Gus Fairbairn, aka Alabaster DePlume, has a pocketful of phrases that he uses all the time whether he’s walking down the street or holding court with musicians and an audience. For a long time, the Mancunian would tell anyone who’d listen that they were doing very well. More recently, it’s another phrase which has a similar effect and which belies his unwavering commitment to personal vulnerability and collective politics: “Don’t forget you’re precious.

A process that is people-first not product-first ensures that his music is unique; often gem-like. Alabaster DePlume’s songs are built on sonorous circular melodies and luminous tones that transmit calmness and generosity in warm waves–unless they’re raging against complacency and the every day inhumanity of end times capitalism. Most importantly, he brings a valuable transparency to his work. “This is what I’m really doing,” he says. “I want to talk about why I’m doing this, and how I’m doing this.”

Read DePlume's full bio by Emma Warren here.

"Pierre Bastien uses several tiny cameras to project his Meccano-driven contraptions onto a large screen. Although we can see little wheels depressing organ keys, on the screen it seems we are in some giant factory, where machines of unguessable size perform cumbersome operations to pluck at hawsers or vibrate great flapping sheets - in reality rubber bands and strips of paper. Bastien's non-synched looping machines naturally have non-human quality, like an off-kilter African drum ensemble, and this strangeness is further magnified by his carefully layered visual projections. Over the top he plays pocket trumpet phrases drawn from the earliest days of jazz, as if King Oliver is muttering in his ear. But the trumpet is often masked: somehow it plays a baseline like a tuba, or else the mute is jammed into a beaker of bubbling water. On the screen the monochrome Fritz Lang world of relentless Meccano is invaded by a beautiful fountain of blue bubbles. Like a blend of Philip Jeck's heartbreaking turntables and Max Eastley's lost-in-space musical sculptures, Bastien has created an elegant display of genuine musical surrealism. He has been refining his approach for over two decades - ten years ago Aphex Twin released Mecanoid on his Rephlex label, and this show made it clear why Richard D James was so mesmerized. Bastien wound down his mechanical mysteries after 45 minutes, but I could have happily watched for hours." Clive Bell, The Wire - Dec. 2010 

After years of playing cello with a myriad of artists and ensembles, Julia Kent retired to her Lower East Side apartment to make a solo record inspired by touring and the disjunctions of travel. Incorporating multitracked cello, omnichord, and field recordings from airports around the world, her "lovely, melancholy," compositions, full of "aching romanticism ... rich melodicism, and detailed arrangements," make up /Delay/, her solo debut, released by Shayo Records in Europe and Important Records in North America.

She has performed solo in Europe, the UK, New York, and Canada, using live looping and effects to create layers of melody and rhythm on the cello. Of her appearance at the Donau Festival in Austria, the Wire said: “Cellist Julia Kent's set, in which she sampled and played over herself, was a thing of miniature beauty.” Lucid Culture described a recent New York appearance as: "...riveting and frequently cinematic...moving from trippy, echoey and atmospheric to stark and haunting..."

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/10245-poste-y-telegrafi/
Italian guitarist Alessandro "Asso" Stefana has gall. For his solo debut, Poste e Telegrafi, Stefana treats his guitar like a quarter-piece of the puzzle. He collaborates with six people and avoids the guitar altogether on two of these seven tracks. He alternately employs the 1980s electronics artifact the omnichord, a "strings machine," various African percussion instruments, and vinyl loops to build intricate, subtly shaped substrates for his meticulous, twang-redolent guitar fantasies. Largely because it avoids the solo guitar record template, Poste e Telegrafi is one of the most striking works you'll hear from a young composer all year. His guitar playing is graceful and dexterous, his fluid phrases are precise without feeling stiff. The cast here includes guitar maverick Marc Ribot, Italian songwriter Marco Parente, and Brian Eno/Nick Cave collaborator Leo Abrahams. The ends of Stafana's phrases, though, are about not perfecting the right note, but, instead, letting the assumed resolution arrive slightly altered. The climax, to wit, is one lonesome pedal steel note pushed through a web of effects. It sounds more like Glenn Branca conducting 100 guitars than one being built into something else entirely, like a cathedral carved from a single stone. These are rare talents for someone so young, and, given Poste e Telegrafi, Stefana sounds as if he'll be wielding them among the heavyweights for a long time to come. Rating: 7.8

Andrea Belfi releases his album with new label Float. Titled Ore, the album places drums at the centre of a deep, hypnotic listening experience, where rhythm is combined with electronic textures and haunting sonic details.

Over the years Belfi has built a sound-world that artfully combines a modest drum set-up with an equally concise electronics component. He has searched long to produce and refine the acoustic timbres of his music, but has now reached a certain point of fulfilment, courtesy of his Saari drum-kit from Finland. Melded seamlessly with the acoustic elements is a Nord modular and sampler. On Ore, Belfi attains a masterful synthesis of these two sonic realms.

Belfi has gained a reputation for his energetic and charismatic performances, both as a solo musician and within numerous collaborations. 2016 saw him tour with Nonkeen, the German three-piece band headed by Nils Frahm. Belfi became an instant highlight at London’s Barbican Centre, lighting the stage with an impressive and explosive drum solo that became one of the most memorable moments from the evening.

"an inspired and beautifully realised exploration" - Wire Magazine
"electronic swirls that blur the edges" - Electronic Sound Magazine
Top 5 albums of 2017 selected by Mary Anne Hobbs (#2)
Top album of 2017 selected by Gilles Peterson (#6)
2017 Records of the year by Deluxe Magazine 

Andrea Belfi video premiere via Self Titled
In Depth with Andrea Belfi via Drowned In Sound
Dead Light 'Sleeper' (Andrea Belfi Remix) via XLR8R 
“a cult drama from italy…“ Gilles Peterson, BBC6 Music
In the Studio with Andrea Belfi via Headphone Commute 
"thrilling and on-edge right from the off." - The Line Of Best Fit 
Andrea Belfi in discussion about 'Ore' via The Wire Magazine
Piano Day highlights featuring Andrea Belfi via Worldwide FM
 "A drummer whose work is both peaceful and wired"  Village Voice
"You have no concept of just how much a lone kettle drum can blow your mind until you’ve heard Andrea play one." - Mary Anne Hobbs via The Guardian

Richard Skelton is a British artist, writer and composer. His work often evolves from sustained immersion in specific environments and wide-ranging research incorporating toponymy and language, archaeology and geology, folklore and myth. Between 2005 and 2011 he ran Sustain-Release, a private press dedicated to publishing his own landscape-oriented recordings and art editions. Since 2009 he has been co-director of the multi-media publishing house Corbel Stone Press, with the Canadian poet Autumn Richardson. Between 2013 and 2022 they curated the influential journal of eco-poetics and esoteric literature, Reliquiae. He is also founding member of the Notional Research Group for Cultural Artefacts, and director of the Centre for Alterity Studies. Richard holds a PhD from Manchester Metropolitan University’s Centre for Place Writing. His doctoral research examines the relationships between humans and non-humans in Late-Upper Palaeolithic Britain. He is particularly keen to work collaboratively with researchers in other disciplines, especially archaeology, anthropology and geology

Tim Hecker is a Canadian-based musician and sound artist, born in Vancouver. Since 1996, he has produced a range of audio works for Kranky, Alien8, Mille Plateaux, Room40, Force Inc, Staalplaat, and Fat Cat. His works have been described as “structured ambient”, “tectonic color plates” and “cathedral electronic music”. More to the point, he has focused on exploring the intersection of noise, dissonance and melody, fostering an approach to songcraft which is both physical and emotive. The New York Times has described his work as “foreboding, abstract pieces in which static and sub-bass rumbles open up around slow moving notes and chords, like fissures in the earth waiting to swallow them whole”. His Harmony in Ultraviolet received critical acclaim, including being recognized by Pitchfork as a top recording of 2006. Radio Amor was also recognized as a key recording of 2003 by Wire magazine. His work has also included commissions for contemporary dance, sound-art installations, as well as various writings. He currently resides in Montreal.