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Yet again, Helena Hauff's Return To Disorder label brings us a new talent from the world of electro production, this time in the shape of India's Investigations of a Dog. The four tracks here contain a lively, energetic feel sure to tempt the reticent onto the dancefloor, matched with a dreamy optimism that gives them an ultra pleasurable head-in-the-clouds celestial feel. 'Heliocentrism' has echoes of classic LFO's naive melodicism, '11 July' is sunny and gently bubbling in the same vein as Aphex's first 'Ambient Works' LP, and the rest is generally infectious and loveable yet employed with a touch of subtle restraint. We look forward to further Investigations

Duper, the new release from Morgan Geist, is a not-so-subtle callback to his 2001 EP, Super. "I was working most days with Kelley Polar on our new vocal project, Au Suisse, which isn't really dance music at all," he explains. "I started fooling around with these instrumental tracks at night for fun. Each track was in a different style, but they seemed to work nicely as a group. By the time I asked Kelley to contribute strings to the A-side, the record really started feeling like the sequel to Super."

Super Duper ­- get it?

Indeed, the playful synth riffs and sweeping disco strings of "Twilight Express" echo the palette of Geist's cult classic "24K" and early Metro Area. "Black Test Car" is a unique collision of minimal, almost Krautrock-style drums, sound library textures and spacy electro percussion. Meanwhile, "Feeling Is Mutual" is a rare acid outing that pushes beyond the usual comfort zone, the 303 acting more as feather than hammer on top of major-key modulations. "I love a lot of Aphex Twin and I love sweet, "quiet storm"-style R&B," says Geist. "I figured, why not?"

Anyone who has had even half an eye on the electro scene over the past decade will already be familiar with Emile Facey aka Plant43's unique sound, mixing an uncompromising approach to off kilter rhythms and machine-led funk with an emotive and powerful use of melody. This trio of ultra fresh tracks were penned for recent live shows in The Hague and Berlin and are brimming with the energy and excitement Facey felt on his return to the live circuit. 'Remote Signals' is led by a booming kick drum heavy enough to command any audience with Facey weaving ever more complex webs of melody around it. 'Searching The Skies' builds a mysterious atmosphere based around a call and response between characterful melodic elements while 'Constantly Morphing Entity' closes the EP with a flourish of forward moving beats and an SH101 bass line designed to move any dancefloor.

Twisted and irreverent, The Rabbits combined ear-splitting guitar shrapnel with one of punk’s greatest-ever snot-nosed vocalists. With hints of PIL or Chrome, but beamed in from a parallel dimension and filtered through the warped lens of visionary loner Syoichi Miyazawa. First-ever vinyl release, fully remastered from the band’s original early ’80s cassette releases, and housed in a sturdy tip-on sleeve. Includes a double-sided, printed insert. Edition of 500

Singer-songwriter Syoichi Miyazawa’s tale is a confounding one.

He grew up in a small town in Yamagata Prefecture (in northern Japan), loved Dylan and The Beatles, and had very little exposure to, or interest in, underground music. And yet, shortly after 24-year-old Miyazawa arrived in Tokyo in 1978, he began performing solo shows at tiny clubs in the city, singing and playing guitar. His performances quicky devolved from brisk acoustic jaunts to lengthy, heavy dirges sung in a snot-nosed wail over a blown-out electric guitar detuned to produce a kind of sonic sludge.

At one of his earliest gigs, a mutual friend introduced him to Endo Michiro, who would soon become the legendary front man of Japanese punk icons The Stalin. It turned out Miyazawa and Endo had attended Yamagata University at the same time just a few years earlier, but hadn’t known each other at school. In Tokyo, they became fast friends, moved into the same apartment building, and for years were inseparable. Endo played guitar and drums on Miyazawa’s debut release, the “Christ Was Born in a Stable” flexi disc. But while Endo was social and outgoing, Miyazawa preferred to be alone, avoiding concerts unless he was performing.

Despite these antisocial tendencies, Miyazawa came to despise playing solo. In 1982, an eccentric high school student named Chika introduced herself at one of Miyazawa’s gigs, and Miyazawa asked if she’d play bass. She agreed and drafted two of her friends to play second guitar and drums. The Rabbits were born.

Miyazawa wrote the tunes, and had a clear vision for the group, but struggled to get the sound he wanted from the other members. His second guitarist was more of a fusion player, and Miyazawa took great pains to get him to tone down the shredding. The group quickly went through multiple line-up changes. Frustrated with the sound of their first proper recording (self-released as the “X1(x)” cassette), Miyazawa spent a full year mixing their second cassette, “Winter Songs,” on his own.

The hard work paid off — the sound of “Winter Songs” is striking, and unlike anything the band’s peers produced. There’s liberal use of delay on the vocals, giving the music a psychedelic feel, but the guitars are caustic, cutting through the mix like metal shrapnel. The rhythm section seems on the verge of teetering out of control throughout, an overdriven and pummeling current below abrasive slabs of guitar and vocals. Even at their most aggressive, though, The Rabbits had strong pop sensibilities, complete with cooing backing vocals and the occasional harmonica solo. Miyazawa delivers his borderline nonsensical lyrics with equal amounts of menace and gaiety, consistently riding that fine line as only a natural oddball can. At times, the band sounds like a distant cousin of PiL, Chrome or The Homosexuals, but beamed in from a parallel dimension and filtered through Miyazawa’s warped lens.

Although The Rabbits briskly sold all 500 copies of the "Winter Songs" tape, live audiences at the time seemed dumbfounded by the group, and would stare at them in silence. After two years together, The Rabbits called it quits in 1984.

When asked if any of the many legendary groups (Les Rallizes Desnudes, G.I.S.M., etc.) he shared stages with left an impression, Miyazawa recently revealed that he always left the venue as soon as he finished performing, so he never caught any of the other bands…

All of which is to say —

The Rabbits are one of the great punk bands of the early ’80s, but their leader had no interest in the punk scene and always thought he was making “normal” music. They rubbed shoulders with a slew of notable groups of the era, and their singer was best friends with arguably the most famous Japanese punk of all time, but Miyazawa shunned fraternization and purposefully distanced himself from his peers.

Could this be why so few underground music fans are familiar with the group, even in Japan? Why they seem to have been written out of the official history of Japanese punk? One can never know for sure, but Mesh-Key hopes to remedy this travesty by offering this compilation, the first-ever official LP by The Rabbits, to a new generation of punk and psychedelic music connoisseurs.
credits

In 2003, Pisco Crane assembled a six-piece band from motivated and talented like minds in the Kinshasa slums where he grew up. Pisco had been involved with a handful of local rap acts when he was younger, but after meeting legendary instrument builder Bebson De La Rue, he was inspired to follow a new path. He set about building instruments from the discarded trash that surrounded his city: bits of old computers or oil cans were fashioned into bass guitars and drums, and keyboards were bashed together using springs, metal pipes, and offcuts of tubing. If there was a core philosophy that guided Pisco at this stage in his journey, it was that everyone should have access to instruments, no matter where they come from or what their budget might be. And following in the footsteps of Bebson, Pisco locked into a Congolese tradition that touches on the eccentric genius of globally lauded artists like Konono Nº1 and Staff Benda Bilili. Over the years, Fulu Miziki's notoriety grew in the Kinshasa underground - their utopian vision of the future was infectious. Eventually, they were joined by performance artist, sculptor and fashion designer Lady Aisha, who offered the band unique colour and a soulful central focus. Influenced by Kinshasa's street performance scene, Aisha helped the band devise vivid masks and costumes that were as electric and singular as the instruments they played, and the scene was set. In 2020, as the world was plunged into lockdown, footage of Fulu Miziki went viral and their star began to grow exponentially, with a video of the band preforming the track 'Tikanga' racking up millions of views on Facebook. The band used this opportunity to work on documenting their sound, and shored up at the Nyege Nyege studios in Kampala for a year to assemble a definitive album. Recorded by HHY & The Macumbas' Jonathan Saldanha, this record captures the band's furiously innovative mixture of industrial sonics, spiritual jazz, punk, and Congolese soukous pressure. At their best, Fulu Miziki sound almost completely out of time, curving pounding rhythms around microtonal clanks, rousing chants and spiky sonics. On 'Mutangila', there's a hint of disco in the 4/4 stomp, but it's been shifted into a post-punk ritual, adorned with complex bell percussion and overlapping vocals. 'Congo' is even harder to define; electrified buzzes form a bassline, but it's the mindboggling rhythms that shuttle the track into psychedelic realms, led confidently by Lady Aisha's limber rhymes. Fulu positively slither on the sultry, industrial-influenced 'Sebe', while 'Tikanga' reminds of Congo's rumba-derived soukous traditions, materializing the sounds into the future with tight, pounding percussion and head-melting fx. The story of Fulu Miziki is sprawling and complex and constantly evolving, with various offshoots and band iterations. Two members left the band in 2016 to form KOKOKO! with French producer Débruit. Not long after they recorded this magnum opus album, several other original members left to form a similarly named outfit currently based in Europe. This other incarnation recently released an EP of electronic productions without the band founder Pisko Crane and lead vocalist Lady Aicha, on the UK based Moshi Moshi records. Pisco and Lady Aicha currently lead a different outfit in Kinshasa made up of completely new musicians. This full-length is the remaining proof of Fulu Mziki at their most vital and most complete - it won't be repeated - and can never be recreated. It's an essential portrait of one of the Democratic Republic of Congo's most innovative contemporary outfits, and some of the most surprising hybrid music you're likely to hear.

Toronto’s Dan Lee steps out of the spotlight and into the producer’s chair on the new collaborative Lee Paradise LP, Lee Paradise & Co., due October 28 2022 on Telephone Explosion. Lee Paradise & Co. follows 2020’s critically acclaimed The Fink LP, and finds Lee flipping the shadowy nihilism of the project’s previous releases upward into a sort of cybernetic universality. This is Dan Lee in producer mode, veering away from the pursuit of a singular musical direction rooted in personal vision, towards of a process rich in collaboration, emotional expansion and tonal exploration.

Starting off as a set of mood-focusedinstrumental sketches drafted by Dan on his own, the compositions began coloringthemselves in after he started sending the tracks out to collaborators, asking them to contribute without much in the way of direction or intention. With help from an ensemble cast of artists including Carlyn Bezic (Jane Inc.), Jonathan Pappo (Scott Hardware, No Frills, Ducks Ltd), Scott Hardware, Isla Craig, Victoria Cheong (New Chance), Jay Anderson, Charise Aragoza & Lukas Cheung (Mother Tongues) and Daniel Woodhead (Moon King), nearly every aspect of this album’s creation eventually became open to collaboration, from musical performances, lyric writing, and vocals all the way through to mixing and mastering.

Sonically, the record is still unmistakably Lee Paradise: a widescreen polyrhythmic psychedelia that melts, bubbles, whirrs and klanks; the sound of the human and the machine grooving in accordance towards new futures. The album’s sonic palette is at once synthetic, warm and extraterrestrial. Arpeggiated square wave melodies dance in lockstep with crunching hi-hats, digital bells and chimes fall like crystal rain in stereo above plush pads and gurgling bass figures. Used to finishing the records on his own, Lee mixed this album with Montreal’s Asher Gould-Murtagh and the results are spacious, dusty and dubbed out. “Carnival” sets the scene with it’s stuttering, busted funk groove and ribbons of aqueous vocal harmony from New Chance’s Victoria Cheong. “Raffles”(featuring one of Daniel’s two vocal performances on the record) radiates a mellow optimism in its solar-warped balearic bliss. The album’s final track, “Youngish” is a gliding, melancholic downtempo instrumental thumper saturated in a kaleidoscopic array of lysergic tones. As always, the record anchors itself to the dancefloor with the screwed-down electro of “Cement”, the swinging midnight afterglow of “Leaving” and “CS2X”’s fluttering rave arpeggios.

Lee Paradise & Co. is the sound of an expert producer and sound sculptor conceding to the elusive flows of inspiration, knocking genre conventions askew and hopscotching between a variety of styles, musical identities and sound worlds with absolute panache.

Zopelar arrives on Tartelet with Charme - an album of effervescent machine funk harking back to a golden era of Brazilian party music, releasing October 21st.

The era of interest for Sao Paulo’s Pedro Zopelar begins in the 1980s in Rio de Janeiro, when a particular phenomenon caught on at suburban parties which became known as Charme. “Charme was like a mix of slow boogie, RnB and new jack swing,” explains Zopelar. “DJ Corello started calling ‘charme’ the moment of the party when he played slow grooves and felt that the people started dancing differently, with sexier synchronized moves. Some years later, charme evolved from an awaited moment of a night to a whole movement of parties just playing that kind of music. On this record I tried to make something that brings this emotional feeling to my music in a modern way.”

Much like the original genre-not-genre he drew inspiration from, Zopelar’s approach across his latest LP spans different moods and tempos. There’s blissful, sultry mystery lingering around ‘Clara’ and ‘Do You Feel?’ while OSAGIE lends some chops to the exquisite, Rompler-powered synth funk of ‘Chain Net’. The lead singles ‘Shibuya’, ‘Charme’ and ‘Passado’ all tap into varying shades of deep house, from slinky City Pop-tinted loungers to peak-time dance pop and Larry Heard-influenced flavours, with the constant being Zopelar’s immaculate production and the unbridled warmth of his compositions.

Continuing the Latin-rooted theme of the album, the artworkconception of Charme was realized by multidisciplinary artist and curator Ode, showcasing a popular style of street paintings made by anonymous artists throughout Latin America. It’s not about graffiti-culture but a popular solution utilized by small restaurants, bars and other establishments to use their own walls for commercial purposes, hiring artists to paint food and drink menus or other information about their products.

With an emotional sincerity stemming from his move to reconnect with the Brazilian dimension of his creative background, Charme arrives as Zopelar’s heartfelt celebration of life and music, of sentimental moments shared and good times enjoyed.

Means&3rd returns to Unveiled Nuance with 002 following the label's debut 'Thought Contortion'. This time coming armed with 4 tracks providing a more direct club sound and falling in line with NUANCE001's affinity for low-end, tight percussion and underlying tribalism.

‘Aberrance’ opens Side A with a broken rolling kick drum and FM-type polyrhythmic stabs which reach a
kinetic climax with further patterns of distorted FM crunch and propulsive percussion that sit next to alien
sound FX. ‘Life’s Glorious Mosaic’ gives way to a much more mesmerising mood, utilising classic CR-78
percussive shots to provide energy amongst a sea of delicately delayed glassy synth chirps, spacious and
mystic, the perfect hypnotic spell.

‘Kairos’ is the first cut on side B, picking up the pace with deep and dense shamanic formant drones
juxtaposed against ethereal stabs which provide rest bite from the heavy groove, a chance for the ear to get lost in a moment of psychedelia before seeing us out with the return to the solid rhythm. ‘Discordianism’ closes out the EP, anchoring around the repetitive grit of the lead synth, textured stabs unfold next to squeezed shots of phased synth work that subtly lay underneath it, the whole track, reduced in nature,perfect as a layered tool.

Pressed on 140g black Vinyl, reverse board full colour print sleeve with poly-lined inner sleeve.

Produced, Programmed and Mixed by Means&3rd
Mastered by Neel @ Enisslab, Rome
Cut @ Schnittstelle Berlin
Design by Means&3rd
Pressed By Matter Of Fact, Güstrow, Germany
Distributed by Rubadub, Glasgow

After highly acclaimed releases from OK EG and Donald’s House, Wax’o Paradiso Recordings proudly welcomes Naarm/Melbourne producer Midnight Tenderness (Ryan Hunter) to the fold. Over four tracks the ‘Hydrosphere EP’ continues the label’s narrative of platforming contemporary antipodean psychedelia with three masterful productions and a remix from Boorloo/Perth’s Hame DJ.

As a producer with influences rooted in dub, street soul, boogie and the DNA of UK club music, Ryan draws down on the Middy T sound with the title track ‘Hydrosphere’, a blend of broken machine funk, glistening synth lines and beautiful crisp drum programming. ‘Rain Vibe’ takes the sound palette further adding a hefty wub for good measure. ‘Catamaran’ transports us back to the golden era on the Balearic isles, with the original evoking Ibizan sunset cruises whilst Hame DJ’s remix brings some Madchester chug to the mix.

repressed !

Lay Down The Groove – aka Juan and Matteo, Colombian transplants in Melbourne, Australia – bring a poised US house sensibility to this 5-track EP on their eponymous label, Lay Down The Groove. The legacy of Chicago legends like Gemini and Glenn Underground is palpable in the breezy grooves of ‘The 6-61’ and ‘Space Between’ on the A side, while the jazz-funk of Detroit shines through on ‘Noise In The Data’ and ‘Hidden Lines’ on the B. Finally, ‘No Hard Feelings’ unifies the two sounds to drift off gently over the horizon.

If you need to know anything about Australian-American pop trailblazer Betty Who, it’s that she is a survivor and an LGBTQ+ icon due to her infectious, always-inclusive artistry. Moving from the rigid major-label machinery to rediscovering her power as an independent artist, Betty Who is primed to kick off her latest, most triumphant chapter on her fourth studio album BIG!

Betty sings with as much pop exuberance as ever on the most open-hearted and personal work she’s ever produced. BIG explores many topics including self-love and acceptance, as well as career perseverance.

Laila Sakini's new album 'Paloma' arrives via Modern Love and is her most striking and ambiguous to date - a pointed and timely meditation on hope and hierarchies that riffs on Zbigniew Preisner's magical "The Double Life of Veronique" score and enduring outsider music tome "The Langley Schools Music Project". Subtly transcendent, fathoms-deep music.

When Laila Sakini's debut album ‘Vivienne’ arrived in 2020, it felt like the record we were waiting for to map out our tangled reactions to an uninvited reality. Never self-consciously strange, it revealed itself slowly and cautiously, like a shadow in the corner of the eye, or an alchemical symbol in a bowl of alphabet spaghetti. This time around Sakini has worked her unique world-building to an even finer point, forming six tracks around a theme that's so close to our heart it's almost beating in time. Initially inspired by Krzysztof Kieślowski's 1991 arthouse classic "The Double Life of Veronique", the cult Polish director's enduring modern fairytale that serves as a cosmic rumination on identity and choice. Detailing two identical women - both singers, both in love - the film lets one live as the other dies, forcing us to consider the implications of art and endurance in the face of life's myriad challenges.

Sakini takes Polish composer Zbigniew Preisner's influential score for the film and uses it as a jumping-off point for ‘Paloma’, bending the more grandiose moments into baroque awkwardness on opening track 'Fluer D'Oranger' and evoking the mood of scene-setting cues 'Weronika' and 'Véronique' on the recorder-led 'The Light That Flickers In The Mirror'. And while Preisner's score zeroed in on the musical virtuosity of the film's lead characters, Sakini reinterprets that as a metaphor for self-discovery. Playing piano, violin, glockenspiel, timbale, recorder, and occasionally singing, Sakini captures a mood of innocence that immediately transports the listener back to simpler times. Her music isn't self-consciously simplistic, but forcing herself to interface with instruments impulsively rather than studiously, her sounds are all heart, no filigree.

In spirit, it reminds us of cult Canadian album "The Langley Schools Music Project", a collection of 1970s recordings of school kids singing rudimentary renditions of pop songs in a school gymnasium. That album's genius was in the bottling of hope and innocence: the feeling of joy from hearing and wholesomely interacting with music that's known and loved without a sense of hierarchy or desire for cultural clout. Sakini subtly subverts this by evoking the amateur spirit in the most bewitching way; instead of sourcing her ideas from Bowie, Fleetwood Mac and the Beach Boys, her stock is the established art canon, and by reforming those sounds she makes an insightful comment on intellectualism and access. European classical music is all too often trapped behind the frosted glass of respectability and assumed skill - craft replaces spirit, and technique replaces soul. By approaching these gestures from a different angle, Sakini softens the edges sonically and intellectually, finding music that bubbles with emotion, and most strikingly - hope.

Her choice of instruments and the way she interacts with them allows us to feel as if we're not only listening but contributing. It's a bottom-up way of absorbing art that's traditionally been top-down, and a reminder that we're all part of the experience, whether we're humming along to the remnants of a theme as it dribbles out of an ear in the shower, or dreaming of spotlights in a parallel life that may or may not be real. Sakini's music is nostalgic in a sense, but nowhere near the buttered popcorn and high-fructose candy migraine of the Netflix/Spotify algorithm generation of regurgitated churn. She makes sounds that remind us of what time and experience may have stolen from us, and how we might recover it.

"Playing The Angel | The 12" Singles" enthält in dieser als Deluxe-Box Set aufgelegten Sammler-Edition insgesamt zehn 12" Vinyl-Schallplatten, die die Single-Auskopplungen aus dem im Oktober 2005 veröffentlichten elften Depeche Mode-Studioalbum "Playing The Angel" repräsentieren, und die neben den eigentlichen Titeln "Precious", "A Pain That I'm Used To", "Suffer Well" und "John The Revelator/Lilian" auch umfangreich mit B-Seiten, Remixen, Instrumental- und Dub-Versionen sowie anderen Aufnahmen aus dem Album-Umfeld ausgestattet sind. Die zehnte und letzte Platte, speziell für diese Kollektion zusammengestellt, offeriert B-Seiten und Remixe, die seinerzeit verstreut auf CDs und Maxi-Singles erschienen waren.Jedes Box Set innerhalb dieser Reihe enthält die Singles jedes einzelnen Depeche Mode-Albums auf hochwertigem Vinyl, wobei die remasterten Tonspuren direkt von den ursprünglichen Mastertapes stammen. Die spezielle Box Set-Grafik wurde von den jeweiligen Original-Alben inspiriert, während für die 12" Singles selbst die damaligen Cover-Artworks herangezogen wurden.

Over the past decade, Vienna-based Florian Stöffelbauer – also known as Heap, has built a consistent reputation as a skilled DJ, producer and Neubau’s label head.

Isla is proud to present his latest effort “False Hope” which explores the intersections between industrial, electro and dark wave – all with a leftfield twist.

As diverse as it is powerful, the 7 tracks featured here almost feel like nocturnal tales, chalking out Heap’s observations wandering through the streets of a silent city, with cigarette smoke permeating the air and sirens ringing in the distance.
The cinematic essence of the release emerges from the very beginning, with the atmospheric beauty “Diall” transporting us straight into some late-80s scenery of Kraftwerkian nostalgia. In “Jetzt Oder Nie” a sharp knit of drums is placed on top of the grave frequencies of the bass: it’s indeed “now or never”, the moral imperative of the release, requiring us to take action.
Throughout the whole album, hypnotic sounds punctuate the dark space, bouncing between the polyrhythmic and uplifting energies of “Inner peace” and “No Palm Too Big”, a sneaky slow-burner with a nocturnal groove and Gayna Rose Madder’s robotic voice reciting the stream of consciousness of this urban wanderer.

“Trist” rises slowly yet powerfully thanks to its mystical synths covering the ground and preparing us for what comes next.
The title track “False Hope” holds the unique charm of a creature effortlessly floating in between dualities. As obscure as it is airy, as delicate as it is forceful, this hybrid composition is rich in details and plot twists.

At the end of this journey, “Losing time” reminds us of the urgency to take action expressed at the beginning of the album. In a rarefied canvas, an off-kilter solitary sound comes in, starting off as insistent as a car horn in rush hour, and evolving into a beautiful instrument arpeggiating the melody.

Here Heap concludes his narrative for now. We like to imagine him walking away, a shadow fading in the smoke of the city as the first lights of the day appear.

Issued by Leo Fegin's visionary record label in 1993, this refreshed and revised reissue collection of Hungarian composer Tibor Szemző's chamber pieces with spoken text – composed at 1980s for the legendary GROUP 180 – is unlike anything else of its kind.

No one has survived life. Everyone has died from it so far. Man must realize that He is responsible for His own life and fate and must insist upon this responsibility beyond all limits. And since Man has dissociated Himself from the sphere of irrationality, He has no way of getting in touch with death, or of establishing control over it. How we achieve the final result is merely of secondary importance. If the vision is clear to everyone, there is no need at all to look back. In a time of complete mental disturbance, only one chance remains to us: crystal-clear thinking. This leads us back to total mental disturbance, which everyone has died from so far. (Pavel Havliček – Miklós Erdély – Tibor Hajas)

Text and Music | Language and Speech | Sound and Music

The common basis of the three works by Tibor Szemző heard on this album is the inalienable relationship to text – as an a priori principle. Text and music: the formal attributes of significance, intentions, and levels of meaning inherent in verbal communication as it is transformed into audible code. Language and speech: the structural level of communication, where it becomes purposeful expression, acoustic statements of variable modality. Vocalization as sublimation. Sound and music: By becoming an auditory signal, communication is deprived of its sense and reduced to musical articulation and abstraction.

Skullbase Fracture: Shards of reality – senseless, disconnected fragments of recorded “living speech” – simultaneously disintegrate and merge to create meaning through the musical process, while it is degraded and stylized to represent a single layer of the ambient noise one would hear in a hospitality setting.

Optimistic Lecture: The theses – like a practical, everyday user’s manual to cognitive tendencies and aims as they apply to the entirety of existence – convey their meaning through simplified rhythmic speech, galvanized into commands. As a counterpoint to recited prayers, they comprise a uniform soundscape.

The Sex Appeal of Death: The head-on simplicity of communication creates such extremely reductive musical interrelations that they cannibalize themselves in a necessary and inevitable fashion. And, in this manner, the text as well

Robert Groslot's Concerto for Bass Guitar and Orchestra represents the
next step in the evolution of the bass guitar
Groslot's composition pushes the instrument to its technical limits, while creating
a unique symbiosis between the soloist and the orchestra. Although he may not
be the first composer to write for the bass guitar in a symphonic setting, Groslot
brings a level of artistry and sophistication to the composition that will continue
and accelerate the legitimation of the bass guitar within contemporary classical
music. "The idea of a concerto for bass guitar is something that I have been
dreaming of for decades. Since its invention, the bass guitar has firmly
established itself as an essential and integral part of practically every genre of
music. The bass guitar, as we now know it, was invented and produced by Leo
Fender starting in 1951. The more portable bass guitar, in comparison to the large
and unwieldy double bass, was capable of playing at higher volumes via
amplification and satisfied the new sonic demands created by the widespread
use of electrification in popular music. By increasing the overall scale of the
electric guitar and only using the lowest four strings (E, A, D, G), Fender gave birth
to a new instrument. Traditional double bassists could quickly adapt, with the
added benefit of more accurate intonation due to the frets. Hence the original
name: The Precision Bass. At the same time, guitarists could also become bass
players when called upon. As a result, many of the early bass guitarists began
their musical life as guitar players, with the most well-known example being Paul
McCartney of The Beatles.
The fact that the bass guitar had no direct lineage like the evolution of the piano
or violin over time, led to a variety of disparate playing styles without any
fundamental methodology. Unlike the more traditional instruments, the bass
guitar does not sit upon a foundation of centuries of proven methods and
established schools of playing. The evolution of the bass guitar has been a
patchwork of trial and error by active musicians. This has led to a plethora of
personal approaches and hybrid-styles, effectively leading to the rapid evolution
of bass guitar technique. Given its relatively young history, it is remarkable how
the bass guitar has grown from being an instrument taken up out of necessity, or
as an afterthought, to being as respected and vital to modern music as any of the
older, more established instruments." - Thomas Fiorini

HEAVENLY ALBUMS TO BE RE-ISSUED ON VINYL - STARTING WITH ‘HEAVENLY vs SATAN’. Heavenly released four albums in the early 1990s. Skep Wax Records are going to re-issue all four of them over a two year period. Classic black vinyl. The albums will include a 7” booklet with lyrics and new sleeve notes by the members of the band. Heavenly were one of the pioneers of indiepop. Formed from the smouldering ashes of Talulah Gosh, they took all that energy and attitude and used it to fuel catchy, infectious pop melodies. The influence of 60s girl groups was never far from the surface. This was girl-pop, but with the girls in control. Loved by many but derided as ‘twee’ by some, Heavenly ignored the increasingly macho environment of the contemporary UK scene and forged a separate path, along with other bands on the Sarah Records label. Later, having co-released their albums on K Records in Olympia, Heavenly toured the US, hooking up with bands in the embryonic riot grrrl scene. Heavenly’s quiet feminism became louder and more articulate, and the hostility of the UK music press became irrelevant. Heavenly came to an abrupt and tragic end when drummer Mathew Fletcher took his own life in 1996. After a year’s hiatus, the group reformed as the short-lived Marine Research, before going their separate ways musically. Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey currently play in The Catenary Wires and Swansea Sound. Peter Momtchiloff plays in Would-Be-Goods and Tufthunter. HEAVENLY vs SATAN – THE FIRST LP. Recorded in the Oxfordshire countryside, the first Heavenly album was a bid to make a pure pop record. The punk noise of Talulah Gosh had exploded and expired. Amelia had had a go at making a disco hit (‘Can You Keep A Secret’, subsequently released on Fierce Recordings), which was fun, but wasn’t going to trouble the charts. Unbothered by critical or popular reactions, the new band decided to immerse themselves in the creation of a sweet, tuneful pop record. It’s true that the punk influences aren’t hard to discern (Mathew’s favourite band was The Ramones), but it’s Pete’s elegant guitar and Amelia’s melodies and multi-layered harmonies that win out on these recordings. The eight-track album was released as CD, LP and cassette by Sarah Records. Subsequent versions included a Danceteria LP and cassette (France), a Quattro CD (Japan) and a CD by K Records (US). These versions included various additional tracks from early 7” releases. The Skep Wax re-issue of ‘Heavenly vs Satan’ includes Heavenly’s first two Sarah Records singles – ‘I Fell In Love Last Night/Over And Over’ and ‘Our Love Is Heavenly/Wrap My Arms Around Him’. The vinyl reissue of second album ‘Le Jardin de Heavenly’ will follow in early summer 2023. ‘The Decline and Fall of Heavenly’ and ‘Operation Heavenly’ will arrive in 2024. Tracklisting 1 Cool Guitar Boy 2 Boyfriend Stays The Same 3 Lemonhead Boy 4 Shallow 5 Wish Me Gone 6 Don’t Be Fooled 7 It’s You 8 Stop Before You Say It 9 I Fell In Love Last Night 10 Over And Over 11 Our Love Is Heavenly 12 Wrap My Arms Around Him

Written and recorded between 1972 and 1982 in Western Oregon, Back to the Woodlands is a previously unreleased, and nearly lost, album made by Ernest Hood during the same era as his near mythical album Neighborhoods . A visionary combination of field recordings, zithers, and synthesizers, Back to the Woodlands offers an unprecedented depth of access to this singular artistic mind. Born into a musical family, Ernest Hood began a promising career as a jazz guitarist during the 1940s, touring internationally with his brother Bill Hood and the saxophonist Charlie Barnet , before contracting polio in his late twenties. The disease left Ernest unable to play the guitar and confined him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. It also forced him to adapt and innovate around his musical practices in the face of adversity; Hood's value of sound matured with a remarkably democratic and nonhierarchical approach and application. Taking up the zither, a less physically-demanding stringed instrument to the guitar, embarking upon the unprecedented process of incorporating field recordings into his work as early as 1956, and eventually discovering the synthesizer, Hood's music became imbued with optimism and subtle cultural critique. This ethos and technique - refined over the coming decades - would lay the groundwork for a sprawling body of radio work, mail order recordings for homebound listeners, and Neighborhoods , self- issued as a small vinyl edition in 1975. Where Neighborhoods , a nostalgic opus, drawing from a well of collective memory of the 1950s, is defined by traces of human activity, Back to the Woodlands leaves the modern world behind, delving into Hood's love for nature. Only recently discovered in his archives, the album dramatically expands his concept of "musical cinematography," imagistically triggering states of sensory memory from within its zither and synthesizer melodies, intertwined with field recordings made during Hood's extensive travels throughout Oregon. If Neighborhoods is a retreat into the gauzy joys of a romanticized past, Back to the Woodlands is an immersion in the timeless sanctuary of the natural world. A fascinating counterpoint to its predecessor, Back to the Woodlands brings us even closer to Hood's belief in the transportive qualities of sound; that field recordings could serve as a vehicle for the imagination and liberation, particularly for those with similar mobile disabilities as his own. Across the album's twelve compositions, the rippling instrumental harmonics - shifting between abstraction and playful melody - fold so seamlessly into the birdsong, bubbling brooks, and other environmental ambiences, that they often give the impression of having been recording within the landscapes toward which they whisper. Falling somewhere between the immersive calm of healing music and New Age, the creative field recording practices of sound ecologists world building for Folkways, and the jazz infected ambiences during Obscure / Editions EG's highest heights, Back to the Woodlands sculpts an singular proximity of music for its moment; a form of ambient sonic realism that draws the consciousness toward its surroundings as much as within. Working closely with his estate to maintain his original vision, Freedom to Spend has restored and remastered this never before released, lost masterpiece by Ernest Hood from the original tapes. Ernest Hood's Back to the Woodlands will be issued on vinyl, as well as on CD in combination with its contemporary Where the Woods Begin , with new liner notes by Michael Klausman . On behalf of Ernest Hood and Freedom To Spend, a portion of the proceeds from this release will benefit Oregon Wild, an organization dedicated to protecting and restoring Oregon's wildlands, wildlife, and waters as an enduring legacy for future generations.

Black Truffle is pleased to announce Uri Katzenstein’s Audio Works, produced in collaboration with Holon’s Centre for Digital Art. Spanning sculptural installation, performance, video art, and many other media, Katzenstein’s absurdist, poetic, and often hilarious work made extensive use of sound and music. This, however, is the first release dedicated to the artist’s audio work, collecting 28 tracks produced between the early 1980s and 2017. Compiled from dozens of hours of recordings left uncatalogued (and in some instances unheard) at the artist’s death in 2018, these four sides are a treasure trove, offering a captivating glimpse into a uniquely uninhibited creative practice. Predominantly recorded alone, with some contributions from regular collaborators such as Ohad Fishof on the later pieces, many of these tracks stem from Katzenstein’s time living in New York in the 1980s. Feeding on the cross-pollination of post-punk energy, radical art practice, and new media possibilities that characterised the New York scene at this time, many of Katzenstein’s recordings squeeze multilayered vocal experimentation into synth-based miniatures with a distinctively pop twist, their forms ruptured with anarchic bursts of free-form electronics, sounds from self-built instruments, and field-recorded snatches of the outside world. Katzenstein’s electronic production calls up touchstones of skewed 80s art pop like Laurie Anderson, Ambitious Lovers, and Scritti Politti, but imbued with DIY directness and economy of means. The arrangements of synths, percussion, and noise elements are invigoratingly raw and, at times, almost austerely minimal. On ‘Intermission’, thick distorted chords accompany a wandering portamento melody, inhabiting the wayward carnival space of Roedelius’ most unhinged efforts. Many of the tracks centre on Katzenstein’s multi-tracked vocal performances, often moving between multiple languages, (most commonly English, German, French, and Hebrew). A bewildering range of vocal approaches are present on these pieces, from sweet wordless harmonies to hammed-up growls and monastic recitations. On ‘Skin O. Daayba – Complex Habits no. 3’, improvised resonance singing against a backdrop of echoing electronics and radio snatches. ‘Half Monk Half Herring’ layers multi-lingual syllabic fragments, crossing sound poetry techniques with melodic invention in a way rarely heard outside of Caetano Veloso’s Araçá Azul. On ‘Attempt to Raise Hell’, Katzenstein’s distorted voice spits out streams of alliterative nonsense (‘the hemlock of Henry, he was a hermit…purple pumpkin pulsates to pops’), while on the hilarious ‘Eric’, Katzenstein appears to instruct a small boy simultaneously in basic French and German conversation. On ‘Chicken’, vocal harmonies accompany the pecking and clucking of the titular fowl. Moving from bent, outsider synth pop to snatches of Jo Jones-esque automated instrumental clang and absurdist linguistic experiments, these are far more than footnotes to an artist’s gallery works. Accompanied by extensive, beautifully written liner notes by Roee Rosen and the little information that exists on the individual tracks, Katzenstein’s Audio Works inhabits an outer fringe of DIY pop and sonic experiment reminiscent of Pascal Comelade or Die Welttraumforscher, where accessible forms convey radical interrogations of song, word, and sound.

In 2016 lutenist Sofie Vanden Eynde put her instrument aside for nine
months in order to recover from a severe burnout
Five years later, she felt the need to look back. Would it be possible, she
wondered, to use the intense, shared concentration between musician and
listener to convey sensations of over- stimulation, contrast, excess, stagnation,
emptiness, beauty and movement? Would it be possible to articulate the inner
reality of a burnout musically: to make a burnout audible, tangible,
understandable and, who knows, avoidable? The result is Vanishing Point /
Verdwijntijd, an autobiographical recital, a musical narrative, a journey:
somewhere between fragile comfort and cautious happiness. Writer Annemarie
Peeters drew on her interviews with Sofie to write a text that reflects the three
phases of a burnout. The run- up, the phase of total stagnation during, and the
cautious way out. Three colours, three seasons, three ways of being. Lurking
beneath Sofie's personal story are experiences that many will recognize: the
craving for efficiency, the sudden faltering, the unfamiliar and at the same time
disconcerting sense of emptiness, and the tentative search for a new balance.
But also the questions Sofie asked herself – about the connection between her
own little story and the big world that surrounds her – evoke wide recognition. Is
burnout a personal failure or a social symptom?
Sofie went in search of pieces from the solo lute repertoire that she intuitively
associated with the various phases of the text. This resulted in a recital with a
surprising palette of colours, styles and atmospheres. At times she chose the
rich, powerful sound of the theorbo. At others she chose the fragile, hushed
sound of the Renaissance lute. The Prelude by the French baroque composer
Robert de Visee combines phrases full of grandeur with breathing pauses filled
with intimate doubt. The music of John Dowland draws on the typically English
penchant for melancholy. In the fantasias and ricercars of Francesco da Milano, it
is not only the bright colours of the Italian Renaissance that resound, but also the
constant search for a new beginning. Luis de Narvaez's Cancion del emperador is
an arrangement for lute of the famous chanson Mille Regretz by Josquin Desprez,
a song that emanates serene regret for everything that is not. And in Robert de
Visee's Chaconne the same chord sequence revolves around its own axis. Hope,
tenderness, revolt and acceptance each step to the fore in turn.
At Sofie's request, Vladimir Gorlinsky created a new composition, one which
reflects the state of mind in the middle of a burnout. Vanishing Point balances on
the edge of total emptiness, a stagnation that at times is hard to bear. Vanishing
Point starts out from this stagnation to explore the different facets of burnout:
resistance and acceptance, fear and hope, stagnation and movement, absolute
solitude and the desire to interact again with the surrounding world. Vanishing
Point / Verdwijntijd can be listened to in different ways: not only as a lute recital,
but also as a radio play with voice, lute and soundscapes. Annemarie Peeters'
text was recorded by actress Katelijne Damen (NL) and voice artist Caroline
Daish (EN). Vladimir Gorlinsky created soundscapes based on the sounds of the
lute, which were magnified as if under a microscope. The soundscapes weave
themselves between the text and the lute music. Jo Thielemans created the
sound design and provided the live electronics.

Having torn up raves for well over a decade, the Detroit duo Rickers and Ted Krisko AKA Ataxia present their debut longplayer ‘Out Of Step’. Featuring guest spots from close peers DJ Minx, Andrés and Mr Joshooa, they twist house, techno, electro, breakbeat and rave into revitalized new shapes; embellished with a touch of soul, funk and hip hop. With backgrounds in hardcore and punk, Ataxia’s debut is suffused with that energy, attitude, and approach; this is raw, lean and unashamedly no-nonsense dance floor tackle that goes straight for the jugular. Heavily analogue, the album experiments with tape saturation, which harks back to the duo’s formative years in bands, recording demos to cassettes. These straight-up, in-the-red tracks give preference to overdriven drum machines, rather than generic polished sheen, but conversely, it’s all deceptively well-crafted too; ‘Out Of Step’ is a standout record that’s big in character, bringing to mind the renegade spirit of Underground Resistance, and the bombastic brilliance of The Prodigy and Chemical Brothers.

Defiantly optimistic despite the state of the world, a “life is good” vocal sample meets minor chords sliding over 808 hats on the exemplary house/techno pumper ‘Detroit Gospel’, before a lighter moment on the album, but no less impactful with its hefty low-end thump, is ‘Pine Island’ featuring Motor City hero Andrés. Together they cook up a Motown-inspired house cut awash with horn swells and backup singers, bouncing to wide swung funk bass, in classic 313 style. ‘Language’ turns the club on its head – busting out one of the most distinct basslines in recent times, and bristling with buzzy, undulating chords, whilst ‘Maxia’ features influential Detroit royalty DJ Minx. Inspired by her classic ‘A Walk In The Park’, with a fat distorted kick and stealthy bass groove, this is low-slung, stripped-back, heads-down coolness. The high-tech funk of ‘Spit In Your Percolator’, is laser-guided in its efficiency, with a strobe-like, increasingly intensifying energy, peppered with clever, tripped up vocal chops. With the next cut, conveyor belt noises and fast churning low-end gives way to a dubbed-out breakdown, on the deep breakbeat roller ‘98 Degrees’. Charged with a blistering, rave intensity, ‘Number Streets’, is a futuristic distorted techno workout that booms through the subs, whilst ‘The Formulator’ mixes filtered snippets, abstract synth noises and melodic bleeps with a bassline echoing Paperclip People’s ‘The Floor’. Closer to the UK definition of hardcore, combining 4/4 and breakbeat, ‘The Pusher’ evokes the spirit of late 80s orbital raves, adding a natty keys solo, and deadly bass used sparingly, for even deadlier effect. ‘Feels Like’ sees Rickers and Ted team up their studiomate and fellow TV Lounge resident and club booker, Mister Joshooa. Inspired by Photek but also almost UKG in style, this breakbeat session is stamped with MJ’s signature chopped vocals and intricate rhythmic interplay. The bubbling, wobbly loose swing of ‘WM’ is constructed around a classic chopped-up MTV cribs sample, with a filtered vocal creating a far out psychedelic effect – all of which is propelled apace by a huge bruising LFO. The LP concludes in fine style with ‘Dance The Bridge’, where bouncy beats and wigged-out keys meet bright, gently uplifting synth chords that bring a clear-skied mood; ending the record as it began, on an optimistic note.

‘Out Of Step’ marks another chapter in the ongoing relationship between Life and Death co-founder DJ Tennis and Ataxia. Their connection goes back to the earliest days of the label, where they played gigs together on some of Tennis’ initial visits to Detroit. It’s a friendship that’s blossomed organically over the last decade through their shared love of punk and hardcore, and led to the fruition of one of Ataxia’s most compelling projects to date. Labels to release Ataxia’s output include legendary Detroit techno imprints Planet E and KMS, plus the seminal American house label Nervous Records. Their catalogue also includes music for Visionquest, Leftroom, 20/20 Vision and Seth Troxler’s Play It Say It.

Hate Propaganda's far too overlooked 2019 debut EP "World War 666" sees a much needed reissue on vinyl, remastered and enhanced by brand new artwork commissioned for the purpose by Xerox master P. Van Trigt. When it was first released on cassette tape back in 2019 by War Arts Productions, this war-torn debut offering of primeval warnoise by the mysterious Portuguese war criminals stood out immediately as a crown jewel debut for the genre and as one of the year's most definitive and underrated manifestations of extreme metal's most hateful and berserk fringe. Packing in nineteen minutes of absolute hatred, the annihilating MLP manifests as a nightmare hallucination of complete violence and negativity, evoking eons of perennial apocalyptic global planetary war and terror on the wings of its nefarious design of achieving maximum annihilation in the shortest amount of time possible. To harness this bleak pantheon of ruin, the Portuguese conquerors have assembled a weaponized and uncontrolled sonic chain reaction where grindcore, black metal, death metal and hardcore punk are all accelerated and instigated into an inescapable payload of death aimed straight at the vital sinews of humanity. A sonic maelstrom churned into shape by an onslaught of obscure violent riffs, psychotic leads and ominous laughter which, parallel to a pulverizing drum performance, emanates from oblivion with an antediluvian, negative aura. Comparisons to bands like Diocletian, Heresiarch, Tetragrammacide and Nuclearhammer will run abound, yet these would be only easy superficial conjectures as this is a manifestation of sonic extremism which dwells on a plain of excellence entirely its own. Its uniqueness transpires particularly in the maniacal drumming which underlines the band's hardcore and punk influences, and is exalted further by an unusually crystalline production and by a masterful onslaught of uber-audible riffs hiding behind nothing and seemingly going in the opposite direction of the homogenous and indiscernible sensorial smothering the genre usually opts to go in. Tracklisting: 1. World War 666 2. Neverending Mass Graves 3. Violent Nature of Human Annihilation 4. Welcoming the Nuclear War With Open Arms 5. Let the Sirens Signal the End of Times

Welcome to ‘STR4TASFEAR, Bluey and Gilles’ second STR4TA album released.

A collection of songs, melodies, grooves and sounds that sit perfectly in the brand new music world it’s part of. Gilles and Bluey are both men who emerged into the Brit funk world. They were both part of this truly thrilling chapter in the story of homegrown music; which manifests itself here in a sumptuous mixture of twanging basslines, spacey synth melodies, clicking beats and wispy, ethereal voices.

And for this new set, they’ve got a few like-minded souls along to join the party. Multi-talented Neo-soul Godfather Omar, and celebrated vocalist, Valerie Etienne, both represent Brit funk’s first bounce. Also welcomed in to the fold is musical polymath, Emma-Jean Thackray, Brighton duo Anushka and Floridian trumpeter/vocalist Theo Croker. ‘STR4TASFEAR’ is Gilles and Bluey’s wide-open window into a timeless, wonderful world of Brit funk (Words by Mark Webster, 2022).

STR4TA has received a rapturous reception, with standout tracks ‘We Like It’ achieving over 1 million streams on Spotify and ‘Rhythm In Your Mind’ exceeding 12 weeks on Jazz FM’s playlist. They have been heavily supported by BBC 6Music, The Guardian, Wax Poetics, The Vinyl Factory, CLASH, Télérama (FR), Radio Nova (FR), Rolling Stones Italy & Japan. Most recent singles “When You Call Me” & “Night Flight”, taken from the upcoming album, has already received support from Rampage (BBC 1Xtra), Jamz Supernova (BBC 6 Music), Deb Grant (Jazz FM) plus NTS, Mi-Soul, Solar Radio, KCRW (US), KEXP (US), Concrete Islands, CRACK Magazine, and Nu-Funk (Spotify).

Welcome to ‘STR4TASFEAR, Bluey and Gilles’ second STR4TA album released.

A collection of songs, melodies, grooves and sounds that sit perfectly in the brand new music world it’s part of. Gilles and Bluey are both men who emerged into the Brit funk world. They were both part of this truly thrilling chapter in the story of homegrown music; which manifests itself here in a sumptuous mixture of twanging basslines, spacey synth melodies, clicking beats and wispy, ethereal voices.

And for this new set, they’ve got a few like-minded souls along to join the party. Multi-talented Neo-soul Godfather Omar, and celebrated vocalist, Valerie Etienne, both represent Brit funk’s first bounce. Also welcomed in to the fold is musical polymath, Emma-Jean Thackray, Brighton duo Anushka and Floridian trumpeter/vocalist Theo Croker. ‘STR4TASFEAR’ is Gilles and Bluey’s wide-open window into a timeless, wonderful world of Brit funk (Words by Mark Webster, 2022).

STR4TA has received a rapturous reception, with standout tracks ‘We Like It’ achieving over 1 million streams on Spotify and ‘Rhythm In Your Mind’ exceeding 12 weeks on Jazz FM’s playlist. They have been heavily supported by BBC 6Music, The Guardian, Wax Poetics, The Vinyl Factory, CLASH, Télérama (FR), Radio Nova (FR), Rolling Stones Italy & Japan. Most recent singles “When You Call Me” & “Night Flight”, taken from the upcoming album, has already received support from Rampage (BBC 1Xtra), Jamz Supernova (BBC 6 Music), Deb Grant (Jazz FM) plus NTS, Mi-Soul, Solar Radio, KCRW (US), KEXP (US), Concrete Islands, CRACK Magazine, and Nu-Funk (Spotify).

"Most of this record was created in the shadow of COVID and deep in the maw of Melbourne’s 2020 long winter lockdown. It is a meditation on the nature of connection.

Restricted to a 5km zone, one of the only people I saw outside my family during this time was my old friend and teacher, Ania Walwicz. We met in the overlap between our zones on the waterfront near Docklands to walk and talk on bright, cool winter afternoons. Those conversations became large in my thoughts when Ania suddenly passed away in September. Her voice was in my head as I worked on this music, trawling through threads of ideas, recordings made on my phone, and thoughts jotted down in notebooks.

Ania’s practice as a writer relied on ‘automatic’ processes. Her work was informed by everything she had read (a lot) but it was created in the manner of dreams. In a state where the subconscious might bubble up and the words arrange themselves into meaning bearing forms that resonate more than represent. I thought a lot about that as I made this music. I recorded everyday using the trumpet, my old Revox reel-to-reel, a couple of synths, a harmonium I lent from a friend, and whatever else was around. I worked mostly on just diving a little deeper each time I sat down to it.

Through the simple process of exhalation, I explored my relationship with the trumpet, which has been through so many twists and turns. I let the tones produced by my breath unfurl on long tape loops and degrade beyond recognition through pedal and plugin chains, until the only imprint of the initial gesture remained.

My process also involved long bike rides during which I’d listen to the work of previous days on ear buds, gliding through familiar streets made slightly strange by the absence of people and movement. Often my rides took me along Footscray Rd next to the port, and as I washed down towards Docklands past the old boat moorings I stopped pedalling to coast. The sounds from my darkened studio mingled with the low rush of air past my helmet, the click and whirr of my bike gears, a squalling bird, a whooshing car. And I remembered my last conversation with Ania. Sitting in the late afternoon sun, squinting against the light that raked across the water, she was telling me about all the different words for they have for blue in Polish and Russian, and how words don’t just change our perception of things, but also actually change the thing being perceived.

As I rode home that afternoon, I felt like anything was possible. "

Peter Knight

Jozef Van Wissem- Lute, Electronics, Beats, Electric Guitar, Found Bird Sounds. In 2013 van Wissem won the Cannes Soundtrack Award at the Cannes Film Festival for Jim Jarmusch’s “Only Lovers Left Alive “. In December 2017 Jozef van Wissem was invited to perform the madrigal depicted in Caravaggio’s painting The Lute Player (1596) at the Hermitage museum of Saint Petersburg. In 2022 three of his works were used for in the soundtrack and trailer of Irma Vep (HBO). His completely unique musical world can be easily verified by his collaborations, especially that these relationships are also strengthening his own musical character. He worked together with Zola Jesus, Tilda Swinton, Jarboe as well as with his long-time collaborative partner, also his friend, Jim Jarmusch. “La Cinémathèque Française in Paris commissioned me to write and perform the score at the presentation of the restored version of Nosferatu. I was a bit overwhelmed by its success. It was sold out. I wasn’t going to repeat it. But people kept asking. In the beginning the soundtrack was more improvised and reactive to the images but after a few times the audience kind of showed me the way. To start with a few notes and building the score slowly to a dense slow metal ending. I found an old 7-inch single with recordings of extinct birds on a market, I electronically processed and added them to the score . “ Manipulating the sounds of electric guitar in alternate tuning he manages to create the feeling of fear, equal to the experience of the victims of Count Orlok. “To me Nosferatu personifies this Death Bird of the Plague. The Black Death depicted in the film offers a timeless parallel with contemporary society. The vampire Count Orlok infests the city with rats and people are infected with the plague. They must quarantaine. This provokes hysteria. Much like nowadays”. With a melodic almost medieval magic and mystery Jozef van Wissem has reignited the light through the filters of dark energy post punk and even black metal into a wondrous new melodramatic cinematic space…- John Robb (Louder Than War) Beginning with a solo played on the lute, his performance will incorporate electric guitar and distorted recordings of extinct birds, graduating from subtlety to gothic horror. – New York Times Delightfully macabre, intense and electrifying – MXDWN

This record is a representation of everything that has led me to this point
- It's been a long, bizarre path, says Zenizen's Opal Hoyt of both her life
and her journey to make this record
Like Peter and the Wolf, the Russian symphony Hoyt used as a creative
framework, P.O.C. (Proof of Concept) is a series of vignettes "the collection of
which mirrors Hoyt's long journey, from her adoption in Alaska to her many moves
between DC, Jamaica, Vermont, and New York.Along this unconventional path,
Hoyt met the talented cast of musicians who would go on support her in the
recording of P.O.C: variegated bass by Jonathan Maron (Erykah Badu, D'Angelo);
drums by Vishal Nayak (Nick Hakim, Empress Of); moments of magic on horns by
Sly 5th Ave (Prince); guitars by Benamin (IGBO); intricate mixing by Nick Herrera
(Hiatus Kaiyote), Benamin, and Jon Bap; with mastering by Heba Kadry and Davy
Levitan. Then there's Hoyt herself, whose rich alto pierces through with poetic
lyricism, supported by her contributions of Rhodes, synths, and sample
arrangements (think: babbling brooks and birdsong). In other words, Hoyt isn't
just a songwriter in the classic sense. She's also a skilled producer with an ear for
excellent arrangements "the kind of musician who enjoys meandering and
allowing her artistic vision to percolate. Likewise, P.O.C is a record that blooms in
beauty over time "the kind of record that you can take anywhere in any season, as
any version of yourself.

The Netherland’s De Ambassade have dropped the ‘De’ and are now known as Ambassade. Optimo Music is extremely happy to be working with them and will be releasing their second album in 2023. Ahead of that is this glorious 2 track 12” featuring music that took our breath away when we first heard it. Both tracks are exclusive to this release.

We asked Ambassade to tell us a bit about the tracks…

“These 2 songs were born after a collaboration with Naama Freedman. She’s an artist from Amsterdam and former member of Ambassade. She brought a couple sketches to the studio and we came out with these 2 songs.

The lyrics on ‘Young Birds’ come from an old traditional English folk song from around 1903. It has been re-arranged a couple times throughout the years by multiple artists. The song reflects our development in sound and arrangement with extended synthesiser parts, less conventional song-writing. Also, us singing in English is a new path.

The pulsing song ‘Palette’ is a perfect combination of sequence and extended legato vocal parts. It creates a tense atmosphere which builds up to the very end.”

Sarathy Korwar returns with new album KALAK. The follow up to the politically charged, award-winning More Arriving is an Indo-futurist manifesto - in rhythmic step with the past and the present, it sets out to describe a route forward. It celebrates a rich South Asian culture of music and literature, which resonates with spirituality and community, while envisaging a better future from those building blocks. Recorded at Real World studios with meticulous production by New York electronic musician, DJ and producer Photay, who translates these communal rhythms and practices into a timeless and groundbreaking electronic record. There"s a spirituality and warmth at play in the polyrhythms, group vocals and melodic flourishes. The KALAK rhythm is the fulcrum upon which the 11-track project balances. After an intense lockdown induced period of reflection and meticulous note-making, Korwar boiled this down to the circular KALAK symbol which he then presented to his band before recording began. With the symbol projected on the walls in order to de-code and improvise around, Korwar had utter faith in the musicians he"d assembled and conviction in the concept.

Sometimes progress can feel like you’re falling upwards. But one thing to remember is not everyone’s story plays out the same. We’ve been through a lot during our time as a band. With a rich history of ups and down it’s safe to say that we’ve take our fair share of L’s. Imposter Syndrome is a record about us overcoming those L’s all the while battling our inner monologue. We keep telling ourselves things like “this has got to be a fluke,” or “how did we even get on this show, we don’t belong here.” This record is about us leaving self deprecation behind and starting the next chapter of Action/Adventure.

Blue Vinyl

Throughout his productive career, Carl Oesterhelt has proven to be an artist who finds it easy to move between musical genres and concepts. Much of his work has been within classical and chamber music, but he has also scored museum exhibitions and he is sometimes part of The Notwist crew as an angular figure on the Munich scene.

In Umor Rex we have been lucky enough to publish an array of Oesterhelt's universes. In Eleven Pieces for Synthesizer (Umor Rex 2019) we heard his kosmische side, where the connections with Harmonia or Klaus Schulze were amalgamated with ecclesiastical organ pieces and intense semi-automatic rhythms. A deeply melodic, fresh album. Pure syntax of the modern synthesizer. Further, in The Aporias of Futurism (Umor Rex 2021), in collaboration with Andreas Gerth (Driftmachine, Tied & Tickled Trio), Oesterhelt showed what is perhaps his darkest side —a work full of nuances within concrete music and midnight atmospheres. As deep and cerebral an album as it is surprising and catatonic.

Yet it seems that Carl Oesterhelt has another ace up his sleeve. Now he surprises us with The Dualistic Principle, a fantastic album full of weird but charming electronic melodies, rhythms that push the body to movement, sometimes syncopated and abstract, others permanent and fluid. In this work, Oesterhelt invited Johan Simons to give voice to the lyrics. The Dualistic Principle is a sort of rendition of a philosophical review or a nostalgic memory of the glamorous years. There is also underlying humor in the Post / Space-pop / Munich-disc assortment. The Dualistic Principle is the score to an imaginary film of contemporary hedonism.

All music & lyrics by Carl Oesterhelt. Voice by Johan Simons. Additional strings played by the Ensemble für synkretische Musik. Recorded in Munich & Bochum, Germany. Mastered by John Tejada in Sherman Oaks, USA. Artwork by Daniel Castrejón in Mexico City.

Since starting Babehoven in Portland, Oregon in 2017, Maya Bon has
shown herself to be a gifted heart-on-sleeve songwriter, using music to
peel back the layers of her own experience "sometimes sad, sometimes
surreal, always vividly rendered " to reveal universal emotional truths
hidden in the most intimately personal of details
After a handful of self- released EPs and their label debut on Double Double
Whammy with 2022's "Sunk" EP, Babehoven's first full-length album "Light Moving
Time" is due October 28 2022.
"Light Moving Time" is emblematic of Babehoven's wide range of dynamics, and
each of those sounds are taken further. You can hear the pared-down languor of
"Yellow Has a Pretty Good Reputation", the smoldering guitars of "Demonstrating
Visible Difference of Height", the peculiar charm of "Nastavi, Calliope", and the
soft tenderness of "Sunk". Alternating seamlessly acrossstyles, Circles and
Philadelphia have the wispy ambient calm of a Liz Harris track, I'm On Your Team
falls somewhere between a flowy country song and an 80s power ballad, Marion
contains the plucky indie- folk warmth of Hovvdy, and Stand It and Pockets are
coated with My Bloody Valentine's wobbly shoegaze. But in contrast with those
EPs, these tracks utilize Bon's voice with greater emotional impact than ever
before. Pressed on Bone Color vinyl

All You Need Is Now is the 13th studio album by English new wave band Duran Duran. Produced by Mark Ronson, the album was originally released in the US on March 22, 2011. The album peaked at #11 in the UK, becoming the band's 13th Top 20 album. It debuted at #29 on the US Billboard 200 chart (#7 Top Alternative Albums).

The lead single “All You Need Is Now” peaked at #38 on Billboard’s Adult Pop Songs Chart, while “Leave A Light On” reached #31 on the same chart.

In 1968, the future composer of "The Things of Life" (Les Choses de la Vie) seriously considered becoming a director. He wrote and shot "Florence", a short film influenced by the New Wave and composed its soundtrack, under the benevolent eye of Vladimir Cosma. The first spectators of the film are unanimous: failing to have seen a visionary cinematographic opus, they have discovered a real movie musician. From this first attempt, Philippe Sarde imposes his melodic talent on the picture and initiates his sense of counterpoint. This founding soundtrack, however, remained in the boxes for more than 50 years, before finding a place of choice on the B side of our album.

To open the ball, we offer you another forgotten score: the almost unused score of Loulou, Maurice Pialat’s cult classic. In 1980, the naturalist director planned to use original music to accompany the wanderings of his sublime love duo, played by Gérard Depardieu and Isabelle Huppert. He commissioned a bare, impressionistic score from Philippe Sarde, then changed his mind and kept only a


timid end credits. The meeting between the two giants of French cinema did however take place, as evidenced by the first side of this beautiful lp.

RIYL Harold Budd, Max Richter, Nihls Frahm. Limited Transparent Orange Vinyl LP. Final album from Roberth Haigh of SEMA, Nurse With Wound, Omni Trio. Smut shines a spotlight on the sounds of the 90s across genres – a record scratch, a spacey synth line, a breakcore beat – all while maintaining freshness and originality. The collaborative project of vocalist Tay Roebuck, guitarist Andrew Min, bassist and synth-player Bell Cenower, guitarist and synth-player Sam Ruschman, and drummer Aidan O'Connor, Smut have conquered national tours with Bully, Swirlies, Nothing, and WAVVES. Based in Chicago, IL, the band hits their stride in 'How the Light Felt'. It is an exercise in coping, an electrifying statement of hope in the thick of resounding loss, and a love letter to the people that keep us going. With their powers combined, Smut meld the songwriting sensibilities of Oasis with the vocal delivery of the Cocteau Twins – the percussive grooves of Gorillaz with the sensuality of Massive Attack. An electric current of hope led by Tay Roebuck's powerful, femme vocals, Smut puts on a live show that is not to be missed. Also Available From Smut: Power Fantasy 7”. Track listing: 1 Beginner's Mind 2 Twilight Flowers 3 Waltz on Treated Wire 4 Contour Lines 5 Rainy Season 6 Lost Albion 7 Like a Shadow 8 Still Life with Moving Parts 9 The Fourth Man 10 Signs of Life 11 The Nocturnals 12 Baroque Atom 13 On Terminus Hill

RIYL Harold Budd, Max Richter, Nihls Frahm. Limited Transparent Orange Vinyl LP. Final album from Roberth Haigh of SEMA, Nurse With Wound, Omni Trio. Smut shines a spotlight on the sounds of the 90s across genres – a record scratch, a spacey synth line, a breakcore beat – all while maintaining freshness and originality. The collaborative project of vocalist Tay Roebuck, guitarist Andrew Min, bassist and synth-player Bell Cenower, guitarist and synth-player Sam Ruschman, and drummer Aidan O'Connor, Smut have conquered national tours with Bully, Swirlies, Nothing, and WAVVES. Based in Chicago, IL, the band hits their stride in 'How the Light Felt'. It is an exercise in coping, an electrifying statement of hope in the thick of resounding loss, and a love letter to the people that keep us going. With their powers combined, Smut meld the songwriting sensibilities of Oasis with the vocal delivery of the Cocteau Twins – the percussive grooves of Gorillaz with the sensuality of Massive Attack. An electric current of hope led by Tay Roebuck's powerful, femme vocals, Smut puts on a live show that is not to be missed. Also Available From Smut: Power Fantasy 7”. Track listing: 1 Beginner's Mind 2 Twilight Flowers 3 Waltz on Treated Wire 4 Contour Lines 5 Rainy Season 6 Lost Albion 7 Like a Shadow 8 Still Life with Moving Parts 9 The Fourth Man 10 Signs of Life 11 The Nocturnals 12 Baroque Atom 13 On Terminus Hill

There's a certain winking resignation to the title of Nick Lowe's At My
Age, as if it were designed to be spoken with a soft, knowing sigh
Now in his late fifties, Lowe is hardly running away from his advancing years --
quite the contrary, the singer/songwriter is comfortable in his skin and his years.
Certainly, he's comfortable in his music, since At My Age marks the fourth time
that he's mined the intimate, well-worn country-rock vibe of The Impossible Bird,
and if at this point it no longer is a revelation, it's hardly lost its appeal, either. Part
of that lies in Lowe's ever-potent charm, and to overlook an album as exquisitely
crafted as At My Age is to be a fool, because nobody does this kind of relaxed
Americana as well as Lowe, who is still writing songs that stand proudly
alongside his previous classics. For instance, there's "I Trained Her to Love Me," a
song as wickedly witty and bitterly self- loathing as "Cruel to Be Kind" or "The
Beast in Me," a tune that's balanced by the wry new-love anthem "Hope for Us All,"
which has its share of gently funny lines but is nevertheless a ringing, sincere
endorsement of love, worthy of the man who wrote "(What's So Funny 'Bout)
Peace, Love and Understanding?" And that's always been one of Lowe's greatest
gifts, that he is possessed with rare humor but also a big heart, which is what
gives his music great resonance. This 15th anniversary edition of At My Age is
pressed on silver vinyl and limited to 2,500 copies worldwide. This marks the first
time this long- out- of- print classic has ever been available on color
vinyl.Packaging; LP jacket; silver vinyl

First Time On Black vinyl. A lot has happened to the Magic Castles since this was released in April 2021 this release took over a year to be manufactured, the band have toured with the Brian Jonestown Massacre & the Warlocks in the USA in 2022 & the the track “Lost Dimension” was used in the HBO series “Succession” so not a bad 2022 for the band. Sun Reign is the band’s fourth release on Anton Newcombe's label ‘A’ Recordings Ltd. Ironically similar to BJM, the Magic Castles have been plagued by lineup changes over the years. In November of 2019, tragedy struck and Edmonds was seriously injured in a car accident that required hospitalization and surgery. Friends started a Go Fund Me that raised over $20k USD for the uninsured musician’s hospital bills, showing an incredible outpouring of love and support for him and his family. Fortunately, Edmonds has made a complete recovery from his injuries and has bounced back remarkably well. In early 2020, Edmonds managed to finish the remaining work on the album “Sun Reign”, including a previously unreleased song, “Surmise'' penned by guitarist Jermiah Doering, and a rare cover of a moody 1966 garage rock song “Ode to the Wind” by Danny and the Counts. Edmonds also began working with a booking agency, planning a return tour to Europe with the band to support the new album. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Due to the global pandemic crisis of Covid-19, the album was delayed until 2021, and the promising tour was cancelled. In May of 2020, Minneapolis police killed George Floyd two blocks from Edmonds’ home, which incited riots across the country. The protests led to the burning of Minneapolis, where a long time music venue and many other buildings were lost. Edmonds’ studio was not destroyed although many nearby buildings were. Edmonds is a known supporter of Black Lives Matter Tracklisting:- 1) Sunburst , 2) Lost Dimension , 3) Ode to the Wind , 4) Asuras , 5) World of Time , 6) Valley of Nysa , 7) Magna Mater , 8) Surmise , 9) Gates of the Sun , 10 ) Relax Your Mind

What does it mean to be a traveler in a fixed place? An adventurer in
domestic space? A troubadour in a confined microcosm, or a
constellation of microcosms—that is, a microcosmos? These are the
questions Nashville musician, songwriter, and published poet Lou Turner
(aka Lauren Turner, Styrofoam Winos) was reflecting on as she wrote her
luminous third solo album, Microcosmos
She says of the cosmic country record, "Musically, these songs are mostly in the
country/folk vein of the 70s songwriter but lyrically they're challenging some of
those tropes or totally subverting them altogether, talking about commitment and
love—the small microcosmic things that make up the fabric of everything."
With her warm and welcoming voice and nylon- stringed acoustic guitar
foregrounded over sparse yet playful arrangements, Microcosmos is a meditation
on what it means to privilege cultivation over consumption and to ponder larger
realities from within the shell of the fixed reality of a home. The reward is the
adventure to be found in stillness and observation, the discovery of the
otherworldly in earthly matter, the revelations of groundedness. Turner generously
offers up these wonders to the listener, sharing hers, and inviting us to find our
own.

We, the label, asked Ben Wallers (ex-Country Teasers) to write a press release for his new album. "Press Release And Give Me The Disc as Peter said to Murphy said to Daniel said to Ash said to J said to the drummer subs please check name was it Martyn Atkins? No... scratch that please Roger, there's nothing funny about not knowing all the members of Bauhaus. Announcing the new album by The Rebel, yay! Wow! Fucking hell, great! How long is it this time? Oh it's getting on for the optimal 45 mins. Fit on side of a D90 but go bit wobbly near end of SA90. I am listening to my copy on vinyl record, it's much better than tape. That's the intro. Once upon a time there was a man/boy a sort of immature Peter's Pan type pan-pipe type who COULDNT WOULDNT grow up a bit like Keith Richards and who er where was i? The Vagina Museum is very near Maureen Paley's art gallery where if you hurry you can see some INCREDIBLY GOOD paintings/art. Anyway once upon a time it was february 2021 if that's last year or 2020 if it was the one before that, i've lost count, honestly this Covid thing is SO confusing isn't it? Anyway. Ducking fomestic crisis as usual reached boiling point again and i fucked off didn't i, did a runner, off to Turkey wiv a lih-ooh bih-uh ragarahn me ed, first of all 2 weeks on George's spare mattress, then 2 weeks in Merlin's magical tower, then a week in a fucking EasyJet Hotel with no windows, then at last my new exile retreat, Congreve Ho. Meanwhile Dad got me a new recording device the size of a VHS tape, the Tascam D-POO 8 S-E-X multitrack. Quality, oscar mike golf!! Urine for a surprise Listener/s! Ural b sayin "Y could ont he ov get 1 of these B4?" Well! Paid off the fuckin mortgage, didden Eye listenerz. Paid the fucking mortgage of. Dad said "Lets get you a reward Son! Anything name it!" Well i said ... can you fix it for me to touch Britney's hat? The one she wore for the Milkshake video. Great album. Recorded it in exile, from where i write this press release and give me the tape Kevin Haskins." And he did. Tracklist: 1. Nemo To Self 2. I’m Wok Inner Gdn.C 3. A Cretian Build-Up 4. Lays A Seamless Transition 5. A Bottle Of Timotei Hair-Shampoo 6. Long Way Off 7. Teulleodd Hapys (Dave 1) 8. I Aint Gonna Lie To Ya 1 9. Bisgeden Am Swper Eto (Dave 4) 10. Put Your Fucking Glasses On So You Can Fucking See 11. Happy Families (Dave 3) 12. Pyfgosycfs 2/Aquafauna 13. Dave Two Ukraine Nil 14. Nemo Self 2