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December 9, 2022 (Los Angeles, CA):
AKP Recordings is a boutique label encouraging artists to engage with the unknown through experimental music. Volume II is a survey of 2022 releases, mixed into two extended tracks for both digital and cassette release. Listen/purchase AKP Vol. II Here
SIDE ASpace Between Clouds "Wide Corners"
Arthur King "Geologic Tides"
Oort Smog "Is Your Brother (Extract)"
Brown Calvin "P e r s p e c t i v e 3"
SIDE B
Arthur King "Caminando"
DunkelPek "Unknown Memory"
East Portal "Untitled #3"
Brown Calvin "P e r s p e c t I v e ∞"
Art & Design by Francie Chang
Mixed by Peter Walker
AKP020
Space Between Clouds nestles into the neural canyons between stimulus and response through billowing, airy drones, reverb heavy flugelhorn and tidal tonal shifts. In the pacing and emotional hues one may note echoes of Harold Budd and Marion Brown or Brian Eno or even contemporaries like Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer.
Arthur King’s UMN (Koyaanisqatsi) exudes both restraint and a cinematic flair. Recorded as part of an ongoing live scoring series (Unknown Movie Night) this is a document of immediate, collective musical improvisation, an astute reaction to a film of global scale.
Oort Smog aims to continue the sax-drum duo tradition, inspired by early formations such as John Coltrane and Rashied Ali, Mark Kimbrell and Patrick Shiroishi combine elements of brutal prog (both are members in Upsilon Acrux) and free improvisation in their long form composition Every Motherfucker is Your Brother. Written over the course of eighteen months and recorded during the pandemic/George Floyd & Breonna Taylor protests, Oort Smog drew from a number of influences to create their own sound - one of urgency, heaviness, and hope.
On his debut, d i m e n s i o n // p e r s p e c t i v e, the Portland-based, Philly-born producer and multi-instrumentalist Andre Burgos creates pulsing, winding Afro-Latin-futuristic music that might be the sound of Ras G dreaming of Brown Rice. Unconventional rhythmic structures, improvisation, jazz harmony, and Rhodes-soaked psychedelic soundscapes are woven together with samples, synths and found sounds to create the rich and dreamlike universe of Brown Calvin.
Arthur King’s Changing Landscapes (Mina Las Pintadas) is an enthralling record of pulsing and psychologically exploratory songscapes. Deep grooves tunnel through tones and sonic textures, following subterranean and psychic pathways, alternately narrowing and widening while heavily processed flute treads over aesthetic stepping stones like Jon Hassell and Holger Czukay.
DunkelpeK is Japanese-born percussionist Nava Dunkelman and Canadian-American guitarist Jakob Pek. This iconoclastic duo creates experimental, improvised music that reimagines sonic possibilities. Rhythmic, visceral, organic, and spontaneous in nature, DunkelpeK’s sound transfigures and transmutes, offering listeners a holistic exploration into the essence of listening.
East Portal is a collaboration connecting the experimental New York DIY scene and the pop music industry of Los Angeles. Together, they create a hyperreal world where jazz-inflected melodies fuse with uncanny electroacoustic textures, and songs mutate from gorgeous compositions for upright, bass, strings, and clarinet to long stretches of swooning, deconstructed ambient. This unexpected pairing of LA polish and NY grit creates a bracingly fresh combination, brimming with unique sounds and new possibilities that transcend the cliches of both the pop and ambient worlds to arrive somewhere new and forward-looking.