Seth Nehil’s innovative approaches to sound and music has caught the attention of DRAFT over the past few years. His involvement with performance, dance, theater and installation all seem to inform his sound output, imparting his work with an extremely acute sense of space, dynamics and movement.

Lair consists of a set of meticulously edited studio constructions composed of metallic rattles and impacts, vocal whoops and grunts, and digital silence. Nehil’s exceedingly refined use of digital editing techniques gives way to jagged repetitive structures, arrhythmic punk and wild cinematic spaces. Percussive elements are fused together, extracted from found objects, field recordings, synthetic tones, crashes, and drum machine thuds. Nehil filters the textures of hip hop, electronic, industrial and noise through the craft of musique concrete and sound design. These miniatures serve as a more synthetic and noisy partner to Knives (released in 2009 on Senufo); Lair is a darker, more ominous listen.

Seth Nehil: instruments, objects, manipulations
Gabi Villaseñor: vocals A3, B4, synth A3; Taryn Tomasello: vocals B1, B4; Matt Carlson: analogue synth B2; Kelly Rauer: vocals B2; Mary Sutton, Thomas Thorson, Jordan Dykstra, Warren Lee: strings B2; Stephanie Demopulos: piano B3
Artwork is a photograph by Harrison Higgs.
Artist website: sethnehil.artdocuments.org

Matt Carlson’s most recent solo effort, a set of abstract, atonal electro-acoustic pieces consisting of sounds created on an analog modular synthesizer along with processed acoustic sounds and field recordings. Quiet spaces and sparse textures contrast with claustrophobic spaces of panic-attack density, forming the labyrinth of Certainty.

Certainty shares more similarities to Carlson’s previous DRAFT release Particle Language and his contribution to Dissociative Synthesis (Börft,) than to All Moments (NNA), as the pieces refrain from the use of drones and melodies and contain few metric rhythms. In part, the album serves as a document of compositional material created for live sets performed at Lampo in Chicago, Novo Doba in Belgrade, Skver in Croatia, the TBA festival in Portland, and The Lab in San Francisco, each of which has been reworked to create new studio compositions. Carlson describes his conceptual process as moving between “imaginary, real, remembered or constructed spaces”, conveying “a sense of being lost or not knowing where you are or how you are supposed to know whether where you are is real or false.” In this sense, Carlson’s signature mind-fuck perspective is deeply embedded within the sounds of Certainty.

Art/design by JEA, inspired by James Marsh’s 1985 Triad cover design of JG Ballard’s Crash.
Artist website: bucketfactory.com

The second release by RM Francis, entitled Attributed Agency, is a set of hyperkinetic computer synthesis explorations. Derived from two complex patches, this set of iterative tracks utilize algorithmic techniques that create a tension between automated progressions and compositional impulse. Francis exploits this tension, allowing the computer to realize an accelerated event density within the music. Segments of computer generated synthesis and phase vocoding are then produced, sampled, and manipulated with an overt attempt to move away from traditional music techniques that are culturally encoded with emotional cues. In this way, Attributed Agency diverges from his previous work Microtopies, which relied more on traditional cadence, harmony, and resolution. These highly abstract works venture into the negative space where automatic animism meets animistic automatism. Individual sounds, each with their own agenda, collide with one another through fields of attraction and repulsion, as if two robots consulted a Ouija board.

Artist website: rmfrancis.net
Art/design by JEA.

Providence-based musician Geoff Mullen's newest release, Tropical Contact High / Live @ Casa, takes the form of concrete-soundscapes that hint at the sub-aquatic realms of 20000 Leagues Under the Sea. Recorded last summer, Mullen documents his "beach bum" explorations of the various coastlines and natural environments of the Northeast by collaging field recordings with various tape improvisations. Jagged fragments of prepared guitar, bubbling synth textures, and cyclical passages of sun-faded tape loops emerge in this beautifully crafted aural-vacation.

Side one's Tropical Contact High is composed of four new tracks. Side two's Live @ Casa is a live recording from a performance in Montreal.
Artist website: rareyouth.org

Bleed the Capacitors: Heavy Analog Electronics Vols. 2 and 3 is the second release in a series of tapes by Stefan Tcherepnin and Christopher DeLaurenti that document their work as an improvising duo (following up their first volume on Banned Productions). Performing on Serge analog synth and touch-controlled transistor circuit boards respectively, the duo launch raw electronic sounds that dance around the stereo field with jagged logic. Dense noise bursts collide and fracture within tight response dynamics, interspersed with silence. Reminiscent of early noise pioneers, this work fuses noisy textures and active improvisation to create a finely crafted set of music with jarring momentum.

Artist website: www.delaurenti.net

Over the past year, Operative founder Scott Goodwin has unveiled a continuous stream of new projects, including his duo VEPA with Pete Swanson, the polyrhythmic house project Polonaise, and his latest solo outing Lander 5. Epiphyte Hall showcases Goodwin's gift for creating innovative, rhythmic synthesizer music that feels as rooted in classic minimalism as it does house music. Constructed with analog and digital FM synths, digital effects and a sequencer, Epiphyte Hall delivers two analog-heavy cuts that gallop and scramble through an array of pulses and abstract timbres.

Recorded in Portland 2011.
Artist website: https://sgoodwin.bandcamp.com/

Chicago-based Alex Barnett had remained under the radar until last year, when he unleashed four striking synth tapes known as the Section series for labels Catholic Tapes, Nihilist, Pizza Night and Chronic Boom Soundsystem. Primarily focused on his work with noise band Oakeater over the past few years, he has secretly been crafting his own solo vision. Taking hints from classic synth soundtrack visionaries, his music takes the form of brooding b-movie soundtrack miniatures, but without the use of sequencers (in his live performances you'll find him juggling multiple keyboards).

Push stays true to the dark synth roots of Barnett's previous releases, utilizing duration and repetition to build powerful music from simple yet heavy progressions. The side-length title track opens up with a pensive set of keyboard stabs, slowly transforming into an ultra-badass hijacker jam with a minimal techno undercurrent. On side B, "Temple"s creeping midnight brawler fuses strings with crumbling synth patches to give rise to an ominous stalker death stare, while "Unseen Forces" continues where the first side left off, another heavy cut for the sketchers that haunt the Chicago nights.

Artist website: alex-barnett.blogspot.com

Performing with custom-built synthesizers, occult synth duo Telecult Powers creates abstract electronic music to explore mysteries, mystic states and magickal systems. After forming out of early collaborations between members Mister Matthews and Witchbeam, the duo moved from Cleveland to Brooklyn where they continued to develop their work over the past few years. Currently based in both Brooklyn and New Orleans , Telecult Powers remains an active creative force in the underground community. Telecult's recorded work can be found on their own label Temple of Pei, as well as Deception Island, Baked Tapes, Pizza Night, and a few others.

Telecult Powers' newest release, Stars are the Eyes of God, enlists the help of two prolific collaborators: Hecate’s Fountain is Telecult joined by Lala Ryan (of Excepter); Inner Spaced is Telecult and John Elliott (of Emeralds, Outer Space, and Imaginary Softwoods). On side A, Hecate's Fountain's "Initiation to the Temple of Pei" spins spheres of spacious textures which serve as a bed for Lala Ryan's tripped-out acid-tinged Dadaist vocals. Reminiscent of Cosmic Joker's Gilles Zeitschiff, the trio concocts the perfect blend of alchemical theatrics and kosmiche music. On side B, Inner Spaced launches into "No Sleep Til Nibiru," opening with a gushing wall of white noise that shape-shifts into an array of cyclical sounds. The three synth players craft a heavy dark-matter space, with slow, methodical pacing and intention. This tape traverses new landscapes of abstract synth and space music, as wholly engulfing side-length tracks provide an expanded Telecult universe.

DRAFT is pleased to announce the release of Pacific Support, a benefit compilation tape created in support of the ongoing disaster relief efforts in Japan. All proceeds will be donated to the Red Cross to help fund those efforts. The compilation consists of 13 unreleased tracks by experimental electronic musicians featuring: Rene Hell, Pulse Emitter, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Greg Davis, Matt Carlson, The North Sea, solo tracks by both members of the Caboladies (Carl Calm & Flower Man), Panabrite, Temporal Marauder, Golden Retriever, Brother Raven, and duo project by Geoff Mullen & Sakiko Mori called Make a New Memory. Support Japan and purchase some amazing music! Available at here and at Mimaroglu Music Sales, Discriminate Music and Tomentosa. Special thanks to the artists involved for donating their work, our distributors for donating their services, and National Audio Company for generously donating the entire 300-edition run.

Art by Jamie Potter
Artist websites: Rene Hell, Carl Calm, Matt Carlson, Flowerman, The North Sea, Panabrite, Greg Davis, Temporal Marauder, Make a New Memory (Geoff Mullen & Sakiko Mori), Golden Retriever, Pulse Emitter, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Brother Raven

Over the past few years, Portland resident Josh Hanson has developed his own completely unique voice, crafting beautiful music with a Blacet modular synthesizer and tape loops. Josh Hanson follows up last year’s Gift Tapes release with his latest album, New Ruined Maps (Collected 2009-2010), a collection of compositional ideas wound together to form unfamiliar terrestrial landscapes that feel as futuristic as they do ancient. Taking inspiration from '70s synth music and ethnic musics, New Ruined Maps travels through melodic passages, soft timbres and moments of complex rhythmic patterns like a lucid dream. Captured in pristine fidelity and professionally mastered to tape by Timothy Stollenwerk at Stereophonic Sound.

Artist website: J. Hanson
Art/design by JEA.

Tulsa-based Digitalis head Brad Rose has been an insanely productive artist over the past few years, releasing tons of music on his label and still managing to create a constant stream of solo work as North Sea, Charlatan, and Ajilvsga, on top of seemingly endless collaborations. Now add to that list his new project: Atlantic Triangular Trade.

Velvet Satellite is a strictly digital venture. It's an immersion of computer electronics, MIDI sequencing and VST processing, melding both computer generated techno and distanced soundscapes into colorful lights and carnival melodies. In this odd universe, fragments of data intersect amidst an undercurrent of techno pulses and spinning beats. These wandering circular shapes create a definable dizziness within the auditory cortex.

Artist website: Atlantic Triangular Trade

Swedish composer Joel Brindefalk has been working in the realm of electronic music since the early 90’s, creating techno, sound art and electroacoustic music. Among the many aliases he has operated under over the years, his early techno project Ü and more recent cutup noise collage works as C.P.U. (Contemporary Punk Unit) are often cited as some of his best work, released on labels such as Börft and Ideal Recordings. He is currently focused on creating computer music, sound art and installation while pursing an MFA at the Gothenburg University.

Brindefalk’s recent explorations in the areas of generative music have yielded his beautiful new work, A Rough Patch. Created with an extensive MAX/MSP patch while under the influence of painkillers (prescribed for back pain), Brindefalk has woven gestural fields of electricity into a rich sonic environment. Heavy arcs of gray matter resonance cut through the icy freeze-frame reverberations of an abandoned warehouse. This is music for collapsing concrete structures, a wholly original vision and fresh approach to computer music.

Artist website: morphony.com

KPLR takes synth music and electronics to a new extreme. This San Francisco based duo blends analog electronics with digital processing to create an odd cutup of semi-random, sometimes harsh, particles of sound. KPLR ventures into cold, uninhabited, automated realms that seem to shift focus from one second to the next. Voltaic Fits moves like a free jazz drummer at maximum speed, but sounds like a computer OD'n on amperes.

KPLR (pronounced Kepler after the Kepler Mission) is Dexter Brightman and Jair Espinoza.

Artist website: KPLR

Still Life is an outsider's sampling of half forgotten urban environments, cracked electronic soundscapes that form abandoned cities replete with radioactive fallout. Brooklyn-based Adam Diller leans toward his more experimental side, creating his first cassette release from a variety of sound sources: field recordings, synth, electric piano and sampling keyboards. Layered synth passages, textures, and melodies seamlessly mix, often making it difficult to distinguish the source. The result is a truly innovative soundscape work.

Diller's diverse background consists of free improvised music (BNSF on Locust), ultra minimal acoustic improv (Doublends Vert on Line/12K), deformed free jazz/hip hop fusion ($.99 Dreams, self-released CDs and LPs), and audio production.

Artist website: adamdiller.com

Special limited-edition video disc containing FRAK's video for Digitry, the first track on Dry Vanadis, made on a Commodore 64! This is the perfect opportunity to get a good vibe on what FRAK is all about, through animated ultra lo-tech graphics. Just about as odd and hilarious as it gets! Covers are printed on recycled index tabs. Came as a FREE GIFT with the first 50 copies of D001.

Artist website: see BÖRFT or Frak Discography

Swedish electronic music project FRAK has been releasing experimental music since 1987. Back then, their first release jump started Börft Records, initiated by Jan Svensson. Twenty-three years later, in homage to Börft, FRAK's most recent release launches DRAFT.

Bouncing back and forth between techno, electro, and sound collage, FRAK approaches dance music from an alien perspective. As experimentalists and DJs in their own right, FRAK tends to teeter on the edge between minimal beat driven music and frenetic tendencies often associated with noise music.

Essentially two tapes in one, FRAK offers up a tape of underground, schizoid dance music, produced by the classic FRAK lineup: Birre, Zwarre and Sture. Keeping true to the DIY tradition of recording to 4-track, FRAK's tape is a hybrid of analog and digital recording: side A's Dry Vanadis was recorded to a 4-track analog cassette recorder, while side B's Tournament City was recorded to a 4-track digital recorder.

Art/Design by JEA
Artist website: see BÖRFT or Frak Discography