A bit more than half a decade on from his widely acclaimed debut Vanishing Points from 2018, Swiss guitarist, composer, and improv musician Manuel Troller releases his new record Halcyon Future. A rhythmically dense and ambiguous, yet joyful ride for unstable times, a plea for warmth and hopeful resistance.

Troller’s mode of incorporating, zooming in, and expanding on small elements from improvised sessions creates a multilayered work of driving rhythms and abstract, vibrating textures. Opening with Halcyon Future I’s distinctive open pulse, this first piece guides us through subtle harmonic shifts that are almost unrecognizable as they take place over extended time, overlapping and creating a sense of ambiguity until the piece reaches an almost optimistic level with Mario Hänni’s unexpected introduction of driving acoustic drums. Relentlessly and with increasing excitement, heavy electronic 80s bass drums and an armada of layered hi-hats push them on, leading to the all-incorporating melodic finale.

The two long pieces Halcyon Future I and Halcyon Future II focus on forward momentum. In between them stands DNA, a purposely directionless contemplation on emotion as such. It is raw, naked, and confrontational, with a tender and subtly changing chord progression creating intimacy and proximity, abstraction and warmth, like a beautifully vibrant hologram for the listener to walk around in.

The B-side with its 20-minute Halcyon Future II features playful futuristic guitars, enhancing and challenging the stereo image that Troller is already well-known for. As it’s given time to develop and take root, the ever-varying guitar interactions densify and the staccato patterns jump out of the speakers with joy, creating excitement and building momentum. Compared to Side A, things turn to a slightly more complex rhythmical, melodic, and harmonic feel here. There are easy references, such as Manuel Göttsching’s E2-E4 or Pat Metheny performing Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint, but Troller goes a different and very much more concrete way. Although the piece has been recorded in various places and through a long process of overdubbing, there is an astonishingly strong live feel to it, from beginning to the end, from the slow rise to the full spectrum and the almost krautrock-like finale. Improvisers Hans Koch on soprano saxophone and Michael Flury on heavily fuzzed trombone join in, while Troller and Mario Hänni on many guitars, bass, drum machines, and acoustic drums provide a joyous driving entity, not giving up until it all breaks down again. There is overkill and brute force, though never without depth and a vision of future.

In the musical scope of Halcyon Future, there is no need for an absolute definition of things. A continuously changing interpretation of repetitive and variable elements fading in and out of focus tells a story of an excited sense of acceptance. Feelings of transcendence stem from Troller’s layering of constantly shifting rhythmic structures with unforeseen improvised harmonic changes. Drum machine parts overlayed with acoustic drums shift between musical modes, anchoring the album on the verge of a jazz-influenced, motorik, post-ECM balearic plateau. Abstract textural elements gently swirl around and behind all that is rhythm, providing a submissive counterpoint. As with much of Troller’s work, Halcyon Future is an album that unfolds slowly, revealing more of its richness, detail, and subtle beauty at each listen.

Halcyon Future is a joint release by three:four records and meakusma.

credits

produced by Manuel Troller
published by three:four records and meakusma

Manuel Troller: guitars, bass, percussion & drum programming

with:
Mario Hänni: acoustic drums and percussion on Halcyon Future I & II
Hans Koch: soprano saxophone on Halcyon Future II
Michael Flury: fuzzed trombone on Halcyon Future II

Recorded during 2021 & 2022 at Suburban Sound, Winterthur by Manuel Egger, additional recordings at Feldbergstrasse in Basel & various places by Manuel Troller.

Mixed December 2022 and January 2023 at Suburban Sound, Winterthur by Manuel Egger and Manuel Troller.
DNA's additional mixing by Leo Abrahams
Mastered by Rashad Becker
Vinyl cut by Rashad Becker
Desing by Mathis Pfäffli, font: Dinamo Typefaces.

Realized with the kind support of Fuka Fonds Stadt Luzern, Fachausschuss Musik Kanton Basel-Stadt und Basel Landschaft More

Between improv, pop and r&b abstractions, and contemplative balearics, Sam Gendel and Ugné Uma “Tam tikri objektai erdveje” subtly meanders through a fragile and forward cosmos both inward and out.

Sam Gendel and Ugne Uma’s Tam Tikri Objektai Erdveje album sketches a layered, melismatic and intertextual view on what both performers define as a lightness of being. Ugne Uma’s musical stance is influenced by experimental poetry and Lithuania’s 20th century underground music scene - jazz and folk, resulting from the liberation of the country’s independence movements. Sam Gendel, from Los Angeles, is a saxophonist and producer, proficient on more instruments than the saxophone alone, whose recorded work both solo and collaborative has brought him acclaim as a vital new voice in modern jazz and beyond.

Tam Tikri Objektai Erdveje is Lithuanian and translates as Some Particular Objects in Space. The six tracks on the album stand for every letter of the word Saturn. They sketch out a sound palette both fragile and full of forward momentum. With hints of improv, sampling their own recorded work and sounds of a childhood’s Yamaha Portasound PSS-290 synth into abstractions of pop and r&b, some of these tracks reach an almost balearic feel, the more contemplative end of it. With lyrics delving into cosmic phenomena, Tam Tikri Objektai Erdveje is an album about space, whether cosmic or inward or the one in between. It easily surpasses the sum of its influences and the materials and tactics used to produce it.

A1 ttoe - S_M (0’46)
A2 ttoe - T_M (3’02)
A3 ttoe - N_M (3’55)
B1 ttoe - U_M (4’00)
B2 ttoe - R_M (4’30)
B3 ttoe - A_M (2’38) More

Butterfred has been releasing his atmospheric hiphop, grime, dub and ambient-driven hybrids on his own Butterfred Productions label since 2017. His is a committed update of a breakbeat perspective through moody and hazy ambiences that touch upon neo-noir and the logic of rhythm within. For his first outing on Meakusma, he provides six short, yet wide-ranging tracks with a lot of forward momentum. Voice samples and ambientish scapes give all tracks direction, deceptively downtempo beats are at times driving, at times phased-out into the background. There is a definite mystique to Butterfred's work as it purposely leaves threads unresolved. The focus is on space, a spatial perspective that infuses his music with concrete references to his influences, be it hiphop, dub or even triphop. His sense of space is often very private, yet makes for a kaleidoscopic view, unafraid to be extensive. Butterfred has a very subdued online presence. This EP is his first music to also be released digitally. His work speaks for itself and does so in fragmented jolts of imagination and reduction.

Design: Meeuw More

Modern Power electronics...TIP!!

Philipp Matalla lives and works in the triangle of Halle, Leipzig and Berlin, in Germany. He has previously released music on labels such as Optimo Music, KANN and Kashual Plastik. His new album on Meakusma delves into some of the themes that have so far defined his work, this time increasing the tension between moments of musical harshness and flickers of introspection, ease and downright beauty. Matalla aims not for perfection, instead deploying the listener's sense of imagination. His work toys with the notion of abstraction in electronic music, often going as far cutting short melodic and other ideas, making for a confrontational stance unafraid of leaving his material in a state of difficult to define rawness, based on versatile ingredients equally rooted in rural and urban territory. Stakes is a gorgeous and gorgeously far out album, integrating elements of psychedelic rock and dub, blending in melodic ideas that are at times abstracted, at times soothing. It is pastoral music for the digital age, where raw bursts of noise and energy dislocate and set the record straight. There is even a croonerish feel to some of its tracks, croonerish from a distorted future that is. Stakes is an experience in eclecticism and musical logic. It dissolves structures and ideas and turns musically recognisable elements on their head. More

Comes with a fold out A2 sized poster and download card.

The EC Band is a collaboration between American Brussels-based painter, former grindcore singer and musician Luke Calzonetti and Belgian visual artist, performer and percussionist Stijn Wybouw. Their first EC Band outing sees them conjure up four transcendent tracks driven by improvisation. The instruments used and the way the EC Band naturally and fluidly edit their musical output, make for flickers of musical mirages, infusing everything with a sense of space and abstraction. On the edge of what is recognisable emotion and perspective, Calzonetti and Wybouw are soft-spoken yet confrontational. Their music marries the mundane with a stance of understanding and the profound. As musical information fades in and out of focus and a sense of belonging resists clear grasp, The EC Band touches upon the ethereal, with abstract focus.

Design by Meeuw More

The Discomfort Of Evening is the incredible and original soundtrack by prolific Belgian composer Michiel de Malsche to 2020 International Booker Prize winner The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld. Visceral and virtuosic, Rijneveld's novel follows Jas, a girl growing up in a devout Christian family that runs a Dutch dairy farm, whose brother dies in an accident after she wishes he would die instead of her rabbit. Lost in grief, her family falls apart as she becomes consumed by increasingly dangerous fantasies.

Michiel de Malsche has captured the atmosphere and spirit of Rijneveld's book perfectly, moving through moments of confrontation and introspection, sinking into spirals of despair, stasis and subtle hope and change. Brooding ambient basslines, driven by droning murmurs, are offset with melismatic electro-acoustic pieces that embody the novel's haunting and dissonant world, whilst also incorporating manipulated field recordings such as animal sounds and a church service, allowing for a full manifestation of Jas’s world in a completely new way.

De Malsche achieves this by rallying an unusual combination of acoustic instruments (16 in total) played by top-of-their-field musicians, creating a truly unique sound world and tonal palette, including an Ondes Martenot, a 7-stringed Chinese instrument called a guqin, a marimba, a string 6-tet, a toy piano and a bass flute.

De Malsche always confronts all emotional levels of his source material head-on, making his soundtrack into much more than just a fever dream. It is a precise description of, and accompaniment to, a devastatingly impactful book.
Michiel De Malsche is a Belgian composer, multi-instrumentalist and sound designer. He studied classical composition at the conservatories of Rotterdam and Ghent. His music has been performed all over the world and he has composed and produced dozens of soundtracks for contemporary dance, theatre, movies and documentaries.

Besides his work as a contemporary classical composer, he is active as a studio musician and producer in the world of electronic music. More

The Idealist is one of the many projects of Joachim Nordwall who has a long history in Swedish experimental music running the quintessential iDEAL Recordings record label since 1998, as a member of the psych-drone duo Alvars Orkester, avant punk rock trio Kid Commando and ritual drone rock group The Skull Defekts and through his many solo recordings and collaborations with people such as John Duncan, Aaron Dilloway, Mika Vainio, Mats Gustafsson, Leif Elggren, Gabi Losoncy, Mark Wastell and Christine Abdelour.
As The Idealist, he has been delving into an amalgam of experimental techno, dub and industrial music since 2006. His new A Lion Is A Lion And Not A Lamb continues this perspective unabatedly, conjuring up six tracks that shimmer with an almost psychotropic intensity, sometimes including acidic touches, dwelling in a confrontational minimalist musical stance where repetition, bursts of gorgeous noise and dubbed out skeletal rhythms make for wayward yet driving grooves at home on the dance floor and a set of headphones alike. The Idealist looks for engagement within rhythm, in its almost purest form.

Design by Meeuw More

Prolonged and Sustained sees Lord Tang, real name Dominic Cramp, descend further into his characteristic dub-fused, kaleidoscopic and surreal sound universe. Three deceptively laidback tracks and two remixes conjure up an E.P. rife with contrast and juxtaposition. Cramp is influenced by soundtracks, vintage science fiction, dirty electronics, modular electronic sound, and much more, and within these tracks, all of those influences make total sense. Gritty rhythms and patches and dislocated and almost broken-down melodies push each other in and out of focus. Effects are used to shift attention and to obliterate said effects at the same time. Lord Tang's songs appear and dissipate, they exist and within their short time span lies a conflicting, dub-driven macrocosm that touches upon the dance floor as much as on the avant-garde.

Zonedog, aka Disrupt, gives a more cinematic and at the same time tribal feel to Mountains and Streams. His remix lends the track a linearity it did not have before. It also makes the inherent beauty of the track more outspoken, adding a layer of emotion that feels balanced and daring. Weird Dust reworks Clip Clop into a slow motion, almost house track. His remix takes a subdued stance, blurring the track's original elements into a filtered-down tribute to a lounge dance floor, buzzing with pink champagne. More

this is Pretty Sneaky .... BIG TIP! More

Repress!
"A mesmerizing descent into the artistic perspectives of two singular artists active in off-kilter club music !

Some of the eight tracks on this record were recorded live at the festival while others were recorded during the residency. All dwell in distorted and eccentric bliss and play around with rhythmic arrhythmic and post-rhythmic tension. There is happiness in dystopia although the subtle yet intense layering in the music hints at undercurrents that are far from bright. The joyousness of this record lies in the notable excitement Don't DJ and NWAQ experience fusing their modi operandi coming up with a music that shines and distorts. As massive blocks of sound alternate with subtler disorienting parts repetitive vocals create an air of disparate acceptance. It uses club music's template and pushes on. With the kind support of Ostbelgien." More

Repress!

Recorded at Friedenskirche, Eupen during the reiheM showcase at Meakusma Festival 2019

This record comes with a 12-page booklet that features an extensive Interview with Charlemagne Palestine, conducted by Dirk Specht and Hans W. Koch of reihe-M. More

Artist, producer and DJ Bryce Hackford will release on November 9th 2015 the nine-track album Behind, his second full length since 2013's Fair, and his first for Meakusma. Behind is an expansive collection for Hackford, who draws from experimental, process-oriented composition techniques to create sensorially engaging dance music. An ethos of presence, enrichment and dissociation pervades Behind - by stripping away the constructed-ness of so much dance music, Hackford allows himself to produce music that is as much a joy to create as it is to share. An ambassador of "ecstatic states" as he calls them, Hackford's music suggests heightened temporal zones may be ubiquitous if you allow them to be. Behind is a proposition of such ecstatic states, its music pulsing vitally at opposite ends of the BPM spectrum. Distinctly unmotivated by polemic dialogues around dance music, Behind seeks a more soluble musical space for unmitigated engagement. It is music inspired by transitions, no less vital before sunset as it is after the curtain call. More

Following up on "Like Comment," last year's excellent full-length by Georgia released on Meakusma, we are happy to present an eclectic and gently schizophrenic remix package, entitled "Like Comment Comments." The 12" features contributions by Bryce Hackford (Prah/DFA), Matt Werth (RVNG Intl.), Afrikan Sciences (DeepBlak/PAN) and Thomas Bullock (Rub-N-Tug), plus two new tracks by Georgia that further develop their informed hypnagogic ambient-pop tendencies. Bryce Hackfod takes Nu-Way Heat into subtle club music territory, conjuring up a distinct, varied and mesmerizing house track that builds and layers into a blissful mini-anthem. Matt Werth puts nu-digidub spin on Abstract High, turning the original into a confrontational and slightly absurdist slab of dancefloor confrontation. Afrikan Sciences deconstructs Mahbunzi Nahgo Pihndi Goes To The Market using his characteristic broken breakbeat approach to create a piece of daft and extremely modern electronic funk. Finally, Thomas Bullock modi-cuddles Haya into an prolonged ambient reverie to bridge and layer between dance floor pulsations.

More

On Mix Mup's first outing on meakusma, he once again delves deep into abstracted, bleeped-out house music. His characteristically playful and quirky sound has gained him a loyal following amongst those looking for grooves that are as smooth as they are chopped up. So here come three tracks aimed at adventurous dancefloors and one soulful, ambientish track to top it all off. Mix Mup's gentle and funk- and soul-induced madness is his claim to dance music freedom. For a few years now, Mix Mup has been in cahoots with Kassem Mosse, releasing the highly acclaimed collaborative effort MM/KM on The Trilogy Tapes. He has furthermore released his unique brand of off kilter club music on Hinge Finger and Mikrodisko. This new 12inch sees him develop his style even more, playing around with space and structure. Not straightforward, but ever keen on showing process, these four tracks are all beautiful house music miniatures that surpass readymade consumption, their unspokenness being their loudest plea.

More

Tokyo-based Ryo Murakami has been releasing slightly minimal-inflected house music since 2007. His club-oriented work has always been subtly atmospheric and deliberately soft-spoken and non-confrontational, conjuring up an original sound that fits to modern-day house music like a glove. He co-runs and releases on the Panrecords label and has also published his music on Dessous, Poker Flat, Baud, Curle, etc. His 2013 album "Depth Of Decay" signaled a change towards a more experimental, ambient-based sound. Meakusma is proud to present these two new tracks that combine the forward momentum of his previous work with his new-found experimental approach. Both tracks play with atmosphere and impact, are essentially slow burners that through Murakami's subtle play with dynamics and change become incredibly moving and abstracted studies into groove and ambient sound. Cherry on the cake is the Porter Ricks remix, their first 'production under the Porter Ricks moniker si nce their 2002 Nine Inch Nails remix. Here they catapult the Porter Ricks sound into today, without losing their trademark characteristics. A hazy glow that is as revealing as it is mystifying covers the track, whilst the basis of it is, in the best Porter Ricks tradition, a surprisingly funky twist on the rhythm and bass of the original track.

More

Georgia is a collaboration between Brian Close and Justin Tripp. On their own Georgia Sounds imprint, they have previously released one album, Asemic Club, a collection of sound recordings from the previous 5 years, woven together into a dizzying stew. Like Comment is their latest offering of polyrhythmic and wayward grooves, a stuttering and strutting exploration of edited improvisation and a comfortable confrontation between playful nonsense and deeper meaning. The album slides across a varied palette of sporadic rhythm pulses, ethno-tourist grooves, spiritual murk and 21st Century electronics, looking decidedly forward while nourished by the bounty of the past. In light of the group's extensive work in film and video for artists such as David Byrne, Lee Perry, Julia Holter and many more, the music on Like Comment often feels intended as an environmental accent or cinematic accompaniment, seemingly inspired as much by a location or visual as by other music. As the f irst full length album released by the Belgian meakusma label, Like Comment is a highly original and sophisticated take on modern club music.

More