AnimauX veGeTal is the second release of the collaboration between Anne Gillis and XT (Seymour Wright & Paul Abbott). The trio began working together in 2018. Slowly, remotely (in Brussels, London and Paris respectively), they developed and grew the work ‘Our/s Bouture(s)’. It was broadcast to an in-person and on-line audience at Cafe OTO (London) in 2021 and later released on ArtIntoLife (Japan) in 2023.In 2022 they performed more together at Cafe OTO and Q-O2* (Brussels), growing, grafting, pruning and diffusing volatile elements of the broadcast (and accompanying film), planting and seeding new sounds and movement into and over what grew from the speakers.In September 2024 the three met again to record at XTUDIOs (London). 'AnimauX' and 'veGeTal' are what emerged. Shared, discrete and whole these two blocks show how the trio grow its own sound, and move on and into new things. The titles are named after the doings – audible and palpable, heard and felt – they capture the pulsing fact, fabric, and flourish of the matter, pace, and space of what grew and bloomed that day.-----------The zonal wheezing of a compression artifact projected through the inverted curvature of a slip-n-slide, coiling, tumescent, love's last gasp. The deadline has been exceeded. - Sunik Kim

‘Almost Something’ is the debut release of the long standing collaboration between artist/dj Laura Not and Andrew Hulme of O Yuki Conjugate. The two pieces cover a musical domesticism, developed around location recordings made in London and Berlin. The duo, known separately for their considered and attentive handling of collaged textures, rhythms and ambiences, offer up a sonic landscape where fugitive moments of creation meet the concrete sounds of everyday life. The unfamiliar is what sticks and encourages repeated listening, moving you back and forth between cities, dissonance and harmony. The tone of the album has a sustained dustiness, shrouded in a thick smog where feedback tones and scrapings on thick metal lurch at you. Sounds that can one minute appear as distant aeolian sediments suddenly become compact and then break into shards - you’re constantly in motion. You could almost liken it to feeling transported to an inner city reconstruction of Gordon Monahan’s ‘Aeolian Winds Over Claybank Saskatchewan’, if it stretched between the tunnels of the underground and the dark corner of a household boiler room.

We use the same method of what we did on Responses (Zappak, 2022): being in a place for a whole afternoon, but not playing together. We took turns on recording solo piece, and each session was a responses to the former one. Even the length was same with the former album (each one 7 minute). Only one difference: on this time we played outside but last time we played in room. There were lots of limitations from the lack of alternation electric power (and also the hot temperature and mosquito). But the open fields brought some possibilities on the other hand. Same as the former one, Sun Yizhou selected and paired these solos into duos, and I did the mixing work. I drew the cover of Responses, which was designed by Leo Okagawa. Thank you Leo, for accepting my submission and releasing it in 2022. It was the starting place of our new work.----Zhu Wenbo

'GAX is the duo of Seymour Wright (alto saxophone) and Vasco Alves (gaita de fole) and ‘as tradiçōes/the traditions’ is their first published recording. They started playing together in 2008 as regular participants in Eddie Prévost’s weekly, London workshop. GAX have rarely performed publicly, which only adds to the pleasure of being able to share this inimitable first release. Seymour Wright is known for his solo work, the duos XT with Paul Abbott, @xcrxswx with Crystabel Efemena Riley, and GUO with Daniel Blumberg, as well as his part in larger groups including أحمد [Ahmed] and X-Ray Hex Tet. Vasco Alves has previously released a solo record with gaita de fole and electronics ‘Gaita Contra Computador’ on After Action Review. ‘Estrada Longa’ for synths and voice was released on Cafe OTO’s TakuRoku, and reissued by Feedback Moves in 2024. He currently leads the exploratory bagpipe ensemble As Rochas da Ajuda. As well as GAX, his other ongoing collaborations include OndaXoque (with Pedro Rufino), a duo with Margarida Garcia. He has also performed extensively as a part of VA AA LR with Adam Asnan & Louie Rice. '‘The traditions/as tradiçōes’ was recorded across two days in the summer of 2023. Both pieces accentuate micro-motions in the interplay between Alves and Wright’s instruments. ‘The traditions’ folds and cuts, placing silent blocks between the duo’s play of sounds. The physicality of the performers is audible through the psychoacoustic oscillations and investigation of rich overtones. On ‘As tradiçōes’ Alves and Wright each play layered glissandi spanning the entire side of the record. Squalls of air from bellows and lungs control the slow, rising movement, grounded by and juxtaposed with a drone from one of Alves’ chanters which sharply fizzles at the pieces’ end, leaving in its shadow a short, continued blast of complex high tones.The 10" record comes housed in a matt-finish sleeve designed by Vasco Alves and includes a fold out poster. The photographs on the front cover and "as tradiçōes" side label are taken from the book 'Gaiteiros de Sesimbra' published by Associação Portuguesa Gaita de Foles.' 

Severin Black and Owen Pratt explore the rhythms within earth-borne sounds on their debut LP, following on from their Untitled cassette that birthed the Archaic Vaults label in 2020. These seven tracks exist both as duets and as momentary respite from the isolation both musicians faced during the pandemic. Ritual routine visits across two years of solitude. Long nights spent in dim lighting as negronis gradually dilute in the heat. Much of this album was recorded amidst a backdrop of townships with murky histories of sectarian religious conflict, labour shortages and abandoned properties, against the common notion of southern France solely as a tourist destination. A duet can imply certain rules of engagement. Not all recordings on this album, however, are a duet between two people. VII (Black Metal) consists of two microphones left to surveil the streets below a third floor window, feeding directly into magnetic tape deeper in the recesses. IX (Snares) is an improvised dance between a bass amplifier’s sub frequencies and an activated snare drum. II (Subterranean River) captures limbs as they shift the gravel terrain below a weary cavernous stream. The recordist turns performer, the environment becomes performer too. Either could and often does serve as a duelling partner amongst these documentations.

An interrogation of identity pervades every corner of Zeynep Ağcabay’s ‘Ancestral Ground’, the debut body of work under her birth name. As someone who has formed their practice creating soundscapes for high fashion labels and runway shows, this mini-album represents the artist finally being given full creative license. Although Zeynep’s Turkish ancestry is heard amongst all seven tracks, it is not simply a borrowing or a homage. Very much still connected both geographically and culturally with her ancestral ground, the Turkish ney flute present throughout these recordings evokes a gesture of respect to her father’s fostering of a musical upbringing and an inquisitive gaze into the timbrality of instruments operating within a wholly different embedded culture than those of the West. A growing community of London-based artists with roots elsewhere are investigating what geographically and culturally mixed identities can mean when translated into sonic offerings (see: Flora Yin-Wong, Nexcyia, Ewa Awe, Susu Laroche, Nkisi). What perhaps sets Zeynep Ağcabay apart is the complex feelings of anguish towards a bureaucratic system which has been the hostile backdrop to their years living in London, unable to move freely around Europe and necessitating an implementation of composition-as-labour to survive an overwhelmingly unlivable city. This is the dissonant shadow-self sibling of mea0u, Zeynep’s deconstructed pop moniker, and from the Portishead trip-hop leanings channelled at the end of ‘Umay Ana’ straight into the nine minute closing track ‘Ak Ana’, these are perfect representations of this shadow-self succeeding in turning malevolence into a euphoric device. --- Music composed and arranged by Zeynep AğcabaySticker illustration by Rae BerginDesign by Severin BlackMastered by Owen Pratt

"Archaic Vaults is pleased to present the first vinyl album for the label, cataloguing ten tracks from ten artists spanning the globe. This curation brings together a multiplicity of genres within the label’s ongoing thematic output - durational ambience, field recordings, oversaturated improvisations and spatial synthetic loops among them. A diverse cohort of familiar and new collaborators alike." -- Design by Severin BlackMastered by Owen Pratt  

'Material circulation with instances of focus on the experienced phenomena of live performance work within architecturally hollowed and barely visible environments — vaguely reminiscent with peripheral situation at the border between the sanitized and a buried complex: unravelled and stripped forms used as tools to prop up a remainder, made from the intersection with a speculative fully-materialized counterpart. Residue, Trace, Trail. >шлейф.Sequence.Looping, Cyclic, Ringing. >Окольцовка.Serial.Ordering, Index, Rank. >Последовательность.Succession.' --- The textures, spatialised loops and synaesthetic hallucinations conjured inside these seven tracks are a manifestation of the next cycle in L’vovna’s sonic forays. These minimal sketches are an exercise in singular ideas standing up on their own, rather than being amongst a crowded room inhabited by electronic music’s familiar tropes such as heavy layering and arrangement. The tone can be at times haunting and at others profoundly beautiful, often in the same moment. --- All music by L'vovnaDesign by L'vovna and Severin BlackMastered by Jason Letkiewicz

"Like ascending halfway between earth and heaven, which way to look? How to feel? Few artists manage to conjure up such complex feelings through so little material as Kagami Smile, pouring vulnerability and intimacy into these six tracks all revolving around the theme of loss and how we come to process it.The definition of ‘ambient’ by Eno as being something that can be ‘as ignorable as it is interesting’ has been held to scrutiny as genres evolve and adapt to their political and social climates. Accept Pain is an instruction and an admittance. Duets between murky field recordings and glistening synthesis provide a comforting but doleful cocoon from which to view reality’s inevitable pain and beauty, much like a sheltered moment under a shop awning during torrential rain. Just as (almost) any effective piece of art forges a connection between creator and consumer, the tools used on Accept Pain place artist and listener alike within this body of work both literally (the position of recordist/listener in field recording), and emotionally (the themes of loss and acceptance throughout this album). By becoming engulfed in this world, you bring your own loss, your own pain. This is a world of shared loss and shared healing."

ancient rituals and pilgrimages. a labour of love. --- Composed and arranged by Severin Black & Vanessa BedoretMastered by Owen PrattArtwork by Severin Black

TEYAS is an abstract opera that resulted from a meeting of three exceptional artists: audiovisual sister duo WIDT (Antonina Nowacka and Bogumila Piotrowska) from Warsaw and Berlin based legendary producer Christoph de Babalon. The collaboration started with the performance at the Easterndaze x Berlin 2016, curated by Lucia Udvardyova Recorded live at Cafe Oto, London September 27, 2018 Performed by Christoph de Babalon & WIDTRecorded by Shaun CrookMixed and mastered by Owen PrattImage by Mila Nowacka / WIDTDesign by Severin Black

Composed and recorded by Joseph Johnson Artwork by Severin Black Mastered by Owen Pratt

Mastered by Owen Pratt except 'Of Kingdoms' (mastered by Stan Iordanov) Artwork by Severin Black

Recorded and performed by Severin Black and Owen Pratt Mastered by Owen Pratt Artwork by Severin Black

Written and recorded on unceded Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung land during Winter 2020. Music Lisa LerkenfeldtMastering Angelo HarmsworthDesign Severin BlackArtwork Lisa Lerkenfeldt

Artwork by Severin Black Mastered by Owen Pratt