Five albums. One evolving world of sound.
Digital release (available exclusively via Curious Music Bandcamp): March 6, 2026
CD Box release: May 7, 2026
Curious Music is very pleased to present Tim Story’s five-CD Smudge Box.
Spanning more than six hours of music, the box includes four previously released albums—Virga, Silent Cycles, Isola, and Rust Smudges—alongside Smudges 5: Vox, a new work created especially for this edition.
In addition to the original albums, the box also includes newly created companion pieces for Virga, Isola, and Rust Smudges, expanding these works with over an hour of previously unheard material developed specifically for this edition. Among these, "Virga H" stands as a quiet homage to Story’s departed and deeply missed friend Harold Budd.
Housed in a beautifully-designed clamshell box, Italian artist Petulia Mattioli’s striking visual presentation echoes the music’s restraint, texture, and sense of suspended time. Complete with a 20-page booklet featuring extensive notes by the composer, the edition is limited to 300 copies. Of these, a special edition of 30 includes a unique Fujifilm Instax Mini photograph – a visual expression of the smudging process - each created, signed, and numbered by Story.
The Smudges began without grand intention. While working on music for a documentary, Story sought a way to engage deeply with source material without imposing himself upon it. What emerged was not a style so much as a process: fragments of recorded sound looped, frozen, and gently transformed, allowing timbre and harmony to surface while melody and rhythm dissolve. These suspended moments unfold slowly, forming tone poems that feel at once abstract and uncannily familiar.
What binds the five works in Smudge Box is not chronology, but a shared attentiveness to duration, to the space between events, to what is revealed when sound is allowed to breathe. Each album inhabits its own emotional and conceptual space, yet all are shaped by the same sensitivity to pacing and restraint. There is a collective sense of Ma —the Japanese aesthetic concept describing the meaningful space between events: the pause, silence, or interval that gives shape and resonance to what surrounds it. Meaning here is carried not only by what is present, but by what is withheld.
The process itself is deceptively simple, yet endlessly unpredictable. Two cycles—source material and transformation—move out of phase with one another, producing results that are never quite the same twice. Story has described it less as composing in the traditional sense than as setting a system in motion, then listening closely—selecting, refining, and shaping outcomes through careful attention. What emerges feels deliberate, even inevitable, though it arises from mechanical means.
Story notes:
“It’s astonishing, how this mechanical, artificial process—a system that would produce a thousand different compositions in as many tries—seems to occasionally generate just the one that we ‘want’ to hear—one that after only a bit of attention from the listener seems nearly as meticulously crafted, and moving, as any traditionally-composed piece.”
That listener—their memory, perception, and instinct to form meaning—is central to the Smudges. Stripped of overt narrative, the music invites the mind to complete the gesture. Harmonic fields suggest orchestral weight without ever fully arriving; textures drift in slow motion, as if viewed through multiple perspectives at once. Like Cubist forms, these works do not replace their sources so much as refract them, allowing several temporal viewpoints to coexist.
Created especially for Smudge Box, Smudges 5: Vox arrives as a quiet distillation of the process. Here, Story turns to the earliest and most expressive instrument of all—the human voice. Choirs, ensembles, and soloists are absorbed into the Smudging process, their inflections and resonances stretched into hovering forms. What remains is not language or song, but presence: breath, grain, and subtle emotional weight.
Within the context of the Smudges, Vox is notable for its unusually direct emotional resonance. The voice—so deeply tied to memory, communication, and vulnerability—introduces a heightened sense of intimacy, bringing the human dimension of the project into sharper focus without abandoning restraint.
In the end, this music asks very little beyond patience. What it gives in return is space—space to notice, to reflect, and to hear anew the quiet worlds already present within sound.
Digital release of Altar of Tomorrow OUT NOW
April 16, 2026
Release of the 2LP 180g Milky Clear vinyl edition - Pre-Order Now
Visual by Adam Garcia
Curious Music is pleased to announce Altar of Tomorrow, a new collaborative album by Hustlekat and Ynes Mon. The record brings together two distinct musical approaches—one rooted in instrumental performance and long-form composition, the other shaped through studio process, texture, and spatial listening.
Altar of Tomorrow takes shape through close listening and shared restraint. Hustlekat’s work draws from a classical and orchestral discipline—attention to bow pressure, phrasing, register, and balance—carried into an environment where those values are gently expanded. Ynes Mon approaches sound from within the studio itself, treating microphones, signal paths, and processing as compositional tools. One practice begins in physical gesture and resonance in the room; the other focuses on how sound behaves once captured, layered, and transformed.
The album forms where these perspectives meet. Violin, electronics, and processing coexist without hierarchy. Sounds are introduced carefully, sustained or thinned, allowed to decay, or removed altogether. What emerges is a precise calibration of tone, silence, and duration—music attentive to pacing and continuity, oriented toward what follows rather than what resolves.morrow.
Developed in Los Angeles through an open-ended studio dialogue, Altar of Tomorrow treats composition as a continuous act rather than a sequence of finished statements. The opening track, “Methuselah,” released as the album’s first single, establishes the record’s core vocabulary—setting tone, scale, and pace—before ideas are gradually extended and recontextualized across the album. Later, the sixth track, “Legend of the Hill,” articulates one of the work’s most expansive melodic and spatial ideas. The seventh track is a remix of “Legend of the Hill,” created in collaboration with Peter Chilvers, whose long-standing work with Brian Eno has helped define a lineage of generative and ambient music. Rather than functioning as a conventional remix, the piece extends the source material forward—preserving its harmonic and spatial core while allowing texture, pacing, and emphasis to evolve. This sense of onward movement—of music refusing to settle—is central to the album’s identity.
Across the record, pieces unfold with quiet intent—interconnected yet self-contained—guided by a shared sensitivity to form, balance, and pacing. Classical awareness informs the shaping of duration and transition, while studio processes allow material to remain open and responsive. Rather than building toward resolution, Altar of Tomorrow favors continuity and forward motion, allowing each piece to suggest the next without closure.
ABOUT HUSTLEKAT (STEPHANIE YU)
Hustlekat is the recording project of Stephanie Yu, a Los Angeles–based violinist, composer, and collaborator whose work draws from classical tradition while actively engaging experimental and contemporary sound practices. Trained at The Juilliard School, where she earned both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees, Yu brings a deep orchestral and chamber foundation into settings that extend beyond the concert hall.
Her performance work spans a wide range of contexts, from internationally recognized venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera House, the Kennedy Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and Berghain, to collaborations with ensembles including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pacific Symphony, and San Diego Symphony. Across these settings, her playing emphasizes restraint, texture, and attentive listening.
Yu is also an active studio musician, recording with film, television, and game composers, and appearing on sessions with artists across contemporary music, including Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Stevie Wonder, Sigur Rós, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Danny Elfman, and The Who. Altar of Tomorrow marks her debut full-length album as Hustlekat, presenting her violin practice within a broader compositional and studio-based framework shaped by openness, precision, and forward motion.
Hustlekat
ABOUT YNES MON (COLLIN DAVIS)
Collin Davis, recording as Ynes Mon, is a Los Angeles–based musician, producer, and audio polymath whose work moves fluidly between ambient, experimental, rock, and hip-hop. A Grammy Award–winning engineer at Stones Throw Studios, Davis has collaborated with artists including Laraaji, Sudan Archives, Anderson .Paak, and Knxwledge, while maintaining a parallel practice focused on experimental composition and sound design.
Davis approaches the studio as both instrument and environment, shaping material through careful attention to space, signal flow, and perception. He is the co-founder of Evidence Based Music, a label and research initiative exploring the relationship between sound, consciousness, and emotional regulation. As Ynes Mon, his work emphasizes continuity, process, and subtle transformation—principles that underpin Altar of Tomorrow as a shared, evolving composition.
Today, the light of BLUE turns on.
The digital edition of Fabio Capanni’s new album BLUE is available now, offering the first glimpse of the final chapter in his long-envisioned trilogy.
Eco-pack CD and double 180-gram transparent blue vinyl will follow on February 19, 2026, completing the journey in physical form.
BLUE
vivere nel momento
BLUE is the third stage of an imaginary journey that began in 2021 with HOME and continued in 2023 with OUTSIDE.
If HOME turned inward — tracing the contours of solitude and inner resonance — and OUTSIDE opened that space to the world beyond, where the self and the visible world met along a trembling horizon, BLUE lifts its gaze to the sky. Here, the inward and outward dissolve together, carried into the vast quiet of the upper air — where sound, time, and light expand until only calm remains.
Representing the completion of Capanni’s long-conceived trilogy, BLUE both develops and transcends the musical themes of its predecessors. It gathers the refined harmonic language and tactile sonorities that have defined Capanni’s work — the dialogue between electric guitar and piano — and carries them into ever more rarefied structures. The result is a music of deep stillness and slow ascent, a luminous reflection on solitude, flight, and the quiet dissolution of boundaries.
The journey begins with “Finis Terrae,” the point where, for the ancient Romans, the known world gave way to the infinite blue of sky and sea. From there, the music lightens and drifts — between imagined spaces, suspended horizons, and delicate atmospheres shaped by Capanni’s precise yet dreamlike touch.
In BLUE, the artist takes flight alone. Having previously collaborated with Nicola Alesini (HOME) and Luc van Lieshout of Tuxedomoon (OUTSIDE), Capanni now embraces abstraction and solitude as the purest path toward self-encounter — a meditative, final step beyond the duality of inner and outer worlds.
BLUE is not only an ending but an opening — a quiet invitation to continue the journey beyond sound itself.
CURIOUS MUSIC’S RUSS CURRY ON BLUE
Last July, my daughters and I spent two weeks in Europe, where our travels began in Berlin with the Moebius Strips installation — a kinetic and industrial meditation of light, sound, and machinery. Even there, in anticipation of our forthcoming sojourn to Italy, I sensed an echo of BLUE — the stillness that can live inside motion. When our plane later descended into Bologna, the shift was immediate and visceral: a change in air, in color, in the tempo of time itself.
As we wandered through Florence and the Tuscan countryside, we spent some days with Fabio and his family — a communion of simplicity and presence. His home, a beautifully restored Tuscan house that he renovated himself, feels like an extension of his music and his being: open, intentional, and quietly luminous. His life, his work, and his surroundings form a single, thoughtful whole — a reflection of balance, beauty, and awareness. (Though his driving, as per Italian norm, is not exactly contemplative nor reflective.) The same qualities that live in BLUE— restraint, patience, radiance — exist in the way he moves through the day, the way conversation and silence flow together without boundary. There’s a lived sense of vivere nel momento — of being fully within the moment — that breathes through everything he creates.
In a time when the world feels darkened and uncertain, BLUE doesn’t turn away; it listens. It feels less like escape and more like a reflection of the light within the dark — the calm, luminous center that endures when sound, sky, and silence finally meet. There is still light.
ABOUT FABIO CAPANNI
Composer, musician, and architect Fabio Capanni has been a key innovator in experimental music since the late 1980s.
The refined sonic textures that marked his highly personal approach to the harmonic possibilities of the electric guitar led him to collaborate for over a decade with Hans-Joachim Roedelius, one of the fathers of electronic music, and to participate in projects with Harold Budd, Peter Principle, Luc van Lieshout, Steve Jansen, Richard Barbieri, Tim Story, Glen Sweeney, and Chris Karrer.
In 2021, after a long silence, Capanni released HOME, his first solo album, followed by OUTSIDE in 2023.
BLUE completes this trilogy — an introspective, spatial, and finally transcendent body of work.
TRACKLIST
Finis Terrae – 7:46
Thin Wires – 4:40
Electric Sky – 8:48
The Room of Infinity – 3:52
Gently Warm – 6:26
Far Below – 6:07
Into the Blue – 10:02
Total time: 47:41
Offer a moment of beauty this holiday season.
A Curious Music gift card grants access to our world of finely crafted, curated works — audiophile vinyl editions, bespoke eco-pack CDs, digital releases, fine art prints, and singular curated projects that sit at the intersection of sound, design, and contemplation.
Thoughtfully presented and valid for one year, a Curious Music gift card invites the recipient to explore our catalog in their own time, discovering the pieces that resonate most deeply.
A quiet, refined gesture — perfect for those who value art made with intention.
On 180-gram gatefold vinyl, CD, and digital platforms.
Curious Music is very pleased to announce Spring Songs — the label debut of German composer, pianist, and sound designer Arnold Kasar. Known for his collaborations with Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Friedrich Liechtenstein, and for a body of solo work that merges acoustic precision with quiet electronic exploration, Kasar’s Spring Songs introduces a new chapter—one defined by clarity, intimacy, and the subtle unfolding of sound.
Spring Songs unfolds across eight distilled pieces—interconnected yet self-contained—where Kasar’s acoustic piano drifts within finely drawn electronic contours. Evolving from the quiet architecture of “Spring Song,” first heard on Kasar’s 2019 album Resonanz, this new work extends the theme into a larger spatial meditation. The result is a sound world that feels both grounded and aerial, analogue and spectral—where memory, structure, and silence hold equal presence.
Recorded and mixed in collaboration with Calyx Studio in Berlin, Spring Songs represents a distilled vision — a kind of post-digital romanticism that resists genre while quietly embracing it. As a producer and engineer, Kasar has long been celebrated for his sonic clarity and dimensionality. Here, that expertise is channeled inward, in service of something intimate and timeless.
ARNOLD KASAR ON SPRING SONGS
When I sit on the meadow behind the coastline, the wind changes direction every afternoon and freshens up. The leaves begin to rush. The wind could tell me how the sounds come to me and become music through my fingers and keys. Bees buzz at the edge of the sunflower field. In the evening, the sun sets behind the last hill, just before the horizon turns orange and purple.
My new album is the first solo album that wasn't produced in Berlin. I haven't lived in the center of this city for some time now. I live in a small village, but I'm still very connected to Berlin. I regularly work there, listen to music and meet people. Now I'm discovering the city for a second time. The feelings I have are the same as the first time. This city has so much energy and at the same time it takes so much of it away from me. After every visit to this city, I am empty of energy and full of new impressions. Maybe you can hear that in the new music.
There are four pianos on this album, August Förster, Bluethner, Steinway and Yamaha. The electronic sounds come mainly from Prophet synthesizers and NI Reaktor. The oldest piano recording was made 10 years before this album production, but most of it was made in the last few weeks before mixing.
No AI was used in the creation of the music and graphics for this album.
Special thanks to my wife and family, all the people who made this production possible.
ABOUT ARNOLD KASAR
Arnold Kasar (b. 1972, Bad Säckingen) is a Berlin-based pianist, composer, producer, and mastering engineer. Over the past three decades, his work has moved fluidly between ambient, electronic, and contemporary classical spaces—often erasing the distinctions between them.
He began his career in Berlin’s post-club landscape, releasing through the influential Sonar Kollektiv label and performing with nu-jazz and electro-chanson acts such as Micatone and Nylon. His collaborations with performance artist Friedrich Liechtenstein introduced surreal, genre-fluid pop into his orbit. A long-running partnership with Hans-Joachim Roedelius, including their 2017 Deutsche Grammophon release Einfluss, cemented his standing as a cross-generational connector of musical worlds.
A graduate in music and theater studies from Freie Universität Berlin, Kasar is also a sought-after mastering engineer, having worked at Calyx Mastering, Emil Berliner Studios, and EastSide Sound. His solo albums—The Piano Has Been Smoking, Resonanz, My Favourite Colours—have been praised for their quiet innovation and tonal depth.
Whether performing at the Elbphilharmonie or composing in solitude, Kasar’s work is marked by balance: between touch and tone, intuition and restraint, structure and openness.
SPRING SONGS TRACKLIST
The Tone – 4:07
Ashes – 5:46
Snowflake – 1:38
Meadow – 2:13
Four Fifths – 3:05
Split Voices – 2:52
Entracte – 4:59
Bees – 9:10
Maria Teriaeva’s Sayan - Savoie Now Available in the U.S. via Curious Music
Curious Music is proud to announce that we are offering U.S. distribution for Sayan - Savoie, the latest album from Maria Teriaeva. This self-released album is available in a very limited quantity, and we have been allocated only a small number of copies. These are currently available through the Curious Music website while supplies last.
Spanning 2022–2024 and recorded between Annecy and Paris, Sayan - Savoie captures Maria’s emotional journey in exile. Balancing external chaos and inner peace, she blends Buchla synthesizer, guitar, electric organ, and vocoder, drawing connections between her childhood in Siberia’s Sayan Mountains and her new life in the French Alps of Savoie.
“While working on this album, I found myself reflecting on what unites us, rather than divides us. In places that seem so different—Siberia’s Sayan Mountains and the French Alps—I noticed common threads: snowy mountains, a closeness to nature, shared scents, a slower pace of life, and solitude. Most powerfully, I felt a deep sense of familiarity, with flashes of childhood, even in a foreign place.”
Beyond geography, Sayan - Savoie reflects a personal transformation. “After years of restraint back home, I’m starting to be more open and true to myself, especially as a queer person.” The music, too, carries this newfound confidence, inviting listeners into its world of self-acceptance and reinvention.
Curious Music is thrilled to bring Sayan - Savoie to U.S. listeners. Order now while supplies last at Curious Music’s website.
About Maria Teriaeva
Originally from Siberia, Maria first gained recognition with Focus (2017), her debut solo album recorded using the Buchla Easel. She expanded her approach on Conservatory of Flowers (2020), integrating the Buchla 200e system with strings and brass, resulting in a precise, structured interplay of electronic and acoustic elements.
In addition to her solo work, Maria has composed for film, created music for immersive installations, and participated in the Red Bull Music Academy (2015). A recipient of the Collège de France’s Pause program (2022–2023), she has also held a residency at École supérieure d’art d’Annecy Alpes (ESAAA) (2022–2023) and is a member of L’atelier des artistes en exil in France.
2LP crystal clear 180-gram vinyl + digital box set (with Dolby Atmos bonus tracks)
Release date: January 18, 2026
Pre-orders open now
Curious Music is very pleased to present I Am Ghosts, the definitive edition of Luca Formentini’s deeply personal Ghosts series. This release brings together the complete cycle in its most expansive and immersive form to date. Available as a 2LP set on 180-gram crystal clear vinyl and as a digital box set, I Am Ghosts marks the first time these works have been gathered as a unified whole. Originally issued as four digital EPs, the music is now presented in a tactile format that deepens the listening experience, accompanied by artwork from Petulia Mattioli that reflects the project’s themes of presence, absence, and memory.
The digital edition includes all four original EPs along with two new compositions—”We Don’t End” and “Falia”. These bonus tracks are available in both stereo and Dolby Atmos formats, extending the emotional and spatial dimensions of the Ghosts aesthetic without departing from its quiet restraint.
“We Don’t End” introduces a broader harmonic reach, gently pointing toward what might follow without fully revealing its shape. Falia continues in that spirit, built from melodic fragments and sustained tones that move quietly through introspective space. As a whole, I Am Ghosts feels architectural in its construction—layers of sound as structure, silence as breath, and emotion expressed through tone rather than narrative.
Formentini’s work moves fluidly between abstraction and form, stillness and intensity. His compositions unfold like evolving scenes rather than fixed movements, inviting active, reflective listening. Alongside the vinyl edition, the digital format offers a deeper dimension of experience, honoring the intimacy and ambiguity at the heart of this music.
ABOUT LUCA FORMENTINI
Luca Formentini is a composer, sound artist, and guitarist based in northern Italy. A self-taught musician with a background in environmental activism and philosophy, his work often explores emotional resonance through subtle sonic shifts and real-time sound manipulation. In addition to his solo output, he has collaborated with artists including Markus Stockhausen, Robert Rich, Holger Czukay, Steve Jansen, and Theo Travis. I Am Ghosts stands as both a consolidation and an expansion of one of his most personal and exploratory projects.
Curious Music is very pleased to present Conservatory of Flowers from Maria Teriaeva, her debut with Curious Music, and her first work released on a U.S.-based label. This carefully curated reissue is pressed on 180-gram red vinyl, available for the first time on CD, and features reimagined artwork by Strasbourg-based artist Roma Bantik. His refined visual design complements the album’s shifting textures and tonal depth, while a previously unreleased bonus track, “Amber and Ash”—recorded during the original Conservatory sessions—extends the emotional arc of the album.
This curated limited edition presents Conservatory of Flowers as a pivotal moment in Maria’s body of work—a record that crystallized her interplay of Buchla 200e modular synthesis, strings, and brass, and set the stage for the more intimate, expansive storytelling found on her newest release, Sayan – Savoie. This release reintroduces Conservatory of Flowers as a creative milestone in Maria's catalogue—a record that crystallized her signature approach and pointed the way toward the more intimate, expansive storytelling found on her newest album, Sayan – Savoie.
“The kind of music that rewards both close listening and gentle letting go.”
— FACT Magazine
Also available: a special vinyl bundle pairing Conservatory of Flowers with Maria Teriaeva’s new self-released album Sayan – Savoie. While Conservatory captures the emergence of her signature sonic language, Sayan – Savoie reveals its next chapter—a warmer, more personal work shaped by themes of exile, transformation, and belonging. Two essential works, one evolving story—offered together for the first time.
“A haunting, organic hybrid of modular electronics and chamber textures that rarely settles, always unfolding.”
— Electronic Beats
A Landmark Revisited
Conservatory of Flowers, the acclaimed second album by Siberian-born composer Maria Teriaeva, was originally released in 2020 and widely praised for its unique sonic synthesis: a delicate yet intentional interplay of Buchla 200e modular electronics, string ensembles, and brass instrumentation. Across its seven compositions, the album builds a meditative architecture of rhythmic pulses, tonal warmth, and unexpected melodic phrasing—balancing emotional clarity with structural precision.
Maria Teriaeva on Conveservatory of Flowers
"This album marked a turning point for me as an artist. The reissue allows me to reflect on where I was then, and how that journey led to Sayan – Savoie. Looking back now, I see how that exploration set the foundation for Sayan – Savoie, where I allowed even more openness into my process. This reissue isn’t just about revisiting the past—it’s about recognizing the throughline between then and now, and how my relationship with sound continues to evolve."
Bonus Track: “Amber and Ash”
To accompany this edition, Maria offers a brand-new bonus track, “Amber and Ash.” Playful yet melancholic, the piece extends the Conservatory palette while hinting at the warmer, more vulnerable tone of Sayan – Savoie. It’s both a coda and a bridge, revealing the ongoing creative evolution of an artist continually in motion.
“This piece always existed on the edges of Conservatory of Flowers. It felt like an unspoken thought, a hidden coda, now finally given its place. Some compositions reveal themselves quickly; others linger in the background, waiting for the right time. ‘Amber and Ash’ was one of those pieces. It came to life shortly after Conservatory of Flowers was finished, almost like an afterthought—but one that never left me."
— Maria Teriaeva
About Maria Teriaeva is a Russian-born composer, synthesist, and multi-instrumentalist whose work draws from a wide palette of electronic and acoustic traditions. After a decade performing in acclaimed Russian indie bands, Maria turned to modular synthesis—specifically the Buchla system—as her primary instrument and compositional framework. Her music blends analog textures with orchestral instruments, exploring the tension between natural and synthetic sound.
She debuted with Focus in 2017, an album of early experiments on the Buchla Easel. With Conservatory of Flowers (2018), she expanded that vision, integrating strings and brass into a more fully realized and structured sound. Her latest release, Sayan – Savoie (2025), continues this evolution with an emotionally direct and sonically rich meditation on exile, identity, and inner transformation.
Now based in France, Maria has released three full-length solo albums, composed for film, and created sound for immersive installations and art exhibitions in Europe and Japan. She is a graduate of the Red Bull Music Academy (Paris, 2015) and a recipient of the Collège de France’s PAUSE fellowship. A member of L’atelier des artistes en exil, she continues to develop an emotionally resonant sound world that transcends borders, genres, and conventional formats.
Curious Music will ananounces the first physical editions of Peter Chilvers Dust series: 10” vinyl EPs of Dust 1, Dust 2, and Dust 3. These beautifully crafted, landmark releases feature artwork by Italian multimedia artist Petulia Mattioli, whose collaborations include work with Alva Noto, Fennesz, Harold Budd, and Toshinori Kondo. Her visual language merges photographic abstraction with elemental texture — a fitting complement to the sound world of Dust.
Pressed on Sea Blue, Green, and Coke Bottle Green vinyl, the EPs will be available individually or as a bundled set. In contrast to the spatial openness of the Dolby Atmos mixes, the vinyl format introduces a new analogue dimension to the Dust series — one of tactility, focus, and warmth — adding depth to the way these works can be experienced and inhabited.
EUROPEAN CUSTOMERS ORDER AT BURNING SHED.
PETER CHILVERS TALKS ABOUT DUST
The piano
I’ve been playing the piano for nearly fifty years, improvising on it is second nature to me. I’m fascinated by the possibilities of extending it both sonically and electronically. The final two tracks (Life Finding Form and In Hidden Places) are essentially piano sextets, I love the space that creates.
Themes
I’m intruiged by processes in nature ; from the ways galaxies or weather systems form to the way surfaces decay or are overrun with moss. That’s always at the back of my mind when I make music this way, I’m looking to give notes life after they leave my fingers. These ideas are brilliantly reflected in the visual representation that the artist Petulia Mattioli created for this project.
ENO INFLUENCE
For nearly two decades, I’ve been developing software with Brian Eno to perform many exotic types of music manipulation. While Brian’s focus has been on generative music, my main interest has been on live improvisation. During the lockdown, I began developing a set of tools with this in mind ; I’ll improvise an idea, then continue to improvise as my laptop echoes back variations on the idea.
Most of the tracks across Dust involved this process in some form. Often I’d take the initial pieces and shape them further, sometimes improvising additional layers, other times, particularly on the later tracks in the series, I’d simply cut sections.
ABOUT PETER CHILVERS
Since 2006, Chilvers has worked as a musical and technical assistant to Brian Eno on projects including the soundtracks to the film The Lovely Bones (2008) and video game Spore (2008), album collaborations with David Byrne and the releases Small Craft on a Milk Sea (2010), Drums Between the Bells (2011) and Lux (2012). He worked as Assistant Producer on Eno’s 2016 release The Ship for which he also helped develop a multi-speaker installation which has been shown in many countries.
As one of the earliest successes when Apple’s App Store debuted in 2008, Bloom continues to be fondly remembered. This led in 2018 to a collaboration with Microsoft to produce Bloom: Open World – an augmented reality installation shown in Denmark, and Bloom: 10 Worlds – a complete reimagining of the app for modern phones and tablets. Eno and Chilvers were also commissioned to create Hypnotised – a customised version of Bloom for use in Coldplay’s live stadium shows.
Chilvers has toured with Karl Hyde (Underworld) and recorded numerous albums with vocalists Tim Bowness and Sandra O’Neill, as well as several solo instrumental albums. Many of these were released through Burning Shed, the online label he co-founded in 2001 with Tim Bowness and Pete Morgan.
"Beyond brilliant... a brave push into the future."
- Mark Prendergast, author of The Ambient Century
Curious Music Presents: The Definitive Edition of Lazy Arc
Tim Story and Hans-Joachim Roedelius’sLazy Arc is now available. This stunning, limited-edition 2LP set is pressed on 180g crystal-clear vinyl and housed in a pristine gatefold jacket. Special vinyl Bundles are available as well.
Originally released in 2014 as a small CD-only edition, this definitive reissue features newly remastered audio by Tim Story, capturing the work’s ethereal essence with unmatched clarity.
This expanded edition includes two exclusive bonus tracks, further enhancing the immersive experience of this avant-garde masterpiece.
Recorded during the sessions for the critically acclaimed Lunz and Inlandish albums, Lazy Arc diverges into a more abstract, meditative realm. Its seven-part suite reflects the intuitive interplay between Roedelius’s poetic piano and keyboard melodies and Story’s subtle, masterful electronic enhancements. The album embodies over 15 years of collaboration and 30 years of friendship between these two pioneers, showcasing their shared commitment to exploring uncharted sonic landscapes.
Fully reimagined for this expansive release, the fresh visual presentation complements perfectly Lazy Arc's unique sonic language. The new cover features a mesmerizing, colorized LIDAR image of a river valley by Dan Coe, whose innovative work brings a sense of depth and intrigue to the release. Sebastian Boecking’s beautifully textured design and panoramic layout elevate the visuals to striking effect.
This reissue is a celebration of Lazy Arc’stimeless beauty, inviting both long-time admirers and new listeners to experience its evocative depth.
"Saving its deepest moments for the very end – the final two movements, almost surprisingly simple and effortlessly beautiful, stand as career highlights in either musician’s long and celebrated discographies."
-Jon Leidecker, Negativland
“Aspirin is good medicine.”
-Hans-Joachim Roedelius
We are delighted to announce the release of Aspirin by Moebius.
Aspirin releases on October 6th, 2023 as a limited edition audiophile 180-gram LP, limited-edition compact disc, vinyl/cd bundle, digital download and stream. Pre-order now.
European customers order here from Burning Shed.
The album artwork is by artist/composer Mark Mothersbaugh, best known as the singer and multi-instrumentalist from legendary band DEVO.
Dieter Moebius (16 January 1944 – 20 July 2015) is one of the most important protagonists of avant-garde electronic music in Germany.
Best known as a member of the influential krautrock bands Kluster/Cluster (with Hans-Joachim Roedelius) and Harmonia (with Roedelius and Michael Rother of Neu!), he collaborated with musicians including Brian Eno, Conny Plank and Mani Neumeier (Guru Guru).
Aspirin presents a broad spectrum of Moebius’ distinctive approach — kosmische, rhythmic, abrasive, and hypnotic. From the repetitive patterns of the album title track to the reverberating layers found in ‘C9H8O4’ and ‘Synthetic’, Moebius delves deep into the surging maelstrom of synthesized experimentalism that he is famed for, and which continues to inspire a generation of sound explorers and composers today. Elsewhere, the dirtified electronica of ‘Spiraea’ and whimsical ‘Providence’ provide further evidence of the humour and imagination implanted in Moebius’ work, while the cyclical, mechanical ‘Muffler C’ is perfectly Moebius – profoundly unfussy, but full of noise and life.
The story behind the creation of Aspirin is best told in the words of Moebius’ friend and fellow composer, Tim Story; “In early December of 2005, Dieter Moebius came to the US to perform with Guru Guru drummer Mani Neumeier at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Moebi stayed on a few extra days to visit my family and me in Ohio – days which flew by as usual in a flurry of visits from friends, laughter, food, and drink. On the last night, it was down to just Moebi and I and a little Scotch at the kitchen table, when Moebi pulled out his minidisc player with some new tracks he’d been working on. I loved them and asked if I could copy them to my hard drive. Moebi graciously agreed, though he wasn’t at all sure what, if anything, he would do with them.”
He adds, “Moebi had just finished recording his album Nurton (2006) earlier in 2005, and like that album, these new tracks would have been recorded in his home studios in Berlin and Mallorca. It's possible some of these could have been out-takes from Nurton but most I believe were recorded after that project – whatever the timeline, and for whatever reason, Moebi ultimately decided to shelve these pieces to work on what would be his next solo album Kram (2009).”
It was many years later that Story brought a CDr of the tracks to Berlin during a visit and Moebius was excited to hear them again. Never precious about the past and always working on new material, there seemed little need to revisit these musical orphans until his death in 2015. “Though I never got another chance to talk to Moebi about this music, I think he would be pleased to have this little forgotten chapter from a happy, fruitful time in his life and available at last.”
Aspirin comes off the back of the release of Moebius Strips, released in 2021 by Curious Music, which spoke to the continuing impact Moebius has had on generations of musicians. Working closely with his widow Irene, the audio installation brought together Story and Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo), Michael Rother (Harmonia, Neu!), Eve Maret, Yuri Suzuki, Phew, Geoff Barrow (Portishead, Beak), Jean-Benoît Dunckel (Air), Sarah Davachi, and Hans-Joachim Roedelius (Cluster, Harmonia) to proclaim through sound the resonance that Moebius’ work carries through into the future.
Tracklisting:
1. ‘Aspirin’
2. ‘C9H8O4’
3. ‘Synthetic’
4. ‘Spiraea’
5. ‘Providence’
6. ‘Muffler C’
We are delighted to announce the availability of a very small quantity of just 15 hand-signed 180-gram vinyl copies of the album that Electronic Sound magazine named #5 in their Top 100 Albums of 2024 - Torpedo Forward, the debut release from GAUDI KOSMISCHES TRIO. Each copy is signed by all three members—Gaudi, Colin Edwin, and De Palma—and is available exclusively here.
The GAUDI KOSMISCHES TRIO is a new recording and live project led by Grammy-Award nominee, producer, and solo artist Gaudi, featuring Colin Edwin of Porcupine Tree on bass and De Palma on guitars. A global favourite in the psychedelic-dub and electronica scenes, Gaudi continues to feed his loyal fanbase with his infectious bass-driven grooves and innovative production techniques.
An up-tempo formula of retro beats and analogue sounds, their debut album is an exciting fusion of Krautrock and psychedelic dub, recorded using vintage studio equipment and analogue original instrumentation from the 70s and 80s, mixed and produced by Gaudi at his Metatron Studio in London.
Torpedo Forward is available now as a limited edition audiophile 180-gram black vinyl, cd, digital download and via all major streaming services.
The trio has been performing live and recording together since Gaudi’s 2016 album ‘Magnetic’ and subsequent worldwide tour. Partly inspired by their Magnetic live performances together, the GAUDI KOSMISCHES TRIO sound metamorphosised from their live shows and such was the response to the music, the three musicians decided to make an album together, creating an accurate snapshot of where their interests and influences collide.
Over a period of time, the music developed considerably. The idea of just an archival type recording went much further than expected, once they decided to enter the studio and start composing new tracks, evolving the sound into a much more complex sonic territory and consolidate a new original cross-over formula of “Krautrock meets Dub”.
In keeping with the exploratory nature of the recording process, there is no specific artist influence to the GAUDI KOSMISCHES TRIO, but more a specific era and its freeform of interpreting what music means. From the motorik rhythms of album opener ‘Owa Owa Owa’ and automated soundscapes of ‘Torpedo Forward’, to the lurching, psychedelic avant rock feel to ‘Kufu’, and distinctive and quirky ‘In A Modern World’, there’s an obvious and undeniable pathway from the classic 70s Krautrock movement in Germany, mixed with an overall uptempo electronic sensibility and a few slices of intentionally playful psychedelia thrown in for good measure.
“The recording process was very spontaneous and pretty straight-forward, starting in June 2023 and finishing in September 2023, then it took 4 more months for me to produce it, arrange it and mix it, as it has been made with an “old-school” approach, using traditional studio techniques, such as recording some of the elements on a reel-to-reel tape recorder and mixing it live on my 32 channel analogue mixing console,” says Gaudi who plays synthesisers, theremin alongside vocoder and voice on ‘Torpedo Forward’.
Each track started with the trio jamming in the studio for days while recording all the sessions and subsequently capturing the best moments. Once these were selected, the trio then transformed what they had into individual tracks. Each track across the album was created using the same process except ‘Omoka’, which was mixed on a plane at 38,000 feet of altitude during Gaudi’s tour of Australasia last January – named after the small island in the South Pacific Ocean the plane was flying over at the time.
Gaudi
The Grammy-Award nomination with reggae band Steel Pulse for his production work on their album ‘Mass Manipulation’ (2019), followed by three #1 in the Billboard chart as a musician and songwriter on releases with Lee “Scratch” Perry, Horace Andy, Steel Pulse and Hollie Cook, consolidate his credentials earning him the title of one of the most sought-after dub producers in the dub-electronica scene.
For the past three and a half decades, he has been shattering genre barriers, pioneering psychedelic-influenced dub, world music and reggae, amassing a stunning collection of originals, remixes, collaborations and production works with and for artists such as: The Orb, Groove Armada, Tricky, Mad Professor, Don Letts, Deep Forest, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, UB40, Hollie Cook, Terry Hall of The Specials, Trentemøller, Simple Minds, African Head Charge, Brian Ferry, Youth, BCUC, Lamb, Sizzla, Capleton, Steel Pulse, Dub FX, Shpongle, Horace Andy, Havana Meets Kingston, Michael Franti, Dub Pistols, Grandmaster Flash, The Beat, Afrika Bambaataa to name but a few.
As an accomplished keyboardist and theremin player, he is also part of live acts whom which sporadically performs with, such as: African Head Charge, The Orb, Deep Forest, Steel Pulse, Mad Professor, Adrian Sherwood, Don Letts, Scott Page and Roberta Freeman of Pink Floyd, Stephen Perkins of Jane’s Addiction, Norwood Fisher of Fishbone and Youth of Killing Joke. Beyond the music, a burning passion reveals itself in a scathing rebuttal of tyranny and oppression through sonic resistance. In constant demand on the live touring and festival circuits, Gaudi spreads the words of peace and love on every stop, performing at some of the best worldwide clubs and festivals.
He has released 19 solo albums, over 350 productions and remixes plus a number of movie soundtracks.
Colin Edwin
Whilst perhaps best known as founder member bassist of progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, Edwin’s creative bass playing and open approach to music have lead him to collaborate with a variety of like-minded and inventive musicians, including former Henry Cow multi-instrumentalist Geoff Leigh (as Ex-Wise Heads), innovative Estonian guitarist Robert Jürjendal, experimentalist Eraldo Bernocchi (as Metallic Taste of Blood), female Ukrainian vocalist Inna Kovtun and fellow bassist Lorenzo Feliciati in the critically acclaimed bass duo Twinscapes.
In 2015 he formed the band O.R.k. alongside King Crimson drummer Pat Mastelotto, vocalist Lef and guitarist Carmelo Pipitone, O.R.k, have released four full length albums to date and have toured both Europe and South America. In 2017, he featured on Gaudi’s ‘Magnetic’ album. He is also a member of the high functioning improvising collective Fractal Sextet and maintains a long running collaboration (as Burnt Belief) with US “cloud guitarist” Jon Durant.
De Palma
Pippo De Palma is a London-based musician with 30 years’ experience both as a studio session musician and live performer. He is also part of Alix, a shoegaze/indie rock band produced by Steve Albini (Nirvana, Stooges, Pixies, PJ Harvey). He has collaborated with Gaudi since 2014, forming a strong working relationship and has been involved with numerous productions including guitarist for the Gaudi Kosmisches Trio.
Tracklisting
1. ‘Owa Owa Owa’
2. ‘Torpedo Forward’
3. ‘Kufu’
4. ‘In A Modern World’
5. ‘Vom Mond Zum Roten Planeten’
6. ‘Luxury Squat’
7. ‘Omoka’
Bonus Track: In A Modern World (Dub Spencer & Trance Hill - Dub Remix)
Curious Music is very pleased to announce the release of Pink, Blue and Amber by Hans-Joachim Roedelius.
Pink Blue and Amber is available as a limited-edition cd, double 180-gram audiophile black vinyl, and digital download.
This very special edition includes:
Limited edition double 180-gram audiophile black vinyl with gatefold sleeve
First time on vinyl
Limited edition tri-panel cd with 12-page booklet
Newly remastered digital download
New album art by Rosa Roedelius
New liner notes by Rosa Roedelius
Remastered by Peter Nothnagle
Design by Sebastian Boecking
A very limited edition art print is being issued - only five copies available - is signed and numbered by Roedelius and Roedelius.
Somewhat of a forgotten gem since its original release in 1996, Pink, Blue and Amber finds Roedelius well into a transition from the more kosmiche elements of his work of Cluster and Harmonia to a romantic lyricism which has increasingly characterized his work since the mid 80s.
Pink, Blue and Amber is one of Roedelius’s most collaborative works, evolving from varied sessions over a period of almost ten years including sessions for his ensemble Aquarello and sponsored by Opal, Ltd in London in 1985. The album includes significant and thoughtful, contributions from Yuko Matsuzaki, Fabio Capanni, Felix Jay, Stephan Steiner, Tony Morely and numerous others.
It is no small accomplishment then that given these varied sources Pink, Blue and Amber is one of Roedelius’ more cohesive works, one that invokes stillness and calm – a meditation on the gift of the moment.
As Rosa Roedelius describes the album:
“Pink Blue & Amber is tender, gentle and engaging. The musicians who can be heard on the album may not have much in common in the obvious, but they become a vibrating whole that plays around the listener and integrates him or her. You can feel: the musicians meet each other in awe. Everyone takes their space, finds the language that the other can understand. Magic, do as you wish. What do you want to explain when something simply IS?”
ABOUT THE ARTWORK – ROSA ROEDELIUS’S FLYING CARPET
Upon its release in 1996, the visual presentation of Pink, Blue and Amber was one of the first collaborations of Roedelius with his daughter the artist Rosa. Then an evolving and curious artist (still so!), Rosa provided the cover art for the original release. Rosa has since become a prolific and brilliant artist in her own right and has contributed to many of her father’s projects.
With her flying carpet, Rosa has contributed stunning new art to this special edition in the form of a true collaboration.
Rosa says:
“The flying carpet is a constantly changing part of a stage set. He travels with me around the world eight times. Pink Blue and Amber is the second stop where he landed. Since then it has been part of a 72h performance called The Other Island in Vienna and of and was leading into The Austrian Embassy of the Concept-Mikronation Dreamland Elgaland/Vargaland at the Festival More Ohr Less. The flying carpet is part of the cosmic mycelium series. It connects the deep sea with the ether, the Cosmos . We who travel with the flying carpet float between heaven and earth.”
Curious Music is pleased to announce the release of Outside the new album by Fabio Capanni.
Outside is available as a limited-edition 180-gram 2LP album, limited edition cd, digital download and stream.
European customers order via Burning Shed.
For Fabio Capanni, an Italian musician and architect, music is essentially the representation of spaces. Just as time is the measure of music, in a similar way time is linked to space in an indissoluble relationship, allowing music itself to represent the three-dimensionality of space.
The time marked by Capanni’s music is an abstract time that comes from silence and tends to return to silence, aimed at foreshadowing spaces that are not real but rather spaces of the soul. With an intimate mood, Fabio Capanni’s music aspires to transport the listener to territories and landscapes of rare suggestion.
The eight tracks of the new album Outside are developed around the refined sonic textures that have always distinguished Capanni's personal approach to the harmonic possibilities offered by the electric guitar, continuing an exploration that began with the 2021 album Home. Outside is an instrumental album, composed and performed by Fabio Capanni with only essential instrumentation of guitar and piano. The electric guitar used in an unconventional way is a distinctive mark of Capanni's music, capable of generating original sonorities and enveloping atmospheres in constant dialogue with the piano strings, creating a musical fresco of relevant expressive power where everything is “played with hands” and in which synthetic processing of sounds is not allowed.
If Home had been an album turned “inward,” an expressive urgency dictated by the search for an inner dimension, Outside starts from that dimension in order to project it outward, where the inner world and the real world chase each other until they merge along the same horizon of an ideal space. To embellish the magical atmospheres of Outside, Capanni's past collaborations with musicians of international relevance (from Hans-Joachim Roedelius to Peter Principle, from Harold Budd to Steve Jansen and Richard Barbieri) re-emerge in the figure of Luc van Lieshout of Tuxedomoon who, with his flugelhorn, does not limit himself to punctual interventions, but develops a dialogue with the broad musical scope set up by Capanni, giving it an unprecedented enchantment.
About Fabio Capanni
Italian composer, musician and architect Fabio Capanni has been a key innovator of experimental music since the late 1980s.
The refined sonic textures that have distinguished Capanni’s highly personal approach to the harmonic possibilities of the electric guitar have led him to collaborate with musicians such as: Peter Principle, Luc Van Lieshout (Tuxedomoon), Dirk Descheemaeker (Wim Mertens), Harold Budd, David Torn, David Sylvian, Steve Jansen, Richard Barbieri, Roger Eno, Tim Story, Chris Karrer, and Glen Sweeney. Above all, Capanni has worked alongside one of the fathers of ambient music, German musician Hans-Joachim Roedelius, in the studio and live for more than a decade. They also founded the group Aquarello together with Felix Jay and Roman saxophonist Nicola Alesini.
In 2021, after a long silence, Capanni returned to the music scene with his first solo album, Home, a project through which he puts into action a long-nurtured idea: to make a work focused on the electric guitar. Home, as evoked by the title, is a decidedly intimate album in which the piano strings are valuable complements to those of the electric guitar in creating striking soundscapes.
Combining with other art forms has been fertile ground for the evocative power of Capanni’s sonic narratives, expressed in numerous multimedia projects of music, dance, and images, including: Quartetto Capanni plays Ennio Morricone (Contemporary Art Museum Luigi Pecci, Prato); Borges and I (Donau Festival, Krems; Szene, Salzburg); Klang & Malerei (Black Box, Münchner Philharmoniker); Festival de Musica Visual (Jameos del Agua, Lanzarote); Persistence of Memory (Kunst Halle, Krems); and Coppi Arrive (Contemporary Art Museum Luigi Pecci, Prato).
“A collaboration of deep experience…still offering something fresh.”
-MOJO Magazine, 4/5 review, August 2024
The Same and The Other is a work of art that sits between experimental electronic music and the avant-garde, is the stunning result of a new collaborative project between Italian composer, arranger, and producer Eraldo Bernocchi and British composer and experimental artist, Christopher James Chaplin.
Combining minimal electronic interventions and haunting melodies with slow-moving textures and layered ambient sounds, The Same and The Other is available as a limited edition featuring the powerful and captivating work of artist Petulia Mattioli as a 2LP audiophile 180-gram gatefold vinyl, tri-panel cd, digital download and via all major streaming services.
Having first met at the Extreme Chill Festival in Reykjavík, Iceland in 2019, Bernocchi and Chaplin have been leaders in their chosen fields for many years, but this was the first time they had met in person. Forming an instant bond, the duo were soon exchanging ideas on sound and composition at Bernocchi’s studio in London. “To be honest, we didn't have a specific goal in mind initially. We were simply creating music and sounds through mutual exchange,” adds Bernocchi. “We met several times at my studio, where I decided to limit myself to using only one machine, an Elektron Analog Four MKII. I prefer working within limitations because it focuses creativity. Christopher used a synth and Ableton Live as a sampler and his diverse inputs kept us in a constant state of wonder about the music we were creating.”
With minimal processing, mainly reverbs and some delay, the initial recording sessions were improvised around simple themes and after accumulating a number of tracks, Bernocchi and Chaplin intentionally took a break from the recording process to refresh their perspectives before returning with a more focused approach.
But it was the involvement of visual artist, designer, and photographer Petulia Mattioli who was exhibiting her new art installation The Same and the Other which explored the relationship of the body to time, knowledge, and memory, that the concept of the album began to gradually take shape. Bernocchi had previously worked with Mattioli on numerous art installations over the years providing the audio aspect and although she had no part in the actual recording process of the album, Mattioli’s video projections, artworks, and photo scrolls began to mould and form a huge conceptual part in the musical direction the album would take.
With a combined enthusiasm for creating music and art and exploring the endless possibilities, The Same and The Other is a vessel that has the ability to transport listeners to unknown places, to their personal unexplored realms. Driven purely by their creative instinct from the outset, compositions such as the slow-moving, layered ambient sounds of ‘Oblique’ or dystopian manifestations of ‘Curved’ alternate between presence and absence. Bernocchi and Chaplin seek to bring their melodic ambiental metamorphosis in parallel with Mattioli’s work to produce an expansive soundscape that places the listener in a reflective space.
Elsewhere, the iridescent ‘Foursquare’ alternates between the octaves in a contrast of deep tones and brilliant beaming timbres, while ‘Weaver’ has a completely different genesis, written specifically for the fourth side of the vinyl release. Edits taken from the other album tracks received fresh impetus from the duo and were remixed resulting in a “live” feel to the track.
ABOUT ERALDO BERNOCCHI
Eraldo Bernocchi is an Italian composer, arranger, producer, and guitarist with a solid reputation as an all-round sonic sculptor.
Starting his career in the late 70’s as a guitarist in independent punk bands, in the mid ’80’s he co-founded the conceptual audio project Sigillum-S (with Paolo Bandera and Luca di Giorgio), which grew into a highly acclaimed international cult act.
In the 90’s, together with the graphic designer and video artist Petulia Mattioli, Bernocchi started to create a raft of notable audio-visual projects and co-operations. A relentless sound explorer, he collaborated with numerous artists including Bill Laswell, Nils Petter Molvaer, Harold Budd , Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Merzbow, Russell Mills, Toshinori Kondo, Raiz and Almamegretta, DJ Disk, Thomas Fehlmann, Zu, DJ Olive, Markus Stockhausen, Giovanni Lindo Ferretti, Robin Guthrie, Colin Edwin, Balazs Pandi, Hoshiko Yamane, Flowdan among many others.
In addition to regular work scoring music for adverts and other multimedia projects, he has composed film music for Academy Award winner Gabriele Salvatores and won the ‘President of the Republic Best Soundtrack’ award for the movie soundtrack ‘Denti’ (2000).
He has produced numerous art installations with Mattioli, as well as other artists including Russell Mills and Harold Budd. Uniquely, Eraldo is also known for being invited to play and organise various special events for H.H. The Dalai Lama in Italy.
In 2008, together with music lover Giacomo Bruzzo, Eraldo founded RareNoise Records, a new London based label, which aims to showcase a wide range of cutting-edge music. The label has since become an important conduit championing several forward thinking and original artists, as well as releasing a number of Eraldo’s own recordings.
In 2018 he scored ‘Cy Dear’, the first ever doc/film on the life of the legendary artist Cy Twombly which has been presented at MOMA New York, Louvre Paris and National Portrait Gallery London. Under this moniker SIMM, he released the critically acclaimed ‘Too late to dream’ (2021) with Grammy winner Flowdan as well as ‘Sabi’ (2023) with Tangerine Dream’s member Hoshiko Yamane.
He’s also well known as a sound programmer and designer for Power FX, Swedish synthesiser brand Elektron, Latvian Erica Synths and Attack magazine.
ABOUT CHRISTOPHER JAMES CHAPLIN
Christopher James Chaplin is a British composer and experimental artist, and he has carved a unique path in the avant-garde music scene. With a background in piano studies in Vevey, Switzerland, he later made his way to London during the early 1980s, where he began to explore the boundaries of sound and composition.
In 2009, he was invited by Michael Martinek and Fabrique Records to work with the artist Kava on ‘Seven Echoes’ (2010) – a concept album released and first presented live at the Art Brut museum gugging in Lower Austria. There he encountered a pioneer of electronic music, Hans-Joachim Roedelius (Cluster, Harmonia), who later invited him to participate in a BBC Radio 3 ‘Late Junction’ live session.
The result of this collaboration led to another album ‘King of Hearts’ (2012). In the following years, Chaplin and Roedelius performed all over the world: mostly improvised performances with Roedelius on piano and electronics and Chaplin on synthesizers and orchestral samples.
In October 2016, Chaplin’s first solo album ‘Je suis le Ténébreux’, featuring Hans Joachim Roedelius, Christine Roedelius, Claudia Schumann, and Judith Chema. In 2018, he released ‘Paradise Lost’ loosely based on John Milton’s poem, and it featured tenor Nathan Vale and a text written and read by artist Leslie Winer.
In 2020 his third solo album ‘M’ was released, featuring guest artist Finley Quayle, Austrian musician Mira Lu Kovavs and French performer Aurelia Thierree. His most recent release was 2022’s ‘Patriarchs’, consisting of ten tracks based on the ten antediluvian patriarchs: from Adam to Noah.
In addition to his solo studio recordings, Chaplin has continued to perform numerous collaborative and improvised live shows with Hans-Joachim Roedelius and other artists including Andrew Heath, CM von Haussswolff, Tim Story and the Icelandic electronic music trio Stereo Hypnosis. Based on these live improvisations, the ambient albums ‘Triptych in Blue’ (2017), ‘Bjarmi’ (2018), and ‘Zurufe’ were released.
Tracklisting
1. ‘Oblique’
2. ‘Orbicular’
3. ‘Curved’
4. ‘Diagonal’
5. ‘Angular’
6. ‘Foursquare’
7. ‘Weaver’ (bonus track)
“You will not hear a more beautiful, powerful, and affecting album."
- Tim Sommer, Rock and Roll Globe, 5 of 5 Stars
The Andvaka Suite - An antidote to sleeplessness.
ANDVAKA (Icelandic) Pronunciation IPA: /ˈant.vaːrɪ/ Noun
1. Sleeplessness, The act of staying awake at night.
2. Insomnia, habitual sleeplessness; inability to sleep.
Curious Music is very pleased to present the 180-gram limited edition audiophile vinyl release of the album The Andvaka Suite, by Icelandic composer Bjarni Biering. This elegant and thoughtful work is a restorative reflection on themes of slowing down, healing, and well-being.
Originally released digitally and on cd in November 2021, the expansive warmth and depth of Bjarni’s compositions are beautifully enhanced by the rich breadth of vinyl, offering an immersive listening experience.
To celebrate the release, we are honored to feature a rework of the album track "I can let go" by Jlin, one of America's most distinctive composers and a pivotal figure in electronic music. Jlin, praised by Pitchfork as "one of the most forward-thinking contemporary composers in any genre," brings her multidimensional touch and depth to the track. Her newest album, "Akoma," is now available and features collaborations with Björk, Philip Glass, and Kronos Quartet.
Biering says about The Andvaka Suite:
“Sleep is a naturally recurring state, and an essential function that allows our bodies and minds to recharge. I have always had a strained relationship with sleep, despite knowing its vital importance to my health and well-being.
It never feels as though there are enough hours in the day. Time is our most valuable asset, a finite resource, and it often feels counterproductive to 'waste' time on sleep.
It is all too easy to fall victim to forms of passive relaxation. How many of us start our day tired with the ambition of an early bedtime, only to find ourselves immovable in front of a screen, or ticking off one more task as the hours tick past midnight? Constant stimulation and a constantly ‘on’ mindset directly impacts our sleep and wreaks havoc on our circadian rhythm. We are rarely given the chance to step back, reflect and recharge.
It sometimes feels as though the hourglass has been knocked down on its side, where time has lost its linearity and we are stuck in a seemingly endless loop, desperately waiting a return to some sort of normalcy.
The Andvaka Suite is a reminder to slow down. To allow space for reflection. To create moments of stillness. And, hopefully, to peacefully transition into restorative sleep.”
About Bjarni Biering
Classically trained in traditional modes of score and technique, Bjarni disrupts the clean classicism of his sound with economically dispersed beats and delicately layered piano. He has developed a holistic style as a composer that merges sight and sound through the lens of human emotion. Bjarni revels both in the quiet, reverent solitude of composition and scoring, and the collaborative process - bringing a practical, unfussy artistry to his work with filmmakers, visual artists and musicians.
After training as a pianist, Bjarni immersed himself in composition, drawn to the endless creative potential of modern recording technology and the freedom of improvisation. His obsession with sound and composition began early, during his childhood in Reykjavík where he would sit in concert halls or in front of his parents’ hi-fi laboriously studying the sounds produced. He would spend endless hours at his piano or computer attempting to recreate, construct and deconstruct those sounds, his own melodies and the works of classical and contemporary composers. This construction and deconstruction can be heard in the music of the internal worlds he creates now, gently building and felling the passage of time and our human experience.
“Roedelius is, with no hyperbole, one of the most important musicians of our time.”
- Timothy Sommer, writer/musician (Hugo Largo)
“[Roedelius is] 20th Century music’s best kept secret”
- The Chicago-Sun Times
Curious Music is delighted to announce the second printing of The Book - the autobiography of Hans-Joachim Roedelius.
The Book is available exclusively through the Curious Music website.
The Book includes:
Foreword by Brian Eno
Edition of 200, each copy hand-numbered
469 pages
Over 165 photos - many previously unpublished
108 album cover images in color
Design and layout by Sebastian Böcking
Translated by Alexandra Tolksdorf
In the extraordinary journey of The Book, Hans-Joachim Roedelius – the man once described by the Chicago Sun-Times as “20th Century music’s best kept secret” – tells his almost unfathomable story, from child actor in UFA films, through forced conscription in the Hitler Youth to eventual cornerstone of contemporary music and art. At once a Zelig-esque travelogue of wanderlust and occasionally quixotic misadventure, and the artistic manifesto of a truly unique figure in modern music, The Book is ultimately the account of a life lived in true, hard-earned freedom – at 89, a life that even now continues with an energy and creativity unabated, chapters continuing to be “written” in real time. The Book finds Roedelius intersecting and interfacing with a rich cast of fellow culture-definers including Dieter Moebius, Conny Plank, David Bowie, Brian Eno, Lene Lovich, Henry Miller, Jimi Hendrix, Josef Beuys, Michael Rother, Devo, Kraftwerk, U2, and many more. Intertwined with this 'who's who' of his generation's true influencers, is the warm narrative of family and friends which reveals itself as the true, foundational inspiration for his life and work. Written in an engagingly quirky style that befits the utter singularity of the music he makes, The Book is a testament to the pursuit of the creative moment as a way of being, and a remarkable life lived consciously as a creative endeavor.
Curious Music is pleased to announce the limited edition 180-gram audiophile vinyl release of The Zone, by composer and sound-artist Eve Maret. The Zone is also available as a limited edition cd and digital download.
Recorded as a series of live improvisations with a Novation Peak, The Zone is a meditation on immediacy and the subconscious.
Inspired by Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 film Stalker and the mystical paintings of Hilma Af Klint and David Onri Anderson, Eve creates a world of sparkling, ever-evolving solo synthesizer improvisations, forging a unique sonic pathway to an extraterrestrial realm of latent desire.
Described by Electronic Sound magazine (Sept 2023) as the “Tennessee tinkerer [who] drops electronic gold”, Eve Maret is a Nashville-based experimental artist and composer who employs a wide array of electronic media and techniques in her various disciplines, exploring the possibilities of personal and communal healing through creative action. She continues to push the boundaries of experimentalism and pop, most recently with her brilliant album New Noise.
Curious Music is pleased to announce the digital, cd, cd/shirt bundle release of Lunz 3 by Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Tim Story. Lunz 3 represents the fifth duo collaboration between Roedelius, one of the great titans of contemporary music, and composer/producer Story, a bit of a titan his own right.
The tracks finds the duo continuing an inspired dialogue of "two old-timers" gently pushing the envelope of eloquence and experimentalism, this time aided and abetted by the likes of Thomas Rabitsch, Lukas Lauermann, Christopher Chaplin and more.
Both the digital and cd releases come with a generous seven bonus tracks. Lunz 3 is also available in various bundle options as well.
Story welcomes us to the world of Lunz 3 -
For me, Lunz 3 is both a warm look back to our original Lunz album of 15 years ago, and a fresh extension of Joachim’s and my shared interest in the recontextualizing of truly disparate elements into new, unique musical experiences. In effect, Lunz 3 reimagines elements of music and sound that originated in a series of often unrelated ‘sessions’ – a 3-day collaboration at Thomas Rabitsch’s wonderful studio in Vienna with Thomas and Christopher Chaplin (and the chance contributions of visiting violinist Manuel Druminski), casual recordings at Achim’s home in Baden and my studio in the US, later additions by cellist Lukas Lauermann. A handmade toy kalimba device, a ukulele, Thomas’ unpredictable Publison, Achim’s creaky upright piano, even appropriated bits of the decades-old concert band recordings of my brother Mike coexist with the more traditional touchstones of synthesizers, grand pianos and orchestral strings.
In Lunz 3, what seem like longer phrases and themes are more often made up of a series of discrete, overlapping musical ‘events’, connected more by their inherent, delicate musicality than by their wildly scattered origins. For Achim and I, it’s an aesthetic we’ve explored often – indeed, Achim‘s musical beginnings in 1960’s Berlin with its Fluxus and Actionist ‘happenings’ virtually wrote the book on the restless deconstruction and recontextualizing of older forms. More recently, my Roedelius Cells project, a multichannel audio installation, explores the malleability of sound in a different way – thousands of short edits extracted from a decade of Achim’s piano improvisations, reimagined into layered, syncopated, and entirely new compositions, happily blurring the distinction between listener and composer.
But all this talk of ‘method’ probably misses the point entirely. Like the original Lunz (its successor Inlandish, and all of our music really), the experience hopefully transcends its sources and processes, and becomes its own living, breathing organism. As always, it is stumbling upon those magical, nuanced moments – Achim’s unfailing ability to find just the right note, the most distinctive, effortless phrasing – that are the true revelations for me. Embracing the still-widening echoes of our dear departed friend Moebi, straddling that knife-edge between the quirky and the ravishing. Even now, 15 years on, Lunz still resonates deeply with me, the album’s music intertwined with so many years of friendship. In Lunz 3, I hope we were able to cobble together a new little creature, one with a curious personality and a DNA all its own.
"New Noise is full of heat and light and irresistible optimism."
- The Wire, July 2023
“There's an impressive range of modular synthesisers and live instrumentation across the album's swift 25-minute run-time, alongside a versatile range of spoken-word poetry, field recordings, and beyond. Maret is fearless in her versatility, drawing her wild grab-bag of sounds together into a release that somehow features a strong conceptual throughline.”
- DJ Mag, September 2023
Curious Music is pleased to announce the release of New Noise by Nashville-based experimental artist Eve Maret. New Noise releases on July 6, 2023 as a digital download, stream and limited edition cd.
When asked what ties each track of New Noise together, Maret responds, “As a human, I’m a walking contradiction — a combination of opposing forces, spirit and body — that creates tension and mystery in my everyday life.” This statement on the human condition not only captures a relatable experience for us all, but specifically speaks to the energy emitted from Maret’s sixth studio album. New Noise is an encapsulation of these tensions — the push-and-pull between the organic and synthetic, the blurring distinction between pop sensibility and experimentalism, and the conjuring of chaos to achieve inner tranquility.
While in the midst of creating New Noise, Maret drew from literary, sonic, and musical inspirations. She was unexpectedly illuminated by Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ book, Women Who Run with the Wolves, a text which dives into the correlation between society’s myths and our ability to maintain healthy psyches. In particular, Maret was drawn to Estes’ discussion of the “wild woman” archetype, prompting her to explore it through her musical output. Along with considering archetypes and the human mind, Maret turned to sound for healing in the past few years. Through working with the sound healer Vickie Dodd, Maret began a journey of redefining her relationship to the sounds she makes, removing judgement and ultimately shifting the course of her creative process. Musically, Maret connected with an array of inspirations while creating New Noise, ranging from classical to metal to the blues. Drawing upon an epic quality from composers such as Aleksandr Borodin, a driving, ritualistic approach from bands like Oranssi Pazuzu and OM, and vulnerability influenced by the blues of Lightnin’ Hopkins and Skip James, Maret weaves a path through New Noise that is at times atmospheric and smooth (“Skeleton Woman”), others grandiose and abrasive (“River Underground”).
Rawness and honesty were essential to Maret for the music and production of New Noise. “It feels like leaving all the noise and raw sound is more vulnerable for me. Here I am. Mess and all,” she said. Taking cues from the spontaneous production styles of the early blues and artists such as Les Rallizes Denudes, The Velvet Underground, and Mayhem, Maret strikes a delicate balance on New Noise of maintaining the glisten of electronic music while capturing the gritty candor of the moment. Maret’s intuitive recording process reflected this intent, in which she sat down, plugged in, and let what would happen, happen. For those familiar with Maret’s previous work, New Noise is a pivot, a slight shift in her approach. Maret said, “After reflecting on my previous releases, I felt an urge to pose a new creative challenge to myself. I wanted to make short songs that had a ‘pop’ appeal while abandoning standard production techniques, structures, and sounds. I wanted to innovate a new sound that was both personal and celestial, dark and light.”
Another challenge Maret set for herself was to be “her own band” on New Noise, playing all the instruments on the record, which include guitar, bass, drums, clarinet, voice, and field recordings. The result is a powerful blend of acoustic and electronic sources interacting with one another, such as the clarinet’s timbre merging with the electronic sounds on “New Noise,” or the drum set in “I Draw a Circle” providing the foundation for the swirling synthesizer lines. Each voice is distinct, but also interwoven seamlessly with the others.
New Noise is an expression of contradictions and a refuge from turmoil. Maret recalled, “Sometimes the best way for me to cope is to empty myself of all the news and heaviness by making some noise. I close the door to my studio and let it out. It’s like a meditation where I let myself express the chaotic feelings as a way to move through it.” Convening with Maret through listening to New Noise crafts a space where embracing the mess moves each of us one step closer to our own peace.
"I am impressed by the conceptual clarity of Suki Sou's album Notes on Listening. I can hear common roots to Harmonia's music and I'm sure that many of our fans will enjoy Suki's tracks." - Michael Rother (NEU!/Harmonia), 2023
"A homage to early electronic instruments and pioneering producers - think Suzanne Ciani, Pauline Oliveros and Terry Riley - the seven-track album feels like a healing, mind-clearing walk in nature." - Claire Francis(DJ Mag)
We are pleased to announce the release of electronic composer and sound designer Suki Sou’s deep listening focused debut mini album, Notes On Listening, as a limited edition cd, digital download and streaming on all major digital platforms.
European customers order here at Burning Shed.
Born from a fascination with early electronic instruments, the record is a unique blend of neo-morning electronica, kosmische and proto techno. With its purified synthesized babble and hydrated loops, it’s perfect for accompanying moments of mindfulness, from wiping rain off your nose, to melting in a eucalyptus bath.
Inspired by the quotidian, the overlooked and the pleasurable, and with synaesthesia since birth, Suki has created aural tapestry filled with early morning sunlight and chromatic opalescent patterns. It was built around natural elements, silence and focus. “When the interference is low, and distraction minimum, all you have is your pure focus to listen to every vibration around you. You can feel and hear the everyday differently”, she comments.
Suki is a self-taught improviser who plays by ear and centers her compositions on the fundamental waveforms of electronic music. She uses sequencers to create intricate and layered melodies and rhythms, drawing on synthesis techniques, repeating patterns, and subtraction to create her distinctive sound.
Across seven varied, nuanced and subtly detailed tracks, we hear Suki taking minimalist oscillating riffs but guiding them through endless harmonic pulsations, evoking the natural elements of water, air and light. The ambient drones ebb and flow like the gentle rhythm of the ocean, seamlessly shifting and evolving with each chord progression. Her manipulation of percussion and temple toms creates a symphony of nature's ever-changing weather patterns, which resonate with one’s senses and emotions.
Both electronic sketches and notes on a symphonic scale, Sou’s creations display a strange and ironic juxtaposition, being as there’s a bucolic idyll to the album, evoking the feel of a pre-industrial world. "The album conjures a sense of desire for a simpler time, yet it is also a celebration of modern technology and electronic music. The beats and melodies are in contrast to the pastoral setting, creating a sound I hope is both nostalgic and forward-thinking, blending the past and the present”, she comments.
About Suki Sou
Suki is a cheerfully cantankerous creative who draws from arcane inspirations from across the globe. You can hear traces of the blissful minimalism of Terry Riley; the soft and wobbly electronica that Hans-Joachim Roedelius played on his ‘Wenn Der Südwind Weht’ album and ‘Sowiesoso’ when he was in Cluster; the electro-acoustic compositions of Joanna Brouk; the quiet focus of Eliane Radigue, the hypnotic arpeggios of Laurie Spiegel; the fizziness of Suzanne Ciani’s pop and pour, Raymond Scott’s research beeps, and the syncopation of Tom Dissevelt.
Equally influential to Sou is vivid memories of the smell of cigarette smoke from her grandmother’s room listening to Taiwanese pop star Teresa Teng in the rain, eating cantonese wonton soup, and watching Hong Kong animation and news broadcasted by TVB Pearl channel 1.
Suki was born in the former Portuguese colony Macau, to a Burmese father who was an electronics engineer and half Japanese, half Chinese mother, who was an accountant. “My parents sent me to a Catholic boarding school in Berkshire to study when I was eight years old. I travelled to the UK on my own with just a dictionary; My mother’s theory was that I needed to learn the language all by myself, without anyone's help”, Sou recalls.
After moving from London to the Peak District, Suki set up a home studio and began using Buchla, Moog modular systems and rare analogue systems like the ARP 2500, ARP 2600 and Serge, Synthi from Willem Twee Studio in the Netherlands – all of which helped create this sensory wonder.
Curious Music is pleased to announce the release of Luxa by Harold Budd on limited-edition double 180-gram vinyl and FLAC DL.
Luxa was composed and performed entirely by Budd, recorded with engineer Michael Coleman in 11 days in June 1996 at the tiny Orangewood Studio near Mesa, Arizona. The album was originally released on CD only by All Saints Records in 1996.
Luxa contains Budd’s distinctive piano signature while maintaining the balance between pretty ambient music and an evocative, starker use of space and silence. A number of the album’s 16 tracks are ornamented with a variety of African and Indian rattles, shakers, gourds and bells, creating a contrast of depth and rhythm. “Chet,” the longest album track, uses silence as a kind of languid loop. While “Paul McCarthy” balances piano and bells in a strident, elliptical lope. The album concludes with a duo of covers - “Sweet Earth Flying” by Marion Brown, a sweeter rendition of the jazz musician’s solo organ piece, and “Pleasure” from Steven Brown (ex-Tuxedomoon), ending the album on a somewhat cacophonous note. In all, Luxa offers up the very best of Budd, a record that is at once both idiosyncratic and inviting.
This first-ever vinyl release of Luxa has been painstakingly remastered by Tim Story and comes in a high-quality limited edition of 500 copies on 2LP 180-gram black vinyl pressed at 45 rpm. The gatefold sleeve is printed in a deluxe matte finish and includes a beautiful high-resolution, numbered art print. 100 artist proof copies of the art print are individually available as well.
The 2018 remaster is also available in resplendent digital sound as a lossless FLAC DL.
Luxa was pressed at Memphis Record Pressing in Memphis, Tennessee.
100 artist proof copies of the art print are individually available as well.
“Titles are very important to me. From them come the music ideas. A good piece can be ruined by an awful title. I think of Luxa more as a decorative thing. An art term. From there, the music insinuated itself.”
- Harold Budd
"Luxa is a minor masterpiece that demonstrates that there’s still life in ambient music, and that it’s still possible to make a meditative musical work that’s neither New Age kitsch, nor weighed down by the numbing repetitiveness and sterile conceptualism that’s hampered the minimalist and ambient genres for so long."
- Paul Tingen, Sound on Sound, January 1997
“Relaxing, warm music, like sun on a red tile floor.”
- Ted Mills, AllMusic
Curious Music is pleased to announce the limited-edition compact disc release of Nordlicht by Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Carl Michael von Hausswolff.
Originally issued on vinyl and digtial download in July 2018, this first-time compact disc release comes in a limited issue of 300 hand-numbered copies and includes the cd-only bonus track "Arti ficial orga nic".
Nordlicht is also available as a stand-alone digital download as well as a cd/vinyl bundle.
The vinyl comes in a limited issue of 500 copies on 180-gram clear vinyl in a matte varnish sleeve. Included is a high resolution, numbered art print and download card. The vinyl was pressed by Memphis Record Pressing in Memphis, Tennessee. The vinyl release also comes with a MP3 download code.
Nordlicht is also available as a stand-alone MP3 or lossless FLAC download. Vinyl also comes in a bundle packaged with a triple-blend t-shirt.
The four pieces on the record were originally intended as informal creative exercises born from a shared curiosity and mutual interest in collaboration. Instruments include piano, sine wave generators, synthesizer, EVP vocals, and on “At The Island,” a field recording of the nocturnal sounds on the shore of the Spanish island of Lanzarote. The abstract nature of the work and idiosyncratic sound sources are somewhat reminiscent of Roedelius’ earliest efforts with the experimental groups Human Being and Kluster.
Roedelius states of the collaboration:
“I first met CM in Vienna by the shore of the river where the most famous actor Orson Welles was shot when he tried to escape from being hunted by the police for crime. We didn’t recognize each other in the dark. Later, at University of Arts in Vienna, CM taught me to play music from scores as I had been unable to do this since I became a composer/musician. He became my teacher, good friend and co-operator in the field of all contemporary and pre- and past- historic arts and especially the art of Nordlicht.”
Nordlicht Track Listing:
1. Let Her Go (17.40)
2. These Are The Keys (5.02)
3. At The Island (5.04)
4. Find The Way (5.47
5. Arti ficial orga nic (8.00 ) (CD only bonus track)
We are pleased to annouce the release of Moebius Strips on double 180-gram audiophile vinyl.
This high-quality limited audiophile edition (of 500 copies) comes on 2-LP 180-gram black vinyl pressed at 45 rpm. The gatefold sleeve is printed in a deluxe matte finish with spot gloss designed by the artist Sebastian Boecking.
The Moebius Strips limited edition cd (including options of 200 hand-numbered and signed by Tim Story or a shirt/cd bundle). The beautiful CD package was designed by artist Sebastian Boecking and comes in a matte finish with spot gloss printing of Moebi’s signature, new essays by Tim Story and Geeta Dayal, and a 32-page booklet which includes many previously unpublished photos (including of Harmonia and Cluster and Eno).
The stunning 9” x 9” 60 page museum program comes in a high-quality matte finish with high-resolution printing. Also included is a new essay (updated from the CD booklet) by Tim Story and many previously unpublished photos (including of Harmonia and Cluster and Eno and Conny Plank). The program includes previously unseen images not included in the CD booklet.
Various vinyl, museum program, cd and shirt bundles are also available. Each format comes with slightly modified artwork.
About Moebius Strips
Honoring Story’s collaborator and dear friend Dieter “Moebi” Moebius (Cluster, Harmonia, Brian Eno, Conny Plank), Moebius Strips is a multichannel audio installation for museums, festivals, galleries, and other public spaces. Working with Moebius’ widow Irene, Story has collected thousands of his sounds, noises, samples and loops, and reimagined/recomposed these in patterned ‘strips’ which, out of the context of their original settings, combine in new and ever-evolving layers on the installation’s soundstage.
Moebius’ music continues to inspire a generation of sound explorers and composers, and we have honored those connections by inviting a distinguished group of artists who have been influenced by his work as well as former collaborators, to add their voice to the Strips – to interact in their own unique ways with the constructions - including contributions from Geoff Barrow (Portishead, Beak), Sarah Davachi, Jean-Benoît Dunckel (Air), Eve Maret, Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo), Phew, Hans-Joachim Roedelius (Cluster, Harmonia), Michael Rother (Harmonia, NEU!) and Yuri Suzuki.
Curious Music is pleased to announce the release of the brilliant new album, Soft Light by Heavy Color. Soft Light is a recombination of 60’s spiritual jazz, meditations in pattern-based music, instrumental hip hop, and psychedelic pop.
Soft Light is available as a digital download and limited-edition cd. A 180-gram audiophile vinyl release date will be announced later.
Scott Boberg, Deputy Director of the Ann Arbor Film Festival writes about Soft Light.
“Just a few days ago I read J.G. Ballard’s short story The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista, part of a sequence of his tales set in a futuristic seaside artist enclave called Vermillion Sands, a place where orchids have been bred to sing arias, metal sound sculptures grow like plants, stingrays fly in the air, and poetry is produced by computer program. In The Thousand Dreams, homes are designed to physically reflect, in their malleable plastic walls, the mood of their owners and, being a work by Ballard, the story comes to a nihilistically-twisted conclusion. What if, however, that psychotropic home was designed by Heavy Color and the experience of listening became a joyous one that, while it doesn’t shy away from the negative, is a buoyantly affirmative journey to the positive?
I realized that for me their new album Soft Light is actually a ten-room house, and as I stepped into each carefully-crafted space, I was immediately immersed in that specific sonic experience in which I kept finding personal reference points that continue to exponentially accumulate with repeated listening (hold your breath before diving into my very personal (and, yes, partial) list of where this music took me): Nik Bärtsch, Harold Budd, Kate Bush, Can, The Comet is Coming, Cluster, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Eno (Brian and Roger), Peter Gabriel, John Hassell, Hüsker Dü, Kraftwerk, Pierre Kwenders, My Bloody Valentine, Bill Nelson, Pink Floyd, Prefuse 73, Ravel, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Stereolab, Tangerine Dream, Wilco, Wire, and Hector Zazou… Yikes!
Just like one of Ballard’s mood rooms, I suspect that each listener who steps into Soft Light will find their own network of reference points, a testament to the richness of experience that Heavy Color has invested in each and every room in this house. Go ahead, make yourself at home and stay awhile.”
“Pristine, clear and pure, each of the delicately painted aural miniatures evokes a mood and paints its own quiet contemplative picture.” – Choice Cuts
"The sheer elegance of these pieces - as effortlessly moving as anything by Mozart or Debussy - can move you to tears." - Logo
“You’ll be hard pressed to hear something as beautiful and evocative all year.” – B4BEATS
Curious Music and Groenland Records are pleased to announce the 20th anniversary special edition release of Lunz by Tim Story and Hans-Joachim Roedelius.
European customers order from Groenland here.
This very special release comes newly remastered by Tim Story as a digital download, collector’s edition cd with four covers (limited to 250 per cover worldwide), and a double 180-gram audiophile vinyl release with hand-numbered and signed art print (limited to 500 copies worldwide). Shirt and shirt/vinyl bundles are also available.
Lunz was the second collaboration of the German electronic music legend Hans-Joachim Roedelius (Cluster, Harmonia) and Grammy-nominated American composer/producer Tim Story. Lunz was the culmination of the composers’ 25-year mutual admiration and friendship, and the beginning of a prolific partnership that spawned six acclaimed albums, audio art installations and live concerts across Europe and the US.
When Lunz originally hit the record shop shelves of London, listeners knew of the Roedelius/Story collaboration only via a few concerts and the abstract musique concrete of their limited edition cd Persistence of Memory. Lunz quickly changed that with 12 timeless and beautiful miniatures, each creating a unique sense of time and place with a surreal blend of melody, texture and mood. Lunz inhabits a world all its own, of lush acoustics and angular electronics, translucent pianos and dark ambiences. It's a mysterious world where the innocent and the distressed occupy the same singular environment, coalescing perfectly. 20 years on, Lunz remains a fan favorite and a landmark addition to both artists body of work.
Curious Music is pleased to collaborate with Berlin’s Groenland Records for this definitive release – the first-ever appearance of Lunz on vinyl – in a spectacular double vinyl gatefold with two bonus tracks from the original sessions, and a special cd release with 4 distinct covers by graphic artist Sebastian Boecking. Groenland is well known for curating the esteemed catalogs of Harmonia and NEU! as well as innovative new work by many other artists.
Lunz is available from Curious Music in North and South America and from Groenland Records in Europe.
The 20th anniversary edition of Lunz includes -
Vinyl
First-ever vinyl release on 180-gram 2LP black vinyl limited to 500 copies worldwide
Mastered for vinyl by Tim Story
Gatefold premium matte sleeve with spot gloss and OBI
Hand-numbered Lunz art print signed by Story/Roedelius
New liner notes from Tim Story
Contains two previously unreleased bonus tracks from the Lunz sessions
Vinyl edition design by Sebastian Boecking
CD
Available in four different collector covers designed by Sebastian Boecking (azure, emerald, linen, dandelion) limited to 250 copies of each cover worldwide
Digitally remastered by Tim Story
New liner notes from Tim Story
Contains two previously unreleased bonus tracks from the Lunz sessions
Heralded as a "beautifully, eerie world unto itself" by The Guardian, and named "CD of the Week" by The Sunday Times when first released in 2008, this third collaboration between German electronic music legend Hans-Joachim Roedelius and the American composer and producer Tim Story has been acclaimed as their most inviting work, an artful blend of electronics and acoustics that makes for a warm, welcoming yet curious collection of pieces.
- Limited edition of 500 copies
- 2LP 180-gram translucent red vinyl
- Numbered high-definition art print signed by Roedelius/Story
- "Ellipsish" previously unreleased track from the Inlandish sessions
- Features new liner notes by Tim Story
- Remastered for vinyl by Tim Story
- Pressed at Memphis Record Pressing, Memphis, Tennessee
Also available in a vinyl/t-shirt bundle
Curious Music is pleased to announce the release of Eve and David 1 by multi-disciplinary artists Eve Maret and David Onri Anderson. A hand-numbered limited edition (of 300) cd and digital download.
Eve and David began their improvised sessions during lockdown in 2020. Without a specific intent, the duo recorded dozens and dozens of hours of music, slowly creating a fascinating pool of varied pieces from which they chose the most compelling, eventually leading to Eve and David 1. Inspired by 70's Krautrock, funk, ambient, and free jazz, their debut album explores a sound that slips in and out of identifiable genres, creating a wholly unique sound. Their first single, "Labyrinth," offers driving beats and pulsing rhythms with psychedelic guitar somewhat reminiscnent of Eno/Byrne’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, while other tracks like, "For Snippy," take the listener on a calming journey of synthesized abstraction.
About Eve and David
Eve and David is a Nashville-based couple that creates ritualistic psychedelia from their home studio. They are inspired by grooves and beats of 70s funk and electronica, as well as ambience and meditation. These seemingly opposing forces coalesce in their heart-felt improvised sounds.
David Onri Anderson is a Tennessee-born French-Algerian Jewish artist, musician, and curator. He graduated from Watkins College of Art in Nashville with the Anny Gowa Purchase Award in 2016. He has had solo exhibitions at Patrick Painter Gallery in Los Angeles, CA, Harpy Gallery in Rutherford, NJ, David Lusk Gallery in Nashville, TN, Atlanta Contemporary, amongst others. In 2020 he published a book of drawings with Zürich-based artist book company, Nieves. His work has been reviewed, exhibited and collected internationally with works in permanent collections including the Soho House in Los Angeles, CA and Nashville, TN, The Joseph Hotel, and the Metro Arts Library in Nashville, TN, amongst others. Anderson is founder and curator of an artist-run space called Electric Shed Gallery in Nashville, TN (2018-present). His work has been reviewed in Art in America, Artnet, BURNAWAY, DailyLazy and more.
Eve Maret is a Nashville-based experimental artist and composer who employs a wide array of electronic media and techniques in her various disciplines, exploring the possibilities of personal and communal healing through creative action. Drawing inspiration from nineteenth-century orchestral and choral works, the Fluxus movement, Kosmische Musik and funk, Eve makes use of digital and analog synthesizers, clarinet, electric bass, acoustic drums, and more to create works that range from lush cinematic compositions to space techno. Eve has released four solo albums since 2016, most recently The Zone on Curious Music. Her music has been reviewed by WIRE Magazine, Bandcamp Daily, and the Chicago Reader. She has toured across the US and has performed alongside Lydia Lunch, Xiu Xiu, Sun Araw, JEFF the Brotherhood. In 2018, Eve co-founded Hyasynth House, an electronic music collective for femme and LGBTQA+ artists.
We are pleased to announce the release of our limited edition Lunz t-shirts.
This shirt comes in a cotton short sleeve crew and features the beautiful Lunz logo designed by Tim Story.
Sizes available include S, L, M, XL, and 2XL.
Curious Music is pleased to announce Road to Rosslyn, the new album by British composer and experimental artist Christopher Chaplin, and his debut release for Curious Music.
Pre-order now:
June 18, 2026 Digital release of Road to Rosslyn
July 2, 2026 CD release of Road to Rosslyn
August 13, 2026 Double gatefold vinyl release of Road to Rosslyn
Road to Rosslynfollows a symbolic path through seven Gothic churches across Britain. The journey begins in the Wiltshire chalk downland of Salisbury Plain and moves northward toward the Midlothian lowlands of Rosslyn. Across seven stages, the album imagines these sacred sites as points of energy within the body of Albion: a hidden current moving beneath the land, rising from Salisbury toward Rosslyn.
The road itself becomes a serpent-like path. It does not function simply as a route, but as a line of ascent—an unfolding movement through stone, landscape, memory, and sacred architecture. The album’s seven compositions trace this motion with a sense of ritual continuity, allowing each place to emerge as both location and symbol.
The concept for Road to Rosslynis loosely based on the idea of seven major British Gothic sites as seven chakras, or energy points, of Britain. Salisbury Cathedral becomes the root chakra, while Rosslyn Chapel becomes the crown. Although Rosslyn is not a cathedral, its place in the work reflects its enduring significance as a remarkable example of Gothic sacred art.
Chaplin’s music moves through these spaces with patience and intention. Rather than illustrating the churches literally, Road to Rosslyn treats them as resonant points within a larger spiritual and geographic architecture. The pieces unfold as stages of a single journey, connected by atmosphere, proportion, and a steady sense of elevation.
The visual direction for the release extends the same symbolic structure. Working closely with Christopher Chaplin, Sebastian Boecking shaped the album’s visual world, creating the cover imagery and refining its final visual form. The artwork develops the idea of Britain as a sacred body or map, with the road to Rosslyn appearing as a serpentine line of movement. Boecking’s design work gives the project a visual language that is spare, mythic, and architectural, echoing the album’s movement through Gothic space, symbolic geography, and ascent. This collaboration continues Boecking’s important visual role within Curious Music, where his refined sense of atmosphere, proportion, and image-making has helped elevate many of the label’s releases beyond sound alone.
With Road to Rosslyn, Christopher Chaplin brings together architecture, geography, mythic symbolism, and sound into a focused seven-part work. The album reflects Curious Music’s continued interest in releases that sit between disciplines: music as composition, image, object, and contemplative journey.
ABOUT CHRISTOPHER CHAPLIN
Christopher James Chaplin is a British composer and experimental artist whose work has developed through a sustained interest in sound, composition, collaboration, and transformation. After studying piano in Vevey, Switzerland, he moved to London in the early 1980s, where he began exploring the outer edges of musical form and sonic structure.
In 2009, Chaplin collaborated with the artist Kava on Seven Echoes, a project first presented live at the Art Brut museum gugging in Lower Austria. There he encountered Hans-Joachim Roedelius, the pioneering electronic musician known for his work with Cluster and Harmonia. Roedelius later invited Chaplin to participate in a Late Junction live session for BBC Radio 3, a collaboration that eventually led to the album King of Hearts.
Chaplin’s solo work includes Je suis le Ténébreux in 2016, featuring guest artists including Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Christine Roedelius, Judith Chemla, and Claudia Schumann. His second album, Paradise Lost, released in 2018, was inspired by John Milton’s poem and featured the voices of Nathan Vale and Leslie Winer. In 2020, Chaplin released M, the final part of a trilogy concerned with change and transformation, with contributions from Finley Quaye, Mira Lu Kovacs, and Aurelia Thierree.
His later albums include Patriarchs, a musical exploration of the antediluvian patriarchs from Adam to Noah, and Door 1 Door 2, released in 2024, featuring baritone Tassos Apostolou, soprano Michela Varvaro, vocal support from Carmen Alt-Chaplin, and cover art by Tim Story.
In addition to his solo studio recordings, Chaplin has continued to perform and record through collaborative and improvised projects with artists including Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Andrew Heath, Stereo Hypnosis, Carl Michael von Hauswolf, Tim Story, and Eraldo Bernocchi. These collaborations have led to releases including Triptych in Blue, Bjarmi, Zurufe, The Prisoner of Chillon, and The Same and The Other.
ROAD TO ROSSLYN— TRACKLIST
Salisbury – 7:22
Wells – 7:29
Gloucester – 6:53
Ely – 6:53
York – 7:21
Durham – 7:17
Rosslyn – 7:15
christopherjchaplin.com