Aphelion Editions

27/04/2025

APHELION026 - melophobia + occupied head - Panta Rhei, Some Anachronisms
out now on Limited Edition CD-R, K7 and digital formats
https://aphelioneditions.bandcamp.com/album/panta-rhei-some-anachronisms

Regular collaborators, melophobia (Greece) and occupied head (Germany) bring their captivating soundworld to Aphelion Editions for the first time with 'Panta Rhei, Some Anachronisms'. A beautifully detailed 46-minute immersive deep-dive into a space rich in sonics and dramatic compositional textures.

For those wishing to explore further, previous releases by the duo have graced the likes of nostalgie de boue (Côte D'Ivoire), IN:EX (Germany), Ultra Gash Records (Japan) and Default Standard (Greece).

In the artists' own words:

In "Panta Rhei, Some Anachronisms", time flows like a river, winding and meandering through unexpected tributaries where past, present, and future mingle freely. Drawing from the ancient Greek concept of "panta rhei" —meaning "everything flows"— this album is a sonic exploration of moments that refuse to remain fixed in their era, bridging rhythm and ambience in a stream of sonic anachronisms.

Each of the eight tracks unfurls like a scene out of time, echoing forgotten histories and future imaginings. With titles like "Chronotaxis" and "Metachronon / Diachronic," the pieces invite the listener to lose themselves in lush ambient landscapes where unknown whispers merge into experimental electronic improvisations, and modern motifs collide with post industrial beats. These anachronisms reveal a world where the linearity of time dissolves, and all moments coexist, each piece offering a fleeting glimpse of what could have been—or what might still be.

"Panta Rhei, Some Anachronisms" draws listeners into an enigmatic
soundscape where everything changes yet feels strangely familiar,
honoring the beauty of the fleeting, the cyclical, and the eternal. This
is the fifth collaborative album by Melophobia & Occupied Head recorded between summer and autumn of 2024.

8 track album

02/02/2025

New music video for 'Civil Swan' from the recent REPO / TETKOV / LORD album >>>

https://youtu.be/Sqr58yyxGao?si=SQ73AhrXSlXlRwZB

REPO / TETKOV / LORD - Midlands Life Crisis
https://aphelioneditions.bandcamp.com/album/midlands-life-crisis

Taken from the recent REPO / TETKOV / LORD album 'Midlands Life Crisis' released 20th December 2024 on Aphelion editions:https://aphelioneditions.bandcamp.co...

20/12/2024

APHELION025 - REPO / TETKOV / LORD - MIDLANDS LIFE CRISIS
out today 20/12/2024 on Limited Edition CD-R, K7 and digital formats:

https://aphelioneditions.bandcamp.com/album/midlands-life-crisis

REPO / TETKOV / LORD is a collaboration between three members of Bristol’s No-WRock explorers Repo Man (Liam McConaghy - guitar / Anthony Brown - bass / Bojak - sax, violin, vocals) and two members of Exeter’s free jazz trio Capri-Batterie (Matt Lord - sax / Kordian Tetkov - drums). Repo Man’s recent work includes the genre smashed ‘Me Pop Now’ whilst Capri Batterie has free wielding improv pedigree with the collaborative album released with comedian Stewart Lee, ‘Bristol Fashion’.

Brown and Lord initially played in a pre-Repo improvised noise rock action trio in Bristol circa 2007/ 2008, before Lord moved to Exeter. The Repo/Tetkov/Lord project emerged from both sets of musicians playing together in Plymouth during a Repo Man tour in the autumn of 2019.

Midlands Life Crisis is the result of a weekend in January 2020 spent hunkered down at Bristol studio, Joe’s Garage, with recording engineer Joe Garcia (Anta), the musicians laying down track after track of improvisations exploring the multiple intersections between post-punk and free-jazz approaches. Dissected into manageable sluices of ear pleasing tumult, the distinct vocals of Bojak were contributed to further assist in sculpting these Free globules into fibrous meaty chunks.

The clangorous opening to ‘Midlands Life Crisis’ sets the scene with slashing tones and subtle dynamic shifts, before the sound (un)settles into a tense backdrop of whiskey drenched sax solemnities. There is an urgency that separates this from the more fusty musical realms of academic beard scratch.

This urgency ranges from the doomed recitations of ‘The First Six Steps’ to the beat punching aural chopping board of ‘Captain Ditched the Hog’ which moves from Magic Band clatter with a plastic big into a brother Grimm-swing Scott Walker fronting June of 44 hellscape. ‘No Spine’ exhales into the world like a spiritual doom jazz incantation. 'Depot No 90' savagely utilises, and then pyro's the ‘circle in the round’ method. 'Civil Swan' is a nauseous death march brutally stripping the bones out of turn of the century strutting hipJazz. 'Hal Hartley Dinner Party' is a liberatory sax duel with shards of danceable guitar glee dissolving into a final urgent Bojak missive. The set concludes with the reflective slow motion denouement of 'Throbbing Keegan', chords rising and falling to devastating conclusion.

Gestating in a lockdown ether post-recording, and aged in fine barrels of oak casked homebrew, Repo/Tetkov/Lord is finally here to bare its deformed metaphorical torso, and is a fine reflection of the ‘..is always intense’ credos. Dig in.

Repo Man
Capri-batterie
Joe's Garage
Stephen Kerrison
Aphelion Editions

10 track album

11/12/2024

Very excited to share the preorder for this one! >>>

https://aphelioneditions.bandcamp.com/album/midlands-life-crisis

Happy to see out the year 2024 with this special collab a long time in the works between 3 members of Bristol No-WRock explorers, Repo Man and 2 members of Exeter free jazz trio, Capri-batterie.

REPO / TETKOV / LORD arrives with Midlands Life Crisis, built on improvisations exploring the multiple intersections between post-punk and free jazz approaches thusly dissected into manageable sluices of ear pleasing tumult.

Recorded in Jan 2020 pre-lockdown and aged in fine barrels of oak casked homebrew over the next couple of years!

Official release date 20/12/2024. Preorders will ship out early.

Dig in and savour!

Aphelion x

23/06/2024

New music video from bandmember Aron Ward for the Bryn Wyrd tack 1522. Dropping into a hellish psychedelic dreamscape for a couple of minutes of twisted mayhem. Soak it all in. Good way to wake yourself up on a sleepy Sunday...
Watch the vid here:
https://youtu.be/2KszUMFwx1k?si=6VNRMzSRdHpPHuRW

Taken from the album L.A. Crab:
https://aphelioneditions.bandcamp.com/album/l-a-crab

Another track from the recent L.A. Crab album by Bryn Wyrd gets the video treatment courtesy of bandmember Aron WardThe 1522 vid drops us into a hellish psyc...

05/06/2024

APHELION024 - TAKAHIRO MUKAI - NEITHER CONFIRM NOR DENY
Out today 05/06/2024 on Limited Edition CD-R, K7 and digital formats:

Very pleased to share the 24th Aphelion release! This transmission comes from Osaka, Japan's Takahiro Mukai, here spinning 6 lo-fi dubby webs of electronic goodness for your listening pleasure.
NEITHER CONFIRM NOR DENY. Sink your teeth in >>>

Osaka-based Japanese sound artist and composer Takahiro Mukai presents six enigmatic, tripped-out hardware jams on ‘Neither Confirm Nor Deny’. With a murky, lofi, dubbed-out flavour, curious bleeps and pulses thread through these nocturnal transmissions at a languid pace amidst a nebulous sonic fog, underpinned by thudding kicks. This is hypnotic machine-music, operating in a zone between sleep and wakefulness and makes for a very welcome addition to the Aphelion catalogue.

6 track album

08/05/2024

Top notch reviewage here from Noel Gardner in the latest New Weird Britain feature for The Quietus. Thanks for including the Bryn Wyrd album in the column!

"...in this case by throwing sinewy lines at Ward, who spins them into a web where early techno meets early industrial..." NICE.

Read the full feature here:

Disassembled slowcore! Spandex-stretchy heroic jamming! Grubbily shimmering disco-techno! Your guide to the best of New Weird Britain returns, courtesy of Noel Gardner

08/05/2024

Thanks to Vital Weekly for featuring Bryn Wyrd in the latest issue 1436!
Words courtesy of Frans de Waard. Many thanks for the write up and assessment!

Though undecided on Bryn Wyrd as they flex their marmite tendencies on longer cuts, he nonetheless concedes:
"This is undoubtedly the place if you want to hear a curious, different kind of improvisation."

Full article at the following link >>>

https://www.vitalweekly.net/number-1436/

08/05/2024

Lovely reviewage here from Michael Rodham-Heaps on the new Bryn Wyrd album for Freq ! Big thanks!

My personal fave paragraph:
As “Engine Stop” tigers its taut kinetics, it’s abundantly clear this has serious backbone. A stagger-punched techno attacked by an elasticised free fall, closely followed by some improv plucked dramatics that are totally upstaged by “_Yeah_ (L.A. Crab)”’s scuzzy hubcap gamalan disco ambition. Glued up in knitting needle clank, hitting a mutineering rhythmic heartbeat… to “yeah yeah” demise.

But seriously, read the whole thing right here >>>
https://freq.org.uk/reviews/bryn-wyrd-la-crab/

Bryn Wyrd's LA Crab release via Aphelion Editions "...is a staggeringly inventive beast ending in some springy sweet’n’sour techno dub twang that honestly fails all categorisation. Feedback-smothered and riot-roasted, this flapping pigeon poke is a total breath-stealer..."

https://freq.org.uk/reviews/bryn-wyrd-la-crab/

08/05/2024

Big thanks to Josh at Raised by Cassettes for this tripped out roadtrip of a review for the Bryn Wyrd tape
"The bass drops like bombs and it just has this bouncing vibe to it as well. Yelling is coming in with this now but it also feels like it could be a cat saying meow. "
Extra points for mentioning cats...

Full review here:
https://raisedbycassettes.blogspot.com/2024/05/cassette-review-bryn-wyrd-la-crab.html

https://aphelioneditions.bandcamp.com/album/l-a-crab A flurry of loud and noisy percussion begins this one. It feels like Primus if it wa...

13/04/2024

PART 2

Liam (AE) – So, any particular artists/records that you’d add to a ‘suggested further listening’ type list in relation to L.A. Crab? Stuff that was inspiring you during the making of it? Or any other music you’ve just been obsessing over and want to share?

Aron (BW) – I think during those Bryn Wyrd sessions I’d imagine it was mostly Tears For Fears and Depeche Mode? Robert Palmer? That annoying neighbour’s kid shouting for their older sister… Mya? Haha! Folks that just rip live for me right now are like Monika Badly, Kar Pouzi, Jake Healy, Tina Hitchens, Neil Smith, Yokel and Harry Irvine.

Ant (BW) – I feel we are sort of a sibling project to Aron and Tina’s Harpoon. I don’t recall there ever being a concept of what our stuff was going to sound like in particular, and it emerged more weirdly rave-y than I initially imagined. I think ‘Tiny Reminders’ by 2 Lone Swordsmen and the early works of Cabaret Voltaire have some of a similar feel.

Liam (AE) – Nice! What’s the story behind L.A. Crab? What does the title represent to you both?

Aron (BW) – We have a great interest and respect for improvisation, but because of the capricious / throw away nature of improv, titles can be stupid. It can be such a cathartic experience playing this music, that once you’re done, you couldn’t give a f**k what it was called. For example, the name L.A. Crab just came from this janky crab key ring Jen got from LAX that said Los Angeles on it. Ant used it all over the bass strings on various tracks throughout the record.

Liam (AE) – … and it also features in amongst the album artwork on the little postcard prints we did to accompany the compact disc version, which is neat… Thank you both for your thoughts and extra insight into the process of this album and the whole project! Now everyone needs to crank the volume and give L.A. Crab a good play and soak up the intensity and vibes and Phil empathy!

https://aphelioneditions.bandcamp.com/album/l-a-crab

13/04/2024

I asked Aron and Ant from BRYN WYRD some questions about this project and the stonking new album L.A. Crab, and they kindly indulged and delivered their thoughts... Read on for some insight and intrigue >>>

PART 1

Liam (Aphelion Editions) – So, what’s the beef with Phil? Or is it more of an adoring fan perspective from you both that earns him his crowning position at the very heart of the album on ‘1978 I Guess’?

Aron (Bryn Wyrd) – Yeah, I think it’s more adoration and some kind of break-up empathy, like we all know he’s rich and a Tory, but man he wrote some f**king bangers and had a good time in the 80s once the wife ran off.

Ant (Bryn Wyrd) – It came from a psycho analysis of Phil that was prompted by his appearance in a documentary about 808s.
He’s a sensitive cat.

Liam (AE) – How did Bryn Wyrd come into being as an entity? What was the trajectory from seed of an idea through to this album? Genesis and evolution?

Aron (BW) – Must have been that we weren’t busy enough with the other band we do! At first at least. I really liked what my friends Well Hung Game were doing with Ed processing James’ baritone sax into a horrible mess, so once Ant told me he’d got this double bass, I was like – let’s do that. But with some pressure from the drum machine.

Liam (AE) – Any plans to gig some more now the album is out in the world? The last time I saw you guys play a set was a Crofter’s all dayer that Aron, you and Jake Healy organised under the Totality banner in maybe summer ’21? I forget when exactly that was now, but that was a great set. Would love to see more Bryn Wyrd live action soon!

Aron (BW) – Aye yeah it was a rad debut, June of ’22 I think. Would definitely love to play Bryn Wyrd out if anyone’s willing to haul Ant’s upright to the show.
For some reason, taxis and busses hate on that thing so much. It’s f**ked, but hopefully we can figure out a way because Bryn Wyrd needs to go live!

Liam (AE) – Great… my memory of the gig was a year out, but it made a lasting impression on me and yes, it definitely needs to GO LIVE!