Фирма Dais

Spice's Self-Titled debut album offers a deliberate isolation of pain as interpreted through different vehicles. Less than 30-minutes in length, the record diverts from a singular mood, tempo, or delivery, instead focusing on orchestrating emotional drain as single impulses "fast, slow, driving, simple, and layered" that coalesce in their machinations. At its core, Spice's Self-Titled album is wired together by brawny and brittle guitars, lock-groove rhythms, and vocals announce each moment and mood. Formed in 2018 and based across California, each members' roots are in the North Bay of San Francisco. Comprised of Ross Farrar (vocals) and Jake Casarotti (drums), both of Ceremony, along with Cody Sullivan (bass), Ian Simpson (guitar), and Victoria Skudlarek (violin), Spice's sound pulls from the sense of melody and drive inherent to Bay Area pedigree, peppered with modernity and awash with an anthemic haze. The hook is in the connection as much as melody, with each song building its inner narrative and exploration of affliction. Traversing guitar-driven indie-pop and call-to-action impulse, Spice balances their urgency by interspersing violin melodies and layers, creating depth without oversaturating the heart of each song. Building complexity with laser focus, Spice shares the authoritative drive of Jawbreaker, J Church, The Horrors, and Fugazi, set in their own world of unrest. The treatment of each song is a statement that informs the whole - anecdotes that can bleed slowly or swirl quickly. In a sense, the Self-Titled album itself is an entire song, with each track becoming the verses, choruses, and interludes that narrate its intent. Ending with the final track they workshopped for the album titled "I Don't Wanna Die in New York," the album ends with a punch before winding back into meditation. Honed over late nights at Panda Studios in Fremont, California with producer Sam Pura (Basement, The Story So Far, Self Defense Family), Spice spent hours tweaking it until it became a little world formed by what they refer to as "the power of groupthink." Sprinkled with field recordings "audio snapshots from the member's every-day-lives" the record offers an intimate twist that builds on its theme of a single thread that connects everything with continuity, making it a single organism with as many depths as questions.

Aleph is often defined as the "oneness of God", and Cardiff, UK indie pop outfit Private World thematically embrace the sentiment on their debut album for Dais while eschewing pop conventions, simultaneously navigating and subverting its context. Rather than individual tracks that inform a greater narrative, Aleph finds members Harry Jowett and Tom Sanders weaving in and out of a space they call the "pop psyche," where songs become scenes in a collective exploration of sentimentality and melody. In a sense, the songs that comprise Aleph are soothing vehicles that dart about pop history, stopping at touchpoints throughout the '80s to borrow from jazztinged synth, ambient music, and even cinéma-vérité. The plot twist is while weaving this tapestry, they omit the familiarity of chorus-driven song, allowing space and mood to build melancholy transitions that feel whole and floaty. As much as their single "On the Run," released with DAIS in 2019, touched on this hushed world of memory, Aleph retains Private World's DNA but tames the dynamics of pop with Eno-esque intention. Aleph is an album you can pick up at any entry point and loop into its conscious nostalgia. Rather than singular statements, each song on the album nods to Roxy Music, Peter Gabriel, Talk Talk, Spandau Ballet in tandem. In a sense, it's a rolling piece that spans ten movements, each informing a sphere of culture. Though it's not forward-facing lyrically, Aleph is a culture driven work, as the duo offers it as an equalizer that transcends social boundaries or divisions - united passages meant to be heard and immersed by all. On its own, "Blue Spirit," is very much the album's mission statement, as vocal unapologetically indebted to Brian Ferry leads the way over a gated beat as instruments pulse in and out, punctuating the rhythm before disappearing into the echoes of the next moment. One second over five minutes in length, "Magic Lens," is Aleph's most direct and authoritative, without disrupting its tonality. As Tom Sanders delivers a syncopated vocal, the track lightly sprinkles synth washes and prominent bass accents that plod out atmospheric pattern. Embracing the overarching north star for their sound to be a return to sophistication, Aleph embodies the sentiment by redefining it. Yes, the album's sounds work back to the masters of synth-pop but the actual journey bounds forward with vivid personality and contemporary control. Private World offers a singular embrace of the pop psyche -- and a startlingly refreshing debut.

Eight new songs of sparkling electronics from duo Liz Wendelbo and Sean McBride (Martial Canterel) blur the lines between 60's French Pop, 80's wave and contemporary modular synth pop. Romantic and mythic, a dreamlike journey through dense harmonies and complex polyphonic compositions... As a musical act, Xeno & Oaklander conflate a rich love of analog synths, melody, and mythology with eloquent nuance and a nod to the heritage they draw from. While that construct is the duo's immediate kiss and crush, there's a deeper importance to their collaboration which began in 2004. As evidenced in their debut Vigils (2004), McBride and Wendelbo's artistic dynamic is more than just a mutual love for electronics but a contrast between architectural precision and painterly expression. From the film scores to the traditional albums they've recorded in their Brooklyn studio, they've both spurred and fostered the global synth wave revival through a commitment to analog-only production and performance as well as a strident respect for the medium. On their latest album Hypnos and first for the Dais imprint, the duo leveraged the talents of visual artist and live sound engineer Egan Frantz to mix the album. It's a touch that adds both punch and balance, allowing their inherent conceptual voices to converge into a collage with defined edges and warm, synapses of frequency and beat. "Musically, Hypnos is a return to polyphony after several years of using strictly monophonic synthesizers," McBride says about the album's ethos. "This has brought dense harmonies and a more complex counterpoint to the composition. Staying with the same equipment and processes without the inveterate compulsion to update and refashion allows for a clearly perceivable genealogy with our previous work." "I felt the desire to tell mythical stories, I also wanted my voice to sit strongly in the mix," Wendelbo explains. "I channeled the spirits of 60s French Pop chanteuse Françoise Hardy and 80s New Wave New York icon Tina Weymouth." Her intentions are best evidenced on the tracks "Angelique,"and "Insomnia," the former a spry track sung in French, against a springy rhythm. Laden with expanding and contrasting frequency and a penchant for strategic rhythm, Hypnos juxtaposes dance with distance, creating an immersive oeuvre that exudes contrast and control.

Limited coloured vinyl

Limited coloured vinyl

Psychic TV's headlong and prolific 40 year history needs no introduction. Spearheaded by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Alex Fergusson in 1981, Psychic TV has seen countless line-ups, genres, triumphs and tragedies. After a brief hiatus, Psychic TV was reborn under the halo of PTV3 with Genesis and drummer Morrison Edley at the helm. This double LP of the most recent Psychic TV/PTV3 maelstrom showcases the band's current hyperdelic psych sound at its most abstract. Reverberated, psychotropic rock anthems carefully edited together to seamlessly weave the gender bending narrative that P-Orridge calls into action. A genius hybrid of experimental acid cut-ups fused into a mold of upfront psychedelic rock with exclusive bonus tracks featuring exclusive design by Psychic TV/PTV3's designer Morrison Edley.

Aleph is often defined as the "oneness of God", and Cardiff, UK indie pop outfit Private World thematically embrace the sentiment on their debut album for Dais while eschewing pop conventions, simultaneously navigating and subverting its context. Rather than individual tracks that inform a greater narrative, Aleph finds members Harry Jowett and Tom Sanders weaving in and out of a space they call the "pop psyche," where songs become scenes in a collective exploration of sentimentality and melody. In a sense, the songs that comprise Aleph are soothing vehicles that dart about pop history, stopping at touchpoints throughout the '80s to borrow from jazztinged synth, ambient music, and even cinéma-vérité. The plot twist is while weaving this tapestry, they omit the familiarity of chorus-driven song, allowing space and mood to build melancholy transitions that feel whole and floaty. As much as their single "On the Run," released with DAIS in 2019, touched on this hushed world of memory, Aleph retains Private World's DNA but tames the dynamics of pop with Eno-esque intention. Aleph is an album you can pick up at any entry point and loop into its conscious nostalgia. Rather than singular statements, each song on the album nods to Roxy Music, Peter Gabriel, Talk Talk, Spandau Ballet in tandem. In a sense, it's a rolling piece that spans ten movements, each informing a sphere of culture. Though it's not forward-facing lyrically, Aleph is a culture driven work, as the duo offers it as an equalizer that transcends social boundaries or divisions - united passages meant to be heard and immersed by all. On its own, "Blue Spirit," is very much the album's mission statement, as vocal unapologetically indebted to Brian Ferry leads the way over a gated beat as instruments pulse in and out, punctuating the rhythm before disappearing into the echoes of the next moment. One second over five minutes in length, "Magic Lens," is Aleph's most direct and authoritative, without disrupting its tonality. As Tom Sanders delivers a syncopated vocal, the track lightly sprinkles synth washes and prominent bass accents that plod out atmospheric pattern. Embracing the overarching north star for their sound to be a return to sophistication, Aleph embodies the sentiment by redefining it. Yes, the album's sounds work back to the masters of synth-pop but the actual journey bounds forward with vivid personality and contemporary control. Private World offers a singular embrace of the pop psyche -- and a startlingly refreshing debut.

Limited clear vinyl

Tor Lundvall has been quietly blazing the trail in the realm of serene ambient composition for almost 20 years. Flying gracefully under the radar, with a number of self-released titles on his own Eternal Autumn Editions, Tor Lundvall has stood alone as being one of the most consistent and hauntingly beautiful musicians the world has ever seen. While Lundvall has released eight full length albums, Sleeping & Hiding is Lundvall's first vinyl format album consisting of lonely keyboard electronics, celestial reverberation and ethereal, dreamlike composition. Lundvall's unique artwork carefully illustrates the airy dreamworld to which his signature "ghost ambient" sounds give soundtrack to, perfect for a quiet night stroll through an autumn forest. Limited to 500 hand-numbered copies.

Rescued from old DAT tapes, A Strangeness In Motion: Early Pop Recordings 1989-1999 are some of Tor Lundvall's earliest completed synth pop works which have remained unreleased until now. "For years I dismissed these songs as naive and youthful relics, but I've grown much fonder of them in recent years along with the memories they evoke" Lundvall says of the decade spanning collection of tracks, many of which were sketched out in his synth pop duo with Drew Sullivan, After The Outing. "Original One", "Procession Day", "The Clearing", and "The Melting Hour" are present here as solo reworkings, originally culled from his sessions with Sullivan. The remaining songs were ideas originally considered for Passing Through Alone (1997) and its proposed follow up, provisionally and playfully titled Femalamania. "The title was summing up my girl problems at the time and also a silly word spin on Robyn Hitchcock's Fegmania!" Lundvall recollects. "Sadly, the project was abandoned_a rare decision for me and perhaps the only time I've scrapped an album entirely." Though Lundvall's work throughout the collection has the recognizable ambient bones and sensibilities he has refined throughout his career, many of the tracks call back to the synth-driven pop of Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, The Human League and New Order, with the common thread being the sparse density and mood created by reservation and the lonely impulse to twist convention, not to rip it up and repurpose it. Rather than 10 disparate ideas, Lundvall's curation of A Strangeness In Motion: Early Pop Recordings 1989-1999 feels like excerpts from a broader work, allowing the listener to fill in the holes and ladder up to his larger themes and concepts, perhaps colouring his prior works in new hues and tones.

Emotional exploration through sound can become so indulgent that it overshadows the journey. JH1.FS3 eschews mining the human condition as mediation, opting for nuanced analysis rather than vanity. Using the seeds of improvisation as their root construct, the duo work without code, vocabulary or genre. Instead, they systematically work as individuals in tandem, using disparate and varied sounds and sources to create gauzy collages of ideas, sound and visceral sense reaction. Comprised of Frederikke Hoffmeier (Puce Mary) and Jesse Sanes (Liebestod), JH1.FS3 delineates a more subtle "cinema of the ear", and a cold approach to reflecting on experience without leveraging tropes or familiarity. "We try to reconcile these emotionally massive things in a way that is sincere and measured, but without being sappily diaristic or confessional," they explain. "A cinematic quality develops really quickly and our attempts to traffic in generalizations, unbiased observers of `relationships' gets turned on its head. We find these sets of unique errors that feel more like Super-8 (film) home footage." This transference allows cracks and fissured to be filled in new ways, where error is championed_highlighted as intention rather than happenstance. Throughout Trials and Tribulations, their debut LP for Dais records, the reconnection of idea and experience conducted with surgical diligence becomes a mode to deconstruct familiarity through shade and accident. With each exposition on Trials and Tribulations, the duo ornately explores the relationship between space and time by reconfiguring the tendrils and fissures that bind them. Percussive oscillations, descant vocals, and deconstructed patterns create fields that vibrate, plunge, and drone. Sequentially, each track contributes a lucid vignette to the larger account, engaging the listener to query where, when, and how they're being driven. The contrast of the lead single "Aleppo In Headlines," with its thrusting syncopation to the cautious beauty of "At the Bottom of the Night" compounds and depth and disquisition of the duo's process.

The legendary and never before heard 1968 recordings of Genesis P-Orridge and friends, transferred and mastered from the original tapes contained within the Porridge With Everything Archives. Recorded in a roof space attic during the summer of 1968 by Genesis P-Orridge (then a 18 year old Neil Andrew Megson) and friends, and later pressed to a single acetate in 1969. This recording is probably the most documented, yet never heard, missing piece of musical history in the legacy of COUM Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle, and Psychic TV. Sounds of clattering instruments, vocal experiments and the innocent absurdity of youth channeling influences of psychedelia, Fluxus, John Cage and beatnik Bohemia which draws a loose sketch of the panoramic life to come for Genesis Breyer P-Orridge. Remastered and preserved in a limited vinyl pressing, with liner notes written by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge recalling the zeitgeist of the late 60's UK underground. Limited to 500 hand-numbered copies.

"No Tracks in the Snow" is a collection of tracks from the early days of Drekka's history; the third offering for Dais Records and an appendix between the second and third parts of the 'Tarwestraat' trilogy of LPs for the label.? For over twenty years, Mkl Anderson has curated a vast archive of recorded material for his cinematic ritual ambient industrial project, Drekka. He works with memory not only as a subject but also as a healing process, continually delving into this personal world of sound; examining, revisiting, and repurposing recordings in an attempt to recall a past which sings from the darkness surrounding the tenuous provinces of memory and dreams - the real ghosts of time and sound. Recorded between 1996 and 2002, the album showcases Drekka's early exploratory development across a variety of styles. And yet it is also Drekka in the present moment; culled, curated, and assembled with care. Not unlike Borges' "A Personal Anthology" - or indeed any of Drekka's own recent work - this recording can be understood as a cohesive narrative more than as a simple compilation.? As Drekka moved from its Bristol UK influenced space folk beginnings, backwards towards Anderson's earlier UK industrial tape culture foundation, his predilection for reworking pieces over time was emerging; recontextualizing narratives to bring out new truths from one's own history. This process would become a cornerstone of Anderson's work for the decades to follow. The album begins with "Strika" (1998), originally recorded for the lovesliescrushing side project, Vir (a "secret audio army" in which individual performers were not even aware of who the other participants were). The track features one of Anderson's earliest collaborations with Mark Trecka (of Pillars And Tongues / Dark Dark Dark), who would go on to be one of his longest standing co-conspirators. ?"Christmas 1973 or 1974" (1999) is a lament for a childhood which is almost entirely forgotten and a yearning for some tangible, physical proof that this childhood existed at all. The accompanying video for the track utilizes actual home movie footage of Anderson as a very young boy, fulfilling this longing and adding heart rending weight to the song and its lyrics. ?"We Who Are Not Lonely" (2000) has become one of the most beloved works in Anderson's early canon. A gauzy musing on the catharsis of upheaval, the piece was written and recorded initially in the months leading up to Anderson's relocation from Chicago to Bloomington, Indiana. It is a brooding work which shows Anderson at his most self-possessed as a songwriter and is a confluence of the earliest playing-and-singing take on Drekka and the cinematic world building soundscapes to come. ?The album closes with "Tracking shot (wide)" (2000), a brief stream-of-consciousness sound piece dedicated to Andrei Tarkovsky. The track most certainly points in the direction that Drekka would explore extensively over the two decades; the direction which has led Anderson to where he is now firmly positioned.? "No Tracks in the Snow" is an exploration of the threads of continuity which bind the various modes of Anderson's oeuvre. As he nears completion of the third album in his trilogy of LPs for Dais Records, "No Tracks in the Snow" is an introspective pause and a celebration of a life spent listening to the world around us and its sleeping potential.

Starting as a rough demo tape recorded solely by Coil member Drew McDowall, Time Machines started to take full form when McDowall enthusiastically delivered these demo recordings to Balance and Christopherson as sketches for a new Coil project with the primary goal of shifting Coil's sound further into a more conceptually abstract direction. Largely recorded in 1997 using single takes with minimal post production, these four drones contain every intended fluctuation and tone, along with every glitch of the original - "Artifacts generated by your listening environment are an intrinsic part of the experience." "4 Tones to facilitate travel through time." So begins the listeners' journey into what has become one of the most treasured and revered pieces of COIL history ever released. Each of the four pieces on Time Machines is named after the chemical compound of the hallucinogenic drug that they were composed for, and the album was meticulously crafted to enable what John Balance referred to as "temporal slips" in time and space, allowing both the artist and audience to figuratively "dissolve time". Inspired by long form ceremonial music of Tibet and other religions, where the intent is to lose oneself in the music - to meditate or achieve a trance state - Time Machines became Drew McDowall, John Balance, and Peter Christopherson's "electronic punk-primitive" answer to this tribal concept. Remasterd by Josh Bonati and supervised by Drew McDowall, Time Machines is officially reissued as a double vinyl LP featuring deluxe matte gatefold with gloss overlay and printed eurosleeves inserts. The compact disc edition included reproductions of the six original vinyl stickers and comes housed in a gatefold chipboard digipack featuring spot gloss overlay.

Limited coloured vinyl

Experimental

Indie Rock

Electronic

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