A Magazine for Craftmakers
Sissi Rada Shares Her
Latest Avant-Pop Single
Photography ALKISTIS VOUTS + MELETIS KOROPOULIS “One day I thought of simplicity,” Sissi Rada says of the latest single from her upcoming album Nanodiamond. “And then of trying to subtract — fewer harp strings, only two harmonies, and a sample from an old vinyl with Greek chants from Smyrna.” A beguiling blend of electronic and […]
Marco Shuttle Shares the
Shots That Inspired His
Cobalt Desert Oasis LP
Words MARCO SHUTTLE Photo RICCARDO MALBERTI The best “drawback” of what I do for a living is that it very often (never enough, if you ask me) involves going to many different, beautiful places in this world. Somehow driven by the desire of collecting my visual impressions as much as the auditory ones, making the […]
New Age Doom’s
Guide to “Drone Jazz”
Words NEW AGE DOOM Drone is a primeval and ubiquitous musical concept that’s magnificent in its simplicity. It establishes the base layer for melodic, harmonic and rhythmic exploration and is endemic to genres that emphasize improvisation. Japanese art gives us the concept of ma, which can be loosely translated as “negative space.” Ma is the awareness […]
Marissa Nadler
Breaks Down Her
Entire Discography
Photo NICK FANCHER Setting the Records Straight is a new series where we ask our favorite artists to walk us through the most important and meaningful songs in their sprawling back catalogues. This week’s entry is a special Bandcamp Friday edition featuring the many phases of Marissa Nadler, who recently unveiled her ninth solo album […]
Fragments Editions Readies Limited Renaud Bajeux, Mike Majkowski LPs
Fragments Editions — the book imprint of Hands in the Dark co-founder Morgan Cuinet — has announced its first two vinyl releases. Due out December 10 and 17 respectively, Four Pieces and Seeking a Vision feature solo pieces from composers based in Berlin (double bassist Mike Majkowski) and Paris (sound designer Renaud Bajeux). Both records […]
Lubelski Explains the
Modular Synth MadnessBehind Happy Accidents
Photo GALEN OAKES While Claude VonStroke has always been partial to the truly progressive house tracks of Lubelski, he certainly didn’t expect the producer to spend most of his LA-based lockdown churning out modular synth clips for Dirtybird’s Twitch channel. As unhinged as the weekly broadcasts were — sometimes for hours at a time — […]
The Black Dog Share the Shots That Inspired Music For Photographers
Music For Photographers isn’t the first ambient album The Black Dog have made — we’re particularly partial to the Eno retort Music For Real Airports — but it’s certainly one of their most cinematic efforts. To call it the soundtrack to an imaginary film would be wildly reductive, but there’s no denying how alive it feels, as […]
Lone Makes Us a Mix of
Songs That Inspired
Always Inside Your Head
Words + Mix MATT CUTLER Photo FABULA IMAGES It felt good to put a mix together of some of the key influences on my new album Always Inside Your Head — therapeutic even. I was listening to so many different styles of music during the making of the album and I guess I was soaking […]
Tobias. Unveils His
Unsettling Ambient
Album Hall ov Fame
Photo STEFAN FREUND Now that Concentric Records has gotten their mission statement out of the way (three distinct compilations — Colliding Wind, Profile of the Lines, and Radiant — that delve into vastly different definitions of “ambient music”), the Berlin-based imprint is finally ready to unveil their first proper full-length. And what a wild journey Hall ov Fame is, […]
Christina Giannone Opens a
Portal Into Our Soul, Psyche
Christina Giannone has announced her debut record for Room40, a widescreen sound world in the spirit of last month’s Glazed Vision LP. Due out January 28th, Zone 7 is deep listening that doubles as an escape route out of this dimension — a way of reaching inner realms we rarely glimpse without ever leaving your […]
Boris Sign to Sacred Bones,
Announce New Album W
Photo YOSHIHIRO MORI Boris have announced their debut LP for Sacred Bones, the first to feature guitarist Wata on lead vocals since 2011’s Attention Please album. Due out January 21st, W is the spiritual successor to last year’s NO LP (NO + W = NOW), leaning into a largely melodic sound that dabbles in everything from noise to New Age. […]
Chris Liebing On…
10 Essential Mute Tracks
Photo EDITH BERGFORS Words CHRIS LIEBING Releasing music on my all-time favorite label Mute is definitely one of the biggest thrills of my lifetime. No other label has inspired, formed, and solidified my taste as much as it has. This is why picking “10 essential Mute tracks” is a nearly impossible task; many bands that […]