Kommune - Oast

Label: Second Circle – SC022
Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP
Country: Netherlands
Released: Jul 25, 2025
Genre: Electronic
Style: Ambient, Techno, Experimental

Some records are born out of meticulous planning, while others arrive almost by accident. Oast, the long-awaited debut album by Kommune, falls firmly into the latter.

Consisting of George Thompson (Black Merlin, Spectral Empire), Kyle Martin (Land Of Light, Spectral Empire) and Jonny Nash (Land Of Light), Oast was recorded in October 2014 over a weekend in a converted barn in Kent, capturing three friends improvising on the spot four long-form pieces of deep, hypnotic ambient techno that beam with raw analogue beauty.

At the time, Kommune was never intended to be a band in the traditional sense. The trio had already crossed paths in different guises - as Land Of Light, as Spectral Empire, and through one off gigs as Kommune at LN-CC in London and Hamburg’s Golden Pudel.

Kommune was a space to explore something different: live analogue improvisation with no agenda other than curiosity and connection. What emerged was music that is both meditative and restless, rooted in the deep pulse of the TR-808 drum machine but lifted into strange, unplanned directions by synths, effects chains and instinctive interplay.

For a decade the recordings remained unheard outside their inner circle, until Tako Reyenga of Second Circle/Music From Memory stumbled across them and insisted they see the light of day. Today, Oast feels not only like a time capsule of a particular moment but also a timeless document of friendship, serendipity and the unrepeatable magic of pressing record at exactly the right time.

• INTERVIEW WITH KOMMUNE