VARIOUS ARTISTS — EPHEMERAL & FLEETING - MODULAR MUSIC OF JAPAN

In a digital world of AI and algorithms, analogue electronic music is as human as it gets. Through it we see human chaos, in the form of whim and curiosity, erupting in the midst of circuitry and order.

Any given modular setup is tangled with any number of wires, more and more wires connecting to various other boxes and controllers with buttons and dials and switches. In a sea of perfect glassy screens and haptic feedback, of code that does the heavy lifting, these physical objects are almost as anachronous as typewriters.

Such analogue antiquity is at the heart of Ephemeral & Fleeting - Modular Music of Japan, a new compilation album that arrives to us from Tokyo-based ato.archives ("an archive and a label"). Curated by Tokyoite and ambient producer Yumi Iwaki, the album encapsulates this duality of chaos and order: the ordered circuitry of analogue objects and the ordered mathematics of music and its rhythms、 versus the chaos of creativity and the random results that form through careful manipulation of modular synths.

As such, Ephemeral & Fleeting is an album of two halves, fittingly separated by Straytone (who also runs the label Obscure Sound Research) and their two-sided bass-heavy track 'Χάος Order Chaos'. Brooding and baleful, it begins quietly with insectoid chirrupings, which develops into a creeping flood of noise, whooshing like a stormy sea; an intense series of chords around halfway signals a lift-off into the sky — a cosmic orchestra tuning up before a symphony. Distorted feedback-esque melodies play us out with a noise-adjacent lament, sub-bass pulsing like a distant star. It is the album's pivotal point, before which we have (relative) order and lightness, and after which chaos plays out in darker tracks.

It's followed up with two contrasting tracks: 'exhale' by Chie Otomi, which is this awakening within the void – sparse and meandering, Kenichi Takagi's track, 'SBERM', which with juddering analogue thunder, balances rhythmic clattering order with experimental clouds of chaos, glimmering synths and waves of noise coinciding. Think sun gleaming behind mutating grim-grey clouds.

Two other tracks bear have this opposing relationship, in this instance appearing to mirror each other as a kind of pre- and post-track-five version of the other. 'Coalescence' by Endurance (Nara-based musicmaker Joshua Stefane) is expansive and cold, with icy electronic tricklings like the thawing of some giant, ancient bio-mechanical machine.

Then that same frigid atmosphere arises again with 'mete' by tatata5 (part of the label/collective Hasshiki), except by this time whatever was thawed in Endurance's track is well and truly alive, synths a solid chime yet fluid at the same time, distant howls and hoots as if heard within frosty burrows that tunnel like angular veins through a gargantuan living entity.

Order can be seen represented in 'A Gentle Feeling', the compilation opener by Yu Ogu. Feeling akin to the hirajōshi koto tuning, the guitar arpeggio forms a comfortable counterpoint with wandering high-register melodies. It is perhaps the most "conventional" of the tracks on Ephemeral & Fleeting.

Elsewhere, and for much of this exploration of the modular music of Japan, we hear the disarray of anlogue sounds arrange themselves into order — either through audio trickery or else via human intervention. For example, there is the seemingly random pattern of percussion and shifting sounds of 'Sound of uncertainty #001', but Jun H.'s track melds these into a legible beat, a complicated polyrhythm of glitching intricacies that form themselves into an illusory groove. Again, the track has a "partner" in the form of 'chronofracture' by analogue veteran HATAKEN: a sci-fi collage of disparate beats and propulsive rattlings.

Compilation curator Yumi Iwaki also plays with these percolating percussive sounds. In her track 'Styx Drift' they're like a colony of microscopic pebbles pulled along by some heavenly version of the track's namesake river. Its softness is a satisfying juxtaposition to Straytone's exploration of chaos.

But in the swirl of spells cast through these electronic devices, these wires and chips, are the humans who wield this modern magic. This is perhaps most obvious on compilation closer 'Fable of the Transient Soil', Chihei Hatakeyama's electronic tone poem on the theme of flux.

As it begins, we hear Hatakeyama, the human at work, hands moving, switching, turning dials, until around the two-minute mark, when it begins to sound as though we tuned in to an interdimensional frequency. It moves on, soaked in reverb that appears infinite but with a raw intimacy of something close at hand, in the same room.

It's a fitting finale to the harmony that has been struck throughout the compilation — the harmony between chaos and order, that is. Whether the resulting sound is classed as ambient music, or if it can be neatly filed away under "glitch" or the catch-all of experimental, Ephemeral & Fleeting has showcased a precarious, precious balance between modular synths and the mortal minds that use them.

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• 🔔 You may purchase Ephemeral & Fleeting - Modular Music of Japan over on Bandcamp, either digitally or on cassette tape.
• 🔔 The album release comes with an annoucmenet of the festival Ambient / Week (4-10th May), put on by "festival platform" MIMINOIMI. Several artists featured on this compilation will also make appearances, including Chihei Hatakeyama and tatata5, the latter of whom will be presenting her own event series within the festival, titled blue moment.

  The lineup includes Inoyama Land, Lawrence English, Masayoshi Fujita, Shuta Hiraki, Tatsuro Murakami, Toshi Tsuchitori, among others. For more information see the MIMINOIMI site and also this Resident Advisor page.

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SUSUMU YOKOTA — ICONIC AIR

'Iconic Air' cuts in like a collage, part sample-led groove, part majestic soundscape, the twang of spaghetti guitar against soft synth and smooth bass. In short, it's a trip — a slice of space western meets ambient by the late Susumu Yokota, known chiefly as a proponent of the latter genre, with albums like Acid Mt. Fuji (1994) and Sakura (1999). Really, though, he created in various genres, from techno to house, under various monikers, and also had a career as a designer.

The track comes from an upcoming album, Laputa, named after the flying island from Gulliver's Travels. Yokota never released the album, but – as 'Iconic Air' deftly demonstrates – it is an expansive journey of sound, not a million miles from a videogame soundtrack, filled with mystique and forboding, told in all the shades of the music that marked Yokota's own musical journey through life.

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• 🔔 Susumu Yokota's album Laputa is due out 8th April on Lo Recordings. You may pre-order it on Bandcamp, both in vinyl and compact disc formats (and digital also).

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MASAHIRO TAKAHASHI — DREAMIES

In 'Dreamies' we hear an awakening of the world. The slow trickle of water, the unfurling of leaves, the bursting of snowdrops through wet solid soil. It is a soundscape for the thawing of things, a farewell to winter while still on the threshold of its realm, with bare trees sparkling with crystallline fragments of rain.

Created by the Sendai-born, Toronto-based composer and musician Masahiro Takahashi, the track is our first glimpse of his new album, In Another. For this project Takahashi builds on collaborative approach that characterised his previous album Humid Sun (2023), adding a small orchestra's worth of musicians to enact his creative vision.

The result of this – of his "trading Ableton sequences for lead sheets" – is a rich, full sound evolves with an organic quality of live music, an unseen magic in the air. In this musical mapping 'Dreamies' feels like an aestheticised symphonic tuning up, simple and synthesised to begin with, adding textures and different qualities of sound in a veritable sonic buffet, as if filling out the lines of a painting.

But there is also more than just a nod to the embryonic chamber pop that Brian Wilson brought to life on The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds — the intricacies and chimes and dynamic progressions of 'Let's Go Away For Awhile', for example, and the lavish layers in the final third of 'You Still Believe In Me'. In this regard, Takahashi's own singular vision and vocal additions in 'Dreamies' feel very kindred.

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• 🔔 As previously mentioned, 'Dreamies' is taken from Masahiro Takhashi's upcoming album In Another. It's due out 20th March via Telephone Explosion. If you like what you hear you may march yourself over to Bandcamp and pre-order your very own vinyl or digital copy of the album.

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MORIMOTO NAOKI — INSIDE IX - CONNECTION

Stillness pervades 'Inside IX - Connection' by Japanese ambient musician morimoto naoki — the kind of stillness that could, on some days, invite a certain melancholy into the air. Instead morimoto's delicate soundscape, intended for listening within four walls (and ideally with a view), captures introspection that is calm over fragile, peaceful rather than close to collapse.

That said, the sounds that skip and chitter throughout this piece of music feel as though they could fit in the palm of your hand. We find toy-like scrapings and found-sound aesthetic, varying layers of background fuzz that shear through the dust of everyday silence like an old electric fan; high-pitched artificial beeps and electronic twangs add to the sense of miniaturised aesthetic.

Aside from casting a scale model spell on one's domestic surroundings, morimoto's guitar graces 'Inside IX - Connection' with half-tunes, melodies that never start, anti-refrains that in their simultaneous quietude and strong non-statement noodling elevate procrastination to a thing of beauty. We drift into his audio daydream, refreshed and ready for our own.

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• 🔔 'Inside IX - Connection' is taken from morimoto naoki album Still Inside, released by Lontano Series (a division of Sardinian indepedent label ROHS!). You can purchase the album digitally and as a compact disc over on Bandcamp, should you so wish.

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CHEAP LOVE HOTEL — OCEAN ACROBATS

When the stars align in breakcore, when the drum fills are scattered in all the right places and appear as seasonal flowers, when the instrumentation sweeps across the soundscape like swathes of cloud-piercing sunshine, when samples pop up like birds flitting between shrubs and treetops, when the bass keeps a simple, effective untiring line as the patterns of planted beds and geometric pathways — wait, this is a garden analogy! And it's one that we are employing to describe 'Ocean Acrobats' by producer CHEAP LOVE HOTEL.

“I love gaming so I make music to help me concentrate and put me in my zone while playing. I don't like dancing and I don't like yoga but I like meditative soundscapes,” the artist writes in their bio. There is no doubt that this music is inspired by the current thread of “PS1 low poly beats” aesthetic that has emerged from the pools of nostalgia gathering in game-related reminiscences of the early 2000s.

Plagued by prolificacy, they allegedly have “so many unreleased tunes ... that my friends had to intervene and started helping me release stuff.” While their entire output is worthy of listening and re-listening, 'Ocean Acrobats' has that meditative feel that puts it on par with ambient music; there is a beat, sure, quite a bustling one, but even this becomes nothing more than a rhythmic texture as the elements in the track begin to melt into one another and into the background. Ambience achieved.

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• 🔔 'Ocean Acrobat' by CHEAP LOVE HOTEL is taken from their most recent release, XOE MY TRUE LOVE which you can stream and purchase digitally over on Bandcamp.

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「PREMIERE」PEIRIANT — SONG IN PARTS

At the risk of sounding prosaic, 'Song in Parts' is a song in parts. But that's putting it too simply. The first musical morsel taken from Plant – the upcoming third album by Hay-on-Wye-based duo Peiriant (Rose Linn-Pearl, violin, and Dan Linn-Pearl, guitar) – rather than "parts", or even the modest label of "song", this piece of music evolves like a tone poem (see the dynamic waveform on Soundcloud for visual evidence).

Folk-spun violin and glimmering guitar strike a balance between earthy and mystical, the atmosphere deepening with columns of drone, dipping into quietude with theremin-esque synths calling like slow electric whippoorwills. It's a contrast of textures, the organic skitter of bow on strings vs. blooms of synthetic bass — part jam session, part country dance, part ambient reaction to space and sound.

Structurally reminiscent of a sonata, the folksome melody that introduced 'Song in Parts' at the beginning returns in the final richly layered portion of the piece, where in bright bold tones it almost erupts into a jig among the watching trees, but restrains itself.

'Song in Parts' speaks of the illusions folk songs have always cast over their listeners – of better days, spring, winter, of outlaws, love, landscapes – stories fashioned by strings and vocal chords. Except Peiriant do more: not only do their violins soar and spin grass-fed cloud-borne melodies, their guitars picking notes like threads of tales, but true to their name (peiriant means machine in Welsh) they drone and beep, glistening with spells worked in production, granting them further capacity to evoke unnamed, unknown things and feelings in the air.

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• 🔔 'Song in Parts' is the first single from Peiriant's new album Plant (their third; and which means "child" in Welsh), due out on 27th February via Recordiau Nawr. You can pre-order it as a limited edition 12" vinyl, or indeed as in compact disc form, over on Bandcamp.
• 🔔 The album artwork is taken from Violette enters the world by glass artist, painter and sculptor Amber Hiscott.

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FLOOR BABA — DO NOT LOOK AWAY

In 'DO NOT LOOK AWAY' Pittsburgh-based producer and visual artist FLOOR BABA (Jesse Martin) takes us on a journey to the suburbs where all is not what it seems. Well, it's more than seeming not what it is. Panning over low-poly renders of greenery-lined streets, playgrounds and parking lots, we see trees fragmented in post-exploded stillness, trucks chewed by digital rot, skies sinking into corroded community pools.

Over this, with no regard to x or y axes, stomp faceless figures remiscent of Zelda: Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask-era ReDead (for those unfamiliar, see here). As the title suggests, in Martin's animated illustration we are privy to the things we usually look away from — in the melted, corroded visuals we sense the unease that lies behind apparent perfection, while the ReDead-esque figures symbolise those who trample unchecked over the green grass and picket fences and, by extension, over the lives of others.

It's all soundtracked perfectly. Cricket-like chirps and destructed background fuzz add supplementary percussion the boom-tick of a forboding beat, while echoing detuned synth vox flutter unsettlingly on a bed of disarmingly warm chords that move in impresonal lounge-flavoured progression. In the final third, we enter a quasi-West Coast groove with a flute refraining a simple melody over clanging synthetic plucked strings. Martin mixes ambient textures with a more attention-forward dynamic to create an atmosphere that is at once detached but invested in the accompanying scenes.

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• 🔔 For more FLOOR BABA fun, you might want to check out their most recent album waking, self-described "experiments in soft music" that are full of incredibly pleasing noises and soundscapes. You can do this by tapping or clicking here to move your digital attention to Bandcamp.

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AUS + THE HUMBLE BEE — BELOW THE SURFACE WE SHIMMER AND SHINE

The connection between music and place is inextricable, both the power of the former to soundtrack the latter, and for location to alter our listening experience. This is deftly put into practice by Tokyo-based producer and musician aus (Yasuhiko Fukuzono) on 'Below the Surface We Shimmer and Shine', a track originally intended to be listened to whilst bathing in an onsen — a hot spring, thousands of which are nestled in the forested folds of Japan's mountainous interior.

This piece of ambient music, with additional production magic courtesy of Manchester-based the humble bee singularly encapsulates the onsen experience. In its granular textures are promises of mineral goodness, countless intricate rough-hewn gemstones that speak of hygiene in body and mind, while a golden glimmer of sound illustrates a refraction of light in the hot spring waters.

Not only the onsen itself and its ephemeral liquidity but its surroundings, captured by aus in his field recording work, are brought to life. A coarse backdrop echoes a bristling tree-clad mountainside and the vast unknowable nature that surrounds the onsen town. Icy tuned percussion hints at frigid winter air contrasted with the waves of warm synth representing the steaming hot spring waters themselves. (A warm bath outdoors is super nice).

Though there's a contrast between human warmth and our desire to control nature (i.e. bathing in an onsen, comfortable hotel surroundings), and nature in its giant forboding splendour (i.e. the reason hot springs exist naturally, the harshness of the mountains), here they exist timelessly and harmoniously etched in sound.

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• 🔔 'below the surface we shimmer and shine' is taken from the collaborative album Chalybeate, which is scheduled for release on 13 February via flau. Originating as a sonic document of the onsen (hot spring) town Ikaho, Gunma Prefecture, by aus during a month-long stay, he enlisted the humble bee (Craig Tattersall, known for his releases for labels like Dauw and IIKKI) for production and mixing duties.

  The album is available for pre-order on Bandcamp, either in compact disc or vinyl form.

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[PREMIERE] JOSS JAFFE × JIM WEST × KAZU MATSUI — ACROSS THE OCEAN

A broad spectrum of ambient, instrumental music is written about on yes/no. Rarely does it follow a formula; creativity has a way of being unpredictable, even within the constraints of adherening to particular aesthetics espoused by whatever genre one has sought to somehow inhabit. But still when we think of "ambient music" there is a certain mental image that pops up.

Why? Being ambient does not have to be the sonic equivalent of clean lines and polished concrete. Be unobtrusive, yes; create a calm atmosphere, yes; but there are many ways to be and create such things. Case in point: 'Across the Ocean'.

A collaboration between musician Joss Jaffe, award-winning guitarist Jim West (decades-long guitarist for "Weird Al" Yankovic) and shakuhachi master Kazu Matsui, who's contributed to movie scores from Willow to Jumanji, this piece of music takes a different path to reach the meditative, refraining realm at the heart of ambient music.

Jaffe had already recorded two albums with West – Aum Akua (2022) and Santhi (2024) – but it was a chance meeting with Matsui that led to his involvement in the project. Jaffe explains that he was performing with TAKURO (Takuro Kubo, guitarist for Japanese rock band Glay) in Tokyo when Matsui was brought on as a special guest. "We hit it off," he says via email, thanks to their shared experience playing with many different world music artists.

In 'Across the Ocean' the trio find a singular groove that summons the vast ocean under a vaster sky. Flowing chorused guitar melody sets the piece in motion, a drum heaped in considered reverb deepening the sense of space as it and guitar begin a slow swaying call-and-response, as if between continents. The texture of Matsui's shakuhachi adds to the shifting momentum of the piece, like running a hand over raw silk — soft but teeming with organic detail.

The track is a fluid mix of post-rock jamming and the reflective nature of suizen (literally "blowing meditation", the Zen practise of mindfulness while playing flute). Though uncharacteristic of what may be called ambient music, there is no lure to snag listeners into feeling any particular emotion, no lyrics to inform you of the musicians' own feelings. Instead we have a mesmeric, fitingly oceanic sense of calm.

'Across the Ocean' shows that ambient music – an evocative blend of sounds and spaces between intended as a canvas daydremaing and soundtracking the everyday – can take many different shapes.

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• 🔔 You are free to listen to, and purchase a digital copy of, 'Across the Ocean' over on Bandcamp. You may also stream it on Spotify among other platforms for such things.

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ERIK HALL — STRUMMING MUSIC (CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE)

Minimalist composer Charlemagne Palestine's 1974 piano composition 'Strumming Music' is an intriguing of music. Beginning with just a couple of notes, struck over and over again with the sustain pedal pressed down, each note blends into the next creating a chord. But being played as singular notes spilling into each other rather than a strict chord, a natural wave begins in the spillover between one frequency and the next, creating an glimmering soft ambient drone beneath the hefty percussion of each note.

Gradually we are hypnotised as Palestine adds more notes in to the proceedings, increasing the thickness of the sonic mist that gathers beneath the hammering hands. The tempo increases gradually and you're caught in the frantic playing, the untethered yet very controlled trance-like energy of it all, and at the same time soothed by the waves of sound that ooze from the overlaps and sustain. Slowly built crescendoes appear like a sunrises, hands moving down the keyboard, the sound less icy, richer and roaring.

And all this for 50 or so minutes. It's little wonder that Palestine, counted among the vanguard of minimalist music, preferred the title maximalist: while the approach may seem minimalist compared to a Bach fugue, for example, or Ravel's 'Gaspard de la nuit', the maximalism is in the dynamic of the music. There is no minimalism in the magnitude of those interweaving frequencies, stacking note and chord upon note and chord to produce whirring waves of powerful sound. (But, to be fair, the maximalist properties are truly grounded in minimalism: it all begins simply, with a rapid alternation between E and B).

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Charlemagne Palestine composed 'Strumming Music' as a commission for avant-garde French label Shandar

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'Strumming Music' is left in the earth like valuable shining carbon, until now, half a century or so later, the weight of time and earthly forces, but mainly of composer and musician Erik Hall, have condensed the piece, crystallising it into a 14-minute diamond. Hall's interpretations of minimalist music have captured attention; in 2020 his painstaking work on reinterpreting Music For 18 Musicians compelled its composer (Steve Reich) to personally congratulate him in writing. His rendition of 'Strumming Music' may earn him similar praise.

Hall preserves the foundation and intent of the original, repeating notes and chords, the sustain creating a heady all-encompassing flood of harmonious frequencies. However, with felted piano and the addition of guitars, which in a nod to the title are literally strummed, his version is a warmer and more intricately textured piece. Gone are the glassy, hammered notes of the original, its woody, thundering resonance, the cold clanging ferocity of Palestine's piano.

Instead, Hall gives us a different, more measured intensity in his flowing performance, with a more intimate, organic flavour to the recording as a whole compared to expansive feel of the original. A lot of this has to do with the recording and production process; Hall's layering of piano and guitar, among other things, immediately sets it apart from Palestine's 50-minute behemoth, for which he used a concert-ready Imperial Bösendorfer — a far cry from the Yamaha spinet (among other things) used by Hall.

Cosy rather than cosmic, cocooned thus in a gentler aesthetic and contained in a more digestible 14-minute, Erik Hall's 'Strumming Music' is a hot take on the original, an inspired update for our modern times that speaks of a collective nesting era, us behind windows and wood panels insulated from without.

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• 🔔 Erik Hall's very hot take of 'Strumming Music' by Charlemagne Palestine is taken from his latest release Solo Three. Released by Western Vinyl, it also features interpretations of guitarist-composer Glenn Branca's 'The Temple of Venus Pt. 1', 'A Folk Study' by composer of electronic music Laurie Spiegel and another piece by Steve Reich, 'Music for a Large Ensemble'. You may purchase Solo Three in vinyl form or indeed CD form, if you so wish; both are available on Bandcamp.

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CHINO YOSHIO — そのうちいいことあるよ

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'Someday, something good will happen' — so says the translated title of Japanese composer Chino Yoshio's latest piece. These words form part of the poignant refrain sung by collaborator Michiru (Michiru Tamaki), whose vocals ring with far-off hope. Michiru, a lyricist and doujin singer, brings more than a hint of anime OST to the song, resulting in a decidedly J-pop aesthetic.

But Yoshio's ambient approach to composition results in something different to pure J-pop — something meditative and magical, with the warm silky tones of his synth creating a smooth texture that underpins everything, wrapping it in a gossamer veil. Particularly evocative are the strings provided by MIZ (Mizuho Mori) — a prolific composer and musician who with credits in the classical, pop and video game music (including Final Fantasy Record Keeper) worlds.

Lyrically and sonically, Yoshio pieces it together like a modern-day, minimalist passacaglia: sombre and somewhat serious, yes, but also an optimistic mantra for simple wishes.

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• 🔔 If you really enjoyed 'そのうちいいことあるよ' by Chino Yoshio you can even purchase it on vinyl, if you like.

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HIDDEN FORT — DREAMS FROM THE ROLLER PALACE

⌾ LISTEN TO HIDDEN FORT, DREAMS FROM THE ROLLER PALACE ⌾

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It's new music time. As you may or may not (probably not) know, YES/NO MUSIC has launched a record label. Called Pleasant Place, it is dedicated to all manner of instrumental music that summons worlds, allows listeners to escape or relax, and provides an undemanding but imaginative sonic space. You can learn more about it on our dedicated page or you could even head over to http://pleasant.place yourself to check it out.

Our first release is an album called Dreams from the Roller Palace by Hidden Fort. This is a "musical tour" of Maida Vale Roller Skating Palace and Club, which was to all intents and purposes an Edwardian roller disco and pretty much London's top spot for skating between 1909 and 1912 (when it closed). Many years went by and it later became home to the BBC and is now best known as Maida Vale Studios. It was up for auction recently; thankfully composer Hanz Zimmer brought it in partnership with several others, sealing the fate of the iconic studios, but hopefully for the best.

Hidden Fort, a transcontinental duo (one in Tokyo, one in London) who would seemingly prefer to remain anonymous, have created a pretty gorgeous love letter to the heritage of the studios. It's new music, of course, but Dreams from the Roller Palace feels utterly timeless.

We are very happy to be the label home for this rather stunning debut release; yes, we're biased, and yes, it would be a conflict of interests of we were to write a long, gushing essay about how intriguing the concept is, or what wondeful flights of fancy are summoned by the smorgasbord of vintage instruments are used throughout, or comment on just how unusual their mix of ambient and postclassical structures is. But it's cool, and we hope you think so too.

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• 🔔 Dreams from the Roller Palace by Hidden Fort is out now. You can purchase this lovely slice of new music over on Bandcamp, either digitally or physically as a cassette tape. How exciting.

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CUUSHE FADED CORNERS

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Tokyo-based singer and producer Cuushe (aka Mayuko Hitotsuyanagi) is summoning the ancient past with this slice of new music. 'Faded Corners' features her tradebmark vocals, a textural combination of a far-off call and close-quarters whisper, as they spin words based on 'Asobi wo sen to ya~', a famous poem that was included in the Ryōjin Hishō, a 12th-century anthology of imayō — lyrical poetry that was intended to be sung with music (and dancing).

It's an masterclass in atmosphere-making — the soothing ambient wash of chords, the urgent hush of the vocals — but it's also an excercise in creating a sense of propulsion and a vehicle of dance without actually using a constant beat (aside from the odd deep, bassy thud of a kick). The overlapping rhythms combine to create a complex footwork-adjacent web of energy, extra rhythm provided by the muffled splash of syncopated synth chords.

The stirring strings and plumes of bass, the scratching, glittering, richly textured soudscape reflects the violence and beauty that comes with the preservation of ancient culture through the centuries. Pages tear, fires burn, people forget, and yet scholars record, artists revive — marvellously mirrored in the dense yet flighty crescendo of 'Faded Corners', like a sky ripped asunder.

The single arrives with bonus remixes. Flau label boss aus takes the track to the boundaries of a frosty realm in his 'reprise', waves of ambient synth washing through a minimal landscape with cascading clusters of bleeping synths and snippets of harsh noise, ending with intense destructed glimmers of sound.

Elsewhere there's a chilled, almost New Age vibe to the remix by Korean duo Salamanda, complete with slow, deeply blooping drums spinning a relaxed groove. Melati ESP, on the other hand, makes things propulsive with a bouncing beat and tropical approach to its bubbling collection of iridiscent synths.

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• 🔔 'Faded Corners' by Cuushe is out now! It is available to download digitally from Flau's Bandcamp, or else you can purchase the CD, giving you access to a CD-only track called 'Tsuki to Sakana'.
• 🔔 You can also watch the official video for Cuushe's 'Faded Corners', directed by Tao Tajima.

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☟ Cuushe Internet Presence ☟
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SHELF NUNNY — CASCADE GLIDE

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Seattle producer Shelf Nunny aka Christian Gunning first came to our attention way back in 2013 — namely it was via 'About The Boy', a collaborative track between him and Berlin-based artist Eriko Toyoda. It was a vibe.

A decade and several releases later (via labels such as Chicago-based Palettes and Seattle's own Hush Hush Records), not to mention remixes from the likes of Kidkanevil (“who heavily inspired + shaped my sound,” Gunning says), his style of experimental beat-making remains addictively luscious.

With more than just a nod to ambient music and field recordings, his latest track 'Cascade Glide' begins trickles with natural-meets-synthetic minutiae from the outset. Synth bleeps and bloops ping and warp in the neardistance, clockwork ticks and mechanical clacks keeping time, fuzzy steps crunching on ground begin proceedings. It's like field recording if you were capturing sounds somewhere like Green Hill Zone, for example. Sonic has long sprinted through, leaving only the swaying grass and empty loops.

It morphs from this quiet, thoughtful beatscape, flying through cotton wool skies into something less pinpoint-detail, more dynamic loud-and-quiet festivities with stuttering chords and bold sections of dead air. It's a track that's equal parts chilled and exhilarating, study beats reimagined — a daydream worked into being by a novel approach to beat-led incidental music of the modern age.

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• 🔔 'Cascade Glide' is taken from Pronoia, Shelf Nunny's upcoming “concept album about the opposite of paranoia”, scheduled for release on 26th January; grab it on Bandcamp.

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☟ Shelf Nunny Internet Presence ☟
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🔮 IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER: E.M.M.A.'S TOP 9 TRACKS OF 2023

E.M.M.A., aka producer, label owner and person Emma Davies, has intrigued us as a musicmaker since her astounding 'Mindmaze'. A mingling of huge beats and medieval, dungeon synth-adjacent melodies, it was certainly well received here (it was a moment).

But, of course, Davies has done more than blended UK-flavoured beats with fugues to create Renaissance riddims. Years, various projects, two albums (Blue Gardens and 2020's Indigo Dream) and an EP (Change My Mind, released this year) have passed since. Along the way she's crafted commercial and artistic soundtracks, providing audio backdrops for brands such as Gucci, for example, and a selection of short films

Davies is one of the masterminds behind Producergirls, a "beginners' music production workshop for girls" (currently on pause). In a previous interview with yes/no, Davies stated the aim behind the workshop series is "to encourage more women to try out electronic music production and to see if we can make the industry more gender balanced." This is not her only endeavour outside of musicmaking itself. She's the founder of label Pastel Prism, host for NTS show Angel Food alongside journalist Aimee Cliff, and is a regular DJ and mixmaker.

Her most recent release, Change My Mind, is a result of going down a "Miami Vice OG TV series rabbit hole."

"I had a few demos together at the end of 2022 but they were all sort of psychedelic and mellotron-based," says Davies. More Glyn Johns than Jan Hammer. "But having immersed myself in Miami Vice episodes, and taking over the TV for many months ... I was reminded that I actually have a record label named Pastel Prism, which was a reference to the soft powdery hues of '80s aesthetic." Thus the '80s theme stuck. With the aesthetic set, Change My Mind came into fruition "inspired by wanting to extract the most emotion with as few sounds as I can," she says.

And so the E.M.M.A. take on the top tracks of 2023 was always going to be interesting. Broad-ranging but beat-focused, her selection is international and close to home, as involved with atmospherics as it is honed on the thud and boom of myriad BPMs. Read on ☟

1. SHIMZ343 – 35BAGUMBRELLA

Emma Davies: SHIMZ343 is my favourite producer of the year (insert goat emoji here). Listening to this track is like watching a movie. There is a proper narrative going on and a really immersive world being built around you which moves you to a different place from where you were before you listened. I don’t want to say any more because I'd rather you listen and buy the track and see what I mean. Also he’s got a great eye for the visual aesthetic too. SHIMZ34 film soundtrack ASAP plz.

2. Adrian Carter – Motif

ED: I speak to Adi [Adrian Carter] quite regularly and he’s always banging out a hit in the studio. The thing I like about Adi’s music is to me it’s completely timeless, in the same way a lot (all?) of these tunes are. His melodies grasp at the meaning of life while also having the ability to turn any time of day into a party, a party you could imagine happening at any point in the last 40+ years. He’s a wizard. Having said that this tune [taken from October album Salt Horse] is not a party tune, maybe more of an after party, while questioning your life choices.

3. Novelist – Big Novelist

ED: No one needs me to point out Novelist is in a league of his own, but here I am pointing it out. His approach to music is very inspiring, not only how it sounds but how he places his work in the world and the intent behind it. This track released this year [on album 3.5 4 THA RIDE] is one of my favourites, as is ‘Again’. It also goes without saying that as someone also on an '80s flex from time to time that’s a particular characteristic of his tracks and aesthetic that I am a big fan of, his ability to synthesize a detailed palette of film and music influences into something completely unique.

4. Teplice – Revival

ED: Matilda [Jones] aka Teplice was the first person I released on my label Pastel Prism Records that wasn’t me. Shout out Dexplicit who is the other person. This release [Call It Home] on Hot Concept out of Berlin is super dreamy and I love the progression. There are snatches of vocals which I can’t really work out what’s being said, which I think makes it more impactful because your imagination joins the dots and therefore the mood is profound.

5. Etch – Guardare Ma Non Toccare

ED: My pal Etch has had loads of releases this year but I’ve picked this one from a “quick lil mish mash of 1-2min long tracks made in one evening using Italian Library & Film Soundtracks (YES ALL OF IT, EVEN THE WEIRD SYNTHY SHIT, IT’S CALLED FX CHAINS)” to quote the man himself. Me and him have got a collab coming out at some point, I’m sure he won’t mind me saying. We both use FL Studio so I regularly ask him how TF he has done something in his mix. I only ask about 3 people and he’s one of them. There’s nothing this guy can’t do, throw a BPM at him, I dare you.

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Taken from Pslightly Psychedelic Sounds Of Italy Vol.1, which appears to be missing

6. Céline Gillain – They Play Games

ED: I simply came across this tune [from Brussels-based artist Céline Gillain's album Mind Is Mud] and liked it.

7. O'o – Moon

ED: As a big fan of the moon, this [track by Barcelona duo O'o] caught my eye. You’ve got to be careful referencing the moon because it’s such a big deal. That’s why I called my track “Ryan Gosling in Space” instead of “Ryan Gosling on the Moon”. I think this track does the moon justice. What we’re looking for here is a feeling of being recharged by the moon whilst simultaneously feeling completely insignificant.

8. Yamaneko ft. J.Day – Nowhere

ED: Yamaneko was the person who kept me sane during writing my first album Blue Gardens. Anyone who’s followed me for more than 5 mins will know I’ve played him in all of my sets, most recently seamlessly and effortlessly blending him with 'Crockett’s Theme' on NTS on a Friday night no less. Get your ears around this.

9. Valentina Magaletti and Zongamin – Candles

ED: Please see answer to No. 6. [taken from percussionist and drummer Valentina Magaletti's album Suono Assente, out on AD 93]

Photography by Sophie Davies [top] and Kate Molins [above]

• 🔔 Keep up to date with the latest E.M.M.A. releases on Bandcamp.

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☟ E.M.M.A. Internet Presence ☟
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🔮 IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER: AUS'S TOP MUSIC OF 2023

Tokyo-based artist aus, aka the human producer, DJ and label owner Yasuhiko Fukuzono, has had a busy 2023. "I've hardly been able to catch up on this year's releases," he says. That's probably got something to do with the fact that, for the first time in a few years, he released a new album under his musicmaking moniker.

Titled Everis, and joint released by UK label Lo Recordings and his own (that's flau, by the way), the album was made "in an empty nest" — a labour of love having lost recordings, data and even equipment. "I made it trying to reconnect with my memories from the videos and recordings left on my phone," he says.

The result is a cinematic, emotive release that feels part nebulous lovesong, part Gold Panda. Everis was followed up later by a remix album, Revise, which features reworkings of Fukuzono's original tracks by the likes of Grantby and Patricia Wolf. Next year will see yet more aus music, with an EP and album in the works, as well as more flau releases. "I have a lot of projects in the pipeline at the moment," Fukuzono says. "I'm not going to stop with just this year."

One of these releases, appearing just a few days ago, is a collaboration between Fukuzono and guitarist and actor Ryosuke Nagaoka. Titled LAYLAND, the collaborative release is a cocktail of crafted experimental beatscapes and improvised guitar odysseys. As an aside, Nagaoka is played the titular role of ancient strategist Zhuge Liang (shoutout to all the Dynasty Warriors fans out there) in a live-action adaptation of the manga Paripi Kōmei.

But on this note of hoping for a nice and busy 2024, not to mention a successful one, we're very happy to introduce aus's top music of 2023, looking back over a year of lounge-laden funk, delicate dream pop, and everything in between. Though admittedly being in a constant state of discovering and buying years-old releases, fresh new music nevertheless made its way to Fukuzono: "These are some of the great songs I found this year." Read on ☟

Maxine Funke – River Said

Yasuhiko Fukuzono: Wonderful singer from NZ.

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'River Said' is the title track from the singer-songwriter's April-released album.

Sven Wunder – Take A Break

YF: Music genius.

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Taken from Stockholm-based composer Sven Wunder's September-released album, Late Again

Virginia Astley – The Singing Places

YF: Surprise of the year.

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Taken from English singer-songwriter Virginia Astley's 2023 26-minute, one-track release The Singing Places.

Charif Megarbane – Pas de Dialogue

YF: Genius.

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This track appears on the 2023 album Marzipan by Lebanese composer, musician and producer Charif Megarbane. It is the first full contemporary release by Berlin-based label Habibi Funk.

John Beltran – As the Sunsets

YF: He made a remix for me, all-time wonderful.

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Beltran remixed 'Landia' on Fukuzono's 2023 Revise, the remix follow-up to his sparkling release at the start of the year, Everis. 'As the Sunsets' appears on Beltran's limited edition 7" Back To Bahia Vol. 3, released by Detroit's very own record shop-meets-wine bar label, MotorCity Wine.

MSD Elementary Music Class – Happiness Runs

YF: Just found from Bandcamp searching, so so lovely.

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Performed by the children of MSD Elementary Music Class for their album What's That Sound? (which also includes a cute rendition of 'Let It Be').

Theo Parrish and Maurissa Rose – Spiral Staircase

YF: Always great!

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Taken from Free Myself, the collaborative album between Theo Parrish and Maurissa Rose

Hazel English – There She Goes

YF: I love the original, so I love this too of course.

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This is a one-off cover by Australian-American artist Hazel English of the 1988 classic 'There She Goes' by English band The La's.

Purelink – 4k Murmurs feat. J

YF: One of the few electronic ones I listened to this year.

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This dreamy track is from Brooklyn-based Purelink's September album Signs.

a.s.o. – Love In The Darkness

YF: Reminds me of Seely.

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'Love In The Darkness' is taken from Berlin duo a.s.o.'s debut self-titled album.

Ana Frango Elétrico – Electric Fish

YF: Gives big energy.

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'Electric Fish' is from the album Me Chama De Gato Que Eu Sou Sua by Rio de Janeiro's very own Ana Frango Elétrico

Photography by Neon Bunny

• 🔔 Keep up to date with the latest from flau and check their Bandcamp and SoundCloud pages too. There's also Twitter (which is nowadays trying to be known as X). Oh, and Instagram.

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☟ aus Internet Presence ☟
bandcamp ⚘ facebook ⚘ spotify

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