Subtext

09/07/2024

ZULI's 'Lambda' album review by Joseph Francis on Bandcamp Daily

An album about moving through time is delightfully—and aptly—difficult to pin down.

08/07/2024

Listen back to bela's selection on NTS Radio: https://www.nts.live/shows/guests/episodes/bela-6th-july-202

05/07/2024

ZULI’s ‘Lambda’ LP is now available on a limited edition vinyl and digitally on all platforms: https://tr.ee/mwN0rVVLLI

Album cover by Kasia Kim Zacharko

20/06/2024

"Lambda, to me, is the space between two extreme states where you’re uncertain which way you’re about to go. It’s the internal forces that influence where you end up going in the end.”

From ZULI's interview with Blake / AS IF NO WAY:
https://www.asifnoway.com/interview-with-zuli

New single available to stream & download on Bandcamp.
Photo by Kasia Kim Zacharko

07/06/2024

ZULI shares the single ‘Ast’ with cult British artist Coby Sey (Coby Sey), mouthing words over mangled music box jingles and ecstatic pads.

Stream, download & vinyl pre-order: https://tr.ee/mwN0rVVLLI

Full album out on July 5th, 2024.
Photos by Kasia Kim Zacharko & Ksenia Maqa

06/06/2024

ZULI's single '10000 (Papercuts Pt.1) feat. MICHAELBRAILEY' on Mary Anne Hobbs' selection for BBC Radio 6 Music

Mary Anne selects her favourite new music of the day and some old skool classics.

21/05/2024

We’re pleased to announce the release of ‘Lambda,’ the new album by Berlin-based Egyptian producer ZULI, out on Subtext on July 5th, 2024.

The first single ‘10000 (Papercuts pt. 1) ft. MICHAELBRAILEY’ is now available to stream & download on all platforms.

Vinyl pre-order & stream: https://tr.ee/mwN0rVVLLI

Draped in gauzy, granulated textures and woven with enigmatic vocal flourishes from collaborators MICHAELBRAILEY, Coby Sey and Abdullah Miniawy, ‘Lambda’ is a vivid, soul-searching set of polychromatic reflections that sets fire to the boundaries between ambient, trip-hop, industrial music, chamber pop and symphonic noise.

Conceived in Cairo October 2020, and finished in Berlin July 2023. Album cover by Kasia Kim Zacharko.

10/05/2024

J.G. Biberkopf's album ‘The Seed, The Sinkhole, The Flower, and The Flare’ is out now and available to stream and download on all platforms: https://tr.ee/hsTCgOLzVK

Words on track 1. and 3. by Holly Childs
Voiced by Elliott Lauren Ryan
Photo credit: Mykolas Valantinas
Cover artist: Yen Chun Lin
Reel by: J.G. Biberkopf & Yen Chun Lin

09/05/2024

bela presents the music video for ’the single The Sage' from their recent album 'Noise and Cries 굉음​과 울음', co-released by Subtext Recordings and Unsound

Full video: https://youtu.be/QswYwsNNVU8

Directed by Lukas Feigelfeld
Production Lukas Feigelfeld, Zoe Kahlert
Camera: ,
Post Production: Lukas Feigelfeld
Makeup: Mariya Madzharova
Set Design: Amelie Kahlert
Production Assistant: Gediminas Žygus
Special thanks to James Ginzburg, Laura Kahlert
Produced by

03/05/2024

bela's 'Noise and Cries (굉음과 울음)' featured on Dazeddigital's list of best albums for April 2024

Vinyl & digital: https://tr.ee/5GoLfLpccR

From Claire Rousay to Lanark Artefax and Lord Spikeheart, here’s a round-up of this month’s best albums

25/04/2024

"I wanted to vocalise about the pressurised life in South Korea, and the feeling of loving and hating your homeland. Processing toxic familial (literally and figuratively) relationships not by slowly growing out of it but getting ripped out of it in a second – like a car crash, like pulling out your baby tooth with a plier". - bela

Read the full interview on Dazeddigital

On Noise and Cries, the South Korean artist channels their anger through guttural death metal and traditional folk music

19/04/2024

J.G. Biberkopf’s shares the new single 'Do You Love It?' w/ Holly Childs from the upcoming album ‘The Seed, The Sinkhole, The Flower, and The Flare.’

Stream & download: https://jgbiberkopf.bandcamp.com/album/the-seed-the-sinkhole-the-flower-and-the-flare

Continuing to exist in a state of transience—detached and unattached within the harsh milieu of economic precarity and ecological instability, the J. G. Biberkopf project remained suspended for the past eight years. Rumbling beneath a bedrock of personal and geopolitical crises, Žygus turned toward more collaborative work with the likes of Holly Childs, Mariechen Danz, and Metahaven. Those synergies have left a mark on Žygus’s practice, with elements of the album being based on the score for the latter Amsterdam-based artist duo’s 2021 film Chaos Theory, while Childs lends her words to two tracks. A disrupted tone carries the whispers of Elliott Lauren Ryan reciting “Do You Love It?”: You are really close to my face /And it feels fine. Meanwhile, contributions from cover artist Yen Chun Lin come in the field recordings that rise out of The Seed, The Sinkhole, The Flower, and The Flare overall.

Full album out on May, 10th. 2024.
Photo credit: Mykolas Valantinas

16/04/2024

"The sounds expand, in depth and breadth, blistered industry and the trickle of running water. Their growl grows like a snoring dragon slowly coming round, enveloping us within its protective roar. As with any good conclusion, it is the summation of all that came before it".

From Jon Buckland's review of bela's 'Noise and Cries 굉​음​과 울음' on The Quietus: https://thequietus.com/articles/34041-bela-noise-cries-review

12/04/2024

bela’s debut album ‘Noise and Cries 굉음과 울음’ is now available on vinyl as well as digitally on all platforms: https://tr.ee/nj1ORp74XC

'Noise and Cries (굉음과 울음)' is an unflinching examination of South Korea's cultural evolution, and despite its concept, it's overwhelmingly positive. bela fantasizes about what life could offer for a q***r Korean, and how the country's traditions might provide tools for insight and self-discovery when wrestled away from reactionary gatekeepers. They operate between binaries, alloying high and low culture, ancient and contemporary ideas, loud and quiet, harmony and dissonance, leaving just as many questions as answers. "Ego melts away," they assure. "It's not me - we.”

Recorded and mixed by James Ginzburg.
Mastered by Joker.Photography by Camille Bake.
Co-released by Subtext and Unsound

05/04/2024

bela shares the new single ‘나락’ from their upcoming album 'Noise and Cries (굉음과 울음)’.

Stream & download via Bandcamp: https://6314.bandcamp.com/album/noise-and-cries

On '나락' (narak, meaning pit) bela croaks over a pounding thud. They split their pneumatic beat with elements of hwimori and dongsalpuri, two more traditional rhythms, and use these elements to anchor words that deconstruct the reality of the narak - the infinite abyss in the Buddhist worldview.

The album will be co-released by Subtext and Unsound on April 12, 2024. Vinyl pre-order at the link above.

12/03/2024

Subtext and Unsound are pleased to announce the first single from 'Noise and Cries 굉음과 울음,' the debut album by Berlin-based, South-Korean artist bela. The album will be co-released by Subtext and Unsound April 12, 2024.

Vinyl pre-order, stream and download: https://tr.ee/nj1ORp74XC

'Noise and Cries (굉음과 울음)' is the first time bela has recorded their voice, and they metamorphose it from moment to moment, embracing a precarious vulnerability. Opening track 'The Sage' references and radically subverts Jungtaryeong, two well-known arias from the Korean pansori tradition - a folk form that is usually performed by a drummer and a singer.

05/03/2024

J.G. Biberkopf's latest single, 'Self Vortex,' is out today, setting the stage for their upcoming album launch and premiere live performance of "The Seed, The Sinkhole, The Flower, and The Flare" at ICA (ICA) on March 13.

Stream & download: https://tr.ee/hsTCgOLzVK
Event tickets: https://www.ica.art/live/jg-biberkopf

Artwork by Yen Chun Lin
Photo by Mykolas Valantinas

01/03/2024

sinonó's first album 'la espalda y su punto radiante' (the backbody and its radiant point”) is now available to stream and download on all platforms: https://tr.ee/2RwjqM7f5W

27/02/2024

New single by sinonó available to listen on BBC Radio 3's Reduced Listening:

Corey Mwamba shares new free jazz and a work inspired by a piano dropped into deep waters.

23/02/2024

sinonó's Isabel Crespo Pardo in conversation with Digital in Berlin. Full album 'la espalda y su punto radiante' out on March 1st.

Isabel Crespo Pardo (they/them) is a NYC-based latinx vocalist, improviser-composer, and interdisciplinary artist.

22/02/2024

emptyset's 'plane' and Aho Ssan's 'Intro' in Miuccia Prada & Raf Simons present FW24 Womenswear Collection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9jTwNiSj6U

06/02/2024

We're pleased to announce the release of ‘la espalda y su punto radiante’ by New York City-based trio sinonó.

The first single ‘gravedad’ is now available to stream and download on all platforms: https://tr.ee/2RwjqM7f5W

The Latinx vocalist, improviser and composer Isabel Crespo Pardo assembled sinonó to help bring their levitational poem-songs to life with a focus on abstraction, texture and sublime simplicity. The trio features Lester St. Louis - a New York-born improviser, composer and sound designer - on cello, Boston-born multi-instrumentalist, educator and bandleader Henry Fraser on double bass, and Crespo on vocals. 'la espalda y su punto radiante' “(the backbody and its radiant point” in Spanish) is a bold and sinewy suite that evolved mindfully as the players established their creative relationships.

Album art by Magdalena Sevilla. Press photos by Jonathan Finyalson.

30/01/2024

We are pleased to announce the release of ‘Six and Forty-Six’ by Italian sound-artist Riccardo La Foresta & James Ginzburg out today on all platforms: https://bit.ly/six-forty-six

The two pieces capture the interactions between La Foresta’s Drummophone — an array of bass drums sounded by compressed air which produce complex acoustic drones — and a custom string instrument designed by Ginzburg — a bass monochord and zither hybrid — that is activated by a set of computer-controlled solenoids and amplified.

Initially conceived in 2022 and installed at Palazzo Re Enzo in Bologna, Six and Forty-Six will premiere in Berlin this evening, January 30th, at Berghain / Panorama Bar as part of CTM Festival.

12/01/2024

PYUR (Official)'s album 'Lucid Anarchy' is now available to stream and download on all platforms: https://tr.ee/yWOuTcPMj6

11/01/2024

PYUR (Official) shares the new single 'Windings On A Charged Wave' from her upcoming album ‘Lucid Anarchy’ now premiering on Beatburguer

Estrenamos "Windings On A Charged Wave", tema de Pyur incluído en su nuevo álbum, "Lucid Anarchy", que edita mañana Subtext Recordings.

10/01/2024

"Lucid Anarchy is an album in search of itself. Unlike Oratorio for the Underworld, it offers more textures than beats, more questions than answers, and more experience than clarity. Pyur sets out on a path of self-discovery but instead finds awe".

PYUR (Official)'s 'Lucid Anarchy' reviewed by Richard Allen for A Closer Listen.

Lucid Anarchy is an album in search of itself. Unlike Oratorio for the Underworld, it offers more textures than beats, more questions than answers, and more experience than clarity. Pyur sets out…

09/01/2024

"Though the title Lucid Anarchy is about finding comfort and meaning in uncertainty, you know you’re in a safe pair of hands".

PYUR (Official)'s 'Lucid Anarchy' reviewed by Skye Butchard for The Quietus:

The Berlin-based electronic artist puts texture and feeling first on her new record, where compositions bloom from nothing. Skye Butchard finds that you don’t have to think too hard to hear its beauty

04/01/2024

"This is absolutely not the place to look for great songcraft or killer beats, but it is probably one of the best releases around for those looking for precision-engineered brutality, masterfully harnessed spatialized sound, and intense physicality. "

emptyset's 'ash' reviewed by Anthony D'Amico for Brainwashed: https://bit.ly/41MMQed

03/01/2024

Listen back to PYUR (Official)'s selection for Lý Trang's monthly show on NTS Radio

Playing Ambient. Hanoi producer Lý Trang presents an hour of vibrant noise.

07/12/2023

PYUR (Official) shares the new single 'Delta' from her upcoming album ‘Lucid Anarchy’ now premiering on Orb Mag: https://www.orbmag.com/music/premiere/pyur-delta/

Photo by Camille Blake