Amek Collective

LATE

After two EPs, which shaped his signature take on industrial-leaning downtempo music with strong influences from UK bass music and ambient, LATE returns with his first full-length album on Amek. “Far North Eleven” offers a deeper and lengthier descent into thick atmospheres and sparse, contemplative melodies, soaked in despair. LATE’s subterranean bass lines are carrying outbursts of hypnotic, yet raw and bit-crushed percussion. “Far North Eleven” is not only the long-anticipated return of the Sofia-based producer but a huge leap forward in his constantly evolving sound.

Evitceles

On "Bruised", his third full-length album for Amek, Bulgarian producer Evitceles probes even deeper into his bottomless and tainted well of influences. As hinted in some of the project's other, most recent, releases, his music has become even more guitar and vocal-centered, with beats and basslines feeling somehow colder and simpler. While the artist's signature, aggressive, at times lo-fi, approach to production makes the overall sound of the album feel gritty and punishing, "Bruised" also has a tasty and deranged post-punk flavor to it. Like every other bit of Etien Slavchev’s constantly morphing discography as Evitceles, the album doesn’t stay in the same place for long. It toys with us through drastic mood switches, innate intensity, and laconic but emotional lyrics and vocals. We never know where Evitceles’ music is headed, but we want to be a part of this journey. You’re (kind of) welcome too!

Discordless

In the three years since Marius Costache’s previous full-length album for Amek as Discordless, his usual menacing and anxiety-fuelled music has reached even further into the sonic extremes. We can blame it on the world we live in, on the year that just passed, or on Costache’s very own distortion-worshipping approach to electronic music and his decades-worth of experience as a sound and recording engineer. Whichever you pick, ‘Fear On Every Side’ will remain a brutal take on contemporary noise music. It is demanding, disorienting, and primal work, but still captivating and sincere. Every element found on the record contributes to a narrative that feels simultaneously vast and intimate. ‘Fear On Every Side’ can be perceived both from a first-person perspective and as an overview of our decaying reality. The record doesn’t want you to overcome the sense of hopelessness, paranoia, and tension it unfolds in front of you, but rather to plunge you deeper into this place of no way out.

Shentov, Simitchiev, Lukanov

The source material for “Palimpsest” was recorded over several fairly different sessions. Some of them took place in the live setting, others happened in the confinement of the Kontingent Records studio. These recordings were then carefully examined, subtly (re)arranged, and barely overdubbed. Four long-form pieces were shaped in the end. Despite having collaborated on many different occasions and in varying formats, “Palimpsest” is the first full-length recording in which the different approaches by Shentov, Simitchiev, Lukanov are utilized in pursuit of a unified musical direction. The result is an album that explores minimalist drone territories through a purposely limited toolset and in a recording environment that relies heavily on intuition, spontaneity and patience. The record also carries delicate traces of raw ambient, found sounds and field recordings, processed guitar and electroacoustic improvisation. While the first three tracks are slightly more condensed in both length and substance, the closing piece, which spans over the whole B-side of the album, is where this collaboration peaks. During its almost thirty minutes, it majestically unfolds its textures and synthetic artifacts, which are layered over a subtly shape-shifting backbone of guitar drones, melodic fragments and loops.

Undantem

For over a year we’ve observed the growth and transformation of Undantem’s debut full-length ‘Alterity’. The first glimpses of it were heavy on field recordings and rawer ambient sound. The harshness gradually surrendered to the more majestic and calming dronescape-driven atmosphere, with the field recordings only carefully nuancing the sound and giving it that much needed organic element, that grounds the music in the very realm we’re sharing with its creator. ‘Alterity’ was written in Sofia between 2020-2021 by Irish-born, but Bulgaria-based artist Ronan Considine. This debut album is a lesson in tranquility, patience but also of structure, sense of space and melody. ‘Alterity’ allows you to observe, feel and experience the world it unfolds but maintains a delicate distance, making it harder to senselessly lose yourself in it.

Valance Drakes

Four years lay between An Angel In Alliance With Falsehood and Hate Devours Its Host, Valance Drakes’s brand new full-length for Amek Collective. This deeply personal record sets the producer on yet another path of narrative-driven musical alchemy. Without a doubt, Hate Devours Its Host is Valance Drakes’ most atmospheric work to date. Multilayered ambient soundscapes and spiraling melodic debris are used not as a backdrop but as the backbone of the record. The producer's signature intricate rhythmic structures, subterranean basslines, and hypnotizing sample manipulation are entangled in this drifting sonic environment. All these elements become an inseparable and emotionally intense whole. We watched this album grow and unfold. As with all things Valance Drakes, the music in Hate Devours Its Host seems that it can be experienced in a breath but truly grasping everything that lies within requires patience and attention to detail. All elements in Hate Devours Its Host are carefully considered, meticulously organized, and purposeful. This full-length is another showcase not just of Drakes' sound design and compositional craftsmanship but an honest representation of life as beautiful or punishing as it can get. credits

VA

The third installment of our bi-annual Vanishing Standards compilation series closes the year of our fifteenth anniversary. As usual, we wanted to have as many members of our extended family aboard as possible, as well as welcome new ones into it. Of course, they are in the company of Amek regulars, whom, whenever we could, we tried to inspire to work in new collaborations and configurations. The result is not only the shortest volume in the series but also the first one dominated by atmospheric, yet noisy, tracks that are punctuated with some unexpected heavy hitters. credits

VA

Vanishing Standards returns with 15 exclusive tracks by Amek regulars and a very special selection of guests. The new volume of what has now grown into a compilation series aims at revealing new and exciting works by our expanded family of artists; thus, the epic tracklist spans over 80 minutes of music in a plethora of contemporary experimental music genres. Vanishing Standards II collects works from debut projects and unexpected collaborations, as well as a few remixes and cover versions. Vanishing Standards II is also the biggest tape run Amek has ever dared to publish.