Velf
In A Sense

Uncanny Valley: ...THE LIGHTS, THE HEAT, THE STROBE, THE SWEAT! Just in time for the club season, Sneaker hands in two ten-minute trips containing the darkest secrets of dance music.And for the working DJ, there are 4 stripped-down tools on top.The Flow is the sound of tomorrow! The Flow is the sound of the 90s. But elevated to the next level. Yeah, progressive! The Flow is the sound of our heroes. The Flow is the sound of NY and Boccaccio wrought into DEEP BEAT.The Flow is the mellow of LB and the trip of Andrew. May they rest in heaven's glory on the wings of eternity! The Flow is the endless vibe of Josh’s groove and the elegant abyss of Murk ensouled with celestial angels. The Flow switches paradigm into the extravaganza synthesis of Dazzle Ships.Ain’t nuthin but a 909, an Emulator and a Studer. Cream of the crop. Plus the immersive soul of Yvonne drawing from half a century of light, heat, strobe and sweat. And the vision of a continental producer, whose perspective is timeless, deep, and loving.The Flow is a utopia, where clubs exist. - And flourish!

Searchlight Moonbeam is the new narrative compilation from Time Is Away (Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney) whose eponymous monthly NTS Radio shows, tinctured fusions of fugitive sounds and reverie-inducing archival speech, have won them an ardent following. It follows from the London-based duo’s Ballads, a remarkable driftwerk released on A Colourful Storm in 2022.
Searchlight Moonbeam is an autumnal dreamscape, intimate and vespertine, pensive and irresolute. An imagined community where differences drop off and resonances emerge – between Maher Shalal Hash Baz affiliates Kasumi Trio, Taiwanese score composer Chen Ming Chang whose ‘Rainwater’ (written for Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s 1986 film Dust In The Wind) is exquisitely heartbroken, and the plangent improvisations of self-taught French pianist Delphine Dora.
Revelations are frequent: the bedsit isolationism of Bo Harwood and John Cassavetes’ ‘No One Around to Hear It’ (from The Killing of a Chinese Bookie); the narked minimalism of Klang (an early 2000s band formed by ex-Elastica guitarist and featuring prize-winning experimental novelist Isabel Waidner on bass); the etude-grooves and echoic wobble of below-the-radar French avant-gardists Omertà ; the beautiful, plaintively dubby ‘Is It You?’ by Slapp Happy; a psych-tinged reimagining of PiL’s ‘Poptones’ by Simon Fisher Turner (one half of Deux Filles, and here, recording for él as The King of Luxembourg) that's as perverse as the cover of Throbbing Gristle’s 20 Jazz Funk Greats.
Searchlight Moonbeam is the musical analog of an Italo Calvino novel or a medieval fable. Associative, intuitive, borderless. Emotional and mysterious. Endowed with the tactility of Braille. A private language that is both unknowable and understood. It is a record of the seasons, for the seasons.2023 marks the tenth anniversary of Time Is Away’s first broadcast. Featuring an evocative essay by writer Jeremy Atherton Lin and disarming cover art by Penny Davenport, Searchlight Moonbeam showcases Rollo and Tierney’s still-unrivalled talent for gloaming melodies, disques du crépuscule and ensorcelled storytelling.

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.