There isn’t much known about Crystal Voyager & UFOm, the two musicians that created “Universe People.” We do know that it’s an album of deep ambience and weirdo sonic exploration; simultaneously harnessing lulling sounds and celestial vibrations alongside more visceral sonic encounters that exist somewhere else entirely.
As previously reported from last year’s “Aliens Are Real” by UFOm, the artist has ties to a low-profile religious organization which necessitates their secrecy. Thankfully, we do have a message from the duo to accompany this release: “From the far recesses of deep space, messages have been telepathically received and interpreted into aural vibrations used to open the pathways of communication between mankind and beings that exist outside our observable universe.” Due to the privacy requested by these two artists, this is all we are able to share with you for now, so continue to widen your mind, open your ears and keep watching the skies.
Music by Crystal Voyager & UFOm Produced by Myles Byrne-Dunhill Recorded West of the Mississippi River, USA, Earth
Performed by Steven Hess, Joseph Clayton Mills, Adam Sonderberg with Mark Wastell (1) and Linda Jankowska, Sarah Hughes, Seth Cooke (2)
Late Work I Recorded by Billy Steiger (London) Mixed by Olivia Block and Adam Sonderberg
Late Work II Recorded by Thomas Carroll (Leeds), Will Montgomery (Brighton), Kathy Hinde (Bristol), and Haptic Mixed by Joseph Clayton Mills
Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi
Across two decades of restless exploration, the Chicago trio Haptic has earned a reputation for meticulously assembled recordings complemented by unpredictable, often riveting live performances that veer from rigorous minimalism to densely textured, immersive sonic environments. Consistently blurring the lines between different genres and disciplines, their experimental practice has expanded to include installations, soundtracks, and unique site-specific performances at venues such as Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Lincoln Park Conservatory, and Hyde Park Art Center, as well as collaborations with dancers, filmmakers, and institutions such as the Chicago Film Archive and the Art Institute of Chicago. Their recorded output has been marked by a similar breadth and eclecticism, ranging from the intricacies of Scilens (2011) to the almost monochromatic hush of Abeyance (2014) and slow-motion dissolution of Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions (2024).
Research and development: Thanks to Mike Reed and Josh Berman (Chicago), Thomas Carroll (Leeds), Will Montgomery and Paul Khimasia Morgan (Brighton), Dan Linn-Pearl (Hay-on-Wye), Seth Cooke (Bristol), and Fielding Hope (London) for hosting; Sarah Hughes and Mark Wastell for logistical support; Linda Jankowska, Sarah Hughes, Seth Cooke, and Mark Wastell + Tim Daisy (Chicago) and Rose Linn-Pearl (Hay-on-Wye) for performing; Arts Council England and Arts Council Wales for financial support.
Ambivalence 2025: 28 September, Hungry Brain, Chicago; 2 October, Wharf Chambers, Leeds; 3 October, Coach House, Brighton; 4 October, The Old Electric Shop, Hay-on-Wye; 6 October, The Cube, Bristol; 7 October, Cafe OTO, London.
It has been twenty-five years since the seismic events of 2001—when twin towers collapsed under terrorist attack and Coventry’s sonic insurgent Russell Haswell launched his inaugural salvo on the original Mego label with Live Salvage 1997–2000. The intervening era has delivered unrelenting turbulence: protracted wars, institutional corruption, a global pandemic, the resurgence of fascist currents, rampant media distortion, and omnipresent surveillance. For Haswell, a lifelong admirer of 1970s and 1980s dystopian cinema, the verdict is unequivocal: “Science Fiction is now!”
In the face of this darkening reality, LET IT GO arrives as both acknowledgment and antidote. This new full length on Editions Mego extends an olive branch through defiant sonic diversity—an unpredictable mosaic that embraces everything from propulsive rhythms to radical abstraction and enveloping ambience. True to Haswell’s core practice, the material draws from the same tactile, free-improvised electroacoustic framework that powers his live sets: immediate, powerful and unscripted.
The album weaves reverent echoes of 1990s Detroit techno’s hypnotic pulse and the abrasive, metallic edge of the Birmingham sound into fractured generative territories. Haswell returns to his computer-generated origins while integrating his recent modular-synthesis experiments. During a residency at the Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts (BEK) in Norway, he harnessed the latest GRM Tools suite to conjure the volatile, “rapidly fluctuating pitched sounds” that characterized Iannis Xenakis’ late electronic works—resulting in pieces such as Fall 3 and Fall 2, where instability becomes a form of vitality. The tracks Exit Downwards and The Anxieties Of Our Time whilst reflecting the currents of the release also offer surprisingly melodic patterns over jagged rhythms. The wryly titled Thu 25 Dec 2025, (recorded in Glasgow after a solitary post-Christmas-lunch walk home) is a vast drone which evolves according to the random walk model—known more evocatively as the drunken walk—each sonic step veering unpredictably, mirroring the disoriented lens of contemporary existence.
LET IT GO is liberation. Amid the cacophony of crumbling certainties, Haswell deploys a full arsenal of resistance: kinetic drive, disorienting rupture, quiet refuge, raw aggression, and tentative hope. In an age where dystopia has shifted from fiction to lived fact, this music asserts that possibility endures.
Nick Smart – Piano Jordan Smart – Saxophone Rob Turner – Drums
Recorded March 20th to March 24th 2025 at Giant Wafer Studios, Wales Recorded by Ben Capp Mixed by Ben Capp Mastered by Shawn Joseph Composed by Mammal Hands Produced by Mammal Hands and Ben Capp Portrait photos by Tania Blanco Rubio Cover art by Cecily Eno
“Re-Make Re-Model” is the result of a five-year dialogue between Norway and New Zealand sound artists Lasse Marhaug and Bruce Russell. What first started as a friendly challenge during the Covid19-lockdown to re-work selected works from each other’s catalogue – using different techniques and experimental approaches, challenging each other to go to extremes – extended to what is now a double-CD and a 100-page book package of writings and photos. Each CDs has eight tracks, a total of 100 minutes of music. The book has extensive notes to each track (often with comments by the corresponding artist). In addition there’s a lengthy essay by Bruce Russell on the project’s origins and the nature of collaboration and noise making; a photo series by Lasse Marhaug; a series of stills by Bruce Russell taken from a video piece; as well as cover artwork and biographical notes.
“It quickly became apparent to me that the distinguishing aspect of this collaboration was that it was a competitive exchange, an ongoing game of ‘one-upmanship’ in which we each sought to outdo the other in terms of the inventiveness; the baroque and pointless complexity; or the sheer bloody-mindedness of the studio processes which we were inventing to transform the other’s work into something ‘rich and strange’” – Bruce Russell from his essay
Below rock bottom under the weight of truth. Yet in facing truth there is a spark that reveals there’s more to you than your darkest place. Over half a decade on from the release of their debut album, The Smothering Arms of Mercy, Melbourne progressive-death metal outfit Growth have re-emerged with Under The Under, the long-awaited second chapter of their planned trilogy aimed at going beyond expressing emotion, illustrating pathways of recovery while acknowledging the most dread-filled aspects of it.
The gap between releases has been deliberate….and necessary. Where The Smothering Arms of Mercy was written from within collapse, sickness and isolation, Under the Under exists in the far more uncomfortable space that follows: what happens when survival is no longer the question and you’re forced to confront who you are once the wreckage settles. In the bands own words, healing, is not gentle. It is an ugly process. Chaotic, disorienting and often more confronting than the pain that preceded it. Growth began in 2017 as a reflective space for brothers Tristan Barnes (guitar/bass/artwork) and Nelson Barnes(drums), and vocalist LF, later joined by Nick Rackham (bass) and Ben Boyle (guitar), to explore trauma, mental illness and grief without romanticising them. The project was never intended as catharsis for its own sake, but as a way to illustrate recovery in all its brutality. not as linear progress, but as something fractured, cyclical and deeply human. Under the Under is an album that documents six stages of recovery not as levels to be celebrated, but as thresholds to be endured. Across the record, Growth interrogates the dignity we attach to suffering, the comfort of identifying solely with trauma and the terrifying possibility that we might be more than the stories that have kept us alive.
If The Smothering Arms of Mercy was a document of total spiritual collapse, Under the Under is about the ugliness of its reconstruction. Shame, fear, memory and the quiet violence of choosing to move forward regardless. Growth does not offer solutions but instead offer honesty and an invitation to sit with the questions most of us spend our lives avoiding. Under The Under is planned for release on March 27 via Wild Thing Records and available for pre-order now.
Recorded, Mixed and Mastered by Tristan Barnes at Underland Recordings in Melbourne, Australia
Hverheij returns with his third Triplicate LP, serving up a mature and moody collection of dark symphonies that sound plucked directly from some award winning Scandinavian drama. 11 tightly constructed and neatly sequenced excursions to the other side await you. Dig in.
**************** INTERVIEW **************** George Ernst AKA Suncastle: This album kinda spooked me. Did you go into this intending to make such a foreboding piece of music?
Harry Verheijen AKA Hverheij: My idea when working on this album was focused on the concept of how creation evolved from void at the dawning of the world. From nothing comes something. How to take the abstract of that and give it some substance through my Push 2 offered me a way of producing sound further removed from other recent projects. I hadn’t really thought about doing anything deliberately foreboding as such, but I found immediate direction with ambient-based sounds in capturing nuances of the void. The first track I worked on was “In The Rising”, which portrays a quiet kind of disturbance and a type of uneasy anticipation, but nothing particularly foretelling of what would come later when doing other tracks. Once I started working on the Outreach pieces in particular, though, some of the music took on darker elements very naturally. How those foreboding elements interplay with the concept of creation as it evolves by the album’s conclusion is open to interpretation, of course.
GE: Are moodier pieces as fun to work on as joyous ones? I enjoy listening to both in more or less equal measure.
HV: Moody pieces are great fun! In the last 6 months I’ve had the pleasure of working in a unique collaborative venture online, where artists contribute without knowing in advance exactly what anyone else will be contributing. It has been a rare improvisation of eclectic sound, dark intonations, progressive directions and bright energy all rolled into one. It’s exciting to work on music against typecast of any kind because it stretches the imagination to produce by design something in that context.Maybe the horrendous weather we were having out here on the wet coast during the time I was working on Afterlight helped the imaging for some of the moodier tracks included in the final selection. Dark, gloomy days certainly acted as a catharsis. What I liked about working on those tracks was that I could use synth sounds not usually experimented with and that’s a fun thing to do at any time. And when the music heads off into the beyond, that’s satisfying. The last thing I want to do is repeat same old, same old. To quote Buzz Lighyear, “To infinity and beyond!” Of course, sometimes that takes it outward to show the dark side. And may the force be with you! Similarly, I get excited when I hear music produced by anyone where the sound is inventive and pushes into new boundaries. That just opens up the world and inspires! Like you, George, I enjoy the music in equal measure, whether its darker in mood or brighter in spirit. My choice of listening preference on a given day is occasionally filtered by the mood I may already be in, but my appreciation of what I hear isn’t limited that way. I let the artist take me on the road less travelled as the music plays when I listen. So I feel enriched – my personal music collection has a broad range.
GE: Played any good video games lately?
HV:Out of the swings of Assassin’s Creed II, it was easy to see the appeal of Fortnight some years back. Then Riot Games brought out Legends of Runeterra, which is based on a “free” mobile platform of collecting cards for power competing against multi-players. I like that it also has a single player mode. But, like a number of these types of games, there’s a certain investment needed to progress, too. As a strategy game with action, it’s been fun and very addictive once I got started. Easy to get lost in the imaginary world of it. But the complexity of keeping character cards clearly identified in my head with their rankings of spells, powers, and abilities is surreal. Just not enough hours to dedicate to keeping that game going consistently, which is the whole idea if you want to be really good with it. Go, Ezreal! Under their smaller sister company, Riot Games will be putting out a single player game for PC or console called Convergence that looks intriguing and is probably more in line with my particular time investment constraints. As a spin-off to the League of Legends universe, Convergence aims to follow the story of Ekko in the city of Zaun. In the outline, Ekko is a young inventor who creates a device that can manipulate time but encounters serious consequences to doing so. Preliminary action sequences look really cool! I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with it at the final release coming out later this year. And since I’m probably better shooting from the hip than casting cards, this might be a new fun diversion between music projects and other goings on.
GE: The structure and sequencing here are excellent. I love how you play with the listener’s mood, for instance, placing the bright and hopeful ‘Beyond Cubism’ after one of the darkest tunes on the record. Was this a challenge to get right?
HV: Yes, there were a few challenges. The order of the tracks on the album were not the order in which I actually worked on them, so I was progressing from a very abstract album concept at the outset and wasn’t sure how it would literally play out. Only when most of them were completed did I have a better idea of how the tracks might fit together. To give a clue to this, my original idea was that I would have started the album with “Outreach 1” and then followed with tracks in a different order from what you see in the final version. I changed the opening track choice because I felt that such a stark initiation to the album would have misrepresented what I later conceptualized as a better lead-in. There were also a couple of tracks that were dropped in the making, so there was a bit of private push and pull to album content before I sent in the demo. Not the first time for that, likely not the last time that happens, either. Anyway, in the end I decided the order of the tracks for Afterlight as you now see it presented. But it took a few shuffles to get it there. Your kind words give me confidence that maybe I got it right. So thanks for that!
GE: Would you rather the floor was lava (and your furniture was miraculously resistant to it) or wherever room you’re in, you’re constantly sharing it with no less than five wasps?
HV: These most dire members of the order of Entomons hold little appeal to the tranquility of my Zen. No less than five, you posit? But more you might deposit? I’ll take my vorpal sword in hand; so long time these manxome foes I sought— and rest me by the Tumtum tree, to stand awhile in thought……nay, they cannot stay. Sword of action would prove pure, the Raid more sure. I’ll use the spray! So raised against the buzz I made attack, my vorpal blade went snicker-snack with earnest wack; and released deep vapours hung with flack – followed that with wheezing hack. By one’s, and two’s, then three’s they fell – these wasps alighted as from hell. I left them dead, and with their manxome heads went galumphing back. “And hast thou slain the Entomon? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” Judge Poon loud chortled in his joy. Justified under retreating insecticidal glower, I pleaded to the hour of this power. Therewith a vincebus eruptum to newfound incorruptum – I took contemplation of lava over a sweet cup of java. Now, as in uffish thought I stand on lava floor, tongues of flame come whiffling through the tulgey wood and burbles my furniture as it comes! In char, like tar, it splinters that apart. How must I make a start? ‘Twas scrillig, and the plithy toves did myre and kimble in the glabe; All flimsy were the horogoves, and the tome paths outstrabe. (LC…/hv)
GE: What does the concept of Afterlight signify on this album?
HV: Afterlight is meant to signify a conscious response to the creative force – both the metaphysical and the internal. Recognition is fluid and often illuminated through universal expressions: ars est celare artem. The music of this album is a reflection of these broad strokes and conveyed emotionally. The main unifying elements of the album shift through aspects of half-light – or the interplay between light that filters through darkness. As life emanates from light, spirit rises out of void. These elements are inseparable as creation reaches outward. Let there be growth!
**************** REVIEW **************** No two Hverheij records sound alike. The only consistent theme is quality. Afterlight is his third release on Triplicate Records, following last Halloween’s Fringe Telemetry LP, and his wonderful label debut ‘If not Now’ from Xmas 2020.Sufficed to say like any of our quality artists, he lives and breathes this stuff. Indeed, it feels as though he’s breathing life into music itself on the organic and airy opening tracks ‘Nothing but the Pest u Lent’ and ‘In the Rising’. The former subtly tells us this record is going to be filled to the brim with menace. Colder themes are to be explored. The latter supplemented by a gorgeous yet foreboding voice, sung over cold knifepoint synthesizers. It’s all quite haunting and alarming, but it’s all just so beautifully arranged that you’ll find yourself quite contented to ride Hverheij’s ghost train to the next uneasy stop.First of a trilogy, ‘Outreach 1’ sounds like just that. A long forgotten destination on a ghostly line long since decommissioned, and in the same way that such real life locations can be thrilling to visit, the third track on the record has an undeniable magnetism to its murk. Elsewhere, ‘Biomorphology’, at nine and a half minutes into the album is the first glimmer of hope. The cold and desolation have been enjoyable to bask in, yet there’s no escaping the dopamine those pretty pipes releases. Soon accompanied by a smartly programmed arpeggio and string section, this extremely sonically varied tune is a pure delight to imbibe from start to finish.The slick arp-work continues on ‘Becoming’, their immediate revival announced by a warped and otherworldly horn arrangement. It feels as though the preceding themes are being married here. There’s bright notes of hope in the aforementioned arps playfulness, but the heaviness of the overall mood, and the cynical melodies threaten to swallow it.Appropriately titled, ‘Big Sky Dreaming’ has the most bombastic sound on the album. Punchy drums, soaring pads and a thumping, bubbling bass bound joyously into the moodier ‘Outreach 2′, a desolate frightening piece of music that conjures half remembered nightmares of running in place from the unidentifiable threat, represented here by the ominous pounding of drums.’Beyond Cubism’ feels like a beacon of hope, a decisive answer from the future to the pain-soaked question posed by its predecessor, though it’s not without edge. The erratic synth work gels dreamily with the returning vocals, and by the end, you’re not so sure whether you’ve been handed a life raft or an anchor. The sound of pulsing, sharp electricity becomes a recurring theme towards the end of the album, and is well represented on the following ‘All Reason Fled’. With a title like that, there’s not a lot of room for goofing around. Sure enough, it’s an intricately composed, mature piece of electronica that might feel therapeutic under the right listening conditions. Packed with delightful textures, funky organ stabs and warping effects, it’s an undeniably fun listen, and a definite highlight.Penultimately we arrive at the final instalment of the Outreach trilogy. Grandiose in its darkness and decidedly conclusive in sound. Tentative half-human sounding vocal flourishes, interspersed with Harsh blasts of noise and reverb-laden loose drum swings coalesce to create a cavernous and chaotic gem, which crumbles peacefully into our (sort of) title track, ‘A is for Afterlight’. Pretty keys that sound like the aural equivalent of bioluminescence are scattered across this simple, yet effective closer. The choice of simplicity here feels deliberate. In equal parts a sweet pudding after a rich and characterful main course of an album, and a palette cleanser for the next slice of genius Hverheij is sure to serve up. Dig in.
George Ernst Triplicate Records
Written & Produced by Harry Verheijen Mastered by Michael Southard Artwork by Bryan Kraft
The second full length from Fathomless started out as an homage to Star Trek villains and anti-heroes. But when it came time to write lyrics the realization dawned that life is imitating art a little too well these days and it morphed into an anti-fascist, anti-theocratic, anti-AI album.
The same lineup from the debut album returns, but this time with some special guests joining. Steve Wiener (Am I in Trouble?, Ashenheart, Eveale, Negative Bliss) contributes the albums only clean vocals in the title track. Josh Turner (Dischordia) contributes backing/additional vocals to “Spectres,” and Alicia Cordisco (Transgressive, Ex-Judicator) contributed a ripping guitar solo in “Intangibles.”
Stylistically this album embraces the Vulcan concept of “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.” While firmly rooted in Black Metal it also draws heavily from Death Metal, Thrash, Punk Rock, Blackgaze, Prog, and Stoner metal.
Fathomless II:Thy Desolation takes a more organic approach to production than the debut album. Mics on loud tube amps, live drums, no VSTs/amp sims, no sample replacement. The result is a wall of sound with a natural “live” feel.
Guest appearances: Steve Wiener (Am I in Trouble?, Ashenheart, Eveale, Negative Bliss)- Clean vocals on “Thy Desolation” Josh Turner (Dischordia) – Additional vocals on “Spectres” Alicia Cordisco (Transgressive, Ex-Judicator) – Guitar solo on “Intangibles”
All music and lyrics by Tyler Blake Produced, engineered, mixed, and mastered by Tyler Blake
Recorded at ToneTrip Studios and Fathomless Studios Reamping at ToneTrip Studios by Tyler Blake and Jon Reid
“On a fateful stormy night you receive a panicked phone message from your eccentric and mysterious neighbor Dr. Krick stammering that something terrible has happened and he must flee, begging you to watch over his infant daughter Amanda in his absence. After arriving at the monolithic lighthouse, you learn more about the doctor’s work – Krick’s research navigates the treacherous and unexplored territory of reducing the linear distance between planets and creating a proximity point by focusing electricity across a Fresnel lens, thus harnessing the electrical power stored in lightning to generate a portal to parallel universes. Before you have a chance to admire the vastness and complexity of the laboratory equipment, Amanda is snatched from her cradle by a dark ethereal creature and taken to a distant land in another dimension. Determined to rescue both Amanda and Krick, you follow them through the portal and into a strange world filled with sophisticated machines and bizarre architectures, a world once flourished but now largely destroyed, rendered nearly uninhabitable through the Dark Being’s malicious actions.”
“The Dark Being” is a journey through fantastic and harrowing cosmic realms. From torpid starfields to turbulent seas, from sunken submarines to a volcanic fortress, The Dark Being cascades through time & space as a veritable rollercoaster of sound & emotion. Intended to be perceived in its entirety, The Dark Being represents only one iteration of many possible journeys the listener can take as endless and infinite existential probabilities swirl around us at any given instance in time.
A world of thanks and gratitude to Brian Min for his masterful score to Lighthouse: The Dark Being, which on many occasions was the sole reason for this album’s continuation. Min’s compositions enthralled and captivated my young mind when I first played the game and were largely the reason I even considered this project in the first place.
Album mastered by Dan Paoletti, support their music here: apostrophebeats.bandcamp.com
Synth work/dark ambience on track 4 composed by Luciform, support them here: luciform.bandcamp.com/releases soundcloud.com/luciform
Album art by 0ceanfloor, support them here: twitter.com/0ceansfloor
And finally, a huge thanks to everybody else who contributed physically or emotionally to this project, you all mean so much to me. And biggest thanks to my prince Kodie ❤
Music For The Rest Of Us 