WASHINGTON FORMICA – BUREAU 31

Washington Formica is the alias of French collagist Musta Fior. Bureau 31 arrived a week after ‘Essentials Oils’, which formed part of The Impermanence Project through my own Mortality Tables imprint. The two releases are markedly different. Whereas ‘Essentials Oils’ was built around dense clusters of drones, Bureau 31 focuses its attention on rhythms. The parallel between them comes in the most subtle of variations, with the carefully constructed beats continually shifting despite seeming fixed. In this way, it evokes Autechre’s ‘Repetitive Beats’, though the pace is much more languid. I listened to the chill ‘Porte C’ while driving to breakfast in Los Angeles along a palm tree-lined boulevard under a vivid blue Californian morning sky. It felt like the perfect accompaniment to a paradisiacal moment, the sinewy acid phrasing creating a sense of latent optimism. Elsewhere, the ten-minute title track begins slowly, before building up layer after layer of drums, over which sounds that swing with an implied jazziness are added. A brilliant addition to the Washington Formica catalogue. Released August 14 2026 by Wormhole World.

https://wormholeworld.bandcamp.com/album/bureau-31

JEM FINER / JOHN MATTHIAS – ALMOST STARLIGHT

Almost Starlight pairs two musicians who might be better described as conceptualists. Jem Finer might be known as a guitarist and founding member of The Pogues, but his solo multidisciplinary activities have included thought-provoking pieces like Longplayer, an installation in a Docklands lighthouse using singing bowl samples that will run until 2999. John Matthias is nominally a violinist and arranger who has worked with Radiohead and others, but his backstory involves studying theoretical physics, which informs his approach to composition. Almost Starlight finds Finer playing hardy gurdy as a complement to Matthias’s swooping violin observations, recorded at Ashton Church of St. John the Baptist in Devon in July 2025. They are joined on key pieces by Jay Auborn (cello / percussion), the result being an atmospheric collection where classical forms are re-framed with electronic music sensibilities. ‘Queen Of Winds’ stands out as a highlight, wherein strange percussion sounds provide a metronomic pulse that is offset by howling winds of discordancy. Meanwhile, ‘As Low As Possible’ centres its attention on drones continually being pitched downwards, giving rise to a somewhat disconcerting feeling of time and existence coming to a dead stop. Released September 4 2026 by Touch.

https://touch333.bandcamp.com/album/almost-starlight

CLOUD CANYONS – BODY WISDOM

“I have to go away and leave again,” is a central lyric on ‘Double Vision’, the sparse and fragile opening track on Cloud Canyons’ new album, Body Wisdom. Those lyrics precipitate a record that travels far from this initial moment of subtlety. Then again, the Italian quartet of Stella Baraldi, Michelle Christofori, Laura Storchi and Nicola Caleffi are rarely known for standing still. I initially came upon their music with last year’s Ecstasy / Discipline, which contained two tracks as different as they were alike. Body Wisdom takes that duality even further, presented as a collection of nine long pieces that journey toward vital electronic body music, a final state that is barely hinted at when the album starts. Along the way they offer sinewy synth sequences that evoke Giorgio Moroder, the wild blunt force of Factory Floor and trippy, psychedelic imagery. ‘Dream Hunter’ is my personal favourite here, its repeated synth sequence giving me joyful memories of the first time I listened to Suicide. An exciting stage in Cloud Canyons’ ongoing metamorphosis. Released September 4 2026.

https://cloudcanyonsband.bandcamp.com/album/body-wisdom

FORSTER – LIVE AT OHM

A wise person said to me recently that “noise is in the ear of the beholder”. I had those words rattling around in my head when I started playing Live At Ohm by Forster (Mitchell Keaney and Davide Luciani); by the end of this recording of their show in Berlin in January 2026, my ears were ringing. In a good way, I should stress. In the same way that my ears were ringing for days after attending the final Throbbing Gristle concert in 2010. I knew what to expect. I visited the head of The Tapeworm at his London HQ a few months back and he gushed, “You must listen to this!” and played me the third track from this collection – loud, at foundation-troubling volume – where the bass intensity was physically impactful. Keaney and Luciani handle dangerous levels of distortion, probably without feeling the need for hazmat suits, and inputs are subjected to such savage processing that any hope of tracing their original provenance is pointless. In the case of that third track, a form of industrial techno emerges, but it is utterly, joyously, fractured. There are moments where what sounds like an ethereal voice floats gently above the din, but it is sucked down into the maelstrom of angry bass and clipped rhythms leaving barely a trace of itself. A joy to behold. Released October 2 2026 by The Tapeworm / The Wormhole.

https://the-tapeworm.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-ohm

Words: Mat Smith

(c) 2026 Further.