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26—02—17
Matt Gold and Dustin Laurenzi present Devotional Fade, a collaborative record of electroacoustic rhythmic improvisations – equal parts meditation and dance, released on We Jazz Records, 24th April. Laurenzi and Gold, key collaborators in the Chicago creative scene and with genre spanning artists such as Bill Callahan and Makaya McCraven, step forward here with a major artistic statement, a product of extended improv sessions capturing the duo’s hypnotic interplay. This is the sound of two of Chicago’s most vibrant instrumental voices listening deeply, communing in sound.
Recorded in Laurenzi’s attic studio, Devotional Fade emerged from a series of weekly sessions over the course of a single month. The duo kept the tape rolling continuously each day and selected a number of immersive sonic worlds to present, oscillating between patient, sacred minimalism and wild, dancefloor-worthy combustion.
The pair set two parameters to heighten the sessions’ stakes: editing would be kept to a minimum, and a rule of “no pitched overdubs” was put in place – ensuring that all melodic and harmonic gestures would have to be committed in real time. Laurenzi and Gold held true, only sparingly adding a stray shaker or brush to these already largely complete improvisations. Devotional Fade is imbued with quiet propulsion and ecstatic repetition.
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Matt Gold is a guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer based in Chicago, IL. His work pulls from diverse traditions of electric and acoustic music. Matt has performed across six continents and contributed to over fifty recordings as a collaborator and instrumentalist, garnering critical praise from Pitchfork for playing “one of the most exhilarating guitar solos of recent memory, in any genre.”
His own recordings have been praised for being “accessible, yet healthily unconstrained by genre and sure of its own identity” (UK Vibe) and for “effortlessly embodying his own dialect—defined by varied, spacious soundscapes, innovative improvisational flourishes and rich harmony” (Downbeat Magazine). Gold’s debut solo release Imagined Sky (Whirlwind Recordings) displays his penchant for concise melody and an exploratory palette of abstracted Americana; Midnight Choir (Ruination Recording Co.) delves more explicitly into Gold’s deft songwriting and imaginative production. His collaborative LP with Resavoir, Horizon (International Anthem), further highlights his multi-instrumentalist and production instincts across the record’s orchestral palette.
Gold has several long-running collaborative bands spanning jazz, folk, experimental, and chamber music including Sun Speak, Storm Jameson, and Tin. He performs and records with an array of creative artists including Makaya McCraven, Marquis Hill, Jamila Woods, Natalie Merchant, and Greg Ward. Gold co-curates the record label and concert series Flood Music.
Dustin Laurenzi is a saxophonist, improviser and composer based in Chicago, IL. An active member of the city’s creative music community, he leads and co-leads several projects, including Twin Talk, Edith Judith, Snaketime, and Natural Language.
Laurenzi’s work as a collaborator and sideperson includes projects led by Macie Stewart, Matt Ulery, Katie Ernst, and Juan Pastor. As a recording artist, he has released several albums of his music, including A Better Ghost (2022) with Laurenzi/Cunningham/Bryan on Northern Spy Records, described by DownBeat as “…a moodily poetic and genre-bending jewel…”. His long-running collaborative trio Twin Talk released their fourth studio album Twin Talk Live in 2024 on Shifting Paradigm Records.
Laurenzi is a member of songwriter Bill Callahan’s touring band and is featured on Callahan’s 2024 album Resuscitate!. He has also toured with Bon Iver, appearing on the band’s 2016 release 22, A Million, with performances at Coachella, Primavera Sound, and the Hollywood Bowl.
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A very cinematographic journey in between Ambient and Experimental, with a certain touch of Balearic right in the middle of the Leftfield. A super trippy trip, gifted by beautiful melodies and vocals like on the titles “Indisponible” or “Mambo n6”… as if you were crossing a super cozy desert on LSD, starting from the coast after a nice bath in the sea to the dryness of the sand under the sun, with intense divagations like on “Fastelavn” or “Kompasitu” to long relief of contemplations like on “Opium Swing” or “Blizzard” at the end of the way…
This is a full immersive experience, one of those life soundtrack releases, and probably one of our favorite release ever.
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26—02—11
26—02—11
Al Wahem (“The Illusion”) is the new full-length release by PRAED, the Swiss–Lebanese duo of Raed Yassin and Paed Conca. Recorded between Beirut and Berlin, the album returns to the group’s central aesthetic: a rhythm-driven weave of Egyptian shaʿbī, electronics, improvisation and the gritty pulse of street-level sound. Nearly twenty years into the project, PRAED have distilled their approach into four pieces that subtly shift the listener’s bearings, reordering grooves and fragments until familiar elements take on new identities.
The twenty-minute title track sets the tone. A tightly interlocking two-drum foundation from Pascal Semerdjian and Ayman Zebdawi shapes a structure that expands steadily: synth figures branch outward, clarinet and bass lines act as internal guideposts, and brief vocal calls from Yassin and guest singer Mayssa Jallad sit inside the texture rather than leading it. PRAED’s shaʿbī keyboard language is present, but the duo stretch it outward, building tension and movement through patient accumulation.
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“Al Hathayan,” at 4:47, tightens the focus. Conca’s clarinet moves between melodic arcs and clipped rhythmic gestures, threading through electronic loops that surface and disappear. Zebdawi’s percussion adds a raw, tactile quality, placing acoustic patterns and electronics in direct conversation. The piece acts as a bridge between the album’s two long-form compositions.
Side B begins with “Al Maraya,” a thirteen-minute piece that relies on electronic, bass and clarinet interplay. The atmosphere nods to the breadth of PRAED Orchestra!, but remains anchored in the duo’s rhythmic foundations. Rather than building mass, the layering creates a sense of depth, as if new spaces were opening inside the groove.
The album closes with “Assarab,” featuring keyboardist Amr Said. Semerdjian and Zebdawi again form a dual percussive axis, while synths hover between melody and pulse, and themes recur in widening circles rather than building vertically. The porous boundary between electronic and acoustic sources – processed clarinet mistaken for a sequencer, rhythmic figures springing from live drums – is where the album’s theme of “illusion” shows itself most clearly.
Al Wahem follows a long arc: early releases on Annihaya, a key appearance on Ruptured Sessions Vol. 5 – Live at Radio Lebanon (2013), later albums on Akuphone, and the large-scale PRAED Orchestra! documented on Morphine Records. This new Ruptured/Annihaya co-release brings the duo back to a concentrated format, reorganizing their familiar materials with renewed clarity and intent.
The new Eighth Tower Records compilation dedicated to the Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP) delves into one of the most fascinating and disturbing frontiers of sound and human perception. Across twelve tracks created by artists active in the post-industrial and dark ambient scene, the release investigates the mysterious intersections between technology, death, and the persistence of consciousness. The Electronic Voice Phenomenon, documented since the 1950s, refers to the capture of inexplicable voices on magnetic tape or digital media, often interpreted as messages from the dead or transmissions from other dimensions. Whether one believes in their paranormal origin or considers them the byproduct of noise and human projection, these sounds occupy a zone where the boundaries between science and mysticism, signal and hallucination, are erased. The artists involved translate that uncertainty into a dense fabric of drones, mechanical pulsations, spectral harmonics, and decomposed field recordings. Listeners are drawn into a space that feels simultaneously technological and occult, as if the recording devices themselves had become instruments of invocation.
The album functions as an aural séance, a shared act of listening where every sound could be a transmission from elsewhere. The ambiguity of these sonic traces mirrors the ambiguity of EVP itself: are we hearing external messages, or merely amplifying the hidden noise of our own minds? Faithful to the dark aesthetics that characterize Eighth Tower Records, this project extends the label’s exploration of modern mythologies and their technological manifestations. In a time when artificial intelligence and algorithmic processes increasingly mediate perception, the EVP phenomenon returns as a powerful metaphor for our relationship with the unknow, the desire to hear what is not meant to be heard.
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26—02—11
NOP-440
𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐀𝐂𝐊 !!!! No Problema Tapes version
𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐀𝐂𝐊 !!!! is a collaborative mixtape curated by Obituary Hermit & ᴋᴀꜱꜱɪᴀɴ ᴋᴏᴜʏᴀᴋɪɴ, designed as a way to bring together different artists from the underground internet music community, regardless of their respective musical genres and offer them a way to experiment and express themselves with absolute creative freedom.
All of the artists present on the tape were asked to make one or two tracks with no limitation at all. This text below was sent to each of them to give them a bit of inspiration, but they were also allowed to decide not to follow the « lore » of the project.
« The world is in big trouble. Giant monsters known as « kaijus » are attacking all across the globe. The ground is trembling beneath their feet, countries are falling, governments are hopeless ; the world as we know it is on the verge of collapse. But as all hope seems lost, a secret order only known as « The Underground » unités once again to face the otherworldly threat.
Will they be able to stop this monstrous menace ? Or is earth doomed for good ? »
𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐀𝐂𝐊 !!!! is a unique and fun project with many previously unheard sounds from artists you enjoy 🙂
Iₙ ₜₕₑ ₕₒₚₑ ₜₕₐₜ ₜₕₑ ₘₒₙₛₜₑᵣₛ wᵢₗₗ bₑ ₙₑᵤₜᵣₐₗᵢzₑd by ₜₕₑ ₐᵣₘₑd fₒᵣcₑₛ, ₐₗₜₕₒᵤgₕ ₐₗₗ ₕₒₚₑ ₛₑₑₘₛ ᵥₐᵢₙ, yₒᵤ’ᵣₑ ₛₜᵢₗₗ ₗᵢₛₜₑₙᵢₙg ₜₒ ₛᵤₙₛₑₜ ᵣₐdᵢₒ, ₐₙd ᵢₙ cₐₛₑ yₒᵤ dₒₙ’ₜ cₐᵣₑ ₐbₒᵤₜ dyᵢₙg, ₚₗₑₐₛₑ ₛₜₐy wᵢₜₕ ᵤₛ fₒᵣ ₐₙₒₜₕₑᵣ ₛₒₙg.
ₜₕᵢₛ ᵢₛ ” 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐀𝐂𝐊 !!!! “.
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26—02—05
Crash Course In Science Are A Post Punk Band That Formed In 1979 In Philadelphia. The Band Members, Dale Feliciello, Mallory Yago And Michael Zodorozny, Met While Attending Art School, Where They Began To Experiment With Crude Electronics And Off-beat Lyrics. Ccis Avoided Conventional Instrumentation By Using Toy Instruments And Kitchen Appliances To Augment The Distorted Guitar, Drums And Synthesized Beats.
26—02—04
Intergalactic Music Is Of the Outer Darkness It is rhythm against rhythm in kind dispersion
It is harmony against harmony in endless coordination
It is melody against melody in vital enlightenment
(Excerpt from The Outer Darkness by Sun Ra)
26—02—04
As always, for digital purchases please support the artist here:
purzum.bandcamp.com
Limited to 100 tapes
Cassettes available on:
02/06/2026
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26—01—30
Paula lay down, listened to her veins, felt her heart pumping.
And as electrons rushed through her arteries, it suddenly dawned on her:
It doesn’t need royal blood to be a queen.
Just acid!
▶︎ Snippets: soundcloud.com/who-is-paula/wip010-acidulant-let-the-acid-move-your-body-snippets
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