Here is the latest record from Konformer, "Konformer II", the follow up to "Konformer 1"!

3 years in the making "Konformer II" is a further & deeper probe of the world of electronic influenced instrumental, psychedelic Krautrock from the Nuremberg based trio, recorded at Frank Mollena's Lonestar Studios.
Rainer Ruder (bass), Andreas Berg (drums) and & Kristian Krauss (keyboards) continue their exploration with a bass loop anchored odyssey, a trip into the future with a firm nod to the past.

Released on Before I Die 03/07/26 on limited black vinyl LP with a full colour art book featuring artworks from independent artists from the city.

The band will commence a short UK Tour of Southern & Northern Grassroots venues from the end of August 2026 culminating in a performance at Manchester Psych Fest on Saturday 5th September.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: A sprawling, mini-epic of krautrock fuzz, buzz, thud n clatter that sees the band further cement their sonic foundations on the BiD turf. Instantly engaging, locking you into their hypnotic hurricane, sending you spiraling into the speaker stacks and painting patterns in your minds' eye. Just brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

A1-A2. Konfektio Suite - 1. Participation Mystique
A2. Konfektio Suite - 2. Persona 3. Affekt 3. Schatten
A3. Marseille

B1. Berufsverkehr
B2. Mont Ventoux
B3. Todmorden

You will be aware of the work of James McKeown and his Hawksmoor project. A catalogue of 13 significant and substantial records made in less than a decade.

James can be said to be operating in the realm of ambient music.

There are song structures and often beautiful melodies deployed - and more often than you might expect. He can be psycho-geographical, and woozily hauntological at times. There are shades of Eno, Tangerine Dream, Cluster and Michael Rother - but nothing is ever copied. It's detailed, textured deep and often emotionally affecting. He's made records inspired by Victorian religious architecture, geopolitical instability, JG Ballard, dreams and alternate states of consciousness; prescription drugs, new town neurosis and a secretly prehistoric Milton Keynes.

Musically, it always somehow reflects the subject matter. He's primarily about analog synthesis, old drum boxes, razor and tape, tangled wires and real instruments. Perhaps a post-digital Druid who emerged from the strange recesses of the natively insurrectionist Bristol scene. There are records backed up and ready to go. A modern British electronic genius of sorts.

Which brings us here to BID13 and another record about drugs. Am I Conscious Now? is perhaps a companion piece to 2021's oddly melancholy On Prescription.

The subject matter at hand is specifically the psychedelic variant 5-MeO-DMT. James dutifully did his research - experimenting with the drug - with a view to exploring the impact it might make on his music. Hold up, I hear you cry, musicians have been using psychedelics at least since the Maggot Brained Funkadelic freed our minds in the hope our asses would follow. Can't forget Spacemen Three's brilliantly definitive 'Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To'. James McKeown has made a record which deserves to enter this stoned immaculate pantheon. But 5-MeO-DMT is very different.

"It overrides the body and forces surrender. As a person, it completely changed my life, outlook, perspective".

It was first documented in the 1930s, is very different to your 'standard' LSD variants. No colour wheel intensity, no flying about seeing little green men with massive heads calling you into infinity. It doesn't flood the mind but rather, it empties it. Scarily for some, 5-MeO-DMT is said to strip away all sensation as it acts on the brain in specific relation to Serotonin. It lasts sometimes only minutes, though the individual's internal perception of time is obviously exploded. As, 'the Mount Everest of Psychedelics', it's no groovy cartoon loon pant Purple Haze then, man. All of which persuaded our intrepid hero to give it a go. It specifically inspired the music you can hear by clicking on the links above.

"Psychedelics are for me tools for healing, spiritual connection and creativity. It's not about hedonism, flashing lights, patterns, the cliches. It's very unique.
Language doesn't really work to explain it. It's everything and nothing. Some experience a state of pure bliss. I experienced a terrifying feeling of dying, and then a sense of unity, like I was connected to everything. I hesitate to use the term, but I'd describe it as being a sense of being reborn".

If like Lennon and our man here you truly surrender to The Void, you'll know you are everything and nothing too. So tell me, which album by Gary Barlow is going to gift you all this?

Hawksmoor is building an important body of work notable for its deep integrity.

This is an extraordinary record. Its intensity is an instant hit and, once you are sucked into its orbit, it's routinely mesmerising.
Beyond that it is not, kids, an ad for the drug. As Frank Zappa advised re. the Yellow Snow, make your own informed decisions.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: If you enjoyed Jon Hopkins' "Music For psychedelic Therapy" then Hawksmoor here continue the theme; ditching the magic mushrooms for 5-meo-dmt - more commonly known as 'smoking the toad'!! While the more common tryptamines have a wild, colourful and energetic sonic palette, 5-meo is a more serene, 'white light' affair. Hawksmoor has captured the mood of the substance - often called the god molecule - perfectly. A truly fantastic addition to the cannon of psychedelic healing music.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Amygdala Opening
A2. Golden Dolphins
A3. Flooding A Maze (In Slow Motion)
A4. Urdhva Hastasna
A5. Infinite Tapestry

B1. Ti Kallisti
B2. Adviata
B3. Clear Light
B4. Into The White Sun
B5. Astromeria

It's counter intuitive perhaps to react to the increasing noise of the world, not by adding to it, but by seeking quiet. Or something close to it.

Arrival's debut EP does just that - assembling immersive aural environments and delicately detailed backdrops - setting the scene for the perfectly pitched deeply melancholic meditations of Britain's least known and most valuable guitarist, Kevin McCormick.

Gordon Milson and Mark Rayner as Arrival, and Kevin too, are all proud Stockport denizens.
They're central to something gently stirring in the town They're calling it (using the district postcode) SKambient.
It's a youthful music scene sprouting from the cracks between the cobbles of a neglected old town area, built around the meandering Underbanks.
Here outliers like the bespoke hifi gaff, Odioba and Bruk are venues open to DJs and listeners looking for something deeper and less simplistically confrontational than your regular shouty Manc racket, R. Kid.
It's organic electronic, and (mindful of the Derbyshire hills to be seen peeping through the gaps throughout the town) pastoral too. Now the mills and workshops have fallen silent, never to be rebooted, these neglected spaces have been subdivided at affordable (for now) rents, allowing young sonic creatives to explore new environmental responses to a post, post-industrial landscape.
It's not unexpected. This is the town where the first (and perhaps greatest) ambient pop song in 10cc's "I'm Not In Love" was recorded in 1975 - at the legendary Strawberry Studios.

Kevin McCormick - with a whole series of rightly revered, self-defining records to his name - copies no one. But there are definite echoes in his approach. Consider the unquestionable genius of Vini Reilly. His eternally stunning Return of The Durutti Column was mixed in that same studio.
Alongside Arrival and their distinctly calming compositions, the former mills and converted spaces are full of laptops and instruments shared by a like-minded extended community in Jack Lever/Open Tapes, Arcade, Joe Synkro, Bop, Elsewhere and Thought Leadership. It's crass indeed to suggest all these things sound alike, but there's a definite thread, a certain sensibility.

Arrival have already received significant support from characteristically curious backroom Balearic selectors and collectors. It's music made for the joy of it and released here by the uniquely open-minded DJ, and scene stalwart, Jason Boardman's Before I Die imprint.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Fresh from the Stockport underground comes this serene and considered masterpiece from Arrival and Kevin McCormick. Shimmering like a mirage on the Stockport vitsa; perfect for when you've had a few too many at The Red Bull the night before.

TRACK LISTING

A1. One
A2. One (Solstice Mix)
B1. Common Place (Thought Leadership Remix)
B2. Common Place

Manchester based trio, Sonnenspot have unashamedly taken their favourite records from the Kosmische Musik landscape and fused these to inform their own spontaneous sonic constructions. Motorik drums, pulsating flutes, wah guitar and almost excessive use of space echo make this a dense and dreamy listen, with a hint of the rainy pensiveness of their home town.

Notable inspiration from Neu!, Manuel Gottsching, Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo is all clearly audible in the various recordings on this album and minimal effort was made to shy away from this. The longest track 'Motorway' is an epic homage to the space rock art form and 'Madrugada' takes both John Martyn's 'Small Hours' and Gottsching's 'Inventions' as a starting point. Others include the tobacco lovers art-rock-ear-worm ('Liquorice Paper'), a dub laden celestial synth jam ('Slow Blinker') and the album opens with the first thing the band ever recorded, as a meaningless improvisation to tune their synths up to ('Figurescene'). Turned out it had a killer bass line and drum part.

Initial sessions were mostly just an excuse for the three long standing friends to get together musically for the first time, and after knowing each other for many full moons, it was long overdue.

They all bring some peripheral musical heritage to the table. Ian Smith was the guitarist in Alfie and the The Beep Seals and played on Badly Drawn Boy's 'The Hour of Bewilderbeast'. Pete Philipson played in Jane Weaver's band for ten years and has made his own ambient guitar albums. Dan Hope plays in the jazz folk band Mother Sky and promotes events around the city under the Rainy Heart banner.
They were joined by another long term musical friend Sam Kynaston who added heavenly flute to much of the album.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A stunning distillation of kosmische momentum, grooving bass and soaring, twinkling guitar all topped with the wry lyrics and gravelly vocal delivery. A superb, genre-spanning monolith and yet another gem from MCR's Before I Die. Bang on.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Figurescene
A2. Liquorice Paper
A3. Soft In The Middle
A4. Slow Blinker
A5. Madrugada


B1. Motorway
B2. Ghosts In The Maze
B3. Planets
B4. Time Zones