“Neural Network” is Idiiom’s first solo album, and it stands proudly alongside the works of pioneering electronic vocal artists such as Laurie Anderson. Each track is an improvisation, relying solely on her voice, which she manipulates through effects to create intricate loops and layered vocalisations. Much like Anderson, idiiom transforms the human voice into a multifaceted instrument—one that channels emotion, innovation and narrative in equal measure.

As we journey through life, we encounter a boundless range of emotions, each adding meaning and depth to our humanity. Some feelings are cherished, while others—like grief—are more difficult to bear.

The song “Real Sad” was born from a moment of profound sorrow and emotional honesty. On that late spring evening, after the loss of my brother, I surrendered to the rawness of my feelings, allowing the music to serve as a vessel for authentic expression. The track captures a profound emotional state, echoing spontaneity and vulnerability. Throughout the album maintains an immediacy and authenticity akin to the groundbreaking practices of electronic vocal innovators.

All sounds and lyrics were improvised, with no composition or editing beforehand or afterwards, except for the final mixing and mastering by Michel Mazza (OdNu).

XII Sound is Alice DeVille whose SITE is the London Underground.

“It’s difficult to know when my phobia of the tube began. But at some point, something changed, and I began to experience an increasing dread of the tube. Something about the very shape of it – the enclosure, the beneath the ground feeling, the crush of people – and soon, getting stuck in tunnels even for a few minutes would cause me to break out in a sweat. Every journey became increasingly distressing, and I started to feel panic rising within me every time the doors closed.

Maybe to distract myself, I began to record my moments of fear and all that was happening in the tube at these times. Some of what you hear in Tube V is about this. Along with the fear, there is also a beautiful familiarity for me in the sounds of the London Underground. I grew up right next to Wimbledon Park station, and I remember falling asleep as a child to the squeak of brakes or the clunking, soothing rhythms of the trains. The familiar announcements, the snippets of conversation, and the sounds of life are deeply nostalgic and soothing for me.

I have noticed that the tube, with its long windpipe, is a singer like me.

At times in Tube V, I sing a duet with it.

I wanted to mix natural sounds (birdsong, rain, waves, stones on the beach) into the industrial so that you are not always sure what is a natural sound and what is mechanical or human-made (is it a voice or is it a

train?). Almost like mixing paints to form new colours, I mixed these sounds perhaps to find my way back to nature, and to ease that grief of urban disconnection.

After years in the classical music world as an opera singer and flautist, discovering Ableton, and especially the Simpler, has been literally lifechanging for me. For many years previously, there had been music running around in my head but no way to capture it.

Back when I first started composing music in my younger years, I had only an 8-track recorder with a CD burner. I tried to make new sounds on that using my voice or recording various things from around the house, but it was never the music I heard in my head.

I sample sounds with my Zoom H2n recorder that I previously used to record my singing lessons on. I carry it everywhere with me, especially on the London Underground. When I first discovered Ableton and the Simpler, I felt almost feverish with possibility. Even to this day, I am dazzled by how it offers you the most incredible opportunity to make your own, totally unique instruments – even out of the subterranean sounds of the London Underground.”

Gregory Geerts creates evocative electronic music encompassing rich melodic content and ambient techno. “Minerals From the Crust” invites listeners on a sonic expedition inspired by the Earth’s layers, meticulously crafted using innovative Euro Rack modular synthesis techniques. The album uncovers deep textures and intricate patterns, hidden sonic jewels found beneath the earth’s surface, transforming geological marvels into a captivating auditory experience. Each track on the album acts as a sonic excavation, uncovering new timbres and rhythmic structures that reflect the complexity and beauty of the natural world.

“With ‘Minerals From the Crust’, I wanted to capture the unpredictability and complexity of geological processes using the limitless possibilities of Euro Rack modular synthesis,” explains Strangebird~Sounds. “Every moment in the studio felt like uncovering a new element, a hidden frequency or a buried rhythm waiting to be revealed.”

In Cairn, Düngfelder’s focus on atmosphere and perception meets Beaudoin’s concern with time and memory, creating a dialogue where each sound becomes a trace left for the other to follow. What remains is a series of sonic markers, small monuments to attention, letting listeners linger on in the fragile continuations of sound.

The unpredictable and incredible sonic result of three inspirations, three experiences and three

souls with one thing in common, the Southern Lands of the Argentinian scapes by the Rio de la

Plata, where they grew up.

OdNu, Mi Cosa de Resistance and mRn designed a mosaic of microscopic detail, atmospheric

vastness and intimate melodies inviting the listener to stay, like that long lasting hug of fraternal

love.

These three musical amigos have poured out their affection for music into each note, each

transition and each texture for the relaxing and precious respite of the listener, inviting each

individual to an intimate travel to the sonic world of the Southern Lands.

“At the beginning of working on this album I had an idea of the feel that I wanted to achieve, but no clear direction. I had a piece which I was experimenting with that captured that feel and sent it to poet, Neil McRoberts, to get his thoughts.

He wrote back; “when I put the track on, the initial sounds brought an image to mind of someone moving very carefully in an abandoned and crumbling building, perhaps stepping on the broken pieces of an old picture frame. I had the impression that the person had returned to the ruin of somewhere they had lived in the past and as the more melodic elements of the music emerged, with their beautiful melancholic melody, they seemed to embody the memories of the person, looking back with a mixture of sadness and happiness. That set of thoughts made brought to mind some of the abandoned homesteads that are scattered in the rangeland and corners of the valley floor.

Following in the tracks of Musique de Film I & Musique de Film II, Ümlaut’s new album, Musique de Film III, continues to explore the relationship between sound and vision. As a point of departure, this album presents a new creative direction in the evolution Ümlaut’s unique world. Each of the twelve audio and video tracks were created individually and simultaneously, with an overarching theme of perpetual geographies in mind. While the titles impart hints as to a song’s inherent meaning, room is left for listeners to discover their own interpretations. Simplicity is the key. For maximum sensual impact, songs are stripped down their essentials. Nothing is superfluous. The sound is futuristic, yet immediate, where being in the moment yields rewards. A palette of atmospheric colours and spectral harmonics lures the listener into a peaceful dimension of silence and harmony, where delicate field recordings and distorted textures are threaded with warmth.

Traditionally a real-time improviser, Thorn applies the same method here: live improvisation, spontaneous structure-building, and experimental mélanges of violin and code. Many of its foggy textures derive from Haze, a tool he developed for generating densely patterned lo-fi soundscapes.

A sonic memoir imbued with violin and experimental code, a curious doubling of terms begins at the churning waters of Necarney Creek merging with the Pacific. Unfolding from pure lyricism into machinic textures, the music summons the verdant twilight of the primeval forest and the glow of the city lights it ad-umbrates. The machinic is both refuge and trial in this work, though the final word is the fracturing, hard-driven logic-become-logistics that may signal a morbid dénouement.

Central to the practice of remixing and collaborative creation is the principle of relinquishing individual control in favour of collective immersion. Both the remixer and collaborators must adopt a responsive and adaptive approach, prioritizing dialogic engagement with the material and the creative contributions of others. This relinquishment fosters an environment conducive to discovery, wherein the emergent work transcends the limitations of individual vision.

The act of remixing music and engaging in collaborative writing represents a transformative creative practice wherein existing auditory and textual elements are deconstructed and reassembled into intricate, overlapping layers. It is an intimate process and chance to get close to other artists and their work at a deep level.