anticipatory cymbal taps and a beautifully morose melodica motif that wouldn't sound out of place in an Ennio Morricone soundtrack. A few minutes in, faint pulses enter earshot and a minute later the clap-enhanced beats and synth-bass burst into the forefront to form a strutting mid-tempo rhythm with a subliminal drone swirling beneath it. Masters of dynamics, Moufang and Czamanski incrementally intensify and ingeniously arrange the elements, especially that underlying keyboard drone, until you're in a state of panic and ecstasy. Over the course of the set, the two producers flaunt their expertise for pacing. They avoid the obvious and subvert expectations throughout the performance, sporadically letting the beats drop out in order to luxuriate on a particularly alien organ oscillation, a sinister bass rumble, an ominously pulsating synth, an unsettling thumb-piano motif, or a mind-warping 303 acid ripple, to name just a handful of examples. Of course, Moufang and Czamanski also keep things danceable for stretches of time, and about 78 minutes in, they even shift out of their foundation of oddity and into heavenly techno mode with a gloriously ascendant melody. For their well-deserved encore, Moufang and Czamanski reprise the intro's mournful melodica reverie and then infiltrate it with a series of percolating and disorienting bleeps and a celestial drone worthy of new age legend Laraaji. This stellar ambient coda reflects Moufang and Czamanski's exceptional, eccentric musicality. Techno is not known for its live albums, but Live in Seattle sets the standard for the format, with its abundant, sublime tunefulness, textural richness, and enchantingly enigmatic tangents. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering.

$23.00 IN STOCK

2022 restock; LP version. Includes deluxe printed inner sleeve, poster, and download code. In April 2015, Donato Dozzy took a set of mouth harps to his parents' house in the Italian countryside and set about exploring the possibilities of that most basic of instruments. The mouth harp had been calling to Donato Dozzy ever since childhood, and he had begun to see in this peculiar, ancient sound the roots of the music he'd been making and playing in clubs. The Loud Silence is the result of those explorations, an accompanied deep-dive into childhood memory, social history, and the roots of psychedelia. Recorded indoors and outdoors; halfway up mountains and on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, the album is meditative but also powerful. Each track maintains an inviolable central pulse, while delicate, fluttering sounds hint at vast spaces waiting for the listener to connect with them. Field recordings hover below the resonating harps, adding to the mysterious atmosphere. Tracks like "The Loud Silence" and "Downhill to the Sea" are wrapped up in simple rhythms, their strict throb drawing the listener in. The organic physicality of the sound, made in concert with the body itself, generates a primal response in the listener; an undeniably visceral understanding; an empathetic resonance. The Loud Silence is Donato Dozzy's second solo album, and it sees him return to Further Records, with which released his first solo album, K, in 2010 (FUR 018CD/LP). The two albums share a sense of dynamic movement within a limited sphere. It's not minimal, exactly -- it's hard to describe such a rich sound as minimal or reduced in any way -- but it gets the most out of a small, well-chosen set of tools. As on his 2015 album Sintetizzatrice (SP 038CD/LP), a full-length collaboration with singer Anna Caragnano, the ability to make a single element the center of a musical world is enthralling. Anyone who has followed Donato Dozzy's work, whether the celebrated Voices from the Lake collaboration with Neel, the otherworldly mixes he's done for mnml ssgs and electronique.it, or, particularly, his 2013 album of Bee Mask remixes for the Spectrum Spools label (SP 029CD), will see that The Loud Silence is a continuation of a lifelong fascination with sound and its potential to bring people, times, and places together. This album is the first in Further's series exploring the depth of one instrument, preceding a solo record from Nuel focused on the Ekdahl Polygamist synthesizer.

$17.00 IN STOCK

In April 2015, Donato Dozzy took a set of mouth harps to his parents' house in the Italian countryside and set about exploring the possibilities of that most basic of instruments. The mouth harp had been calling to Donato Dozzy ever since childhood, and he had begun to see in this peculiar, ancient sound the roots of the music he'd been making and playing in clubs. The Loud Silence is the result of those explorations, an accompanied deep-dive into childhood memory, social history, and the roots of psychedelia. Recorded indoors and outdoors; halfway up mountains and on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, the album is meditative but also powerful. Each track maintains an inviolable central pulse, while delicate, fluttering sounds hint at vast spaces waiting for the listener to connect with them. Field recordings hover below the resonating harps, adding to the mysterious atmosphere. Tracks like "The Loud Silence" and "Downhill to the Sea" are wrapped up in simple rhythms, their strict throb drawing the listener in. The organic physicality of the sound, made in concert with the body itself, generates a primal response in the listener; an undeniably visceral understanding; an empathetic resonance. The Loud Silence is Donato Dozzy's second solo album, and it sees him return to Further Records, with which released his first solo album, K, in 2010 (FUR 018CD/LP). The two albums share a sense of dynamic movement within a limited sphere. It's not minimal, exactly -- it's hard to describe such a rich sound as minimal or reduced in any way -- but it gets the most out of a small, well-chosen set of tools. As on his 2015 album Sintetizzatrice (SP 038CD/LP), a full-length collaboration with singer Anna Caragnano, the ability to make a single element the center of a musical world is enthralling. Anyone who has followed Donato Dozzy's work, whether the celebrated Voices from the Lake collaboration with Neel, the otherworldly mixes he's done for mnml ssgs and electronique.it, or, particularly, his 2013 album of Bee Mask remixes for the Spectrum Spools label (SP 029CD), will see that The Loud Silence is a continuation of a lifelong fascination with sound and its potential to bring people, times, and places together. This album is the first in Further's series exploring the depth of one instrument, preceding a solo record from Nuel focused on the Ekdahl Polygamist synthesizer.

$21.00 IN STOCK

On his sixth album, Palace Savant, Brooklyn producer Jonas Reinhardt (aka Jesse Reiner) undergoes a profound solo odyssey. The record may be the most spectacular realization of Jonas Reinhardt's outward-bound sonic aspirations. These eight tracks draw on 14th-century architect Peter Parler's breathtaking St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague. "St. Vitus is a statement to the future by the rulers at the time," Reiner says. "It's surreal, grandiose, psychedelic -- and the sheer scale of human ambition involved is almost beyond comprehension." Parler reportedly deviated from the cathedral's initial blueprint and elevated the Gothic style to heretofore-unimagined, bizarre levels. With Palace Savant, Reiner projected Parler's handiwork into Thomas Edison's era of electricity. "I envisioned [Parler] retrofitting his cathedral with excesses of incandescent light, preparing for a coming age of electronics. Palace Savant is what a contemporary electronic performance in that space might sound like." Recorded on tour and in New York over the course of a year and mixed at Transmitter Park Studio in Greenpoint, Palace Savant begins with the instant attention-grabber/pulse-accelerator "Old Kaizen." At once claustrophobic and spacious, it possesses an urgent, chase-scene synth throb that would make John Carpenter or Bernard Fevre jealous. The turbulent "Shattered Remains of Orr" sounds like Edgar Froese's kosmische-ambient masterpiece Aqua (1974) tossed into shark-infested waters. On "Androma," Reiner's expertly-modulated arpeggios contrast low and high frequencies, revealing his ability to create suspense with a chiaroscuro of whirs and pulsations. Palace Savant achieves two towering peaks. The first is "Go Sceptre Go," a swiftly-moving, heavenly droner that veers off on a tangent into a much darker, more chaotic direction. The second is "Noctornum," a burbling and soaring piece that's at once aquatic and astral, before an emphatic rhythm forms, pushing things into menacing Szajner-esque territory. The album closes with the mid-tempo arpeggios and muted, wailing siren-tones of "Omat Principle Decay," a moving finale to a record that's taken you so far and tingled your senses so intensely. A high point in Jonas Reinhardt's large canon, the dramatic and majestic Palace Savant does exquisite justice to St. Vitus Cathedral's grandeur. Album artwork by Andy Gilmore. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering.

$14.00 IN STOCK

Parisian artist Nautil is a music student specializing in acoustics, signal processing, and informatics. His debut single, Canopée, uses analog synths, sampling, and personal recordings to emphasize the geometry of nature and music. "Canopée" is a cavernous, pulsing, low-frequency techno colossus destined to hypnotize dark warehouse spaces. "Galdae" is a propulsive technoid tweaker, while "Mue" is designed for head-rolling after hours with mesmeric synth drones suspended over a brain-melting sub-bass pulse.

$14.00 IN STOCK

The debut release from Melbourne, Australia-based Mosam Howieson opens with "Spiral 7," a pensive, evolving, slow-motion deep techno voyage across rolling waves of exhausted dancers. "Spiral 4" dives beneath the surface with broken submarine bleeps and acoustic depth charges before "Spiral 3" finally drops anchor into a bottomless ocean of downbeat pulses.

$21.00 IN STOCK

Do you ever listen to a record and worry about its creator's sanity? Granted, it rarely happens, but in the case of Innercity -- Antwerp producer Hans Dens -- it's a legitimate concern. Thankfully, Dens's apparent madness manifests itself in music so uncompromising and off the charts of classification that it convinces you that any kind of sonic innovation at this late date demands a bit of mental instability. By way of explanation, Dens says, "People forget that there is only magic in this world, mostly black, nothing more." In other news: You will never confuse this Innercity with Kevin Saunderson's Inner City. ABABABABABABAS (Blue Lion Child) makes Dens's rather strange first album on Further, 2012's A Lion Baptism, seem like radio-friendly fodder by comparison. The producer admits, "This release is surely one of my harsher, bleak ones... I tried to keep it pure, and again bleak. Also put the keyboards in the shelf for this one; it's all guitar and violin through an array of effects..." "Baal's (Kitten Trumpeteer Choir)" fades in with what sounds like waves of harsh, scalding feedback -- let's call it "the black metal of ambient." Dens conjures pitiless, post-apocalyptic atmospheres, but imbues them with a residual glow of dignity. The tidal "Masks and Mold Matter" could be a noir soundtrack that's too weird and nightmarish even for David Lynch. Its main sound source sounds like the irradiated molecules of a psych-rock guitar riff by Chrome's Helios Creed. What passes for a respite in Innercity's harsh sonic universe comes from "Raragrams," with ill oscillations that seem to have escaped from Gil Mellé's groundbreaking Andromeda Strain soundtrack (1971). On "In Abra and Umbra," Dens creates a desolate Plutonian ambience that'll give your ears frostbite, unleashing clouds of unidentified frying sonics. With perverse whimsy, Dens lets some unfeasibly heavy beats intrude in the last minute. "A-Baba-Al-One" defines a new form of chilling horror-film soundtrack; its synths actually shiver and moan. The album closes with "And Dead As All Black Acts," which sounds like a yeti trying to pound its way out of a casket. Anguished tones of unclassifiable extremity and distress send us out on a note of ecstatic bafflement. You realize you've reached the end of this record alive, and you're much stronger because of it. Featuring Bart De Paepe from Sloow Tapes. Artwork by Chloe Harris and poetry by Hans Dens. Cut by CGB @ Dubplates & Mastering.

$21.00 IN STOCK

Working with a quiet intensity since 2003, Strategy has proven himself to be an incredibly resourceful and rewarding musician in both group settings and as a solo artist. In the latter guise, this Portland, Oregon producer/multi-instrumentalist (aka Paul Dickow) has released a prolific amount of excellent work for quality indie labels such as Kranky, Idle Hands, 100% Silk, Endless Flight, and Entr'acte, putting a cerebral yet sensual spin on dub, ambient, post rock, and house music. For his Further Records debut, Noise Tape Self, Strategy delves ever deeper into his more ambient inclinations and experiments with tape loops. Dickow says he became obsessed with making tape music in 2008, after tiring of using the computer as his main instrument. Fellow Portland producer/ingenious gear-tinkerer David Chandler (Solenoid) taught Dickow "how to make a tape loop that could be put inside a cassette tape. I got really into this, and got a 4 track, knowing this would allow me to have four synchronized loops per tape. I would then run each channel through a series of effects and 'perform' live mixes using the loops. I alternated between using source material of my own devising and using whatever source material happened to be on the cassettes I was hacking." Noise Tape Self kicks off with "Awesome Piano," in which a fragment of a beautiful piano motif gets overwhelmed by a glorious vortex of static and distortion. "Cassette Loop" is a gorgeous ambient piece with a lulling, aquatic quality that recalls such masters of uneasy listening as Rapoon, O Yuki Conjugate, and Aube. "Ominous Lovely Piano" is a ghostly, microcosmic form of dub, an ultimate kind of headphone music of deep psychedelic interiority that's reminiscent of Paul Schütze's 1996 masterpiece, Apart. The hypnotic/amniotic ambience of "Lovely Loop" whispers of a peaceful eternity; this track could be an important step toward a new, improved strain of new age. The album closes with "Rhen's Loop"; here's where the album really soars into the stratosphere and grows surreal wings. A five-dimensional headfuck of what sounds like analog-synth growls and whirs and desolate drones, "Rhen's Loop" is Doppler effected and disorienting, like a more somber take on Conrad Schnitzler's Ballet Statique (MINIMAL 004CD/LP). With Noise Tape Self, Strategy has found a way to build works of compelling, intimate grandeur with some of the humblest of sonic atoms. It's an alchemical wonder. Mastered by Pete Swanson and cut by CGB @ Dubplates & Mastering.

$23.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

Rrose (Sandwell District, Eaux, Stroboscopic Artefacts) has found her own niche in the American techno underground. Her hypnotic tracks incorporate ideas from ambient and minimalist music as prominently as they do the history of dance music, operating in the same fruitful cross-section between techno and the abstract as many other Further Records releases. Rrose's debt to experimental music has never been more obvious than on September 20, 2012, when he performed legendary composer and electronic/computer music pioneer James Tenney's Having Never Written a Note for Percussion live in Washington, DC. The simple yet colossal piece requires the performer to play one percussive instrument constantly, taking it from the quietest point to the loudest and back again. Done well, it's a fascinating exploration of tone, volume, and decay, and a showcase for drone music's unusually transportive powers. Never Having Written a Note for Percussion has always been a personal favorite of Rrose's. He was inspired to try it out after touring Dupont Undergound, a performance space in a disused trolley tunnel beneath downtown DC, where the possibilities of "seemingly endless and unpredictable reverberations" seemed perfect for Tenney's composition. He made a 32-inch gong played with two mallets the central device of his performance, creating a towering leviathan of sound capable of the softest highs and the deepest lows. It's a vastness that comes across especially well on the live recording of that 2012 performance, a breathtaking 30 minutes that seems daunting at first but moves with a grace as easy as breathing. Rrose's take is almost definitive: not only does he stretch out the piece to 30 minutes beyond its usual eight-to-12-minute duration, but, even more importantly, she offers two versions made in two very different settings. The A-side features a performance recorded in a studio during his practice sessions. Dry and mic'd up close, its almost stuffy quality is the direct opposite of the live version, like it's coming from inside your head, where the live recording on the B-side surrounds you with the booming sound of the gong. Never Having Written a Note for Percussion is a powerful study not only in minimalist composition but the importance of the room and environment that a performance, or just pure sound, takes place in, and a potent example of the kind of experimental tendencies that make Rrose one of techno's more fascinating figures. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering.

$23.00 IN STOCK

2013 release. No-Neck Blues Band member Pat Murano's work as Decimus has been a prodigious endeavor to dissolve the ego and conventional notions of form from the creation of music. Decimus 10 continues Murano's rigorous yet freewheeling cavalcade of bizarre sound events that baffle and beguile in equal measure. The 21-minute A-side is a fungal, fractured, dream-fever soundtrack that makes the Italian horror-flick scores of Goblin sound like Danny Elfman hackwork. Seemingly recorded in the same infernal warehouse in which some of the stranger Smegma opuses were laid down, this piece leaves flaming shards of audio surrealism caroming around your uncomprehending brain. The 20-minute flipside begins like a minimal techno banger being smothered in its motherboard. Soon it morphs into a subtly horrifying hologram of ruptured ambience that will get Demdike Stare fans' knees a-tremblin'. In Decimus's transformative hands, gothic music comes off as something far more disturbing than its usual cartoonish pantomime. The track trundles to the finish line almost how it began, but with more striated squeals of unknown origin. You may want to sterilize your headphones after listening to it, because music this disturbing leaves enduring residue. Shapeshifting enigmatically with twisted inspiration, Decimus 10 radiates a nether-zonely beauty. Presented in screenprinted jacket. Mastered by Helmut Erler at Dubplates & Mastering.

$19.50 IN STOCK

2011 release, last copies. Oakland native and Berlin resident Armon Bazile is many things to many people. A deep thinker on the topic of consciousness, as well as a DJ, producer, and label boss. While more commonly known as Aybee for his cosmic house and techno, his o1o alias showcases his abstract leftfield material. "Refuge" features Malena Peréz. Handmade screenprinted sleeve.

$23.50 IN STOCK

A former globetrotting DJ, Further Records founder Chloe Harris shelved that lifestyle and aesthetic for a more stable family life in the Seattle area and a more cerebral approach in the studio. With this collection of exploratory compositions, originally released as a limited cassette in 2012, she decided to experiment with an array of synthesizers, mainly the Waldorf Q. Working on the eight tracks here in her home setup, Harris would "layer as much as I could or sometimes there was no layering at all. I tried to let the machines talk. I was trying to find my own voice. It was sad and melancholy because I stopped DJing and decided to try something new in my career." This change had financial and creative risks, but Harris has transitioned boldly into this more adventurous musical mode. Each track on Dose is a distinctive foray into beatless sound design. There's too much happening here to describe this album as "ambient" or "chillout," yet it's not typically academic-sounding, either. Harris lets her intuition guide her and those finely calibrated instincts lead to gripping pieces that subtly evolve over their three- to six-minute durations. A thrilling sense of otherworldliness becomes the norm on Dose. "Water Dragn" achieves an aquatic grandeur with its teeming drones beneath elastic pulsations, throbbing with the subliminal ominousness of mid-'70s Tangerine Dream. "Tiwie" is the most up-tempo track here; marked by a wonky motif of what might be pitch-shifted seal utterances or some other sea-life's emissions, it generates a woozy pattern that nudges the listener into a delirious reverie. "Couchfire Dron" is a deeply poignant and morose atmospheric work that suggests an infinite expanse of paradoxically exhilarating gloom. Similarly, the dank, frigid auroras of "Skrt" are shot through with skittering rhythms not made by drums but rather what seem like rapid intakes of breath, their textures hitting the ear like frantically sweeping ice-scrapers on windshields. "Harchone" unspools a psychedelic mélange of tones and textures swirling in a chromium abyss, reminiscent of Nik Raicevic's mind-altering synthesizer abstractions recorded in the early '70s. When album-closer "Entrldam" blooms into earshot, its profound whorl of gray drones signifies a momentous conclusion to a work that proves Harris has reached a new peak. Further Records now presents a vinyl reissue of this opus, spurred on by the urging of Italian techno magus Donato Dozzy. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates and Mastering.

$23.50 IN STOCK

Scuba Death is Ricardo Donoso's alter ego. With more of a focus on analog sound, percussion, sampling, and location recordings, there is an organic undercurrent on Scuba Death recordings that isn't as prevalent in his solo work. This music is rich in atmosphere while still tethered to the deeper ideas that Donoso often explores in his work. Treatises on fear and death-anxiety, the underlining thematic framework for the project, run rampant throughout these claustrophobic electronic passages, and teeter on the edge of being oppressive. Nitrogen Narcosis marks the first full-length and strongest statement in the Scuba Death repertoire after the privately issued, ruthless Demon Seed 12" back in 2011. The album alternates between surprising lethargic dance inflections all nestled between 75 & 100 bpm, the normal resting heart rate for adults, and the more conceptual, numbness-inducing pieces like "5070 Meters" and "Nociception." Sequencing plays an integral role on Nitrogen Narcosis as the listener is suddenly thrust into the darkest reaches of the ocean after dark alley grooves are sucked into an aquatic abyss. For a project named after Donoso's near-drowning experience in the South Atlantic when he was younger, there's an impressive amount of reflection and vulnerability present -- the field recordings that permeate throughout the album were captured at the same location the undertow caught hold of him that bright summer day 20 years prior. An inner battle between paranoia and euphoria is played out in well-conceived, precision sonics on Nitrogen Narcosis as Donoso reminds us to look back, break through the surface and go deeper. Ricardo Donoso's solo work speaks for itself, but with this new chapter comes new questions and considerations. Scuba Death is enigmatic to a fault and all the better for it. Recorded at Vesica Pisces, September-November 2012.