After the success of the 2 Late 4 Love EP, Roy Of The Ravers returns to Emotional Response with a double LP with a deeper perspective, experimenting in ambient and drone textures, lucid techno travails and acid interludes. Recorded between 1997 and 2017, the album was pieced together over the last six months after Roy's archives were first feared lost and then found. Approached by the label to release a follow up with something more introspective and personal, it was discovered that a recent move to a new studio had led to over 20 years of music being misplaced after it was believed they were mistakenly dropped at a local charity store. However, deep in a box of what were thought to be patch cables were in fact the decades worth of hard drives and here presented, is a sample of those lost recordings. The nature of the music is introspection, eschewing the acid beats and white noise for a personal encounter between man and machine. The orchestral opening of the title track gives way to the submarine beats, pulsing TB303 and gliding hats of Robinson College 10 to set the outlook to come. Even with the scattering A Dim And Distant Past waking lulled senses, the melodies and feel all lead to a pause and reflect rather than jump and shout. This is continued with the haunting drives of Bounce Erec and Oriental X0X-Press; the twisted, warped jams of The Weber Traum Boat Pt.3, Ichi and Roland Corp Labs 05; and the beautiful, heartfelt odes in Sade Lost Theme, The Clock House Pt.2 and closer, Nemesis '01. The album's melodic nature hums and shines as CS (6x8) appears as much a centre piece as a alternative consideration to the acid tinged, club bangs of Roy's releases to date. A surprise package maybe, but in the rolling, word of mouth phenomena that was Emotinium II, all this and more was sensed and so White Sunrise Music II, spreading across 12 songs of contrasting moods, is a further affirmation that there is something good and worthy of exploration.

"Who invented the Typical Girl?" The Slits gleefully proclaimed as they attacked sexual stereotypes way back in 1979. There are no typical girls. Just remarkable women making remarkable music, as this compilation highlights. VOLUME FIVE of the ever popular series, featuring 16 of the worlds greatest current female fronted punk and indie bands from around the globe.

Emotional Response is delighted to present a special project, a collection of music from Bartosz Kruczynski, recorded for "Selected Media" and presented here as a time-piece of his continuing works. Initially known as one half of sample based project Ptaki (The Very Polish Cut Outs / Transatlantyk), Kruczynski first appeared for Emotional Response as The Phantom for the first series of SchleiBen in 2015. Featuring two works of deep 'fourth world' sounds, they highlighted a shift to more mellow, synthetic and hazy compositions. His break out came, however, when he explored this sound further on his eponymous album Baltic Beat, for the acclaimed Growing Bin Records. This has been augmented with the recent club based music as one half of the wonderful Earth Trax (Rhythm Section International / Phonica Records) project.

Here though, Kruczynski returns to the ambient and ethereal - plus a touch of dub techno - to showcase his expansive collaborative work with Polish studio, TVP Culture. Given free artistic license, the 15 'short form' recordings included here were for programming, in the main, on modern Polish Art including the likes of Magdalena Abakanowicz, Miroslaw Balka and Tadeusz Kantor, as well as some international aspects for Enrico Prampolini, Ai Weiwei and Monica Bonvicini. Taken from over 70 episodes the material included recollects imagery, video and memory to present a series of short vignettes that together create one whole. Minimal and hazy ambience (V, VII, VIII, XI, XII) envisages classic melodies and chords and is accompanied by further 'fourth world' pieces (I, II, III, VII, X) that present an oeuvre that is recognisably the music of Kruczynski, while remaining fresh and perfectly meditative. A counter can be found in the atmospheric dub works (IV, IX, XIV) that hint at echo chamber environs to get infinitely lost in. As an album then, "Selected Media" can be heard as a snapshot to Kruczynski's music journey, a meeting of art and music that is oft overlooked but very much essential.

Emotional Response and Ocean Moon come together for a special collaborative release, where Seahawks take the music of WOO on a journey to the inner sanctum. Immersive, psychoactive and phased to perfection. For those who know not the music of WOO, prepare to behold a rare and magical incarnation of transcendent beauty.

Perhaps Seahawks most spaced out voyage since Vision Quest One: Spaceships Over Topanga Canyon, ‘Celestial Railroads’ is a psychedelic odyssey that goes way beyond the norm. 'After the Last Train To Trancentral far Beyond The Wizards Sleeve, Celestial Railroads await….’

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: The nation's favourite cosmic seafarers return with cult oddball music mavericks Woo for one of their most star-flung voyages yet.

FORMAT INFORMATION

LP Info: Includes a bonus "super space acid temple mix tape" CDR.

CD Info: Includes a bonus "super space acid temple mix tape" CDR.

Emotional Response close the year on a high with "Foreign Affairs" - a limited edition special remix 7-inch single featuring reworks from Alexis Georgopoulos & Jefre Cantu-Ledesma's "Fragments of A Season" album by Woo and Felicia Atkinson.
Last year's ""Fragments of A Season"" represented a unique chapter in both artist's canon. Georgopoulos, who released the Arp album "Zebra" in June this year and Cantu-Ledesma, who released "On The Echoing Green" in October 2017 - both on Mexican Summer and to critical acclaim - wanted to stretch out and create a discrete work. A peripheral listen to "Fragments" revealed a resonant album of delicate, ambient vignettes, suggesting a Balearic take on Vini Reilly, Young Marble Giants and other poetically-minded, minimalistic post-punk era bands.
The Brothers Ives aka Woo were a major influence on the album's makers and so AG and JCL are thrilled they've submitted a beautiful reworking of the album's "Marine". Whereas the original sounded like Marine Girls and The Gist getting together for a nice beach day jam, Woo's rework transforms it into pulsating track of glistening proportions. Percolating synths, some guitar and clarinet - the true classic, idiosyncratic Woo-ification - creates a woozy, romantic, impossible to categorize slice of Balearic meets dub atmospherics.

If "Marine" is all midday sun, intoxicating and potently optimistic, Atkinson's remake represents the literal and figurative flip, bringing out the overcast dreaminess to "Cleo". Sounding like an outtake from a Rohmer film, or perhaps Cocteau Twins and Broadcast having a picnic in Biarritz, the version veers between abstraction, celluloid ambiguity and suggested narrative. Atkinson's reworking adds poetry of the tune (quite literally!) with her soft vocal under-gliding to perfection. Representing a temporary idyll, a meeting point where cobblestone streets lead to the sea. At nightfall, a discotheque heard in the distance. The morning mist burns off. Only such memories remain.

A spectral haze of subconscious, living rhythms & electronic prowess, A meeting of mind-tribes - Close, Kudo, Ruscha & Tripp. Hear now! - the discovery of TKIL.

The quartet creates in a non-linear, multiple level, liquid sequence. Four individuals, their subtle personality's reiterating sonic textures to form cascading minimalist atmospheres, chimes and percussion - diffused harmonics of ethnic vortices descending endlessly. Acting as coordinates that search for their source, a purity of multiplicity is presented.

Together these are focused experiments, raga-like meditations of precious expression from artistic connotation. Visionary; subtle; mysterious. Their essence an eclectic blend of composition, a natural but technical expression of cosmic minimalism and world music influence.

The outcome is a magical encounter of artists finding a creative affinity, sweeping downstream on a rolling rhythmic magic muse, beyond a bizarre excursion to capture the thrill of modernism, moments that reach the soul of alienation and togetherness in equal, savant, infinity.

For the final part of SchleiBen 5 - 8, Emotional Response welcomes two Scottish based artists to close out the series. In Jon Keliehor you have a world and music traveler with history from psychedelic rock to fourth world exposure, alongside one of the best electronic producers of the last decade, Lord Of The Isles.  
As the drummer of West Coast folk rock / psychedelic band The Daily Flash, Keleihor spent much of the mid-60 based in and out of Seattle and Los Angles, playing alongside the likes of Jefferson Airplane, Cream and The Doors, before an increasing interest in meditation and philosophies outside of the 'rock' realm led him to England in the early 70s where he become involved in dance theatre. Teaching Advanced Rhythmic Music Studies at the London Contemporary Dance School, his music composition style became influenced by his studies of world music.
Finally settling in Glasgow for over 20 years, while running the Luminous Music label and Gamelan Naga Mas, his earlier recordings for labels like Indipop, Touch and Bruton have seen a recent revival, with music appearing recently on contemporaries Optimo Music and Invisible Inc.
The wonderful recordings included here span over 3 decades, from sessions at the Luminous Studio at The Diorama Theatre, London in the early 80s, through to recent field-work based recordings in the Cairngorms. Reconfigured and updated, a common thread appears through the pieces - a sense of longing and appreciation - as Jon's knowledge of outer-national instrumentation alongside equally extensive travels around the globe gives the recordings a seamless blend of organic craft.
The tonal consonances within unlikely combinations of instruments, with tuned glasses (tarang), tabla, jaw harps, clay flutes and ocarinas, Chinese instruments that include Xiao-Bo and Xiao-Ping, large Noah bells, small and larges gongs all employed, the recordings have been reconstructed, edited and updated via sampling and digital processing. Featuring the playing of John "Jhalib" Millar - the extraordinarily gifted musician and tabla player - who has appeared with an EP on sister label, Emotional Rescue (ERC029), sadly recently deceased, the contribution acts as a tribute and more.

To close, the music of Lord Of The Isles is an excellent companion to Jon's work. Neil McDonald's list of club-based releases on labels CockTail D'Amor, Ene, Firecracker, Permanent Vacation, ESP Institute and Phonica is comprehensive and exemplary, however within his productions has often been an other-worldly element, a space between the beats and occasional fully ambient pieces.
Approached originally for series one of SchleiBen, the 7 pieces included were worth the wait, a journey in themselves and the perfect completion. Spanning almost 5 years, the majority were written during an extended exile in the Cairngorms. The lifting, ethereal, but melodic nature of the music fits that aesthetic. Blue skies, snow, long walks, space to think, but with a longing and appreciation of family and friends.
The solitary nature found in SchleiBen 8 and the geographical incidence of both artist's recordings including sessions in the Scottish Highlands fits the series ideals and is a nice closure. Enjoy and listen.

The collaborative vehicle of Seahawk Juan Tripp and Vactrol Park duo Guido Zen and Kyle Martin, Brain Machine blew our Piccadilly lids last year with the mighty "Peaks", a killer kosmische opus packed with galactic vibrations. On a follow up tip, Emotional Response are landing live and direct with two remix EPs featuring their nearest, dearest and most favourite proponents of deep electronic music. The EP starts with a wonderful mix from Los Angeles native, Rollmottle. Running the beautifully sporadic Sentrall label since 2001, here Anthony Puglisi takes the Balearic meets Krautrock leaning of his recent album, "Fear Ritual", and crafts a lovely, drifting, textural stargazer.
Next the Dusseldorf / Brain Machine axis returns with a remix from rising names, Die Wilde Jagd. As Unit 4, Ralf Beck is considered by many to be one of the least heralded, but most talented producers. Returning alongside sometime Noblesse Oblige member Sebastian Lee Philipp, the remix eschews the motorik consistency of their early outings for a 9 minutes + remix of atmospheric nirvana.
The final side of the series goes to newer names in Cass. and Merrick Adams. One half of the excellent ZSOU (alongside Mo Morris), Merrick ventures solo here with an ever building break fuelled trip to "(Alpha) Moon". Cass. closes proceedings with a ubiquitous glow. As you'd expect after his appearance on the SchleiBen series, recent solo album and joint-release with Wolf Muller on International Feel, this mission ends with pure ambient bliss. Part 2 of the Brain Machine journey is complete. Where next?

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: This second instalment of the Brain Machine remix series takes the intensity down a notch, cutting the engines and letting us float freely through nebulous beauty. Calm and cosmic brilliance from Rollmottle, Die Wilde Jagd, Merrick Adams and Cass.

Following the critical success of last years mini-LP 'The Last Tortuga', Black Deer is back on Emotional Response with a 4 track remix EP featuring friends and alumni Nacho Patrol, Luke Wyatt, Sad City and Valet.

William Burnett returns to the label in the form of a remixes EP that takes his original productions and hands it to a broad selection of today's finest electronic producers, plus a rare outing from one of the label's favourite pyschedelic experimentalists. While Danny Wolfer's Legowelt project needs little introduction, it was only right that his inclusion on the label came from a more cosmic outlook. With must have EPs and a long player offered, his afro-infused Nacho Patrol moniker is a must check. In 'Circle Dance' the original is taken by the hand down to an afro-tech-funk'n'breaks basement for one of his best remixes to date and rightly so for one of his old buds. Luke Wyatt follows with an uplifting and warped retake on 'Meditation'. The kraut influence of the original is built on with fuzz guitar and a solo that builds across the track to a higher peak. Play this at sunrise for reaffirmation of life itself. Next is a big favourite of the label, Sad City, who caught the ear with his first release on Underwater Peoples and a lush follow up for Phonica. The pure ambience of a 'Highway' remix strips everything back and lets the 4th World shine. Finally, one of the main influences on the label when it started a few years back. Valet aka Portland multi-instrumentalist and mum, Honey Owens offers a deep, beautiful and haunting retake of 'Tortuga', adding whispers, drones, guitar, toms, keys and intonations to swallow you whole.

As one of the rising stars of the East Coast US electronic scene, Luke’s Torn Hawk releases on the cult L.I.E.S records introduced his cut up and glitchy take on R&B and house that have recently edged deeper and darker in to the noise and techno realms associated with the likes of Demdike Stare and Regis.

This has been complimented by two recent DVDs, self-released under his own name. Mixing his day as a professional multi-media artist with his night as an increasingly experimental musician, they have gained considerable acclaim that can’t be pigeon holed as yet another Brooklyn house-head.

However, as his first white label debut EP testified, there is also an ethereal and at times (*cough*) Balearic feel buried deep within this music and it is here, on 'Teen Hawk', this is as evident as his drone-based pieces.

While the looping percussion and rhythms of 'Bertone Stratos' and 'I Recommend Starman' echo the ethereal beauty of Cluster and La Dusseldorf, they are also mixed with the darker ambient and loop-based 'Wrong Crowd' or 'Greystoke One'.

Riding throughout much of this is his beloved looped guitar and eye for a breakbeat. Never more evident that on the album closer, 'Time For Thick'. Here his influences mesh to create a swirling, blissed out, hip-hop meets Aphex MDMA anthem (minus the sexist gangster rap - phew!)