Zimoun is responsible for probably my favourite album this year so I asked him about it

New Necks!!!!!

A bit of face melting from Ryoji Ikeda

Listen to the weird hyper potpourri that is Polonius Released in April on Discrepant's sub label Souk, we've been really enjoying the work of Egyptian-French artist Seif Gaber aka Polonius. It's weird stuttering stilted funk, odd fragmented of sound that seems to synthesize so many references, that are then dragged back into his own unique universe. He has released his music on labels like Ikuisuus, Goaty Tapes and Sun Araw's Sun Ark, and his latest album on Souk, …

Listen to the weird hyper potpourri that is Polonius

Released in April on Discrepant's sub label Souk, we've been really enjoying the work of Egyptian-French artist Seif Gaber aka Polonius. It's weird stuttering stilted funk, odd fragmented of sound that seems to synthesize so many references,…

Revisit Ben Frost’s seminal Steelwound via a forthcoming 20th anniversary edition Can you believe its been over 20 years since Ben Frost released his incredible Steelwound album? Room40 honcho Lawrence English does. As an early champion of Frost's work, he released it initially back in 2004 and has now produced a remastered 20th anniversary edition. He also supplied the pic above from Frost's Brisbane launch back in the day. At the time it felt like a singular work, these drifting shards of heavily reverbed shimmery guitar drones that did strange things to harmonics, existing somewhere between the nexus of ambient music, drone and sound art.

Revisit Ben Frost’s seminal Steelwound via a forthcoming 20th anniversary edition

Can you believe its been over 20 years since Ben Frost released his incredible Steelwound album? Room40 honcho Lawrence English does. As an early champion of Frost's work, he released it initially back in 2004 and…

Lagoss & Abagwagwa – Island Slang (Discrepant) Lagoss are a trio boasting Discrepant label head Gonçalo F. Cardoso, along with Mladen Kurajica and Daniel García (Tupperware), who’s debut album featured these electro acoustic snippets of fantastical island exotica. They’re joined by Abagwagwa (aka Nihiloxica), a musical collective based in Kampala (Uganda)/UK, known for their propulsive percussive jams, made up of Henry Kazoma, Henry Isabirye, Jamie Mwanje, Peter Jones, Jacob Maskell-Key.

Lagoss & Abagwagwa – Island Slang (Discrepant)

Lagoss are a trio boasting Discrepant label head Gonçalo F. Cardoso, along with Mladen Kurajica and Daniel García (Tupperware), who’s debut album featured these electro acoustic snippets of fantastical island exotica. They’re joined by Abagwagwa (aka…

Revisit Ben Frost’s seminal Steelwound via a forthcoming 20th anniversary edition Can you believe its been over 20 years since Ben Frost released his incredible Steelwound album? Room40 honcho Lawrence English does. As an early champion of Frost’s work, he released it init…

@ethermachines.bsky.social Steelwound via the good folk at @cyclicdefrost.bsky.social

ear(th), by Steve Roden 2 track album

one of Steve's truly majestic works, remastered and also available with the OG catalogue.

Watch The Bug’s bleak fuzzed up take on Galya Bisengalieva’s Alash-Kala We're pretty taken with this brutal, bleak industrial rework from one of our favourite purveyors of bass music, The Bug. It's his remix/collaboration with Kazakhstani artist Galya Bisengalieva. If you're curious to hear the original version, you can find it here, on her 2023 album Polygon, which was based around the Semipalatinsk Test Site located on the steppe in north east Kazakhstan (known as The Polygon).

Watch The Bug’s bleak fuzzed up take on Galya Bisengalieva’s Alash-Kala

We're pretty taken with this brutal, bleak industrial rework from one of our favourite purveyors of bass music, The Bug. It's his remix/collaboration with Kazakhstani artist Galya Bisengalieva. If you're curious to hear the…

Cyclic Selects: YEARNS YEARNS is Joel Saunders of Spirit Bunny and A Country Practice alongside Andrew Foley of An Heirloom and Grids/Units/Planes. Outside of YEARNS they have separately appeared on releases on Room 40 and hellosquare Records, collaborating with artists including Erik Griswold (Clocked Out), Andrew Tuttle and Shoeb Ahmad and have had their music featured on ABC TV (The Heights). With a penchant for magic eye album covers, their music excercises remarkable restraint, often utilising circuit-bent Casio keyboards, modular software environments and tape loops to craft gentle ambient soundscapes.

Cyclic Selects: YEARNS

YEARNS is Joel Saunders of Spirit Bunny and A Country Practice alongside Andrew Foley of An Heirloom and Grids/Units/Planes. Outside of YEARNS they have separately appeared on releases on Room 40 and hellosquare Records, collaborating with artists including Erik Griswold…

Unsound Adelaide: Fri 11th – Sat 12th July 2025 To call Unsound eclectic is an understatement. It never fails to provoke, confound, seduce or dismay – often in equal measure, and often in the course of one set. Held across two nights in the Adelaide CBD it has become something of a beacon for forward thinking international and local artists irrespective of genre. It began, at the Lions Art Centre…

Unsound Adelaide: Fri 11th – Sat 12th July 2025

To call Unsound eclectic is an understatement. It never fails to provoke, confound, seduce or dismay – often in equal measure, and often in the course of one set. Held across two nights in the Adelaide CBD it has become something of a beacon for…

I penned some thoughts about the new Holden and Zimpel that has brought me considerable joy over the last month or so

Ryoji Ikeda to premiere ULTRATRONICS as part of the Now or Never Festival Iconic audio visual artist Ryoji Ikeda is coming to Melbourne this August as part of the Now or Never Festival. The Festival, now in its third year, also boasts the likes of Laurel Halo, Moritz Von Oswald, and Alex Zhang Hungtai (Dirty Beaches), who we last saw on a clifftop on the Portuguese Island of Madeira. Boasting more than 285 local and international artists and creatives, it also features 30 new commissions making their Melbourne premiere.

Ryoji Ikeda to premiere ULTRATRONICS as part of the Now or Never Festival

Iconic audio visual artist Ryoji Ikeda is coming to Melbourne this August as part of the Now or Never Festival. The Festival, now in its third year, also boasts the likes of Laurel Halo, Moritz Von Oswald, and Alex Zhang…

Sonar Barcelona: 12th – 14th of June 2025 From June 12th to the 14th we had one of the key events in the electronic music scene every year: Sónar Barcelona. With a tension in the air leading up to the festival, it was a blast and we enjoyed performances from Four Tet, Skrillex, Todd Terry and Blawan, among others. The wait was marked by an unexpected series of events.

Sonar Barcelona: 12th – 14th of June 2025

From June 12th to the 14th we had one of the key events in the electronic music scene every year: Sónar Barcelona. With a tension in the air leading up to the festival, it was a blast and we enjoyed performances from Four Tet, Skrillex, Todd Terry and…

Eiko Ishibashi & Jim O'Rourke Announce New Album 'Pareidolia': Hear An Excerpt The great off-kilter music auteur Jim O’Rourke moved to Japan after his time in Sonic Youth ended, and he’s been over there ever since. For many years, he’s been working with Eiko Ishibashi, the Japan...

Jim O'Rourke and @eikoishibashi.bsky.social announce new collaborative album 'Pareidolia'; hear an excerpt

That time when Thurston, Kim and Coco appeared on the Gilmore Girls #sonicyouthtrivia

Listen to the unique gamelan music Will Guthrie’s Ensemble Nist-Nah Spilla is the second album from Nantes-based Ensemble Nist-Nah, 48 minutes of music for Gamelan, drum kits, wood and metal percussion instruments, and plucked strings. It was founded by the Australian drummer/percussionist Will Guthrie in 2019 expanding on the explorations of his 2020 solo album Nist-Nah. Enlisting an ensemble of eight or nine core members with occasional guests they released…

Listen to the unique gamelan music Will Guthrie’s Ensemble Nist-Nah

Spilla is the second album from Nantes-based Ensemble Nist-Nah, 48 minutes of music for Gamelan, drum kits, wood and metal percussion instruments, and plucked strings. It was founded by the Australian drummer/percussionist Will…

People Like Us – Copia (Discrepant) The music of People Like Us is a marvellous smorgasbord of disparate elements that have been painstakingly gathered from multiple sound sources and reassembled to create something new, something the original authors never intended. It’s an experimental take on nostalgia, the exotica of the reused and recontextualised, cultural detritus given new life and purpose. It’s the work of British artist Vicki Bennet, an audio visual collagist, who since 1991 has delighted in composing truly unique amalgamations of sound and vision in her own woozy at times quite hysterical style.

People Like Us – Copia (Discrepant)

The music of People Like Us is a marvellous smorgasbord of disparate elements that have been painstakingly gathered from multiple sound sources and reassembled to create something new, something the original authors never intended. It’s an experimental take on…

Had a great time telling Yellow Swans how they changed my life.

Track Premiere: Aki Onda “Screen Test” Flo, Aki, and Ken. Photo by Hideo Maezawa “Screen Test” hovers in the space between memory and illusion, part of the soundtrack for Ken Jacobs’ In the Depth of Illusion: A Soundtrack for Nervous Ma…

Aki Onda has a beautiful new work in bound....here's the good word from @foxydigitalis.bsky.social ...

I wrote about the great new Francis Bebey comp

Alan Lamb: Singing In And With The Air Alan Lamb passed away on the 19th of April, 2025, at 81. He is one of Australia’s most important sound artists, and a key member of Perth, Fremantle and Dwellingup artists communities in Western Australia. He is considered one of the founders of ‘dark ambient’ music and has been written about in key texts on Australian new music by…

Alan Lamb: Singing In And With The Air

Alan Lamb passed away on the 19th of April, 2025, at 81. He is one of Australia’s most important sound artists, and a key member of Perth, Fremantle and Dwellingup artists communities in Western Australia. He is considered one of the founders of ‘dark…

Mark Pritchard Interview: Tall Tales a sonic playground Mark Pritchard is a shape-shifting figure in electronic music whose career spans over three decades and consistently pushes against the boundaries of genre. Emerging from the UK’s early ’90s underground, he initially gained acclaim through landmark projects like the ambient classic Global Communication (with Tom Middleton), the electro-funk-infused Jedi Knights, and the darker, techno-rooted Reload. Never one to stand still, he has explored breakbeat and future soul as part of…

Mark Pritchard Interview: Tall Tales a sonic playground

Mark Pritchard is a shape-shifting figure in electronic music whose career spans over three decades and consistently pushes against the boundaries of genre. Emerging from the UK’s early ’90s underground, he initially gained acclaim through…

Listen to Erik Griswold’s new prepared piano and synth music Erik Griswold is a composer and pianist originally from San Diego, and now residing in Brisbane. He has collaborated with the likes of Steven Schick, Margaret Leng Tan, Lisa Moore, Ensemble Offspring, Decibel Ensemble, Zephyr String Quartet, Anthony Pateras, Robin Fox, the Australian Art Orchestra, and many others. His music can be heard on Cold Blue, Immediata, Room40, Innova, Sonoluminus, Mode Records, Tall Poppies, Move, and Clocked Out.

Listen to Erik Griswold’s new prepared piano and synth music

Erik Griswold is a composer and pianist originally from San Diego, and now residing in Brisbane. He has collaborated with the likes of Steven Schick, Margaret Leng Tan, Lisa Moore, Ensemble Offspring, Decibel Ensemble, Zephyr String…

Wolfgang Voigt (GAS) “I live and die with my art.” Wolfgang Voigt is a German artist, producer, label co owner (Kompakt) and visual artist from Cologne, known for his work in a ridiculous number of electronic styles requiring numerous aliases such as All, Auftrieb, Brom, C.K. Decker, Centrifugal Force, Crocker, Dextro NRG, Dieter Gorny, Digital, Dom, Doppel, Filter, Freiland, Fuchsbau, Gelb, Grungerman, Kafkatrax, Love Inc., M:I:5, Mike Ink, RX7, and Split Inc.

Wolfgang Voigt (GAS) “I live and die with my art.”

Wolfgang Voigt is a German artist, producer, label co owner (Kompakt) and visual artist from Cologne, known for his work in a ridiculous number of electronic styles requiring numerous aliases such as All, Auftrieb, Brom, C.K. Decker, Centrifugal…

Adventurous music fans! If you dig a wide variety of music, are constantly looking for new things to listen to, and enjoy reading about music you might appreciate, then may I suggest you follow me? I write a weekly blog covering indie music across genres and post/repost tons of music!

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Celebrating 25 years of Room40 From spooky organs to noisy dubplates to subterranean drones and more.

Lawrence English walks us through 25 years of @room40.bsky.social

Interview with Lawrence English on Even the Horizon Knows Its Bound - RetroFuturista Lawrence English discusses Even the Horizon Knows Its Bound, out on Room 40 March 10, 2025.

Some long form chatter here....

🌐🌐 Introducing: Luiz Ser Eu 🌐🌐 Rio de Janeiro outsider-songwriter Luiz Ser Eu unveils Pluvial—a fried & inverted Brasilofuturism, blending tropicofuturist songwriting, concréte-psych, and blurred tape collage. A haunting, unpredictable sonic portal. Out Feb 28. luizsereu.bandcamp.com/album/pluvial