Various
MF Compilation Part 2

Editions Mego: ...Bastet is a ritual study gliding the path from the rites of the ancient to the realm of the modern. Bastet is the name of the ancient Egyptian goddess closely linked to music and female power who coerced humans to entertain her in order to keep her untamed animalistic side in check. Whilst absorbing this legend the second LCC release presents itself as a vast canvas of ritual, restraint and spacious sonorities. Stark and unnerving Bastet is not reliant on pure electronics as abstract theatre but rather utilises these tools to conjure a world circling the spheres and planes of symbolic human activity.Recorded throughout 2016 among residencies at the legendary studios EMS of Stockholm, the Inter Arts Center of Malmö and their own studio in Gijón, Bastet is a rich experience: cryptic, visionary and utterly compelling. 8 tracks laying forth a deep listening journey into the netherworlds of human experience, movement, ritual and space.

boomkat: ...One of 2021’s lushest ambient sides, ‘Picnic’ is a proper friends and family affair helmed by the duo’s mdo & Ju Ca, a pair of Melbourne-based souls who share that region’s prevailing grasp of ambient warmth and elemental utility. Where their debut LP, proper, also included guest spots from the likes of Huerco S., The Humble Bee, Dntel, and DJ Paradise, this new 'Bonus' follows suit to infuse the far flung yet mutual spirits of the modern ambient rhizome, dialling in subtle reflections on the originals, as well as new collaborations, that diffuse and extend its pleasures into the gauzy mid-distance.

smilingc: ...Aset was a feminine goddess of ancient Egypt. She had the magical prowess to cure the sick and bring her husband back from the dead. Over 5,000 years later, a collective of individuals deeply involved in community improvement initiatives and the struggle for justice and equality would gather in the Washington, DC metropolitan area to form a social movement of their own. They named themselves after Aset, the ‘Goddess Of The Immortals’, and their power was diffused through song. They had a unique approach as a record label to incorporate local D.C. youth and give them a space to develop their musical talents.This compilation explores the back-catalog of Aset, anthologizing three distinct projects that they were focusing on from 1986-1988. Aset’s first release was a debut album from Latonya, the niece of one of the Aset members. She was eleven at the time of recording and sang about divorce, dancing, and love. She was set to be the poster child of Aset with a follow-up LP planned, but ultimately, the recording process became too demanding for Latonya and her parents. Moving forward, Aset split their creative energy into two follow-up groups, Treo & Whax. Treo was a trio of high school gals in harmony singing about relationships. Their song ‘Demands Decrease Desire’ discusses the strain we put on our significant others that pushes them away, and the group touched on a romantic-electro sound through their two releases. Whax was Aset’s male counterpart to Treo, they were meant to represent the sillier side of Aset. The group was led by two high school boys who recorded a lone 7” called “Can I Take You Home?”, and we were fortunate to receive an unreleased extended mix of this song that adds a dubby delayed breakdown.Far from commercial, “A Totally New Sound” is a collection of the songs from these three acts that demonstrate how Aset crafted an electro-soul sound that is absolutely their own. All the projects were guided and produced by the label director, Mba Mbulu. He maintains Aset to this day as an online university, one of the first-ever free internet colleges. Mba continues the spirit of Aset as a political writer.Album remastered and restored as a single LP pressed at 33rpm. It comes with a Smiling C logo sticker, and an inner sleeve displaying Aset archival material, and an interview with Mba Mbulu.

nonclassical: ...Tape Works Vol. 2 is the new album from the UK’s leading musique concrète ensemble, Langham Research Centre.This album presents recent substantial pieces that contrast with the shorter pieces found on Tape Works Vol. 1 (2017) which showcased some of the group’s earliest tape experiments. These new pieces utilize recordings made in specific locations in addition to an array of analogue devices and sound producing objects, some of which feature in the album’s cover art.This approach is evident in Dinotique, commissioned for Café Oto’s Stereo Spasms festival in 2019, a celebration of the work of the late French composer Luc Ferrari to mark his 90th birthday.Luc Ferrari – a founding member of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM) who worked alongside composers such as Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry – is an inspirational figure to LRC.Asked to choose one of Ferrari’s works to respond to with their own new piece, LRC selected Les Anecdotiques (2002), a work in which Ferrari combines his recordings from a series of travels with his archive of electronic sounds and spontaneous and intimate words.