Ute Kanngiesser - cello Daniel Kordík - field recording The release is accompanied by a PDF of writing by Evie Ward in response to the release. -- Please note that the WAV recording of this release has been recommended by the artists involved. -- "At 4AM I slip out of the house to cycle east, towards dawn, with cello on my back and a stool strapped to the rack. The word 'essential' is turning over and around in my head. I am taking the quietest roads, trying to stay invisible, worried that someone might stop me and interfere with our plans. I find Daniel with recording equipment and hand sanitizer and together we walk another distance through dawn and smell of rain. We enter the Marshes, these essential lungs of East London. It is where he had come almost every day of these locked-down weeks to field-record and breathe. And it is where Evie and I met for walks and secret music - carefully bending the laws of the officially ‘essential’. I am wondering about places and times when public music was forbidden and never driven to extinction. This time it is for pandemic reasons and the severity of consequences is unspeakable and has turned into much noise in my head. But the birds, the wind, and the rain offer such relief and I feel so shy in their presence that my music can only become the smallest of offerings to them in the rainless window between 4.48AM and 5.15AM." - (Ute Kanngiesser, June 2020) -- Photography by Daniel Kordík Cover design by Oliver Barrett

All new work by London-based artist Robbie Judkins (Left Hand Cuts off the Right), created on keyboard, zither, field recordings, synthesizer, khene, electric guitar and effects.  "Being classed as a key worker yet not feeling like one is a strange position to be in. Neither working for the NHS, caring for others, being a shop worker, ensuring safe transport nor providing an essential public service; yet remaining at work during this pandemic has filled me with worry, guilt, anxiety and some stability. These compositions and sketches bring together audio documents created during this time with a yearning for quiet despite a fascination with unavoidable noise." - Robbie Judkins -- Left Hand Cuts off the Right - All music & recording -- Robbie has very kindly offered for all money from this release to go to Cafe Oto.

An all new collaborative work by exciting new Belgian artists Ben Bertrand & Otto Lindholm: "The first time we collaborated as a duo was for our interpretation of The Sinking of the Titanic by Gavin Bryars at les Ateliers Claus. At that time, there was an audience surrounding us. Now secluded and on our own, we went back to the same venue and locked ourself for 2 days arranging and recording the music Ben Bertrand wrote while he was in confinement. We designed a dense and mineral triptych. Digging into this music, we experienced the current and pressure of the passing time. At some point we saw light coming in. The transformation has already been done, reversion to fundamentals is now our single option." - Ben Bertrand and Otto Lindholm -- Composition : Ben BertrandArrangement : Otto Lindholm and Ben BertrandBass clarinet and electronics : Ben BertrandDouble bass and electronics : Otto LindholmRecorded and mixed at les ateliers claus by Christophe Albertijn the 29th and the 30th of June 2020.Thanks to : Dad, Mom, Tommy and Keiko.Painting : Pierre Vande PittePicture : Laurent Orseau Artwork design:Oliver Barrett

Ikue was due to perform a 4 night residency at Cafe OTO this September 2020, but due to coronavirus had to be rescheduled to some time next year. In its place she's very kindly put together this selection of new work, all made at home on her own. In it, collected samples and concurrent keyboard lines are projected like aural holograms of dreams shot through crystal. Elapsed drum patterns and gurgling digital electronics emerge and scatter themselves in a haze of tropical music concrete, before wandering into melodic patterns and glimpses of songs. Ikue says "this is where I’m in right now, being home my own" - and its clear she has formed a natural symbiosis with her laptop during this time; conjuring thick synthetic clouds of thoughts, feelings and dreams for listeners to swim through.

All new file exchange mind-melter from 2nd generation Chinese/Taiwanese-American musician Audrey Chen & British electroacoustic artist Kaffe Matthews: "Breathing air as dark swallows was made during the three month COVID-19 lockdown period in Berlin 2020. Kaffe and I decided to embark on a music exchange after participating in a chain recording project isolated.connected initiated by Sabine Vogel. The first track of this album is the result of that, our first sonic meeting, inspired by prior recordings by Sabine and Michael Thieke. We then decided to continue the process by taking it in turns to send each other improvised solos to which the other would respond, producing four highly tactile and intimate breathing movements. Kaffe plays digital oscillators through a glu-box, whilst processing through resampling and granulation. Spatialization is via the pink ball Java interface and Touch OSC. I use my voice." - Audrey Chen -- Audrey Chen & Kaffe Matthews - voice & live electronics -- Recorded and mixed by Kaffe Matthews, Audrey Chen and Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø, April to June 2020. Mastered by Tara Transitory and Nguyễn Baly at Queer Ear Mastering Cover image by Götz Rogge - camera obscura art  -- www.audreychen.com www.kaffematthews.net

or a long lens where encounter runs          interfacing          just above hum-huff we find: - vert purlieu (tilt) - oblique cardioid (perspective) - reactive veils (bias) - stacks (extension/[false] mirror) an imaginary journey for double bass --- played, recorded, assembled, mixed, mastered by Tom Wheatley --- cover rendered by Oliver Barrett from a drawing by Tom Wheatley