Synth / Electronic / Ambient

“In 1983, electronic musician Rudolf Langer (Tyndall) and guitarist Peter Preuß teamed up to form a duo by the name of LAPRE (LAnger + PREuß). Aligned with the second generation of the Berlin School, their output is incredibly varied: from repetitive sequencer patterns via playfully cheerful synth pop all the way to atmospheric, hypnotic minor key expanses. It's all there. By 1984, LAPRE had released two tapes and a 12" vinyl. Bureau B's compilation presents the most compelling tracks from these releases...

Rudolf Langer (formerly of Tyndall) and Peter Preuss teamed up to create Lapre as a vehicle for their adventures in sonic experimentation. They set about capturing their nocturnal rehearsal room sessions on tape, Langer on synthesizer and Preuß on guitar. With the exception of a solitary single and a few extremely limited cassette runs, Lapre released no further material during their active phase. It was not until 2018 that their works became accessible to a wider audience, when Bureau B released the...

Rudolf Langer (formerly of Tyndall) and Peter Preuss teamed up to create Lapre as a vehicle for their adventures in sonic experimentation. They set about capturing their nocturnal rehearsal room sessions on tape, Langer on synthesizer and Preuß on guitar. With the exception of a solitary single and a few extremely limited cassette runs, Lapre released no further material during their active phase. It was not until 2018 that their works became accessible to a wider audience, when Bureau B released the...

Laraaji is a zither/electronic artist who was discovered by Brian Eno and who released Ambient 3: Day of Radiance on EG in 1980, right as the whole new age/ambient kerfluffle was taking off. The music is very peaceful and functions really well as...

“The 'Baptismal' project started out when Kramer invited me to collaborate with him on a project, and I tend to think in terms of what the listeners are open to hearing these days. In my mind was a recording that let the listeners leave the busy mind generated by mainstream media, so I came up with the idea of a baptism, immersive kind of LP in which the listener would Become totally present with the music. I suggested to Kramer the title 'Baptismal', and that the tracks would be called 'Gedunk', a...

“Originally released on cassette in 1986, Celestial Realms is a collaborative album from new age figurehead and Brian Eno-collaborator Laraaji, and fellow cosmic traveller Jonathan Goldman (aka Lyghte). Laraaji conjures his typically vivid soundworld of shimmering electric zither, while Goldman inhabits that world with pulsing guitar and droning synthesizer. A trance-inducing ambient voyage. Celestial Realms provides a 46-minute blissful ambient voyage featuring zither, bells, synthesizer, and guitar....

"Professional Sunflow is the first-time collaboration between Laraaji & Sun Araw, two colossal forces in contemporary electronic music. Laraaji's musical radiance has continued to shine brightly over four decades since being discovered by Brian Eno in New York's Washington Square Park in 1979. Sun Araw emerged out of Los Angeles' experimental scene in 2008 with transformative releases on a variety of trend-setting labels (Not Not Fun, Drag City and more).

The live performances on this double...

Teddy Lasry is best known as being one of the reed men in the first edition of Magma, appearing on Mekanik, 1001 and Kobaia.
But after leaving Magma circa 1973, he made a bunch of library music albums (which I have never heard), as well as two very excellent, more keyboard / electronic-styled progressive albums for RCA in 1976 and 1979, of which this is the first.
At one point, I tried to license the two RCA albums for Cuneiform, so you know that I think highly of them; this is its first-ever...

“The Outland album series was a collaborative endeavor by the visionary US bassist-producer Bill Laswell and the late German musician Pete Namlook that pushed the boundaries of dark ambient and electronic music. Spanning five albums released over a thirteen-year period from 1994, this new boxset serves as a testament to the creative synergy between the two masterminds.
At the time the duo joined forces, the New York-based Bill Laswell was already a famous producer with a massive client list that...

In 2018, K. Leimer released a very good homage to 70s German Kosmiche musik on vinyl-only and NOT on Palace of Lights (I didn’t know about it either!).
This is a remixed and hugely expanded version of that album and released on CD for the first time!

"Leimer's love of kosmische is evident from the start, as "Dunne Luft" condenses the earmarks of that sound into it's four minutes. There's the solar flares of guitar that arise early on in the track, fuzzy and luminous, serving less as a lead...

“Found object is a loan translation from the French objet trouvé, describing art created from undisguised, but often modified, objects or products that are not normally considered materials from which art is made, often because they already have a non-art function.
Like the results from automatic writing and readymades, Found Objects offers an approximation of those techniques in sound by repurposing displaced phrases and timbres, pitches, restatements, and treatments as the root technique...

“Write. Record. Break. Recategorize. Reassemble.
In K. Leimer's most recent work, he returns to his long-running interest in developing relationships in sound that are not composed, not planned, not under conscious influence or control. Phrases and patterns emerge from dense layering and editing; melodic elements are split apart, re-voiced and reset in successive contexts. A music of distressed fragments, Spall originates from acoustic, electric, synthesized, manipulated, torn, and piece-work audio...

“K. Leimer's The Starting Errors serves as a handy index of catastrophes. The album documents the way in which the repetition of unexamined cultural behaviors spread as established-even acceptable-practice in the service of the few, no matter how damaging and destructive those practices prove. Music of conscience and consequence set within a general theme of things-gone-wrong, the album is built around a set of errors carefully indexed by the title track: a text-centric piece read by Tallula Bentley...

"Threnody by K. Leimer is a music of disorientation, error and loss. Free of any particular sense of continuity or structure, Threnody dwells in an absent-minded and forgetful state, inhabiting an aftermath of events too disorienting to be completely comprehended. Highly atmospheric, the music draws from influences as diverse as Arve Henriksen, David Sylvian, Taylor Deupree and Biosphere. Shattered phrases emerge among shrouded details in a state of sustained incompleteness. In a departure for Leimer...

“A Figure Of Loss takes K. Leimer's music into highly personal terrain. Written and recorded during two dark years, the resulting work hovers in proximity of a calm and placid consistency, tenuously balanced on expanding and contracting foundations. Built mostly around modeled and treated piano and digital synthesis, a sense of coherence emerged from piece to piece during the recording and editing process, yielding a sustained, but disturbed elegiac atmosphere, seemingly content to meditate on it's own...

"Extensively manipulated audio files, layered elements combined from multiple versions of shared sources, edited, reshaped envelopes and extended periods of dust collecting resulted in six pieces of minimalist / process music. Layered by arbitrarily...

"The first phase of K. Leimer’s recorded work began in 1972 with the production of the Grey Cows cassette and culminated in 1983 with the release of Imposed Order. Though work seemingly stopped following the release of I/O, Leimer continued to record and experiment with sound during what proved to be a 15-year interegnum for his Palace of Lights label. That work, never before issued, is included in this expanded remaster. Imposed Absence features ten tracks recorded in the years between Imposed Order and...

"...K. Leimer creates similar sound mosaics, albeit with a greater dynamic range and rhythmic drive. He’s been putting out records since 1979 on his Palace of Lights label, sort of a Windham Hill of electronic music. As a Brian Eno disciple, Leimer is ...

Another handsomely packaged album of ambient music by this U.S. pioneer of the style.

"Lesser Epitomes is process music for active or passive listening. The pieces are derived from the aleatoric reordering of discreet, compatible musical...

"These things happen," says K. Leimer of LUYU. Listen Until You Understand is a test drive through an obstacle course designed for new instruments, arrangements, juxtapositions, and real-time experiments dedicated to leaving the original impulses untouched and unadorned. Joined at times by digital percussionist Dolphie Stein, the music throws itself against itself without loyalty to genre or form, mashing granular particles into a tremulous spectrum of soundwalls, transitions, noise, distortions, and the...

"K. Leimer, that neglected minimalist soundscaper is back with another smartly-packaged record, and it's a dandy, the sort of disc that begs the question as to why he isn't one of the Nobel Laureates of ambient already. Self-released on Leimer's own Pa...

Originally released in 2008, The Useless Lesson and Lesser Epitomes have been revisited, remixed, remastered and expanded with the 40-minute bonus EP Three Adaptations.

“Lesser Epitomes provides three short suites of music all composed using a system of chance to give shape to basic musical elements. The listener is then advised to randonly re-order them, creating a vast number of permutations within the set... as brief episodes of grouped strings move past each other with the stately...

“A conceptual and contemporary approach to early music, exploring its ambiences, timbres and feelings. Delicate experimentation with sound textures where different white noise tones can meet the strings from a viola da gamba. A cinematic work, very touching and emotional. Almost mystic, spiritual ambient.
K. Leimer and Marc Barreca are two American synth/multi-instrumental musicians that have been active since late '70s. They have some previous collaborations released in Leimer's imprint Palace Of...

“Craig Leon revisits the extraterrestrial origins of civilization in Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Vol. 2: The Canon. Picking up where the pioneering electronic albums Nommos and Visiting (Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Vol. 1) left off, The Canon traces the imparted knowledge of alien visitors as it spread from Africa across the ancient world. Co-produced and featuring vocals by Cassell Webb, the pair engage a sonic pallet familiar from Vol. 1, updated with ecstatic contemporary sound...

“Craig Leon revisits the extraterrestrial origins of civilization in Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Vol. 2: The Canon. Picking up where the pioneering electronic albums Nommos and Visiting (Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Vol. 1) left off, The Canon traces the imparted knowledge of alien visitors as it spread from Africa across the ancient world. Co-produced and featuring vocals by Cassell Webb, the pair engage a sonic pallet familiar from Vol. 1, updated with ecstatic contemporary sound...

“A much-told story by now, the chance encounter between Benjamin Lew and Steven Brown in the ebullient creative nexus that was Brussels in the early '80s led to one of these discreet but unforgettable minor miracles which take place sometimes. Poetic, magical and evocative, "Douzième Journée" takes the listener on a journey through alien landscapes, which has elicited comparisons to the music of Jon Hassell and Can.
Steven Brown is a front figure of US band Tuxedomoon. Benjamin Lew is a writer...

"To attempt to summarize the journey of Annea Lockwood's life, as a composer and performer, is difficult if not impossible. For six decades now, she has carved out a multifarious and fluid existence that has orbited various musical movements and approaches. Hers is a life led by intuition, curiosity and listening, one in which passion is paramount and wonderment abounds. If you were to reflect upon one aspect of her way of being that holds the greatest gravity in her day to day, it is perhaps listening....

Some of you with long memories and/or big record collections from the days of imports with JEM stickers on them, will recognize this name from his two releases on the Egg label ("The Most Progressive European Music Experience") from 1978 and 1980.
This is his 1st release from 1959, and is obviously, quite different, but is still interesting and avant music.

"Originally released in 1959, Musique Tachiste is the first in a series of rare records by French experimentalist Michel Magne. One of...

"Since he began moonlighting from his main gig as one-half of sci-fi prog powerhouse Zombi, multi-instrumentalist A.E. Paterra has become increasingly renowned as the mastermind behind Majeure. Following the assured debut epic, Timespan, his second...

"A decade ago, Zombi cofounder A.E. Paterra conceived his solo endeavor, Majeure. Released in 2009, the debut album, Timespan, took the term "full-length" quite literally - its 40-minute runtime filled by three epic, side-long journeys through time and space. It merged the sinister soundtracks of Vangelis and John Carpenter, the stately minimalism of Cluster and Ashra, and the relentless drive of Tangerine Dream and Jean-Michel Jarre, delivering inspired sci-fi disco-prog of the highest caliber...

Really great album of somewhat glitchy ambient atmospherics; after hearing it, you will not be surprised that he was Jon Hassell’s roommate (see below!)

“Even if you've never heard of Hugh Marsh you've almost certainly heard the sound of his violin. He's a featured player on soundtracks by Hans Zimmer and Harry Gregson-Williams, was nominated for a Juno award, recorded with Iggy Pop and The Stooges, and was in the backing band for Bauhaus' Peter Murphy, all a tiny fraction of his decades-long...

Features the Masin track 'Clouds' as sampled by To Rococo Rot and Björk."

“Following the reissue of the entire recorded output of South London-based experimental act This Heat and it's successor, Camberwell Now, Modern Classics Recordings holds the lens up to a special split album created by one of the driving forces behind those groups - drummer Charles Hayward - in collaboration with Italian musician Gigi Masin, whose looping, rhythmic, electronic compositions have seen his cult following grow.

“A reissue of Carl Matthews' Call For World Saviours, originally issued in 1984. Mesmerizing DIY electronic music from Cumbria, UK, influenced by the Berlin School but even more by Tim Blake, Call For World Saviours was originally released 1984 on cassette only; this is this music's first time on CD and vinyl.”

"Carl Matthews is by no means immune to the maelstrom of geocaching notebooks. Krautrock (tick), guerrilla DIY cassette-era artist (tick), under-rated UK electronic composer (tick). Man...

Steve Maxwell Von Braund: ARP2600, Mini Korg 500, Roland Strings, Ace Tone Rhythm Ace, Alto Saxophone
Gil Matthews: Drums (A2, B1, B2)
Mark Jones: Synthesizer (A4), Bass (A2, B1, B2)
Paul Howells: Synthesizer (B3)

A sequel to the cult 1975 Australian Space Rock album 'Monster Planet' by Steve Maxwell Von Braund. Previously unreleased tracks from the Cybotron founder. Will appeal to fans of Krautrock and Cosmic Electronic music.
On the cusp of the 45th anniversary of the...

“Presented together for the first time, American composer John McGuire's Pulse Music series (1975-1979) blurs the popular narrative that Minimalism was a reaction against Europe's angular, intellectual, inscrutable high-modernism. McGuire, born in California, studied at Occidental College in Los Angeles and UC Berkeley before going to Europe to study with Karlheinz Stockhausen, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Gottfried Michael Koenig. His compositions lock serialism's warped geometries onto an evenly spaced...

“In 1968, Bay Area native Doug McKechnie got hold of one the very first modular Moog synthesizers ever made and began finding his own way to play it. Soon, he was hauling the finicky instrument around to perform improvised concerts at colleges and psychedelic ballrooms, as well as an ill-fated appearance on the bill at Altamont.
Some of the performances were recorded, and the surviving tapes -- never before released -- capture a free-flowing, transportive sound that fills in the gap between the...

Our second release by Piero Milesi, this is a soundtrack to a ‘video opera’ from 1987, in collaboration with composer Daniel Bacalov.
We are very happy to have a vinyl version of this electronic release made available, in collaboration with Soave Records and Daniel Bacalov, for its 30th anniversary!!

“La Camera Astratta is the result of the amazing collaboration between Piero Milesi e Daniel Bacalov with the experimental theatre-performance of the Studio Azzurro and Giorgio Barberio...

"Look is a concentrated soundscape experience inspired by Japanese synth guitars from the 1970's. An exciting excursion from his previous singer-songwriter material, this release fits in line with similarly groundbreaking records such as Brian Eno's "Music for Airports".”

“Blake Mills earned a reputation as producer and guitarist who prized authenticity in his work, which is what makes this 2018 album Look so startling. Consisting of five tracks of wordless, formless ambient music, Look is...

"The official reissue of legendary album KI-Motion by Japanese percussionist Midori Takada's MKWAJU Ensemble, originally released in 1981.
A highly creative and transcendental fusion of marimba, vibraphone, bamboo percussion, and synthesizers, KI-Motion was recorded in 1981 and captures the birth of Midori Takada's exploration of minimalism, African rhythmic tradition, and ambient music. The album takes its conceptual inspiration from the tamarind ("mkwaju" in Swahili), a drought resistant tree....

"The official reissue of legendary album KI-Motion by Japanese percussionist Midori Takada's MKWAJU Ensemble, originally released in 1981.
A highly creative and transcendental fusion of marimba, vibraphone, bamboo percussion, and synthesizers, KI-Motion was recorded in 1981 and captures the birth of Midori Takada's exploration of minimalism, African rhythmic tradition, and ambient music. The album takes its conceptual inspiration from the tamarind ("mkwaju" in Swahili), a drought resistant tree....

"The Mnemonists were a legendary group of composers and artists from Fort Collins, Colorado, who went on to call themselves Biota. They created drifting hypnotic sound collages out of pre-industrial loops, processed ambient sound, rock 'n' roll guitar, and fragments of half forgotten memory. Their work was highly visual, and always accompanied by beautiful line drawings and painted art works; the total meaning is forged from the combination of sonic and visual information. Gyromancy stands as a classic...

“New album by Sweden's long-standing project Moljebka Pvlse. The source material and foundation for this album are field-recordings by Mathias Josefson collected on a journey through the deserts of the American Southwest and translated into an acoustic travel journal through a spectral landscape, where the edges of memory and imagination are blurred.
Joining Mathias on this album is John Björkman, who performs on instruments acquired on his travels to Nepal and whose performance was recorded at the...

“Memorymetropolis was originally released in 1983. Walter Bachauer has been an active part of Berlin's but all in all Germany's electronic and progressive music scene as long as he lived with his greatest achievements being the Meta Music festivals in Berlin in 1974, 1976, and 1978 while he worked as a line producer at RiasBerlin, the city's biggest radio station. In the early to mid-80s he got back to compose and play music under the pseudonym Clara Mondshine and this is his second out of three albums...

“Clara Mondshine's Visions Of Audio was originally released in 1987. The final instalment of the electronic fusion projects that Walter Bachauer concocted for Klaus Schulze's Innovative Communication label, Visions Of Audio delves further into minimalist musique concrete, extending themes developed on Memorymetropolis (1983) in drawing on non-European vocal chants, here applied in dissociative layers. The diverse, complex arrangements include the symphonic synths of "Promised Land" and the war-mode...

This is Anthony Moore of Slapp Happy in his guise as 20th century avant-garde composer. No CD release of this album of minimal music.

"a-musik is honoured to present a new album by one of our all-time favourites, anthony moore. we've been faszinated by his work, both with slapp happy and solo, since quite a long time now, and are happy to release this lp with wonderful live recordings he did with the missing present band in cologne in late 2015."

A more ‘chill out’ album than “Light Echoes” or “Pangea Ultima”, which are my personal favorites, but this still delivers the magic, with the sequencers more subdued than on his more aggressive style. Recommended.

“When a synth master like Steve Moore joins forces with the legendary KPM, magic must materialize. And so it does with Analog Sensitivity: cinematic, enigmatic synthscapes to both haunt and heal.
New York-based multi-instrumentalist/producer/film composer Steve Moore is probably..

Great to see Steve return with a new, non-soundtrack release and to see him adding some unusual guests with unusual instrumentations here!

“Beloved Exile is the new studio full-length by Steve Moore, his first non-soundtrack album in over five years, and his first for Temporary Residence Ltd. A prevalent figure of the modern synth era, Moore cofounded the influential synth- prog duo, Zombi, and has scored more than a dozen feature films and TV shows, including The Guest, Crunch Time, and Mayhem...

Great to see Steve return with a new, non-soundtrack release and to see him adding some unusual guests with unusual instrumentations here!

“Beloved Exile is the new studio full-length by Steve Moore, his first non-soundtrack album in over five years, and his first for Temporary Residence Ltd. A prevalent figure of the modern synth era, Moore cofounded the influential synth- prog duo, Zombi, and has scored more than a dozen feature films and TV shows, including The Guest, Crunch Time, and Mayhem...

“Critically acclaimed synthesist / multi instrumentalist STEVE MOORE (ZOMBI) presents the score to the 2019 feature film "Bliss". From pulsing, panic-inducing freneticism of tracks such as "The Bite" to calm and contemplative melodies and guitar leads endearing the listener to the film's lead character,"Bliss" sees STEVE MOORE at his most dynamic, intense, and nuanced.”

Synthesist Steve Moore is one half of the excellent, 70s-inspired, synth/prog duo Zombi. In addition to the six albums released by Zombi, he has a prolific and thriving solo career. This album, released simultaneously with Zombi's latest, Shape Shift, is the soundtrack to a horror film and is one of his great ones, mixing spacey sequencing and droning menace. Recommended!

"Except for a few brief moments of pounding tribal percussion, Moore’s score for Cub is primarily an exercise in epic 1970s...