Spiritflesh
Spiritflesh

EM Records: ..."Ecological Plantron" was a CD released in 1994, the audio document of an installation held in 1994 at a gallery in Tokyo. The Plantron is a bioelectric interface developed by botanist Yuji Dogane; it was designed to give voice to plants, using electronic means to make audible the energy of the natural world, prioritizing the non-human aspects of nature. Dogane was assisted in the project by composer Mamoru Fujieda, who helped to convert the vegetal energies into audible sounds. Though they stress that this is not music, the recordings that Dogane and Fujieda released are actually quite musical and not at all unpleasant in the way that some other non-musical sounds might seem. There is an attractive gentleness and an intelligent flow here, a vibrant energy, and one can sense that the plants are communicating, waiting for us to understand.

EM Records: ...Emerson Kitamura is here with the fifth and final in a series of 12-inch releases in support of the film “Bangkok Nites”. Kitamura is a renowned veteran keyboardist in Japan, having worked on countless sessions from the late 80s to the present. These self-produced tracks, featuring his trademark old-school rhythm box, feature instrumental and dub versions of Rungphet Laemsing’s “The Countryside is Great”, plus a bass music version of Angkhanang Khunchai’s “Lam Phloen Salab Khonsawan” and a cover of George McRae’s early disco classic “Rock Your Baby”, with mmm (mii mai moe) on vocals. Cover art by Shinsuke Takagi of Soi48.

Lovers & Lollypops: ...NÃO TEM VOLTA is an immersive experience originally created by Felinto in partnership with the singer, multi-instrumentalist and music producer Eddu Ferreira (Cosmogun) and the drummer, music producer and multi-instrumentalist M. Takara (Rakta, Hurtmold, Baobá Stereo Club).The work departs from the fractal towards sleep, dreams and the generative nature of the unconscious, aligning itself with the interests of native peoples in the oneiric univ

Young Echo: ...Building on the foundations built over years of mutual understanding and musical endeavours as part of the Young Echo team, the London-via-Bristol rapper has been climbing that MC Escher type lyrical ladder for years now, painting pictures with word-sound in the coolest & deadliest ways, and forming his very own style.Somehow he makes it sound easy when these intricate rhymes and words spill across O$VMV$M’s skewed symphonies, dropping slapdash punchlines in the midst of highly real observations about life in the city, lights off, lights on. Manonmars, to us, depicts a lens of someone who isn’t about to conform to any stream, not about to give in to the relentless pace of capitalism, not up for the rat-race, more up for slowing time, and seeing things for what they are, a surrealist take on what could otherwise be a mundane world.I guess it’s fair to say that life can be grey sometimes - so for our own sanity, we need to make sure to add colour. Manonmars does this, with heaps of imagination and witty real-talk, fired off in bullet time, perfectly hitting that fine-line between entertainment, and deadpan seriousness - a balancing act, juggled with verbs & conjunctions, over a backdrop of timeless rhythm & melody.Perhaps a less insular album than the first self-titled record, this LP sees guest appearances from Young Echo’s ‘Guest’ and Bogues (both voices of Jabu) on vocals. Fresh Bristol blood ‘Birthmark’ and ‘Axel Holey’ appear with lyrics too, and there is a special vocal injection from Paulina Korobkiewicz, reciting writings by Polish painter and colour artist Wojciech Fangor, and drawing a connection between the music and the visual aspect of Manonmars’ practice.