Theef / Sun & Smoke (ASIPV048)

Sun & Smoke is originally a 2-hour self-produced mix uploaded to Youtube and Soundcloud in 2018 by Greek artist, Theef. Consisting of unreleased productions, the set was uploaded as a safe space, with zero expectations of it ever gaining attention or release.

After many late-night listening sessions, ASIP contacted Theef to discuss how a release might come to life. Originally consisting of 21 tracks in total –with two subsequently released on Morevi Records in 2022– ASIP had the honor of curating and sequencing an album from the remaining 19 unreleased productions, finally landing on those that best represented the intention of the original mix and the feelings it evoked upon those first moments of discovery. 

The appeal of Sun & Smoke can be found in its purity. Built with no intention or audience in mind, the album traverses core elements of deep techno, trance and downtempo. Progressive atmosphere building, addictive underlying grooves, and expansive moments of euphoria; as a mixtape, Sun & Smoke is a zero-visibility haze of eyes-closed, body-moving, forward momentum. As an album, each track is now allowed the space to deliver on its own defining atmosphere. 

From the ambient leaning beginnings of Sky Textures and the title track, Sun & Smoke, to the electro tinges of Primal Age, and the metallic swirls and glistening synths in Approaching Stars, the parts now have the chance to become greater than the sum of its original whole. 

Mastered by Giuseppe Tillieci (Neel / Voices From The Lake) with artwork photography by Juan Fernandez (edited by ASIP), Sun & Smoke will be available on Transparent Red/Orange Smoke gatefold 2LP + digital.

RIYL DJ Healer / Traumprinz / DJ Metatron / Giegling

Full details and links to buy via the release page

Lapsed Pacifist / Hypatia (ASIPV046)

As a professional sound engineer by day, Colin Dunkerley aka Lapsed Pacifist, spends much of his time traveling and rarely gets to focus on producing his own music. Despite high praise from those who have become familiar with his work over the years, Colin’s previous productions have mainly consisted of shares with friends and DJs in smaller circles through his Negative Neutron alias. 

Colin envisaged a more pronounced and darker ambient style to emerge one day but struggled to dedicate the time. Hypatia came to life over an extended and fragmented period, with field recordings and loops of audio created on the go, later processed through his modular setup. In the autumn of 2022, Colin spent time collating and listening to these many fragments and field recordings, making notes in a book as he wandered around cold, unfamiliar places with headphones on, trying to shape disparate starting points into something thematically connected.  

The title of Lapsed Pacifist’s debut album, Hypatia is a reference to one of the many fantastical descriptions of imaginary places by Marco Polo in the book, Invisible Cities. Written as a dialogue between Mongol emperor Kublai Khan and Marco Polo, the book became the inspiration and a clear parallel for how Hypatia came to be and what it means to Colin today. 

Attaching music to a place and time can become a very powerful and long-lasting memory. Across its eight tracks, Hypatia depicts fragmented glimpses of color and textures –a scrapbook of senses– traversing the optimistic first steps; the first smell of cold air; cityscapes burnt into your head; and the many emotions from exploring new places that stick with you longer than any photograph ever could. 

“The experience of moving between places so frequently can be fascinating but also dislocating and often quite lonely. I have so many small stories about places I’ve been, but I often think they aren’t necessarily real reflections of anywhere, no more real than anything Invisible Cities author Calvino dreamt up”. - Lapsed Pacifist.  

Hypatia is available on transparent Copper smoke 12” + digital, mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri and featuring artwork by Noah M / Keep Adding.

Links to listen and buy via the release page

Lihla / Socha (ASIPV047)

I’m excited to announce a new signing to the label and a new dimension to our roster of music, with Lihla’s upcoming album ‘Socha’.

“Music gives us a place to be lost. Washing away thought, place, time and identity. It’s in the falling into the river, the dream, that we find just who we could be”. 

Classically trained cellist, composer and storyteller Lihla (Lih-Qun Wong) presents her debut album, ‘Socha’ for A Strangely Isolated Place. Combining a vast instrumental skillset of piano, cello, electronics, and spoken word, she crafts intensely immersive aural-hallucinatory worlds of intricately shifting landscapes. 

A deeply personal work, Socha explores the ‘diaspora of time and space, and why we all feel so displaced.' Piano chapters capture the meeting place between memory and longing, while explorational vocal and cello textures invoke and echo the ancient, the feminine, and the otherworldly. 

Lihla’s voice guides us, weaving through electronics and field recordings of the ‘real world' to set the path for a poetic and deeply haunting journey through the internal psyche that is truly transportive and escapist. 

‘Socha’ is available on transparent smoke 12” and digital. Mixed by Sebastian Lee Philipp and mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri, featuring artwork by Lihla and Visions of Akira.

View the release page for all details and links to buy.

Merrin Karras / Live (ASIP039)

I remember our 5th vinyl release way back. Just our second artist album at the time, but an artist who is still with us today.

I’d been a fan of Chymera for a long time prior, but I first heard Brendan’s alias, Merrin Karras on a John Beltran compilation - ‘Music for Machines’. ‘The Veldt’ went on to appear on Brendan’s first ASIP album, Apex (our 5th vinyl release - no wait, technically our 6th after the ASIPV003R) and to this day it remains a firm favorite of mine for many reasons. The biggest reason -and like most deluded label owners I’m sure -is that I can imagine that album being looked back at in many years to come as a true understated gem. It will never be big enough in my opinion. I don’t think I’ve met anyone who has given Brendan’s albums a listen and not been blown away. Truly transportive and timeless music just waiting to be found.

With each new Merrin Karras album, the bar has been raised. But hearing Brendan’s music in one long-form set is always a special and unique perspective to take. Much of his influences stem from early Berlin School producers like Klaus Schulze and Steve Roach- evident in most of his releases so far. But Merrin Karras’ truest proof point so far has been the release of his last long player, Silent Planet, where Brendan took the opportunity to expand his music to a full 40+ minutes, similar to many of the early long-form compositions that established the style. The hooks, chord changes, evolving atmospheres, and instrumental elements added a certain dynamism to his sleek, fluid sound and proved to be a true pinnacle in his catalog so far.

So, when Merrin Karras plays an hour’s worth of material in one set, it’s time to take it all in.

We’ve been sat on this set for a while and there’s never been a right time to release it. It’s been up on YouTube with some great visuals for a few years already.

But on Thursday afternoon - mere hours before Bandcamp Friday - I happened to be on an email thread with Brendan, and it reminded me this gem was sitting rusting away when it could be channeled as HQ into the eardrums of everyone here.

In the space of ~3 hours, we had everything ready to go (a testament to Peter Skwiot Smith having some superb artwork handy).

It’s simply an unmissable set of music in my opinion, and I think it’s hard to say that about most live sets in this world nowadays. (Talking of great live sets, don’t sleep on this one btw)

Merrin Karras was built for this type of approach and is holding the torch for the nu-Berlin School era.

~

It’s been nearly two years since Brendan Gregoriy’s (Chymera) Merrin Karras alias graced us with a new release, but since his magnificent Berlin School opus, Silent Planet (following 2020’s ‘Northwest Passage’, and 2016’s ‘Apex’), Brendan has been quietly musing on the next evolution of his beloved synthesizer-laden sound.

Until that day arrives, we’re being treated to a recording from one of his rare live appearances, capturing special moments from across his catalog in one expanded set. In a similar style to the extended long-players of early Berlin School masters, Brendan’s live performance follows a similar narrative, traversing an expanse of intensity, pace, and atmosphere with subtle edits and transitions making familiar tracks seem like entirely new passages of time and sound.

Name Your Price on Bandcamp

Featuring artwork by Peter Skwiot Smith
Originally performed and recorded for Reworks festival, Greece, 2021. reworks.gr
Watch the full A/V set featuring custom visuals from MinimalicQuantum below.

Salvatore Mercatante / Ø (ASIPV045)

Our first release of 2024 welcomes New York musician Salvatore Mercatante and his new album 'Ø', a stunning suite of electronic music born from the idea of starting from nothing, again and again.

With previous releases on Castles in Space, Werrafoxma, and Subexotic along with his own label Nocimiste, Salvatore’s output can bridge many styles, and here, we’re treated to a crowning mixture of ambient, IDM, downtempo, and techno influences, all underlined by his mastery of soundtracks.

~

The concept of naught (Ø) has challenged Salvatore Mercatante throughout his musical career, specifically, trying to understand how the idea of ‘nothing’ fits into the realm of sound, and at the same time, exist in a world of influence at every turn. In the absence of everything, are we able to create something truly free?

As a lifelong New York-based musician, Mercatante’s influences and productions run a wide spectrum. Just as happy producing 80s-inspired horror soundtracks as he is refining acute drum patterns over and over again, Salvatore is the first to ask himself, where next? When a musician’s output can be influenced today by so much, and there is no self-defined or perceived artistic goal in mind, how do you start from a place of nothingness, again and again?

This approach has born many minimal and experimental albums of note in the past, but with Ø, Salvatore ended up with an almost controlled maximalist approach. Beginning with open spaces and allowing sonic textures to live and evolve past where you may expect, Ø allows the space between notes to become equally as important as the notes themselves. Walls of noise, soaring soundtracks, dense techno, glittering IDM, and minimal glitch, sit side-by-side to present an all-encompassing palette of sonic possibility.

Often, even without any intent, what can be born from nothing will somehow transpire back into something more recognizable. It’s human nature after all. A subtle fingerprint, as a sequence, melody, pattern, or drum kick. Whether Salvatore intended for this record to represent his defining sound or not, only time will tell.

Visit the release page for more info and links to buy

Written and produced by Salvatore Mercatante
Mastered by Giuseppe Tillieci @ Enisslab, Rome, Italy. 
Artwork by Brandon Locher