On his third album Blizz Munich-based drummer and producer Simon Popp further blurs the line between electronic and organic sounds. In carefully crafted, slow-growing tracks tuned metal percussions cut through searing synth pads, sucking the listener into a sonic vortex. Informed by personal and spiritual themes, Popp’s debut album Laya, as well as his 2021 follow-up Devi make use of rhythms as storytelling mechanisms. Contrasting light and dark, organic and synthetic sounds, his compositions engage in a dance of subtle complexities, enticing the listener into the practice of close listening.

Pianist Masako Ohta and trumpet player Matthias Lindermayr’s music flows in gentle waves, moving with ease between every theme they imagine. Their music is largely improvised, embracing chance and following sound down winding paths. Their debut collaborative album, MMMMH, highlights this loose process through its relaxed pace, surprising turns, and drifting style. The album presents small vignettes that each encapsulate their free-flowing motion and tranquil melodies, drawing from simple ideas to create a fully bloomed, radiant sound.

Percussive Maintenance is an initiative by drummer Simon Popp and Squama aimed at forming new ties through improvisation. For the monthly events at ZIRKA in Munich, Simon invites fellow artists to engage in an open-format collaboration. The second episode featured Embryo’s Marja Burchard on vibraphone and the recording is now available on tape in a limited edition.

‘II’ is the second album by drum experimentalists Simon Popp and Florian König aka ‘9ms’. Following up on their debut ‘Pleats’, the Munich-based musicians further expanded their toolbox of synthesizers, effects and tonal percussion to create a fusion of Trip Hop, Krautrock and Dub.

‘Tempo Sem Tempo’ is the fifth studio album by São Paulo based clarinet player, singer and composer Joana Queiroz, now available on vinyl for the first time outside of Brazil. It is indeed a timeless record. A cocooning blend of looped reeds and low-key electronics holding melodies and lyrics. When Joana sings, it’s with noble restraint and grace, as can be heard on four songs including Gilberto Gil’s ‘Seu Olhar’ and ‘Dois Litorais’ by her friend and Quartabê band mate Mariá Portugal. Standing out on ‘Tempo Sem Tempo’ is a wistful beauty that makes it easy to immerse oneself in the intimate vastness of this album.

Following his trio debut ‘Triptych’ last year, trumpeter Matthias Lindermayr presents his duo record ‘Sequence’ with long-time companion and ECM Recording Artist Matthieu Bordenave on tenor saxophone. In contrast to its technical title, ‘Sequence’ is a very lyrical record, sacral at times. Like two figure skaters, the voices gracefully glide along and whirl around in perfect synch. A fitting comparison, as the recording session was equally exhausting, due to the level of concentration required to perform this music. The minimalist line-up and the hyper-focused playing gives the album both a breath-like purity and solemn depth.

Happy Floating is the debut LP of Italian composer, producer and reed player Damian Dalla Torre. Over the course of two years, the Leipzig-based artist recorded 19 musicians in all kinds of places to bring to life his unique blend of Avant Folk and Electronic. With reeds, brass, guitars, bass, drums, mallets, synthesizers, organ and electronics, the album feels like a mindful walk through a flowering meadow, tickling and caressing all at once. Born in Northern Italy to a family of non-musicians, his knack for woodwind instruments was uncovered by the sight of a big shiny baritone saxophone in a red velvet case that belonged to his grandma’s neighbor. It was and still is an odd instrument for anyone to play in the Val di Vizze, which may have added to young Damian’s excitement. He opted for the slightly smaller tenor saxophone, took up lessons and eventually studied music in Vienna and Leipzig, where he’s currently living and working within a spirited network of musicians, of which many are featured on this record.

"It seems the kind of music is most interesting where one senses the artists are really trying to drive music itself forward. Sometimes that involves bringing themselves as people forward, by moving into new territories via improvisation, experimentation, collaboration. By exploring different genres and mediums of art. By simply trying to make art at all." Joshua Minsoo Kim on Twitter Jan 10, 2022 10:56
This music was conceived and recorded in one afternoon session at Simon’s studio on March 19, 2021. In order to maintain the immediacy of this event, the three tracks were cut directly to vinyl for a limited run of 50 dubplates.

Known for his soothing trumpet work in German jazz group Fazer, Matthias Lindermayr is back on Squama with an all-new trio and his third album ‘Triptych’. With Philipp Schiepek on acoustic guitar and Simon Popp on percussion, the Munich-based musician created a forward-thinking record between jazz and contemporary classical, conceptually bold and utterly beautiful. ‘Triptych’ is a thrillingly quiet record. While the album’s predecessor ‘Newborn’ (2018) featured a quintet, the rather unusual trio line-up on ‘Triptych’ gave Matthias more room to share the nuances of his playing. His compositions, most written especially for this group, are of a noble simplicity allowing the musicians to focus more on interaction and sound.

After several collaborative releases, German drummer Simon Popp is back on Squama with his second solo album ‘Devi’. While his phenomenal debut ‘Laya’ was a percussive take on ambient and third stream minimalism, ‘Devi’ features eight tracks of bold organic grooves, uplifting and hopeful in one moment, sinister and dark in the next. This dualism is reflective of the ups and downs in Simon’s own life, making the album a brutally honest and deeply personal record. Over the past two years Popp has steadily refined his skills both as a player and an engineer: There are virtuoso drumming parts, revealing his passion for polyrhythm and complex structures and recording techniques such as heavy limiting, using gated reverb and pitch-shifting give the record a modern 90s vibe. ‘Devi’ is a forceful statement of what contemporary drum music can sound like today.

On her second album Ursgal Mongolian singer Enji creates a unique blend of Jazz and Folk with the traditions of Mongolian song. Currently based in Munich, her lyrics tell personal stories about unbearable distances, the oddness of being on earth and the simple truths in life. She’s accompanied by Paul Brändle on guitar and Munguntovch Tsolmonbayar on double bass. Born in Ulaanbaatar, Enji grew up in a yurt to a working-class family. Having always been drawn to music, dance and literature, she initially wanted to become a music teacher with little ambitions to compose or be on stage. A program by the local Goethe Institute sparked her passion for Jazz and eventually led her to become a performing artist. Inspired by the music of Carmen McRae, Ella Fitzgerald and Nancy Wilson, Enji started writing songs of her own, cherishing this newfound means of expression. Ursgal is the first record featuring her original compositions.

9ms is the duo of Simon Popp and Florian König. On their wide ranging debut album ‚Pleats‘ the tech-savvy drummers offer grooves from the dubbier realms of World Music and Krautrock - some meditative and light, some thick as wall and steady as a clock. The album was recorded live in a large wooden hall in the Bavarian Alps with only three microphones. Using various infrared and magnetic field sensors, Popp and König were able to translate their movements into control voltage, which they then used to trigger and tweak synthesizers and a myriad of effects. A way for two humans to become one with their mystic machinery.

Simon Popp and Sebastian Wolfgruber aka Fazer Drums team up with Tunisian producer Azu Tiwaline for the second part of their hybrid Sound Measures series.
On the A side, the Munich-based duo’s pure and raw drumming gets more melodic than on the first edition. With interwoven, polyrhythmic grooves they explore the concept of counterpoint, drawing inspiration from Gamelan, Afro-Cuban and Swing. That’s material made in heaven for Azu Tiwaline, who made sizeable waves this year with her Magnetic Service EP on Bristol’s Livity Sound. In her rework, she kept the focus on the drums, boiling down and rearranging the different parts into a 7-minute beast of a tune. Layers of her signature dubbed-out electronics add to the mystic aura, while maintaining the dynamics and musicality of the recordings.

On his debut album Music For Video Stores producer and Squama co-founder Martin Brugger hovers through Ambient, (upbeat) Downbeat and unfulfilled build-ups. Conceptualized as a blank soundtrack, the music was sent to fellow artists who shared their visual and verbal associations which became the source for the artwork and tracktitles, effectively making the album a collective effort. Evident in all of his recent projects is Brugger’s passion for working and thriving within closely set limits. The only audio sources in the process of making the album were his record player and a Dave Smith Prophet 08 synthesizer. In an antithesis to most sample-based music, Brugger takes the more ephemeral moments of recorded music and uses pitching tools like a magnifying glass to dive deeper into the sound and bare layers that normally remain unheard.

Runden is a collaboration by Martin Brugger (bass) and Simon Popp (drums), both of contemporary Jazz quintet Fazer, and neo-classical pianist Carlos Cipa. Their debut LP is a conceptual record reflecting on Minimal Music, Afrobeat, and Dub Techno of the late 90s/early 2000s. While Cipa’s solo works build on clear harmonies, for the recordings of Runden he prepared the piano to make it sound like a faintly tonal percussion instrument and his mechanical patterns contrast the syncopated drum grooves of Popp and the deep and sparse basslines of Brugger. The musicians explore, over the course of seven tracks, the concept of circular music. Each piece is based on a four-bar-motif played in a loop and varied subtly but steadily over time, creating a sense of eternal recurrence and timelessness. This makes Runden a meditative but demanding record, that only grows with every listen.

In addition to their congenial drumming in Munich’s Jazz quintet Fazer, Simon Popp and Sebastian Wolfgruber channel World Music, Afrobeat and Jazz drumming in their Duo project Fazer Drums. Their first release on Squama Recordings called „Sound Measures“ is a juxtaposition of different approaches to rhythm. On the A-Side, the duo takes you on a drumming trip though feathery spheres and bold grooves, while on the B-side, Techno stalwarts Zenker Brothers crafted the material into a funky and mystic IDM jam.

This release is 2019 coming full circle. Two B-sides from Fazer and Popp, whose albums we released last year, share a 10" dubplate with a letter-pressed sleeve. Gahu Dub by Fazer is a laid-back psychedelic jam based on the recreational Gahu dance of the Ewe people from Togo and Ghana.

After releasing two records with the quintet Fazer, German guitarist Paul Brändle presents his solo debut on Squama Recordings. Paul's minimalist compositions move in slow-motion between Straight Ahead Jazz, Folk, and Blues, only subtly disclosing their musical origins. The album was recorded in Vienna during the annual „Hundstage", a period in the summer during which the whole city succumbs to the humid heat. Short on oxygen, but not on ideas, Paul created 9 tracks of soothing excellence that are worth calming down for.

With seemingly effortless precision and a sense for the imperfect, Popp merges Ambient, Third Stream and Minimal Music on his debut album „Laya“. The title derives from the Sanskrit language and signifies a place of rest and mental inactivity. In the spring of 2019 Popp created these 8 tracks from hours of improvisation in his own studio. The moments thus captured were then enriched with more sounds and effects to add layers and shed the manually played percussion of all its earthliness. The result is an album of concealed complexity and unadorned beauty.

‘Nadi’ follows the underground success of their self-released debut ‘Mara’, which quickly sold out on vinyl and became one of the most streamed jazz records of the year. Moving freely between composition and improvisation, the band’s spacious, organic sound pitches lyrical melodies from guitar and trumpet over double-drummer polyrhythmic grooves and dub-like basslines.

MARA is the debutalbum of Munich-based jazz group FAZER. The young musicians combine African and Latin rhythms with dubby basslines and melancholic melodies. The unusual lineup with two drummers, bass , guitar and trumpet leaves an open space for unfettered improvisation. Through the concept of repetition and finely measured dynamics, Fazer create a drawing energy that can be felt directly at their live shows and has been captured perfecty on this record.