Kaukolampi
We Jazz Reworks Vol. 1

Mona Steinwidder is Museum of No Art; an experiment in traces of sounds, empty space and playful ritual. Samplers, synths and airy vocal samples leave ‘space in all directions,’ carving structure out of light memory and leaving the listener with plentiful room for breath within the museum's expansive, inverted white walls. The intention behind the album, Steinwidder states, was to deepen her intuitive practice and build a meditative playground with infinite potential. The Hamburg artist has worked under pseudonym Mohna (Me Succeeds), and in collaboration with composer, Alexander Schubert and electronic producer Christian Löffler (Germany); catalyzing this multi-modal approach, a refreshed, quiet sound developed over six months of heavy experimentation in Vienna. The Museum emerges from ‘La Grotta,’ where bio-illumined wormy synths make an ascending haste; lighting up the four walls, playing with resonant drums bouncing off stalactites. Track 5, ‘Form and Focus’ invites delayed wind melodies and sawwy pads in glorious painterly drone. Throughout the LP, Mona’s airy sampled vocals enter in ritualistic repetition, in offering, clarity. Absolute must for daytime dreaming, introspection and relief. - (ioki)

EM Records: ...from Beginning c​/​w Lena Willikens Remix, released November 23, 2018"Beginning" composed and produced by Mari SekinePublisher: Eel's Bed Music(c) & (p) 2018 EM Records

boomkat: ...Smiling C have us beaming again with ambient house treasure from a lesser-hailed node of the early ’90s UK house and rave sceneDancing between the lines of jacking Chi-house, psychedelic bleep techno and ambient house, the ‘Mad Vibe’ EP is the sole output by DJ Mad & Dr. Stevie The Ambient Guru, who, if we’re not mistaken, hail from the raving outpost of Middlesbrough on England’s North East coast - a sorely overlooked bastion of the original northern UK rave circuit. This level of detachment from the UK rave scene perhaps explains the offbeat formulation of the ‘Mad Vibe’ EP, which clearly echoes the styles of Yorkshire bleep ’n bass an hour south, but with a rawer, radgy, playful edge.A-side sports ‘Northern Echo’ with its properly charming mix of palm wine or Hawaiian guitar and simmering, latinate machine rhythms in deliciously woozy style, while ‘Communication’ hops around on a sparky jack attack with tumbling toms, nagging bleeps and catty psych guitar licks in the last third. B-side only gets ruder with ’System Shock’ working on the cusp of New Beat and some other strain of quintessentially UK rave nuttiness, and ‘Levitating Pharaohs (Full Frontal Spacehead Ambient Mix)’ wraps up in the barminess in balmy ambient guitar, sweet synth chords and rustling NYC deep house rhythms.