This album is a gift we made to the waters: oceans, glaciers, rivers, lakes, springs, wells. And also the internal water which constitutes the human body. Water has been proved to be a living being not just a chemical element. It keeps the memories and make them flow, it carves rocks, it registers emotions and waves, both visible and invisible.
When I started to work on this project I was really keen on mantra music. I used to practice Kundalini Yoga and noticed that singing mantras had an immediate and clear effect on my emotional body. Furthermore I could learn the sanscrit verses quite quickly and felt like I deeply grabbed the meaning. I always wanted to interprete some of these mantras in my personal sound key. The occasion materialized when I got a proposal from an interesting organization based in Spain, working on sound preservation of the oceans. They sent me some stunning field recordings of whales, dolphins, breaking ice of the pole (which you can hear spread here and there in the tracks) and asked to compose a track. Later they commissioned a whole audiovisual performance. It was at this point that I decided to combine my passion for mantras with the idea of celebrate the water world. The performance was designed together with visionary artist Maria Torres. Its basic concept was that of a ritualistic performance in which through the power of chanting, sound, thematic visuals we could charge drinkable water, put on stage or in the audience, to transform it in a magical fluid capable of removing obstacles and purify all waters on the planet. So Aqua Mantra was born, our little gift to acquatic ecosystems that are demanding human awareness to be rescued.
The intent of this recording is to be used as a meditation, therefore we recommend to listen to it by respecting the sequence and to start and finish it with the opening and closing mantras.
A special thanks go to the legendary painter Anna Paparatti for letting me use one of her beautiful unreleased mandala as artwork.
Adi Shakti and Durga Mantra were included in the soundtrack of “La Pitturessa”, a film documentary dedicated to Anna Paparatti by her daughter Fabiana Sargentini.

May our prayers be creative and joyful, may our prayers be heard.

https://evageistmusic.bandcamp.com/album/aqua-mantra

70-110 bpm

New & Old Classics from Lipelis & Mark Schedrin

Recorded live from our Birthday (19.07.2024)

https://soundcloud.com/estheticjoys/48-lipelis-mark-schedrin

Cotenius X is the duo that stops making sense. It’s an exploratory improvisational project of the Ukrainian sound artist Daria Redkina and the Russian experimental vocalist Varya Pavlova aka Lisokot. Improvising together since 2017 they incorporate folk, electronic and musique concrète elements into their spontaneous compositions. Their theatrical performances involve impersonation or adoption of different characters and are informed by social, historical, and site-specific narratives.

Both Redkina and Pavlova work with loops, synths and effects, reshaping various samples into novel forms. “Oceans In Flames”, for example, evokes a slowly evolving sound field that sprouts, collapses and decays under flickering fluorescent bulbs. The effect is not dissimilar to the epic catastrophic landscape paintings, but remixed for our own AI-saturated end times.

Most of the tracks on Plastic Bag are recordings of live shows. “Burunduk” is taken from the duo’s first ever performance and sees Pavlova impersonating animal spirits – forest sprites and haunted chipmunks abound. Meanwhile “Fukushima Tuna” and the album’s title track employ the talents of avant-garde saxophonist Sergey Letov who sows seeds of optimism onto the scorched plastic soil tilled by Cotenius X.

Plastic Bag coalesced during the four years that Redkina and Pavlova improvised together. Being based in different countries and despite the challenges of the global pandemic and the rising geopolitical tensions of subsequent years, the album is a testament to collaboration; an archival reflection of the time the duo spent experimenting together.

The album’s artwork was created by Pavel Pepperstein, a conceptual graphic artist, whose interpretation of the music manifested in an impossibly surreal group portrait that nods towards Nikolai Gogol, Salvador Dalí and The Residents. The duo have, in fact, been compared to The Residents and see themselves carrying the psychedelic absurdity of the US group forward by giving it a feminine twist.  

https://armarecords.bandcamp.com/album/arma-026-cotenius-x-plastic-bag

“When I got the nod to interview beloved Prefab Sprout, Paddy McAloon – a man who will enjoy sainted status amongst music fans until the end of time thanks to work like Swoon and Steve McQueen - about 2003’s solo record I Trawl The Megahertz - set for re-release, this time under the band’s name - I put an urgent call out to anyone who might have a copy I could familiarise myself with, as streams were hard to come by. A friend who came through warned me that “it’s a long way from hot dog, jumpin’ frog!” That was putting it mildly. Megahertz is a mostly instrumental orchestral meditation on love and loss with a twenty-two minute title track that utilises dialogue from late night chat shows and radio broadcasts. It’s quite beautiful, which belies the trials McAloon had to suffer through to birth it. Medical necessity became the mother of invention.”

Interview / Links

Эрик Сати зовет вас опрокинуть стаканчик прямо с утра, сегодня можно

Tune in! 📻

https://soundcloud.com/estheticjoys/49-morning-of-night-lovers

The Voice of Love is a collection of British sophisti-pop and jazz-funk from the 1980s - ten songs ranging from unreleased demos to scarcely pressed 12”s attempt to define the scope of the British underground scene during that era.

The music presented on this release juxtaposes polished aesthetics with a punk ethos; while some bands sported sophisticated looks reminiscent of travel destinations and designer fashion, they also embraced gritty influences from iconic British acts like The Clash, Sex Pistols, and early Factory Records bands. This dynamic interplay between refinement and rebellion lies at the heart of the compilation. Artists like Jakatti, Berlin-Randazzo Band, and Xpertz offer a raw energy akin to Colourbox, Maximum Joy, and A Certain Ratio. Meanwhile, Inheritance, World Series, and Ocean evoke the sound of 52nd Street (Inheritance members went on to form that group) and Freeez (including After Eight’s notable "Southern Freeez" cover). The Goodbye Look and Sonjah & Ian introduce a smoother jazz-pop vibe, drawing inspiration from Sade and the sun-kissed allure of Ibiza.

Curated in collaboration with Michael Patricola, a pioneer in uncovering rare private pressings and obscure recordings, this project is a labor of love. This selection of long-elusive discoveries is a tender ode to the rainy melancholy of English adolescence.

Bandcamp / Links

Mode Collapse aka Uasmi Nasser aka Snoop has a few new words to tell us:

I did once saw the eyes
Gazing out me from the wall of pictures
And I did realize
Someone held my hand tight
As it was meant to be all right

Bandcamp / Link