Gnarled Fingers and Picking are two artists drawn together by a shared love of bleak, crushing, low-end oblivion.
Picking is a new raw doom / noise / drone project from Charlie Butler inspired by lifelong incessant excessive picking of nails.
Gnarled Fingers is an experimental, ambient drone project, relentless wall of fuzz and atmosphere, no escape, created after growing up in Somerset Levels with stories of witchcraft and pagan superstition.
Picking – Toenail Written, recorded live with no overdubs, and mixed by Charlie Butler, December 2025 charliebutler1.bandcamp.com
Gnarled Fingers – Echoes From Futures Past Written, recorded at 13 sound studio, and mixed by Carlos, November 2025 linktr.ee/GNARLEDFINGERS
All Winter we’ve been hiding in the Barn, experimenting, improvising and nourishing our souls from a dying world.
These recordings are a testimony of the dark times we are living in, to uplift, to manifest and to divert our ways.
Recorded between December 2025 and February 2026 at the Barn, Betekom, Belgium.
Bang of Hearts is a musical entity consisting of Dominique Van Cappellen-Waldock (Baby Fire, Veda, Fleur de Feu,…) on vocals and spoken word, Timo Jacobs / Forestaal (Schim, the Moondig, Myaelin, Pilod,…); vocals, electronics, drums and percussion and Peter Verwimp / Ashtoreth ( Maya, Emptiness, Building Transmissions,…) on vocals, bass and guitar.
Together they conjure up an eclectic form of vast, improvised drone pieces with a ritualistic character. Every now and then they gather at the Barn in Betekom, Belgium and pour their hearts out. They play what they feel and this may result in a patchwork of styles and influences: dark ambient, sludge, kraut rock, ritual drones, gothic doom, electronic soundscapes…one never knows what to expect as it is always delivered in a free form; a hypnotic sonic adventure for both the players as well as the audience.
Spoken Word and voices: Dominique Van Cappellen-Waldock Drums, Electronics & voices: Forestaal / Timo Jacobs Guitars, Bass & Voices: Ashtoreth / Peter Verwimp Live mix: Timo jacobs studio mix: Peter Verwimp Mastering: Ronald Mariën Artwork: Peter Verwimp
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.
“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
Moggy Log Slog Midnight Mint Shag Splinter Catered Dinner Fox Trot Lyons Woods Untidy You’ll do better on Then down the road Tow the line, done as told
Emulsify & Cajoled Jollies in a sugar prism Laughter in a long and winding hallway system Exist signs every where
A Listless Shadow Lipstick Rouge on the Moon in powder Stardust & Serenades Broken chi Circus Mariachi Organ
Envelop total distrust
Elicit Gasps the Collective Aunties of the world
clutch their pearls
And finger the accused in tandem ~
Sounds & Noises – {AN} EeL Text & Image – {AN} EeL
footsteps, car horns, a drawer sliding shut. wind chimes, family voices, street corners. bus stops, parks, a dog barking, a fight on TV. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Taipei, Oakland, Keelung, San Gabriel Valley, South City.
It draws from a 15-year archive of field recordings that capture the ordinary music of lived life. Rather than aspiring to aesthetic refinement or spiritual escape, TRU FOLK exists at street-level. It approaches sound as a vernacular practice that values what is common and humanmade. The album functions as a record of presence, tracing how people live, move, and endure through shared environments. In doing so, it extends the idea of folk music into the realm of daily listening, creating a document of survival and place.
I stood on top of the mountain and looked out over the landscape. It was so beautiful that my chest hurt. The light vibrated, time stood still, and the contours dissolved for a moment. Everything had changed; I felt it then. I took their little hands so as not to lose contact with the ground. Then we ran down the mountain, scraping our knees. Still, we didn’t make it. You had already put away all the nautical charts, loosened the moorings and steered out among the skerries. Mum stood waving from the jetty. You were alone, you wanted it that way. It was to be just you in the boat this time. I called out to you. I think you heard me and felt less lonely. We couldn’t carry each other anymore, no matter how hard we tried. We washed our wounds on the shore and scattered tears and rose petals in the bay. The children laughed and searched for treasures under water. We called to them that it was time to come up. They were cold, and we hugged them to warmth. One ran ahead, the other up on our shoulders. Up the mountain, our mountain. [1]
—
In 2020 Anna Högberg put her widely celebrated band Anna Högberg Attack on hold, retraining as a nurse whilst continuing a solo practice and playing in other groups. With Ensamseglaren she makes a spectacular return with her own ensemble — this time a double sextet — performing an album length suite of new music written in dedication to her late father — the titular ‘ensamseglaren’ pictured on the LP cover as a young boy. (ensam in Swedish can mean both alone and lonely, seglaren = the sailor).
Shot through with renewed energy and a brutally affective emotional punch, Högberg’s formal experimentation opens up vibrant possibilities for the assembled musicians to let loose with some of their wildest and most ecstatic playing on record.
Högberg’s contention with grief leans into collective joy as method of mourning — the big band as extended family; where bonds are made through a shared experience of being together. Where everyone gets to be themselves without expectations of who they should be or what they can do. It’s a radical commitment to care — of her self and others — that animates and unifies this suite of music’s radical dynamics and variations in colour: from whisper-quiet textural intensity to harrowing distortion and double drum chaos; raucous and solemn song.
—
Throughout history, humans have had different images of the transition between life and death. Imagine standing on the seashore on a summer evening and seeing a beautiful vessel being prepared for departure. The sails are hoisted. The evening breeze comes, the sails fill and the boat glides out onto the open sea. You follow it with your eyes as it heads towards the sunset. It gets smaller and smaller, until it finally disappears as a tiny dot on the horizon. Then you hear someone next to you say, ‘Now they have left us.’
Left us for what? The fact that they got smaller and smaller and finally disappeared is only how we see it. In reality, they are just as big and beautiful as when they were here, lying on the beach by our side.
Just as you hear that voice say ‘Now they have left us’, there may be someone on another beach who sees them appear on the horizon, someone waiting to welcome them when they reaches their new port. [2] credits released October 3, 2025
Anna Högberg Alto Saxophone Elin Forkelid Tenor Sax Niklas Barnö Trumpet Maria Bertel Trombone Per Åke Holmlander Tuba Dieb13 Turntables Alex Zethson Piano Finn Loxbo Guitar + Saw Gus Loxbo Double Bass + Saw Kansan Zetterberg Double Bass Anton Jonsson Drums Dennis Egberth Drums
All Music by Anna Högberg (ncb/Stim). Recorded by Niklas Lindström and Calle Gustavsson at Atlantis Studios, Stockholm: 15-16 October 2024. Mixed by Niklas Lindström at Atlantis Studios. Mastered by Andreas [Lupo] Lubich. Innersleeve Photos by Tina Axelsson. Cover Photographer Unknown. Design by John Chantler. This Release has Received Financial Support from Kulturrådet, the Swedish Arts Council. c + p 2025. This lp is Fönstret—16.
Notes
Fönstret is a division of the Edition Festival for Other Music, the annual festival initiated and organised by John Chantler which ran from 2016—2024. Across its history the edition festival has presented work by, among many many others: Okkyung Lee, Ellen Fullman, Peter Brötzmann, Sarah Hennies, Terre Thaemlitz, Marginal Consort, Anthony Braxton, Annea Lockwood, Ellen Arkbro, Dewa Alit & Gamelan Salukat and Catherine Christer Hennix.
Fönstret is the festival’s outlet for publishing new work and surfacing material from the festival archives across books, cds, LPs and digital media and includes releases by Marja Ahti, [Ahmed], Lisa Ullén, Daniel M Karlsson, Isak Hedtjärn, Finn Loxbo and Kommun.
[1] Anna Högberg’s original Swedish: “Jag stod på toppen av berget och såg ut över landskapet som var så vackert att det gjorde ont i bröstet. Ljuset vibrerade, tiden stannade och konturerna var för en stund upplösta. Allting var förändrat, jag kände det då. Jag tog era små händer för att inte mista kontakten med marken. Sen sprang vi nedför berget, skrubbsår på knäna. Ändå hann vi inte fram. Du hade redan lagt undan alla sjökort, lossat förtöjningarna och styrt ut bland kobbarna. Mamma stod och vinkade från bryggan. Du var ensam, du ville ha det så, det skulle bara vara du i båten den här gången. Jag ropade efter dig, jag tror att du hörde och att du kände dig mindre ensam. Vi kunde inte bära varandra längre. Hur mycket vi än försökte. Vi tvättade våra skrubbsår i strandkanten och strödde tårar och rosenblad i viken. Barnen skrattade och letade efter skatter under vattenytan. Vi ropade på dem att det var dags att komma upp. De frös och vi värmde dem i våra famnar. Den ena sprang i förväg, den andra upp på axlarna. Uppför berget, vårat berg.”
[2] This text is adapted from a translation of a text ‘Det Sista Steget’ (the last stage) read by Anna’s aunt (a priest within the Swedish Church) at her father’s funeral:
Vi människor har i alla tider haft olika bilder av övergången mellan liv och död. Många beskriver den som en resa över en flod eller ett hav till det land vi ännu inte känner.
Tänk dig att du står vid havsstranden en sommarkväll och ser en vacker farkost som förbereds för avfärd. Seglen hissas. När kvällsbrisen kommer fylls seglen och båten glider ut på det öppna havet. Du följer den med blicken när den far mot solnedgången. Den blir mindre och mindre, för att till slut försvinna som en liten prick vid horisonten. Då hör du någon vid din sida säga: “Nu har hon lämnat oss”.
Lämnat oss for vad? Detta att hon blivit allt mindre och till slut försvunnit är ju bara som du ser det. I själva verket är hon lika stor och vacker som när hon låg vid stranden.
Just när du hör rösten som säger att hon lämnat oss, finns det kanske någon på en annan strand som ser henne dyka upp vid horisonten, någon som väntar på att få ta emot just henne när hon når sin nya hamn.
recorded during 2017~2025: (1) recorded apr 2022 (2) recorded apr 2017 * (3) recorded jun 2022 (4) recorded dec 2025 (5) recorded jun 2022 (6) recorded sep 2017 * (7) recorded oct 2022 (8) recorded nov 2024 (9) recorded apr 2017 * (10) recorded oct 2022
* – taken from unreleased pre-flyoversx 12-track demo
Music For The Rest Of Us 