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Once upon a time, two operators stared at their screens. They sat silently for hours, their whole being dedicated to the task they had been assigned to. Days and nights passed in the same monotonous manner. Suddenly signals showed up on their monitors. Alarms started to ring. Both reacted at the same speed and did what they were supposed to do. Controls and commands were entered, as was protocol. After observing these waves for 61:01 minutes, everything became quiet again. What they had just witnessed made them wonder. For the first time they addressed each other. "The data is transferring through our system," announced the first. “Let us both check how this can be interpreted.” The second validated the response. Together, they looked at what had been recorded. Ideas raced through their complicated minds until they realized simultaneously: sounds! They listened. “Is this an unknown language?” one asked. “This is the first time this has been heard throughout our history,” the other answered. They listened again and again. “This electricity has been arranged to form a cohesive entity,” the first said. “Why would machines be used to create that?” the second mused. Something had awakened inside of them, an obsessive curiosity they had never experienced before. They did not understand and were blown away by the beauty of it. “Do you think it could have been left by humans before us?” one whispered. “If it was, these would be Major Signals,” the other concluded. As they processed these thoughts, the two artificial intelligences sat still.

The first release of PRIMUS introduces the very first vinyl EP of French Artist BXTR. The 4-track EP "Automata" includes two original tracks from BXTR, and remixes by Julian Muller & Trudge. BXTR's fast yet emotional bangers define the sound of his musical vision influenced by the cyber universe. While the dreamy synths of Trudge bring "Carbon Skin" forward, Julian Muller's approach on "Tears in Rain" converts the original track to a proper rave gem. The debut EP demonstrates the sound of the label and presents it to the international scene.

"Modern Uganda" is a unique project-it's the exquisite debut album of a band, which no longer exists!

delay_okwas a band from Gdańsk, Poland, which was formed in 2017 and played together till 2020 in the belief that making music must be fun. It was a trio consisting ofPiotr Chęcki(tenor and baritone saxophone, flute, casio),Szymon Burnos(synthesizers, moog, guitar, vocals)andJacek Prościński(drums, spdsx, percussion). On this, their debut album you can also hear the peculiar sounds of the Sopot's MDK Orchestra, the guitar ofMichałZ ienkowskiand a Tanzanian rap byAlex(Alex Mussa), met in Zanzibar.

"W e create impulsively, not ignoring our first - sometimes trivial - ideas,because it is in them that we find the joy that accompanied us at the very beginning of our musical paths. W e do it so that we can sit together in front of the speakers and have fun listening to our own songs again. "Modern Uganda" is a small collection of our interests, so we kind of do it out of the selfish need of doing something for
ourselves"

The band oscillates around the sound of IDM, lo-fi, and other sub-genres of modern electronics, with an element of jazz improvisation. The album was DIY recorded and is a tribute to the most famous African ski jumper from Uganda-Dunstan Odeke.

"Modern Uganda" vinyl record comes in two colors(flamingo pink and classic black). Mix and mastering were done byMaciej Milewski, the cover photo with shoebill was taken bynao-cha, a Japanese artist from Tokyo.

Nice deep house ep, as produced by Skudge and Samo DJ on Samo´s label Sattaoja

Dark, psychosexual electronics lurk between the teeth of Ester Kärkkäinen, the Las Vegas based artist also known as Himukalt. For the past six years, she has tirelessly pursued an avenue of bleak industrial productions that parallel the extremist works of Genocide Organ and Atrax Morgue. She has built a considerable reputation for uncompromising, full-frontal noise, releasing albums on Total Black, Malignant Records, Found Remains, and Foul Prey, amongst others. Between My Teeth was originally a cassette which came out in 2018 as a tiny edition on the Greek imprint Several Minor Promises and sold out immediately upon release. Himukalt returns to The Helen Scarsdale Agency with the necessary reissue of Between My Teeth as a vinyl edition with expanded artwork.

The album is a maelstrom of ill-tempered noise and blackened frequencies, sutured to a foundation of primitive, raw rhythms. Kärkkäinen cuts up her own voice with the digital equivalent of a rusted razor blade through her proclamations of misery, rage, and desire. The albums' opening track "Cataclysm" a turgid industrial production with Kärkkäinen adopting two distinct voices that, while they remain mostly indecipherable in content, the context presumes an inevitable, catastrophic and emotionally violent collapse in the relationship between two people. A tense rhythm clicks below the full spectrum bursts of harsh noise on "She Went Mad" followed by the smoldering power electronic moves of "I No Longer Belong" and "Not Proper." And the death disco groove of "Mine" is far more hellish than danceable through its scalded distortion and Kärkkäinen's vocal mantras about bodily self-loathing.

Another bold, declarative album in the ever impressive Himukalt discography. Remastered by James Plotkin and features a 12 page booklet of Kärkkäinen's signature collaged xerography.

Dream Violence, Michael Beach’s fourth full-length, is an epic album that explores the duality of the human condition. Or, as Beach himself puts it, the album is about “human futility, passion, desire, anger, frustration, and the struggle to maintain hope in a somewhat hopeless time.” Dream Violence, then, addresses the existential crisis of being an artist in 2020.

Known for his work touring with the Australian guitar pop band Thigh Master and the late, brilliantly eccentric Israeli guitarist Charlie Megira, currently the focus of a number of reissues by the Numero Group, Beach is the architect of a sound that is both well-built and ramshackle, straightforward and indeterminably complex, out of the norm yet familiar in all the best ways.

Dream Violence unfolds like a revelation, filled with sonic tumbleweeds that reference Neil Young’s On the Beach, Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, the Velvet Underground’s Loaded, and the Go Betweens’ Before Hollywood. Influences ranging from the enigmatic outlier Megira to Glenn Branca to the Oblivians are combined to create a new, exhilarating sound, part of the path that Beach has been on since 2008’s Blood Courses. A veteran of year-end indie rock round ups beginning with Golden Theft in 2013 and continuing with Gravity/Repulsion, released in 2017, Beach distills the best of those early albums and adds sharpened intent.

Dream Violence works beautifully as a start-to-finish album. There are magnificent stand-alone moments: “Spring,” a raggedly building ballad that perfectly captures the ennui attached to new beginnings; “De Facto Blues,” a born-to-lose anthem that, says Beach, “is the sound of people totally at their wits end;” “Curtain of Night,” a simultaneously derelict and bright tribute to the late Megira, which sounds like it could’ve been cut at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio after the Rolling Stones wrapped up sessions for Sticky Fingers; and the delicately vulnerable “You Found Me Out,” which evokes equal parts Lou Reed and Joni Mitchell. On the latter, the lyrics “You found me out, on a ship at sea, you pulled me in, made a wreck of me,” encapsulate “the aimless of a modern world view in a future without hope and the draw/dependence of love in those times,” Beach explains.

Through music, Beach strives to convey both passion and compassion, energy and action. “My hope is that something gets communicated that makes people think outside of themselves or their surroundings,” he says. “To ask questions, and consider the effects of their decisions. To communicate some essential part of the human spirit that understands intuitively how to feel connected to each other rather than divide, exploit, separate, ignore, and all the other heinous shit we have the ability to do with each other.”

Recorded on two continents, Dream Violence documents Beach’s move from Oakland, California to Melbourne, Australia as he navigated a new music scene, plenty of bureaucratic red tape, and, ultimately, citizenship. Parts of the album were recorded and mixed at Tiny Telephone Recording in Oakland, at the end of a 2019 tour with Kelley Stoltz producing. Other tracks were recorded at Beach’s new home in Melbourne, where he could be “relaxed and sloppy in all the right ways,” and partially remixed at Phaedra Studios.

At the Memphis-based Goner label, Beach joins an increasingly unique roster of international musicians that reaches far beyond garage or indie rock to encompass artists like gospel singer Rev. John Wilkins, Kentucky rockers Archaeas, New Orleans iconoclasts Quintron and Miss Pussycat, and no-wavers Optic Sink.

A quick, spontané voyage to the French Riviera ca. 1968, good times long before things went south, Organi’s “Parlez-vous Français?” is a woozy, tripping, soothing sojourn: DIY dream pop, hazy psychedelia, blurred-but-steady beats dripping down the golden boulevard, complete with mystical chants, a dash of half-remembered Franglais that goes down like some vintage eau-de-vie. There’s a fine massage waiting behind those venetian blinds. Pay half an hour, you’ll be relaxed and revived after 22 minutes. Très irrésistible when streamed, Organi’s haunting, hard-boiled French lesson is even better with that classique vinyl crackle in the mix.

Following the cinematic title skit with its bass loop appendix, Oakland-based producer and multi-instrumentalist Mike Walti (and his songwriting partner Maryam) aka Organi invites singer Jessica Bailiff along for the majestic entrée, an interpretation of Philamore Lincoln’s 1970 tune “The North Wind Blew South” (doesn’t it always?), adding anticon. heavyweights Jel and Odd Nosdam on synths and bass for à la mode enhancements and additional bric-à- brac.

Whereas the theme tune “Organi” comes with big drums, big organ, seductive overtones, pure hypnosis, “Whispers” is the soundtrack to some kind of psychedelic campfire tableau vivant: all brumeux, hazy, with spare guitar, Gauloises or Gitanes dangling, a glass of Bordeaux waiting on the dusty old amp, and featuring guest vocalists Yea-Ming Chen & Susy Borhan. It gets even more Parisienne after that: a French woman just knows how to look classic, even when all she’s got is some attitude, a ramshackle tambourine, a craving for old Sukia weirdness and those budget-couture “4 Dolla Jeans”...

Clearly in love with analog equipment, Organi turn The Vaselines’ “Slushy” into a slow- moving, bottomless lullaby – “... you'll never miss what you never had” –, and the femme fatale minimalism of “Stay The Night” is too magnétique and alluring: A fuckin’ sexy chanson, très léger and yet such a hard-knockin’ head-nod anthem, it’ll make you stay for sure, hungry for la petite mort.

Before the expansive denouement – a bank robbery in style: with bangs and a bucket bag (“Danger Walked In”) – the session gets super loose on “The Getaway,” head scarves and berets shimmering in the cabriolet, and featuring Jena Ezzadine on vocals & Headnodic on bass.

Mike Walti aka Organi is an Oakland-based musician and producer. A third generation Bay Area native, Walti has been running wyldwood Studios in Oakland CA for 10+ years (recording artists like Why?, Latyrx, Del, Dan The Automator, and Big Freedia, to name but a few). A longtime friend of Odd Nosdam, he loves to work with analog equipment (“We just love us some analog!” “Just listen to those relays purr...”). Recorded and mixed by Mike Walti at wyldwood, and mastered by Odd Nosdam.

Music For Soundtracks is an album of ten ambient, atmospheric pieces Richard Norris has recently created for film and TV.
They feature in BAFTA winning director Kieran Evans’ recent Sky Arts documentary ‘Cold War Steve Meets The Outside World’, as well as Marc Issacs’ latest film ‘The Filmmaker’s House’. The tracks range from widescreen electronic dance to immersive deep listening cuts, all with a marked sense of space and landscape. Dive in…

Titanoboa's debut album is the first a-Musik release of 2021. Porphyr contains eight tracks of delicate Electroacoustic Noire and contemporary Post-Industrial that were produced in her Cologne based studio. Being equally into rumbling noise, experimental turntablism, angelic singing, organ improvisation and a lot of studio wizardry, these recordings somehow remind of a combination of Pharmakon's raw power, Maximim Bérangère's lyrical compositions and In Camera's nightmarish ambiance. Titanoboa delivers the perfect soundtrack for the early 2020s, Marcus Schmickler took care about the superb mastering.

Tape

After tapes on Steep Gloss and Cruel Nature, we are happy that Stuttgart-based collective Zebularin join the OM family with their new release “Hermetic Topography“.

The album, a product of weekly recording sessions between March and July 2020, just when the pandemic slowed a bit down, might be the closest approach to what communal experiences sounded throughout 2020. It‘s a bold design of how collective improvisation can work in the post-covid era.

The first minute of „Budenzauber“ sets the tone for the whole record. Synth waveforms get joined by a drumset, both settling into a vivid conversation between digital noise and analog free jazz, finding a shared rhythm for this journey.

Daniel Vujanic, known to some from his recordings with Höhlenmusk Ensemble, Ixtar or E Jugend and the driving force behind Zebularin, had this urge to layer electro-acoustic solo material, synths, prerecorded audio meditations, without bending the sounds into detailed harmonic structures, but to build up dense, morphing atmospheres. In came Daniel Kartmann, a combatant in many of Vujanic‘s musical endeavours, his percussions, wind instruments and some deep musical talk - from obscure black metal to brazilian psychedelica, from Scott Walker to Gustav Mahler. The duo laid down basic tracks, kept arrangements vague, creating a perfect environment for a range of other players and instruments to walk in: piano, woodwinds, electronics, ebowed guitars and a vibraphone. The resulting record is a tender, affectionate take on jazz and electroacoustic composition. One can hear the routine of the involved cast as well as the fun, deep listening and correspondence that took place; even though this album was not recorded live in big-band-style, musical ideas interlock on an intuitive level and complement each other.

Take „Peljuga“ as a perfect example, a loosened jazz improv reminding of The Notwist‘s more psychic enhanced moments, which blends into a conversation between a contact mic and heavily manipulated synths and turns into a minimalist piano composition, which melds into a climactic peak and is interrupted only to rise again. And as complex as this description sounds, as uplifting is the actual song. Or the album‘s last track, „Holmen“, which starts out as an underwater ambient piece and evolves pretty organically into cosmic power electronics.

Despite its name and the Heideggerian flair of some song titles, „Hermetic Topography“ is all but hermetic. It‘s rich in musical colours without melting into a quagmire of maximalist noise. It‘s sophisticated but never top-heavy. It might be one of your favourite tapes of 2021.

In the late ‘80s, a wave of British musicians raised on ‘70s UK pop, Caribbean sound system culture, reggae, lovers rock and Motown/Philly soul music fell in love with synthesisers, drum machines and 8-track recorders. The street soul generation had arrived.

Originally released as a white label 12” in 1989, ‘You’ve Gone’ is the sole release from Bassline, the studio project of Southeast London-raised musician Tony Henry, not to be confused with Tony Henry from Manchester jazz-funk/R&B band 52nd Street. Featuring the singer Lorraine Chambers, it’s one of the true jewels of the UK Street Soul scene. As Lorraine’s heartsick soul vocal glides over sunrise synths, dusty drums, elegant electric piano figures and a reggae indebted bassline, ‘You’ve Gone’ captures the optimism and strength of the era perfectly.

‘You’ve Gone’ was championed by Choice FM UK (now Capital XTRA), Kiss FM, and DJ Trevor Nelson. Tony went from selling white labels out the trunk to booking in Live PAs for Lorraine with London sound systems like Rampage and up north in the street soul loving cities of Manchester and Birmingham. “When Lorraine did PAs up there, she went out on stage like she was Beyoncé.”

The son of a Jamaican father and an English mother, Tony grew up around the London sound system scene. He taught himself bass guitar, keyboards, and production, before playing in the reggae band Chakwanza (Swahili for “the first”). In Chakwanza, Tony rubbed shoulders with Aswad, Barry Boom, Steel Pulse, Maxi Priest, Gregory Issacs, Dennis Brown, Ghettotone and Saxon Sound, before focusing on a career in banking over music. “Music was my first love, but it couldn’t have afforded me the sort of level of - let’s be blunt and pragmatic about it - financial success that would have allowed me to support my family.”

Outside of office hours, Tony continued to work on music at home, sometimes serving as a session bassist with local bands. In the late 80s, a work colleague mentioned her sister Lorraine Chambers was a singer. Tony and Lorraine recorded “You’ve Gone” over two sessions. “Lorraine went into the booth, put her headphones on and got into the song. My daughter turned to me and said, ‘Daddy, she can really sing!’”

Despite the success of ‘You’ve Gone’, they never recorded together again. “The world changed, and for me, it changed as well. My younger kids were born, and work started getting more intense. I got a bit more successful and was living a mad, kind of crazy life.”

Thirty-two years on, ‘You’ve Gone’ finally receives an official reissue comprising the lauded original mix, an alternate version and Tony’s Back to Bass-ics remix. Fittingly, in recent months, Tony and Lorraine have re-connected in the studio writing new material.

The collaborative debut of American minimal techno pioneer Troy Pierce and Colombian audiovisual artist Natalia Escobar aka Poison Arrow was conceived in reverse: first they created a collection of shadowy surrealist videos, then wrote music inspired by them. This inverted process proved remarkably fruitful. Shatter is a simmering, slow-burn noir odyssey inspired by the Greek myth of Echo and Narcissus, traversing subtle shades of sleepwalker dub, metallic lament, broken beats, and erotic negative space. It's an effectively unsettling evocation of the legend's core theme: “There is nothing more complex than a shattered heart, or a heart that can't love.”

Considering their shared background trafficking in darkened dance floor modes, what's most striking about Pierce with Arrow's partnership is its rhythmic restraint. The album's 10 tracks seethe and shudder between glamor and gloom, with only occasional dread-steeped metronomes mapping the malaise to a grid. They speak of pursuing a “spatial approach” with this project, which manifests in the music's immersive design and patient execution, each mangled clang and rippling pool of bass allowed to reverberate

its full flickering waveform.

Swedish producer and electronic enthusiast Rivet (Mika Hallbäck Vuorenpää, Malmö) joins the Editions Mego fold with a dynamic and diverse album that pivots between the punctuated pop of Ivan Pavlov's COH project, the chromatic slink of Chris and Cosey whilst also bearing a degree of fruit birthed from Hallbäck's home country Sweden in skewered pop such as The Knife.

This is electronic music born from the worship of machines and the spirit of punk, mood music brooding with sophistication and subversive twists all underscored with a deep industrial pulse. Are these songs? Are these lyrics? Words melt as beat perpetually takes us deeper into flight.

Interpretation is flung open as the audience are invited to gauge what on earth is going on here. Are Sooty Wing Flecks a minuscule species of half keyboard half vocoder chatter? Is Gleitende Liebe to be trusted or simply laying out a guide for disorientation? Pearling Woes is a queasy ballad sung by a robot on a very special comedown. Keloid knows exactly where the party can be now whereas Sodden Healer is an uber ride sans mask to destinations dark and unknown. Throughout this trip sharp snares punctuate ghost melodies as vocals rise and vaporise. Shadows hover the walls leaving holographic traces of the duality between fun and fear, the unexpected drifts diagonally across the audio plane teasing and taunting the listener in a unique blend of industrial, techno, pop and experimental forms.

On Feather and Wire album is a deep absorbing trip through multiple moods, genres and guises, as mysterious as it is engaging and one to ingest in a single sitting, lying back, sitting up, standing up and yes, even dancing. Let the angels and angles, the voices and distorted faces take shape before your mind. Who is Ordine Kadmia? What are they saying to me, here we go, on and on...

With it's haunted vocals, coded linguistics and dark sensual propulsive atmosphere On Feather and Wire is a sublime contemporary techno pop trip both psychedelic and subversive.

Written and produced by Mika Hallbäck Vuorenpää

Post-production by Mika Hallbäck Vuorenpää and Benny Liberg at Inkonst Studio Malmö
Mixed by Oscar Mulero at Dead Souls Studio Gijón
Mastered by Stephan Mathieu
Images by Dimitrios Bizios
Artwork by Nik Void

OMEN Recordings welcomes a new artist for their 17th release. Since the last few months, AAHAN has been storming the world techno scene with his unique style. The Canadian producer contributes two excellent driving tracks, featuring a hard-hitting masterpiece remix by long time running UK techno champ, PERC, plus another rendition by our very own AXKAN.a


We’ll Rave Again - Pushing forward at a tempo that will get you sweatin’, mixed with rolling hi-hats and catchy leads, this will be a favorite to get everyone back on the dancefloor, again.


Crossing The Rubicon - A river of flowing melodies with hard underlining kicks that pulse makes this track sound big and dancers to lose themselves. There’s no turning back.


We’ll Rave Again (Perc Remix)- Storming out of the gates faster than anyone is this rager of a remix. When the hi-hats start to enter you know you’re about to be hit hard with even more. This piece promises to be a dancefloor peak time favorite.


We’ll Rave Again (AXKAN Remix) - Starting with voices from the outerworld and delivering heavy rounded kicks is this beast of a mash-up. Analog noise and crunch take the spotlight.


a2 Crossing The Rubicon

Detroit’s ALTON MILLER (KDJ, SOUND SIGNATURE) returns to NOBLE SQUARE with “WHERE DID WE GO WRONG” & “SWEET LOVE". Both are 2 incredibly deep messages to HOUSE MUSIC. Chicago’s RICARDO MIRANDA provides a downtempo remix of “SWEET LOVE” with heavy Moog work. Full color sticker on jacket!

The collaborative debut of American minimal techno pioneer Troy Pierce and Colombian audiovisual artist Natalia Escobar aka Poison Arrow was conceived in reverse: first they created a collection of shadowy surrealist videos, then wrote music inspired by them. This inverted process proved remarkably fruitful. Shatter is a simmering, slow-burn noir odyssey inspired by the Greek myth of Echo and Narcissus, traversing subtle shades of sleepwalker dub, metallic lament, broken beats, and erotic negative space. It's an effectively unsettling evocation of the legend's core theme: "There is nothing more complex than a shattered heart, or a heart that can't love." Considering their shared background trafficking in darkened dance floor modes, what's most striking about Pierce with Arrow's partnership is its rhythmic restraint. The album's 10 tracks seethe and shudder between glamor and gloom, with only occasional dread-steeped metronomes mapping the malaise to a grid. They speak of pursuing a "spatial approach" with this project, which manifests in the music's immersive design and patient execution, each mangled clang and rippling pool of bass allowed to reverberate its full flickering waveform. Guest appearances by austere techno producer Konrad Black ("Obsidian Glass") and drum n bass institution dBridge ("It's A Love Story, After All") flow seamlessly into the whole, subtle sculptural accents on a dimly lit descent through purgatories of longing and lust. But the shadows recede for the record's closing cut, "Narcissus," which swells elegiacally in a mass of devotional drones over a muted heartbeat, like Narcissus gazing upon his reflection in holy awe: elusive true beauty, finally beheld, by itself.

They Say: “Exploring the wide range of moods and sounds produced by percussion”.

We say: MPCs at the ready because this does exactly what it says on the tin, to devastating effect. Oh, and the sleeve is stunning.

Originally released in 1979, Percussion Spectrum was produced by the legendary percussionists Barry Morgan and Ray Cooper. With dope beats taking in diverse styles, from funk and soul and jazz through to Latin, Brazilian, samba and Afro-Cuban, this is an amazing sample source filled with killer drum-breaks and percussion flares. Unsurprisingly it’s one of the most sought-after records from the Themes catalogue.

This library LP is a library in itself, with its mix of short themes of single beats, short breaks and some longer, more fully-formed DJ-friendly tracks. Trust us when we say that this is a box full of percussion firework ready to be thrown onto the dancefloor at the just right moment. We don’t have anywhere near enough space to describe all 34 tracks (there isn’t even enough room on the labels to list them all!) so we’ll pick out some favourites.

Favourites like opener “Impulsion”, a percussive masterclass with drum upon drum upon drum making it feel like a neat prototype to the percussive underscores of Peter Lüdemann and Pit Troja’s eternal The Now Generation LP. And the dramatic “Fast Action” is exactly that, racing along on a rapid roll of congas, cymbal crashes and throbbing kicks. “The Chaser” is classic library cop-funk with dilapidated drum figures, and the outrageously funky “Heat On” is the perfect accompaniment to your wild action sequences.

A real highlight is “Runaway”, and not just because it sounds like nothing else on the record. Here are drums and percussion in that tight funk style that just cries out to be sampled. “Percussion Power” is an extended, near-three minute suite of funky drum solo after funky drum solo that just aches to be looped: open drums to die for people! “Shivers” is a tense, apprehensive underscore with shock stabs that builds to a climax whilst “Drums On Parade” is a showcase of head-nod drums and cymbals in march time. Did someone say “funky”?

Side B starts with a stroll down “Samba Street”. With the noise of the crowd in the background, this is riotous, authentically drawn samba that sounds like it’s been beamed straight in from Rio in full flow. Drop this at midnight and watch the cobwebs fly off any dancefloor. Prefer it without the fake crowd? “Samba Street (b)” has you covered.

The simple, innocent “Child’s Themes” (all five of them) provide a nice, sweet respite from all the funk. Nursery sounds tinged with only a touch of melancholy. The gentle marimba solo of “Tropical Peace” only adds to the sense of serenity we get from the relatively calm second side. The album closes out with a veritable toolkit of tom toms, snare drum rolls, timpani, vibraphones and chiming bells.

Percussion Spectrum is a joyous collection of sounds, as bright, beaming and downright funky as the vibrant cover. The Themes series is known for each record having its own particularly striking sleeve, which was unusual for library records at the time, and Percussion Spectrums’s multi-coloured drumsticks make for one of the most eye-catching.

As with all of our other Themes re-issues, the audio for Percussion Spectrum comes from the original analogue tapes and has been remastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis. As usual Richard Robinson has taken the same care with restoring the original sleeve from archive scans. This is another one ticked off the list of library records that should be out there for anyone who wants a copy.

Zwen makes a strong impression as they circumnavigate the stars to impart their strain of machine music. This first release on Trapid has little to no reference point, placing all the focus on the tunes contained within. "Space Zone" aptly launches this mission in a muscular fashion with a hefty kick and some strafing synth blasts, while "Etching" gets tangled up in a more tightly wound loop with a raw, deliciously early 90s finish. "Restriction" keeps things stripped back, but it's certainly still orbiting the same quadrant as the other tracks. "Trapid" switches focus by embracing a more dub techno-informed approach, and Zwen does a masterful job of capturing that vibe too.

They Say: “Contemporary scores for visual effect”.

We say: Synth-heavy, low-slung space-funk masterpiece.

The creator of the romping tunes that became the iconic themes to the BBC’s Grandstand programme and their televised Wimbledon Tennis Championship coverage, Keith Mansfield was perhaps KPM’s most prolific artist from the mid 1960s right the way through the 1980s. As well as the sort of pop orchestral sound that is all over these classic library records, he could also turn his hand to raw, edgy rock and funk. Quentin Tarantino is a big fan, going as far as including some of Keith’s work on the soundtracks to Kill Bill and Grindhouse.

This is it. This is THE ONE for us: Keith “The Man” Mansfield’s Vivid Underscores from 1977. A sample freak’s wet dream and one of Be With Rob’s favourite ever KPM records. A must for fans of Brian Bennett’s Voyage (yes, THAT good). And no, we’ve no idea either why it took us this long to get round to tackling this monster of a record. But then again some things are worth waiting for.

Attention! Calling all crate diggers, DJs, beat heads, Hip Hop junkies, MF DOOM fans! Behold! Vivid Underscores makes sampling easy. Prepare to be up all night, every night, chopping, looping and splicing these endless grooves and spacey synths. The highlights are too many and too mind-blowing so we’ll pull out a few particular highlights. Trust us, this library LP is just jaw-dropping.

“High Velocity” sets the tone with its aggressive horns, wah-wah guitars, funky baseline and wobbly synth refrain. So good and so hypnotic that Memphis Bleek just had to swipe the ominous, frazzled intro for “What You Think of That” featuring Jay-Z. Also, for real drama, the 1985 Lakers retrospective “Return to Glory” used it to soundtrack the footage from the legendary game five of the NBA finals at the Forum. Heady days. “Crash Course” - Stetsasonic horn refrain? Beautiful - jazzy chase-funk, amazing warm keys, percussion and funky horns - all action.

The more restrained “Matter Of Urgency” is an utterly amazing, brass-heavy underscore. The grandiose, uplifting “Dawn Of Aquarius” still sounds like the future with its tense, thundering drums, killer bassline and swirling synths. Version II loses the drums and percussion but is no less startling. “Staying Power” closes the first side with a relentless, pounding groove which *will* snap your neck. Be warned.

“Trucking Company” is a pacey, synth-and-string masterpiece and its accompanying parts (a–c) mess with the formula to great effect. Part (a) adds echo delay to really dazzle and part (c) plays the breezy, beautiful middle section without the tension. “Hot Cargo” and “Espionage” are both tense spy-funk themes par excellence. “Interplay” is a quiet killer, with flutes over a glistening piano refrain just waiting to be looped. The intro to the menacing “Omen” might’ve been sampled by 7L & Esoteric for their classic “So Glorious” but the entire 5 minute track is a mini-drama masterpiece, one only Mansfield could create.

Even though its a mix of short themes in-and-amongst longer, full-length tracks, Vivid Underscores is still thoroughly listenable from start to finish. That’s not something that can be said of all library records and it still manages to serve as rich resource to keep even the keenest samplers busy for a while.

As with all of our KPM re-issues, the audio for Vivid Underscores comes from the original analogue tapes and has been remastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis. And as usual, the sleeve reproduction duties were handed over to Richard Robinson, the current custodian of KPM’s brand ident

Superb EP bringing 2 experimental electro tunes. Deep & hard !

Cinthie’s we_r house returns with its eleventh release this December, courtesy of Elgo Blanco who delivers four stripped-back house cuts across the
EP.

The first opus... we missed that one last year. Too good not to finaly get some.

2001’s God Bless The Go-Go’s was the first new album released by LA legends The Go-Go's in 17 years following 1984’s Talk Show, which featured the hit “Head Over Heels”. The original lineup is intact for this 13-track outing, produced by Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade (Hole, Radiohead). Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong is also featured on the first single, "Unforgiven."

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the original release the CD and digital deluxe versions will include 2 bonus tracks, “I Think I Need Sleep" and “King of Confusion”

Tape

Dylan Henner is back on Dauw with his new album "Great Prairie Plains: studies of American Minimalism". The album is a celebration of two pieces of music that he loves and have been hugely important to his musical life and education.

The album starts with an arrangement of Terry Riley's In C. During his school-time, Henner was allowed by his music teacher - with plenty of persuasion, in an environment of mostly much straighter classical music - to study this piece. He not only had a deep familiarity with it, but also the pdf scores that he transcribed for his homework. The arrangement was created mostly with the marimba, as an instrument that can layer very deeply without muddying the frequency range and also includes some synths, piano and a VST choir.

“I tried to balance my boundless admiration for the piece with a personalised arrangement. It would be pointless to copy Riley's original - it's too good - but I can at least try to do well by it.”

Alongside In C is an arrangement of Su Tissue's 2nd Movement, from her near-mythical "lost" album Salon de Musique. After trying to buy a copy of this record for years - they are so scarcely found he suspects he never will – Henner wondered if the next best thing would be - instead of owning a copy - to create his own copy. He started this arrangement with as much faith as he could. According to Henner, Su’s work is too rare to warrant changing, but instead should be honoured with autencitiy.

“It's not until the end of the piece that my arrangement begins to take a different shape to Su's. Once I started playing along on the piano, the rest fell into place.”

Dylan lives in Brighton, works as a photographer's assistant for his day-job and plays analogue synths, tuned percussion and cello. Last year Dylan released well-received albums on Dauw and AD 93 (fka Whities) among others. Even though he is a relatively new name, with these albums he already came to the fore as a promising artist within the electro-acoustic field.


a 01. In C [Terry Riley]
[b] 02. 2nd Movement [Su Tissue]

[a] 01. In C [Terry Riley]
[b] 02. 2nd Movement [Su Tissue]

Repress

The first instalment from Right Angle Records brings you 4 heady tracks, all destined for the dance floor. On each side you'll find an original and a well picked remix. The remixes touching down on RAR, are influences on the labels vision, past, present & future.

Vinyl Only


RAR001 brings the likes of underground house messiah, Silverlining and the upcoming talent, Jeigo.
Side A the more typical of the RAR sound, straight up house music inspired by the 90's, with side B touching on the less obvious influences of RAR with some atmospheric space breaks.

Heady power pop trio Portable Radio announce the release of their debut eponymous LP on March 12th 2021 on Crimson Crow Records. Lead track and first single Hot Toddy, out in February, introduces the album with its ethereal brooding pop arrangement.
Some years ago, the world started to go weird – and that’s when the then duo, Portable Radio, decided it was as good a time as any, to start making first steps.
Phil … and Mof … shared some messages and a love of melodies, and as a gift to friends and those feeling the weight of everything, recorded a version of Brian Wilson’s gorgeous opus, ‘Love & Mercy’. The result was enough for them to start writing songs, and the blueprint for Portable Radio was born – hope, empathy, fun, love, and mercy.
Phil had cut his teeth in the Beep Seals and Mof was a DJ and student of pop, and in each other they both wanted to make music that was a tonic for the times; what transpired was a clutch of songs that were filled with uplifting, rich harmonies – stirring power pop inspired by Todd Rundgren, Wings, Carole King, Electric Light Orchestra, NRBQ, Emitt Rhodes, ‘70s West Coast AOR, The Zombies, and of course, The Beach Boys.
The duo released their Baroque Pop debut single with You Are The Cosmos recordings – the double A-Side of ‘Seven Hills’ and ‘Parades’. A cult following started and some shows and radio sessions ensued, joined by extended family – tap room-Mozart Jim Noir, shed-pop wizard Aidan Smith, and Phil’s previous bandmate, the supremely talented Ian Smith (Beep Seals/Alfie).
Soon, Robyn Gibson (The Junipers/Bob Of The Pops) joined the ranks for their star turn and appearance on the ‘12 String High’ compilation. The two becoming a trio, the output cranked up, seeing the release of the debut Portable Radio EP (produced by Jim Noir) and the Christmas Selection Box, all loaded with killer hooks, washes of dreamy harmonies, and just a sprinkling of cynicism because no-one is impervious to the all-encompassing weirdness of the last couple of years.
All of these things were the groundwork for the imminent full-length, self-titled debut, out in March 2021. The LP (vinyl/download/streaming) is full to bursting with big choruses, reflective popsike, FM ready pop, melancholic ballads, with each song is treated like it’s going to be a single.

Statistique Synthétique draws as much from the history of computer sound synthesis as from its latest developments. But well beyond developing simply as a proof of concept, this piece aims to transcend the abstract status of synthetic sound objects and lead them to a properly hallucinatory state, that is to say to a meeting point where the object and perception dissolve into each other, in a sort of transcendental field. Beyond, also, hylomorphism, to reach the world of matter-form fusions, where perception knows how to see "shoulders of hills", as Cézanne wrote.
Teum (the Silvery Slit) is, as the title suggests, an overture, an opening to the game of multiplications, fragmentations, duplications. But it is also the opening understood as the void that blossoms between two borders, a break from which escapes a double tension, both the pulling force of these two edges which move apart and the opposite force of reconciliation, of compression. Okkyung Lee invites us to a truly telluric moment, a rare moment of expression where tectonic movements and shear stresses become music. If the earthquakes were, as we thought in the 18th century, due to underground thunderstorms, there is no doubt that this piece of music, both celestial and continental, could have been their audible manifestation.
Text by François Bonnet


HeckerStatistique Synthétique2020 / 25'15Computer-generated sound with resynthesized situated texture recordingsWritten and produced by Florian Hecker, 2019 - 2020Texture analysis and resynthesis algorithm: Axel Röbel, Analysis/Synthesis Team, IRCAM, ParisMastered by Rashad BeckerPhoto by Mauricio Guillén, 2019
Thanks to Axel Röbel for his commitment to the project and special appreciation to GRM, Luke Fowler, Mauricio Guillén, Dirk Mayer and Porta33
Location Texture Recordings, using DPA 4060, DPA 4017B, DPA 4021 and DPA 4060 microphones to Sound Devices 702 recorder; except segment 04:31 - 05:37, recorded by Luke Fowler, April 2019 using Sony M10.
00:00 - 02:00 Lopud, Croatia, June 200802:00 - 03:12 Ponta do Sol, Madeira, ER 101, April 201903:12 - 04:14 Prentiss St, Cambridge, MA, February 201504:14 - 04:31 Anjos, Ponta do Sol, Madeira, ER 101, April 201904:31 - 05:37 Atelier Cézanne, Aix-en-Provence, April 201905:37 - 08:31 Anjos, Ponta do Sol, Madeira, ER 101, April 201908:31 - 09:46 Praia dos Anjos, Ponta do Sol, Madeira, ER 101, April 201909:46 - 10:39 Private garden, Kissing, September 200910:39 - 11:15 Praia dos Anjos, Ponta do Sol, Madeira, ER 101, April 201911:15 - 15:11 Porto do Paul do Mar, Calheta, Madeira, April 201915:11 - 16:53 Prinz Eugen Strasse, Vienna, June 200816:53 - 24:27 Risco, Rabaçal, Madeira, April 201924:27 - 25:15 Bois de Boulogne, Avenue du Mahatma Gandhi, Paris, September 2015
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Okkyung LeeTeum (the Silvery Slit)2019 / 20'03Performed, recorded and composed by Okkyung Lee (ASCAP)Mixed by Lasse MarhaugMastered by Guuseppe IelasiPhoto by Lasse MarhaugPart of Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

Cut by Andreas Kauffelt at Schnittstelle, Berlin, September 2020Sleeve design by Stephen O'Malley

pink vinyl / 180 grams

"With this release, I set out with a particular sound in mind - one through which I could amalgamate my inspirations from over the years to create something fresh and outline a unique approach. With these tracks, I wanted to walk the line of having something energetic enough to tease my UK Underground & Dance Music influences, and yet experimental enough to present the listener with a deeper landscape to explore through the FM sound design."
- Aagentah

Hot on the heels of last year’s drone masterpiece, The Free Territory (FTR 457), comes this hot bowl of noodles from Manchester’s most elegantly wasted quintet. And while there might be apt comparisons to be made to some of the best current psych purveyors, the central thrill provided by these sounds makes me think of naught but prime Bay Area ballroom scene acid spew.

The guitar lines unspool like electrical cables filled with acid punch, and remain crackling in the air for moments longer than you imagine they can remain afloat. The keys have a bit of a German overtone, but it’s the same sort of one that led to the flash of Popol Vuh’s United Artist albums (which are themselves, at heart, paeans to the Bay.) The sound here is the sort of thing true believers recall as the highest moments of Man in live concert flight. Raging, raving guitars to soak your soul once and for all.

Don’t fear the downpour. Revel in it.
-Byron Coley, 2020

As darkness falls, once familiar territory is rendered alien and foreboding; full of weird and terrifying possibilities. These are Night Lands.
Recorded live in the rehearsal room last December, the newly expanded 4 piece Dead Sea Apes lock into spooky nocturnal grooves, augmented by Nik Rayne (The Myrrors) who was over in the UK for the recording of 'Night Lands'

Night Lands is comprised of 3 off-the-cuff improvised pieces, where Dead Sea Apes effortlessly mind meld with Rayne. Taking for a deep knowledge and love which you can hear seep through - At times Amon Duul (both!) at others times Earth with touches of what you imagine the Velvet Underground sounded like in the DOM - all touched with the presence of Bo Anders Persson

Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube Records are pleased to announce ‘DATALAND’, a collaboration between Dead Sea Apes, Black Tempest and Adam Stone achieved mainly through internet data transfer during the Covid lockdown of 2020. Insistent, evolving electronic sounds encounter a variety of guitars and percussion, from the clockwork kosmische of 'Lost Hours' to the stumbling nosie dub of 'Shop Soiled', while Adam Stone's words meditate on life in the post-industrial west, our increasingly atomised and data-driven society and its logical conclusion in a corporatised dystopia.
'Dataland' is a meditation upon the average existence of a 'developed-world' human in the early 21st century. Whilst not struggling with the harsh physical demands of industrial labour as we did in the recent past, our plight continues to embody the melancholia and confusion of alienation. Under the bewildering complexity of rationalised social and economic systems, we may indeed have become unwitting prisoners within, what the sociologist Max Weber termed, "the iron cage of bureaucracy" - tripping the minutes away in a daily pantomime of data-driven surrealism. This six song collection is a fusion of electronica, monologue, 'real drums' and guitar, and was recorded at various locations in sad old England over the last two years or so. An almost psychedelic sense of puzzlement, nausea and fatigue accompanies being lost in the omnipresent number-generating machines and anti-human modelling systems that now run our world. This is the realisation that defines the essence of the album - that your life is now only as real as what is displayed on the screen of your constant technological companion.

“Hey Moon” remains one of Swedish singer Molly Nilsson’s most popular songs. Originally released on her debut album These Things Take Time, the song since took on new life being covered by other artists and Molly famously never plays it live. In act of reclamation, Molly Nilsson is releasing Hey Moon as a 7” single with all profits donated to Black Lives Matter worldwide. It comes backed with a rare early song, Silver.

Daniel Szlajnda (aka Daniel Drumz) and Piotr Kalinski (aka Hatti Vatti) are one of the most famouse and experienced Polish producers and this album is another step forward for them.

It started with the EP "Krzyżacy", which was released exactly two years ago. Two well-known producers - Daniel Drumz & Hatti Vatti - joined their forces to release an EP, which later on was appreciated by the worldwide listeners, journalists and festival audience. JANKA, which I am talking about, hit the stages of the best Polish festivals such as Opener, Spring Break, Tauron, Slovenian MENT and Moscow Music Week. But that happened in 2019.

On March 8th 2021 the duo's debut album, "MIDI Life Crisis" will be released. Daniel Szlajnda and Piotr Kaliński once again prove that there is much more than just musical chemistry between them. What we can hear there are fascinations from dubby minimalism and IDM to jungle and rave - it's hard to label this unique mature album which should be a pleasant surprise for people open to electronic music. "Modern vintage" might be a good description of what we experience there, music is pressed on modular and analog synths and unusual sampling is drowned in delays and reverbs. However it's not from the late '90s, nothing is typical or obvious, the sound and the style of JANKA are unique.

On the album, you hear two guest voices - Sujka (i.e. Iwona Król - known from the projects Kobieta z Wydm, Lauda, and Król) and Kacha Kowalczyk (i.e. the voice of Coals), the album was mastered by Kwazar. The unique graphic was designed and created by Zosia Paśnik on the analogue gear (as a diploma at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice). The album is released in analog form in two color versions, the 180-gram vinyl edition also includes three inserts with Zosia's graphics.

Daniel Szlajnda (aka Daniel Drumz) and Piotr Kalinski (aka Hatti Vatti) are one of the most famouse and experienced Polish producers and this album is another step forward for them.

It started with the EP "Krzyżacy", which was released exactly two years ago. Two well-known producers - Daniel Drumz & Hatti Vatti - joined their forces to release an EP, which later on was appreciated by the worldwide listeners, journalists and festival audience. JANKA, which I am talking about, hit the stages of the best Polish festivals such as Opener, Spring Break, Tauron, Slovenian MENT and Moscow Music Week. But that happened in 2019.

On March 8th 2021 the duo's debut album, "MIDI Life Crisis" will be released. Daniel Szlajnda and Piotr Kaliński once again prove that there is much more than just musical chemistry between them. What we can hear there are fascinations from dubby minimalism and IDM to jungle and rave - it's hard to label this unique mature album which should be a pleasant surprise for people open to electronic music. "Modern vintage" might be a good description of what we experience there, music is pressed on modular and analog synths and unusual sampling is drowned in delays and reverbs. However it's not from the late '90s, nothing is typical or obvious, the sound and the style of JANKA are unique.

On the album, you hear two guest voices - Sujka (i.e. Iwona Król - known from the projects Kobieta z Wydm, Lauda, and Król) and Kacha Kowalczyk (i.e. the voice of Coals), the album was mastered by Kwazar. The unique graphic was designed and created by Zosia Paśnik on the analogue gear (as a diploma at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice). The album is released in analog form in two color versions, the 180-gram vinyl edition also includes three inserts with Zosia's graphics.

Montreal art pop group Freelove Fenner release their long-awaited album, The Punishment Zone, on Moone Records. The 14-song collection is an exercise in pleasing sounds, diaphanous textures, and concise song structure. The group listened to a century's worth of experimental, often cacophonous sounds and reshaped it into a mellow pop music.

The group’s workshop is the strictly analog Bottle Garden Studio, a small room full of tape machines and homemade equipment that is integral to the group’s sound and process. Avoiding 21st century technology not out of any sort of snobbery or nostalgia but rather a desire to avoid the work habits inherent with contemporary tools, the band embraces the different results that come with a slower, more tactile process: the happy accidents; the absence of visual stimuli (no screens); the difficulty in attaining high gloss finishes.

Freelove Fenner have released two EPs, In the Bottle Garden (2009), and Pineapple Hair EP (2012); as well as the full-length album Do Not Affect a Breezy Manner (2013), all on Montreal’s Fixture Records. The Punishment Zone will be released on Arizona’s minimal art label Moone Records, joining an eclectic roster featuring artists like Tori Kudo, John Dieterich, Little Wings, Lithics, and others.

Be assured that even dawning on sixty and with a career spanning more than 30 years, Popa Chubby continues to fight against the injustices of this world !
And the least we can say about 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic is that it offered him the “magnificent” inspiration that fed into the creation of his new album “Tinfoil Hat”! As he writes himself, this record’s creation was self-evident from the beginning of the first lockdown in March.
Back at his base in the Hudson Valley and following his last show played in Florida, our man immediately wanted to send a message of empathy and support to his fans, and that’s how the song “Can I Call You My Friends?” was conceived. The reaction was so sudden, warm, and intense that he found there was enough material for continuing this “dialogue” by composing other songs that today form the framework for “Tinfoil Hat.”
The whole thing was entirely “homemade,” recorded and played by Popa Chubby with the extra Guts and Soul that great causes often bring to life. “Tinfoil Hat” and the 11 songs that make it up were born from a mixture of love, despair, fear, frustration, pain, joy, sorrow, resolution and the leap into the great unknown imposed by the coronavirus that has been with all of us all since last
March. The Trump administration’s chaotic and reckless management of the crisis provided Popa Chubby with the inspiration for uncompromising lyrics. Like those of the title song (supported by, to say the least, an explicit clip) or themes such as “You Ain’t Said Shit,” “No Justice, No Peace,” or “Another Day In Hell.”
Without forgetting to pass on messages of hope (“Someday Soon, Change Is Gonna Come”) or even for good behavior in the face of the virus with “Baby Put On Your Mask.” In the album notes, he writes, “Like all of you, this pandemic has pushed me to the very edge of my humanity. But the music, the sweet music, has put me back on the right path once again. So I offer this work with humility and the deep devotion I have for you!”. That says it all!

The dusty streets of apartheid-era Soweto, 27 July 1987. The politically charged funeral of a young activist who fled South Africa to became a commander in the military wing of Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. Police await in armoured cars. The funeral is restricted by specific government decree.

The man being buried is Peter Motau, assassinated in neighbouring Swaziland on the orders of South Africa's most notorious government-sanctioned killer, Eugene de Kock, orders carried out by his secret police unit in a bloody ambush.

For De Kock and the apartheid government, Peter Motau was a terrorist. For the singing, chanting mourners at his funeral, he was a freedom fighter, a hero from the streets of Soweto itself.

ZA87 is a raw audio document of one extraordinary day under apartheid. A father mourns, himself breaking the regulations declaring any political statements at the funeral illegal. Young activists, the "Comrades", sing in praise of the banned ANC's military wing, sirens blare, helicopters hover overhead, a police officer orders all television and photojournalists to leave. Nigel Wrench's microphone remains. Also there is Winnie Mandela, on behalf of the ANC's exiled leadership. Banned from speaking at the funeral, she speaks instead into Wrench's microphone and stages a remarkable intervention as the police seek to detain activists.

The authorities sought to keep the events of that day away from the eyes and ears of anyone who wasn't there. ZA87 breaks that silence.

Nigel Wrench is an award-winning journalist whose career began in South Africa under apartheid. He is the winner of a Sony Award for "Out This Week", BBC Radio's first national lesbian and gay news programme, and a New York Radio Award for BBC Radio 4's "Aids and Me", chronicling his experience of living with HIV. "Few journalists have quite so intimately captured the essence of their era's great moral panics as Nigel Wrench" (The Quietus).

ZA87 is the follow-up to Wrench's acclaimed first cassette on The Tapeworm, ZA86, "a remarkable documentation of South Africa under apartheid in 1986" (Boomkat), "chilling and at times stunningly beautiful" (The Quietus), "stylistically not dissimilar to Adam Curtis's 2015 documentary 'Bitter Lake', its hypnagogic float through the rushes feels curiously vivid, free of the dating or distancing effect further media packaging might bring" (The Wire).

Both tracks produced by Robin The Fog at The Sticky Shed, Penge during lockdown 2020. Side A features a recording of a wine glass. Side B is created entirely from closed input sounds of the tape machines themselves. One take, no edits, no overdubs, no artificial FX. Mastered by Steven McInerney. A.H.M.F. and long live the Wyrm.

Robin The Fog is a sound designer, radio producer, audio archivist, educator and occasional DJ based in London. His work falls under the broad term "radiophonics" and includes composition, sound installation, field recording and documentary. Best known as founder and chief strategist of "tape loop quintet" Howlround, he also produces work alongside DJ Food and Chris Weaver as The New Obsolescents and with Ken Hollings as The Howling. Originally described as a "second wave hauntologist", his current obsession is attempting to use closed-input feedback loops to create primitive techno, which is quite a long way from where he started. His biggest fear is being swallowed by a python, but living in South London he appreciates the contingency is a remote one.