Fabulous Diamonds
Plain Songs

The Roundtable: ...If conceivable, imagine a collaboration between Brian Eno and Aphex Twin, both in their ambient periods, recording stock music for an Italian Library music label. If so, then behold Psycorama!, a collection of experimental music used to soundtrack a series of films and documentaries produced by the Italian filmmaker Roberto Rossellini. Composed by Mario Nascimbene, a name synonymous with the golden age of Italian film music, a composer whose grandiose scores of the 1950s and 60s defined the very essence of Cinecitta. While the widespread influence of these soundtracks is undeniable, it is beyond the commercial domain of the major studios where this compendium takes focus, revealing a deeper, darker and more complex composer. Forged on the ‘Mixerama’, a unique homemade sampling instrument, Nascimbene employed visionary techniques to deconstruct and render sound, sculpting pre-existing recordings into intense and evocative other-worldly soundscapes (most notably used for the 1971 existential TV drama Socrates and the 1969 Egyptian modernist film Al-Mummia (The Night Of Counting The Years). Previously unpublished except for a lone and mysterious Library music LP, the soundtrack cues are collected here for their first commercial release. Psycorama is a fascinating document of electro-acoustic music comparable to the beautifully dark music of fellow colleague Egisto Macchi. Including liner notes and rare photos.

Likulli Fadāin Eqāéh لكلّ فضاءٍ إيقاعه [to each space its own rhythm] 2019–23a landscape of ever amusing contradictions on unstretched canvas: – of predictable rhythms (day and night, high tide and low tide, routine and intuition, rent and bureaucracy) and unpredictable rhythms (good fortune, bad poetry, chance, mistakes and chaos).Berlin-based Syrian musician Khaled Kurbeh makes his Research Records debut with Likulli Fadāin Eqāéh, a tapestry of soundscapes written, performed and recorded across four years as part of his practice muhawalāt [attempts, variations] and hawāmesh [margins]: an outlet of gestures, sonic footnotes and observations from the everyday.Kurbeh’s first release in seven years departs from his largely acoustic debut, Aphorisms, a collaboration with oud player Raman Khalaf and ensemble with elements of maqām and jazz.Likulli Fadāin Eqāéh offers a collection of 10 electroacoustic compositions – they’re brooding and experimental with hints of musique concrète. The tracklist implies a mapping or an itinerary. Field recordings of swallows and the snapping and un-shelling of sunflower seeds on interlude Nuzha I [Excursion I] are countered by sparse composition of low-end synth, harmonium, upright piano and prepared fender rhodes played with mallets on Darb I–II [Path I–II]. Patterns of cymbals and agitated bells appear on Jauqét Ajrās [Choir of Bells], while currents of bowed strings shiver and stutter on al-Ajrāf [The Cliffs]. The release captures four years of overlapping sonic wanders, finely balancing tensions of harmony and dissonance, stillness and resonance, texture and rhythm – recorded inside and outside.The gatefold vinyl features artworks by Ida Lawrence and includes a booklet of 10 painted variations of the one scene. On the outer cover, paths stretch under a dramatically accented and vivid sky; while inside, the same landscape appears over and over in another light.Likulli Fadāin Eqāéh لكلّ فضاءٍ إيقاعه [to each space its own rhythm], is set for release on July 18th 2025 via Research Records, Naarm/Melbourne. A follow up solo piano album by Kurbeh, recorded in his studio in Kreuzberg, Berlin, will be released later this year. creditsreleased July 18, 2025Mastered by Bo Kondren at Calyx Mastering, Berlin.Artwork by Ida Lawrence.Graphic Design by Rik Watkinson.Composed, recorded and mixed by Khaled Kurbeh.Released by Research Records and muhawalāt © 2025.license

deejay.de: ...Wilson Tanner come to shore with a new album of floating melodies, lightly salted. Throwing electroacoustic conventions overboard, Andrew Wilson (Andras) and John Tanner (Eleventeen Eston) recorded this new work aboard a 1950s riverboat with a resourceful array of weatherproof electronic instruments and a long extension lead. These eight compositions pull in a by-catch of maritime folklore; of Siren and Selkie, Seagull and engine oil slick. A change of course from their debut album 69 (Growing Bin Records, 2016), the ambient temperature drops as II casts out to sea in uncertain weather and returns to the safe harbours of Port Phillip Bay.The seafarers head out to My Gull's poised optimism. The birds watch but do they listen? By the arrival of Loch and Key, the shoreline has dissolved completely, the boat floating in serene infinity as the rest of the world spins. Conditions soon take a treacherous turn on Killcord Pts I-III - a 12 minute odyssey that battens down the hatches as these sailors eye merciless waves and blinding ocean spray, jointly channelling Berlin-school electronics and sea legs. In the aftermath, the waterlogged bleeps of Idle survey the damage as our parched crew sound the distress signal and ultimately descend into delirium.Known for navigating individual courses as solo musicians, Wilson and Tanner's collective storytelling is saturated in detail, buoying between tension and harmony. II modestly stands as some of both artists' most accomplished material.

from the artist's bandcamp: ...TALKING OF POST-TECH DIALECTICS,THIS IS A TRIBUTE TO THE CYBERPUNK.The mother of technology collapses. Ten fragments of her soul are spread in cyberspace. The last encoder composes the pieces to a manifest. A poem that is a call for the distortion of the artificial.Manifest is an album, in which CORIN synthesizes the reconciliation of the dystopian and utopian. It is a story of manipulated time that exists out of instrumental and vocal proportions.

Editions Mego: ...Reflecting Ambarchi’s profound love of Brazilian music – an aspect of his omnivorous musical appetite not immediately apparent in his own work until now – Simian Angel features the remarkable percussive talents of the legendary Cyro Baptista, a key part of the Downtown scene who has collaborated with everyone from John Zorn and Derek Bailey to Robert Palmer and Herbie Hancock. Like the music of Nana Vasconcelos and Airto Moreira, Simian Angel places Baptista’s dexterous and rhythmically nuanced handling of traditional Brazilian percussion instruments into an unexpected musical context. On the first side, ‘Palm Sugar Candy’, Baptista’s spare and halting rhythms wind their way through a landscape of gliding electronic tones, gently rising up and momentarily subsiding until the piece’s final minutes leave Ambarchi’s guitar unaccompanied. While the rich, swirling harmonics of Ambarchi’s guitar performance are familiar to listeners from his previous recordings, the subtly wavering, synthetic guitar tone we hear is quite new, coming across at times like an abstracted, splayed-out take on the 80s guitar-synth work of Pat Metheny or Bill Frisell. Equally new is the harmonic complexity of Ambarchi’s playing, which leaves behind the minimalist simplicity of much of his previous work for a constantly-shifting play between lush consonance and uneasy dissonance.