Search:2 life

Deep house pioneer Abacus returns once more with some fresh energy on his revitalised label, Re: Think. The fourth volume of Analogue Stories opens with a Jeep Mix of his 'In Between The Lines', which is a widescreen comic affair built on dusty and jostling drums. Din-dunya offers the lithe rhythms of 'In My Life', which is marbled with freaky vocals, and Haf S offers two cuts. 'My Love Is' is a Detroit hi-tech soul sound with a constant sense of promise and 'Availability' is a raw, mechanical and jerking workout for jacked up sessions. All four of these could be 30 years old or sent back from the future.

The legendary 'Rhythm of Life' by American soul star James Mason returns with a series of remixes on this vinyl-only EP. Fresh interpretations come from DJ Mitsu the Beats, Dego and Yukari BB who all do their thing to cuts from sometime Roy Ayers Ubiquity man Mason's 1977 solo album. Dego's jazzy remix of 'Free' and Yukari BB's synth-heavy take on 'Good Thing' are standouts and DJ Mitsu the Beats adds percussive warmth to both 'Free' and 'Mbewe' by infusing the originals with mellow funk and hip-hop grooves. This one packs a super hot jazz-funk punch for the more open-minded dancefloors

Slowly yet firmly blooming into focus, An Unfinished Rose is the new album from Australian duo Troth.

This is their first since relocating to Hobart, Tasmania and their introduction to Night School Records. With a detailed web of past releases on labels A Colourful Storm, Mammas Mysteriska Jukebox, Knekelhuis and Bowman’s own Altered States Tapes imprint, An Unfinished Rose is the group’s most realised and composed work thus far. While still drawing on the improvisatory and DIY practices that informed Troth’s beginnings, it points to a new incarnation of the duo’s music; an intentional language emerging from the fog of obfuscation and mists of uncertainty.

Over these 9 meditations on change, acceptance, renewal and rebirth, An Unfinished Rose finds Amelia Besseny and Cooper Bowman peeling back some of the roughhewn architecture that defined their earlier releases to reveal a masterful - if auto-didactic - use of space and melody. Composition and improvisation compliment and feed each other throughout, with locked-loop earworms providing the springboard for lines of clarinet or synth melody, and the negative space between chord clusters giving ample room for Besseny’s most confident vocal performances to date. Shaving off a little of the defining dissonance and tape compression of old reveals Troth’s music in radiant daylight, humbly accepting of its place in the world while yearning for better, more sympathetic modes of living. Leaning more heavily on acoustic instrumentation and post-production processes than previously, the result is a transcendent body of work infused with an almost zen-like presence.

Troth’s music exists in the border between forming and becoming, its goal to project a kind of preternatural beauty, leaving interpretation open to the listener. Field recordings, happenstance and improvisation may provide seeds for the duo’s compositions, particularly on Side A, but there is a deft touch of songcraft on show. Loam Loom Leaf Litter opens An Unfinished Rose, directly referencing natural cycles of life, death and regeneration, before the blissed-out drum machine groove of Gold Plum continues a discussion concerning the totality of nature and one’s place in it. Besseny’s vocal, swelling like an ocean churn in duet with itself is adorned with synthesised harp and a revolving synth pattern, conjuring plumes of medieval smoke. Thistle’s rounded, bass-heavy drums, nodding to the vast echo of dub, is a relatively new terrain for Troth. It’s propulsive and thumping, pulsing with a meaning and symbolism consistent with Troth’s past work, referenced overtly in Bessey’s lyrics - “Say it too much and it loses its meaning…”. Similarly, the sprawling modern-classical suite, Tides Reflected In Her Eyes, is intentional in its lyrical themes while traversing new ground, revelling in layers of bowed cello and vocal intonations. Side B’s 4 tracks feel like Troth’s most thoroughly accessible and affecting music to date. Leaning into their own detoured version of Synth Pop, Cocoonist explores downtempoisms via a crunchy low frequency synth, and dream-like, fuzzy trip-hop modalities, not unlike Besseny and Bowman’s other group, Th Blisks. Following on, Myrtle Mystes is an open and searching DIY pop song, forged out of drum machine, bass guitar and cello. (An) Unfinished Rose’s title-track is a clear stand-out, built upon an evocative rhythm sample that appears to change emotional resonance with each undulating repetition. Its cascading waves of affect, interjected with a subtle breeze of synth, bowed instrumentation and soaring, densely-layered vocals.

An Unfinished Rose is enveloping, warm, forgiving. Difficult, yet retaining a unique beauty. Troth’s music aims to celebrate the duo;s shared experiences of being in the world, despite the complexity often surrounding us all. Theirs is a message of hope and perseverance, learning and patience.

A“This album is about what it means to be human, and its creation is my offering. I attempt to tell a tale of the human experience in the reflection of my own.”

‘In the Andean mythology, condors are believed to be immortal. It is said that once they feel old, without energy, and useless, they climb to the highest peak and let themselves fall to death.’

The Allegorist is a visionary, enigmatic, transmedia, and boundary-pushing artist known for crafting deep, immersive dark sonic tales. Embracing a wide array of influences, weaving together the mysteries, art and spirituality, the art project defies categorisation, resonating with those who seek the unconventional.

From Birth Until Death is an introspective and immersive concept album that reflects on the essence of the human experience. Crafted over six years by The Allegorist (aka Anna Jordan), the album traces the arc of life—from its fragile beginnings to its inevitable end—using sound art to explore existential and philosophical terrain. Inspired by the Andean mythology of the condor – a symbol of immortality – the album blends electronic soundscapes with raw field recordings, evoking a deep sense of connection between the natural world and human existence.

The album’s progression mirrors the stages of life, starting with the birth of new beginnings and culminating in death, with each track offering a unique reflection on the moments in between. From the dynamic energy of Momentum, to the ethereal, illusionary world of Fata Morgana, the tracks guide the listener through emotions, perceptions, and experiences that shape the human condition.

A distinctive feature of From Birth Until Death is its intricate production. The album incorporates field recordings from Grunewald Forest, a distant roar of a jet, barking dogs, blending the sounds of nature – footsteps in the snow, birdsong, ocean waves – with layered synthesisers and electronic beats. The bass and ambient textures are crafted using an array of analog hardware, while all vocals, both lead and backing, are performed and recorded by Jordan. Some of the vocal takes were intentionally left raw, capturing the spontaneous energy of early recordings, while others were re-recorded to balance the album’s organic yet polished feel. Each element is meticulously crafted, revealing its deeper meaning as the album unfolds like a multidimensional, living sculpture.

At its core, From Birth Until Death is a meditation on the full spectrum of life. The album’s title track, From Birth Until Death, encapsulates this journey, reflecting on the passage of time and the unique experience of being human. The final track, Death, offers a melancholic yet beautiful exploration of endings, not as finalities, but as moments in the grand cycle of life. With its combination of evocative sound design and deeply personal themes, From Birth Until Death invites listeners to contemplate their own lives, offering a moving experience of reflection, growth, and transformation.

About From Birth Until Death
Words By Robin Rimbaud (Scanner)

From Birth Until Death is a deeply personal and reflective album and beautifully crafted. A detailed listen reveals that Jordan was in search of a profoundly human and authentic expression. In an era when so much around us seems defined by speed, Anna Jordan, aka The Allegorist, stands apart – aware that skimming the surface of life is neither sufficient nor rewarding. She reminds us of the value of deep, authentic listening.

The track Andean Condor seductively draws us into a smoky, blurred rhythmic soundscape, capturing the essence of the darkest Berlin nightclub, while Birth pulses with an almost shamanic transformation of sound, moving from the organic to the musical. It features a recording of Jordan’s footsteps in the snow in Grunewald Forest, Germany.

At times, the music feels almost sculptural in shape and tone – lifting, pushing, lilting, opening, and closing – where each piece is given room to fully develop. Many of the works blend synthetic sound with the natural, incorporating the human voice alongside environmental recordings: the wild waves of the ocean, a jet flying overhead, and barking dogs.

With From Birth Until Death, Jordan, like an alchemical architect revealing in the process of getting lost and relinquishing control, leaves us with a taut, immersive soundtrack in which to lose ourselves.

About the album ‘From Birth Until Death’
words by The Allegorist

“The album From Birth Until Death did not come easily to me. I started working on it in 2019, and it underwent many alterations over the years. I produced multiple versions of the tracks each year, but the album name, the track titles, and the album cover art stayed the same for 6 years. Not everything I did fit into the album’s final form, but I hope the heavy selection just made it better. I played this piece live in my techno live set between 2019 and 2020, and in the years after, I performed different art, ambient, and vocal versions of it, most notably the one at the church St. Marienkirche in Berlin in 2022. It just wanted to live and didn’t want to be finished. As I aged, this album aged with me. And now I’m ready to let it go.”

"Astral Americana hymns hovering somewhere between the dirt and the stars" Pitchfork

"Mood music for moments of solitude, best experienced without distraction" The Times

"Overwhelmingly effective and ravishingly beautiful" The Wire

American Dust is an ode to the beauty of the American Southwest, where vast desert landscapes hold stories both stark and tender. Eve Adams’ characteristic folk noir weaves a vivid tapestry of love, sacrifice and quiet revelation, conjuring images of dust storms, stray dogs and far off trains.

The high desert of California is a vast and confounding place. Equally inspiring as it is punishing, it’s a landscape that carries magic in its deep dark nights, holding stories both tender and stark in the coarse layer of dust that settles upon everything. It’s long been a source of inspiration for musicians, writers, and painters, each of them adding to the same current, carried forward over time, through hope and hardship and the passing years.

Somewhere out there in that broad and boundless landscape, Eve Adams has been living her own desert life, quietly writing the follow-up to 2021’s Metal Bird LP. Where that album sang of liminal space, the dream-like turbulence of Hollywood’s golden age, American Dust is far more rooted in traditional storytelling; a eulogy for the American Dream channeled through that sweeping part of the country that holds such power and mystery. Slipping into different and varied costumes throughout its ten songs, it finds Eve not just observing the people around her but stepping into their shoes and peeling back the layers of their quiet lives.

Adams writes from within. A few years ago she moved out there, to “the middle of nowhere”, finding a slowness that didn’t exist in the city, and she knows only too well about the mystical nature of the land and those who live within it. Weaving together themes of grit and romance, American Dust holds its focus on the bittersweet poetry of lives lived in solitude, most notably the women who sustain life at the center of it all. “There’s something very radical about domestic life,” Adams says of this thread. “So many women live their entire lives behind closed doors, completely in the shadows. Within those lives is such sacrifice, devotion, and love. I wanted to honor that: the poetry in the mundane, the longing in the repetition. The way love survives boredom and dust and time.”

Eve is joined on American Dust by Canadian musician Bryce Cloghesy, aka Military Genius of Crack Cloud, who plays throughout and also helped produce the album. Musically bold and vivid, it’s an ambitious and detailed stride forward from what’s come before, the scope of the LP’s narrative reflected in the radiant sweep of the playing. On top of gentle piano and guitar, gorgeous strings drift through the album, lending the songs a woozy sense of romanticism; a collaboration with Gamaliel Traynor (Cello) and Caroline’s Oliver Hamilton (Violin).

For all the drama that’s coiled around these songs, it’s the recurring notion of love and hope fighting against everything that holds true throughout American Dust. Musically it’s lush and vibrant, intimate and cinematic side by side, and always bursting with warmth. But it’s what it holds in its weary bones that elevates it to something truly special, something more than just a collection of songs penned in the heart of the desert. The characters it speaks of, and from, feel shadowed but wholly real, like they’re bursting to share their stories that have remained hidden for years and years and they allow Eve Adams to grow as a songwriter right in front of our eyes.

“The same swirling dust that clung to the covered wagons of my ancestors as they crossed the Great American Desert is the same dust my great-great-grandmother swept off her porch during the Dust Bowl of 1936 in Oklahoma, is the same dust that blows in through the cracks in my windows here in the desert, carrying stories from a time long gone,” Eve says, reflecting on the personal narrative that runs through her new album.

“It’s not just dust—it’s American Dust, the kind that settles into the bones of a family and never leaves. I think about that dust as a symbol of the passage of time. I hope this album will be part of that same current, carrying forward for the next generations of my family to find. I’ve been lucky enough to have journals and poetry from my ancestors that documents their lives during times of pure hope and pure hardship. I’d like to think of this album as a contribution to that family history.”

Its no secret that Samiyam is a certified beathead and appreciated hiphop producer - we have been in touch with him since his self released Rap beats volume 1 CD (or actually since his contribution with FlyLo as Flyamsam on the Beat Dimensions compilation), and later took in further releases on Stones Throw, Brainfeeder, Poo-Bah, All City & Hyperdub . What we did not know is Sam got heavily into Death Metal for the past 5 years and is a big horror movie fan. (check the artwork here !)


On Death Metal, Sam mentioned 'I started revisiting some old shit and realized I really love it and there's so many cool bands I didn't even know about.. I started making some shit with drums, drum programming, and ideas inspired by some of the stuff I like and realized I should just make an album out of it."

So here it is - 13 beat takes, Metal style - put together by a man whose output is sparse but never dissapoints !

Limited edition US import

"We are Honeypuppy. Your worst nightmare. Sleep tight." Born from the liminal space between the head and pillow of Songwriter Josie Callahan, Athens Georgia's Honeypuppy interrupts your regularly scheduled programming with an exciting and fresh one-time TV offer: a sparkly new album for your listening pleasure. Experience the bliss and despair, anxiety and indifference, and present yet absent-minded glee of this episodic saga in Honeypuppy's glowing new sonic collection, DIRTY TV. A nostalgic and poppy delight complete with twists, turns, and plenty of surprises, don't miss a second of DIRTY TV. Honeypuppy formed in 2020 as Callahan (lead vocals, guitar) recruited friends and roommates Adam Wayton (bass, vocals), and Will Wise (lead guitar) to help bring her songs to life. The group released "Nymphet", their soft and brutal debut EP, in January of 2024.

Blaney describes A Room With A Door That Closes as “a love letter to her blue,” an emotional state that she defines as “a kinetic, intense, and dark energy that needs to be expressed as soon as it is felt.” The eleven songs on the album span radioactive kiss offs, sorrowful meditations on yearning, and gossamer reveries about self image.

The music has a fittingly tumultuous, intricate sound: 1960s soul samples melt into warm drum n bass percussion, blips of glitch ping pong against grating synth, and Blaney’s vocals range from searing punk exclamations to gentle, exploratory croons. It’s the sound of a singer peering deeply within herself and presenting the world with everything she finds, unadulterated, in real time. Blaney produced the new project along with a tight team of three producers: Emerson Fossett, Harlan Steed (Show Me The Body), and Alex Farrar (MJ Lenderman, Wednesday, Squirrel Flower, Snail Mail).

Blaney had just started playing guitar and producing around the time she began writing the songs that would become the album. Being new to both producing and guitar playing opened up a sense of exploration and freedom for her. She felt emboldened to employ more adventurous riffs and unconventional song arrangements when she was writing. A Room With A Door That Closes is a collection of songs that rigorously pursue honesty, that present feelings as they arise without rushing to categorise them or explain them away. In the process of understanding her rage or discomfort, Blaney often lands on a sense of pride and assurance, but that’s never the ultimate goal. She eschews the easy comfort of neat resolution for the excitement of ongoing discovery. The album is an exercise in unfiltered self-expression, and a celebration of life at its messiest.

In an interview released to Billboard in 2017, east coast veteran AZ explains how this collaboration with legendary DITC producer Buckwild came along:

"The sound was shifting. A lot of brothers in the street were telling me "You got to save us." And I'm like, "Save y'all from what?" So I took that title to save the people, then Buckwild played a joint in the studio called "Save Them," and I was like, "This is it."

The two don't really need no introduction: with the Brooklyn lyricist gracing the mic since the mid 90's beginning with one of his first appearances alongside Nas on "Life's A Bitch" and dropping legendary classics such as "Doe Or Die", and the Bronx producer providing beats to artists that range from old school acts such as The Notorious B.I.G., Jay Z, Kool G Rap, Big Pun, modern day legends such as Vinnie Paz, Meyhem Lauren, Termanology and, last but not least, legendary DITC members Big L, Fat Joe, Diamond D and the list goes on and on.

AZ had to recruit "some brothers who I know respect the craft" and found them in Wu-Tang Clan's own Raekwon alongside the late great Prodigy of Mobb Deep. The song was released in April 2017 and brought a breath of fresh air with its classic vibe, together with a video being released just days before Prodigy's untimely passing in June 2017. The rest, you already know, is straight up hip-hop history.

Jeremy Zucker releases his fourth solo studio album, Garden State, on August 22nd.The thirteen- track project explores the New Jersey-native’s growth since leaving his hometown as a teenager, with themes of nostalgia & what it means to return home carrying new experiences & perspectives. With sentimental melodies & introspective lyricism, the music leaves listeners to reflect on childhood, maturing, & the impermanence of life.

Recorded from late 1996 through early 1997, Hold Onto I.D., The Shadow Ring's fourth album, marks the apogee of the trio's experimental rock epoch - their last record clinging to their factitious bandness before they let all song and structure go awash in sonic malaise for their final run of releases on Swill Radio. The surrealist dreams of City Lights and Put the Music in Its Coffin give way to pseudo-expressionistic lyrics mired in the banality and bleakness of the everyday, set against the backdrop of the Coombe House (as pictured on the album's cover). While Hold Onto I.D. is the group's most overtly autobiographical release to date, Lambkin's lyrics obfuscate his expressionist tendencies filtering them through the codes and languages of officialdom, linking the "inner self" with documents of the state_identification cards, National Insurance numbers, and British passport numbers. Having moved out of their parents' homes and into the top floor of the famed Coombe House, Graham Lambkin and Darren Harris set out to rework material drafted over the previous year, aided by Tim Goss, still safely in residence at the "Valebrook Inn." While the familiar sounds of Harris's deadpan recitation and Lambkin's electric guitar, amateurishly strummed, dominate the album, the emotive interludes of Goss's keyboards populate the record along with of home-cooked tape experiments and dime-store concrète. Originally released on CD and supported by a US tour with friends Scott Foust and Karla Borecky's Idea Fire Company, Hold Onto I.D. is perhaps the band's best-known and most accessible album. (The Shadow Ring's sole representative on a streaming platform, it was once acknowledged by the Guardian as one of "the 101 strangest records on Spotify.") Offered here for the first time on vinyl, Hold Onto I.D. is an essential album for both completists and the uninitiated alike. Throughout their legendary, decade-long run, the Shadow Ring were an enigmatic force on the international musical sub-underground. Before their disbandment in 2002, this shambolic rock outfit, formed by a group of rowdy teenagers in southeast England, left behind a mighty run of eight LPs, a handful of 7"s, and a spate of raucous live shows and cryptic zine appearances on both sides of the Atlantic, all which have bolstered their enduring word-of-mouth mystique. Beginning in 2023 with the first-ever vinyl pressing of the self-released pre-Shadow Ring tape The Cat & Bells Club (1992), Blank Forms Editions has been conducting a systematic retrospective of the storied group. Wax-Work Echoes and Hold Onto I.D. are the latest releases in a multiyear reissue effort that includes several LPs, a comprehensive CD box set, and a nearly five-hundred-page book.

Durango 95 releases his new album on Discos Tabú. He shares with the world his unique sound which has been in the works for years. This album tells a personal story, inspired by remote places in Mexico and the roots of all its traditions; with a synergy of chaos and order. An inner fight between man and wolf in a remote place, in another time. There is a strong connection between the stories of the of land, his personal experiences and a journey through sintheseizers that gave life to Durango’s music. As Robert Moog; one of the most important pioneers of sinthesis once said. 'Everything has some consciousness and we tap into that. It is about energy at its most basic level.' This is an important philosophy behind Vamonos Muchacho.

The Tribulizations are a Brighton UK-based reggae vocal harmony duo living the rockers life style! They pay homage to UK style lovers’ rock and spiritual roots reggae. Music with a message! Fronted by Frankie Dread & Tara Gold.

‘Melody Babylon’ features tracks like “Freedom Fighter,” “Fade Away,” and “One Step Forward,” each reflecting Frankie Dread and Tara Gold’s roots in reggae and commitment to addressing both personal and societal themes through their music.

When asked, Frankie replied to World A Reggae: “Melody Babylon expresses our concern with negative messages in modern day music. The album portrays conscious lyrics with positive vibes.”

Der schwüle Ton von Eliana Glass ist nicht zu überhören - sie wechselt zwischen einer unkonventionellen, suchenden Qualität und ihrer ergreifenden, ehrfurchtgebietenden Bandbreite. Auch ihr Klavierspiel besitzt dieses mitreißende Hin und Her zwischen dem Jenseitigen und dem schmerzlich Menschlichen - jede Melodie ist ihr eigenes, einzigartiges, schmerzhaftes Reich. Glass' spärliche, meditative Musik fängt oft, wie sie sagt, die ,Verdichtung des Alltags" ein, ein Bild, das zu der bittersüßen, flüchtigen und abstrakten Natur ihrer Arbeit passt. Glass' Debütalbum E erscheint bei Shelter Press und ist nicht nur ein zärtliches Porträt ihrer lebenslangen Beziehung zum Klavier, sondern auch eine Destillation ganzer Lebenszeiten. Vier Jahre lang arbeitete Glass mit dem Mitbegründer und Produzenten von Public Records, Francis Harris (Frank & Tony, Adultnapper), und dem Tontechniker Bill Skibbe (Shellac, Jack White) zusammen, um das Album E in verschiedenen Studios in Nashville, Brooklyn, Memphis und Benton Harbor, Michigan, aufzunehmen. Glass' experimentelle, improvisatorische Werke erinnern an den sinnlichen Minimalismus von Annette Peacock, die freudige Rätselhaftigkeit von Carla Bley und die wehmütige Intimität von Sibylle Baier. Ihre Verehrung für die Größen des Leftfield Jazz und der freien Improvisation ist unüberhörbar, aber immer gefiltert durch ihren unverwechselbaren, naturalistischen Sound. ,Dreams" ist eine majestätische Interpretation von Peacocks gleichnamigem Stück aus dem Jahr 1971, ,Sing Me Softly the Blues` ist eine minimale, fesselnde Neuinterpretation von Baiers Jazzstandard mit einem von der norwegischen Sängerin Karin Krog adaptierten Text, und ,Emahoy` ist eine schmachtende Hommage an die äthiopische Pianistin, Komponistin und Nonne Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou und ihre 2006 erschienene Kompilation Éthiopiques. Glass' Musik basiert auf einem taktilen, sprunghaften Klang und ihrer stimmlichen Kraft und Vielseitigkeit. E's glatte Stöße von Kontrabass und Schlagzeug kitzeln den Gehörgang und betonen die Schlagfertigkeit ihrer unverwechselbaren tiefen Stimme, die sonore, androgyne Gelassenheit mit flatterhafter Zartheit verbindet. E hat auch eine rätselhafte elektronische Note, die die verschwommenen Emotionen von Glass' Songwriting noch verstärkt. Von Hintergrundrauschen und windigem Gesang bis hin zu kaleidoskopischen Synthesizern stammen diese subtilen, geschmackvollen Verzierungen oft von speziellem analogem Equipment: einer unterirdischen Echokammer aus den 1960er Jahren, einem Cooper Time Cube (im Grunde das Hardware-Äquivalent der Audioverarbeitung durch einen Gartenschlauch) und einem AEA-Bandmikrofon aus den 1940er Jahren. Aber das bedeutet nicht, dass E veraltet klingt - Glass' Songs sind von einem zukunftsweisenden Geist durchdrungen und fungieren letztlich als Vehikel für ihre berauschenden Emotionen und fragmentierten Erinnerungen und Träume. Glass' eigentümliche stimmliche Alchemie und ihre lebhaften Klavierausflüge sind meisterhaft und ganz und gar ihre Sache, und ihr Debütalbum ist ein Geschenk von klangvoller Schönheit und lohnender Mehrdeutigkeit. Als Musikerin und Improvisatorin ist Glass von der Suche nach Bedeutung, nach Klängen, nach Neuem, nach Verbindung begeistert und beherrscht diese. Und wie Krog 1975 in ,Sing Me Softly the Blues" sang: ,Life's so thrilling / if you search."

Maison Blanche, a prominent figure of the Parisian underground scene, delivers a vibrant new EP that blends soulful house, French Touch, and disco energy. What A Time! is a celebration of club culture, with modern, dancefloor-friendly tracks that bring together funky grooves and nostalgic references.

From the French Touch-inspired "Dance Forever" to the sunny and bouncy "All My Life," this EP captures the essence of Parisian nightlife. "Guilty Disco" offers a disco-infused guilty pleasure, while "Circle Again" pays tribute to the underground house spirit with its looping saxophones and pianos. Closing the EP, "Call Me Jazzy" fuses jazz, funk, and house, delivering a groovy anthem that encapsulates the project’s organic and euphoric energy.

With What A Time!, Maison Blanche offers an uplifting and dynamic collection, capturing the perfect energy for both the dancefloor and the summer ahead.

Neal Francis meldet sich zurück und veröffentlicht mit 'Return To Zero' sein drittes Album.

'Return To Zero' lässt Rock ’n’ Roll und 70er-Disco-Vibes zu einem einzigartigen analogen Sound verschmelzen. Mit treibenden Gitarrenriffs und üppigen Grooves zeigt er seine bisher ambitionierteste Seite.

For his third long-player under the Phi-Psonics banner, Ford-Young marshalled a series of live recordings at the Healing Force Of The Universe record store in Pasadena, sculpting fourteen tracks, largely composed in the moment with a fluctuating cast of players, which wonderfully transmit his ideals of community and inner peace. Called "Expanding To One", it features exquisitely calming yet searching pieces like "There"s Still Hope", where Seth"s softly undulating bassline underpins beatific explorations from core Phi-Psonics members, Sylvain Carton and Randal Fisher (both on saxophone), and Josh Collazo (drums), alongside guests Zach Tenorio (Wurlitzer piano) and Mathias Künzli (percussion). Equally sublime, "Healing Time" ripples like a mountain stream, with Ford-Young, Carton, Fisher and Tenorio joined by Minta Spencer (harp), Dylan Day (guitar) and, on drums/percussion, Jay Bellerose, a revered LA stickman most recently under the spotlight in Jeff Parker ETA IVtet.

More than a decade after his last full album, Kim Hiorthøy returns with Ghost Note, released by the Belgian label Blickwinkel. Though his music has quietly existed in the background—shaping contemporary dance, film, and theatre—this album brings it into focus once more. Ghost Note is an exploration of sound on the edge of presence and absence, a fictional world that is both constructed and organic.

Using mostly digital technology, Hiorthøy created a set of instruments that are real—you can hear them, they have tone, timbre, and resonance—but also not. The percussion, for instance, sounds like cheap scrap metal drums. But are they real? Do they exist? Hiorthøy plays with perception, challenging what feels real and what feels like a memory. In doing so, Ghost Note becomes an invitation to embrace uncertainty and indefinability.

“It's a kind of foggy area between theatre and daily life. Ghost notes. I wanted to try to make music that existed in this in-between space. Electronic music that is acoustic, a kind of emotional music that also hides in abstraction (or the other way around), and to try to make tracks that were sort of falling apart as I was making them.” ­- Kim Hiorthøy

“The Mighty Tiny & The Many Few have released their debut Album ‘Be The Good People’

A life- and love-affirming record crafted with vintage techniques and timeless principles.

Walshy Fire (Major Lazer) bridges cross-continental connections in collaboration with Grammy-winning composer and writer Randy Valentine, a South London-based artist hailing from Clarendon, Jamaica. Joining them is Copenhagen-based improvisational jazz visionary Steven Jess Borth II, aka CHLLNGR (I Am An Instrument) along with the crème de la crème of Danish jazz talent, including Morten McCoy, Jonathan Bremer, Rumpistol, Mikkel Hess, Laurits Qwist Bilén, Frederik Scharff and more.

For over two decades, Randy Valentine has cultivated a distinctive voice in music, and his latest work with the concept band The Mighty Tiny and the Many Few brings this artistry to life in a fresh, vibrant way. Brought together by Steven Jess Borth II and Walshy Fire, the band unites over 15 musicians from three continents, celebrating collaboration and shared joy. Alongside Ånd&, the team has crafted a musical masterpiece that resonates with a global perspective and a collective spirit of creative expression.

"Be The Good People" is both a statement and a declaration of revolutionary love—a bold call to action. This seven-track album blends soul-drenched, horn-driven, and timeless instrumentation with forward-thinking, insightful lyrics inspired by life’s triumphs and challenges. The result is a powerful musical journey, promising to be a rewarding ride for every anchoring ear.

‘Be The Good People’ is released independently on new label imprint Ånd&.”

No one can help you build something beautiful quite like those who know you best. Alan Sparhawk knows this well. In his years in Low, he built decades of stirring music with his wife and lifelong creative partner Mimi Parker. In recent years, he has performed around Minnesota with his son Cyrus in DERECHO Rhythm Section, a funk band that also frequently features his daughter Hollis on vocals. There's an irreplaceable naturalism that comes with this kind of dynamic. Those who know you understand you. They love you. They want to help you bring your greatest passions to fruition. So it made sense that Sparhawk would turn to fellow Duluth musicians Trampled by Turtles to realize his latest record. As friends and mentees of Low's, taken under Sparhawk and Parker's wing from their earliest days as a bar band, Trampled by Turtles have performed with Sparhawk countless times over the years. The Duluth ties run deep: "There's a certain vibe that has to do with underdog syndrome, coming from a small town," Sparhawk muses. "Some of it is the weird grind and slackness that being at the mercy of Mother Nature puts in you. It humbles you." The two artists hold the kind of ironclad bond. Following Parker's passing in 2022, Trampled by Turtles invited Sparhawk to join them on tour to give him a space to be surrounded by friends. Occasionally, he would join them onstage. The outpouring of love was palpable every time they played together, a surge of warmth. When playing together is that powerful, why stop there? In winter, 2024, Sparhawk and Trampled by Turtles created With Trampled by Turtles, a record exactly as its name implies: Collective. Communal. Fraternal. Empathetic. A vessel for comfort, a reminder of the harmony that can exist when surrounded by those closest to you. Where White Roses, My God, Sparhawk's last album, plunged headfirst into electronica and radical vocal modulation, With Trampled by Turtles leans into the folk and bluegrass stylings of its backing band, Sparhawk's voice now completely unvarnished. With Trampled by Turtles is far more than just Alan Sparhawk and Trampled by Turtles. It's an affirmation of all the people who have been vital in Sparhawk's life and music, and an opportunity to hold each of their gifts into the light. It's producer Nat Harvie, who has been collaborating and performing with him for years. It's Sparhawk's daughter Hollis, who duets with her father on "Not Broken." And it's Mimi Parker, too: "Too High," "Princess Road Surgery," and "Not Broken" were all tracks she and Sparhawk had been working on in the last few years. These songs finally found a setting that stirringly commemorates them, bolstered by a full ensemble to make every note sing. Their presence is a kind of eternal connection to Parker, a way her musical grace will keep flourishing.

It’s been ten years since Drew Lustman aka FaltyDL last released on Planet Mu. In the meantime he's been running his own label Blueberry Records, been in-house producer for Mykki Blanco and has become a dad. The best things come out of play and it was Drew’s relationship with his young daughter that switched on this playful side of his music. The album in question, ‘Neurotica,’ expresses Drew’s fun in creating such energetic pieces people will want to move to. It's a dizzying sugar-rush at a high-speed bounce; the music is fresh and inviting and most important of all, joyful."Summer of ’24, we were in Catalonia. My girl, our young daughter, the old folks. Days by the village pool, afternoons on the dirtbike. At night, I made salads. Simple things. Good things. One afternoon, lying back, phone in hand, I saw a friend post a GRWM. The music behind it stopped me. A song grabbed hold. The track was ‘Secret’ by Mietze Conte, which is fast-paced euro-pop dance music, like soft fluffy gabber with childlike vocals. I hunted down the full version. Played it again. And again. Twenty times over the next few days. It unlocked something. The best music does that. Like the first time I heard Burial. Had to know what was happening under the surface. That time, it led to ‘Love Is A Liability’ in 2009. This time, it led to ‘Neurotica.’“ “I started to record, getting down fast, bright, sugar-rush sounds. 185 to 200 BPM. I wrote them quick—half a day per track. In between, I slowed things down. Gave space for breath. Mike Paradinas helped shape the album, his ear guiding the flow. I tested the tracks. Played them for kids barely out of diapers and grown folks who still move like they are. It worked, on all ages. I kept it simple. Only two rules: keep it moving and don’t look at my phone. Cut the vocals like I used to.” ‘Neurotica’ is FaltyDL with his mojo refreshed, a new life squared, do yourself a favour, crack a smile and feel the joy.

Death Is Not The End release a second part collecting pre-partition film music, compiled by Gary Sullivan of Bodega Pop.

As the 1940s began, South Asian cinema entered a transformative phase. Playback singing, still a new idea in the previous decade, quickly became standard practice. Actors no longer had to sing, and singers no longer had to act, opening the door to a wave of dedicated vocal talent that redefined the sound of the industry.

Voices like Noor Jehan, Shamshad Begum, and Suraiya rose to prominence, becoming household names across the subcontinent. Behind them, composers like Naushad, Anil Biswas, and Ghulam Haider were expanding the sonic palette of film music, blending ragas with Western orchestration, folk tunes with jazz-era instrumentation. Harmoniums, sarangis, violins, accordions, and clarinets filled out increasingly complex arrangements, while ghazals and qawwalis continued to influence mood and structure.

Although the post-Partition years are often considered to be Bollywood's "Golden Age," thanks to filmmakers like Raj Kapoor, Bimal Roy, and Guru Dutt, the music started its peak just before the divide. By 1947, Naushad and others were producing some of the most emotionally rich and musically intricate work in the industry's history, compositions that would prove challenging to surpass in the decades that followed.

Yet this high point came during a time of immense upheaval. The Second World War, the Bengal famine, and the crumbling of colonial rule all loomed large. Film songs often reflected the uncertainty, sometimes mournful, sometimes romantic, sometimes defiant. And when the Partition finally came, it fractured the world that had created this music. Artists became refugees, studios were split, and careers were thrown into flux. Noor Jehan, who would go on to become Pakistan's most iconic singer, recorded many of her most beloved songs in Bombay. Khursheed, another major star, faded from public life after migrating. K.L. Saigal, a towering figure of the 1930s and '40s, died in Lahore just months before the split.

This collection spans those final years before Partition, a time of creative flowering and looming catastrophe. Like Part 1, these songs were sourced from immigrant-run music shops in New York and New Jersey. They are fragments of a vanishing world, each one a snapshot of the art, longing, and resilience that defined this extraordinary era.

MEMOTONE, aka Will Yates, has announced details of a new 12-track album, smallest things, set for release on World of Echo on 1 August 2025 on vinyl and digitally.

The album launches today with first track, ‘Time Is Away Theme’, a live favourite that is finally available on album. Watch the video HERE Talking about the release, Will has said, “Staring at a square inch of neglected concrete, I recognise the beauty of existence. Quietly hysterical. While humanitarian catastrophes bubble across the planet, the tides remain in constant and disinterested motion. Your money is worth less than the dusty moss that powders this pavement.

It's certainly not worth a life. We are the smallest things, along with everything else." Will Yates has made music as Memotone since 2007. He operates in the tradition of what Robert Fripp has called 'a small, independent, mobile, and intelligent unit.' If you book him, he will come. When he arrives, he will have everything he needs to make his complex, engaging music: a clarinet, a guitar, synths, samplers and pedals, quickly unpacked in the corner of a club, gallery or village hall. Starting small, he will build layer upon layer of melody, accompanying himself and cutting across himself, creating a music that avoids cliche and moves beyond easy description. His recordings have followed the same trajectory. Moving quickly, he has released fifteen or so albums across various labels (including Trilogy Tapes, Discrepant, Soda Gong). Taken together, these recordings are the sound of a skilled, inventive composer pushing at the edges of what he wants to listen to himself. It is possible to hear a variety ofinfluences in his music: folk and jazz forms, the textural inventiveness of British DI electronica and Chicago post-rock and the blurred sci-fi brass of Jon Hassell are all discernible. But mostly, Will's work seems to stem from a constant drift between long hours in his home studio, and time spent outside in the woods and hills around his home in Wales.

Listening to the album, lushness creeps in at the edges, tiny green shoots appear on what might at first appear to be bare soil. smallest things sheds the skin of Will's previous recordings, removing the electronics and the looping and layering of previous work, to create something almost entirely acoustic. But don't be fooled into imagining music that's folksy, pastoral or twee. Opening track 'I Could See the Smallest Things' is a statement of intent. Widely spaced guitar is underpinned by earthy cello and sleepwalking clarinet, making a gorgeous threadbare pattern, which recalls a Morton Feldman miniature or a Morandi still life.

Beyond the skill involved and the years of self-taught music making that have gone into putting this record together, it is Will's close, careful attention and his talent for existing, observing and creating in the moment that make his work special. Memotone will perform at World of Echo’s annual birthday celebration on 8 Nov Expected Music, when they take over Walthamstow Trades Hall for an inter-genre, day-long investigation into some of the more outré manifestations of the contemporary worldwide underground.

CATCHY, MESMERIZINGLY BEAUTIFUL, DREAMY CHAMBER POP WITH A FOLKY TWIST

Music can have a multitude of emotional impacts and can create inner worlds out of voices, sounds, and moods.
If you open heart and ear to the mesmerizing, hauntingly beautiful soundscapes of AURI, you might find a beacon of light inside a sonic realm untouched by today’s often scary, grim realities; a dreamscape that can be profoundly uplifting.
On their third studio album, III - Candles & Beginnings’ the stars have aligned yet again. Propelled by the unique and celestial voice of Johanna Kurkela, the magical textures of Nightwish mastermind Tuomas Holopainen and the almost unlimited musical palette of Nigtwish multi-instrumentalist Troy Donockley, Auri have presented a world to be unlocked with the senses, blending folk, progressive and symphonic elements, world music, pop and avantgarde.
Right after completing Nightwish’s 2024 monument Yesterwynde, the songwriting for the third chapter in Auri’s musical adventures started in 2023, with Troy writing in Yorkshire and Tuomas and Johanna working their creative magic in Kitee, Finland. By Autumn 2024, a 10-song demo was complete, setting the stage for what would become another breathtaking Auri journey. The band and their trusted engineer Tero “Teecee” Kinnunen took the mixing process to sunny Spain, letting the Andalucian vibes infuse the music whereas in March 2025 mastering was wrapped up by Tim Oliver at the legendary Real World Studios - a ground-breaking recording complex started by Peter Gabriel in 1989.
The album is a tapestry of emotions - each song a world of its own, touching on childhood memories, vivid life experiences, and even a nod to one of the group’s most beloved places on Earth - The Lion Inn at Blakey Ridge, a historic spot nestled in the North York Moors and one of the most remote pubs you will ever find.
Visually, the cover artwork by Pete Voutilainen, layout and watercolors by Mikko Pankasalo plus calligraphy by Johanna Kurkela provide wonderful illustrations perfectly capturing Auri’s unique musical visions.
With guest musicians like Frank Van Essen (strings), Jonas Pap (cello), Juho Kanervo (basses), and the incredible drumming and percussion courtesy of Nightwish’s Kai Hahto, Auri III - Candles & Beginnings is as lush as it is atmospheric and provides astonishing dynamics.
Having been a studio endeavor in the past, Auri is finally going on tour with their first-ever live European trek kicking off in August 2025, followed by summer festivals in 2026, allowing you to hear, see and feel songs from their previous two albums, as well as brand new pieces from III - Candles & Beginnings.

Born in 1981 in Detroit, MI, Negative Approach were the undisputed champs of Midwestern hardcore in the early to mid-'80s. Led by John Brannon's hoarse wail, with OP Moore on drums and brothers Rob and Graham McCulloch playing guitar and bass respectively, the band concocted an extreme sound devoid of frills. This was first documented on their 10 Song 7" released on Touch and Go Records in 1982. The band released the more metallic-sounding Tied Down in 1983. After disbanding Negative Approach in 1985, John Brannon went on to form Laughing Hyenas. For over three decades, Negative Approach's minimalist and aggressive brand of punk has inspired countless hardcore bands around the globe. Their classic LP, Tied Down, is still considered paramount by most hardcore fans new and old.

The quietest voices can be the most durable.

American Football’s original triumph, on their 1999 self-titled debut, was to reunite two shy siblings: emo and post-rock. It was a pioneering album where lyrical clarity was obscured and complicated by the stealth musical textures surrounding it.

Like Slint’s Spiderland, or Codeine’s The White Birch, even Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock, American Football asked far more questions than it cared to answer. But there wasn’t a band around anymore to explain it, anyway. The three young men who made the album – Mike Kinsella, Steve Holmes, and Steve Lamos – split up pretty much on its release.

Fifteen years later, American Football reunited (now as a four-piece, with the addition of Nate Kinsella). They played far larger shows than in their original incarnation and recorded their long-anticipated second album, 2016’s American Football (LP2). The release was widely praised, but the band members still felt like their best work was yet to come.

‘I feel like the second album was us figuring it out,’ says Nate. ‘For me, it wasn’t quite done. I knew there was still more.’

Enter American Football (LP3). ‘We put a lot of time and a lot of energy into it,’ says Mike. ‘We were all thoughtful about what we wanted to put out there. Last time, it was figuring out how to use all of our different arms. This time, we were like – Ok we have these arms, let’s use them.’ The band used the same producer, Jason Cupp, and recorded the album at the same studio (Arc Studios in Omaha, Nebraska) as its predecessor – yet they approached it in a markedly different way. There was a determination to let the songs breathe, to trust in ideas finding their own pace. The final result is a definite, and deliberate, stretching of the band.

As a result, LP3 is less obviously tethered to the band’s past than the second album. An immediate contrast between LP3 and its two predecessors is its cover. The two previous albums featured the exterior and interior of a residence in the band’s original hometown of Urbana, Illinois (now attracting fans for pilgrimages and photo opportunities), by the photographer Chris Strong. But American Football knew that LP3 was an outside record. Instead of the familiar house, this time the cover photo (again by Strong) features open, rolling fields on Urbana’s borders. It is a sign of the album’s magnitude in sound, and of the band’s boldness in breaking away from home comforts.

American Football also joked that LP3’s genre was ‘post-house’, because of this very conscious visual break. But, in a strange way, there are links in LP3 with an actual post-house genre: shoegaze. The more exploratory members of the original British shoegaze scene were inspired by the dreamtime and circularity of house music (ambient house in particular), cherishing its sonic possibilities. That spirit drips into LP3, most obviously on ‘I Can’t Feel You’, a collaboration with Rachel Goswell of Slowdive.

The album also features Hayley Williams from Paramore on the album’s catchiest moment, ‘Uncomfortably Numb’, and Elizabeth Powell, of the Québécoise act Land Of Talk. Mike wrote lyrics in French especially for her.

LP3 is contemplative, rich, expressive, yet with a queasy undercurrent. It is heavy with expectancy, revealing its ideas slowly, eliciting the hidden stories people carry around with them. ‘I feel like my lyric writing has changed a lot over the years,’ says Mike. ‘The goal is to be conversational, maybe to state something giant and heavy, but in a very plain way. But, definitely in this record, I keep things a little more vague.’ As on the first album, the lyrics on LP3 may seem confessional and concentrated, but the more you scrutinize them, the further their meaning slinks away. Or, as Mike tellingly sings on ‘I Can’t Feel You”: I’m fluent in subtlety.

‘Somewhere along the way we moved from being a reunion band to just being a band,’ says Steve Holmes. American Football is now a bona fide ongoing focus, and they are making some of the best music of their lives. American Football (LP3) stands with two other rare reunion successes – Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine’s mbv – as a fine example of how a band refinding one another can augment, rather than taint, their legacy.

‘I think that there are those albums, or the music that you heard when you were younger, and they imprint on you,’ says Nate. ‘And no matter where you go, or what you do they’re always there.’ He is talking of Steve Reich – an early and ongoing influence on American Football – but he might as well be reflecting what is said of his own band, and the ardent following they inspire. American Football stands as an enduring symbol of elusive emotional landscapes, where introspection can be as dramatic as confrontation

This isn't your abuela's salsa night - this is CHEO Y LOS CONSENTIDOS DE LA CASA. Funk-forward. Rhythm-obsessed. 100% dance floor approved. Cheo y Los Consentidos de la Casa is a dynamic, funk-infused Latin music project led by Cheo Pardo (of Los Amigos Invisibles). Serving as the house band for a bi-weekly dance night at NYC's Nublu, the group blends salsa, boogaloo, cha-cha-cha, and bolero with psychedelic effects and deep grooves. Their debut live album captures this high-energy fusion, reimagining Latin classics with a modern, electrifying twist that honors tradition while pushing boundaries. Born from a love of vintage Latin soul and the raw energy of NYC's dance floors, Cheo assembled an all-star crew of the city's hottest Latin players to cook up a high-octane blend of salsa, boogaloo, cha-cha-cha, and bolero - all filtered through wah-wah pedals, space echoes, fuzzy guitar solos, and a deep, unshakable groove. The result? A psychedelic, percussive party that's equal parts tradition and funked-out future. Their debut album, recorded live at Nublu, captures the heat, sweat, and sabor of their wildest nights - reimagining classics from Joe Cuba, Willie Colón, Eddie Palmieri, Mon Rivera, and more. Each track is a tribute and a reinvention, breathing new life into the old- school with a cosmic twist, and opening the doors for a whole new generation to feel that sabrosura in their bones.

The Ancient Greeks & Romans sure had that "classic" touch. Before their empires crumbled into ruin, they set the standard with their classical forms, in art, buildings, and philosophy. They've set the pace ever since with pretenders and imitators making "classical music," "neo-classical architecture," and of course "classic rock" _ Once something is a classic, it's untouchable. No one would dare attempt to improve it. That would be sacrilege! After all, who could do better than Ovid, Homer, & Virgil? Or the classic tunes of Rolling Stones, the Stooges, et al? They're the gold standard of perfection; no one would dare try to improve upon them_ until XYZ that is! That's right, XYZ -- those little-known legends -have achieved the impossible; they've taken the classics and made them even better! More relevant, more updated, more "now," more _ wow! They improved the classics using all the latest sensibilities, technologies & innovations. On "XYZ PLAYS THE CLASSICS," the XYZ band - the twosome that sang "Bubble Gum" - take the beloved but tired tunes of the classic rock canon - The Rolling Stones, VU, Neu!, The Seeds, Stooges, & the other Hall of Famers - and resuscitates them, pumping new blood into worn-out veins, revitalize them with new themes, new lyrics, and new riffs to make them new again! This is the record that merges the old with the new, that completes the circle of life; it's the cosmic record that everyone needs right now!

New colour on Enter Shikari’s 2023 number 1 album.

Enter Shikari are a rock band from St Albans, UK. In 2020, they released their sixth album - Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible - which also gave them their sixth album to debut in the UK Album Chart top 5. Frequently collecting Best Live Artist awards, Enter Shikari’s seventeen-year career thus far has seen them rise from teenagers touring the UK grassroots venues, to festival main stages and arena headliners worldwide.

It was in the Spring of 2022 that the band descended to the coastal town of Chichester, and a delipidated farmhouse, to rebuild their studio setup and capture their renewed momentum on record. Using only solar power to track the album–in what Reynolds says was to “bring back some sense of naivety” – the life-giving properties and Technicolor palate of A Kiss For The Whole World were made real. Reynolds continues: “Back to basics. This band - my best friends - bundled into an old farmhouse, miles away from anywhere. Off-grid, and ready to rediscover ourselves. This album is powered by the sun, the most powerful object in our solar system. And I think you can tell. It’s a collection of songs that represent an explosive reconnection with what Enter Shikari is. The beginning of our second act”.

Mutant is proud to present Academy Award®-winning composer Michael Giacchino’s latest installment of his Exotic Themes for the Silver Screen series - Featuring more iconic scores from Giacchino’s career that have been exclusively rearranged and re-recorded for this series in the retro lounge style of the 1950s.

Volume 2 spans the period of 2012 to 2022 and features not only his work with Marvel Studios (including their iconic Marvel Studios Fanfare, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange and more!) but also more career defining music for Disney • Pixar (Inside Out, Coco and Lightyear) as well as smaller, cult classics like John Carter, and Tomorrowland, more personal films such as Jojo Rabbit and The Book of Henry. He has taken these iconic themes and transformed them into soothing, beautiful 60’s lounge-inspired reworks.

Other highlights include ‘The Batman Suite’, taken from Matt Reeves' 2022 blockbuster The Batman, ‘Jyn Erso’s Theme’ from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, as well as themes for War For The Planet Of The Apes, Jurassic World and two selections taken from his directorial debut Werewolf By Night

"We are thrilled to continue exploring Michael’s storied career with this incredible collection of some of his most beloved themes reworked for warm summer nights with a cocktail (or mocktail) in hand," says Mutant co-founder Spencer Hickman. "Michael is a rare composer who is comfortable with superheroes, horror, action, or intimate drama. He always manages to create incredibly beautiful earworms that have been further highlighted by these stripped-back downtempo versions of his award-winning themes.’

Featuring liner notes by Charles Phoenix, artwork by Luke Insect, and pressed on limited edition color vinyl (also available on CD)
“So much was rooted in the big orchestral sound, so it was really about scaling it back. The real trick is figuring out the little fun hooks and things you can add along the way. There were no rules; I was up for anything. It was a way to re-engage with the material and be creative in a new way.”

Exotic Themes for the Silver Screen – Volume 1 includes an array of reinterpreted pieces from Michael Giacchino’s career. Highlights include ‘Primordial Forest’ from the 1997 video game The Lost World: Jurassic Park, ‘Life and Death’ from Lost, the theme from Ratatouille, ‘Roar!’ from Cloverfield, ‘Enterprising Young Men’ from Star Trek (2009), ‘A Man, A Plan, A Code, Dubai’ from Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, and a Super 8 suite.

Featuring package design by Luke Insect, and liner notes by Charles Phoenix.

French electronic producer heylucas (formerly Luca) steps into a new era with his highly anticipated debut album, "hey".



Following a series of acclaimed singles throughout 2024 and 2025, "hey" marks a turning point in his artistic journey. After his first live performance in late 2024 met with enthusiasm, it became clear, Luca was no longer just a bedroom producer but a true performer. A shift that inspired the name change from Luca to heylucas, embracing a broader vision for his music. This career change is all the more significant now that he has just announced his very first solo live show at POPUP! in Paris on 24 May.


"hey" is a deeply personal recollection of emotions: the highs and the lows, the joy of loved ones, the grief of loss, and the thrill of firsts. From euphoric moments to introspective instants, the album showcase the diverse experience of the artist during this transformative year. Singles like "do the things that bring joy" "either it goes well, or it passes" and "keep dancing" are the perfect example, shaping his signature sound: heartfelt, uplifting tracks that make you want to move and reflect at the same time.


“Do It All Again” in collaboration with Swedish duo HNE, features spoken vocal snippets collected from real-life encounters in the final months of the album’s creation, blend with an energetic/euphoric production.


The album release will be doubled by the release of an exclusive live session by heylucas in which he will reinterpret classics from his repertoire as well as new tracks from his “hey” album.



More than an album, hey is a statement. It’s heylucas’s way of waving hello to listeners, to concertgoers, and to everyone who connects with the emotions he pours into his music.

Maggot Mass, the fifth full-length album by Pharmakon on Sacred Bones Records, marks the project's return after a five-year hiatus. This album signifies a departure from the original rules and structures established by Margaret Chardiet for Pharmakon, evolving into a new form. It retains the project's experimental roots in power electronics and noise while incorporating industrial and punk influences. The album stems from a profound disgust with humanity's dysfunctional relationship with the environment and other life forms. It explores the loneliness resulting from this broken bond and challenges us to acknowledge our personal and systemic responsibility. What peace can we make with privilege when the true cost of our comfort is not measured in dollars but in death? How can we reconcile with death when we impose the same hierarchical structures on it that we do in life? Is life worth living in the isolation of this self-imposed species loneliness? Humans often measure worth by accumulation _ money, assets, objects _ mistaking this for power and influence. Western heritage dictates a hierarchy, placing humans at the top, separate from the natural world. This delusion turns bodies into objects, land into property, and people into expendable tools. If our value were instead determined by our contribution to the ecosystem, who could claim that a human is more valuable than a maggot? Maggots recycle death into life, breaking down matter and nourishing new growth. They transform into flies, pollinating plants and sustaining the Earth's flora. In contrast, humans pollute rather than pollinate, with a select few profiting from exploitation at the expense of biodiversity and the well-being of many. In grappling with grief and loss on both personal and global scales, Margaret sought solace in the idea of rebirth through death, celebrating the beauty of regeneration through decay. However, she had to confront the stark reality of the disconnection from the earth under oppressive systems. Pharmakon is here imagining a path where the final act is to give back what was received from creation, offering our lives and deaths to sustain existence. once I slough off this human skin I will find my home and ancestral kin_ in the coffin-birth of my cadaver's ecosystem

‘Absurd Matter’ is a labyrinthine sonic conundrum that spirals around the two poles of extreme noise and hiphop. It's Berlin-based Italian producer Shapednoise's first album in four years and confidently advances his narrative into the next chapter, building on the groundwork of his prior abstractions to emerge with a coherent genre-warped fusion of urgent rap, crushing bass weight and idiosyncratic sound design. After spending years scrupulously deconstructing club music, Nino Pedone has rebuilt it brick by brick in his image.

The album is the first release on Pedone's brand new imprint WEIGHT LOOMING, a multidisciplinary label platform that's set to explore the depths of bass music, textured noise and abrasive transcendence. It follows a slew of acclaimed releases for Numbers,
Opal Tapes, Type and his own Cosmo Rhythmatic label, and forward thinking collaborations with Kenyan beat alchemist Slikback and Hyperdub-signed Angolan producer Nazar. Pedone's most ambitious project to date, ‘Absurd Matter’ taps into kinetic energy from a hand-picked selection of collaborators, including New York rap duo Armand
Hammer, French DJ/producer Brodinski, Bruiser Brigade's ZelooperZ and vanguard Philly poet, musician, and activist Moor Mother.


On ‘Family’, Billy Woods and Elucid weave a dismal, apocalyptic landscape with their razor-sharp anecdotes. The duo’s macabre imagery is given artificial life by Pedone's industrial scrapes and rattles that curl around their worlds like thick smoke. It's still rap, just about, but lodges itself in the back room of a factory, machines running themselves to an early death. Pairing with techno-rap trailblazer Brodinski, Pedone edges further towards the sound system, spatializing rhythms in four dimensions around Detroit rapper
ZelooperZ's playful expressions. This is the Italian producer's sci-fi tinged liquefaction of radio echoes, a way to fire familiarity into the void and sublime the human voice into weightless mist. When Moor Mother arrives shouting "me me me" on the aptly-titled 'Poetry', it sounds as if all of Pedone's loose threads are being tightened into a knot. His misshapen neo-grime beats sound like a broken jet engine, but smartly cede power to Moor Mother's resonant rhymes. "You can't cancel me" she assures. ‘Absurd Matter’ is a defining personal development for Pedone that not only appraises his career so far, but diverts its logic into frighteningly new sonic territory. From great loss, the producer has determined his work's cardinal themes, and sounds more strident and far heavier than ever before.

"Tonky" ist Lonnie Holleys fünftes Studioalbum und enthält Gastauftritte von Isaac Brock, Angel Bat Dawid, Billy Woods, Alabaster de Plume, Mary Lattimore und anderen. Bei der Leadsingle "Protest With Love" ist Jacknife Lee, der auch das gefeierte Vorgängeralbum "Oh Me Oh My" produziert hat, als Bassist, Keyboarder, Synthesizer, Schlagzeuger, Programmierer, Flötist, Percussionist und Sänger zu hören. Weitere Mitwirkende sind The Legendary Ingramettes am Gesang, Kelly Pratt an den Bläsern und Flöten, Jordan Katz an den Bläsern und natürlich Holley am Gesang. Holley fordert die Zuhörer auf, "mit Liebe zu protestieren" und "die Liebe zu deiner Waffe zu machen". Es gibt Dichter wie die große Mary Oliver, die vorschlagen, dass die Hauptfunktion des Menschen, wenn er sich durch die Welt bewegt, solange er Leben und die Fähigkeit hat, sich durch die Welt zu bewegen, darin besteht, dem Aufmerksamkeit zu schenken, was andere törichterweise als klein oder alltäglich bezeichnen mögen. Das Gehirn und das Herz sind beides Gefäße, die so viel Platz haben, wie man ihnen zugestehen möchte, und zu leben bedeutet, Sammlungen von gefundenen Zuneigungen zu schaffen. Die Geräusche der geliebten und vertrauten Häuser, die Bewegungen der Bäume und der Menschen unter ihnen, die Art und Weise, wie jemand, den man verehrt, einen ein paar Sekunden lang umarmt, bevor er sich aus der Umarmung löst und in einer überfüllten Fußgängerzone verschwindet. Wenn wir unser Leben, unser Schaffen und unsere Liebe auf diese Weise betrachten, bedeutet das, dass wir, zumindest für einige von uns, durch die Aussicht auf das, was als Nächstes kommt, vorwärts getrieben werden können. Welchen Moment wir festhalten und in unsere überquellenden Taschen stecken können. Die Arbeit von Lonnie Holley ist ein Werk dieser Art von Anhäufung und genauer Aufmerksamkeit. Das Vergnügen, einen Klang zu finden und ihn gegen einen anderen gefundenen Klang und einen weiteren zu pressen, bis der Hörer, bevor er es merkt, von einer Klangsinfonie überflutet wird, die sich anfühlt, als würde sie sich zusammenfügen, während sie über einen hinwegspült. "Tonky" ist ein Album, das seinen Namen von einem Spitznamen aus der Kindheit hat, der Holley anhaftete, als er einen Teil seiner Kindheit in einem Honky Tonk verbrachte. Lonnie Holleys Leben des Überlebens und der Ausdauer erforderte - und erfordert zweifellos immer noch - eine Art Erfindung. Eine Erfindung, die auch in Holleys Liedern reichhaltig und präsent ist, die auf "Tonky" voll und eindringlich sind, einem Album, das mit seinem längsten Lied beginnt, einem neunminütigen, erschöpfenden Marathon eines Stücks namens "Seeds", das mit einem einzigen spärlichen Klang beginnt und sich dann ausdehnt. Gesänge, schwache Tasten, Streicher und als Krönung Holleys Stimme, die nicht singt, sondern klar und deutlich von der Arbeit auf der Erde erzählt, als er jung war, und von der Gewalt, die er dabei ertragen musste, als er blutig und mit Schmerzen von Schlägen ins Bett ging. Der Song weitet sich zu einer Metapher über den Ort aus, über das Versagen des Zuhauses oder eines Ortes, der einen beschützen soll, der nicht das hält, was er zu sein vorgibt, selbst wenn man unermüdlich daran arbeitet, daran arbeitet, daran arbeitet, etwas Sinnvolles daraus zu machen. "Seeds" gibt nicht nur den Ton für ein Album an, das sich um Wiedergeburt, Erneuerung und die Grenzen von Hoffnung und Glaube dreht, sondern unterstreicht auch, was Holleys größte Stärke als Musiker ist, nämlich sein Engagement für Fülle und Großzügigkeit. Er ist ein unglaublich begabter Geschichtenerzähler, der sich der mündlichen Tradition verschrieben hat, so dass viele Hörer völlig zufrieden wären, wenn sie zu Füßen einer Lonnie-Holley-Platte säßen und seinen robusten, ausladenden Erzählungen lauschen könnten. Aber "Tonky" ist ein Album, das sowohl klanglich als auch in Bezug auf die vielen verschiedenen Künstler, die auf dem Album vertreten sind, einen Platz bietet, an dem sie sich zu Hause fühlen können, ganz gleich, wie sie die Zeit verbringen, die sie für einen Song brauchen.

Turnend Tapes is back with some superb cuts from Swiss duo Le Lab Registered. These have only previously been available on CD having dropped back in 2006 and are indicative of their experimental, rule-breaking techno sound which is full of life and imagination. 'The Pitch' kicks off with rugged drums and haunting synth notes, 'Radio Tirana' then layers spoken words into eerie synth modulations and moody drones and 'CB Music' is a slithering and minimal sound with retro-future chords. 'Broadcast All Electronic' shuts down with another wiry arrangement, bleeps, squeaks and the sound of muffled vocals and radio interference all adding an occult edge.

DJ Support: Support by Kenneth Bager, Colleen "Cosmo" Murphy, Phil Mison, Chris Coco, Erki Pruul, Steve Cobby, Max Essa, DJ Gripper, Phil Cooper, La Guardia De La Luz, Johan Blende, Bill Brewster, Mike Salta, Pete Herbert, DJ Dribbler / For Mankind and many more.



Greek duo Bonnie & Klein serve up an Aegean musical escape with their new Glam Pulse EP on Hell Yeah.

George Fountzoulas and Thanasis Skouzis are lifelong Balearic brothers who offer up their own soul-stirring take on the sound on labels like Music For Dreams and NuNorthern Soul. They are inspired by the sunsets and seas of their homeland and bring great imagination to their melodies as this new outing proves.

'Glam Pulse' sets a gorgeous tone from the off with wavy grooves and a peppering of percussion. As well as some singing guitar riffs, sundown synths and shimmering chords make this a steamy and seductive gem. 'Haleakala' is another perfect soundtrack to lazing on the beach and watching the sun sink into the sea while new age motifs wash over you and carry away your woes. Proggy guitars speak to the soul on 'Horizon Avenue' as woody xylophones and wispy leads ride on dubby bass and 'Sunion' closes with hints of melancholy - a lament for the final dance of a long hot summer with lingering trumpets lodging deep in your heart.

Bonnie & Klein tap into real Balearic magic on this EP and effortlessly transport you to a sandy paradise.

2025 Repress

kuniyuki takahashi—one of japan’s leading, if not the world’s most remarkable producers—originally released his debut album we are together on cd in 2006. nearly two decades later, the album is finally seeing a vinyl release to commemorate the 300th title from mule musiq.

“kuni is a true artist an artist that i love and respect.
his music displays true emotion and life and when i listen to his music
i can feel his soul but most importantly it’s his own music.
kuni thank you for giving our planet your music,spirit and heart peace,
love and respect”

joaquin joe claussell

‘Maybe I’m Dreaming’ is the latest collection selected by Mikey Young (Total Control, EddyCurrent Suppression Ring) and Keith Abrahamsson (Founder and Head of A&R at AnthologyRecordings), the mangled minds behind the beloved ‘Follow the Sun’, ‘Sad About the Times’,and ‘…Still Sad’ compilations. The twenty tracks of ‘Maybe I’m Dreaming’ make a conscious(and unconscious) detour from its predecessors, sourced entirely from private press releases,spanning new decades and production modes within homespun folk, soft rock and otherwise70s and 80s FM radio adjacent music.  The magic of ‘Maybe I’m Dreaming’ is the untold story of the artists behind these songs; thosewho missed the big time, but whose song craft and unrequited care hit the right notes, bothhigh and low.
Where ‘Follow the Sun’ and ‘Sad About the Times’ introduced us to the fame chasing, ambitioncrashing crooners who missed their shot in the mainstream, ‘Maybe I’m Dreaming’ delvesdeeper into the isolated wilds - a private world where production quirks, late-night tape hiss andone-man studio dreams were not necessarily a choice but the hand that was dealt.
With the parameters set to ‘private press only’, Young and Abrahamsson follow a circuitous trailof invention and emotion, documenting a spirit that’s more homespun, sometimes lonelier andoften a little weirder. The guitars still strum, but the keyboards’ hum is more prevalent andprecious; wistful harmonies brush up against lo-fi drum machines; a bittersweet fog lingeringover even the brightest melodies.
As with their previous collaborations, Young and Abrahamsson weren’t interested inconstructing a museum or drafting a historical survey. ‘Maybe I’m Dreaming’ is a sentimentalmixtape, assembled late at night when the mind wanders and old memories blur with imaginedfutures, those within reach and those far too mysterious to ever encounter. Songs wereunearthed in personal collections, deep YouTube burrows, dilapidated web archives and thedim corners of Discogs, with many selections tied not only to intuition but to personalconnection.  Some tracks arrived via friends - Kelley Stoltz, a frequent guide for Young, tipped him off toboth Peter Kraemer’s lost gem ‘Let the Light Slip’ and Awakening’s revelatory closer - addingan unseen but deeply felt thread of camaraderie to the compilation.
The journey takes in a wide, strange sweep: The Watson Brothers Band’s ‘Just Whistle’ opensthe collection with a sigh and a shrug, a song that feels like it’s been waiting for decades to beheard again. Jim Huxley’s ‘Tessa on a Magazine’, rediscovered after a long and winding searchby Young, shimmers with a distinctly Australian melancholia. The heartbreak of Rick Penta’s‘My Story Changes’ and Twice As Nice’s delicate ‘Thoughts of You’ float easily alongside themore buoyant, radio-dream sheen of Barracuda’s ‘Baby I Love You’ and MAK’s sunshinedappled ‘That’s Life’.
Widening the aperture to the late 1970s and early 1980s allows for a deeper exploration intoevolving production techniques and musical technologies. The Squad’s ‘D.L.M.H.I.M.A.’ andChristoph Spendel Group’s ‘Forever’ crackle with the kind of bedroom synth warmth that couldonly come from the analogue age, while the soulful, yearning undercurrent of Awakening’s‘Gotta Do Somethin / Might As Well Cultivate’ caps the collection with a call for action - ormaybe just acceptance - in an accidental Brian Eno ‘Here Come the Warm Jets’ parroting.
While ‘Maybe I’m Dreaming’ moves away from the ‘sad man with guitar’ archetype that hoveredover its predecessors, it remains tethered to a familiar emotional gravity - a balance of longingand lightness that defines this corner of the musical universe. Each track shuffles gentlybetween resignation and hope, sadness and serenity, as if the artists themselves were chasinga dream just beyond reach, recording not for fame but for the simple act of getting it, thatprimal, creative itch, out into the world.
Available on CD and 2LP, featuring the third eye-opening artwork of Dang Wayne Olsen. Thedouble LP set arrives in an outrageous double-wide spine jacket with printed inners and adream journal entry by Pacific Northwest artifactual authority Josh Lewellen.

Repress!

Ahead of a full-length album coming on Glitterbox Recordings, the king of disco re-edits Dr Packer presents the second instalment of this 12' series. 'Different Strokes Part 2' features four Dr Packer versions of soulful house favourites, giving a flavour of what's to come from the LP. Kicking off with a bonafide classic, Dr Packer's take on Soulsearcher's 'Can't Get Enough!' maintains all its most iconic elements, the euphoric vocals and timeless groove given a fresh-sounding elasticity. Next up is Dr Packer's remix of The Shapeshifter's evergreen 'Lola's Theme Recut' appearing for the first time on vinyl. An exclusive to this vinyl release, a remix of Johnny Corporate's 'Sunday Shoutin'' picks up the pace with a funking bassline to suit any dynamic disco set. Rounding off this foursome of impeccable remixes is Cleptomaniacs featuring Bryan Chambers 'All I Do', a vocal house classic from the early noughties, reinterpreted masterfully for today's Glitterbox dancefloor,r which was originally featured on the label's A Disco Hï compilation. Dr Packer has done it again, breathing new life into your most beloved dance records so you can fall in love with them all over again.