Tapes


Li Song is a London-based musician and computer programmer. He performs improvised music with his computer and composes music using electronics and acoustic instruments. Luciano Maggiore is a Palermo-born, London-based musician whose work is characterised by the use of speakers and several analogue/digital devices (samplers, CD players, walkmans, tape recorders) as well as acoustic objects and addresses the performativity of the musical act, the perception of it, and the obscurity that emanates from it. His main interests include mechanisms of sound diffusion, performance, repetition, endurance, non-human animal languages, dance, and folklore.This album was recorded beneath the railway arches and across the marshes of Walthamstow, London. It captures the subtle interplay between portable electronics and the rhythmic pulse of passing trains. Rather than erasing the urban environment, the artists added white noise to create a unified sonic landscape. The result is a semi-composed, semi-improvised exploration born from the interweaving arches of environmental factors and human dialogue—a piece of music that eschews self-awareness in favour of a supernatural imbalance.The work functions as a collaboration between Li's "no-performance" practice and Maggiore’s fascination with repetition and endurance. A creation of time in which the boundaries between performer, device, and environment finally dissolve.

Li Song and Luciano Maggiore – toppe bianche

Yan Jun is a Beijing-based musician and poet. He previously released 'it works' (Alone-002) on Aloe Records, and his creative materials range from electronic feedback to plastic bags. He is also an experienced vocal performer. In recent years, there has been a significant change in his vocal performances, with his vocal cords vibrating like feedback — or perhaps one could say that they resemble the voice of a 'human object'. Ryu Hankil is a computer musician, improviser and writer based in Seoul. His work revolves around sound writing and sonic fiction. His exploration of how an object's inherent vibrations can constitute a musical context has led him to realise that sonic thinking has the power to create diverse forms of fiction.This album was recorded in Shanghai in 2024 and completed in Beijing in 2025. The Shanghai recordings are imbued with an eerie sense of multiple spaces compressed into a single moment in time: This includes Yan Jun's vocals echoing within a small room, fictional narratives and reverberations within Ryu Hankil's Max/MSP patch ⑥, and a cacophony of outdoor street sounds interspersed with MAI mai's occasional guitar practice. Later, before their concert in Beijing, they spent a few days at Mount Changbai. During this time, a shift in their collaboration became palpable, with the woody sounds emanating from Ryu Hankil's ⑧ and Yan Jun's shaman-like voice returning to a kind of primal ritual.While this is not a professional studio album, it is a unique, unpolished work presented in its raw form.

Yan Jun and Ryu Hankil – all words return

Les Disques Bongo Joe are pleased to announce the fourth album of La Tène ! Collaborating for the third time with the band, we're proud to release Ecorcha/Taillee, a two track project in between drone, folk, experimental and occitan music. La Tène’s long, hypnotic, wordless pieces are built from traditional folk instrumentation, wild percussion and blurred, subtle electronic embellishments, and feel as ancient and earthy as those millennia-old artefacts – with all the metal, wood, dedication and craftsmanship they entailed. As on their previous release Abandonnée / Maleja, a double set running to over 80 minutes, Cyril Bondi, Alexis Degrenier and Laurent Peter expand to seven members in total. Cohorts Jacques Puech (cabrette – a small bagpipe associated with the Auvergne region of France), Louis Jacques (cabrette and a larger, 23” bagpipe), Guilhem Lacroux (12-string guitar) and Jérémie Sauvage (bass) each return to add colour, layers and intrigue. Ecorcha/Taillée was recorded in a barn converted into a ballroom and cultural centre which exists to promote the folk music of region Auvergne. Both L’Ecorcha (eighteen and a half minutes long) and La Taillée (just under a quarter of an hour, brevity by this group’s standards) were recorded live and what you hear is a single take, with no editing after the fact. L’Ecorcha goes into space with simple, minimal tools. Beginning with a single, doomy chord circling in perpetuity and a metallic shaker by way of rhythm, a drone of unspecified provenance is joined a little under halfway through by Alexis’ hurdy-gurdy, adding bucolic buoyancy while Laurent uses the wooden surface of his harmonium as an extra percussive source. La Taillée is spikier, danceable even thanks thanks to Cyril’s insistent drumming and the harmonium and hurdy-gurdy moving in a glorious lockstep. If you were to think of the relationship between Lou Reed’s guitar and John Cale’s violin while taking in La Taillée, you wouldn’t be OTT by any means. nspirations, soundalikes and kindred spirits are elusive and fleeting in the case of La Tène. There are a couple specific to Ecorcha/Taillée, both brought to the table by Alexis : a Christian song titled La Passion, collected in 1883 by French folklorist Félix Arnaudin, and a reggaeton hit single from 2022, Saoko by Spanish star Rosalía. La Taillée adapts its crunchy central riff in La Tène’s own image. It’s that link between the past and the future that also rings out in the music of La Tène.  Alexis Degrenier : Amplified Hurdy-Gurdy - Vielle À Roue Amplifiée Cyril Bondi : Percussions - Percussions D’Incise : Indian Harmonium, Electronic, Percussions - Harmonium Indien, Electronique, Percussions Jacques Puech : Cabrette - Cabrette Louis Jacques : Cabrette, 23'' Bagpipe - Cabrette, Cornemuse 23'' Guilhem Lacroux: 12 Strings Guitar - Guitare 12 Cordes Jérémie Sauvage: Electric Bass - Basse Electrique

La Tène – Ecorcha/Taillée

LP / CD / Tape

Simultaneously casual and sincere, Deng Boyu’s latest output on cassette, Tractor Academy, is both a tongue-in-cheek teaser and a wildly romantic postscript to his upcoming solo LP. The eight songs here unveil the instinctual id beneath the electronic alter ego of Deng Boyu, known primarily as the ever-present drummer in China’s young and vibrant scene of free jazz and improvisation. This is one of a kind Northern Chinese IDM lit up by a whimsical touch of nostalgia. The sound textures – created by a toolkit comprised of a vibrator, a gong, and various metal objects – are distinctively dumb and dusty; the compositions are freewheeling in form, but heavily loaded with noise and personal history. It is a misfunctioning time capsule, what you'll get travelling back to a Disco dancehall of early ‘90s Inner Mongolia – where Deng Boyu first felt the thrill of the groove in his troubled adolescence – and doing a lavish Autechre dakou DJ set in it. So please sit back and relax, now that IDM has long lost its association with human intelligence, let’s hear Deng Boyu tell that old joke again. *You will find the first half of “Transmission Pt. 2” (Track 1) in Deng Boyu’s upcoming LP, Chimney Complex, to be released by Chinese label Badhead later this year. --- Dusty Ballz is a London-based label that releases Chinese underground music on cassette tapes. The term originates in an old Soviet joke, which somehow still speaks to the situation today. --- All music by Deng Boyu Woodcut by Tiemei Calligraphy by Zhao Sancai

Deng Boyu 邓博宇 – Tractor Academy 拖拉机学院