quête:4 to the floor

This is Sixties Rock n Roll at its best! A fantastic 2 sider!

A Mod Beat Band playing Rock n Roll is the best way to describe it,,, great Dance floor fillers, both 50s and 60s fans love this record

Floofy - An ear-bugging flute, a huge Moog bassline and cosmic synths, what more do you need for an ecstatic club anthem?

Charlize - Let’s add a “Spacer Woman” style handclap towards the lush pads. Rex club dance floor approved.

Lezaki - Inspired by a fond memory of a one-time festival at the polish seaside, a fusion between disco and trance elements. Long-lasting friendships will develop while you get lost in the song.

Limited edition cloudy clear vinyl. Combining processed recordings of wind and water with analog synthesizers and chamber orchestra, Elori Kramer's The Blue of Distance is an audio dissertation on the role technology plays in our relationships to geography and nature, unspooling into an examination of memory and longing across seven sections that layer filmic minimalism over churning electronic soundbeds. Half of the suite was written in the Adirondack mountains during summer amid lakes, rivers, and moss-laden forest floors, while the other half was conceived on a frozen Lake Superior island in deep winter, creating a subtextual dialogue between the two extreme settings. Kramer, who was born in 1990 and grew up alongside the internet, uses her music to explore nature in the actual and the virtual world, through direct experience and facsimile alike, focussing and blurring the line between the two. "Looking back at my videos of that summer-- which is where the processed audio came from-- I tried to remember what it had felt like to be there," she recalls, "thinking about questions of reality versus imagination; physical versus digital; and the ways in which memory shifts through our minds and technology." The title The Blue of Distance was derived from Rebecca Solnit's book A Field Guide to Getting Lost, referring to the phenomenon of faraway mountains appearing blue due to light particles getting lost over distance. "If we were to go up to the mountains that appear blue from far away, we would see that they weren't actually that color." she says. "This beauty is made possible because of their distance," much in the same way that the splendor of a lush season is only fully realized in the throes of a bleak one, and the joy of an event can only be felt when it has long since been consigned to remembrance. R.I.Y.L Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Josiah Steinbrick, Emily Sprague

NEP was a loose multimedia collective formed in 1982 Zagreb, ex-Yugoslavia. The founder Dejan Krsic collaborated with various artists in a quest of re-thinking the stale concepts of art history, position of the author and the barriers between pop and elitist high culture. Heavily influenced by Walter Benjamin and Andy Warhol in theory and Brian Eno and Kraftwerk in music, Krsic created NEP as an umbrella term (meaning Nova Evropa or New Europe) of diverse rule-breaking activities, covering graphic design, music, photography, video, news-media and theoretical work. Musically NEP focused on experiments in ambient and tape-music, self-released and hard to find compilation tapes like "The Cassette Played Poptones" (1988). Deeply immersed in pop-culture, politics and art theory Krsic's search for perfect pop music with cutting critical edge peaked in 1989, the year 'Decadance' track was conceived in studio. Fox & His Friends published the single in 2017 with Snuffo Remix on B-side. It received rave reviews in music press like MixMag and DJ Mag and it is still played on dance-floors around the world. But the story around the NEP is musically (as well as artistically) much wider: for the first time Fox & His Friends team compiles best cuts from unreleased and rare NEP tapes, covering the period from 1985 to 1989 on POP NOT POP abum. Dejan Krsic is now famous graphic designer and art historian in Croatia. Other collaborators include Laibach and Borghesia photographer Jane Stravs, artist and TV director Gordana Brzovic, Jovan Culibrk, now Bishop at The Serbian Orthodox Church and Anja Rupel, singer of cult Yugoslavian synth-pop group Videosex as well as the other members of Videosex, Iztok Turk and Janez Krizaj who produced some of the tracks. Other collaborators were talented producers Robert Logozar and Davor Daga Devcic, singers Linda Cooper, Natalija, Alexx Kovacs... The list of collaborations is long. Some of the memorable moments on POP NOT POP album are early demo version of Decadance 'How Do I Dance To This Music?' with blue movies samples and drum machine experiments like early Cabaret Voltaire, then Krsic's reinterpretation of legendary Kraftwerk's Trans Europe Express anthem as 'Transcendance', or 'Radical Chic', where Dejan himself and Anja Rupel from Videosex make lovely couple of dandy-esque fashionistas, singing chart-friendly radio synthpop tune that contrasts the A-side (The 'NOT POP' side) - full of experiments, dark wave and industrial nods to Test Department and Cabs. B-side is 'THE POP' side that will surprise most of the NEP followers from their early experimental cassette days. Sunny, danceable, joyfull pop that reveals the many faces of NEP. As Kraftwerk today is more of a concept than a band, NEP does the same by re-writing its products (musical, graphical, theoretical, activist) and constantly puts them in permanent state of change or re-mix. In the future, only NEP logo will be enough to consider something an art piece, and NEP will be everybody who wants to, as their Art Manifest claims. Until that day comes, 'POP NOT POP' is a document of how the vivid and creative were art-scenes in socialist Yugoslavia. Some of the graphic work, cut-ups from theory and Manifesto are also included on this LP, designed by Dejan Krsic aka NEP himself. This release is made from the original master tapes and published for the first time on vinyl.

NEW REPRESS IN HARD CARDBOARD SLEEVE + OBI + INSERT WITH LINER NOTES
+ RESEALABLE OUTER SLEEVE.



Christopher were an underground acid rock trio featuring future Josefus drummer Doug Tull. They evolved from United Gas, a psychedelic band from Houston who rubbed shoulders with legends like The 13th Floor Elevators and Moving Sidewalks . After relocating to Los Angeles - where they changed his name to Christopher - they played at numerous biker parties and recorded their sole album in 1970 for the Metromedia label. It’s an amazing example of West Coast psychedelia / acid-rock featuring strong fuzz-wah guitar, great compositions and superb musicianship. It was housed in a terrific cover depicting the band at the same hippie crash-pad where some scenes from the “The Trip” movie were filmed.



One of the holy grails of American psychedelic-rock and the rarest album originally released by the collectable Metromedia label.



Remastered sound, original artwork, insert with liner notes.



Note: This is the only legitimate, fully-authorized vinyl reissue of Christopher in the current market. Beware of inferior, low-quality bootlegs.

Red Marbled Vinyl

WEBUILDMACHINES presents “Machines of Deliverance”, a limited edition various artist LP celebrating 50 releases of evolutionary, multi-layered, experimental electronic music and contemporary techno. Offering an expansive stylistic palette from around the world, the artists presented embrace the ethos of the label’s past, present, and future with eight tracks of cinematic, industrial-themed, techno. Suited for the dance floor and repeated listening, with meticulously crafted sound design and precision programming throughout, this release is a unique and inspired addition to the WEBUILDMACHINES catalog. A Side: Headless Horseman (Berlin, DE) – Shift in Time Tunnel (Minneapolis, US) – Everything is Changing Opus Daemonii (Chicago, US) – Quantum Rift Axkan (Los Angeles, US) – Empty B Side: SKD (Riga, LV) – Hellbound in Paradise Sramaana (Lyon, FR) – Sicmundus C-KAY (Tokyo, JP) – Time to Crumble Soseol (Seoul, KR) – Volnost (DIGI ONLY) Faceless (Shanghai, CN) – Four Over Three Linbo (Shanghai, CN) – Falsity Became Our Sport Mastered by Gio at Artefacts Mastering / Berlin Artwork by R. Miller

"From Nishinari Osaka Japan Weird Wild Obscure Spooky exotica burlesque toy junk Muzak Trash One Man Band music made with broken cassette desks and fucked up record players feat members of (Acid Mother Temple)" - VRR 20202 Vinyl LP, starker Karton, bedruckte Innenhülle, Download inklusive. Willkommen in der wilden obskuren und seltsamen Welt von DEGURUTIENI und seiner ONE MAN BAND. teuflisch exotischer Striptease Kinder Spielzeug Krach mit ausgedientes Tonbandgerät und zerbrochenen Plattenspielern mit Mitgliedern von ua Acid Mother Temple in einigen Songs. Dies hier ist eine Zusammenstellung mit älteren Songs (selbst Veröffentlichungen und auf kleinst Labels) und viele neue Songs die noch nie vorher veröffentlicht wurden. Ich dachte, es ist an der Zeit, dass die Welt etwas über DEGURUTIENI erfährt (ich hatte Wochen, bis ich seinen Namen richtig buchstabieren konnte, hahaha ) Er tourt ständig durch die ganze Welt (pre Covid-19) und tritt in regulären Konzertsälen sowie in Theatern, Kunstgalerien oder sogar auf der Straße auf. wenn man ihn zum ersten mal sieht ist es eine Lebens Erfahrung die man nicht wider vergisst und es bleibt ein großes Lächeln im Gesicht und ein verzerrtes Fragezeichen in deinem Gehirn. Alco Degurutieni wurde Ende der 60er Jahre im Nishinari Ghetto von Osaka geboren (Alco Degurutieni: Diese Zeit in den 1970er Jahren war eine harte Zeit für alle, einmal im Monat Unruhen auf den Straßen. Rot Licht viertel Prostitution und die Yakuza-Mafia waren uns vertraut. Diese Erinnerungen an ein jugendliches Chaos sind seitdem ein Katalysator für mein Peter-Pan-Syndrom.) Degurutieni schafft Harmonie durch Gegenüberstellung, indem er ihnen Melodie aus Chaos und Dekadenz aus Abfall extrahiert. Mit 13 Jahren bekam er seine erste Boombox und wurde der beste Kunde in seinem örtlichen Leih-Platten und Trödler laden. Er arbeitete sich durch alle Genres von den Beach Boys bis zum Black Sabbath. Ab 16 Jahren begann er, seine eigenen Songs mit den einzigen Dingen zu kreieren, zu denen er Zugang hatte; Müll, umgebaute Kinderspielzeuge und ein ausgedientes Tonbandgerät. All dies spielt noch heute eine wichtige Rolle in seiner Musik. Auf diesem Album findest du ,Acme in the afternoon, ein komplett Hit, Tom Waits Blues Jazz Burlesque, dann mit ,Blur Blur Blur, hörst du ihn super minimalistisch und verloren im All Blues, oder den unglaublichen ,Midnight Express' mit einem orientalischen Trash-Flair der dich in einen neuen Blade Runner film katapultiert, und Zigeuner Fanafare und Rock'n'roll in ,13th Floor City ' zusammen mit: Orchester du Belgistan (aus Belgien) oder mein favorit ,Dreaming party' das wie ein psychedelischer horror film Soundtrack daher kommt LINE UP Alco Degurutieni (mostly all instuments) aditional Musissians on the Album Jyonson Tsu (ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE) Machiko Kuniki (Sujiko Sumoguri) Akiyoshi Kajitani (MOHIKAN FAMILIES) Atsushi Sekitani Watanbe (BRO TÜRK,PATO LOL MAN) Naoya Takami (Ichibanboshi Crue) Kwandae Park (UMA UMA UMA) Akira Ohno Tadahiro Ishihara Keigo Matsunaga (Rock'n'TASUKE'Roll & THE CAPTAIN SWING,MOHIKAN FAMILY'S) Tom Manoury (Orchestre du Belgistan) Mbengue Ndiaga Jordi Grognard (YOKAI) Akiko Igaki (TAYUTAU,COLLOID) Kiri Mochida Takeo Touyama (PATO LOL MAN) Shuichi Hirose (HUMNED) Takeo Touyama (PATO LOL MAN)

LTD. CLEAR VINYL

Repressed in quantity for the first time in years. Includes the hit single "Strange Harvest". Tempers, comprised of Jasmine Golestaneh and Eddie Cooper, have carved out their own niche within dark indie, electronica and synth-pop circles. Their sound is about exploring tonal and emotional tension as much as it is about actual tracks or singular moments. Adrenalizing yet hypnotic landscapes layer mechanical and sensual impulses, as crystalline vocals weave fever dreams of yearning and alienation. Informed by both Golestaneh's involvement in musical performance and visual art and Cooper's electronic production resume, as well as their time in the States and abroad, they operate as a multi-disciplined entity in the spirit and ethos of Factory Records. Tempers describe their creative process as a telepathic kinship they've developed since they started making music together: "We have these sort of unspoken criteria when we're writing music. We never really need to explain what that is but we both know when it's missing or when we've hit it." After a string of critically acclaimed singles beginning in 2013 with "Eyes Wide Wider" b/w "Hell Hotline," the duo released their debut LP "Services" (2015) on cult imprint Aufnahme + Wiedergabe resulting in the underground club hit "Strange Harvest", extensive international touring and sold-out shows. The album's vinyl edition soon became a sought after collectors item. Their 2017 EP "Fundamental Fantasy" was released as a result of the Vinyl Factory's Volcano Extravaganza artist residency on the Aeolian island of Stromboli. Following their unique creative compass, in 2018 they indirectly moved from the dance floor to galleries, releasing "Junkspace" a conceptual collaboration with famed architect Rem Koolhaas. The record is available in the world's most select cultural hotspots, from The New Museum in New York to Walther Konig museum stores throughout Europe, a testament to Tempers' love for experimental output and unorthodox presentation. In 2019 Tempers signed with Dais Records, promptly releasing "Private Life" and the lead single "Capital Pains," a meticulous evolution of the dark pop that marked the duo's earlier output.

A gentle descent into washed out shoegaze memories, swallowed by windswept drones and distortion.
March 2020, lockdown No. 1 ''I don't believe that this music was actually created by myself. In fact isolation established the environment for its appearance.
Instead of thinking about music, as i went pacing the floor, I fell to counting my footsteps until I felt about to go mad.
A body needs at least three points of support, not in a straight line, to fix its position.
A body does not tip over when the force holding it upright in place is stronger than the force pushing it over. Lawfulness of the material.''
(She Was A Visitor, November 2020)

-LTD. COL. EDITION-

We are always sitting on a handful of unreleased songs that didn't make their way to albums. Listening back to these gems we decided to launch a new series entitled Big Crown Vaults and the first volume features the music of Lee Fields & the Expressions. These tunes were cut during the Special Night & It Rains Love sessions. Listening to these tracks you can imagine how difficult some of these decisions were in the first place to leave them off the albums. An absolute standout is "Regenerate," a song that finds Lee in the country soul realm, a style that Mr Fields, a North Carolina native, flourishes in. A drum break starts the song and then drops into a chorus where El Michels, Paul & Big Bill Schalda belt out the earworm chorus. Lee sings an encouraging tune about finding your way out of a low point in a relationship while The Expressions lay down an airtight groove. "Thinking About You" takes it back to the dance floors with what will surely be a hit at Soul parties around the globe. An uptempo drum break opens the song and Lee launches into a tale about the unbreakable bond with his significant other and how they keep each strong through moments of hardship and pain. People who have seen Lee perform live in the last decade might have been lucky enough to hear his rendition of Little Carl Carlton's "Two Timer". For those of you who haven't heard it, Big Crown Vaults has got you covered. A faithful version of the song showcases Lee's gorgeous voice and the Expres- sion's unwavering groove. Another treat on here is the fuzzed out funk banger "Do You Know" where Fields uses his platform to address some of our societal woes in a "Make The World" style. A deeper from the vaults number is "Out To Get You", an instrumental that Lee never laid down vocals to. Even as just a rhythm track it stands as a testament to The Expressions musical prowess, the band that created 5 studio albums with Lee Fields which will go down in history as stone classics.

Darker Than Wax's first release of 2021 brings us back to the world of UK dance music with Dampé - the solo project of Joe Munday, a musician, producer and DJ from South London. Joe's foundation in dance music stems from becoming a regular on the floor at influential parties like FWD>> and You're A Melody. Dampé brings together these London sounds with worldwide influences and nuanced, ethereal production to create something entirely his own. With a string of releases on Berlin's Dirt Crew Records, and a monthly show on the venerable Rinse FM, Dampé has carved out a space for his sonic brand of introspective, deep UK dance music. Spurred by a chance meeting with the Darker Than Wax crew in London in 2018, an instant relationship between artist and label flourished through our shared sonic ethos. After numerous setbacks from the chaos of 2020, we are proud to finally share Dampé's label debut with the world - Oil.

After a brief period of studio lock-down at the start of 2019, Brame & Hamo are back and present their fifth EP ‘Pressure’ on their eponymous imprint, due out on the 24th of June.
Having recently appeared in the Mixmag Lab, and put out a highly-curated mix via Ninja Tune’s Solid Steel Radio late last year, the duo from Sligo have an ever-increasing tour schedule, which is taking their vibrant brand of music to dancefloors worldwide. They recently completed a sell out four-show tour in Australia, and have trips to the USA, Canada and Asia booked for later in 2019.
This EP is a contagiously energetic three tracker. Starting off with ‘Pressure’, an infectious drum pattern morphs into a driving and spacey dance floor weapon. ‘Transit’ is an intricate commute of driving synths, whilst ‘Dial Up’ is the guy’s take on breakbeat rave, taking inspiration from Josh Wink and Chemical Brothers.
“The start of 2019 has been a few months locked away in the studio juggling demos for various labels and making sure everything is just the way we wanted it. We have been putting ourselves under a lot of (self-inflicted) pressure to continue to deliver music of the standard of previous releases, and finally we got there. Each of the tunes took only a few hours and were all done in one take, using all the hardware in our studio during some intense jam sessions’.

Bristol-based trip hop trio Jabu this week announced details of their second album. ‘Sweet Company’ will be released on November 20th via the group’s own do you have peace? imprint.

Sweet Company is the second album by Jabu. Where their first LP, Sleep Heavy, was an unflinching exploration of grief, dark and disembodied, Sweet Company’s deep, sedative soul feels like more of a lovers’ outing: optimistic, becalmed, looking outwards as well as inwards, and longing for the kind of human connections where ego and self-consciousness might dissolve. It is perhaps also an exhortation to love and accept yourself, to recover a lost innocence and peace – that paradise which has always been lost. Released via their own do you have peace? label, Sweet Company is on the one hand a very intimate and private-sounding work - the sound of life played out in a room, a bubble, a home, a head. The rhythms of everyday domesticity: listening to the plants, cars in the street, voices through the wall…. going to work, not going to work, sleeping heavy or not sleeping at all. Wavering on the brink of a revelation, of something just beyond the material world, while you wait for the kettle to boil. The core Jabu trio of producer Amos Childs and vocalists Jasmine Butt and Alex Rendall is present and correct. Sweet Company has theexhilarating sweep and confidence of a collaboration between people who trust and understand each other implicitly, and, secure in that knowledge, are able to give the absolute best of themselves to us. As before, Jasmine’s voice is a textural, painterly instrument, layered and blurred into abstraction, resisting the limits of language; the songs she sings on are portals into vast internal landscapes where the normal rules of gravity are suspended, every sound is smothered in a cathedral-like resonance, and you're both fearful and hopeful that you might never find your way back out again. Alex takes a more narrative, confessional and no less engaging pop tack: as on the gauzy, decelerated 2-step of ‘Lately’, with his masochistic, self-mocking entreaties to “be cruel to me … I like it when you make a fool of me”. Childs has a true hip-hop fiend's ear for a striking sample, and how to loop it to most hypnotic and rapturous effect, but here takes things to ever more powerfully uncanny and auteurish places, drawing inspiration from the voidal bliss-outs of shoegaze (AR Kane’s amniotic dream-pop epic 69 is one influence cited) and the space-time disturbances of dub, commanding both a raindrops-on-cobwebs delicacy and an immense, oceanic pressure. His productions seem to resist linear progression - instead they move by a kind of unstoppable diffusion, like weeds reclaiming an unkempt garden, or alien flora patterning the sea-floor and coral-caves of the subaquatic level of a computer game which may exist only in your, or his, imagination. Perhaps it's Daniela Dyson, the British-Afro-Colombian artist who contributes her vivid, energising poetic mysticism to two tracks, who best sums up Sweet Company's ambition and effect: “Me quiero perder en los momentos tan puros en su esencia que Las Horas mismas se detienen para ser testigo de nuestro amor” (I want to lose myself in the moments so pure in their essence / that The Hours themselves stop to bear witness to our love…). For a precious half an hour, we're invited to celebrate the smallness of our lives - and the limitless grandeur which that smallness contains. When it ends, we step back from the brink but things aren’t quite the same anymore: we’re haunted by what we briefly almost knew.

*repress*

Justin Cudmore returns to the Phonica White shelves with four new tracks, and his long-awaited first full EP since 2017's "Forget It" for The Bunker New York. With the dancefloor seeming far outside our reach right now, 'Train Dance' transports us back to a simpler time lost in the mix.

Across the disc, Cudmore reflects on the sounds and scenes closest to his heart and record bag, flexing his knack for crafting catchy hooks and the kind of ear-worm melodies that helped cement his status as one of house & techno's fast-rising stars. A1 "Train Dance" is his ode to the urban symphony of train cars whirling past his apartment in Brooklyn, with eight minutes of swingy, jacking house built for a sunny afternoon set across the pond at Panorama Bar.

"Club Fetish" shifts to a more introspective, heads-down vibe crafted instead with a dark and sweaty basement in mind. A touch of psych à la classic John Tejada, Cudmore's subtle, squelchy synths rub shoulders with cerebral drums and floating basslines.

The B-side nods to Cudmore's acclaimed acid sound for two deep slow rollers. "Expectation Game" and its no-nonsense 303s chug through a couple of understated breakdowns, while "Realize" was written with a Detroit outdoor patio in mind, with a sleazy acid bassline and cut up vocal groans sounding like Cudmore riffing on a late-night Moodymann jam.

Recorded during a productive time of new beginnings and positive headspace, ‘Train Dance’ comes out during a strange and unclear present for Cudmore and many of his contemporaries in the scene. However given it all, Justin remains excited to share new music and sounds, and hopes to return to the dance floor with everyone again as soon as safely possible.

Artwork as always is supplied by the talented Pedro Carvalho de Almeida

Repressed in quantity for the first time in years. Includes the hit single "Strange Harvest". Tempers, comprised of Jasmine Golestaneh and Eddie Cooper, have carved out their own niche within dark indie, electronica and synth-pop circles. Their sound is about exploring tonal and emotional tension as much as it is about actual tracks or singular moments. Adrenalizing yet hypnotic landscapes layer mechanical and sensual impulses, as crystalline vocals weave fever dreams of yearning and alienation. Informed by both Golestaneh's involvement in musical performance and visual art and Cooper's electronic production resume, as well as their time in the States and abroad, they operate as a multi-disciplined entity in the spirit and ethos of Factory Records. Tempers describe their creative process as a telepathic kinship they've developed since they started making music together: "We have these sort of unspoken criteria when we're writing music. We never really need to explain what that is but we both know when it's missing or when we've hit it." After a string of critically acclaimed singles beginning in 2013 with "Eyes Wide Wider" b/w "Hell Hotline," the duo released their debut LP "Services" (2015) on cult imprint Aufnahme + Wiedergabe resulting in the underground club hit "Strange Harvest", extensive international touring and sold-out shows. The album's vinyl edition soon became a sought after collectors item. Their 2017 EP "Fundamental Fantasy" was released as a result of the Vinyl Factory's Volcano Extravaganza artist residency on the Aeolian island of Stromboli. Following their unique creative compass, in 2018 they indirectly moved from the dance floor to galleries, releasing "Junkspace" a conceptual collaboration with famed architect Rem Koolhaas. The record is available in the world's most select cultural hotspots, from The New Museum in New York to Walther Konig museum stores throughout Europe, a testament to Tempers' love for experimental output and unorthodox presentation. In 2019 Tempers signed with Dais Records, promptly releasing "Private Life" and the lead single "Capital Pains," a meticulous evolution of the dark pop that marked the duo's earlier output.

Alfredo "El Inca" Linares is one of the best and most beloved musicians in the history of salsa. Fans love his piano playing because of his authentic Cuban feel and 'swing' combined with progressive arrangements and uncompromising phrasing. "Lo Que Tengo" is full of rock solid dance floor killers and no filler, recorded in 1980 with some of the cream of the crop of contemporary Venezuelan salsa musicians (members of Mango, Madera, El Trabuco Venezolano, Los Dementes, Los Melódicos, Dimensión Latina, Guaco, and La Salsa Mayor) and launched there on the indie label A.L.G. Records as ¡Con Todo!, and then a year later on the much larger Velvet Records with a different cover. This a classic Alfredo Linares album, but with the updated studio sound of 1980s Caracas. With five perfectly paced salsas, one funky cha cha chá, a steamy bolero and a dance-friendly Latin jazz number to top it off, there is something for everybody on this record. Thankfully today's generation can now enjoy this rarity at a fraction of the cost of an original copy. Presented in its original artwork and pressed on 180g vinyl. Good to know: Alfredo "El Inca" Linares is one of the best and most beloved musicians in the history of salsa. Fans love his piano playing because of his authentic Cuban feel and 'swing' combined with progressive arrangements and uncompromising phrasing that puts one in mind of Eddie Palmieri. As a composer, arranger and band-leader Linares is highly respected as well. Ever since the 1960s in Lima Peru when his career began, his records have always been on point, being super tight, sharp, and hard as hell, what salseros call salsa brava con afinque. It's no surprise that Lo Que Tengo is exactly that: full of rock solid dance floor killers and no filler, played with verve and flair. Unlike some of his other records that were patched together from various sessions made in different studios (sometimes even in several countries!), this album has the advantage of being produced, recorded and mixed by Alfredo Linares all in one studio and block of time, and backed by hand-picked seasoned professionals who Linares had already played with, both in the studio and on stage, lending it a consistency and sonic integrity that is excitingly manifest in every groove. The album was recorded in 1980 in Caracas with some of the cream of the crop of contemporary Venezuelan salsa musicians (members of Mango, Madera, El Trabuco Venezolano, Los Dementes, Los Melódicos, Dimensión Latina, Guaco, and La Salsa Mayor) and launched there on the indie label A.L.G. Records as ¡Con Todo!, and then a year later on the much larger Velvet Records with a different cover. The LP was also released in Colombia (INS, 1982) and the US (Gallo, 1984), both editions utilizing the Velvet Records cover. During this time Linares had been in Venezuela for some five years and was under contract with a nightclub in Caracas. Through being on the salsa scene there he became friends with the band Mango and even guested on an album with them in 1976. After the contract was up Linares was a free agent again and he was able to draw on his friendship with Mango and assemble a band to back him, first for the Colombian/Venezuelan production Salsa de Verdad (Fonodisco, 1976) and then again with ¡Con Todo! / Lo Que Tengo. One of the distinctive aspects of Alfredo Linares tunes is the 'break' (la cierre)-there are always plenty of dramatic hand-clapping breakdowns followed by an infectious tumbao (sustained vamp) section that sends shivers up the spine and makes the dancers go crazy. In addition, Linares always lets his musicians stretch out, especially in the percussion section. Again, Lo Que Tengo is no exception: there are so many examples of typical arrangements here that one could call this a classic Alfredo Linares album, but with the updated studio sound of 1980s Caracas, which was awash in petro-dollars at the time and so had the latest equipment and a strong consumer base for the salsa market. The album's title tune (originally credited on the Venezuelan edition as 'Lo que tengo que crear'-'What I Have To Create') is by Mango's timbalero José "Cheo" Navarro and sums up Linares' central career philosophy: the musician lives every day to create music, to spread joy and create a party, without complications, wherever he goes. With five perfectly paced salsas, one funky cha cha chá, a steamy bolero and a dance-friendly Latin jazz number to top it off (note the bluesy piano solo from Linares and the sublime vibes of Mango's Freddy Roldán), there is something for everybody on this record. Thankfully today's generation can now enjoy this rarity at a fraction of the cost of an original copy.

Type “Was Joan of Arc” into Google and the suggested endings for this statement give you an accurate gauge of her place in pop culture: “Catholic” / “a nun” / “canonised” / “a prophet” / “French” / “a witch” and so on. Related questions to “What were Joan of Arc’s last words” on the info-sharing site Quora include “Was Joan of Arc bisexual” and “Was Joan of Arc simply crazy?” Everyone seems to agree this person was burned at the stake in 1431, but beyond that, Joan’s narrative is an enigma. It is this lack of definition that the production duo Pillow Queen harnessed for their second release, Burn Me Up. Inverting the image of the devout Christian girl, the Joan who stands as this record’s heroine was a heretic, a transvestite, most definitely a dyke and a hot femme-top at that.

Opening up the A-side, the title track is a call— a battle cry, but also a summoning. In a time of need one calls upon their patrons and elders from history; a DJ beckons and gathers dancers to the floor; prayer and sweat go hand and hand. A traditional Irish bodhrán drum beats out the first rhythms, joined by a steamy vocal sample that gets caught, chopped, and soon “Burns Me Up” is pumping along with organ chords and distorted keys. Pivoting away from the 4/4 format, “Submission” is a textured, downtempo slow-burner, with close-mic’d vocals from Vani-T and the D. Tiffany’s deft drum programming. When the choral pads come in, there’s an echo of the 1990s German worldbeat project Enigma, with its Gregorian chants and flutes laid on top of lounge beats—here, though, the chorus is stripped of kitsch, only driving the track deeper into a mood.

If Burn Me Up’s sequence of tracks is read as a kind of narrative, they seem to tell the story of Joan’s last moments. “Burn Me Up” is, frankly, heat—aggressive, the high-end crackles and the bass puts a pyre under one’s feet. “Submission” is like an exhale, a giving-in to death’s grip; there is, along with the sensuous tread, a melancholy. It only makes sense that one flips the record to “Resurrection”, which rolls in a tremolo’d wail of pitched vocals for 30 seconds before a kick drum begins the 141-BPM march. The percussion is central here, as the track shifts between polyrhythms like a range of resuscitations, varied heartbeats. “Salvation” closes the record, again dialling back the tempo to the deep nod of dub. To no surprise, the scene of redemption here is not one of sunlit cherubs—the church bell sample tolls one strike every few measures of bass-throb and shadow, while Vani-T intones, “Then he lay down and died”. Death can be salvation to some; living as many selves, living in contradiction, is a saving grace to many more.