Brainstormlab.org - JFrank & TopforTom

AUDIO

NEWS

LEXT - Slowly Not Suddenly

One of the effects of lockdown around the world has been a boom of new music of all genres and for this release, the unsuspecting Belfast based LEXT, known strictly for his fairly unforgiving drving techno productions, has found his way to us with this 4 track glitchcore EP. As everyone has been forced indoors and going to a club was impossible, LEXT shifted from producing 2am dancefloor bangers and took a decidedly weirder turn with Slowly Not Sudenly, which of course, we welcomed with open arms!

XZICD - Transmission Live Set

This semi improvised live set was performed illegally on an abandoned plane in Lisbon back in 2014, for a crowd of around 60 people entering and exiting those tight, decaying corridors, partaking on this short voyage of the music I was writing between 2012-2015, which culminated in ROTODYNE

Rotodyne was created while travelling through 6 different countries, in airports, motels, friends' studios, with a lot of field-recordings from these trips, heavily inspired by tales of crumbling kingdoms and forgotten mythological heroes.

Gear used: Elektron Monomachine SFX60+, Korg microKorg, Akai MPC Studio Black, Ableton Live, Reaktor 5

Sofía Bertomeu l Superalma Project - Universal Observer Device

As spring blooms and half the planet is in lockdown, what better time to release this work of cross-pollination. Sofia Bertomeu returns in collaboration with Superalma Project for a split EP, with each using sounds of the other. Despite the apparent difference in style, Bertomeu with her ambient narratives of human interaction - or in this case, memories of them - and Superalma's channel zapping between sci-fi beats and power chord arpeggios, there is more common ground than first meets the ear. Bridging the physical distance between the two, the common theme of interraction, not only between humans but between humans and technology, all under the watchful eye of the Universal Observer Device…

Other Format - Untitled Electronic Music

A late start to these uncertain 20s but we are making up for it with as many choice cuts by none other than Other_Format.. 25 icicles of frozen sound in various states of completion, covering a range of styles and genres to keep your mind soaring. To think these gems were recuperated from a dodgy hard drive, almost lost to the oblivion of corrupt data, gives the chills. But here they are, nameless survivors of a forgotten time, and appropriately packaged like an old document of lost formulas. Perfect listening for these strange days..

Amyloid - Demiurge #3

Nothing screams winter quite like some minimalist brutalism from Russia. And what better soundtrack to the cold than this little gem from the aggregate of proteins that is Amyloid. In the role of demiurge, this is sparse, hostile world building where lava-hot metal megaliths jut out from icy plains and the sun is at it's most distant, scarcely visible through the siberian winds. Perfect for welcoming the cold, and for our listeners on the southern hemisphere, something to keep you cool in the sweltering heat..

Sofía Bertomeu - ON_

Hailing from Spain, multi talented artist Sofía Bertomeu has a full house of arts up her sleeve and she comes bearing the gift of /ON_/ . An oxymoron of conceptual intimacy where human interaction, through the distance of misunderstanding is like reaching out from across the abyss,. In vain searching for (my) satisfaction we can only get to (our) satisfaction through stuttering attempts (mine and yours) and then maybe we can get to mutually beneficial conclusion. It's a delicate affair so be cautious and NO TALKING!

For more profusion by Sofia for all tastes of sight and sound - check out her website ..

Tale Twist - Reflective Awareness

We do like a good tongue twister here in the lab sowe were very pleased to receive an EP of Brazilian Brokecore from Tale Twist. Reflective Awareness is an excercise in deconstruction on multiple levels -it starts like a game of Jenga, as recognisable rhythm flimsily tries to support the wild sounds of cascading concrete. But as the EP progresses, the allegory of deconstruction of the self becomes more evident in the tracks, weakening of the tower's foundations. By the end the tower has fallen and you realise you are now playing Mikado in the ruins of the person you had constructed. Never before has demolition made for such easy listening - but remember to wear a hard hat!

Orgatanatos - Math

Uzbekistani duo Orgatanatos return with Math, their third installment of broken beats and fractal phantoms. Forever deconstructing rhythms and melodies, Math takes the syncopated glitch into quasi dub territory while never truly bending to the genre. For all the harsh sounds there are as many lush pads making for a surprisingly smooth listen. As with all their albums, at a total run time of 1 hour and 10 seconds, it goes down nicely as Orgatanatos keep you on your toes with the ebb and flow of a swirling mechanical ocean.

My Gloomy Machine - UNbroken

It's been a long time coming but My Gloomy Machine has finally ended up in our neck of the woods - and hard to say we haven't been expecting him! For those of you who have heard (and seen) MGM before, UNbroken is in true cinematic style; a 1 track EP of evolving narrative noise, as it soars over mountains to reveal epic destruction, and then plunges into the depths of the airy abyss in search of the UNknown where you can see the gloomy autumn of the dying machines as they are buttered up in the sickly melodic sweetness of dying toys. And all the while Death looks on, shoe gazing through a broken window…

IQbit - Epiphanique

To celebrate our 70th (ish) release IQbit returns with an EP written with the help of algorithmically generating MIDI tool Wolfram Tones.. Included with each track are mp3 files of the origianal starting sequences in classic MIDI sound as well as a picture of the evolution. For fans of IQbit the low bpm might seem a drastic change but for friends it comes as no suprise, and despite the delegated composition, this EP is none the less, a classic IQbit affair - lush distant pads, broken breaks, aggro staccati and of course no bloody build-ups and drops!

ALX BROKEN - Reconstructed Riddims

Following a theme of mnemonic reconstructions for this release we have ALX BROKEN with an 8 track EP of crawling chaos, mechanical and relentless but not lacking a sense of humour when the occasional fragment of a recycled field recording breaks through the metal wave of the Riddims! Recurring themes feel like flashbacks, keep it cohesive and compact like you were holding a strobing sea urchin. All lovingly mastered by Ruby My Dear, so we thought it would make a perfect valentine's gift.

Other Format - SNVL

To kick off 2018, Other Format returns with a fractured EP of progressively evolving sounds...

A message from /o_F/

"...I wanted this process to be something of a departure from the conventional format of producing variations of the same recording as in the sense of the 'remix'. Instead of amassing a palette of samples from which to present a variety of reconfigurations, each sequential piece takes the previous track in its fully rendered state as its only sound source. There is no additional overdubbing or instrumentation of any kind throughout the recording that does not exist in the initial track. Each new part is created by various means of realtime manipulation through manually reordering, re-editing, reconstructing and re-processing. Ultimately this recording as a whole can be viewed as a single entity rather than a collection separately presented ideas. Recurring sounds act like fragments of memories constantly resurfacing, which over time become increasingly distorted, abstracted and obfuscated until we are left with an altered impression of the original event. This idea of sound-as-memory became a central focus of this recording..."

Aaron Karnov - Semantics

For our BSLive series we have a contribution from Freiburg based experimentalist, Aaron Karnov, which, rather than being a live recording, is more of a layered jam session of the self. Or as we see it, frozen sections of time reacting to eachother in cascades of sound crystalised on a single day. The presence of instruments and some of the percussion give an electro acoustic feell but don't let that fool you. The EP is comprised of 3 conversations that are clearly part of the same discussion and make for a tense soundtrack for any occasion whether it's a modern dance choreography or simply what you listen to as you stalk your victims in a hockey mask at night...

To buy wav files of this album and support the artist click....HERE

Sytrjv - Rhìpidos

It will come as no surprise to our followers to know that the entity formerly known as Sytrjv travels time as well as space, which brings us to the latest_ive__ time capsule in our Hardiskeology series. Rhìpidos is a black box of cryptic messages that, unlike other Sytrjv anthologies was not compiled here in the lab but unearthed intact in the sonic state in which it froze back in 2004. Time, however, had ruined the cover beyond recognition, so we sought the most faithful representation of Sytrjv's strange script in a glorious freeze frame morph from the Ectopic video courtesy of Berlin based Art Studio Zeitguised.

IQbit & JFrank - Radel Faqirs

This month for the BSLive series we have some Indian themed live excerpts from a 2015 hardware jam session by our golden oldies IQbit and JFrank. All the machines were at the MIDI mercy of the Radel Taalmala Digi 100 Plus, an electronic tabla machine made to recreate trditional tabla rhythms.In the words of the instruction manual.. "An LED will blink eight times per mantra in Ati-vilambit, four times in Vilambit, twice in Madhyam and once in Drut laya.The tempo can be changed from Drut to Ati vilambit or from Ati vilambit to Drut without stopping the theka, in steps of one Matra per minute." Nuff said.

Nearfield - G5

Kicking off 2017 with some low temperatures we have Nearfield hailing from eastern Europe with a re-edit of his G5 release. The photo of frozen flowers on the cover are in line with the style: warm pads melting through ice cold beats like the Soviet architecture that breaks through the primieval forests of Belarus. Among known tracks are some new numbers and re-edits including remixes by another cold climate cutter Askaira Indishle and Ogrvne, another artist from the Clean Error roster.

Orgatanatos - Vedmed

To end the year we have the return of Uzbek duo Orgatanatos with more mythical tales from ultradimensionial plains. If their previous album flΛwrex_Sc!nt was about an AI finding ways to deal wth boredom, Vedmed is about a galaxy-plowing space bear and his genetically modified cat and their epic battle against the Crucians... The difference in scale between the 2 albums is palpable - before it was information flitting between neurons and electrons of a computerised brain, now the scale is cluster-vast and the time is deeper, slowing everything down to a galactic crunch! As is custom the album is an hour long and has a plenty offlavours to choose from.. Enjoy!

Other Format - EVP Recordings Volume I

This Halloween we have a very special release - very in tune with the "current mood".. /o_F/ returns with EVP Recordings - Volume I. As the story goes, around the mid 90s, Other Format's cousin founded an amateur paranormal research society as something of a hobby - being there little to do and plenty of haunted locations in the west country - and being a sound enthusiast began building ghost boxes and recording Electronic Voice Phenomena in supposedly haunted locations. The project took on a life of it's own when the material collected started to defy rational and technical explanations. The album is a constructed work of cinematic soundscapes and tense electronics based on and containing a selection of these recordings and accompanied by a collection of original field notes. For more information read "a message from /o_F/" in the info doc. As suggested by the author, we advise listening alone in the dead of night...

Oregon Vortex- INVICTUS

As we skip through genres and styles of electronic music this August brings Oregon Vortex with a very specific sub genre of Italic synth exploration. Unlike other brands of the ongoing retrowave scene, that tend to give the glorious old a modern glow, INVICTUS feels like it is out of a timewarp; a limbo somewhere between a roguelike dungeon and the recesses of a Vatican library. Bitter riffs take us further into the occult practices of heretics with themes from games we could have played and movies we might have seen.

Other Format - OPERATOR

For some of our followers OTHER_FORMAT will be a new name but the eraliest contribution dates back to 2009, collaborating with XZICD under the probably more familiar name CUT_REPEAT. For our more die hard followers, this marks the end of a long wait. Plenty of o_F music has been briefly glimpsed in the outback of the interweb, to then disappear never to be heard again. Now all those rare long lost specimens will get their own Hardiskeology series. Being a gentleman of criteria, o_F's releases come across as concept albums or studies. Starting with OPERATOR, that comes across as a workout in FM synthesis, in a relentless set of 8. The cover design by o_F says everything about the approach without giving away the mood. Also featured is a remix of another modfreak we all know and love - XZICD, which didn't make it in time for BSL_051.

Nick R 61 - Bessonnizza

Insisting in our numerological intent at 61 we happen upon Nick R 61 with Bessonnizza. A lullaby to accompany those last moments awake to the gates of sleep and beyond.. But all dreams and nightmares come to an end when broken by the the morning. Music that watches you while you sleep - best listened to in a comfortable bed or a padded cell..

Nukua - EP.10

Since around 2009, every 8th release here on brainstorm has been a Nukua release. And rounding nicely off at cat. number 60 Nukua is back with his 5th solo release on BSL and 10th in total - hence EP.10. A slightly different flavour of unfamilar nostalgia from what one might expect.. Already the old photo on the cover, for those in the know, is a world away from the usual dark environments and clinically lit genetic mutations - the music on the other hand, though certainly lighter than usual, is not so far from the Nukua we knowand yet something is different, something has changed. And that change is described in EP.10 so subtly that it feels like nothing has changed at all.

Interactive banners made in Processing by MEZE, Set Controls RALP, JFrank
www.processing.org

if you want to be on the newsletter write to info@brainstormlab.org

Also: recently recovered live footage and recordings of long gone live events and jam sessions have been found are periodically being uploaded onto our youtube and soundcloud channels - we are unsure by who.. http://www.youtube.com/user/brainstormlab http://soundcloud.com/brainstormlab

Creative Commons License

ARCHIVE

Album Cover

LEXT
Slowly Not Suddenly

Free Download. Belfast techno producer LEXT takes a turn for the weird during lockdown

Album Cover

XZICD
Transmission Live Set

Free Download. XZICD drops a live set that became BSL_058 release Rotodyne

Album Cover

Sofía Bertomeu l Superalma Project
Universal Observer Device

Free Download. Sofia Bertomeu and Superalma Project engage in cross pollination in the age of social distancing

Album Cover

Other_Format
Untitled Electronic Music

Free Download. 25 icicles of frozen sound saved from oblivion by none other than Other Format

Album Cover

Amyloid
Demiurge #3

Free Download. Demiurge Amyloid builds a world of minimalist brutalism for us to embrace the cold.

Album Cover

Sofía Bertomeu
/ON_/

Free Download. An oxymoron of conceptual intimacy from artist Sofía Bertomeu.

Album Cover

Tale Twist
Reflective Awareness

Free Download. Deconstructing existentialism with Broke core from Brazil.

Album Cover

Orgatanatos
Math

Free Download. Uzbekistani duo's third installment of broken beats and fractal phantoms

Album Cover

My Gloomy Machine
Unbroken

Free Download. My Gloomy Machine's broken sounds tell an UNbroken story

Album Cover

IQbit
Epiphanique

Free Download. IQbit EP using algorithmically generating MIDI tool - wolfram tones.

Album Cover

ALX BROKEN
Reconstructed Riddims

Free Download. 8 track EP of crawing chaos by French glitchcore artist ALX BROKEN

Album Cover

Other_Format
SNVL

Free Download. /O_F/ returns with an EP that progresses through the distorted lense of memory

Album Cover

Aaron Karnov
Semantics

Free Download. Electro acoustic conversations courtesy of Aaron Karnov

Album Cover

Sytrjv
Rhìpidos

Free Download. Time capsule of cryptic messages from Sytrjv unearthed for the Hardiskeology series

Album Cover

IQbit & JFrank
Radel Faqirs

Free Download. IQbit & JFrank Indian themed hardware jam session - BSLive_160115

Album Cover

Nearfield
G5

Free Download.Nearfield breaks through ice cold beats with warm tones...

Album Cover

Orgatanatos
Vedmed

Free Download. Another hour long ultradimensional epic from Uzbek duo Orgatanatos.

Album Cover

Other_Format
EVP Recordings - Volume I

Free Download. Halloween Special! Spooky sounds from the haunted west country courtesy of /o_F/.

Album Cover

Oregon Vortex
INVICTUS

Free Download.Italian Occult Electro with Oregon Vortex - INVICTUS EP.

Album Cover

Other_Format
OPERATOR

Free Download. /o_F/ for the Hardiskeology sries with an all FM oriented EP from the archives

Album Cover

Nick R 61
Bessonnizza

Free Download. Nick R 61 for music that watches you while you sleep...

Album Cover

Nukua
EP.10

Free Download. Nukua returns with a slightly different flavour of unfamiliar nostalgia

Album Cover

IQBIT
Hello Mahadev

Free Download. IQbit returns with more sonic tales of nomadic spirituality

Album Cover

XZICD
ROTODYNE

Free Download. XZICD from the depths with his new album - ROTODYNE

Album Cover

Orgatanatos
flΛwrex_Sc!nt

Free Download. Crisp sounds and thrashing cuts by Uzbek duo Orgatanatos

Album Cover

AO-DD
EP 1

Free Download. Debut for Norrköping duo on brainstormlab introduce their special brand of Cut n Lotto

Album Cover

Sytrjv
Lateral Latency

Free Download. Unearthed artifacts from the ethereal entity that is Sytrjv.

Bunai Carus Veil EP- February 2014_BSL_054

BSLIVE -Cairo Jam Cairo Jam- January 2014_BSLive 08042011

MITOMA ISO:FORMS - November 2013_BSL 053

Nukua Compressed- February 2013_BSL 052

XZICD Denocleosis Reutomaghafth Remix Album- January 2013_BSL 051

Premute Nome- October 2012_BSL 050

Set Controls Warm Front Monuments - August 2012_BSL 049

RALP 0812- May 2012_BSL 048

rachMiel Groove Quotient- April 2012_BSL 047

Dino Felipe Psychonautical- February 2012_BSL 046

Randomform Vapr Core EP- January 2012_BSL 045

Nukua No, Seriously- December 2011_BSL 044

Enabl.ed Sound.Paper 2- November 2011_BSL 043

XZICD jStenBibiÔgta_gitgitcht'nde-Blsák-October 2011_BSL 042

Set Controls Sundial- September 2011_BSL 041

Nexbiome Digital Dubplate Plaster VVAA- August 2011_BSL 040

JFrank Inconsistency- July 2011_BSL 039

Dino Felipe - FMcontrol Musik Baucher Noten- June 2011_BSL 038

Somaticae Clar EP- May 2011_BSL 037

Nukua Phorme- March 2011_BSL 036

Nerv'Oz Confussion- February 2011_BSL 035

RULE02 COMPILATION Datadadaism- January 2011_BSL 033

Iqbit Pur Beurre- November 2010_BSL 033

Rec_Overflow 1001 EP - October 2010_BSL 032

XZICD mLeeCyru_JellBeiTrrrCtntinu- 2009_BSL 031

BSLIVE - JFrank walk the static snow- 2009_BSLive090310

Essa.M Point Paradis- 2009_BSL 030

Enabl.ed ound.Paper- 2009_BSL 029

BSLIVE - Somaticae Fur EP- April 2009_BSLive 170310

Nuku Csoscoma- February 2009_BSL 028

Plaster B_n EP - January 2010_BSL 027

RULE 01 COMPILATION 120>VVAA - December 2009_BSL 026

XZICD Urntseinnde Edbripmxpeers - October 2009_BSL 025

Dubit The 3 Necks And Sea EP - August 2009_BSL 024

Iqbit Megamorph - 2009_BSL 023

Sytrjv Adiscipling Vehicula - April 2009_BSL 022

FMcontrol Objects - 2009_BSL 021

Somaticae -com - 2008_BSL 020

BSLIVE - Live @ Tuscania 2004 Iqbit & Sytrjv - 2008_BSLive 241003

RALP Buclo EP - 2008_BSL 019

Un1q Deconstruction Dubplate Iqbit Various Artists - 2008_BSL 018

JFrank 7 Acid Sundaes - 2008_BSL 017

Iqbit L-ECTRO NO-EFFECTS - 2008_BSL 016

JFrank Laptop Tans & Digital Cowboys - 2007_buy on iTunes.

JFrank B-side Trash & Fairytale Electronica - 2007_BSL 015

TLK, JFrank Just 10 more minutes... - 2007_BSL 012

Bootleg_06 Jfrank - 2006_BSL 010.

BSLIVE - Laptop Orgy 25 Live - 2005_BSLive 251005.

TopforTom Saund Scraund - 2005_BSL 009

BSLIVE - Random Generation Jfrank, Curzio - 2005_BSLive 140405

JFrank Greenbottle - 2004_BSL 007

Mixtape 01 JFrank, Dabs - 2004_Live Jam Session

JFrank & TopforTom JFrank,TopforTom - 2003-BSL 006. NOT AVAILABLE

4b Archives - 2003-BSL 005. NOT AVAILABLE

JFrank Crowd Dynamics - 2001-BSL 002. NOT AVAILABLE

Nick Damone 001 - 2001-BSL 001. NOT AVAILABLE

VIDEO

KAIJU #10 Teaser 10.19
Video - JFrank
Audio - T/ERROR

EVP Recordings Volume I - Teaser 10.16
Video - OTHER_FORMAT
Audio - OTHER_FORMAT

Pandit 02.16
Video - Claudio Curciotti
Audio - IQBIT

QUETZALCOATL 01.16
Video - Claudio Curciotti
Audio - XZICD feat. IQBIT

KAIJU #9 Teaser 12.15
Video - JFrank
Audio - JFrank

KAIJU #8 Teaser 12.14
Video - JFrank
Audio - JFrank

KAIJU #7 Teaser 12.14
Video - JFrank
Audio - JFrank

Lucid 02.14
Video - Caro / Nico
Audio - Bunai Carus

Twinkling 2 11.13
Video - Syl Kougai
Audio - Syl Kougai

Isocore 02.12
Video - Isocore
Audio - Isocore

Puffy Nipples 11.11
Video -Diogo Gil
Audio - XZICD

Portable Couch Surf 06.11
A/V - Jfrank / Ralp / Mr sYn

Light Waves 02.11
A/V - Alterazioni Video

the sound of something eating itself 01.11
A/V - Jfrank

Rule 02 - Teaser 12.10
Video - Jfrank
Audio - Jfrank

Torus Looper 11.10
Video - Charlie V.
Audio - XZICD

Tolbiac's Tear 09.10
Video - Diogo Gil
XZICD with [//cut*repeat]

LOUD INDIA trailer 08.10
Video - Iqbit
Audio - Iqbit

Cupcake Gunfight 04.10
Video - Movax
Audio - Enabl.ed

Structure 02.10
Video - David Terranova
Audio - Plaster

Htznoi 02.10
Video/Audio - Me-Zee

Goniometrie 11.09
Video - Lasal
Audio - XZICD

Kristallographie 06.09
Video - Lasal
Audio - IQbit

Space-Age Cut 10.08
Video/Audio - Jfrank

BSL_5years 02.08
Video - JFrank
Audio - IQbit

sINK 10.07
Video - JFrank
Audio - JFrank / IQbit

PTA126_151.07 04.07
Video - Quayola
Audio - JFrank

Ennesima 11.06
Video/Audio - TopforTom

Life on The Rerun 06.06
Video/Audio - JFrank

Death Surprise 04.06
Video - EMFK
Audio - IQbit

Dentistry 01.06
Video - Jfrank
Audio - Fm Control / JFrank

Me n the devil - trailer 08.05
Video/Audio - JFrank

Live@Il Locale 04.05
Video - TopforTom
Audio - Jfrank/Curzio live

Greenbottle 09.04
Video/Audio - JFrank

Damone shaver 07.04
Video - TopforTom
Audio - JRrank & TopforTom