This is a drum solo about: 1. Life cycles of make-up (decomposing) and rhythm cycles of drums (decomposing); 2. Documentation of materials from a time (pre- June 2020) when colours of skin (Black and Brown) would be left over barely used within the 'aspirational' image making sector; 3. Discontinued make-up (the updated formulation of this skin make-up contains 3 types of silicone) and theethics of ingredients changing with time; 4. Time, drum-time and the changing smell of plant based time-responsive make-up; 5. 4D moved to 3D (party poi movements), collapsed to 2D (skins), painted and then reimagined back to 4D (time).   -- Credits: Drums Crystabel Riley Recorded by Adam Matschulat at Cafe Oto Mixed by Crystabel Riley Camera footage layer 1 by Zara Miller and Amy Dickson Camera and Make-up layer 2 Crystabel Riley

Brighton's Duncan Harrison presents an all new work of bizarre and beautiful junk-concrete, pieced together from unedited phone recordings and spread between two channels (left and right audio). Like the two channels that unfurl the collection of unedited phone recordings, the sounds Duncan reveals are caught in dualities; the serious and unserious, the sad and ecstatic, the planned and unplanned; the musical and non-musical; the meaningful and meaningless. Whether twanging a guitar, walking into a rock bar, having chats with pals, rattling junk in a sink, making voice notes to himself, burping into the mic or rehearsing wrestling moves from memory, he provides a peep-holes to his inner and outer life, while never revealing a full picture. Through narrative juxtaposition, crude editorial cuts and double exposition, he plays a masked game of sleight of hand, unveiling layers of truth and untruth. "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person" said Oscar Wilde. "Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth." -- Duncan Harrison - all voice memos & editing

Following on from his preposterous 'MUJZIK MONSTRØSA SPEEDRUN', which was released in 2020 on Takuroku, Goodiepal returns with an all new radio-based experimental sound work. On 'The Pole Imposter & The Databar' he embraces his ongoing audio-based crypto-academic documentation of the strange sides of European computer music. As ever with Goodiepal's work, it's best for words to pare back and let the piece speak for itself. --- Cover design by Oli Barrett

German artist Tina Jander presents 'Ice Cubes', a durational piece for cello and field recordings. Pieced together from plucked melodic mantras and swelling bowed refrains on cello, Tina gifts each aural gesture space to gradually unfurl over time, elapse in and out of itself, and meet other gestures in a series of iterative phrases. Over the piece's duration new and pre-existing motifs are unveiled, creating patterns that seamlessly appear and disappear. The piece is peppered with occasional field recordings, providing an open window where these patterns meld into the everyday. Absorbing and sensitive work from an artist we look forward to hearing more from in the future.   -- I think Tina’s work is brilliant, but what I love so much about ‘Ice Cubes’ is how it hovers around a particular place, detours then returns, without feeling forced or over thought. And this I think is a hard thing to do in a timeline - create a sense of time and pace that doesn’t feel too rushed or too static. There’s some great moments: the placement of an environmental recording, as if offered for our consideration and then just removed. And the underlying undulations of a cello placed outside its musical frame, simultaneously both fragile and grounded, a haunting subaquatic echo, a prelinguistic memory, drawing the listener impossibly close. - Mark Fell --   Tina Jander - Cello & field recordings   --   Mastered by Oli Barrett

OTO favourites Rie Nakajima and Akira Sakata team up for a delectable 2nd release together, seeing Akira's exploratory saxophone wind-around, lean against and coalesce with Rie's dexturous kinetic sound world.  "Our second album ‘Umihiko Yamahiko’ was recorded at Bar Isshee on 11 December 2020 in Tokyo. Only 10 audience members were allowed in the room, which created a very intimate and shy atmosphere as usual. There was a zoom recorder quietly sitting on a chair. It belongs to one of the audience members. He said it’s his hobby to record live concerts. He wanted to archive as many show as possible and publish these 50 years later. We laughed that most of us wouldn’t be here by then. He kindly let us use the recording to publish it from TakuRoku. Only 3 months after!! That must be really too quick for him." -- Rie Nakajima - objects Akira Sakata - saxophone -- Mastered by Oli Barrett

Tracklisting:   1 - False Self plays music for six pianos I [13:27]2 - False Self plays music for six pianos II [13:35] 3 - False Self plays music for six pianos III [13:50] 4 - False Self plays music for six pianos IV [14:43]False Self* works are electronic music compositions that explore identity, authorship and the delineation between self and other. The series so far, comprises of three albums: False Self plays music for six pianos (2021) A false memory of a sports party (2018) False Self (2016) The first two albums were created in collaboration, and sometimes antagonization, with a self authored SuperCollider algorithm — that I named False Self. I envision this algorithm as a fractured version of myself. False Self plays music for six pianos was composed whilst undertaking lessons with Jim Denizen Simm. Jim kindly indoctrinated me into his own working methods and some of the methods of his friends, many of whom are ex-Scratch Orchestra members; such as Michael Parsons, John White, Christopher Hobbs and Howard Skempton. These lessons led me to abandon SuperCollider in favour of working with more flexible, and to my mind, more interesting systems designed on paper. The compositions are experimental, system based works for six pianos. They deploy integer tables to arrange cells of slow, jazzy piano music. Each piano has eight cells of music and one silent cell. The cells mobilize as hypnotic cyclones of repetition, that move in and out of sync, to create complexity from simplicity. As the compositions progress, the cells extinguish themselves in a languid, stuttering fashion — before the process begins anew. Rudi Arapahoe 2021 Composed, recorded and mixed by Rudi ArapahoePerformed by False SelfProduced by Jim Denizen Simm Artwork by Oli Barrett *The term False Self is lifted from the psychiatrist Ronald David Laing's writing. I use the term to imply that there is another self working on the compositions with me.

Koichi Yamanoha (Grimm Grimm) strips back his wide-screen psychedelic pop and gifts us 6 instrumental ditties on new mini album 'Recalling'. A delectable selection of exotica, swamp-like dirges, oneiric keyboard refrains, uneasy easy listening and foggy melancholia. Collected from a mixture of solo bedroom recordings and playful vignettes made with friends, 'Recalling' takes snapshots of memories and brings them into the present. 'Crack', a whimsical improvisation on drum machine and synth, recalls the usually bustling tennis court beside his house during the first lockdown in April. 'Near the dam' swims through a memory of the Takizawa Dam in West Tokyo, rendering a sense of cinematic wonder in a set floating keyboard motifs. 'Behold a Pale Horse', the only track made before lockdown, documents a session with Victor Herrero in his house, with Koichi's theremin painting brushstrokes of electronic melancholia over Victor's wistful acoustic guitar. 'Recalling' sees Koichi plant new seeds in his practice and watch them grow, both coming to terms with the past and creating memories of the future. A treat for fans of his technicolor pop and new fans alike. -- Performed, recorded and mixed by Koichi Yamanoha (Grimm Grimm) at home in London 2020 Guest musicians:Victor Herrero - guitar on track 5Paz Maddio - synth on track 3

Maria Chavez and Jordi Wheeler present their first recorded release for Takuroku, The Kitchen Sessions: 1-5, 2020, an audio result of a 2 day Recording Residency at the legendary theater The Kitchen in NYC. Due to Covid 19 quarantine restrictions, the Kitchen, like Cafe OTO, has had to temporarily close, but is still providing the venue as a resource for artists to use during this difficult time. The NYC venue offered Maria a 2 day Recording Residency in their main space with an onsite engineer and access to their Steinway B grand piano. Maria presented her new instrumentation set up for the Recording Residency: 4 Numark TTX turntables 4 RAKE Double Needles (8 needles in total invented by Randal Sanden Jr.) 2 Xone DJ mixers She invited one of her regular collaborators, Jordi Wheeler, most recently a member of Amen Dunes, to bring his multifaceted talents on prepared piano, bass guitar, and electronics to the session. These recordings are the result of active listening and improvisation with a new configuration of instruments inside the legendary theater space. The Recording Residency at the Kitchen provided a safe space for Maria, (currently on medical sabbatical while recovering from a rare brain surgery in the Spring of 2019 and who expects to return to public performance in 2022-23) accommodating her current condition while allowing the duo to experiment with her new/ larger set up at lower volumes frequencies and generally reacquaint themselves with each other after over a year and a half of not being able to perform together. Chavez and Wheeler have been performing as a duo since 2015. Their sound piece “Is Made Uneasy” is the intro to Maria’s long form sound piece, Between a Gunshot & a Whisper, as part of Every Time An Ear Di Soud for Documenta14 in Kassel, Germany. Their duo work has been presented by Cruces Espacio de Arte in Madrid, Spain, as part of the Abasement Series at Max Fish, NYC and has aired on KunstRadio, Vienna, 3cR Melbourne, Australia, the Lot Radio, Brooklyn.

Allotropes (Jim Hoult & Stephan Barrett) focus on the subtle interplay of textures and timbres, quiet sounds and the space in between. Jim & Stephan first started performing together in 2016 as part of V22's Summer Club at Louise House curated by Andie Brown (These Feathers Have Plumes) and Helen Frosi (SoundFjord). During lockdown, the sense of a reconfiguration in their experience of time and space led to a long distance collaboration between their respective locations in Västernorrland County, Sweden and London. Named after the sweeping clouds of blue light and discrete pulses emitted by luminescent Ostracods, which resemble slow motion fireflies as they signal to the ocean depths at moonset, the resulting piece 'Night Signal' uses electronic manipulation to process tiny recorded extracts of clarinet multiphonics and bells scanned at tens of thousandths the time of their normal speed to reveal hidden timbres, creating atmospheres that slowly unfold, shift and develop, until eventually dissolving back into the the waves.

Bridget Hayden has been a regular fixture at OTO over our 13 year history, either treating us to her distinct brand of lonesome avante-blues, or sending scattered aural junk skywards in Leeds-based collective Vibracathedral Orchestra.   In this new solo work, she pares back her hushed songcraft, opting instead for a foggy psychedelia, seeing her spill cyclical lines of bowed guitar, tone generator and synth - as well as vocal apparations and wisps of flute - into a throbbing vaporous mass.  Each element feels like it is blowing from a spectre's mouth: rendering each low-end guitar riff, shrill of feedback or squelched synth-line in an ethereal, clouded greyscale.   Whether summoning something of earthly matter or from somewhere else, Bridget feels like she's turning off the lights, lighting candles and welcoming us to a haunted ritual. Recommended listening for late winter nights.   -- Bridget Hayden - All instruments, edits, compositions, recordings   --

Xisco Rojo's music dropped into our inbox in the Autumn of last year, and we've been addicted since. Having cut teeth in the noise, jazz and improvisatory scenes of Berlin, Philadelphia and Madrid, he began his solo project in 2013, combining elements of Western and Eastern traditions to form a unique personal style, rich in counterpoints, mysticism and lyrical depth. Axial Tilt is a single durational improvisation that meditates on the paradigm shift in everyday life since the start of the pandemic. Utilizing 12-string acoustic guitar with an e-bow and a slide, the natural environment sounds of the room and subtle guitar double tracking, he unfolds a raw and beguiling sound world, slowly gliding from rustic sustained high notes and glacial harmonies through to percussive motifs and soft atonal clusters. Each delicate pick, touch and rumble of his guitar is lifted into an open space without limits, with each gesture floating in and out of itself in a seemless motion. This is some of the most tactile, considered and singular guitar playing we've heard in some time. A real treat.

Pieced together by recording walks through Akihabara Electric Town, the Metropolitan Expressway which runs through the city (and past her apartment) and Hamarikyu Gardens, Anna Murray brings the fizzing sounds of Tokyo life indoors, melding them with her own delicate treatment of improvised sampling, instrumental layering and live-performed processing.  The result is a dream-like slow-scan through rushing traffic, temple bells, scurrying cicadas, noh chants, scattered crowds, the sound of radios playing from shop windows, game machines and vignettes of passing conversations. Anna's own interventions to the sound world never feel intrusive, and instead offer a subjective lens to the outside world: placing herself in a similar position to that of experimental filmmaker Chris Marker in his 1986 documentary 'Tokyo Days'. During the making of this work, Tokyo was not put into official covid-19 lockdown, instead a kind of voluntary isolation. Anna meets a city tilted off its axis, conjuring aural material quietly singing with wonder, alienation, sadness and longing.   --   Anna Murray - field recordings, piano, tape, processing   --   Artwork design by Oliver Barrett

London-based Brazilian artist Adam Matschulat uses his deft approach to musique concrete & electronic minimalism to carve a space of being: a sonic domain that comes to terms with entangled interior and exterior worlds. Both a meditation on time and upheaval, opening piece 'Through the cracks' begins with an overwhelming wall of opaque noise, before entering a wistful journey. Adam delicately renders his narrative in dream time, floating between ruminating keyboard motifs, tumbling aquatic sound worlds, the clatter of footsteps, the turning of a page, a tape player switching on and off... On FFFF, he teams up with experimental drums/sax duo @xcrswx, who lend their tilted playing to Adam's bed of thudding minimalist techno, creating waves of wiry static that seeth from the piece's airless inertia. The release is book-ended by a reworking of FFFF by Sunny Graves, who transmutes the piece, dipping it in a freezing cold bath of iterative industrial dread. Music that takes an aerial view of the city and zooms itself in, past the towering architecture and into the sounds that seep from hidden spaces. -- Adam Matschulat - electronics, field recordings -- Track 1 'Through the cracks' Track 2 'FFFF' @xcrsw (Crystabel Riley & Seymour Wright) Track 3 'FFFF' (Sunny Graves revision)

Week Nine is a collaborative, durational piece from Teresa Cos, Julia E Dyck and Caroline Profanter. Following a precise mathematical score, the artists developed a stringent practice of recording, editing, and mixing a revolving assemblage of audio files. Each week, their contributions decreased exponentially in length at the rate of 2.5 seconds of the initial 3656.0-second contribution. The result is a triptych of 61-minute compositions, each an archive of and escape from the sequence of moments lived during nine weeks of spring, in 2020. -- Composed, recorded, edited and mixed remotely between London, Montreal and Brussels by Teresa Cos, Julia E Dyck and Caroline Profanter Cover image W9: score by Teresa Cos Mastered by Oli Barrett

‘A series of false endings’ Statement by Nidge Ince: "Standing proud in a field of wonder like a clear night riven with stars, UBS are a multifaceted magickal conglomerate who search for the divine and ineffable through sound, song and stillness. Their genre defiance continues to unfold and ascend, and each new release brings something glittering and unique to their collective canon. ‘The Night Fell Off Its Axis’ is no less piquant. Go forth and search for yourself ... ‘Roses in the voltage hum. Along the leys of Albion’ For friends"   --   Students: Todd Barton - Shakuhachi, Waterphone David Colohan - Sonic Manipulation, Vocal Dom Cooper - Fender Rhodes, Field Recording, Modular Synth, Percussion, Sonic Manipulation, Vocal Dagmar Gertot - Vocal Graeme Lockett - Vocal Grey Malkin - Synth Alison O’Donnell - Omnichord, Shruti, Vocal Johno Wells - Sonic Manipulation Joolie Wood - Violin   Recorded July 2020 - October 2020 California, England, Ireland, Oregon, Russia, Scotland Mastered by Bladud Flies! Cover ink gesture by Dom Cooper

With live music and group-based rehearsal and recordings severely restricted in 2020, Dominic Lash gets to work on his own, exploring the rarely-embraced option of playing with recordings of himself on guitar and double bass. Neither a classic call and response or palimpset based approach to double tracking, Dom's volant weaving makes it hard to decipher which recording was made first. Both hands are used to colour the canvas, giving the illusion that lines of each instrument are leading each other down different paths. In a set of winding melodic phrases, splintered guitar stabs, bowed double bass refrains and harmonic embraces, Dom unveils conversations with himself. A dialogue that is both a reckoning and peacemaking with himself and his thoughts within 4 walls. in memory of Simon H. Fell (1959-2020) and John Russell (1954-2021), with love and gratitude Everything about this album has in one way or another been influenced by these two master musicians (but please don't hold them responsible). --   Dominic Lash - double bass, guitar, recording   --   Cover design by Oliver Barrett

Tom Scott has long been a long-term guest at OTO, treating us solo sets and collaborations with the likes of Andrew Chalk, Ashley Paul and Timo Van Luijk for over a decade now. Scribed over summer and Autumn in 2020 lock-down, 'Tattered Angels' is an 18 part suite for piano, seeing Tom pick up fragments of memory and distill them into a set of sanguine melodic lacunas. Alongside his music practice, Tom is a photographer, capturing the barren landscapes, sea shores, boats, stones and marine objects by the coast of Barrow-in-Furness. Like a photo album rendered in aural form, 'Tattered Angels' unfurls a series of vignettes that meditate on place and time. With his piano keys, Tom paints impressionist moods of each memory, delicately aligning each note with the contours, rhythms and small details that seep from the frame. Like Satie, Poulenc and Ravel, Tom is able to unearth latent emotions and piece them together in a weightless space. Music that slowly dances from his headspace to ours. -- Tom Scott - piano -- Recorded at Piel View House, late October & early November 2020 Titles lifted from poetry by Guy Garrett Cover image by Tom James Scott Design by Oliver Barrett

"São Paulo, the city where I live, entered quarantine in March 2020. Around that time, demonstrations started to break out nationwide against a leader who was accused of having total disregard for human life as he downplayed the severity of the pandemic and failed to take prompt measures to slow the spread of Covid-19. These demonstrations, whose forms might seem unusual to those not familiar with South American culture, are called “panelaço” in Portuguese. Panelaço is a kind of ‘political performance’ where people spontaneously start banging pots and pans and shouting together slogans in the streets. However, this time, due to Covid restrictions, panelaço was performed from balconies and windows. Over this period of strict quarantine rules, people could not go outside and have a normal social life. Therefore, the loud banging was also a way for people to express their feelings, political views, and share a common space through sound. In a way, panelaço can be considered as a social act which gives shape to a new type of collectiveness, in a creative manner. In the context of Latin American countries such as Argentina and Chile (where panelaço is called, in Spanish, “cacerolazo”), and Brazil, such practice of banging pans as a form of protest has become quite common nowadays. It is an extremely simple act in which anyone can participate; it is indeed a DIY kind of demonstration. In addition, since pots and pans obviously relate to food, such acts can also be interpreted as a strive for survival in times of crisis. Yet, in this era of social distancing and community containment, this practice has come to hold a new meaning for people: a way of coping with a new reality and connect with others through sound. In panelaço, sound reveals itself in its sociality as it operates as a medium for political discourse, going beyond the physical and aesthetic level. This is why it inspired me on a fundamental level. While listening to the multitude of spontaneous banging and shouting coming from outside the window, I decided to participate in their angry and euphoric demand for change in my own way, through an improvisation with my modular synthesizer. Then, original sounds of Brazilian panelaço were collected from the Internet and added to create a polyphonic composition in which each sound fragment would respond and communicate with each other in an improvised fashion. This is how and why these three tracks “Movimento 1”, “Movimento 2”, “Movimento 3” came about." - Yama Yuki -- Sampled, performed ,recorded, and edited by Yama Yuki -- Mastered at Casa Metaesquema  Artwork design by Oliver Barrett