Monthly Archives: June 2026

Extraordinary Popular Delusions – The Last Quintet (Corbett Vs. Dempsey)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description: Two decades ago, an all-star assembly of Chicago improvisers started a new band, drawing its name from an 1841 book by Charles Mackay: Extraordinary Popular Delusions. With weekly gigs at a spot in Chicago called Hotti Biscotti, Jim Baker, Mars Williams, Brian Sandstrom, and Steve Hunt honed their sound, which could be ferocious or impressionistic or diffuse, as they moment required. After a couple years, the quartet moved to a regular Monday session at Beat Kitchen, where they have maintained their weekly residency for more than fifteen years. Williams was from time to time called away on tour, frequently enough that the band invited another horn player, the venerable Edward Wilkerson Jr., to substitute. This inevitably led to quintet convenings with both Williams and Wilkerson, the likes of which are now legend. Without question, although they have only released two previous records, EPD is one of the signal ensembles of Chicago creative music.

Mars Williams (1955-2023) had been diagnosed with late-stage cancer when EPD booked a concert at Elastic Arts Foundation at the end of August, 2023. Williams, who lived less than three months more, was on the bill. Nobody expected him to play the way he did. More than an honorary appearance, this was Mars at the top of his game, playing, as it were, for his life. With Sandstrom switching between bass, trumpet, and electric guitar, Wilkerson doubling on saxophone and clarinet as well as oud and didgeridoo, Baker on ARP synthesizer and piano as well as violin, and Hunt on all sorts of percussion, Williams’ table of toys and his blazing soprano, alto, and tenor saxophones were in perfect company – a band that could freely improvise open structures and instantly compose unforeseen suites, while maintaining a level of intensity and intrigue on par with the saxophonist’s mastery. Long term relationships extending outside this group, including those with NRG Ensemble, Mars Williams’ Ayler Xmas projects, as well as a variety of ad hoc and shorter lived amalgamations, made this one of the most fertile environments for these players, and this final quintet bore the marks of a classic concert. Which it was.

Fortunately, Dave Zuchowski was there to brilliantly document it in all its two-set glory. Corbett vs. Dempsey is pleased to present the entire concert on two CDs, as the fourth installment of CvsD’s Mars Archive series, with a cover painting by Timothy Howe. 

CD available via found.ee/EPD

Mars Williams: sopranino, soprano, alto and tenor saxophones; zither; whistles; electronic devices; toys
Edward Wilkerson, Jr: tenor saxophone; clarinet and alto clarinet; didgeridoo; oud; voice
Jim Baker: piano; analog synthesizer; viola
Brian Sandstrom: bass; electric guitar; six-string electric bass; electronics
Steve Hunt: drums and percussion; glockenspiel; miscellaneous paraphernalia

Recorded at Elastic Arts Foundation, August 29, 2023.
Recorded and mixed by David Zuchowski (davidzuchowski.com).
Mastered at Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago, by Alex Inglizian.
Interior photograph by Mark Lind.
Cover art by Timothy Howe.
CD design by David Khan-Giordano.

All music improvised by Extraordinary Popular Delusions;
copyright 2023; all rights reserved.

Antoine Chessex & Dave Phillips – Vrhältnis (Coherent States / Krim Kram)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description: More than twenty years of friendship haunt Vrhältnis, the new album by Antoine Chessex and Dave Phillips, out now on Coherent States and Krim Kram. Its source material reaches back twenty years, originating from live performances during a 2005 joint tour in Lausanne and Basel and a studio session recorded the same year at the Dynamo/Popkredit Studio in Zürich. Both sessions were then filed away, the recordings disappearing into the archive, untouched for nearly two decades, before resurfacing in 2025 and prompting both artists to return to them with fresh ears and renewed intent. The material was subsequently reworked, manipulated, layered and decomposed -in Zürich and in Thailand- into the two extended pieces that form this album. Iischtellig and Tüüfi unfold across an expanded temporal horizon, echoes and non-linear fragments reverberating between what was recorded, what was remembered, and what was made anew.

The strange ritual unfolding within Vrhältnis possesses a particular distant quality – the creators’ specific gravity and distinct compositional traits concealed behind accumulating densities. Musique concrète with strong noise and heavy electronics elements is the obvious point of entry, yet the work exists under a mystical prism that embraces sonic naturalness, as if the sounds themselves carry a memory that predates their recording. Running through both pieces is a haunting vocal presence drawn from the Silvesterchlausen tradition of northeastern Switzerland -an ancient Alpine ritual of winter processions- raw and untethered, arriving from no fixed point, eerie and unmoored. Deep in the forest, spectral voices surface and dissolve. What time is it?

Antoine Chessex is a sound artist based in Zurich. Drawing on long-standing experience in experimental music and sonic arts since the late 1990s, his work engages sound and listening across multiple formats. Emerging from an early practice as an improvising saxophonist and a sustained investigation of noise within performance contexts, his work has traversed plural sonic territories. It has since evolved into a distinctly transversal practice moving between performance, installation, research, improvisation, and composition. Rooted in sonic intensity, Chessex’s early experience as a solo performer and collaborator -including works with Zbigniew Karkowski, Jérôme Noetinger, and Valerio Tricoli- positioned him within international noise and avant-garde communities. As a founding member of the experimental noise-rock band MONNO, he toured extensively across underground scenes while maintaining an active international practice as a solo artist. He has appeared at CTM Festival, Unsound, INA/GRM Présence Électronique, Issue Project Room, Berghain, and Café OTO, among others, and has released works on Tochnit Aleph, Fragment Factory, Editions Cave12, Musica Moderna, Bocian, and Rekem Records.

Dave Phillips is a sonic activist, composer, performer and core member of the legendary Schimpfluch-Gruppe alongside Rudolf Eb.er and Joke Lanz, a collective that has spent four decades wielding sound as a tool of metaphysics, protest and catharsis. Emerging from the radical tradition of Viennese Actionism and pushing it into the terrain of harsh noise, performance art and extreme sound, Schimpfluch-Gruppe remains one of the most uncompromising and influential collectives in the history of experimental music. Phillips’ roots stretch back further still, to his co-founding of Swiss grindcore pioneers Fear Of God in the late 1980s. His solo work is as philosophical as it is visceral, rooted in a radical ecological and humanimal worldview that consistently positions the listener at the edge of civilisational discomfort. He has appeared at No Fun Fest, Colour Out Of Space, Liquid Architecture, Ende Tymes, Bergen International Festival and many others, and has released his music on Schimpfluch, Tochnit Aleph, Blossoming Noise, Ideal Recordings, Misanthropic Agenda and numerous other labels worldwide. 

Mastered by Francisco Meirino | Artwork inspired by the Silvesterchlausen tradition | Layout by PH!D

A co-release between Coherent States and Krim Kram.
CS-59. coherentstates.com bandcamp bigcartel 2026
KK-34. krimkram.com bandcamp 2026

Agathe Max – Kurama (Golden Ratio Frequencies)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description: After a period of quiet, Golden Ratio Frequencies record label is delighted to mark its return to physical releases with KURAMA from French experimental musician Agathe Max.

Best known for her exquisite, powerful, and deeply emotive work as a virtuoso violinist—across projects including Abstract Concrete (with Charles Hayward of ThisHeat), These Towns (UKEA, Will Glaser) Mésange (God Unknown Records) And Kuro (Rocket Recordings)—KURAMA sees Max step away from strings and into the realms of experimental electronics, ASMR, and healing music.

Named after the Japanese mountain regarded as the birthplace of the energy healing practice of Reiki, KURAMA unfolds as an eight-track journey through the body. It serves as a musical interpretation of the hands-on healing practice, of which Max is a trained practitioner, whilst the act of making the record became a form of self-regulation in itself.

Max explains:
“All tracks were composed in the morning, when I would wake up around 7am, often after a series of vivid dreams, in the first light of the day and with the clearest mind as possible to channel the Reiki energy.”


The first track, Space Transformer, is based on ASMR and therapeutic tuning forks, with water and fire elements, crystals and minerals combined with the frequencies of the tuning forks C 256/G 384-C 128-C 64.

All the other tracks are following the solfeggio scale from the crown chakra, third eye, throat, heart, solar plexus, sacral, root as followed 963hz, 852hz, 741hz, 639hz, 528hz, 417hz 396hz.”

This attention to detail may not be immediately obvious, but it is felt, subtly resonating through the body in a series of calming sound experiments. There’s a playful innocence at work, wrapped in healing intention, full of soft pads, arpeggiated synths, and sensory tingling textures, all sitting alongside unexpected touches, such as the purring of Max’s late feline companion, Lemmy. The result evokes echoes of 80s New Age healing cassettes, the environmental Kankyō Ongaku of Japan (think Hiroshi Yoshimura), and contemporary Nu-age minimalism in the vein of Green-House.


Ultimately, KURAMA is a gentle offering, thoughtfully created with deep care and intention, as Max concludes:

“I hope the listener will feel the connection I have implanted in my compositions.
They all came from the deepest part of my heart, channeling the healing power of music.”


Physical copies are realised on pro-dubbed C40 lilac marbled cassette tape made from recycled plastics, with a full-colour double-panel inlay and housed in cases UV-printed with the Golden Ratio spiral, limited to just 50 copies. 

Written, recorded and produced by Agathe Max during 2020/2021.
Artwork – A P Macarte

Sky Burial – Shadow And Shroud (Black Artifact)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description: Sky Burial marks its twentieth year in 2026 with the release of “Shadow and Shroud,” the project’s first recording built entirely around rhythm-based material. The eleven tracks coalesce euphoria and angst, forming a dichotomous tenet of ritual praxis for liberation from the binds imposed by the self, society, and state; a return to an actuality where life’s cadence is the totality of existence.

Recorded, Aborted, Reanimated 2006-2026
Mastered by Chris Leamy
Original artwork by Matthew Blodgett

Black Artifact 111

Carlos Giffoni & Thurston Moore – Iguana (iDEAL Recordings)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description: Recorded Live at Sweat Records in Miami, December 29 2024. Back cover polaroid by Lia Miranza Hernandez Avendano. Live Audience Recording by Guillermo (Lia’s Dad). Master and design by Lasse Marhaug.

iDEAL280 2026. Edition of 100 copies.

EIII – Emanations (Opal)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description: Cassette and Vinyl version available at – eiii.bandcamp.com/merch

Last year @eiii.music.eiii released Refractions via Opal — seven pieces of sparse, electro-acoustic tension shaped from low-end pressure, restrained harmonic movement and moments of near-collapse. The record carried a quiet intensity that placed EIII somewhere between the austerity of Panasonic and the physical force of Emptyset, while remaining entirely its own. It later received Electronic Album of the Year at Latvia’s Golden Microphone Awards.

Now, almost exactly a year later, Emanations arrives.

Where Refractions felt sealed and monolithic, these new pieces seem more exposed. Rhythms surface and disappear, tones bloom slowly through the static, and small harmonic shifts carry an unexpected emotional weight. The music remains minimal, but nothing feels empty — every sound lands with purpose, suspended somewhere between restraint and impact.

OPAL300