Artificial Dark Network
Stoner Classix Selected

U-Trax: ... With his first release as EBM outfit Voltage Control on Antler Subway in 1989, Utrecht-based Arno Peeters can easily be considered one of the Dutch Dance pioneers.Influenced by hip hop, electro and acid house, and his uncontrollable urge to experiment, he moved on to produce techno. Disappointed by the genre’s conventions, he rather suddenly stopped with dance music altogether around 1995, letting a wealth of DATs with unreleased material collect dust in his studio.To our great pleasure, U-TRAX was allowed to pick some nuggets from these archives, resulting in this Titanic EP and an album later this year.

Seance Centre: ...Musique Plastique and Séance Centre are proud to present Jacques Charlier’s “Art In Another Way”, a 45RPM double LP compilation of the Belgian multi-disciplinary artist’s inimitable chanson regressive recordings from the 1980s.Throughout a long career in the visual arts, Jacques Charlier has maintained a multi-disciplinary approach that includes forays in poetry, underground comics, acting, filmmaking and music. Besides performing with his punk group Terril (sadly, never recorded), Charlier took inspiration from the minimalist sounds of Philip Glass, Steve Reich, La MonteYoung, John Cage, and Meredith Monk. Throughout the 1970s he performed psychoacoustic pieces in Liège, Antwerp, Eindhoven, Rotterdam, Milan and Düsseldorf, and in the astounding performance art video Desperados Music, filmed by Paul Paquay for Belgian television. Charlier hit a creative stride in the 1980s — armed only with a synth, drum machine, fuzz box, and his custom guitar, with occasional duets with vocalist Martine Doutreleau. He recorded a trove of proto-pop tunes which he self-released on three cassettes (Musique Regressive, Chansons Idiotes and Chansons Tristes) between 1984–1987.

ORANGE MILK RECORDS: ...Inspired by fever dreams, in a sense explores the human nature of emotions and narrates a journey of rediscovery. Soundscapes quickly materialize and collapse and melodies become room noise within the blink of an eye. The album challenges many conventions in electronic compositions and questions the desire for familiarity in modern production.

NCM: ...NOOD5 features contributions from six friends of the Noods family, consisting of Berlin based techno iconoclast Ossia, shadowy Bristol producer fresh from a highly acclaimed EP on Berceuse Heroique, Pessimist, Timedance affiliate Cleyra, Milanese sound experimentalist Katatonic Silentio, Rio underground lynchpin and RBMA graduate Valesuchi and a collaboration from Dekmantel’s Epsilove and the elusive Ployer Fower.The record is a confident assertion of the station’s sonic ethos; filled with tense, dread-laden soundscapes that foreground the percussion and sub bass. Reverbs and delays are utilised in the true dub tradition, wringing out unconventional grooves from the negative space between the drums: it’s music for the head and the body.Originally intended to be released on our fifth birthday hence the name, fuck it — the pandemic slowed much down so have it on our sixth birthday instead.

Launched in an uncertain time, here are 12 tracks from 17 new independent Japanese artists, a physical release from a generation which has an online-release default setting. Not a scene document, not a label sampler, and not a showcase for a collective, this compilation features a selection of artists from all across Japan, selected by ex-Jesse Ruins producer CVN. These songs are snapshots of a sensibility shared by these artists: a love of contemporary electronic pop music, an awareness of melody, and an appreciation of the musical options provided by technology. Not techno or ambient, there is an emphasis on the human voice, with elements of hiphop, trap, EDM and bass music, all subsumed into multiple facets of a glowing electronic bedroom pop gem. Available on CD, vinyl and digital, with English liner notes, lyrics and artist information. These songs are seeds of hope for the coming post-pandemic parties.