Various
Griche, la compilation

Éditions Appærent is extremely proud to present the original soundtrack for Christopher Makoto Yogi's film I Was a Simple Man, composed by Alex Zhang Hungtai and Pierre Guerineau.I Was a Simple Man is a ghost story set in the pastoral countryside of the north shore of O'ahu, Hawai'i. Revealed in four chapters, it tells the story of an elderly man facing the end of his life, visited by the ghosts of his past. Incorporating familial history and mythology, dream logic and surrealism, I Was a Simple Man is a time-shifting, kaleidoscopic story of a fractured family facing the death of their patriarch that will take us from the high-rises of contemporary Honolulu to pre-WWII pastorals of O'ahu and, finally, into the beyond.The soundtrack is a delicate, elegaic paean to Hawai'i as it appears in the film; lush and florid; subtly psychedelic; bathed in moonlight. The sound of the island — the spirit of the island — is as much an instrument as Zhang's saxophone or the scattered, raindrop piano that peppers the record. Even at harsh peaks, like a no-input mixer talking to itself like a lonely ghost, the record retains a sense of quizzical calm. Both nothingness and interrogating nothingness; misery and magic.

It’s the turn of AM/PM to bring some drama to What About Never, ushering in an ‘Age of Distraction’ with an EP of dark, pulsating techno, brittle dub polyrhythms and nebulous ambience.'Dance for Me’ takes the lead, locking into a propulsive, strobing groove, rolling out tension that ebbs and flows before the alien stepper, ‘Nobody Knows Anything’ shifts the tone. The mood changes further over the sparse, chattering, electronic fusion of the title track, before melting into the gaseous, ambient coda, ‘Now’s the Time’.

Landing on Delsin with a highly developed strain of emotionally inquisitive electro, Reedale Rise presents a new four-track EP which builds on his growing reputation for beautifully rendered headphone escapism. Since first appearing in 2015, Liverpool-based Simon Keat has released on such respected outlets as Frustrated Funk and 20:20 Vision, while last year he released This Beautiful Life, an LP for Assemble Music. From the twinkling melodic mystery of 'Littoral Zone' to the playful synth flourishes of 'Globular', 'Driftwood's plush, expressive layered lines to 'Artemia's deep-diving introspection, this latest release confirms Keat as a leader in the field of contemporary electro, delivering tracks with pristine production but crucially placing feeling as the priority ahead of the considerable technical finesse.