Vigilance” is the second album on Mahorka of the prolific Japanese electronic music composer Takahiro Mukai, known for his unique DIY and circuit-bent machines sound-sculpturing approaches and quite active involvement in the resurgence of cassette culture and physical format.
Comes out as free (cc) digital download and, of course, a beautiful limited edition cassette, again complemented by amazing artwork courtesy of Angel Draganov and Ivan Ivanov, just as with his debut on Mahorka “Gently close the mouth” from 2019.
Released March 11, 2023
Instrumentation, Production & Recording: Takahiro Mukai
Artwork photos: Ivan Ivanov (posledenzalez)
Artwork design: Angel Draganov
somber jazz | a shelter | voices under a glass;
hymns ‘ dyscordia’/ orphans within a womb[
their sorrow / a prayer \ of winter darkness / the sun
heartbeat drummers || their shadows || the beauty \ of
[rays of light in abandoned buildings]
*use this in dreams*
Released February 25, 2023
Music and artwork by Emilian Gatsov
Composed and produced 2019-2022
The recording of this album has been realised with the financial support of National Culture Fund of Bulgaria
As music reviewers, we’ve been following Chris Weeks for more than 10 years now and can easily count him as one of our most praised artists of the 10s. Among those, he might as well be one of the most underrated, whether under his birth name with numerous albums and EPs of radiating drone and dreamlike scintillating ambient, his Kingbastard moniker exploring territories closer to electronica, IDM and experimental techno, or as Myheadisaballoon, showcasing more pop and psychedelic elements. In short, imagine if Primal Scream, Autechre and Brian Eno were all one and the same person, and you’ll get an idea of the man’s creativity… suffice to say that his lack of recognition still comes as a shock to us at IRM. For this new release, that we are proud to share digitally as an exclusive, the UK producer takes on yet another alias, or so to speak. So, why WEEKS ? Probably because “WXY” didn’t exactly belong to any of his aforementioned identities : too ambient for Kingbastard, too minimalistic for Myheadisaballoon, too raw maybe for simply signing it Chris Weeks or make it fit with the apparently short-lived C\/\/\/\ project and its fragile chamber electronics. With massive layers of hiss, static and instable textures, hazy synths, syncopated drums and glitchy rhythms, this new album sounds very much spontaneous, which has been a dominant trait of Chris Weeks’ music of late. It feels organic and yet abstract, as much delicate as it is hefty, vast and intimate at the same time. Sometimes playful as well, but always filled with anxiety and unstability… so many paradoxes and seeming contradictions that make “WXY” quite captivating, another peak in Chris Weeks’ substantial body of work.
released February 6, 2023
Georgy Orlov-Davydovsky is a sound reasearcher and practitioner, noise instrumentalist, organizer of experimental music festivals. Enganged in sound studies.
Tala Adelheid Nikitina is a Russian artist, senseless and merciless. In her creative research, she relies on metaphysical interactions and groundless optimism.
Lenard Ahmad, (Juan Ignacio Morales, Estación Central, Santiago de Chile, 1979), states that his “[…] materials and their usual sound result have inspired [him] an idea of belonging and identification with Latin American ancient cultures and native peoples.” The range of themes, resources, expressive and cultural values that make up the contemporary panorama of early Latin American nations were clearly portrayed on “Nagual”, his Pueblo Nuevo 2010 release, and appear again on “El Cepo”, his new installment, also released via this prestigious netlabel.
Considering the consonance of his solo work and the aforementioned panorama, Juan Ignacio adds that “[…] I always wanted to capture in sound the idea of a resisting trench, in this case, directly inspired by Mapuche resistance, but also by their suffering and dispossession.” Some of this becomes clear by the graphic material illustrating “El Cepo”: a montage based on heritage photographs – which, it is worth mentioning, were sold as postcards and souvenirs, – where a child and a Mapuche adult are disciplined inside the trap. The illustration appeals to a colonial barbarism experience, persisting even at the beginning of C 20. Taking into account historical circumstances inevitably determining our social life and its consequently expressive forms, Juan Ignacio points out that “[…] in my case, my resistance weapons are my precarious materials -iron and springs-, as opposed to an electronic music culture increasingly disposable, capitalist and bombarded by the synthesizer collecting fetish”.
This album presents a precise, seemingly simple exercise when it comes to instrument resources, but challenging when it comes to listening. Among other issues, because it does not resort to the ancestral or ethnically marked Mapuche sounds common sense would suggest to embody these aboriginal affections and identifications. Such resources – in practical terms, traditional Mapuche organology – clearly facilitate the identification of sound representations of music, whether popular or experimental, with a position pro Mapuche culture and identity, at Wallmapu or at Warria and, in some cases, with different political, humanitarian and territorial claims. There are many examples of these, ranging from committed mainstream pop to assorted conceptualist and experimental experiences.
Juan Ignacio does not resort to these elements. Far from this trend, he appeals to electroacoustic abstraction in order to disperse these and other meanings. On “El Cepo”, he subjects the listener to a severe sound design, where ancestralism makes room for brutalism, freed from obvious contents. This improvisational / compositional work, based on precarious materials and electronic feedback, would appeal to an incidental listening of sorts – if you like, – noise suggesting chainsaws, helicopters, drones, firearms or tactical vehicles. Thus, the album articulates the current condition of extractivism, colonialism, material poverty and militarization of the Wallmapu, with no conceptualizations or symbolism whatsoever.
Ignacio Ramos Rodillo
(Santiago, Diciembre / December 2022)
Versión en inglés por / English version by Carlos McPherson, Poste Restante, Correo Central Santiago, Chile.
»in einer welt voller alternativem muckefuck zählt es wie nie zuvor, gut angereicherte fürbitten an richtiger stelle zu diffundieren. wissenschaftlich steht eines fest: geist bleibt geil. shalom!« (milli schrapnilli, 2021)
happy new esra studio session 2022
herr penschuck: harmona 27/57, orff-trommel, voice
tanja roolfs & brandstifter (horstundireneschmitt): ruaro nuova 25/8, akkordeon, blockflöte, casio sk-1, toys
recorded at studioSOLVEIGH, oldenburg, january 1st 2022 using a zoom recorder.
no preamps, no sidechaining, no overdubs, no drugs, no mimimi.
text based on: »kleine betriebswirtschafts- und bürokunde« 1957;
lentil soup and neejahrskoken by dÄnny jäger & rose marie brüning
schirmherrschaft: matthias schuster, hamburg MOAH (mother of all harmonists)
Design by [FEINDESIGN]
Type: Citizen, Berthold Akzidenz,
Illustration/Photography dan penschuck
![larsht_ – lobit screw tape (11/26-11/27) [11:52pm to 12:12am]](https://archive.org/download/s65116/cover.png "larsht_ – lobit screw tape (11/26-11/27) [11:52pm to 12:12am]")
[Malaysia]
The Necrophile Hummingbird netlabel presents reFUGeeS Welcome by REfugEEs From Beyond. It’s the first release of the dark abstract hip-hop duo made by the malaysian MC PeliK & the turntablist Yoshiwaku.
“Refugees Music for Stateless People”
Everybody knows about the climate disaster consequences, pushing so many people to the exile, instead to try to fix the pollution problem the guilty countries are strengthening their borders. The world of tomorrow seems not different of yesterday world except this awful smile about the climate genocide.
Recorded live the 10th november 2022.
MC PeliK : Voice & Guitar
Yoshiwaku : Turntable & Kaossilator & Rhythms
Dedicated to all the migrants who died because of borders.
Special thanks to Alizé for the design of the project name.
Some things begin, and then – stretch on. You expect a resolution, yet instead receive reverberant reflections. Wandering, meandering, bordering on redundancy – an elongated epic.
Featuring violin, bassoon, clarinet, low woodwinds, orchestral strings and brass, taiko drum, drum kit, shaker, electric bass, piano, synthesizers, and effects.
