Copenhagen-based multi-instrumentalists Jason Dungan (Blue Lake) and Johan Carøe didn’t set out to make an album. Instead, as the title ‘Routine’ suggests, they found their way there through a process of habitual making and listening, developing an intuitive musical language to reflect the dreamlike meanderings and creative play of life's quiet moments. ‘Routine’ blends pop orientated sounds, Avant-garde minimalism, folk and new age with the emotive depth of film-score.Their meeting was not entirely coincidental. Previously in bands such as Squares and Triangles, Jason Dungan has since recorded multiple albums under the moniker Blue Lake, including the lauded Sun Arcs, pursuing his passion for self-built percussion and multi-string instruments. Johan Carøe meanwhile is a composer whose film soundtrack work has seen him collaborate with Angelo Badalamenti, Arp, and Sofie Birch, at whose Andersabo residency (curated by Dungan) the pair first met, resulting in the highly praised album ‘Repair Techniques’ written by Birch and Carøe.‘Routine’ emerged organically over many years against the backdrop of great personal change. As Carøe said goodbye to his father and welcomed his first child, the pair sent each other fragments of melodies and patterns, working up responses when time allowed to assemble a sonic palette that combined acoustic instrumentation of zither, clarinet, cello, saxophone (among others) with the textures of tape, drum machine and Yamaha DX7 synth. Inspired by the vulnerability and DIY ethos of Arthur Russell’s home recordings, the vision of labels like Disques de Crepescule, and the art pop, experimentation inherent to late ‘70s and...
LP CLEAR $29.00
10/16/2026
Cartographers and US multinational technology corporations might think they’ve mapped out most of our big, beautiful blue planet, and yet there’s always more to discover if you know where to look. French-born, London-based composer and musician Pascal Bideau takes this as his central premise on a new album of intrepid sonic exploration that delights in the sensation of being somewhere you’ve never been before. ‘Terra Incognita’ invites us to seven faraway sonic imaginariums fusing global and spiritual jazz with life affirming minimalism into a hypnotic, polyrhythmic odyssey. This time, the albums’ sound palette is more vibrant, earthy and abundant, drawing inspiration from the radiating optimism and high-energy sources heard in Afrobeat, Highlife and Electronic Afro-pop music, sounding looser, free and primarily interested in raw sensations. Antithetical to the precise ostinatos and gamelan patterns of the acclaimed debut ‘Fleeting Future’ (2022) and ‘Lines’ (2023). Terra Incognita, then, is a hybrid blend of traditional music and modern electronics, a trip into the unknown that ambulates freely, taking pleasure in its repetitions and never staying still. Bideau suggests this unmarked territory could be as much a fantasyland as it is a transportive journey into the inner self. “It’s probably the feeling I love the most in life,” enthuses Pascal. “It pushes you into a state of wonder and naivety that brings you back to how everything felt when you were a child.” He’s talking about dépaysement, a French word that literally translates as “uncountryfication” but has no English equivalent. “It’s the sensation you...
CD $17.50
07/17/2026
LP $29.00
07/17/2026
LP COLOR $30.00
07/17/2026
Saxophonist, producer and composer Brian Allen Simon explores darker hues, transposing waking and altered states under his studio veil Anenon. On the deeply evocative new album ‘Dream Temperature’, he shifts electronic processing to the foreground, introducing digitized wind instruments and unworldly atmospherics, not heard since his innovating mid-late 2010s output.A longtime Los Angeles resident, born and raised, Brian Allen Simon has expressively operated under the moniker Anenon, releasing the highly revered ‘Petrol’ (2016), ‘Tongue’ (2018) and the viscerally beautiful ‘Moons Melt Milk Light’ (2023), in a line of unwavering musical dialogues. While the penultimate album was a deliberate, reductive, entirely acoustic detour that was born out of a want to unplug, ‘Dream Temperature’ sees Brian primed with a newly discovered wind synthesizer as his central compositional tool, alongside acoustic piano and tenor saxophone. The entirety of the album’s electronics are triggered by Brian’s lungs, generating otherworldly synths modulated by expressive breath control, channelled through the laptop as the core processing chamber for added textural components and field recordings.A free floating and heavy emotional resonance marks 'Dream Temperature' from beginning to end, invoking the feeling of waking up, still heavy from a night of half-remembered dreams, and continuing one’s day in this state. Simon maps out the album's spatial voice early on the statement title track, a deep, yet compact cut, generated from digital saxophone rasps that whistle by in close proximity, along with haze filled textures and sub bass. There is a sonic oscillation of urban grit and pastoral drift...
LP CLEAR $29.00
05/01/2026
Akusmi is the new project moniker of French-born, London based composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Pascal Bideau, who signs to the new Tonal Union imprint for the release of his album ‘Fleeting Future.’ With its hallucinatory, genre-defying blend of minimalism, cosmic jazz and Fourth World influences, and in its quest for optimism in the face of unknown and limitless possibility. ‘Fleeting Future’ stands apart as an inventive and inspirational debut. The creation of the album’s richly colourful and multi-layered sound world was originally inspired by Bideau’s journey to Indonesia, where he immersed himself in traditional Gamelan and gong music. Many of the themes, motifs and melodies on ‘Fleeting Future’ seed from the ‘Slendro’ scale, one of the essential tuning systems used in Gamelan. However it is not musical scales, but scales as in the size or extent of things that most fascinates Bideau, specifically he explains; “the compelling way things dramatically change when you shift from any given scale to another.” The album connects directly to nature and the wider world in its evocation of perceptive shifts and transitions from microscopic to macro scale, as evidenced by the opening title track ‘Fleeting Future’, on which a simple dotted saxophone line morphs and billows into synths, brass and strings, indicating the musical voyage that lies ahead. Like the start of a journey or adventure it is full of anticipation, its arborescent growth conveying the optimism of the unknown and of limitless possibility. The album centrepiece ‘Neo Tokyo’ is a vibrating, ebullient...
LP $29.00
04/17/2026
Blue Lake reveals his most ambitious album yet, which finds its visionary creator Jason Dungan harnessing the collective alchemy of his band, with ten spirited tracks that resonate with a powerful directness, evoking an ecological connection to the wider world. On The Animal, Dungan introduces the use of voice as an instrument, as a way of unlocking song-like characteristics. On the gracious album opener "Circles", which sees the group embrace in choral unison, like in birdsong, voices echo as a part of the surrounding sonic environment. The band are fore grounded and formidable in their delivery, forming a rich, acoustic accompaniment to Dungan’s zither strokes, earthy guitars and percussive patterns. The soundworld is noticeably bolder and livelier, as evidenced on "Cut Paper", with now regular mixing collaborator Jeff Zeigler capturing the fullness of the new band sound. Dungan also enlisted the help of Danish producer Aske Zidore who encouraged him toward new working strategies, a liberating intervention which allowed the element of surprise and discovery. The center ground is never fully consumed by Dungan as we find him consciously orchestrating from a respectful distance, giving generous space for the musician's spontaneous performance and improvisation, allowing their musical intuition to give rise to beguiling, holistic synchronicity. "The Animal" is a form of musical metamorphosis, still acoustic, yet more amplified, elevating it to new dimensions. The Blue Lake project takes on a new lease of life to encompass collaboration with Jason Dungan bound in a universal connectivity, resulting in his most ambitious...
LP $30.00
10/03/2025
LP COLOR $33.00
10/03/2025
Through the interaction of dulcet textures and harmonious melodies, infused with Greek bouzouki string plucks, sporadic piano and violin, enigmatic musician Gabriel Brady laments the everyday with daring simplicity on his lustrous alt-ambient debut for the Tonal Union imprint. Across its seven vignettes, 'Day-blind' is life animated as Brady makes possible an everyday encounter with the transcendent.Attracted by the sensibilities of old French film scores, especially those by Michel Legrand and Jean Constantin and the sheer simplistic beauty of forbearing composers Debussy, Satie and Ravel, Brady cites inspiration in a warm earnestness to the melodies; and the complete, unmediated feeling that such scores and orchestrations create. Written and produced in his bedroom dorm at Harvard, in Cambridge Massachusetts, Brady recorded organic instruments (violin, bouzouki) before routing them through a compact modular synth setup acting as a sound chamber for further manipulation (loops, effects, textures). In striving to make sense of the ordinary, on Day-blind, Brady’s works are invariably imbued with a sense of serenity and tensionThe woozy opener ‘Womb’ accesses deep and personal emotional spaces with its textural synth swells alternating between two simple chords, a gentle piano interlude and grainy textures that induce a day-dream state. The intentional unhurried-pace of the track ‘Ordinary’ drifts between two key centers of doleful Wurlitzer chords, hand in hand with the listener who might only register the tonal shifts on a subconscious level. Another distinct feature is the warm enveloping presence of an eight string Greek bouzouki (a long-necked, string instrument) as heard...
LP $30.00
07/11/2025
Laurie Torres is a Canadian musician and composer raised in Montréal, Québec by Haitian parents. Since 2008, she has been a trusted stage and studio performer for Julia Jacklin, Pomme, and Land of Talk, as well as being a founding member of Folly & The Hunter, with whom she recorded four studio albums and toured Canada, Europe and the UK. In 2023, Laurie shifted focus to work on her own creations, a process of making time—the will and the need becoming omnipresent. Drawing creative inspiration from contemporary artists like Tirzah, Gia Margaret, Valentina Magaletti, Tara Clerkin Trio and ML Buch, Après coup finds Torres intersecting at a pivotal moment where artists whose marginalized identities are at the forefront in creating a beautiful array of “other options”. “Being othered and tokenized as a woman who plays music, as well as a queer and black person, takes a toll, while also positively feeding a strong urge to push and be seen.” Centering around piano, drums and synthesizer with interweaving field recordings, Après coup follows the precursor EP Correspondances in the form of a sprawling 11-track album. Translating directly from French—afterwards, after the event—its title subliminally points at something deeper between the lines. Recorded in 2023 between tours in a small window of time where ‘normal’ life hadn't quite recommenced, Torres meticulously crafted her debut solo material in view of surrounding nature, all providing the perfect nourishment for long streams of improvisation. Built right up to the edge of a lake, Studio Wild...
LP $28.00
02/21/2025
LP CLEAR $30.00
04/17/2026
Blue Lake’s new offering ‘Weft’ sees its creator Jason Dungan unearth new musical terrain with a mini-album which presents the projects evolution. Finding inspiration in the craft of weaving and embracing a collective spirit as a band leader, all while readying a new studio album expected later in 2025. It follows the lauded album ‘Sun Arcs’ (2023) with Pitchfork naming it Best New Music, 8.3, amongst numerous other accolades. Blue Lake is the ongoing musical project of American born, Copenhagen based musician Jason Dungan which serves as his artistic platform as composer and collaborator. Developed over the period of 2024 and witnessed at live performances across a swath of European cosmopolitan cities and festivals, the project stands at a new creative juncture. The earthy title track ‘Weft’ emerges with a sense of ease and familiarity as looping guitar riffs in open tunings bed in around a warm cello pulse that provides the essential heartbeat. These interlinking parts align to create his most explicit version yet of an American writing country music in Scandinavia. Dungan named the release ‘Weft’ as a reference to the weaving practice of his partner, Danish visual artist Maria Zahle, whose work “Torso” is featured on the album’s cover. With her works providing a constant source of inspiration to his music and practice as an instrument-builder, Dungan found a symbiotic connection between their mediums, which is reflected in the music on ‘Weft’. A unique element to the overall sound was an acute focus on first-takes and favouring...
12" $28.00
02/07/2025
Kindred spirits Passepartout Duo and Inoyama Land embody the essence of play—charting a new chapter and reinvigorating the environmental music and electronic landscape. Passepartout Duo is formed of Nicoletta Favari (IT) and Christopher Salvito (IT/US), who since 2015 have been on a continuous journey travelling the world’s corners, engaged in a creative process they term “slow music”. Having been guests of many notable artist residencies and with live performances in cultural spaces and institutions, their evocative music escapes categorisation. With no fixed abode their musical pilgrimage brought them to Japan first in 2019, which prompted a deep connection to Kankyō Ongaku ‘environmental music’, a genre in which Inoyama Land is often associated with, soundtracking the duo’s first immersive experience. In 2023 the duo revisited Japan and set out to reconnect in particular with the music of Inoyama Land, performed by Makoto Inoue and Yasushi Yamashita. The highly revered album ‘Danzindan-Pojidon’ (1983) produced by Haruomi Hosono amongst other well publicized and acclaimed reissues produced a global resurgence and admiration of the environmental music movement. Nicoletta took the lead to seek out Inoyama Land and in making contact successfully their intrigue and eagerness to meet was warmly reciprocated, and the group scheduled to meet in the form of a spontaneous improvisation session. Radio Yugawara was recorded in 2023 in Makoto Inoue’s hometown of Yugawara where his family runs a kindergarten, whose space has doubled as a Sunday recording studio. Upon arriving a circle of four tables was set up in the school’s...
LP CLEAR $30.00
10/04/2024
New Green Vinyl Edition! Ezra Feinberg’s third album Soft Power sees the composer-guitarist enlist an impressive array of fellow musicians including Mary Lattimore, David Moore (Bing & Ruth), Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, and Robbie Lee. Defined by its abundance of melodies, repeating figures and ecstatic improvisations, Soft Power exudes an enlightened and transformative spirit to empower the listener. Feinberg, a practicing psychoanalyst and former founding member of the San Francisco psychedelic collective Citay (Dead Oceans / Important Records) resides in the artistic enclave of upstate New York’s Hudson River Valley. Initial recordings emerged in the late summer of 2020, before added synthesis with collaborator John Thayer (Arp, Sunwatchers) during early 2021. Soft Power follows previous albums Recumbent Speech (2020) and Pentimento And Others (2018). Feinberg artfully transcends the listener to an enriched place, his compositions distinguished by the deep humanity that lies at their core, plugging the listener into a state of wide eyed being, open and alive. Soft Power then is Feinberg’s own mantra but also one of power giving—a colourful catharsis translated into music. Feinberg’s music always speaks to the listener, but Soft Power, in whispering, speaks loudest.
LP $28.00
04/04/2025
LP COLOR $30.00
09/20/2024
Caton Diab creates soundscapes that evoke the spectacular wilderness of his childhood home in northern Vancouver Island. Incorporating experimental textures, folk overtones and tape manipulations, C. Diab uniquely finds the unseen spaces in-between, and fittingly dubs his creations “post-classical grunge”. Imerro explores new sonic realms and is the culmination of a sound world that Diab has built up since the critically acclaimed No Perfect Wave (2016) and subsequent releases Exit Rumination (2018), White Whale (2020) and In Love & Fracture (2021). The Wire calls it "ambient music in the best sense—music for living, which can be both non-invasive and immersive... epic" Imerro was recorded in late July and August of 2021 at Risque Disque Studio in Cedar, BC, during the summer’s unprecedented second “heat dome”, which saw temperatures soaring to over 40 degrees. Recorded with regular collaborator and engineer Jonathan Paul Stewart, the pair journeyed by boat to the studio to a place with minimal distraction with a plan of “simple ecstatic improvisation.” Diab explains: “I wanted to place myself in a space for creation with little thematic pretence, with the belief that music ‘shows its face’ as you move along. I would pick up an instrument, whether I had experience playing it or not, and make a sound. If it wanted to be played, it would play.”
LP $28.00
03/08/2024
LP COLOR $30.00
03/08/2024
Anenon returns with a highly anticipated new album Moons Melt Milk Light, bearing his most personal, expressive, and arresting works to date. Anenon is the ongoing solo studio and live project of Brian Allen Simon, whom since 2010 has released multiple albums and EPs to critical acclaim, including the highly revered Tongue (2018) and Petrol (2016). Moons Melt Milk Light is direct, efficient, and unwavering in its immediacy. Anenon departs from the electronics of previous works, and embarks on a reductive, almost entirely acoustic approach consisting of piano, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, and field recordings. All of the music was improvised with everything recorded as either a first or second take with no edits. Any layering happened fast and in the moment, and yet the sonic architecture of the whole feels both planned and refined. The production of Moons Melt Milk Light began in the autumn of 2022, and was recorded at home in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, informed in part by an acoustic collaboration with the artist Susan Cianciolo during the vernissage of her 2022 Paris exhibition, RUN 14: FIELD of existence, as well as solo performances mostly at casual non-venues such as wine bars and inns around Europe that same year. It was the combination of these experiences that led Simon to pursue this immediate approach of improvised acoustic instrumentation. Moons Melt Milk Light is a hyper-personal statement contained in a visceral beauty, a compact record of threadbare honesty and musical prowess seldom found in the musical art...
LP $28.00
12/08/2023
LP COLOR $30.00
12/08/2023
London based composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Akusmi presents Lines, an exhilarating new collection of works born from the desire to take where the acclaimed debut album Fleeting Future left off—in search of new forms. Formed with a sense of urgency and a reductive approach, Lines is almost entirely comprised of alto saxophone, clarinet and piano, with embellishments of ambience and minimal percussive elements. Recorded in full at his home studio in London, Pascal Bideau speaks about the process: “I wanted to go a bit more horizontal and ambient, work with layers of lines, might they be dotted or straight, and leave them to unfold and see where they would take me.” “Secant” is the electrifying and cinematic opener, emerging with the main motif deriving from the recording sessions of Fleeting Future. It’s distinct sound echoes New York, a homage in part to the works of Steve Reich and inspired also by train travels across the English countryside. Rhythmical looping pianos unite with shifting strings that build to a symphony of hypnotic rich layers, towards a euphoric and filmic climax. “Oblique,” on the other hand is otherworldly and hopeful, a breathtaking musical meeting between jazz and ambient minimalist music. Rich layered saxophones sound a patterned melody, meshed with dotted piano, swirling electronics and percussive hits, before deep-diving into shimmering ambient tones echoing like summer rainfall against windows. Akusmi uniquely finds the spaces in between experimental, crossover classical and ambient music. “Parallel” is the ambient companion to the acclaimed title track...
LP COLOR $30.00
12/08/2023
LP $29.00
04/17/2026
New Clear Vinyl Pressing coming January 2024. Blue Lake is the musical moniker of American born, Copenhagen based multidisciplinary artist and musician Jason Dungan, who signs to the Tonal Union imprint for the release of his new longform album Sun Arcs. It follows 2022’s release Stikling, earning a nomination for Album of the Year at the Danish Music Awards plus warm praise from The Hum blog and musicians and DJs alike including Jack Rollo (Time is Away/NTS) and Carla dal Forno. A self taught player, Dungan began freely experimenting with self-built multi-string instruments, preferring to build his own hybrid 48-string zither and working in the realms of left-field ambient music, off kilter folk and improvised acoustic minimalism. The starting point of Sun Arcs saw Jason travel for a week alone to Andersabo, a cabin set in the idyllic Swedish woods just outside of Unnaryd, known also as the music project, festival and residency space which has been run by Dungan since 2016, hosting artists like Sofie Birch, Johan Carøe and Ellen Arkbro. Whilst writing 1-2 pieces per day, a conscious decision was made to leave behind everyday distractions and shut out the outside world to instead focus on the natural passage of time as Dungan recalls: “My only sense of time came from these daily walks out in the woods with my dog, and an awareness of the sun’s path as it moved across the sky each day.” Musically it portrays a form of double life led by an American-identifying person...
LP $29.00
07/07/2023
LP CLEAR $30.00
03/08/2024