Lerosa
Niji EP

Arís (pronounced: ah-reesh) presents the first in a new series of 90’s/early 00’s Irish Dance reissues with ARIS01; 2 remastered tracks from Bumble’s 1992 EP ‘West In Motion’ b/w a new remix from Brame & Hamo to celebrate the release’s 30th anniversary.Nineties Ireland; a remote island slightly out of music-step with the rest of Europe, dominated still by the ‘guitar music’. Meanwhile, our neighbours across the pond had transitioned to synths, drum machines and ecstasy to forge a seminal movement in ‘Rave’ and proceeded to change music and club culture forever.Slowly but surely, this radical wave of P.L.U.R. made its way onto Ireland’s shores. While raves both legal and illegal gradually proliferated, there was a telling lack of Irish-made ‘Rave’ music soundtracking them. Availability of the necessary music equipment and studio space to do this was few and far between, meaning this practice was a fortunate novelty to only a few.

DSP returns with a deep & contemplative split EP from Dublin’s Cignol & Bristol’s Gilbert. ‘Vision System’ boasts 4 machine-made, melodic electro tracks to tug on your heart strings.The record opens with ‘Events Unknowable’ an eerie example of Cignol’s distinct sound. Full of broken rhythms, swinging percussion, ice cold arpeggios, LFO warped pads and an acid line to remember.Electro doesn’t get much deeper than ‘Multicellular’. A beautifully sorrowful sonic statement coated in icey synth elements and nostalgia. Sophisticated simplicity at its finest.Gilbert takes us in a slightly more utopic direction on the flip side. Starting with the musical insight of ‘Harmony In Space’. A Dream laced vision for the future full of smooth synthesis, crisp basslines and pumping percussion.The release comes to a heartfelt conclusion with ‘Eleni’. Full of playful acid lines and expressive sonic elements. A loved up, euphoric masterpiece named after and dedicated to Gilbert’s daughter.

“A pond becomes a lake, a breeze becomes a storm, a handful of dust is a desert” - W.G Sebald, The Rings of SaturnOriginally written for the ‘Horizons Sauvages’ exhibition by painter Marie-Laurence de Chauvingy de Blot, Dugong’s accompanying composition is the reification of a shared love of nature - setting out to capture the essence of her painting in musical form. Using natural sound pallets and layered loops, the complex bio-poetics of the ecosystem are explored in the fragility of their restless liminality. Environments in motion. Above all, the compositions are meditations on the importance of preservation.There we have it then: after-the-fall organic ambience across two full sides. Essentially essential - a blueprint for the next generation of New Age music. The resynchronization of what was, what is and what is yet to be.Written by Dugong. Mastering by Curved Pressing. Artwork by Marie-Laurence de Chauvigny de Blot. Designed by Guillaume de Ubéda. Distribution via Rubadub. Words by Jack Anderson

Following their successful collaboration 'The Age Of Singularity' Z.I.P.P.O & Hiver are back on Fides, releasing 'Intuitive Linear View'. Blending hypnotic melodies and complex drum patterns, this record takes a new perspective on the primal Warp heritage of IDM.

Since he started producing music, Berlin-based American sound artist Jake Muir has been obsessed with sampling. His 2018 album "Lady's Mantle" was based on manipulated chunks of vintage Californian surf rock, and its follow-up, 2020's midnight symphony "The Hum Of Your Veiled Voice" was sourced from a wide variety of old records, and inspired by the work of experimental turntablists like Marina Rosenfeld, Janek Schaefer and Philip Jeck.On "Mana", Muir looks back to a misunderstood musical movement. Around 1995, a group of New York producers and DJs - including DJ Olive, DJ Spooky and Spectre - pioneered a genre-dissolving sound by unifying hip-hop techniques with ideas pulled from dub, jungle, ambient music and industrial noise. Badged "illbient", it was a short-lived genre that felt like a high-minded psychedelic cousin of the UK's trip-hop.Muir uses illbient as the springboard for "Mana", utilizing a selection of samples to inform his frothy drones and foreboding atmospheres. He ushers the material into 2021 by diverting it through his own contemporary worldview, attempting to recreate the hyperreal fantasy histories of Japanese RPGs (think "Dark Souls" and "Final Fantasy") and nod to sensual, tactile soundscapes of European industrial labels Staalplaat and Soleilmoon. The result is a magickal, sensory journey that's as physical as it is representational.If the illbient producers were encouraging a burgeoning experimental music landscape to emphasize the tactile feeling of turntablism and sample manipulation, Muir is doing the same with "Mana". Each track heaves and breathes not just with his cultural reference points, but with layered, complicated emotions. We can hear joy, sadness, desire and anguish, obscured by disintegrating noise, hallucinogenic harmonies and sub-aquatic bass. It's electronic music that's rooted not in technology, but in touch.