The Tammy Shine – OK Shine OK (HHBTM Records)
Monthly Archives: March 2026
Exit Chamber – Strategy Of Tension (Passed Recordings)
Label Description: I have once again broken my brain, and I am afraid that I am therefore inflicting it upon you too, dear listeners.
It’s hard not to feel like everything is ramping up right now but, as they say, there is nothing new under the sun. If we don’t learn from history etc etc. Further reading here, but prepare yourself for quite the rabbit hole: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_of_tension and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
I know physical media and shipping is asking a lot of people just now, so I’ve included the cassette masters and j-card as bonus items with the digital purchase so you can roll your own. Just print the j-card, score the folds on the back and cut it out.
Massive thanks to Ruinbox for the track art edits of the cover and phone wallpaper: ruinbox.bandcamp.com
Shout out to the Ghost Stories for the End of The World podcast too for making me aware of all this stuff initially: www.patreon.com/GhostStoriesForTheEnd
Bardo Pond – Volumes 4 & 5 (Fire Records)
Label Description: A double LP package from Bardo Pond, combining two of their super rare jam volumes on vinyl for the first time. A further edition in this celebrated series, ‘Volume 4’ and ‘Volume 5’ feature more freeform improvisational pieces from the hypnotic Philadelphia outfit.
Capturing the raw essence of the band, whose fearless exploration blurs the lines between structure, chaos, melody and noise. Bardo Pond’s music traverses space rock, acid rock, post-rock, shoegaze, noise, Krautrock and psychedelia.
‘Volume 4’ hails from self-released sessions recorded in January 2002, its five tracks include the supremely tripped out heaviness of ‘K2’ and the balance-shifting ‘New Drunks (Revisited)’ with Isobel Sollenberger’s exquisite and, frankly, quite disturbing vocal. They’re shorter interrogations of sound by Bardo terms, almost succinct in their mesmerising riffage and off-kilter arrangements.
By contrast, ‘Volume 5’ consists of two lengthy mantras recorded between 2000 and 2004 and released as the tape spool spiralled out. ‘FUFO’ sounds like Cluster unravelling with Merzbow mixing, a post-industrial slew of hypnotic proportions, while ‘Monarch’ begins as a Current 93-like neo-folk mood piece before evolving into a wailing slice of drone-drenched Americana by way of a Velvets’ jam.
“We were pushing improvisations as far as we could. It was glorious having the studio. The more that our heads were spinning after a session, the better we knew that session would sound when we listened back. We were getting together two nights a week, usually three or four hours working on material and songs and the other half the time letting loose. Volumes 4 and 5 gather together some of these improvisations, and one early song that we felt like doing.” Adds Michael Gibbons of Bardo Pond.
“One of underground rock’s most extraordinary enigmas, a majestic command of sound.” The Quietus
Plague Clock – Junkpile [Extended Anniversary Edition] (Self-Released)
Label Description: Tracks 1 to 14 are exactly the same as the original Junkpile album (unless I accidentally uploaded the wrong version…), nothing’s been remastered or anything. Tracks 15 to 20 are songs that I finished between Junkpile and Junk Drawer, but didn’t end up on that album for whatever reason.
Deadbeat – Kansai Botanicals (quiet details)
Label Description: Credits:
Music by Deadbeat
Mastered by Alex at quiet details studios
Artwork by quiet details in collaboration with Scott Monteith
Design by quiet details
© quiet details 2026 all rights reserved
It gives me great joy to announce that next in the quiet details series is an artist I’ve followed for a long time and have a huge amount of love for, the irrepressible Scott Monteith, here as Deadbeat.
Since the turn of the century, Scott has been at the forefront of the electronic music world, probably known best for his fathoms-deep dub, techno and house excursions. Releases on ~scape, Wagon Repair, his own BLKRTZ, Cynosure, Echochord, Visionquest and many others cemented him as a mainstay of the scene. There’s much more too – live performances, experiments across genres and collaborations with artists such as Paul St. Hilaire, The Orb and Lee Scratch Perry, Monolake, The Mole, Om Unit, Sa Pa and many more, have shown him to be as versatile as he is talented.
So it’s an honour to welcome him to quiet details, and he’s outdone himself with the next-level incredible Kansai Botanticals
Inspired during a packed tour of Japan, in his downtime Scott explored the countryside of Kyoto and the Kansai region. While there he collected the sounds and atmospheres, and this album is their musical manifestation.
A journey of hypnosis and textural bliss – vast subs meet glittering highs, held together by lush and vivid synthetics. Scott’s huge technical skill brings all these elements together in a beautifully elegant way, creating a vibrantly chromatic world that’s mesmerising at every step.
Made as a single piece, shared on the CD version in its original form, this is Deadbeat at his deepest and most psychedelic – truly a masterpiece from this revered artist.
As Scott says:
“The autumn colors were in full bloom, and the incredible serenity and beauty of the place were beyond words. Perhaps the most breathtaking of all was visiting the former studio of Yusai Okuda, which is where a great many of the photos I’ve included in the folder for potential cover ideas were taken.
In addition to his gorgeous silk dying works, the entire place uses water in various still pools to reflect the forest around it, creating some truly Lysergic scenes. The garden behind the house is filled with a collection of ceramic sculptures of diverse sizes, which you are invited to pour water into. The water then filters through several small openings and drips into the resonant ceramic body, producing a mind-blowingly complex range of rhythms and tonalities.
Needless to say, we spent a good long time recording and documenting these little wonders, and those recordings, along with ones made walking in the forest adjacent, served as the initial source material and inspiration for this work.
If it manages to effectively convey even a portion of the spirit of that wonderful place, which so enriched our souls, I couldn’t be happier.”
Huge thanks to Scott for this stunning addition to the series.
The artwork was made as always influenced by the music and idea behind the album – originating from a photo from Scott which was then captured with analogue photography and processed here at quiet details studios.
As usual, the album is presented on the physical edition, a custom six-panel digipack with a separate fine art print too.
The CD also has a special long-form continuous mix of the album, created by the artist and representing the music in its purest form – highly recommended.
blkrtz.bandcamp.com
Blood Collar – Shadow (Self-Released)
Label Description: Mutilating past musical transgressions into a slightly more powerful sounding collage of texture. Dark, industrial and experimental.
rauðvik – blóðsjúkdómur (Self-Released)
Label Description:
A ponderance on the cosmic horrors in the shadows, just beyond the veil of what you can see.
The sky and the cosmos are one.
Special thanks to everyone at FromSoftware for Bloodborne, which served as the inspiration for and subject matter of this album.
The sky and the cosmos are one.
Special thanks to everyone at FromSoftware for Bloodborne, which served as the inspiration for and subject matter of this album.
All sounds designed by rauðvik at Overlook Studios
Recorded, mixed, and mastered by rauðvik at Overlook Studios
Cover photo by Nephron – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9716436
Text added by rauðvik
Stevie Zeven – invixibel (Self-Released)
Isabel Pine – Fables (kranky)
Label Description:
This is the first widely distributed release for Isabel Pine after a series of self released EP’s and singles on Bandcamp. She studied classical music on viola from the age of 3 through into college, where she was on a path to be a performer in a large ensemble, but eventually left after feeling frustrated and limited in a world that did not provide much of an outlet for individual creativity. But the doors of perception really opened when she moved to British Columbia and was exposed to the raw beauty of the wilderness there.
She began recording at home using a basic audio setup along with a cello, viola, violin and double bass, and spent time making field recordings of natural sounds in BC. Her next idea was to actually move into nature to record, curious as to “how it would sound if I recorded outside entirely, with the natural reverb and sounds of the environment in the recording from the very beginning. The rustling of the leaves or a raven’s beating wings were as integral to the music as whatever I played.”
Fables is a mix of pieces that were recorded in the fall of 2024, in a small, remote cabin and outside, primarily using stringed instruments. The result is a series of stunning vignettes, meditations patiently unfurling like gentle waves, slowly advancing and retreating.
Olhava – Memorial (Avantgarde Music)
Label Description:
Stream the album on all platforms: band.link/olhava2026
Memorial continues the path opened by Sacrifice. After the burning, there is stillness. Time spent among what remains. Ashes settle, memory lingers, and the question is no longer how to begin again, but what can finally be released.
The record moves through remembrance toward letting go and acceptance — a quiet reconciliation with what cannot be carried further. It speaks from a single, unpersonified voice: a shared human state shaped by loss, exhaustion, love, and the fragile will to endure.
At its center stands a forest hut: not a physical place, but a retreat of the mind. A solitary structure in the woods, an escape from the collapsing outer world, where everything decays, familiar bonds loosen, and people drift apart and return changed. The hut becomes a memorial itself — an obelisk in the forest, a burial site for former lives, a place one returns to alone to contemplate what remains.
Inside, memory becomes both refuge and weight. What was meant to be forgotten stays. What was meant to last dissolves. Grief softens into stillness.
Unlike Sacrifice, Memorial offers a different kind of rebirth. Rebirth here is indistinct — a quieter transformation found in letting go rather than becoming. Only in its final moments does movement return: a fragile renewal, like thawed water finding its way to a river.
Memorial is dedicated to more than one loss. It holds space for the dead, for love that has outlived itself, for time that cannot be returned, for friends forced to flee, and for selves left behind. Its meaning remains open, shifting with each return — a structure in the forest, unchanged, waiting.
Information about vinyl and CD editions will be available very soon; as usual, they will be released via Avantgarde Music.
Memorial continues the path opened by Sacrifice. After the burning, there is stillness. Time spent among what remains. Ashes settle, memory lingers, and the question is no longer how to begin again, but what can finally be released.
The record moves through remembrance toward letting go and acceptance — a quiet reconciliation with what cannot be carried further. It speaks from a single, unpersonified voice: a shared human state shaped by loss, exhaustion, love, and the fragile will to endure.
At its center stands a forest hut: not a physical place, but a retreat of the mind. A solitary structure in the woods, an escape from the collapsing outer world, where everything decays, familiar bonds loosen, and people drift apart and return changed. The hut becomes a memorial itself — an obelisk in the forest, a burial site for former lives, a place one returns to alone to contemplate what remains.
Inside, memory becomes both refuge and weight. What was meant to be forgotten stays. What was meant to last dissolves. Grief softens into stillness.
Unlike Sacrifice, Memorial offers a different kind of rebirth. Rebirth here is indistinct — a quieter transformation found in letting go rather than becoming. Only in its final moments does movement return: a fragile renewal, like thawed water finding its way to a river.
Memorial is dedicated to more than one loss. It holds space for the dead, for love that has outlived itself, for time that cannot be returned, for friends forced to flee, and for selves left behind. Its meaning remains open, shifting with each return — a structure in the forest, unchanged, waiting.
Information about vinyl and CD editions will be available very soon; as usual, they will be released via Avantgarde Music.
Music – Andrey Novozhilov and Tim Yusupov
Screwdriver solo on track “When the Ashes Grow Cold” – Artem Selyugin of Show Me A Dinosaur, Somn, hopeyouwell
Sound – Mikhail Kurochkin
Artwork – Margot Makletsova
Music For The Rest Of Us 