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24—03—10
“Selten habe ich ein Album gehört, das mir so Lust gemacht hat meinen Vampirumhang aus dem Kleiderschrank zu holen und mir die Haare hoch zu toupieren. “Der Tanz geht weiter!” von Isolationsgemeinschaft ist das perfekte Album, um lethargisch in die Leere zu starren oder bis zur Besinnungslosigkeit umher zu stampfen. Mit flotten Texten und noch flotteren Synthesizern, bei denen selbst Depeche Mode vor Neid erblassen: Perfekt für mitternächtliche Ausflüge auf den nächstgelegenen Friedhof mit den Liebsten.”
– Richard C.
on Apocaplexy.
Castles in Space is delighted to have been able to curate an album pulled from Robin The Fog’s unreleased tape archive. A true innovator and incredible live performer, Robin comments on the album “A Loop Where Time Becomes. Rare and Unreleased Recordings 2012-2017”.
After twelve years, ten albums and innumerable live shows (including at least one former underground reservoir), the Howlround sound has indeed changed quite a lot, but the basic ethos remains the same as it did back in 2012. All tracks are created by manipulating field recordings dubbed onto analogue tape, with all digital effects and artificial reverb strictly forbidden – a process that has been described by Electronic Sound magazine as ‘conjur[ing] magic’. Of the twelve tracks here, only one has been physically released on a limited edition and long out of print compilation. A second appeared on a download only release several years ago and a third was created as part of the unreleased soundtrack to a documentary. Everything else on this compilation is seeing the light of day for the first time.
All were created in South London at various periods between 2012 and 2017, five years during which the project evolved from the Radiophonic mournfulness of 2012’s debut album The Ghosts Of Bush (‘The ultimate Hauntological artefact’ – Simon Reynolds), to 2015’s tour with tape legend William Basinski, to 2016’s darker and weirder soundtrack to Steven McInerney’s multiple award-winning film A Creak In Time and on towards what would become the wilder, gnarlier noise of 2019’s The Debatable Lands. This retrospective from the first five years marks the gradual evolution of Howlround from the earliest days conjuring ‘aural ectoplasm’ from nocturnal field recordings of the last days of an underground BBC studio to increasingly spurning of the external world altogether by creating blistering no-input noise and raw analogue feedback. It’s been quite a trip.
Robin The Fog
January 2014
24—03—02
Isolated by his strange parents, Leon finds solace in an imaginary friend, which happens to be an anatomy doll from his father’s doctor office. Unfortunately, the doll begins to take over Leon’s life, and his sister’s life as well.
24—02—24
………..the flabby Ingrown fold for one final goodie bag that’s chock full of treats and clinky trinkets, and we’re so happy that with his help we can go go out with some High Notes. Here’s a few more dots……
24—02—23
The Swedish quartet Goran Kajfeš Tropiques share Tell Us, an album consisting of three long pieces composed by the group, is “slow music” to the bone, a deep body of work utilising the language of jazz as its core mode of communication but echoing way beyond. The quartet is expanded with strings, adding wings to the music and helping it lift off the ground in a personal, highly engaging manner.
The Tropiques quartet consists of Goran Kajfeš (trumpet, synthesizer), Alexander Zethson (piano, organ, synthesizer), Johan Berthling (acoustic bass) and Johan Holmegard (drums) – each a key member in the Swedish creative music scene, with experience from groups such as Dungen, Ghosted, Fire!, Gard Nilssen’s Supersonic Orchestra, Oddjob, plus many more, including Goran Kajfeš’s own Suptropic Arkestra. Their music, groove based and connected to the tradition of “minimalism” has at times been called “hypno-jazz”. Tropiques initially came together in 2011 when Kajfeš was commissioned to compose and perform music to a performance by the Swedish modern dance company Vindhäxor. Since then, the group has evolved in its own ways and independently from, yet informed by, their origins. That is, the experience of creating music together with a strong sense of movement.
All three compositions on Tell Us expand on what the Tropiques have done before, building around their signature style and its spacey texture and rooting the musical narrative in strong melody, rolling groove and their collective limitless urge for sonic exploration. As the opener “Unity In Diversity” goes to show, Tropiques’s compositions are like flowers opening slowly, each element and layer growing out of what has come before, in a constantly surprising manner. This music, then, becomes the perfect antidote for the quick-fix eye candy rolling down your smartphone screen. This music will take its time, but it’ll also create new dimensions with each second as it unfolds.
Releases May 3, 2024 on We Jazz Records.
24—02—23
Songwriter, theater musician and techno producer LASSE WINKLER releases GLÜCK AUF ZEIT, the first single from the album WELTFLUCHT, which will be released in December 2024. One of his great passions is embodied: being on the move, a breeding ground for the untamable urge for great freedom.
KELLER
Berlin, Germany
1962 ging ein großer Traum Nana Mouskouris in Erfüllung: Der Produzent und Musiker Quincy Jones bat sie für Aufnahmen in die USA – so entstand das Jazz-Album The Girl From Greece Sings, das ihr zwar die Türen zum amerikanischen Showgeschäft öffnete, allerdings zunächst kaum kommerzielle Spuren hinterließ…
24—02—17
HOLD MY HAND… THE NOOSE WAITS FOR YOU.
Some dark + depressive black metal by WOE BATHER coming up on Phantom Lure