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Steph Kretowicz with Ben Babbitt & felicita, I hate it here (2021) — CURL x AQNB

26 October 2021

I hate it here—co-released by CURL x AQNB on tape and via download on November 19 — is a 42-minute audio narrative by writer and editor Steph Kretowicz, created in collaboration with producers and composers Ben Babbitt and felicita.

Stream & download on the CURL bandcamp

The desire for transcendence affects us all. Led by pain and dissatisfaction, the struggles of being alive can only really be overcome in death. Author and writer Steph Kretowicz’s psychedelic audio narrative wanders through a layered and multi-dimensional notion of existence as suffering. 

Ben Babbitt and felicita’s unsettling musical compositions lead this sonic trip through the atemporal influence of trauma and experience on a life, at a point where personal and cultural histories collide. Dispersed across London, Poland and Los Angeles, “I hate it here” dissolves time and location into the people and memories of the past that shape a person in the present. It touches on folk traditions throughout eras, and religious and spiritual practices across regions in a sometimes poignant, sometimes absurd tribute to the routines and rituals designed to fathom the unfathomable.

Writer & director:
Steph Kretowicz

Music & composition:
felicita & Ben Babbitt

Sound Design & Mix:
Ben Babbitt

Barbershop Quartet:
Arrangement:
Connie Jehu

Performers:
Connie Jehu
Mica Levi
Tirzah Mastin
Coby Sey

Hej Sokoły!:
Performer:
Ewa Poniatowska

Additional Field Recording:
Jonnine Standish

Voices
Vika: Vika Kirchenbauer
Dad: Chris Kretowicz
Eliza: Adelaide Clemens
Truckdriver 1: Max Göran
Truckdriver 2: Joe McKee
Babcia: Ulijona Odišarija
Uncle: Steven Harris
Mum: Anna Komorowska
Aunt 1: Marisa Aveling
Aunt 2: Cristine Brache
Frail Man: Robin Murphy
Matthew: Matt Dell
Nun: Margaret Haines
Priest: Steven Legere
Aya: Hayden Dunham

Special thanks to:
Martin Kohout

Dedicated to the memory of Matthew O’Shannessy

Commissioned by YLE (Finnish Broadcasting Company) / Radio Variaatio, curated by Kaino Wennerstrand

Cassette tape edition of 100.
Aqua blue with on-cassette printing, packaged in pink case with four-panel J-card.

All physical purchases come with digital download.
Shipping within a week.

Out of Body: an AQNB music & art compendium

12 October 2021

‘Out of Body’ is AQNB’s fifth digital release of new music and visual works compiled by our London and Los Angeles-based team.

The compilation—with cover art by Margaret Haines—features artists found in AQNB’s orbit, whose contributions reflect a notion of sound and art in the aftermath. After enduring nearly two years of varying degrees of lockdown and myriad emergent crises, the world as we know it is unrecognisable. It’s a time of truthers and techno-mystics, where a massive gravitational shift has further weakened any shared notion of reality, already broken down by the hyperindividualism of the internet. It has led us down a path of aliens and astral projection, mass resignations and a collective dissociative fugue state. We’ve wandered out of the Age of Reason and into an Era of Enchantment.

Music by:
ANIMA
Helica
shushu
User2222 & ANDREW GOES TO HELL

Visual works by:
4fucksakebabes
Alexandra Koumantaki

Cover artwork by:
Margaret Haines

Acknowledgments:
Steph Kretowicz, AQNB editor
Jared Davis, AQNB associate editor
Matt Dell, AQNB music editor
Caroline Heron, AQNB managing editor

Isaac Treece, mastering

Protected: Martin Kohout x AQNB—A Nice Cap Limited Edition

6 May 2021

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Heavenly Creatures : an AQNB music & art compendium

23 March 2021

Heavenly Creatures is AQNB’s fourth release of new music and visual works compiled and curated by our London and Los Angeles-based team.

Heavenly Creatures takes its title from the 1994 dark biographical drama and queer cult classic film of the same name, with a nod to Los Angeles party Heav3n and its championing of a post-PC Music sound—born online and spread across communication networks the world over. Featuring music by young producers from across the internet, the compilation’s heavily-filtered, DIY DAW tracks present an online-but-intimate hyper-emotionality by artists addressing life, love and loneliness from the perspective of a pop-appreciating electronic underground. Together with visual art works that express digital modes of intimacy, it’s a space of vulnerability and introspection built on a melancholic sub-frequency that’s carried forward by the hopeless romantics and baby angels that inhabit it.

Music by:
blackwinterwells
Aj simons & umru
lei
heavn
oakscreen
BLOODZ BOI 血男孩 & bod [包家巷]
8485
kuru
dylann
luvox
reserv

Visual works by:
Adham Faramawy
Carlos Sáez
Maggie Menghan Chen
Tissue Hunter

Cover artwork by:
Alejandra Muñoz

Acknowledgments:
Steph Kretowicz, AQNB editor
Jared Davis, AQNB associate editor
Matt Dell, AQNB music editor
Caroline Heron, AQNB managing editor

Isaac Treece, mastering

CD edition of 50.
Packaged in clear jewel case with on-body printing on exterior and disc.

All physical purchases come with digital download.
First shipment begins April 15 within Europe and May 15 for Americas / ROW.

2 tired 2 cry: an AQNB music & art compendium

24 November 2020

2 tired 2 cry is AQNB’s third release of new music and visual works compiled and curated by our London, Berlin and Los Angeles-based team.

Part of an ongoing series of these downloadable packages, featuring work by artists in our international community, this next mini-compendium is the second of four to be dropped quarterly. It includes four new tracks and two new original artwork contributions, and is available for sale on our site, or free for our Patreon subscribers.

The theme of 2 tired 2 cry follows a year of collective difficulties and setbacks. Closing out 2020 with some silver linings, and a small shard of hope for the future, the compendium looks towards a long and hard road ahead, that’s not without optimism. This is the sight and sound of upheaval and uncertainty, living with the ebb and flow of life and death. Frustration and exhaustion, anger and grief all live here. We’ve been through a period of emotional extremes, and there’s probably a bit more to come. Hang in there.

Music by:
Angels in America
Acolytes
Mya Gomez
N-prolenta

Visual works by:
Ander Rennick
Giulia Essyad

Cover artwork by:
Gian Manik

Graphic design by:
Alex Deranian

Between two stars : an AQNB music & art compendium

14 July 2020

Between two stars is AQNB’s latest release of new music and visual works compiled and curated by our London and Los Angeles-based team.

Following the success of the previous even my dreams don’t go outside compendium, we’re pleased to introduce an ongoing series of these downloadable packages, featuring work by artists in our international community. This first mini-compendium is one of four to be dropped quarterly—with four new tracks and two new original artwork contributions—and available for sale on our site, or free for our Patreon subscribers.

Between two stars takes its title from the mythological twins Castor & Pollux, inspired by the very chaotic Gemini season—which ran May 21 to June 21. Assigned guardians of sailors on troubled waters, these sons of Greek god Zeus became the brightest celestial bodies of the constellation named after one of the most controversial signs of the zodiac. The compilation’s curation responds loosely to the implied duality of its theme, exploring a liminal space that exists beyond binaries—a nebulous point between poles that escapes the limitations of language.

Music by:
Iku
Oxhy
Tadleeh 
Yikii 

Visual works by:
Roxman Gatt 
smallboydanger 

Cover artwork by:
Helin Şahin 

Acknowledgements:
Jared Davis, associate editor & compendium co-curator
Matt Dell, music editor & compendium co-curator
Steph Kretowicz, AQNB editor 
Caroline Heron, AQNB managing editor 

Isaac Treece, mastering 

New Scenario x AQNB—Bodyholes Green Ear Limited Edition

10 July 2020

For this artist edition merchandise collaboration, AQNB teamed up with online platform and exhibition space New Scenario, founded by Paul Barsch and Tilman Hornig.

Purchase the New Scenario x AQNB— Bodyholes Green Ear t-shirt here.

The design refers back to their infamous Body Holes project—commissioned for the DIS-curated 9th Berlin Biennale in 2016—where contributors were invited to exhibit their work in a chosen human orifice. The show featured an exhaustive line-up of artists and openings, including Ed Fornieles, Rachel De Joode, Sean Raspet, Jesse Darling and more, along with Hornig’s own ‘Green Ear’ piece, featured here on the New Scenario x AQNB t-shirt.

Gratefully yours: Download even my dreams don’t go outside, AQNB’s music & art compendium from our community to you during lockdown

22 April 2020

even my dreams don’t go outside is a download-only release of new music and visual works compiled and curated by AQNB (purchase below).

The compilation consists 10 new tracks and five visual artworks from artists who have featured on the London and Los Angeles-based editorial platform in the recent past, as well as from those helping to define our scene into the future. It’s inspired by the endless scroll of introspection that has come to define the day-to-day of life in self-isolation, and exists to build positive momentum for our scene and financial support for the artists involved during lockdown.

From our editor, Steph Kretowicz (aka Jean Kay):

even my dreams don’t go outside maps a chunk of AQNB’s network and relationships, bringing together a dispersed but interconnected group of artists that echoes our community approach. I first heard of Milan’s Heith and London’s Fauness through my colleagues and compendium co-curators Matt Dell and Jared Davis, themselves based in Barcelona and London respectively. The same goes for candlelight, aircode and—in a roundabout way—Kelman Duran & Ans M. Matt enlisted Isaac Treece from New York for mastering and Isabelle Harada in Los Angeles to help with the API.

I’d come across Elvin Brandhi in Berlin at Creamcake’s 3hd Festival, along with the visual work of Tea Stražičić. My friends at Berlin Community Radio (RIP) introduced me to RUI HO in 2016. Alexander Iezzi, Philip Hinge, Emma Pryde, 650mAh (from whom I learnt about Spaghetti Club), along with Dasychira, ssaliva and Keru Not Ever, all appeared through AQNB at one point or another. Together they make up a web spanning New Jersey, Wisconsin, Montreal, Brussels, Rotterdam and more. Jennifer Mehigan, who donated her time and skills to the cover art, is based in Belfast but I met her online when she still lived in Singapore. We go way back, five years, and we’ve never met in person. This compendium is as much an effort to support our scene, as it is recognise the artists and the people that inspire us, wherever they may be.”**