{"title":"Maple Death","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMaple Death Records is an independent record label founded by Jonathan Clancy in 2015. Originally based in Bologna, Italy, the label is now located in both London, England and Bologna. Maple Death Records is known for its commitment to showcasing unique and innovative music from a diverse range of artists.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe label has gained recognition for its distinctive sound and uncompromising approach to releasing music. With a focus on underground and experimental genres, Maple Death Records has become a platform for emerging talent as well as established artists who push boundaries.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDistributed by The Business and Republic Of Music, Maple Death Records continues to make waves in the music industry with its carefully curated releases. Whether you're a fan of *Jonathan Clancy* or other talented musicians on the label, you can expect nothing less than exceptional sonic experiences from Maple Death Records.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"unknown-city","title":"Unknown City","description":"\u003cp\u003eCreeping through an imaginary border, sidesteppin’ through the night like cyber phantoms eavesdropping on early morning machinery shifts, an industrial solstice for pagan mystics. After five years Torino’s mysterious SabaSaba are back with \u003ci\u003eUnknown City\u003c\/i\u003e an imaginary soundtrack for a dystopian city: digital raga, horror Exotica, half-speed techno, metallic dub and organic electronics.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe duo of Andrea Marini (synth, guitar, electronics, tapes) and Gabriele Maggiorotto (drums, percussion, effects, programming) return with their most political manifesto yet, an intricate musical essay inspired by China Miéville’s novel ‘The City And The City’, examining border control, repression, an unknown city where people move like ghosts without personality and without communicating, monitored on sight by the authorities. SabaSaba’s personal OST is a whirlwind of analog and digital instruments colliding, textured samples, syncopated drums and spiritual synth sweeps often heightened by Ambra Chiara Michelangeli’s eerie viola playing, an ancestral force resisting under a cement tower, modulars gasping for air, endlessly reverberating into noir-soul and gray landscapes. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLike Miéville’s two imaginary cities Ul Qoma e Besźel, SabaSaba’s journey is cavernous, claustrophobic at times, but a clear sense of evasion and resistance breaks through, small flickers of light, like a cyborg calibrating himself - the hypnotic dub ambient of ‘False Speech’ - for an ecstatic liberation - the trance inducing ‘Wrists Free’ featuring UK industrial techno duo Jerome. ‘Ul Qoma’ unites Boards of Canada’s emotional detune, with On-U Sound’s terrestrial ground force, ‘Night Plotters’ kosmische elevation is chained to the ground, while ‘Guarantee Safety In The Cities’ fluctuates like a nightrider, eyes shifting left and right, a somber procession descending into grace and paranoia ; ‘Catatonia’ is a message of hope, off-kilter beats carrying solitude on an unknown path. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eUnknown City\u003c\/i\u003e is an album for dark isolationists but also for people trying to connect, striving for freedom, be it primordial, celestial or written in dust. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Maple Death","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50389367783755,"sku":"2167254","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/SABASABA_-_UNKNOWN_CITY_-_PACKSHOT_bbb43432_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726358761"},{"product_id":"sunny-days","title":"Sunny Days","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen Dead Horses burst on the scene with \u003ci\u003eBallad For Losers \u003c\/i\u003ein 2017 directly from the acid-induced foggy lands of weird Ferrara they fooled everyone from the get-go and now they are back with the aptly titled ‘Sunny Days’. These characters were here to stay, unique, oblique and oblivious. Watching them live reminds you of the highs and lows of life, a train ready to derail at any curve, literally duct taped together, that suddenly arrives on the plateau, shining in the horizon. This is when it’s important to not blink, because mark my words, you might miss the rapture, even just a minute of pure forceful magic, where everything comes together, the peak and the ecstasy hand in hand. Their new record is once again an incredible mix of primitive-punk, Gun Club marshlands, country sadness and acid-folk that sways from the rays of light of the Vaselines to the dawn comedown of the Meat Puppets. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u0026lt;acquanonpotabile\u0026gt;’s words: A music journalist on the new Dead Horses record would write: a concentrate of early swampy grunge, mixed with the Californian folk psychedelia of the 60s and the folk-blues of the Appalachians, with a tune that even Piero Ciampi may have written. I am not a music journalist so these are my words: sweet and sad songs and soundscapes that embrace you and transmit human warmth to you. This is what music should be for, to warm you up, to excite you. The Dead Horses do all this naturally, they are three but when they play they turn into a ghost horse that gallops randomly around the Po valley looking for a route towards the Appenines. A real record, to be listened to in front of the fire, this winter will be cold, your bills will skyrocket and everything you do for a living will lose importance. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSunny Days is released by Maple Death. Recorded and mixed by Dead Horses. Mastered by Will Killingsworth at Dead Air Studios. 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This new offering \u003ci\u003eps\u003c\/i\u003e once again sees him in uncharted territories, where nature is sublimated into a personal alien vision mixing acid-folk fingerpicking, tonal ambience, psychedelic eccentricity and Italian 70s minimalism. Everest Magma rediscovers the folk roots of his dreamy alter ego Woodcutter. Once again he appears as a minstrel crossing moonstruck woods inhabited by gnomes, butterflies and crawling creatures. Nature is sublimated into a personal alien vision in which a lysergic approach triumphs in the arrangement of sound material and immersive musique concrète. Pure acid-folk fingerpicking communicates directly with the forest’s humus, steeped in wild and ethereal moods. Between schizoid or more lyrical moments, a persistent taste for subtle subterranean noises, electric flashes, radio and ufological interferences, deviant scents and psychological drifts permeates the flow. The abstracting structure of voices and singing expresses the cyclical beingness of living, a decontextualizing dimension of space and time. It’s the pantheistic feeling of a parallel naturalistic universe, which also takes cues from the psychedelic eccentricity of Claudio Rocchi’s ‘Suoni di Frontiera’, the Incredible String Band or Holy Modal Rounders\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Maple Death","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50417478205771,"sku":"2003226","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Piano_bf92601d_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726730614"},{"product_id":"lentius-profundius-suavius","title":"Lentius Profundius Suavius","description":"\u003cp\u003eAnd just like that he did it again, vanished. At this point Krano is an expert in the art of disappearing, after the dust settles he retreats, fades away into the hills behind Valdobbiadene and shuts down communication. It took four years to rescue from the vaults \u003ci\u003eRequiescat In Plavem\u003c\/i\u003e, Krano’s 2016 country-psychedelic masterpiece, a Venetian songbook for the Piave river shrouded in mystery and wonder that turned heads across the music circuits. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeven years later he’s back with \u003ci\u003eLentius Profundius Suavius\u003c\/i\u003e an incredible collection of songs about loss, solitude, death, darkness (Profundius) and sweetness, devotion and friendship (Suavius). Absolutely aching with soul, these ten songs channel rollicking twang, cosmic electric americana, honky-tonk mystics, noir gothic and fuzzed out spiritual rock’n’roll. As some would say, only the good sh*t, a masterclass in songcraft and true loner folk. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWho knows how, but Lentius Profundius Suavius\u003c\/i\u003e was vaguely inspired by the work of Italian peace activist Alexander Langer, a forgotten hero that relentlessly worked on eliminating ethnic boundaries and fostered ‘togetherness’ and true values of solidarity and ecological renaissance. “Slower rather than faster, deeper rather than higher and gently rather than hard” was Langer’s motto and fittingly is the reason behind the album’s title. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKrano’s music runs free, transcends barriers, a distillation of broken dreams tinted in black and white, where having the blues is not just a feeling but something you can’t shake, a wayfaring outsider on a journey side by side with players like Bill Fay, Robbie Basho, Skip Spence, Dave Bixby, inevitably bound to burn in eternity. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Maple Death","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50417493410123,"sku":"2005888","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/f1e54c50-3596-e114-a1fc-811e319b6921_6fdde2cf_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726731185"},{"product_id":"quale-futuro","title":"Quale Futuro?","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis is\u003ci\u003e Quale Futuro?\u003c\/i\u003e their debut LP for Maple Death Records. London based twee-punks Qlowski entered the studio in late January 2020, basically before everything. Crammed in a small studio room in Tottenham Hale with producer Lindsay A. Corstorphine (Sauna Youth, Cold Pumas, Middex) they created a striking, full blown manifesto, where their early post-punk nuances are heightened by an extremely poetic and compelling vision that encapsulates words, imagery and noise. Propulsive rhythms, a modern spin on kiwi-pop and a weird combination of dark punk, noise rock and flower pop are still the foundation of their sound but it’s the combination of bandleaders Mickey and Cecilia’s voices that creates an eerie effortless sense of familiarity. It’s no wonder they’ve known each other since they were young kids. Ferocity, heart, art and conviction travel together on Quale Futuro?, placing Qlowski in that beautiful lineage of bands trying to escape the masculine showmanship of borderline rock’n’roll and outsider punk. Martin Newell, Television Personalities, Half Japanese, The Raincoats, The Clean, Killing Joke, Aussie Punk. Music narrating life through all the artistic forms. If concrete-punk was just a fun label thrown around to define Qlowski in the early days, now it has become a calling, a statement defining their future. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Maple Death","offers":[{"title":"Brown | LP","offer_id":50417505763659,"sku":"1117598","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50417505927499,"sku":"1117597","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/d510b54e-2d05-4df6-b11d-c5c20ffab150_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726731457"},{"product_id":"stupidamutaforma","title":"Stupidamutaforma","description":"\u003cp\u003eEarly morning sensory comfort, eyes decompressing, mind unraveling and body detachment creating circular forms and layers of thought. It’s like being inside a prism of shadows and light slowly cascading through lost memory cells. This is where ‘Stupidamutaforma’, Fera’s debut for Maple Death reveals its groundwork. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFera is Andrea De Franco, electronic composer from Southern Italy now residing in Bologna, best known for his work as visual \/ comic artist and for running his own publishing house De Press. Just like with his drawings, Andrea De Franco, has been slowly building an expansive body of work collecting tracks, audio snippets and beautifully layered soundscapes that escape any definition of contemporary electronic form. \u003ci\u003eStupidamutaforma\u003c\/i\u003e dates back to 2008-2010, and like its title is a deep journey into synthesis and metamorphosis through psychedelic shapeshifting electronic songs dumbed down (stupida) to encapsulate grime, errors, terrestrial bleeps and pulsating techno. Ten years of work that De Franco does not see as some sort of culmination of efforts but rather as a state of transition from insecurity to coming to terms with his obsession and acknowledging that this music needs to remain in somewhat of a raw form.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere is a highly romantic human thump to Fera’s approach to what once would have been called IDM, a spiritual transcendent quality that permeates his sonic paintings. ‘Stupida’ and ‘Decline Harvest’ are bathed in melancholic abandonment akin to the geographic explorations of Boards Of Canada or the synthetic research of early Mego releases. ‘Yung Leaf’ and ‘Funeral Flute’ rhythms collide into AFX ambient beats and the experimental techno that we grew to love on Subsist. Industrial rivers overflow on ‘Carefucker’, recorded through old Sunn amps with added drum cymbals, while the Kosmische peaks of ‘Circadian Harp’ degrade into Disintegration Loops and sentimental abstraction. 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Without the burden of screen squashed waveforms interfering, the neo-ambient compositions took on an independent analog life, picking up grain and density, sounds gently undulating as if they were breathing machines, freewheeling arrangements that contain instinct, plot and execution. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLate Summer Low, the opening mood piece, sets the tone, a string of sad weird lonely islands in a forgotten sea fluctuating in a perfectly orchestrated mechanism. Rafferty’s delicate synthwork recalls the grace and bliss of Japanese ambient pioneers Yasuaki Shimizu and Hiroshi Yoshimura, where circular figures are allowed to dance (Endurance Dream) in unison, forming clockwork patterns (Dead Body Drawing) and meditative elegies (Aging Edges, The Yellowed Grass). What is stunning about Ancient Plastix’ nightly debut is how fully formed the song structures are, essentially distinctly scoring an evocative soundtrack to an imagined neo-noir movie that slowly moves between industrial landscapes (Cursed Space) and fog wrapped coniferous forests (The Dream Within The Dream Within). \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA light eerie presence hovers across, continuously challenging an album that sounds hopeful, even romantic, an inside game where both the ambient melancholy of Marc Barreca and the Carpenterian horror soundtrack work of Tim Krog can be heard making this debut an immersive, cohesive piece of work, where restriction leads to extension. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Maple Death","offers":[{"title":"Clear | LP","offer_id":50417514742091,"sku":"1143538","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/d9e2aca7-4026-49d8-ac4f-46387dfe09b2_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726731806"},{"product_id":"rimorso","title":"Rimorso","description":"\u003cp\u003eRepossessed by the past, bitten once again and forced to relive drama, history, memories, tradition and roots. A past that needs exorcizing, bending and re-imagining in order to move forward and depend on. This is \u003ci\u003eRimorso\u003c\/i\u003e, Mai Mai Mai’s colossal mediterranean gothic album. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKnown for his incredible blend of Southern Italian Folklore, industrial drone, proto-techno and punishing miasmic electronic music, Toni Cutrone aka Mai Mai Mai approached \u003ci\u003eRimorso\u003c\/i\u003e with a clean slate. 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Elements of acid, dance, folk, micro-tonal weirdness, horror, sensuality, impressionism, and bursts of rock fuse with Name's most direct yet ethereal lyric writing to date. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEach song with artful intention confuses dream-like experiences and common everyday situations, and vice-versa, sometimes inflicting a frightening energy into the banal, or this in reverse. 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The black terror of ‘Celestial Anacusma’ is followed by the space-jazz banquet of ‘Milk Tears In The Hug Chamber’ doped up cyber Sun Ra extravaganza featuring Laura Agnusdei and Luigi Monteanni (Artetetra) on saxophones and flutes; ‘Silenzio Solare’ sprinkles Mille Plateaux era minimalism all over hallucinations, while ‘Diluvia’ crosses industrial acid with perpetual motion; title track ‘Psiche Liberata’ murmurs mechanically, a downtempo drifter for the wide-eyed 7AM comedown: ‘Simulacrima’ melts Boards Of Canada’s mellow pastoralism with dystopian meta-level dreamland and ‘Riposa’ showcases an overwhelming melancholy executed with elegance in a slo-mo world where the ineffable transcends notions of ambient and becomes a warm embrace.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCreated on a Monotribe, MS20 and Volca Sample\/fm, ‘Psiche Liberata’s velvet heaviness was achieved by re-amping many of the instruments through a Leslie Rotary Speaker and a reel-to-reel Telefunken. 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Still led by the dual-force of Mickey and Cecilia, Qlowski has expanded into a collective with the addition of Christian, Lucy and James, creating a sense of urgency and sweeping palette that was only hinted at on their debut \u003ci\u003eQuale\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eFuturo\u003c\/i\u003e?. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDream-punk, propulsive rhythms, oblique kiwi-pop, dark punk are still part of their vocabulary but the band smashes borders with kosmische soundscapes, art-pop ballads, industrial beats and funked-up low-thud. Sonically impeccable, loaded with ear candy, the album was recorded in Dublin at Sonic Studios by Daniel Fox (Gilla Band) one of today’s most innovative producers and \u003ci\u003eThe Wound\u003c\/i\u003e ebbs and flows through syncopated grooves, abstraction and bliss, a work of contrast, dark-soft-heavy full cycle but mainly euphoric. The addition of drum pads, drum machines, electronics, analog pedals and field recordings are part of this process, it almost feels like a punk album for the club culture, where bodies and sweat are just one gear in bringing a community together. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFull of staples ‘Desire’ mixes anarcho-punk bleakness with New Order-ish ecstasy and Mickey’s commanding vocal presence, ‘Surrender’ almost feels like the Cure on a Martin Hannett diet of pills and reverb chambers, ‘It May Change’ and ‘Mastering The Motions’ dance on the cusp of angular funk, all wiry and bouncy recalling Pylon but also euro icons Kleenex. ‘Praxis’ and ‘Stronger Than’ show how far Qlowski has come, dream-pop ballads that shine though analog synths (Siel Orchestra, Juno) and Ceci’s heavenly delivery. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSpread out between London, New York and Glasgow, The Wound, is also the result of the dramatic past years we have been living in, written in between protests on the streets of London, rallies, Pro-Palestine marches, Renters’ Union gatherings, a sense of helplessness spreading but also a euphoric determination to fight and bring social justice at all costs. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\nEven when you feel resolutely in the camp of the defeated, you should know, defeat has nothing to do with surrender. 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Ballard’s climate-fiction foreshadowing sci-fi ruminations. These influences shift Agnusdei’s musical trajectory injecting doses of terrestrial malaise, the earthy sub-saharan ‘Ittiolalia’ with its wah-wah filtered sax and trance inducing groove; the rubbery playfulness of ‘Oasi Bar’; the gentle eco-system of ‘P.P.R.N’ reminiscent of Herbie Hancock’s innovative synthesis of funk, space and synthesizers; the kaleidoscopic northern lights of ‘Emperor Penguin Lullaby’, where south-east Asian echoes reach icy shores; the Jon Hassell hyper-ambience of ‘Cuttlefish REM Phase’; the post-apocalyptic march of ‘The Drowned World, a jazz standard for an artificial civilization on the brink of self-destruction. Nothing feels out of place and it’s no coincidence that one of the most powerful messages on the record is delivered on centerpiece ‘Are We Dinos?’ via an interview conducted with two preschoolers. Radical optimism or sonic liberation?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLaura Agnusdei’s tenor sax cuts deep all across \u003ci\u003eFlowers Are Blooming In Antarctica\u003c\/i\u003e, a laser baton raised up to the clouds, a conductor orchestrating devotional soundscapes for a three-eyed dolphin, guiding us through prismatic pastures and acidic oceans. 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Shedding the use of vocals has completely freed the band up into a mutating beast, wild horses racing beside a volcano eruption, improv bursts that perfectly soundtrack the ruins of a city facing the inhuman consequences of wild expansion and dumb economics. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eTransition\u003c\/i\u003e is a no-jazz, no-panic, no-border album, born between a small bar and a basement, reworking some ideas from the first Tv Dust sessions with a new mindset, with improvisation becoming an important tool in the trio's new path that already sees releases on Occult Punk Gang, My Own Private Records, Sentiero Futuro and Maple Death.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eTransition\u003c\/i\u003e like the transformation of the group, you still get the original package of furious hypnotic grooves, shortwave radio alien funk, devo-id convulsions, jittery no-wave and Italo post-punk tradition alongside dada-jazz and freeform freakouts. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eTransition\u003c\/i\u003e is our natural condition. No one is excluded.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Maple Death","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":51245547422027,"sku":"2239290","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/9c782318-1932-f34e-b7fc-19c080801730_cf294d40_thumbnail_4096.png?v=1739224963"},{"product_id":"chamaerops","title":"Chamaerops","description":"\u003cp\u003eShrouded in mystery just like their magical compositions Torino’s collective Heart Of Snake are joined by Mira for their first release in six years, the enchanted ragged vibration of \u003cem\u003eChamaerops\u003c\/em\u003e, a 40 minute opus that just like the cold-hardy palm that lends its name to the album, blends classical guitar, desert folk, meditative exotica and distant island lullabies that withstand the test of time.  \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOriginally led by Vincenzo Marando (Movie Star Junkies, Krano, Similou), Alberto Danzi (I Residenti, oAxAcA) and Cosimo Rosa (Krano), Heart Of Snake have expanded on \u003cem\u003eChamaerops\u003c\/em\u003e by adding Francesca Colombo aka Mira, violinist and composer based in Rome (member of Il Quadro di Troisi and the Misto Mame collective). The result is a unique voyage into the unknown, beautifully recorded by Paul Beauchamp, an immersive and cohesive listen that resembles a lost Polynesian documentary, a lysergic road trip through sweeping Mediterranean brush lands, lonely shrubs, torrential storms and Appalachian creeks. Divided into two sides, \u003cem\u003eChamaerops,\u003c\/em\u003e embodies the melancholy of a lonely plant sitting in an apartment, facing a window where stardust and rays of light gently dangle a promise of an outsider microcosm.  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe spirit of Frantz Casseus gently blowing through the reeds is deconstructed through field recordings, kosmische electronics, Haitian waltzes, the submerged quality of Pauline Oliveros’ accordion work and the steel guitar-delia of Santo \u0026amp; Johnny, half-speed-doped up Ry Cooder-ism and the spiritual sorcery of Dorothy Carter’s best work.  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eOnce again Heart Of Snake and Mira deliver an other-worldly soundtrack, a mesmerizing record that hypnotizes as soon as the first sweeping arpeggio kicks in, transforming energies from ancient and distant musical sources into dreams that lives here and now.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Maple Death","offers":[{"title":"LP - Black","offer_id":51612481290571,"sku":"R4616-8627","price":26.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/unnamed-2025-04-09T122249.895.jpg?v=1744197776"},{"product_id":"the-flip-side","title":"The Flip Side","description":"\u003cp\u003eSometimes records reflect life with an unsettling precision, your own breath sticking to a mirror, confounding or transforming reality. 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While his previous record ‘Introspection \/ Migration’ hinted at Middle-Eastern influences and merged the artists’ Arbëreshë upbringing with stoic ecstasis, free-form structures and guitar wizardry under sepia tone curtains, \u003cem\u003eThe Flip Side\u003c\/em\u003e twists, turns, falls down and rises to new heights, the widescreen breadth of Dominique Vaccaro’s cinematic vision projects new colours, a stark contrast of pastoral emerald green and pitch black asphalt, urban decay and mercurial mystery.  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eLike passages from some archaic songbook what astonishes is how detailed the new compositions are, a warm embrace like ‘Way To Long Goodbye’, counterpoint pianos leading the way down a Gershwin avenue; ‘You Got It All Wrong So Did I’ with its Van Dyke Parks arrangement; the 9 minute epic ‘Us As Ghosts’ a haunting ballad that resolves into kosmische landscapes; the muted symphony of ‘Fake Af’ and the spectral disorientation of ‘Nothing I Can Do But Flow’. Gentle drumming from collaborator Gianluca Panici augment the eeriness of \u003cem\u003eThe Flip Side\u003c\/em\u003e, motions that create a sense of suspension and yearning.  \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eVaccaro’s long standing career in electroacoustic music informs the record directly with a rich textural approach that blends looping, tape manipulation and electronic synthesis creating the perfect backdrop for his acoustic and resophonic guitars.  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eJ.H. Guraj’s musical realm bridges avant-garde, harmonic song-styling, silky piano-guitar interplay, musique concrète, abstract restraint and modern chamber music. A world where Charles Ives, Dirty Three, Branko Mataja, Dead Moon and Loren Connors collide. J.H. 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The resulting sound is menacing, humorous, harmonious, tumultuous, and at times quietly erotic. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlex Freiheit, a poet and vocalist, is widely recognized for her captivating work with the SIKSA duo. Over the past decade, she has delved into the realms of personal feminist storytelling, postmodern fairy tales, and queer legends, crafting unique and thought-provoking narratives. In this groundbreaking collaboration with talented composer Aleksandra Słyż, they are now delving into the herstory of lies and exaggerations, extracting the raw essence of these tales filled with stench, stains, secretions, and torn organs. Eyeless Freiheit haunts the hotel guests while dressed in a binder and holding a bottle filled with a corrosive substance. She shares compelling stories about the hidden activities and other secrets that unfold within the walls of hotels when no one is watching. Her gripping narrative is complemented by equally haunting and eerie music. Słyż divides the text into four chapters, skillfully intertwining synthetic and acoustic elements. She combines the sounds of synthesizers, woodwind and percussive instruments with vocals, creating a tense, dynamic soundscape. Freiheit’s voice possesses an earnest quality, where a frightening cadence suspiciously flips into a meditative cycle. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTogether, Freiheit and Słyż have crafted a bold and suggestive story that feels like the mesmerizing soundtrack to a contemporary Eastern European horror film, captivating an essence that is hard to pinpoint but instantly recognizable. This is abstractly powerful music that pushes listeners into a kaleidoscopic spiral that channels ecstatic over loss. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Maple Death","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":51816703689035,"sku":"R7312-0270","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"LP - Black","offer_id":51816703721803,"sku":"R7312-7966","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/click_84b7b596-593a-4d26-ab9b-a0bafcb07d58.jpg?v=1747228198"},{"product_id":"ora-sono-un-lago","title":"Ora Sono Un Lago","description":"\u003cp\u003eLike the emerald merkiness emerging from the cover photograph, Bono \/ Burattini’s new album \u003cem\u003eOra Sono Un Lago\u003c\/em\u003e transcends elements, a tenacious and brooding collection of work that testifies the duo’s growth and ghostly ability to immerse kosmische landscapes, stripped electronica and oscillatory psychedelia and emerge with songs meticulously constructed, dense and unforgiving, full of richly assembled textures and echoed out other-worldly choirs. Some might call it confessional mysticism. \u003cem\u003eOra Sono Un Lago\u003c\/em\u003e was recorded and produced impeccably by Grammy Award winning engineer Francesco Donadello (Hildur Gudnadottir, Johann Johannsson, Modeselektor and Thom Yorke, David Sylvian, Ben Frost, Nils Frahm) giving Francesca Bono (vocalist, performer, founder of Ofeliadorme and member of the Donnacirco collective) and Vittoria Burattini (percussionist, multi-faceted drummer and member of influential Italian avant-rock band Massimo Volume) the freedom to truly explore different compositional directions after their acclaimed debut ‘Suono In Un Tempo Trasfigurato’. The palette is wide, from the standout title-track, where scintillating complex sequences leave space to a spellbinding synth, to the menacing ‘Prove d’esistenza\/Il gesto’ lead by it’s funked-out robocop drums or its evil twin ‘Acrobata’, all hovering choppers and Carpenter existentialism. Pastoral minimalism and spiritual elegance take over on ‘Fragili danze’, a mesmerizing dance that mixes the emotional engagement found in Laurie Spiegel’s compositions and that constant search for human fabric. This is an element that is widely explored on the masterful album closing sequence of ‘Oltre le palpebre’ and ‘Lonely blue star’ where acoustic instrumentation pinpoints Bono \/ Burattini’s silky stratifications creating a sense of three-dimensional space and gentle propulsion. A mysterious mix that touches on the obscure rumblings of early UK post-rock greats Bark Psychosis\/Disco Inferno while keeping a hand deep in the pockets of Italian archival folklore and 70s tradition. Songs like ‘Come Un Riflesso’ are a good reminder that the duo’s rhythmical complexion definitely takes nods from Liebezeit’s playbook but are set on the duo’s own pace, a lone voyager on a hallucinatory trip. ‘Ora sono un lago’ is an album of staggering depth, a pointillist manifesto of contemporary futurism and hand-cranked emotionalism inspired by the poetry of Sylvia Plath and Patrizia Cavalli, where hypothesis and suspension become Bono \/ Burattini’s brushes for their distinctive blend of intimacy and reckoning. 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The album also incorporates recordings of the yarghul played by maestro Osama Abu Ali, percussions and bouzuq recorded in studio with Jihad Shouibi and Karam Fares in Ramallah. ‘Echoes of the Harvest’ features a special contribution by composer Alabaster DePlume, a beautiful Buchla \u0026amp; sax elegy, tear-shaking minimalism elevated by the haunting filtered voice of Hajja Badriya, a recording directly from the Ramallah Popular Art Center's Sound Archive. \u003cbr\u003eThe connection with the British musician and activist stems from Sound Of Places, a residency in the Cremisan Valley amongst the olive trees and monastery protecting the last strip of land in the area. Karakoz, the shadow theater typical of the Ottoman Empire (and thus also of Palestine), represents the physical side of the record, a time and place for gathering and community, while Jinn are left to roam and carry the spiritual force of the music. This unique collection blends ambient field recordings, studio sessions, and performances with local artists, alongside archival material from the Palestinian Sound Archive of the Popular Art Center in Ramallah. Through a meticulous intertwining of traditional chants, environmental soundscapes, and urban echoes, Mai Mai Mai crafts an immersive sonic journey that encapsulates the tensions, resilience, and profound beauty of the region. 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