Like the emerald merkiness emerging from the cover photograph, Bono / Burattini’s new album ‘Ora Sono Un Lago’ transcends elements, a tenacious and brooding collection of work that testifies the duo’s growth and ghostly ability to immerse kosmische landscapes, stripped electronica and oscillatory psychedelia and emerge with songs meticulously constructed, dense and unforgiving, full of richly assembled textures and echoed out other-worldly choirs. Some might call it confessional mysticism.

‘Ora Sono Un Lago’ was recorded and produced impeccably by Grammy Award winning engineer Francesco Donadello (Hildur Gudnadottir, Johann Johannsson, Modeselektor & Thom Yorke, David Sylvian, Ben Frost, Nils Frahm) giving Francesca Bono (vocalist, performer, founder of Ofeliadorme and member of the Donnacirco collective) and Vittoria Burattini (percussionist, multi-faceted drummer and member of influential Italian avant-rock band Massimo Volume) the freedom to truly explore different compositional directions after their acclaimed debut ‘Suono In Un Tempo Trasfigurato’. The palette is wide, from the standout title-track, where scintillating complex sequences leave space to a spellbinding synth, to the menacing ‘Prove d’esistenza/Il gesto’ lead by it’s funked-out robocop drums or its evil twin ‘Acrobata’, all hovering choppers and Carpenter existentialism. Pastoral minimalism and spiritual elegance take over on ‘Fragili danze’, a mesmerizing dance that mixes the emotional engagement found in Laurie Spiegel’s compositions and that constant search for human fabric. This is an element that is widely explored on the masterful album closing sequence of ‘Oltre le palpebre’ and ‘Lonely blue star’ where acoustic instrumentation pinpoints Bono / Burattini’s silky stratifications creating a sense of three-dimensional space and gentle propulsion. A mysterious mix that touches on the obscure rumblings of early UK post-rock greats Bark Psychosis/Disco Inferno while keeping a hand deep in the pockets of Italian archival folklore and 70s tradition. Songs like ‘Come Un Riflesso’ are a good reminder that the duo’s rhythmical complexion definitely takes nods from Liebezeit’s playbook but are set on the duo’s own pace, a lone voyager on a hallucinatory trip. ‘Ora sono un lago’ is an album of staggering depth, a pointillist manifesto of contemporary futurism and hand-cranked emotionalism inspired by the poetry of Sylvia Plath and Patrizia Cavalli, where hypothesis and suspension become Bono / Burattini’s brushes for their distinctive blend of intimacy and reckoning. Burattini crafts tense, hollow drum patterns that she pairs with Bono’s alien melodies, komische-influenced soundscapes and sparse, choral-esque vocals that ebb and flow throughout the LP. - Ransom Note "Italian library music meets Ghost Box meets Morricone ripples and pulses in the synth-laden sound world of Italian duo Francesca Bono and Vittoria Burattini" The Wire. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Ora Sono Un Lago
2. Prove D’esistenza / Il Gesto
3. Nuda Vela
4. Come Un Riflesso
5. Acrobata
6. Tra Le Labbra
7. Fragili Danze
8. Volo Dell’Angelo
9. Oltre Le Palpebre
10. Lonely Blue Star

Certain paths necessitate and call for one singular long sequence in order to arrive at a fully formed conversation or reasoning. Nothing seems to broadcast it more clearly than the trajectory Brussels based Italo-Vietnamese artist Nguyễn Zen Mỹ embarked on during the last decade as Radio Hito.

After a string of highly cherished and sought out tape releases, Radio Hito’s new album ‘L’uso e gli attributi del cuore’, co-released by Maple Death & Meakusma, unfolds with devastating clarity, a profound balance of depth, minimalism and emotional grounding. A ten-sequence song cycle for voice and MIDI soundfonts adapted from the 2021 book by French poet Claude Royet-Journoud. Written and recorded between January 2023 and August 2025, the cycle evolved through nearly 80 live performances from Galicia to Kazakhstan before arriving at its recorded form. Set to an Italian libretto adapted from Royet-Journoud’s text ‘L'usage et les attributs du cœur’ (POL, 2021), the work revisits the tradition of the 19th-century Lied — art song built on existing poetry — transposed into a radically economical contemporary setting: voice and Casio CTK workstations.

"I was interested by this incompleteness CRJ mentions - by the ‘suspension’ of meaning questioning readability and intelligibility. I ‘resisted’ to CRJ’s texts since I met him and got to know his work. […] It seems to me that when playing the songs, I submit an object to be completed by the audience."

Radio Hito’s distinctive approach to setting poetry to music — spare arrangements, strophic repetition, and a voice suspended between recital, fm transmission and canzone — creates a language of its own, reaching new heights on ‘L’uso e gli attributi del cuore’, songs that are formally rigorous, emotionally restrained, and shaped by the discipline of sustained live performance, interlocking into a coherent cycle.

Rather than illustrating the poem, Radio Hito approaches it as a space of suspension. Royet-Journoud described poetry as a “profession of ignorance,” where meaning remains incomplete; these songs extend that trembling state, allowing repetition, digital timbre, and restraint to hold the text open.

Often misread as minimal synth or romantic chanson, Radio Hito’s practice is rooted instead in the lineage of the art song and song cycle: open structures, close attention to language, and a live performance economy that pushes the voice at the heart of the stage. The choice of accessible keyboard workstations — light, portable, and embedded in contemporary popular culture — replaces the historical piano. Radio Hito creates fantastical, mirage-like songs, intimate yet elusive. Her music is forlorn chanson for the digital age; bringing her haunting and beautiful vocalisations into conversation with MIDI soundfonts and humble-yet-deep casio compositions. Music that strides for simplicity, yet lands miraculously within an entire new universe, a uniqueness achieved from like-minded spirits such as Ghedalia Tazartès, Savina Yannatou & Lena Platonos, Dorothy Carter, cycles that trickle down into estuaries.

TRACK LISTING

1. Seguiamo I Margini
2. Il Singolare
3. Nella Notte
4. Davanti Agli Occhi
5. Al Diciassettesimo Passo
6. Un Rumore
7. Sono Dei Viventi
8. Les Cercles D’appartenance (rilettura)
9. Il Corpo Vicino
10. Igor (L’amore Di Una Descrizione)

Mai Mai Mai’s artistic path has never rested on laurels, it’s been a constant evolution, a profound and poetic research, a dark and dusty journey through awareness and collaborations where the heart of the process has always been about building connections and understanding people and their rituals. Mai Mai Mai’s new album ‘Karakoz’ was mostly recorded in Palestine (Ramallah and Bethlehem) in 2024 during an ongoing genocide and follows his acclaimed Southern Gothic double-album ‘Rimorso’. The album opens a new chapter for the Roma based artist, a deeply personal record where his traditional industrial miasma flows into a weeping vortex of spiritual hymns, Mediterranean hauntology and Middle Eastern chants of sorrow, carrying the despair of a battered population and matching the fighting hope with echoes of ambient bliss. Recorded during his artistic residency in collaboration with Radio Alhara and Wonder Cabinet, the album is the result of an immersive six-week residency between January and May 2024, in Bethlehem and Ramallah, where Mai Mai Mai delved deep into the traditional music of Palestine, meeting and collaborating with local musicians, exploring archives, and recording the resonances of the land. This deep engagement allowed him to unearth the intricate layers of Palestinian sonic heritage, weaving them into his own sonic language.

The record opens with ‘Grief’ sung by Maya Al Khaldi, whose haunting voice delivers a traditional grieving chant, weaving and layering in constant flux; Producer and electronic artist Julmud is featured on ‘Dawn Of The Cremisan Valley’, bringing his syncopated rhythms and unsettling textures. The album also incorporates recordings of the yarghul played by maestro Osama Abu Ali, percussions and bouzuq recorded in studio with Jihad Shouibi and Karam Fares in Ramallah. ‘Echoes of the Harvest’ features a special contribution by composer Alabaster DePlume, a beautiful Buchla & sax elegy, tear-shaking minimalism elevated by the haunting filtered voice of Hajja Badriya, a recording directly from the Ramallah Popular Art Center's Sound Archive.
The connection with the British musician and activist stems from Sound Of Places, a residency in the Cremisan Valley amongst the olive trees and monastery protecting the last strip of land in the area. Karakoz, the shadow theater typical of the Ottoman Empire (and thus also of Palestine), represents the physical side of the record, a time and place for gathering and community, while Jinn are left to roam and carry the spiritual force of the music. This unique collection blends ambient field recordings, studio sessions, and performances with local artists, alongside archival material from the Palestinian Sound Archive of the Popular Art Center in Ramallah. Through a meticulous intertwining of traditional chants, environmental soundscapes, and urban echoes, Mai Mai Mai crafts an immersive sonic journey that encapsulates the tensions, resilience, and profound beauty of the region. More than just a musical experience, this album serves as a cultural bridge, an evocative exploration of memory, identity, and sound.

TRACK LISTING

1. Grief (feat. Maya Al Khaldi)
2. Karakoz
3. Echoes Of The Harvest (feat. Alabaster DePlume)
4. Old Poem Made Of Sand
5. Dawn On The Cremisan Valley (feat. Julmud)
6. Jinn Of The Bethlehem Souk (feat. Osama Abu Ali)
7. Wondering Through The Crowded Paths Of Al-Hisba

When you’re immersed into something you never actually realize if the essence will project as bright as the efforts, as deep as the process and as loud as the intentions. WOW, the Roma Est duo of China and Leo Non, have never had to create magic or delve into mystique along their meandering path, it’s just been a long solemn wait for what life throws at them and actually sticks. Cause and reaction, because the essence is quietly there when the clamour fades away.

Their new album ‘Rosa di Luce’ is as pure as they come, a crystalline documentation of a new family, new meanings and new languages where the only rule is to gently adapt and just let things flow. Welcoming Mina Wow, a tiny creature, into the fold was never going to be easy for a life lead on the road and for a band as radical as WOW where nothing is sugar-coated or constructed behind the scene, a different approach was desperately wanted, needed and searched. Almost total disarm, doing the small things, undress, get rid of the unnecessary feedback. That’s why ‘Rosa di Luce’ more than ever showcases WOW’s other-worldy spectral capability of creating songs that contain immense and minimal emotions, raw but welcoming, sincere but cutting and could play out to be a career defining album. Loosely recorded between their house in Rome and a campsite in Southern Puglia (where WOW organizes their yearly Shawala Festival) these songs are masqued my a minimalist entendre that leaves space for China’s stellar vocal delivery, a haunted range with frequencies to tickle a soul and pierce hearts, with Leo’s resolute guitar playing leading a timeless revolution.

The center-piece ‘Le Montagne E Noi’ is a perfect example of their stripped-back nakedness hiding complex arrangements (the beautiful sax played by Ryan Spring Dooley and celestial flutes by Alessandra Lazzarini) that sound effortless and imperative. Spiritual orchestrations that match our times and most importantly their new family and definition of space. Peaks that can always be reached, forests that need crossing (La Radura) in order to find a sound. There is no pretension or conceit to WOW’s style, it is entrancingly vibrant yet melancholy, taking notes from the most visceral strand of Italian traditional music, yet, still, walking down a trail that is very much their own. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Rosa Di Luce
2. Primavera
3. Le Montagne E Noi
4. La Radura
5. Creature Fragili
6. Samba E Amore

After four EPs of skeletal kraut-punk and slimmed down post-motorik alienage Milan’s Tv Dust are back with an entirely different beast, their proper debut ‘Transition’, an incredible collection of no-jazz, breakneck rhythms, mutant-wave, trance-funk, shredded sax jags and furious, yet mysterious assaults.

Tv Dust run a tight ship, they jam econo, with the album strongly based around the incredible interplay of drums (Sergio Tringali), bass (Filippo Aloisi) and sax/synth (newest member Gaetano Pappalardo). Shedding the use of vocals has completely freed the band up into a mutating beast, wild horses racing beside a volcano eruption, improv bursts that perfectly soundtrack the ruins of a city facing the inhuman consequences of wild expansion and dumb economics.

'Transition' is a no-jazz, no-panic, no-border album, born between a small bar and a basement, reworking some ideas from the first Tv Dust sessions with a new mindset, with improvisation becoming an important tool in the trio's new path that already sees releases on Occult Punk Gang, My Own Private Records, Sentiero Futuro and Maple Death.

'Transition' like the transformation of the group, you still get the original package of furious hypnotic grooves, shortwave radio alien funk, devo-id convulsions, jittery no-wave and Italo post-punk tradition alongside dada-jazz and freeform freakouts.

'Transition' is our natural condition. No one is excluded.

TRACK LISTING

1. Transition
2. Last Call
3. Smelly Floor
4. Why Spuzz Out
5. Ivory
6. Fly
7. Lila
8. U Say II
9. Storm
10. So
11. Volcanic Collapse