Peaky Beats, Pinder, & Hurrell debut their first ep as Northern Division on PBR Doubled as a Leeds family collaboration with Spin city on the B-side. Speed garage from the heart of Yorkshire to get the summer started.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Autum Terrace
A2. Burley Park
B1. LSD & 2 E’s Ft Spin City

Brand new music from one of Europe’s pioneers of techno and IDM; Stefan Robbers aka Terrace and Florence. His early releases for Djax-Up-Beats and his own Eevo Lute Muzique in the early 90’s were hugely influential striking a sweet spot between stark minimalism, majestic analogue lushness and dance floor grooves. In more recent years his own reinterpretation of the Detroit sound can be found on the highly regarded Dutch label Delsin.

Here on his Thermionic EP Terrace sings out with such intensity that minds are blown. Listen to the brutal, exhilarating sequences of Territorial, which leads the new EP, and you will receive that message loud and clear. While the music is as much about the consequence of soulful depth, it is also about edgy machines communicating intimately. Delving into a more insightful breakdown of the artist’s genius process you can also hear how sweet chords fuse and then contrast with grainy Acidic sonics, leaving the tempo poised at an irresistible pace like all our futures depended on it. Complex yet not overly complicated there is an emotional directness pitched between the artist and audience that typifies all exceptional music. Such is the case evidently here and now.

As you move next onto the more subtle electro pulse of Thermon, shimmering keys dance around a frame by frame remembrance of robotic disco in the 23rd century. Again, each layer sizzles with the spark of electricity energising the atmospheres while continuously constructing worlds of dangerous discourse, fuelled only by the white-hot energy of the discotheque. The uplifting brilliance of Woodward follows filling the void with an explosion of colour that is all about life-affirming instrumentation, hitting you fast and loose with a cascade of arpeggios, tough drums plus an incendiary surge of melodic distraction causing the airwaves to crackle with celebration.

Completing this stunning release from Terrace are the fierce, hotwired grooves forged by Ritual, conjuring up endless combinations of an analogue model rediscovered. The sheer dancefloor animation found within each of Terrace’s productions on this EP purposefully point to and enhance Cyphon Recordings own mission to explore, propelling the emphasis forever forwards.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Territorial
A2. Thermon
B1. Woodward
B2. Ritual

Specimens (aka Alex Ives) returns with “Intersections”, a collaborative new album out 20th May on First Terrace Records. It follows up on his 2018 album ‘In The Dust Of Idols’ - which was selected as one of FACT magazines ‘Ambient Albums of the Year’ - and recent feature on the Ninja Tune imprint Ahead of Our Time alongside Ryuichi Sakamoto, Julianna Barwick, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, A Winged Victory For The Sullen, Skee mask, Suzanne Ciani, Helena Hauff and more for the ambient compilation ‘@0’.

Ives’s new album ‘Intersections’ is a record deliberately exploring the beauty in artistic collaboration, something Ives holds dear to his heart “I wanted to write an album as a kind of ode to all the wonderful little exchanges we have through our life with other humans & specifically for me through music, in touring, playing shows and even as simple as connections made online I have had the privilege to make so many friends and cross paths with some wonderful artists. I wanted to do a record inspired by this”. The title ‘Intersections’ alludes to the idea of a giant network of roads, flight lanes, venues, hostels & inboxes that we are all constantly travelling on, and along these pathways we intersect with others, each on our own individual journeys, and the tracks on this album are expressions of those interactions.

The album features Peter Broderick (Erased Tapes), Midori Hirano (Sonic Pieces), Benoit Pioulard (Kranky) & Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch (130701) who have contributed in their own unique ways to weave their sonic fingerprints into the fabric of Specimens ambient canvases. The track ‘The Illusion of Eternal Bliss’ is a very poignant example of capturing an exchange between two people,

with Alex & Emilie re-visiting the South London church in which they first met for a show to record a piece on the organ, of this experience Alex says “it was one of the most fun experiences I have had recording with a friend, Emilie is such a talented person and our approaches are fairly different but I think we came together really well on this track and had a lot of fun in the process, which is really what it's all about, capturing these little moments like sonic photographs”.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Lighthouse (feat. Midori Hirano)
2. Marble Bones (feat. Benoît Pioulard)
3. The Illusion Of Eternal Bliss (feat. Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch)
4. Human Pillar (feat. Benoît Pioulard)
5. Shipwreck (feat. Midori Hirano)
6. Daybreak (feat. Peter Broderick)

First Terrace is proud to present FTS001, the first in a new series of split 12"s, conceived to bring complementary and contrasting styles from two artists onto one disc. FTS001 sees an experimental veteran go side to side with one of Portland, Oregon’s best kept secrets.
On FTS001, Kerry Leimer plunges us into a tranquil meditation, delighting the head and the heart with warm details, plucked from expansive generative compositions and carefully arranged across four tracks with a deft and knowing hand. Conversely, listening to Like a Villain ’s composition for the Split Series is like allowing someone to take your heart between their thumb and forefinger - excitement, pleasure, fear and pleading. In this piece she rips through her own pristine melodies like a hurricane, relentlessly and remorselessly circling back again and again until all prettiness is returned to noise.

TRACK LISTING

1. Chance Favors Pattern (K. Leimer)
2. The Melancholy Of Departure (1916) (K. Leimer)
3. Noise Coiled Sleep (K. Leimer)
4. Small Collected Enclosures (K. Leimer)
5. Overcoming Emotional Trauma And Finding Your Inner Light Vol. II (Like A Villain)