Minimal 2016

Limited edition of 500. Tone Set (Galen Herod and Greg Horn) was an Arizona minimal synth duo that existed from 1981 to 1983. Their early sound mixed analog synthesizers and gritty drum machines with tapes of found speech. This was the sound of their first release, a 1982 cassette called Cal's Ranch recorded with almost no vocals at The Center for Advanced Studies and released through the Zia record store in Tempe, AZ. In 1982, Tone Set contributed the track "Out! Out! Out!" to Placebo Records' Amuck compilation (PLA-103), which also featured Meat Puppets, and Sun City Girls (the duo also contributed a track called "Happy People" under their Happy People alias). Vocals started to become a more prominent part of their sound by the time they recorded their Calibrate EP, released in February 1983 on Pegna Records (peg one). The first side featured three pop songs – "Life is Busy" and "Slim," both sung by Herod, and "Living In Another Land," sung by Horn.

Digitally remastered edition of this 1971 release. Steve Reich remains one of the most important figures in 20th century music. Though he studied at the prestigious arts institutions Julliard and Mills College, by the mid-1960s Reich set about dismantling the very orthodoxy that he had been trained in. Four Organs is the ultimate minimalist composition. Performed by Reich, Phillip Glass, Art Murphy and Steve Chambers, four identical Farfisa organs strike a single chord and gradually lengthen each note to produce polyrhythms between the players. Anchored by Jon Gibsons stoically-steady pulse on maracas, the piece deconstructs its opening burst to a sustained mass of sound - stretching the tones to create (in Reichs words) slow-motion music. Inspired by Reichs early training on drums, Phase Patterns treats the keyboards like tuned percussion instruments: a basic rhythm pattern is played in unison and almost imperceptibly increases tempo to move out-of-sync. Each progressive cycle emphasizes unique figures that are not generated by an individual alone, but rather emerge from the communal expression of the group. Originally released on Shandar in 1971, Four Organs / Phase Patterns is one of the most highly regarded avant-garde recordings in the past 50 years. This CD release features cover photography by artist Michael Snow and is recommended for fans of Neu!, Glenn Branca and Tim Hecker.

You Know What It's Like is the 2016 album by Australian musician Carla Dal Forno, known as a member of F Ingers and Tarcar. This is her first solo album for Blackest Ever Black.

Climata is a double CD set released in 2016 by Robert Curgenven. Sonic explorer released this project through Dragon's Eye Recordings.

Blank Banshee has carved a distinct niche for themselves within the ever-expanding electronic music scene. The project’s blend of fast-paced breakbeat rhythms, soothing vaporwave-esque synths and erratic vocal sampling crafts a sound that is wholly unique. On MEGA, their third album in four years, the production value is amped up, resulting in a sleek, stylized mosaic of a future that is too perfect to exist.

Music is shaped by the time and place it’s created… And in the 80s changes in politics, technology and culture came together to produce an explosion of new sounds that have come to define a generation. The importance and continued popularity of the 80s can’t be underestimated, from the pioneering producers of synthesised music like The Human League, Gary Numan and Giorgio Moroder to the immortal David Bowie. In addition, there are the brilliant electronic pop sounds of Soft Cell, Yazoo, Tears For Fears, Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys, Boy George and Visage… Play just one of these epoch defining tracks and you can feel the electricity of the era. And then there are the sounds which are uniquely British; from The Cure, New Order, Dream Academy and Black to Spandau Ballet and Bryan Ferry. These bands/artists perfectly summarise the mood of 80s Britain. Chilled Electronic 80s brings to life an alternative side of the decade; One of equal wonder to the dance floor electro classics but also of chilled cool. Over 3CDs, these classic laid back tracks chart the birth of modern chill-out, chilled dance and electronic today… So sit back, relax and drift back in time as Ministry of Sound presents… Chilled Electronic 80s.

In the clarity and elegance of its nine tracks, the music of Rodrigo Tavares in Congo seems to inhabit a very peculiar time and space, where the constructive rigour of the compositions, based on the contraction and expansion of some minimal elements, isn’t in any way incompatible with the air of perky lightness that the performance suggests.

Climata is a 2CD set by Robert Curgenven, described as "a composer/sound artist drawing on the physicality of sound - not just the physical impact on the body but the way in which the auditory can shape our perception of space and the flow of time, from architectural to open space." The album features two movements, one on each disc, for your listening enjoyment. This was released by Dragon's Eye Recordings and Recorded Fields Editions.