Áine O'Dwyer Releases New Album Beast Diaries

Áine O'Dwyer has released a new album entitled Beast Diaries. O'Dwyer states that the album is a "compilation of Guerrilla performances / field recordings from 2016" which was then compiled this year for a pipe organ tour throughout Australia and New Zealand. Beast Diaries is comprised of six tracks that run for a total of 35 minutes. You can "name the price" on your download of the album on her Bandcamp page here. There are also 10 physical copies of the album available for £30 each. If interested, you can contact her via the "Contact Áine O'Dwyer" link located on the bottom right-hand corner of the page. Earlier this year, O'Dwyer released LP reissues of Gegenschein and Locusts via Penultimate Press. MIE also released Gallarais.

Beast Diaries tracklist:

1. ghostyard
2. Genieve
3. tanoy reflections towards the hills
4. knownunknown
5. synthpipe
6. birthyard

Boiler Room Streams 1995 Film About Tommi Grönlund and Mika Vainio's Sähkö Recordings

The late Mika Vainio cofounded Sähkö Recordings with Tommi Grönlund in 1993. And in 1995, Jimi Tenor documented numerous artists associated with the label working in the studio and performing live. Boiler Room is currently streaming the rare short film in its entirety here. The press release is as follows:

Mika Vainio’s death in April 2017 sent shock waves rippling through the electronic music community. The late Finnish musician left an indelible mark on noise thanks to his roles in the ‘90s group Pan Sonic and record label Sähkö Recordings. Over the years, Vainio collaborated with Björk, Suicide’s Alan Vega, drone icon Stephen O’Malley and more.

Now, just months following his passing, Boiler Room has unearthed a mythic film about the Sähkö label. Artfully shot on 16mm by Jimi Tenor in 1995, Sähkö The Movie - a title fans have given the film in the absence of any official one - is a suitably abstract portrayal of the singular label in its prime. Finnish artists featured include Sähkö co-founder Tommi Grönlund, Mono Junk, Hertsi, IFÖ, and, of course, Mika Vainio himself.

The film tracks the Finnish unit at work in the studio making tracks on their trademark custom-built analogue equipment, hand-pressing limited edition vinyl releases and their eardrum rupturing yet delicate live performances.Outside of a few select festival screenings and those who own a rare VHS edition released by Blast First Petite, hardly anyone has seen the 44-minute film but this hasn’t stopped it attaining legendary status.

 Essential viewing for anyone with a passing interest in techno, industrial and experimental music underpinned by a restless DIY spirit. From 10 August 2017, watch the film online for the first time exclusively via Boiler Room TV.

ErstDist Has Annual Sale, All New Releases Included

ErstDist, the distro run by Erstwhile Records boss Jon Abbey, is having its annual summer sale. The sale includes all items currently from Erstwhile and its imprints, Gravity Wave, and anything listed on the ErstDist distro page. The sale works as follows: purchase seven releases and get the cheapest two free. You can see prices for Erstwhile's releases on the Order page here. Please send an email to erstrecs@aol.com to place your order. The sale ends September 10th at midnight EST. More information can be found here.

Dean Hurley, Music Director for Twin Peaks: The Return, Releases New Album

You've heard it loud and clear from your corner of the internet's echo chamber: Twin Peaks: The Return is the greatest show on television right now. Those who just watched "Part 13" and want more content from the show are in luck tonight. Dean Hurley, the show's music director and sound supervisor, has just released a new album on Sacred Bones entitled Anthology Resource Vol. 1: △△. The album comprises Hurley's compositions and sound design work for the show. Hurley also contributed to Inland Empire and helped produce albums from David Lynch. He, Riley Lynch, and Dirty Beaches' Alex Zhang Hungtai appeared in "Part 5" as the band Trouble.

That's the cover above and the tracklist below. You can currently stream the album on Spotify and Apple Music. You can also stream and purchase the digital album from Bandcamp here. The record will be released on vinyl in the near future.

Anthology Resource Vol. 1: △△ tracklist:

1. Intro Cymbal Wind
2. Night Electricity Theme
3. Electricity I
4. Weighted Room / Choral Swarm
5. Tube Wind Dream
6. Tone / Slow Speed Prison / Low Mood
7. Slow One Chord Blues (Interior)
8. Interior Home by the Sea
9. Low Sustained Mystery
10. Angel Choir Reveal
11. Seven Heaven
12. Eastern European Symphonic Mood No. 1
13. Black Box
14. Girl Appears / Black Smoke
15. Shanghai Mysterioso
16. Forest / Interior
17. Electricity II
18. Future / Past

17853 Records Reissue Hiroshi Yoshimura's Pier & Loft, Pre-Orders Available Now

If you're like me, you consider Hiroshi Yoshimura to be one of the greatest ambient/new age artists of all time. If you're even more like me, you've been on the look out for his best releases on Discogs, eBay, and Yahoo! Auctions for quite some time, only to be consistently discouraged by the exorbitant prices they sell for. Luckily, Pier & Loft is getting reissued on vinyl for the very first time in late September via 17853 Records. Originally released in 1983 on cassette, Pier & Loft was created to soundtrack a fashion exhibition in Tokyo. The album was released on Fukusei Gijutsu Kohboh, a label run by Yoshio Ojima. Ojima produced it as well, and also released some of his own cult classic ambient/new age records during the 80s.

You can see the cover above, which was taken from an image in the original cassette's J-card. The tracklist and clips from the album can be found below. Pre-orders are currently available from distributors around the world. This includes Red Eye (UK), Phonica (UK), Pacific Beach Vinyl (USA), Rush Hour (Netherlands), and hhv (Germany). Japanese stores don't have the record currently listed but you can be sure to expect it from 17853 label boss Chee Shimizu's own Organic Music and other (killer) stores who have received the label's output in the past—HMV, Disk Union, Lighthouse Records, EAD, Los Apson?, Obscuro, Newtone, Rare Groove, and more.

Pier & Loft tracklist:

1. Horizon I've ever seen before
2. Signal F
3. Tokyo Bay Area
4. Wavy-patterned ice cream
5. Kamome dayori
6. The sea in my palm
7. In the sea breeze

Makoto Oshiro and Takahiro Kawaguchi Reissue Cassette Featuring ISSUE Project Room Performance

This past December, Makoto Oshiro and Takahiro Kawaguchi released a limited run of cassettes featuring a performance they had at Brooklyn's ISSUE Project Room in March 2016. They've just reissued the cassette in a small batch of 30. As before, the tape's B Side features remixes from Masahiko Okura, Giuseppe Ielasi, and Dawang Yingfan Huang. You can see an image of the colored cassettes above and the tracklist below. The tape costs ¥2000 and comes with a digital download code. If interested, you can order the tape directly from Makoto by emailing bsf.releases@gmail.com. Act quick though, as he is approximately down to fifteen tapes at the time of this post.

Recently, Makoto recorded, mastered, and appeared on a new album from Kakudo Manami. You can find more information about that pop-leaning project here. You can watch a music video of one of the tracks here. Makoto does have copies of those CDs as well.


Makoto Oshiro/Takahiro Kawaguchi tracklist:

Side A:
1. Makoto Oshiro/Takahiro Kawaguchi
Recorded at ISSUE Project Room 2016 by Bob Bellerue

Side B:
1. Masahiko Okura Remix
2. Giuseppe Ielasi Remix
3. Dawang Yingfan Huang Remix

Spectral Composer Ana-Maria Avram Has Passed Away at 55

Romanian composer, pianist, and conductor Ana-Maria Avram has passed away at the age of 55. Avram was co-composer of the spectral music-focused Hyperion Ensemble alongside Iancu Dumitrescu. Originally founded in 1976, the Bucharest-based ensemble performed pieces from both Avram and Dumitrescu around the world. Her works were primarily released via her Edition Modern label.

Over 200 Record Labels and Artists Join Bandcamp in Donating Today's Profits to Transgender Law Center

Today, music streaming platform Bandcamp will donate 100% of their profits to the Transgender Law Center, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting for change in laws and policies that discriminate against transgender and gender nonconforming people. Bandcamp is joined by over 200 record labels and artists who will also donate all profits made today to the TLC.

Some artists and record labels have uploaded unreleased music to the website as a result. This includes the release of "Joy Boy" by Julius Eastman from Frozen Reeds. The song was performed live at the same concert that featured "Femenine". Sarah Hennies has also released "Knees", a composition that utilizes empty beer kegs and a vibraphone. Jason Lescalleet has uploaded the aptly titled August 4th to the Glistening Examples page. As a note, this EP will only be up for today. And Liz Harris aka Grouper has also released "Children", a song that was written during the same sessions that produced Ruins.

You can view a complete list of all participating artists and record labels here. This benefit ends at midnight, pacific time.

Tone Glow Returns

Tone Glow returns today with the intent to provide coverage on contemporary experimental music. While everything is more or less the same as it was before, the site will now also feature a section entitled Glowing Recs (short for recommendations). The intent is to provide an update on music both new and old that I feel is worth checking out. These releases will not be accompanied by any text and will simply link to respective Discogs pages and sound clips if available. The Features section will continue but will have a broader focus that isn't limited to experimental music. Both of these changes will hopefully provide impetus to continue the existence of Tone Glow, even when I won't be able to review albums regularly. As a note, all news coverage and album reviews will still strictly focus on experimental music.

For now, we have a review of Alec Livaditis's Reticulate and an interview with the inimitable Mike Cooper. More to come soon. As always, thanks for reading.

AEU Festival Announced, to Take Place in June

Plans for this year's AEU festival have been announced and it's to take place on June 17th and 18th in NYC at the Fridman Gallery. The lineup includes numerous artists who have released, and will release albums on the Erstwhile AEU imprint. You can see the line-up above on the poster designed by Matthew Revert. However, a trio of Michael Bullock/Seth Cluett/Sarah Hennies has been added and is slated to play at 2PM on the 18th. For more information, you can visit the Facebook event page here.

Reed Evan Rosenberg and Ethan Tripp's Medium Rude, as well as Tim Albro and Tyler Keen's Summary Dismissal are expected to come out at the end of April. Recently, it was announced that Jason Zeh and Sarah Hennies are to collaborate on a future ErstAEU release.