Announcing the forthcoming release on Marionette by Toronto-based multi-instrumentalists Brandon Miguel Valdivia (Mas Aya) and Matthew Ramolo (Khôra), who skillfully combine hypnotic electronics with tribal percussion lines and processed acoustic arrangements.
On their debut collaborative album Primordial Mind, the duo operate with a tactility that vaults between free jazz, dub, raga, ambient, and ritual music, invoking fourth world adjacencies with the work of Don Cherry, Jon Hassell, Popol Vuh et al.
Each composition presented on the album stages a vigorous meshwork of colours and textures, contrasting riveting polyrhythms with towering arrangements for flutes, synths, and processed acoustic instruments. Tendencies which the artists trace in their solo practices are amplified, blended, and refracted sublimely in unison, serving as energetic portals to collective awareness.
Available to pre-order through the label’s Bandcamp page with the first single Cosmic Fire offering an entryway into the album’s sound world ahead of the May 8 release date.
Artwork by Kerstin Brätsch
Today we announce “Les heures flottantes”, the first single from Delphine Dora’s forthcoming album L’ineluctable pulsation du temps, out on March 13 on Marionette.
The prolific French composer and multi-instrumentalist graces Marionette with a suite of striking keyboard instrumentals that evoke futurism and the transcendental. The compositions on the album reflect a period of exploration and assimilation of the Nord Electro, an instrument that opened up vast sonic possibilities, particularly for the development of rich polyphonies inspired by repetitive music. The album reveals Delphine’s most colorful and rhythmic side, an aural mille-feuille, in total contrast with her previous melancholic vocal works.
With “Les heures flottantes” we are treated to cyclical arpeggios, spiraling into a liminal dream space where the repetitive phrasing of melodies rewards introspective listening. Now available to listen across streaming platforms.
Preorder LP and digital download via Bandcamp through the link in bio.
Trust, it’s a special one ~
Mastered and cut by Noel Summerville
Artwork by Jon Joanis
Distribution by Honest Jon’s and Morr Music
Photo by Dana Hilliot
This beautiful album is out into the world this Friday - available to order as LP and digital download - search for it through your platform of choice and support Ioa on his journey to bring his unique visions to life. Over the years, we’ve released music by some influential forces in the world of modular synth - but not in your typical bleep/bloop fashion. We’re talking about breaking down the instrument to its core and building it to compose the kind of music that only exists in dreams or hallucinatory psychedelic states - with a delicate human touch that makes you forget that it’s the machines and electronics as the sound source. Discerning whether it’s a synthesized sound or field recording, wondering what the melodies and harmonies are an amalgamation of, just the sheer mystery as to how these sounds were arrived at would keep one hooked. Artists like Kilchhofer, Max Loderbauer, Khôra, MinaeMinae, Big Hands, and now Ioa Beduneau - inspire by making it sound so effortless to compose music in this manner - but the reality is that this all comes with quite a lot of struggle and with the unstoppable desire and need to express something beyond what can be put in words. This is the kind of music that send chills down the spine and can put you to tears. It’s quite powerful stuff that will stand the test of time and it’s had quite a profound impact on me on a personal level in the last few years I’ve spent with it. Now it’s out of our hands but we’ll still hold on to it dearly. Next year we’ll crank it up a bit too ♥️
Head over to the label’s Bandcamp page to listen to the album in full exclusively before the release date and show Ioa some love!
The album artwork by Kerstin Braetsch is an excerpt from an epic 274x183cm piece that features mesmerizing techniques with marbling, ink and solvents on paper 🥹
@marionettelabel and @printshop.club present: Shape of the Moon: “When the land is laid bare” Album release gathering.
A special evening celebrating the debut LP from Shape of the Moon — the collaborative project of Benjamin Burke and Bear Glass.
Live quadraphonic performance, spoken word, immersive ambient environments, and performances/selections from friends and collaborators.
Featuring a quad sound listening environment by @mobius_acoustics refreshments from @unitedwildbrew and food pop up.
With musical support by:
Grimwig
@_j.db_
Khôra
Saturday, May 30
7PM — Late
$20
At Terraform LA 4101 Melrose Ave LA CA 90029
Flyer by @big__hands
RA Ticket link and info in bio
This mystical album is out today and available to order directly from the label or search for it through your platform of choice / our reliable network of record shops and distributors.
Primordial Mind forms the mysteries and intensity of inner life into eight mandalic instrumentals where Mas Aya and Khôra, artists who share 15 years of music making, orchestrate an inspired, prismatic palette of percussive and melodic sources.
Mas Aya is the moniker of Brandon Miguel Valdivia, acclaimed Nicaraguan-Canadian composer, producer, and musician whose electronic and jazz inspired works creatively interlace Colombian, Cuban, and a wide array of traditional music.
Khôra is the name of the occult entity that uses multi-instrumentalist, producer, and writer Matthew Ramolo to pronounce itself. Returning to Marionette following 2024’s monumental Gestures of Perception, Primordial Mind reinforces the rigorous and magical approach to creation which defines Khôra’s two decades of sonic output.
Worldwide physical distribution by Honest Jon’s with limited copies available through Morr Music.
Brandon Miguel Valdivia:
Percussion, Flutes, Log Drum, Korg Lambda, Angklung, Tambor Alegre, Udu
Matthew Ramolo:
Modular Synth, Archival Samples, Angklung, Guitar, Duduk, Bass, Percussion, Arrangements and Mix
Mastered and cut by Noel Summerville
Artwork by Kerstin Brätsch
Photo by Jeff Bierk
For their Marionette debut titled Primordial Mind, Khôra & Mas Aya weave a luminous tapestry of organic pulses, offering itself as a support for resonant meditation and a motor for lucid action and intuition.
Today we share The Bornless, the second single from the album, combining trans-ethnic scaling alongside a heady brew of rhythmic influences and advanced electronic processing.
There is an alchemical, Buddhist/Taoist/Hindu inflection that guides the record’s narrative, formed through dialogue between the artists over lifelong shared interest in spiritual modalities generally and the tantric approaches of the global east in particular. The album title is derived from an unexcelled esoteric work known as the Kalachakra (Wheel of Time or Time Cycles) Tantra and its associated commentary the Ornament of Stainless Light which detail forms of inner and outer transubstantiation within its complex cosmology and metaphysiology.
Brandon Miguel Valdivia is a Nicaraguan-Canadian composer, producer, and percussionist celebrated for blending jazz, electronic, Afro-Latin, and folkloric idioms, and has been a core collaborator in Toronto’s experimental scene for over two decades. His solo work as Mas Aya draws on family roots, Latin American politics and traditions, and experimental textures, showcasing a unique blend of organic instrumentation and electronic production.
Matthew Ramolo operates under the mystical moniker Khôra, channeling mythologies through modular synthesis, strings, percussion, field recordings, and wind instruments. His ritualistic sound worlds craft dense, propulsive, and meditative music that traverses the sacred and avant-experimental. Returning to Marionette following 2024’s monumental Gestures of Perception.
Available to pre-order through the label’s Bandcamp page (LP/Download) with two tracks up for playback ahead of the May 8 release date and across select streaming platforms. Worldwide physical distribution by @honestjonsrecords and limited copies available through Morr Music. Search for it through your platform of choice and support Matthew and Brandon.
Artwork by Kerstin Brätsch
Photo by Jeff Bierk
Delphine Dora Speaking in Tongues with Miloš Hroch for @thewiremagazine 📰
An excellent feature highlighting Delphine’s inner worlds and her relentless pursuit of the intangible 🔮
Head over to The Wire magazine website to read more or grab yourself a physical copy.
While you’re at it, if you haven’t done so already, highly recommend listening to her latest album on Marionette titled L’ineluctable pulsation du temps which is available at some of our favorite record stores and also direct from the label’s Bandcamp page 🎹
Photography by @adrien_tisserand
Album artwork by @jon_joanis_
L’ineluctable pulsation du temps by Delphine Dora is out today across streaming platforms and direct from the label, vinyl preorders will be shipping next week and should also be landing at your local record store.
The compositions on the album move through (dis)enchanted landscapes, taking unexpected turns into more haunted terrain, their contours further blurred by Dora’s intuitive articulation and sense of refinement. By mirroring both the acceleration of time and the experience of alienation, Delphine conjures up timeless sonic meditations, rendering the inevitable pulsation of time as something at once mesmerizing and unsettling.
Head over to the link in bio to place your order and show Delphine some love ♥️
Photo by Dana Hilliot
Delphine Dora’s mesmerizing album is out tomorrow and available to order through @honestjonsrecords with limited copies available through @morr_music distribution, also direct from the Marionette @bandcamp page where you can listen to the album in its entirety.
We’ve waited quite a long time to finally release this beautiful album, Delphine and I first got in touch in 2021 and the plan was to release it the following year. Here we are 5 years later, and I’m really grateful for Delphine’s patience and trust in the process. It definitely stands the test of time for us and hope you love it as much as we do!
After 20 years of relentlessly seeking new ambitions with her sound, Delphine shows no signs of slowing down her solo or collaborative works which keep on coming. This album marks what many so far have deemed to be one of her notable releases to date, and we’re very proud to get to reveal Delphine’s most colorful and rhythmic side, which in some ways is in total contrast with her previous melancholic vocal works.
Delphine yearns to express intimate inner dialogues, revealing the beauty of vulnerability through transportive musical passages to the mystical and sublime.
Artwork by @jon_joanis_
Photo by Marina Gussina
Ahead of the release next month, we share the second single and title track from the highly anticipated Delphine Dora album L’Ineluctable Pulsation du Temps. Drawing inspiration from an essay by Hartmut Rosa on the notions of acceleration and alienation, Delphine conjures up timeless sonic meditations, rendering the inevitable pulsation of time as something at once mesmerizing and unsettling ⏳⌛️
“Comprising ten keyboard driven compositions across its two sides, in unfurling sheets of texture, timbre, and tone, Dora draws a constellation of touchstones into her fold - Impressionism, Minimalism, electroacoustic music, early music, folk, and a great deal more - sculpting a transcendental form of experimental music, that is singular, profoundly beautiful, and certainly set to be one of the best records of the year.” @soundohm
Distributed by @honestjonsrecords & @morr_music
Mastered and cut by Noel Summerville
Artwork by Jon Joanis
Photo by Dana Hilliot
Closing out my @kiosk.radio residency for their Outsiders Series with a live recording from the Sound Room at @publicrecordsnyc where I was warming things up for the best DJ I know: @big__hands 🥹♥️
Check out the link in bio or head to the Kiosk Radio website / SoundCloud to listen to all 13 mixes that I’ve recorded over the last year 🌀
wagwan aleikum 2026 ~ v excited to announce forthcoming releases!
Long live the intifada 🍉
