Monthly Archives: February 2026

Severed+Said – SEER (Image Research Records)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

Severed+Said sounds like music made in a dark room with one flickering candle and a head full of unsent letters.

It lives in that shadowy realm between darkwave and post-industrial. The beats aren’t there to make you dance so much as take you inward, inspiring a reflective trance. Mechanical pulses tick like anxious thoughts. Synths stretch and moan, often detuned, uneasy, like they don’t trust themselves. Melody shows up, but it’s wounded, scarred, and limping. Beautiful because it’s alive, existing in the nether zone.

The latest offering, ‘SEER’, takes the ethos to unseen heights. Soaring in a murky, watercolor world. Somewhere between the dark of night and the soft glow of dawn. The kind of record that sits with you in your own uncertainty, pulling you closer, seeing you as you are. – HPT

Written and recorded by John Touchton
Mixed and mastered by Jeremiah Ezekiel Johnson
Art and design by Jason Gvvl
Cassette Design by Justin Myers

Colin Stetson / Greg Fox / Trevor Dunn – Nethering (Envision Records)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description: Recorded in 2018, the friends improvised and let their creativity go wild. The album is the first in a collaboration series Colin Stetson has been working on between soundtrack and solo projects over the past few years. Envision Records (North America) along with their label partner Invada (ROW) will be releasing Colin Stetson’s series of minimal free jazz and improvised collaborations – essentially, snapshots of sonic and visual moments in time.

Alphabet Dust – Over Here, Asteroid (Self-Released)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

All organised noise by Kenneth Brown
except: Peter Russell, Clarinet on Euphrosyne

Recorded in the Cupboard Studio, Stirling
Pallas is an excerpt from a live performance at
The Old Hairdressers, Glasgow, 4th July 2024

© Another “Bite The Hand That Feeds” Production 2026

KMRU – Kin (Editions Mego)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

Editions Mego welcomes KMRU back to the fold. Kin is Nairobi born, Berlin based, sonic wizard Joseph Kamaru’s second release on Editions Mego, following on from the classic 2020 release Peel. Since the release and subsequent praise for Peel, the artist has been a staple on the electronic scene performing on numerous stages and festivals worldwide in tandem with a flood of media recognition. Kin could be construed as the second child following Peel. The project came out of initial discussions with Peter Rehberg about what a Peel sequel would sound like. Kamaru is quick to clarify that Kin is not that record; “I’ll know when that record will come and when I’ll make it. It’s already happening… or maybe it lives within both of these Mego records”.

It is this deft ambiguity and vague tiptoeing around the concrete that encapsulates the ambiguous sound world of Kamaru’s vision.

Kin was started early 2021 in Nairobi with Kamaru exploring his noisier palette of sounds encompassing distortions reminiscent of the sounds he would muster from in his youth when playing guitar. He paused making this record for a year as soon as Peter died, then slowly returned to it through 2022 resulting in the immense new work we have here.

The charms within Kin lay as Easter eggs revealing the true identity behind the colourful sonics only after multiple deep listens. With Trees Where We Can See sets the tone by way of a warm swaying melody inviting the listener in for further investigation. In 2022 KMRU and Mego stalwart Fennesz toured the USA together resulting in a strong friendship and also, the second track here, Blurred. A neat Mego/Editions Mego loop as such. Blurred arranges twangy guitar strums alongside glistening glaciers of shimmering drones. They Are Here represents a darker hue as melancholic clouds of shadowy noir tap directly into the listener’s nerve stream. Maybe takes a detour into a bristling euphoric electronic storm whilst We Are screeches in a pattern formation not unlike a highly abstracted Aphex Twin forcing its way out of a hard drive. By Absence concludes proceedings, operating as both exit music and a portal to further sonic investigation with acoustic bellowing residing amongst a kaleidoscopic backdrop.

Kin is a trip that rewards close repeated listens as all the colours and textures, nuance and narratives unveil themselves. This isn’t a record to be glossed over, magic rewards concentration.

Kin is a record to be Played slow and LOUD.

For Pita.

All tracks written, produced, mixed by Joseph Kamaru
Blurred co-written & produced with Christian Fennesz
Mastered by Stephan Mathieu at Schwebung Mastering
Photography: Joseph Kamaru
Layout & Design: Nik Void
Cut by Andreas Kauffelt at Schnittstelle, Berlin

Robert Dallas Gray – Missals (Self-Released)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

Part of the practice of making music involves arriving at and maintaining a sort of coherence and continuity – a heuristic that defines personal rules and parameters, however loosely. These parameters can always be pushed outwards or arbitrarily compressed, but the shape of things needs to make sense, over shorter and longer spans of time and collections of work.

Missals represents something of a suspension of my own rules; it has its own internal language, although it exists in a dialogue with the other records.

There are some obvious entries in the lexicon – some technical, some iconographic. Every track uses my Dynacord tape echo; the overall shape of the record is a cycle; influences are left as pure colours, rather than elided and absorbed.

It is a (rather compact) concept album, in short, and a way both to get some musical ideas off my chest and to kick some of my personal parameters outward a little. Its conceit allows me to take the devotional aspects that seemed to emerge on The Vallum and push them as far as I can within my own worldview.

Missals is presented with heartfelt thanks to Kris Boyle for his extraordinary accompanying video works, and to LADYfingers for their beautiful artwork. Both of these feature in the attached digital booklet.

The opening track, Morning Portal, first appeared on the compilation One More Tune, and is dedicated to the memory of Keith McIvor.

Jarl – Nerve Cell Threads Electronics (Zoharum)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

We are glad to present the new album of Jarl titled „Nerve Cell Threads Electronics”. The Swedish musician refers to the themes that accompanied the creation of the trilogy on the brain and the nervous system, making the new publication an informal, fourth part of the series in which he touched on the topics of neurotransmitters, receptors and synapses. The album contains four tracks called „Electrical Impulse 1 – 4”, filling nearly 60 minutes. This time the tracks has a little darker tone/sound, but still psychedelic, melodic, restrained and sometimes intense with percussive layers and sequencer based with thick analogue sounds that slowly changes into other sounds.
The album is available on CD in a six-panel digipack, on cassette and in digital format.
 

Composed, recorded and mixed by Erik Jarl.
Cover artwork & design by Karolina Urbaniak.
Mastered by Peter Andersson