Search:my philosophy

"Life & Death has been a bucketlist label for me since day one. I've always been inspired by the way DJ Tennis approaches music and the whole philosophy around the label. What always stood out to me is the variety in the releases. One record can be deep and emotional, the next one raw and club-focused, but it still feels like it belongs to the same world. That balance is something I am always chasing in my music. Next to this: in a world that is focussed more and more on short term wins and commercial performance, i really can tell that Tennis still values the art and process of making music the most, which is something i really appreciate"

I remember hearing him play at Circoloco in Ibiza and later in the Loft in Amsterdam and thinking: 'fuck, I should've send him the tune I made last week.' When I came back home, I immediately put together a pack of tracks to send to him. Two were released as part of the Fabric release, and 4 of them are on this EP.
For me, this release is a next step in my career, and I'm happy and proud to be part of a label that is both legendary and super relevant in 2026."

In 1979, Neil Fraser (artistically known as Mad Professor) founded Ariwa Sounds, the longest-serving and one of the most influential independently owned Reggae studios and record labels in the UK. From humble beginnings set up in the front room of Neil's home in South London recording on 4-track and homemade equipment, Ariwa would go on to record and release over 300 albums including works from some of the most impactful and storied artists of their time in the genres of Reggae, Dub, and Lovers Rock

Whilst our previous release in collaboration with Ariwa captured the label's early sound, a shared performance with Neil in Osaka and regular visits to his South London studio inspired us to assemble this 15-track compilation, showcasing the label's output across 45 years. Our release emphasizes some of the label's greatest vocalists: Johnny Clarke, Sandra Cross, Kofi, U Roy, Sister Nancy, Queen Omega, Aisha, Garnett Cross, Abel Miller, Horace Andy and more — presenting the Motown and Stax influences in the Lovers Rock, but also provides a glimpse into the dubbier and more experimental side of the label, showcasing Ariwa's commitment to quality but also their personality, philosophy and their humour. Love songs, break-up songs, socially engaged songs, dub experimentations — this compilation is not a "best of" Ariwa but a diverse and honest celebration of the label through the lens of Melodies International.

The compilation will be out in July in vinyl 2xLP, CD, digital formats, mastered from the original tapes by Frank Merritt (the Carvery), pressed at Optimal, artwork created by Jason Evans with design and assembly contributions from Nevil Bernard and Will Sweeney, animated teaser by Nevil Bernard and Melozine designed by Mafalda Meireles.

»Cosmogonical Ears« is Amosphère's first album for Hallow Ground. Following her contribution to the Swiss label’s »Epiphanies« compilation and her 2021 full-length debut »More Die of Heartbreak« on 33-33, it features three expansive pieces. The Paris-based composer and multidisciplinary artist delves deeper into themes of time, space, cosmology, human perception, and psycho-physical effects, crafting profound sonic meditations. Drawing on a minimalist approach while blending electronic and acoustic elements, Amosphère’s long-form compositions are living, breathing entities whose sonic richness and evocative power unfold gradually over time, putting »Cosmogonical Ears« in direct kinship with previous Hallow Ground releases by artists such as Kali Malone and FUJI|||||||||||TA.

The album opens with its longest piece, »Land of eternal delight,« composed for the Buddha10 exhibition at the Museo d'Arte Orientale in Turin. Written during three years of isolation—a period in which Amosphère explored meditation practices and diverse belief systems—it merges mythology with personal transcendental experiences, reflecting on a challenging time for humanity. »By blending Buddhist philosophy and sculpture with my own meditation practices, I sought to explore a way for people to transcend the boundaries of space and time—not as a believer, but as an observer,« she explains. Featuring handmade ceramic instruments and recorded by Thomas Lefevre, the piece combines Amosphère’s electronic organ with Marc Lochner’s flute contributions, creating a sound that is simultaneously minimalist and expansive.

The concept of teleportation and how it challenges traditional notions of time and space serves as the foundation for the second piece. »Recent advances in quantum physics suggest that teleportation might be possible through quantum entanglement,« Amosphère notes. »What if science fiction is becoming reality—or has already existed in ancient times?« Drawing inspiration from theories proposed by physicists such as Roger Penrose, Amosphère again worked together with flutist Lochner, this time using her VCS 3 synthesizer. »Teleportation« weaves single notes into intricate, non-linear patterns that defy conventional logic, creating a complex auditory tapestry. The last piece »Black hole in, white hole out« was recorded on Corsica and features Miao Zhao’s bass clarinet drones alongside Amosphère’s church organ. It imagines the possible sound of crossing a black hole while also suggesting the study of its theoretical exit and its potential applications for large-scale time and space travel.

The questions posed by »Cosmogonical Ears« do not yield straightforward answers. Instead, Amosphère’s restrained yet intricately layered compositions require full immersion and concentration from the listener. As expressed by the album’s title—which envisions the birth of a new universe through listening—»Cosmogonical Ears« offers an experimental approach to auditory perception as a tool for seeking truth, freedom, and harmony between the outer world and the inner self.

For two decades, Gun Outfit has been a band defined less by genre than by continuity, patience, and a commitment to making music that reflects their lived experience.
Formed in Olympia, Washington in 2006 but long since rooted in Los Angeles, the group has evolved from a raw duo into a quietly formidable five-piece, their sound growing from scrappy post-punk beginnings into something spacious yet intimate, and always underpinned by an experimental edge.
On Process & Reality, Gun Outfit return with their most ambitious and immersive work to-date, a sprawling 80-minute double album shaped by time, environment, and philosophy. Recorded over the course of a single month in the late summer of 2020, on an 80-acre ranch in Pine Flat, California, while a massive forest fire burned less than ten miles away, the seeds of these songs were stark and strange.
Its title, Process & Reality, draws from the central work of philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, whose philosophy places intuition, experience, creativity, and relationality at the center of existence.
The band’s current lineup reflects both longevity and openness. Sharp and Keith remain the band’s primary architects, joined by longtime drummer Daniel Swire, multi-instrumentalist Henry Barnes, and bassist Kayla Cohen. Additional collaborators include Chris Cohen, Warren Lee, and Danny Sasaki all of whom add further depth, leaving subtle fingerprints across the album.
Musically, the album expands the band’s palette without abandoning its core sensibility. Dulcimer, autoharp, sitar, melodica, keyboards, homemade electronics, and a wide range of acoustic and electric textures appear throughout. The sound is mellow yet expansive, songs move between fragility and hefty atmospheric passages.
Influences surface obliquely rather than overtly. Elements of reggae and dub inform the production’s spatial sensibility. Echoes of long-form European jam bands coexist with sharp post-punk. British folk traditions, American country, and classic West Coast songwriting drift in and out of focus; the band is never afraid to lead or follow.

Zum ersten Mal seit Jahrzehnten erscheinen DJ Shadows legendäre Mo’Wax-Singles wieder offiziell – in einem umfassenden 8-teiligen Vinyl-Set, das mehrere Stunden bahnbrechender Musik enthält.
Die Aufnahmen wurden in den Abbey Road Studios von Miles Showell halbspeed-remastered und klingen so klar und kraftvoll wie nie zuvor. Die Box enthält zahlreiche bisher unveröffentlichte Mixe und Edits sowie eine exklusive Bonus-LP mit den ursprünglichen Demos von vier Tracks – ein einzigartiger Einblick in die Entstehungsgeschichte des Shadow-Sounds.
Abgerundet wird das Set durch neue Fotografien von Brian Cross (B+), DJ Shadows langjährigem visuellen Wegbegleiter.
Ein essenzielles Sammlerstück für Fans, Vinyl-Liebhaber und alle, die die Wurzeln moderner Beat-Kultur feiern wollen.

"This box wasn’t made for the casual listener,it was made with the hardcore fan in mind. I’ve always felt, if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right, and every step of the process was
made with this philosophy firmly in mind. I had fun locating and resurrecting these songs, some of which still feel close to my consciousness as though they were made yesterday.”
-DJ Shadow

Produced by Masters At Work (Kenny Dope and Louie Vega).

'Collaboration is stimulating, it's in my blood.' Thus speaks Brian Jackson and his philosophy for making music and it's indeed collaboration that runs through this amazing album of reimagined and revisited songs from his artistic past. Featuring artists such as Black Thought, Rahsaan Patterson, Josh Milan, Moodymann, Omar, J. Ivy and others and being produced by Masters At Work, Now More Than Ever takes the enduring classic tracks that Brian made with Gil Scott-Heron and places them in the now over nineteen tracks and across a triple vinyl LP or double CD.

Songs such as Lady Day & John Coltrane, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Home Is Where The Hatred Is, Winter In America, The Bottle and more soundtracked a generational movement of Black Consciousness in the 70s and 80s. As Brian says, 'This album is one way to connect to what we were about in the 70s; we were about change and this is part of the lineage of resistance. These tracks mark a period of time when resistance was essential and now a younger generation has picked them up.'

'As young men in their twenties we (Brian and Gil) just wrote about what we saw and were feeling and people interpreted these songs in ways we never thought about but as Sly stone said the song comes from me but it's for you.' This statement from Brian perfectly sums up the collaborative nature of Now More Than Ever and the relevance of these songs in a contemporary perspective can be perfectly summed up by the songs themselves. The formidable stable of artists contributing to each track and the excellent production from Louie Vega and Kenny 'Dope' Gonzalez make this album an event in itself. However, these songs are there to be enjoyed as a canon or as individual masterpieces, whether on the dancefloor or on a home system. ‘Now More Than Ever’ just has to be in everybody’s music collection.

Phonica welcomes Mattias El Mansouri, a Swedish-born DJ and producer of Moroccan/Chilean descent who has been behind some of our favourite releases over the past few years on labels such as Aniara and Nous'klaer.

On the 'Sense Data' 12", El Mansouri expands on his atmospheric House and Techno explorations with three deep yet dancefloor primed pieces that hold personal resonance for him.

El Mansouri, who holds a degree in Theoretical Philosophy, explains:

"'Sense Data' are the immediate elements of perception; what is directly given to the senses before any judgment or interpretation. In vision, these appear as colored, shaped patches; in other senses, as sounds, tastes, smells, or tactile qualities. For example, seeing a brown table with a white coaster involves sense data of a brown patch and a white roundish patch, from which one infers the presence of a table and coaster."

On the record's flip, we have the beautiful "Cielo Vacío' and 'Ouzo Hallon' dub version of 'Sense Data'. El Mansouri continues:

"Cielo Vacío translates to “empty sky” in Spanish. The track serves as a eulogy for my brother, who passed away in December 2023. I chose this title because it resonates with the sonic and emotional atmosphere of the piece. Its ambiguity is intentional, carrying both the weight of grief that lingers after losing someone you love, and a strange, fragile peace you extend toward the departed. It reflects the hope that, wherever they are, whether or not one believes in an afterlife, they have found rest.

Ouzo Hallon translates to Ouzo (the Greek liquor)+Hallon (Raspberry). It’s a long drink that my (Greek) ex came up with last summer, mixing ouzo, raspberry syrup/raspberry juice and ice. It became a thing in our little friend group, consisting of mostly Greeks, and every time we all hang out we would all just drink ouzo hallon until we couldn’t stand straight. I always wanted to name a track Ouzo Hallon, just for the fun of it, and what better way to get the chance than now!"

After a series of successful outings alongside sidekicks Ofofo and Zongamin, studio wizard MYTRON turns in his debut solo full-length for Multi Culti World Records. With contributions on Invisible Inc, Calypso, Bongo Joe, Kalahari Oyster Cult, LYO, Codek Records and Earthly Measures, Mytron has carved out a name for himself in a carefully-curated left-field quadrant of the indie-dance galaxy. Tuning his oscillators to myriad sounds — from dub and disco to krautrock — the London-based producer perhaps most notably channels the pristine compositional style of Kraftwerk. While most apparent in the use of vocoder, there’s a consistent efficiency of arrangement that recalls the man-machine in effervescent, idealistic fashion. Mytron manages to keep it simple, funky and musical — whimsical tunes that bop along with analog grit, wilderness, and wonk. There’s a warmth and wit that shine through every synth line, an understated confidence that speaks of years spent tangled in wires and waveforms, with an inclusive sonic eclecticism that flattens hierarchies between genres, geographies, and generations. Each influence is invited to the table, treated not as pastiche but invited to dine and dance in a space where kosmische dub disco and Afro rhythms can coexist without borders. The sleeve design echoes this philosophy: video-feedback patterns hinting at our modern screens, both portals and filters — coloured, distorted intermediaries through which we perceive the world. In the trippiest sense, the record is both reflection and refraction — a sonic mirror held up to an interconnected, glitchy reality. Tailored equally for DJ use and home-listening head trip, the album is meticulous, mischievous and merry.

BanBanTonTon review:

On Mytron’s debut long-player for Multi Culti groovy 21st Century leftfield house gear collides with Daniele Baldelli and Beppe Loda’s hugely influential `80s afro / cosmic. The 9 tracks are chunky, chugging and full of funky, funny noises. Old school B-lines mixing with eccentric electronics. Spinning, spiralling sounds.

Sugar is an electro-pop, vocoder confection, cut from the same sonic cloth as cult classics like Codek’s Tam Tam. Created from tough trap drums, splashing effects and a mutant Giorgio Moroder bass arpeggio. The title track, Propellor, pits Kraftwerk-esque hardware harmonised vocals against a bongo loop and a whistling hook. Playground has simian shrieks surround tumbling tom-toms. Highway Maintenance adds kosmische synths to a dance of woodblocks and buzzing bottom end. Keep On Dubbing is an organ-led, clip clopping percussive canter.

Tracks such as Speaker Can Talk, shot through with disco lasers blasts and recalling Curt Cress’ Dschung Tek, also lift the tempo up, but the bulk of the music here is a mid-tempo, techno drum circle. Squelchy sequences gurgling in and out of programmed percussion. On Quasar, spiky acid edges in and slowly takes over.

Key references that come to mind are Baldelli’s own turn-of-the-2000s Cosmic Sound Project productions, and Wolf Müller’s scene shaking sides on Themes For Great Cites, from around a decade later.

Swimming Paul’s music has always lived in the push-and-pull between euphoria and melancholy; the rare kind of electronic music that can make you cry while your body keeps moving.



On Smiling Through the Pain 2 (out October 24 via Headroom Records), the French-born, London-based producer doubles down on that emotional duality, delivering an album that feels as much like a diary as it does a DJ set.

Over the course of 15 tracks, Paul stitches together late-night catharsis, suburban nostalgia, and the jagged tenderness of early adulthood. The record is sequenced like an unbroken night out: the giddy anticipation, the sudden moments of reflection, the quiet comedown as the sun edges in. It’s an album that refuses to treat joy and sadness as opposites, they coexist here, often in the same chord progression.



“I don’t want to escape the feelings, I want to bring them with me” Paul says. “If you can’t stop thinking about something, you might as well dance with it.”

That philosophy runs through the singles: the emotional release of Holly (with Junior Simba), the aching nostalgia of Different Time, the hypnotic haze of Hard 2 Sleep, and the house-driven Drinking to Get Drunk, a bittersweet ode to nights spent outrunning your own thoughts. Elsewhere, Liza M1 folds heartbreak into an almost triumphant piano hook, while Shine a Light urges listeners to take risks and live without hesitation—as if youth’s boldness could be bottled.



Since debuting in 2023, Swimming Paul has quietly built an empire on emotional resonance: 150 million streams across platforms, 1.9 million monthly listeners on Spotify and more than 50 editorial placements (including Dance Party, Crying on the Dancefloor, Electronic Rising….), 10,000+ radio spins worldwide, and sold-out tours across Europe and North America. His sound has earned co-signs from BBC Radio 1, Triple J, KCRW, Sirius XM and a wave of DJs who value melody as much as momentum.

But Smiling Through the Pain 2 isn’t chasing charts, it’s chasing connections. Paul’s global fanbase, nurtured through a lively Discord community and nights on the road, has become a two-way conversation, with fans’ stories feeding back into the music’s emotional core.
This autumn, Paul takes the album to stages that match its ambition, from London to a string of US club dates, festivals and intimate pop ups designed for shared release.



Smiling Through the Pain 2 is an invitation to feel everything at once. To sweat through the sadness. To let your guard down under strobe lights. To realise that the best nights out don’t make you forget; they help you remember.

SKYLAX RECORDS proudly unveils the final chapter in its monumental 4-part saga — SKYLAX BLACK 4: Enlightenment Theory. This visionary series, bringing together two of France’s most iconic electronic artists — ARNAUD REBOTINI and ACID WASHED — was never just a collection of records. It was a journey through the deepest layers of the underground — a conceptual project where each release was a coded message, each track a fragment of a greater whole. On the A-side, Enlightenment Theory explodes with fierce urgency — an anthem forged in the spirit of Underground Resistance, echoing the soulful intensity of early ’90s Detroit without imitation. It’s bold, emotional, and militantly underground — a future classic cloaked in defiance and elegance. On the B-side: B1. Space Is The Place channels the weightless gravity of dub techno at its purest — all echo chambers and endless delay, a direct line to the Berlin school of Basic Channel, Maurizio, and Deepchord. B2. Beyond Current Biological Constraints closes the chapter in deep space — an electro masterwork evoking Drexciya, full of aquatic melancholy and cybernetic funk. It’s not retro — it’s timeless. With this last installment, the puzzle is complete. The meaning is revealed: R.A.V.E. — four records forming one powerful word. One timeless idea. A tribute to everything this culture stands for: raw energy, emotional truth, sonic innovation, and spiritual depth. This project could only be born on SKYLAX RECORDS — a label that has always stood apart. Uncompromising. Devoted to physical formats. Fiercely loyal to the culture. While others chase trends, SKYLAX continues to chart a different course — one rooted in the sacred codes of house, techno, electro, and beyond. It is no exaggeration to say that SKYLAX is one of the last true purist strongholds of underground music — and this series, with its layered meanings and fearless artistry, is proof. From Redshifts to Blueshifts to Artificial Darwinism then Vision Quest, every chapter has pointed toward this moment. Now, with Enlightenment Theory, the full vision is revealed. RAVE is not just a word — it is the truth. A philosophy. A myth reborn. The circle is complete. The message endures. The legacy lives on.

A pioneering force in African music, Jo Tongo has always been on top of the game. Since the late 60s he has been recording music under his early Jojo L'Explosif moniker. His debut album "Jo Tongo" was released 1976 on Fiesta/Decca and features classic tracks like Jangolo and Piani. Now, after decades of underground influence and global recognition, his second album Sa Discossa (1980) is re-released for the first time. Being an electrifying fusion of African rhythms, disco, makossa, reggae and funk it is reflecting his lifelong journey of musical exploration and cultural storytelling and claims its place as an essential recording in the Afro-disco movement.
Jo Tongo's music is inseparable from his life's story-a journey that spans continents, struggles, and victories. From his early years as a leading African musician before the global rise of Afrobeat, to his deep roots in classical training, and his time performing in France and Germany, his sound is shaped by a rich blend of influences. Having played in bands across Europe, from American military bases in Germany to the jazz and soul circuits of Paris, he absorbed the pulse of multiple musical worlds, creating a sound uniquely his own.
"My music is my life. I never saw it as a way to become a star-I am a simple man," Tongo explains. "I came into music to say something, to tell about life, to share my experiences with the world." His perspective on fame and artistry is deeply rooted in his Cameroonian background. "I wasn't interested in business. I wanted to build something with music, to create a sound that was mine."
But Jo Tongo's music has always carried a deeper message. His work reflects his strong political stance against colonialism, social injustice, and oppression. "I cannot stay silent while my people suffer," he says. "Music is a way to resist, to stand strong, and to remind people of their dignity and their power." Throughout his career, Tongo has used his platform to advocate for African identity and independence. His songs, layered with messages of social consciousness, have continued to resonate with younger generations who recognize the relevance of his words even today.
Sa Discossa is more than just a disco record. It embodies Jo Tongo's philosophy of resistance, identity, and celebration. The title itself is a blend of "disco" and "makossa," reflecting the seamless fusion of African groove and the dancefloor energy that defined the era. Tracks like Bunya, sung in his native language, carry messages of love, gratitude, and resilience-sentiments that remain as relevant today as they were nearly 50 years ago. As Tongo describes it, "Every day, give thanks and praise to your Lord. Every day, show me your love. Every day, let me show you my tender love."
Tongo's musical journey also took him through the world of reggae, inspired by his exposure to American and Caribbean artists. "At first, I didn't like reggae-it was too slow for me," he admits. "But then I heard Bob Marley, and I realized the power in its simplicity. The rhythm, the
message-it was all connected to something bigger." He later found himself embracing reggae as an essential part of his musical DNA. "I realized that my music and reggae shared the same roots. We are all connected, all telling the same story in different ways."
Having spent much of his career performing across Europe, Jo Tongo reflects on his connection with international audiences. "I've played everywhere-from Africa to Germany, from Paris to other cities in France and what I've learned is that music speaks a universal language. You don't need to know the words to feel the message."
Despite taking a step back from the stage in recent years, he remains open to new possibilities. "Music is like a fire-it never truly dies. I have a lot to say, and music is the best way to say it."
For Jo Tongo, music is more than entertainment-it's a language of truth, a testament to history, and a bridge between cultures. The rhythm of Sa Discossa lives on, stronger than ever. With Sa Discossa returning under the African Edge series on The Outer Edge label, Jo Tongo's legacy continues to resonate, proving that real music never fades.

Following the success of his ‘Love Dub So’ EP, Nick Barber’s Doof project returns to Mysticisms, delving back to his earliest recordings of his ground-breaking Trance project, presenting tracks from his previously cassette only release ‘The Love Mixes’.

A youth that had captured the psychedelia of Pink Floyd, Gong, Hawkwind and on to Psychic TV, as a self-taught guitarist, his first trip to India and Thailand in 1989 and witnessing the early electronic dance music at the Full Moon parties, had seemed rudimentary in nature compared to musicality of psychedelic rock.

Returning to England, the electronic / rock crossover of The Shamen’s ‘Progeny’ parties – featuring DJs like Paul Oakenfold and Mixmaster Morris with the live acts of Orbital and Ramjac Corporation – offered something new that turned his head, before finally finding his crew in the legendary squat / underground Pagan parties. There, residents Lol and Yaz first played the new electronic Trance sound, introducing Barber to the music of Eye-Q, Dance To Trance and the hugely influential Pete Namlook.

Recorded between 1990 – 1991, while living in Cambridge to study Philosophy, these are the first versions of tracks that formed the basis of his debut EP on Novamute, in 1993. Working with minimal equipment – an Akai sampler, Roland monosynth, Yamaha delay pedal, all sequenced on an Atari black and white PC and single MIDI output and then recorded straight to an 8-track Tascam cassette multitrack – the exuberance and rawness of the music are full of the excitement and naivety of youth.

Never intended for public release or initially even as a demo, Barber would play the music off the Tascam multitrack for friends at after parties. Dubbing a handful of cassettes himself and personally drawing the covers, around a dozen cassettes were handed out to mates. Eventually one copy found its way to Mute Records, who were looking to launch their dance offshoot, Novamute. Re-edited mixes of Gift Of The Gods and The Nagual appeared on his debut EP and history was made, before Doof went on to release for luminaries like TIP Records and Dragonfly and a career touring the globe was launched.

Remastered from the original tapes, this EP offers a snapshot of that time, the energy and joy of these early recordings is clear and overwhelming. Where Ambient, House and Techno met the birth of electronic Trance that truly stand up some 30 years later as originals then and now.

Trance The Mystery.

Roberto Musci, born in Milan in 1956, studied guitar, music and electronic instruments. From 1974 to 1985 he traveled the world studying African, Indian, Arabic and Oriental music, recording ethnic music “in the field,” studying and collecting ethnic musical instruments from all over the world. His self-produced debut album, “The Loa of Music,” is a seminal work of staggering originality and extraordinary beauty in which field recordings, musique concrète, electronics, synthesis and instrumentation are interwoven, drawing on the countless musics from around the world that he has recorded. The subsequent “Water messages on desert sand,” composed with Giovanni Venosta, was nominated for a Grammy in the UK in 1987. In the 1980s and 1990s he broadcast ethnic and electronic-experimental music from Rai and Radio Popolare radio stations. He has also composed and played music for videos, commercials, dance, poetry, theater, composed soundtracks and accompanied silent films live. From 1980 to the present, he has played with many Italian and European musicians: Giovanni Venosta, Claudio Gabbiani, Walter Prati, Giorgio Magnanensi, Massimo Cavallaro, Massimo Mariani, Moni Ovadia, Roberto Zorzi, Chris Cutler, Jon Rose David Moss, Steve Piccolo, Elliott Sharp, Keith Tippett and the Third Ear Band.

The theme of travel, ethnicities and mysticism are a pivotal point in this new album of his as well, demonstrating once again how music needs absolutely no sharp lines of demarcation. The music is one.

It goes from the search for deep meanings in a time spent in a Hindu monastery (Ashram) listening to mantras and studying Buddhist philosophy (The Principle Of Things) to space explorations and human settlements on the Moon or Mars wondering how man will live and what he will bring to the new worlds imagining that Sufism, an Islamic mystical religion, will accompany him in the discovery of new worlds (Derviches On Mars). In Goodbye Monsters, harmony and peace are sought. Memories Of A Piano Player is a tribute to Keith Tippett, a great pianist (King Crimson , Centipede, Mujician) with whom he played in several concerts and with whom I spent evenings talking about music, food and Italian wine. Quantum State focuses on how quantum mechanics is creating a revolution in the way of thinking and dividing reality into infinite Parallel Worlds. Panthalassa is the vast ocean that surrounded Pangea and blends South American marimba music and traditional Chinese music. Burn The Shadows is a tribute to the fascinating Indonesian shadow theater, from the stories told and the atmosphere created during the long plays told in the sacred Indian texts of Ramayana or Mahabharata. Shadows are also more or less pleasant memories to which one is attached, and to burn them is still to move on with one's life.

Torajan Funeral Chant: The Toraja are a people living in Sulawesi (Indonesia) who have a special worship of the dead. Funerals are festivals that last several days, the corpses are protected by Tau-Tau (small dolls that watch over cemeteries), and over the years, they exhume the corpses of their relatives and keep them in their homes with them for a time to remember them.

The experimentation goes all the way to modern Artificial Intelligence that 'interrogated' to create something new by inserting conflicting inputs joins them together but nonsensically creating interesting insights; hence A.I. In Confusion. Pangea, named after the continent that contained all the land that emerged between 540 and 200 million years ago, in the Paleozoic and Mesozoic periods, imagined as inhabited by man without divisions created by borders, wars, religions or ethnic groups, is also a tribute to Steve Reich, one of the fathers and a great musician of minimal music. Prophecies, a reading of sacred texts and religious songs from evangelical sects in the United States filtered into granular synthesis with percussion music from South India, closes.

“Wild Boy …” is a reissue of the well-known 2016 release curated by Brian Chidester, renowned researcher and biographer of Eden Ahbez. Especially for this album, Brian wrote an interesting text about Abi’s life, which definitely became the decoration of the release.
With the new 2020 re-release, we went a little further and kept what is commonly referred to as studio cuts. It’s a few more minutes in the studio with ahbez himself, full of emotion and life. In addition, to the delight of fans, the edition includes an additional composition Nature Boy (Mantovani Orchestra).
Especially, it is worth noting the outstanding mastering prepared from practically decomposed tapes by the Grammy-nominated Jessica Thompson, which guarantees the deepest and warmth possible sound. Jessica a huge ahbez fan and we’re highly appreciated for what she has done to save his music for the future.
Eden Ahbez is definitely at the origin of psychedelic music and this release can be taken as further proof. Over the past twenty years, the iconic figure of the world’s first hippie Eden ahbez has become famous primarily for his 1948 song “Nature Boy”, praising universal love, and his amazingly solo album from the 1960s called “Eden’s Island” – one from the first concept albums in the history of music and probably the first psychedelic music album. “Wild Boy: The Lost Songs Of Eden Ahbez” deepens understanding of the origins of the psychedelic movement in the 1950s.
The disc contains a musical selection of works by Eden ahbez himself, written by him in the period after Nature Boy. The inclusion of songs such as “Palm Springs” – Ray Anthony Orchestra and “Hey Jacques” by Erta Kitt gives the listener the chance to discover for the first time the little-known recordings of world-famous artists composed by Eden ahbez. Through “Wild Boy” and “Surfer John” you can hear the author’s handling of absurd rock and exotic experimentation, as well as sweet psychedelic pop like Monterey (with Paul Horn on flute). Overall, Wild Boy: The Lost Songs Of Eden Ahbez offers an overview of the lost works of 1949-1971 with seven unpublished recordings and eight rare singles.
If in 2020 you are missing the hallucinogenic content in Eden Ahbez, it amazingly makes up for that deficiency with simple chords, expansive arrangements, and lyrics about travel, relaxation, free love, and spirituality. Thus creating the standard of psychedelic music. Eden Ahbez’s songs weren’t only fantasy and his personal philosophy was the real thing that he lived.

reviews:

“This carefully and extensively researched compilation culls covers by top notch mainstream artists juxtaposed with unreleased Eden recordings. What might sound like a mixed bag is actually more like a chronological, musical non-fiction novel about Eden Ahbez. While Eden was writing hundreds of songs and performing live and making recordings in various styles, his songs were also being picked up by popular artists like Nat King Cole and Eartha Kitt who recorded with a more polished mainstream style. There are also some early rock n roll style recordings here. Eden’s professionally recordings often end up as Novelty Pop records such as “Child of Nature” and “The Clam Man” but if you read between the lines and listen to the lyrics it is pretty eye-opening that he is singing about Eastern-religion-style and pre-hippie philosophies about being at one with the planet Earth.
All of this is explained in the lengthy liner notes inside the lp along with a few choice photos that establish Eden as a founding father of Southern California mystic/psychedelic music.” – Tiki_News
“Eden Ahbez’s life philosophy was summed up in the lyrics of his most famous song, “Nature Boy,” a 1948 hit for Nat King Cole: the song describes a “strange enchanted boy” who wanders the world in search of truth. “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn,” he concludes, “is to love and be loved in return.” Ahbez was a pre-cursor of California’s beatniks and hippies, and an exalted icon of ex-otica via his rare 1960 album Eden’s Island. Beyond “Nature Boy” and Eden’s Island, though, there were nu-merous lesser-known Ahbez record-ings. Ahbez biographer Brian Chidester has been doing an exemplary job of archiving and documenting that catalog of work. The Exotic World of Eden Ahbez (reviewed in UT#38) appeared a few years ago, gathering together 14 Ahbez-related rarities” – Ugly Things

Over the past decade, Be.lanuit has made a name for himself in Ibiza, both as a DJ, artist and fashion designer. Across disciplines he radiates a deep-rooted bohemian spirit harkening back to the philosophy on which the Ibiza-scene was originally founded. This creative hearth of soulful hedonism has now borne a full-length album, one that reveals a sprawling composing talent and complete mastery of the melodic downtempo terrain.

Be.lanuit says:

“Hippie Picasso is an album inspired by the life of a hypothetical Pablo Picasso with a hippie soul. I have a deep interest in Picasso that sparked when a work by him caught my eye at the Louisiana in Denmark, incidentally on a trip with Kenneth Bager who runs Music For Dreams. Since then, reading his biographies and visiting Malaga where he was born, where the Mediterranean culture, especially through music, spreads out to the world.

The tracks revolve around Picasso’s artworks and moments in his life, all from the point of view of a dream of an imagined life on the island of Ibiza. The melodies are all reminiscent of the Mediterranean with flamenco airs, sometimes melancholic. Jazz has a subtle presence alongside the electronics. The Spanish classical guitar as well, one of his favorite instruments.”

The album features a range of artists from around the world such as the legendary multi-instrumentalist Tupac Peralta, DJ Pippi, Melón Jimenez, Lara Wong, The Swan and The Lake, Jonas Krag, WALTHER and OliO.

Closely following a busy 2023, GiGi FM announces her brand-new record label, offering “Kiwi Synthesis Diary Vol. 2” to mark the debut. Sea~rène takes aim at dreamlike and ethereal electronic music to reconnect the subconscious and the cosmos through immersive storytelling. As the identity quote of the label says itself “We are Sea~rène swimming in-between supernatural tides, forever following the emotional waves of the universe”.

Already quite accomplished in her milieu through an acclaimed release on Bambounou’s Bambelabel, where she explored the relationship between bodily technologies and music, as well as through her residency on NTS Radio where she explores inter-dimensional sounds and shares her own musical palette, GiGi also continues to perform at strings of performances in the past years in settings like Berghain, Rural Japan, Draaimolen, Fabric, De School, Primavera, The Bunker New York, and Sustain Release. The French/Italian artist takes her productions further with this first release of her imprint. A continuation of her first self-released project, “Kiwi Synthesis Diary 21k,” in 2021, GiGi FM celebrates the exchange between her, as the owner of the journal, and its reader through euphoric soundscapes and vibrant psychedelia. Taking a step back from lockdown introspections, blurred lines between dream and reality like ambient and drony atmospheres, GiGi gives us a bent club record full of colors and life.

GiGi FM guides us through dreams of sonic environments and the adventures to be had through them. Some are characterized by evolving fractals and shifting landscapes like in the healing mushroom journey of ‘Amadamushies’ and the mythical Japanese Heron ‘Tsuru’. Combining steady rhythm and immersive ambiances, the result intends to soothe into a state of openness through kindly familiar territories. Sifting through the tracks, we find ourselves traveling fast through cosmic ecosystems like in the spiritual and cosmic teaching that “Tevora'' represents, as well as ‘Househopping (Keroppi)’ and “Sly Xupete Di Barcelona,” conveying the urgency to feel and create, even within difficult circumstances, while “Spazio Teletrasporto'' takes us on a hypnotic whirlwind trip into the depths of the cosmos and our inner consciousness. Through these chapters of a journey, a connection between the mind and the beyond is implied, and its importance is highlighted.

Deeply influenced by astrology, philosophy, and the cosmos; for GiGi, music is both a tool for expression and introspection. As a multi-hyphenate artist, she continues on her quest to push artistic boundaries and hold space for unique audience experiences. Whatever medium she may adopt, the result is a rich embodiment of the interconnectedness of sound, color, movement, and metaphysics.

New York, NY (May 09, 2023) - Techno powerhouse, Charlotte de Witte releases her highly anticipated EP, Overdrive as the anchor to her larger Overdrive Campaign within the KNTXT Label. Following de Witte’s breakthrough to the top of the electronic music scene in 2019 with her signature sonic approach that refuses to be boxed in, Overdrive is a reflection of this ethos. The EP aims to showcase street style that is both rough and energizing, while delivering high-energy tracks meant to pull listeners into the fast-paced thrill that unlocks one's turbocharged version of themselves. Listen HERE.

“While making Overdrive, I didn’t fully realize how applicable the lyrics are to my philosophy of life,” said de Witte. “The fast-paced tempo, which goes full force without looking back, is all about the feeling of being on the edge and living life to the fullest.”

Best known for her “dark and stripped-back” brand of techno and underground music, DJ, record producer, and label head de Witte pushes the boundaries of the electronic genre with music that has a distinct and unforgettable sound that is uniquely her own. De Witte’s innovative ability allows her to seamlessly blend genres and styles that have won her a dedicated fan base and critical acclaim.

“Overdrive is a love story between hip hop and techno, it’s inspired by both genres, but coated in a techno jacket,” said de Witte. “It’s meant to be played loud while driving at night and watching the city lights pass by, and where better to experience that than in New York City?”

Overdrive marks de Witte’s first release since her single “High Street,” and first EP on her KNTXT label since her last EP, “Apollo” which was released in October 2022 as well as her collaboration with fellow techno artist Enrico Sangiuliano on the “Reflection” EP in March 2023. De Witte had previously worked with Sangiuliano on their remix of “The Age Of Love”, which amassed over 40 million streams on Spotify and achieved certified gold status in Belgium. De Witte’s other recent releases include her “Universal Consciousness” EP in 2022 and her “Formula” EP in 2021, which featured the chart-topping lead track “Doppler”.

Matir Gaan is a collaboration between young Bengali migrant, Mohammed After Hussain and Italian electronic artist, Andrea Rusconi (aka Paq). The resulting album delightfully combines the ancient folk songs of Md After's homeland with Paq's cosmic synth exotica.

Mohammed After Hussain escaped Bangladesh in 2015 and arrived in Italy in 2017 after a long and dangerous journey across the Mediterranean from the violence he found in Libya. In Italy he found safety and hospitality as an asylum seeker in Rimini's Associazione Ardea, where Andrea is involved with 'Ardea Recordings' - a project aiming to create an archive of songs, stories and sounds by some of the people who spent some time with Ardea's refugee programme.

Md After was invited to sing and play the folk and village songs he knew on the harmonium and pakhawaj (two headed drum) while Andrea immersed himself in the songs providing a bed of warm Crumar synth and Veena drones to create a finished album of totally uniquela renditions of the mystic Baul folk songs known so well by people across the Bangla speaking regions of India.

The Bauls are a famous group of wandering minstrels from the region of Bengal whose culture is derived from the teachings of the early Sufi mystics and Hindu Fakhirs. The Baul devotees are considered to be mad, or possessed, with the love of God. While transcending religion the Baul compositions celebrate celestial and earthly love and expound the key philosophy of “Deha tatta” or truth in the body, epitomised by the aphorism “whatever is in the universe is in the body”. They reach for divinity here in this world and they seek to access it through music and dance. They seek spirituality in the music, they live fo r the music, wandering from village to village offering ecstatic sound waves in exchange for sustenance. Their presence remains an important part of village life in Bangladesh, and this is why Md After knows the songs despite the fact he would not consider himself part of the Baul ascetic tradition.

We hope you'll enjoy this wonderfully psychedelic album, with its unique interpretations of these ancient mystic songs from the earth.

Comes with a printed inner sleeve featuring sleeve notes and lyric translations by Brian P. Heilman

One of my first record releases was on Traum Schallplatten in 2007. I was living in Berlin and Traum was at its peak launching acts like Extrawelt, Dominik Eulberg, Gabriel Anada, Minilogue, Fairmont… The era of melodic minimal…

The release of Luftlust hit the big DJ's like Sven Väth etc. And I was truly overwhelmed by the support. But the version on the 12" was actually pitched up 5 BPM. And in the end the mastering was not in my personal preference. Watering my feel of it, once or twice a year people actually ask me to do a remaster. Over the years it has been a track circulating the web and playlists, haunting me.

Last year I dug in the past and actually wrote a masters exam in philosophy about being a youngster in the techno scene and how to keep up creativity while working with record labels. Somewhere in that process I decided to face the old ghost and make it happen. Time was ready for the re-release of Luftlust, on my terms on my own label Kranglan Broadcast.

Justus Köhncke Remix
For a time frame of a decade I have asked Kompakt veteran and Whirlpool Productions legend Justus Köhncke to do a remix on my Kranglan imprint. Herr Köhncke to me (and to everyone who has followed Kompakt) is one of a kind! A punk soul, dead serious while smiling, always putting hooks and fragments out of music history on Kompakt sound plates with precise grace… The last years he have replied he's been busy in the studio with Can member Irmin Schmidt, working on soundtracks but... suddenly one day when I wrote the man he said "I love Luftlust, send me the stems".

Listening to Justus interpretation I was blown away… like riding a cabrio through the German landscape of fields and deciduous forests a sunny day in late May! And wait for that outro bridge at 5:56! Like being hugged by the warm mother autumn.

Özgur Can Remix
Anjuna Deep cofounder Özgur Can and I have known each other since high school. Özgur was the first DJ I ever booked to one of my early raves in the forests of Nacka. From releasing our first records with our common buddy Petter on Peter Van Halls label 'Deep' we have walked a parallel path in life, Özgur with a wider span of releases and 100's of nights at sweaty dance floors. No one does the deep driven heartfull arpeggios like Özgur. They swell and they swirl. A true Music lover and true talent!

Lust
Time has flewn since 2007, and that winter break in Barcelona 2006 hanging out with James Holden and the Border gang at Razmataz… the weekend when I actually started working on Luftlust…

Working on a re-release of Luftlust I just got hit by lust to work a version of it from the position where I am at, the 2021 me. I went with lust and it just happened a late summer night in Stockholm being by myself for a brief moment doing what I love the most, making music.

Luftlust Original 120BPM Version
And at last the never released original version of the title track. Correct tempo as it was written. Mastered by Andreas Lubich aka Lupo, the very person to master this type of music if you take a brief glimpse at his back folder! Finally!

I love this project, and I love making it happen at Kranglan Broadcast. Bringing together thoughts and people you have thought of bringing together for a long time. Lust KLN014 is here.

Extinction Burst! is the new invocation in album-form by Guttersnipe, Leeds’ premier and pre-eminent XFCER (XFCER: Xenofeminist crisis-energy rock)* duo. Slamming at full speed to multi-dimensional oblivion, Extinction Burst! is the most full, hidefinition lurid dream-mare yet spewed out by Uroceras Gigas & Tipula Confusa. Engineered and mixed by Ross Halden at Hohm Studio in Bradford and mastered by Rashad Becker, Extinction Burst! follows 2018’s My Mother The Vent, which garnered universal critical adoration. Nevertheless, this long-awaited follow up is more extreme: it is wildness beyond reason, splitting new tears in the reality gauze, ultimate hallucination through sound ecstasy. 2026’s Guttersnipe are evolved, mutated by 8 years of touring together and with the labyrinthine network of groups both Guttersnipe members are involved with - Tristwch Y Fenywod, Nape Neck, Petronn Sphene, Yexxen to name a few. On Extinction Burst!, as with previous material, the duo are heavily augmented with technology. Tipula Confusa's drum kit triggers chasm-causing synth pulses with thumping low end attack.. Strafing from all over the stereo field the constant shatter of the cymbals and toms feel like Sunny Murray or Rashied Ali in full flight during a John Coltrane session in 1967. Uroceras Gigas’s guitar + synth storm is by-now similarly an instantly recognised tool kit in underground music. Switching from screeching guitar atonality to intricate riffs from the black metal/Voivod hinterland to ultra-distorted synth meltdown, it’s an utterly overwhelming, essential and vital pouring-out of the full emotional spectrum. Both artists vocalise, ecstatic and primal, drawn out or yelped in pain or pleasure or panic. Alive On Tuesday begins with some of the only space on Extinction Burst! Digital crackles and tight-delays blow out into a fullthrottled death-dive into sweet opaqueness, offset by the duo’s vocals. There’s a popular believe that Guttersnipe is chaos, but over 9 mins here the group are clinical in their control of the simulated entropy. Mincing while the Maelstrom Churns’s guitar is modulated into jagged atonal atonement, duetting with the virtuoso drum patterns before it thuds into gear at quadruple the speed. Threads Of Radical Unaliveness veers close to the extreme Metal influences with blast beats and guttural vocalisations until the track exhausts itself into unaliveness. Keep Honking summons a demonic digital panic, with the duo reincarnating in real time as haunted versions of themselves, almost translating the lurid, ultra vivid, simultaneous hell+heaven of being alive in this dimension. Primordial Invagination harnesses No Wave’s dissension of normality before the structured collapse of Skra¨ckblandad Fo¨rtjusning, in which Tipula Confusa’s accelerating drums simulate a bouncing barrel of brimstone descending into a primordial gunky ooze, a respite in the middle before the record splutters to a stuttering finale, both members’ vocals out there in the neon realness, alive with crisis energy. There is nothing on this cursed earth like Guttersnipe. For over 10 years they have whirled in a wiggliness both woebegone and wonderstruck on a mission of radical mutant exaltation using rock music weaponry loaded with a queer hysterical ammunition to rupture the fabric of the known Rock universe and unleash a tendril-soft hallucinatory violence; thrumming with the bracing vividness of insect bodies, crazed with alien synaesthetic emotions, harnessing jagged excoriating illogic as a face meltingly snazzy affront to redundant macho mediocrity with the hope to break minds, squeeze hearts, explode pelvises and maybe even reset the parameters of reality. Addendum: xenofeminist : proposing and creating a world defined not only by sexual/gender equality, queer empowerment and the toppling of the racist heteropatriarchal hegemony and it’s tyranny of phallogocentric signifiers, but a philosophy of radical queerness that explodes the basic notion of embodied existence itself beyond even the human, where we see bacteria, invertebrates, reptiles, marine life, animalia in general, inanimate objects, quantum phenomena and as yet inarticulated bodies and minds as social and political equals that may inspire and inform our concepts of self, feeling and meaning as we labour to build a collective reality that doesn’t completely suck!! crisis energy : a term borrowed from the weird fiction author china mieville to describe a type of extreme concentration of power which emerges when a system or organism is pushed to it’s absolute limit; the point of rupture, chaos, entropic overload, just before it all breaks apart. rock : Rock ’n’ Roll, rock music, the devil’s music, sex, guitar, drums, voice, rhythm, riffs!

Los Angeles alt-punks Death Lens return with What"s Left Now?, an album that feels like a jolt of clarity after a year that never seemed to slow down. Fresh off touring with Militarie Gun, they dove into the studio with producer mixer Zach Tuch (Knocked Loose, Touché Amoré) to craft their first new music since 2024"s Cold World. The result is a set of songs that coil hooky guitar lines around lyrics about taking stock of what you have, what"s been taken from you, and confronting what remains without any sugar coating. Death Lens have always played with contrast: ferocity disguised by swagger, volatility wrapped in melody. Onstage, they transform that tension into something communal-cathartic enough to leave rooms wrecked, connective enough to leave people changed. Once a crew of partydriven garage punks, they"ve sharpened their voice into something broader and more urgent, speaking on life in heavily policed neighborhoods, immigration reform, and the responsibility to lift up the communities that raised them. What"s Left Now? pushes that vision forward, framing resilience not as a slogan but as a lived philosophy: one world, one community, one band refusing to stand still. Death Lens is comprised of Bryan Torres (vocals), Jhon Reyes (guitar, backing vocals), Tony Rangel (drums), and Ernie Gutierrez (guitar).

Brendan Eder follows up minimalist 70s-jazz concept with new ambient-classical album, THERAPY. Brendan Eder is a Los Angeles composer and drummer best-known for his eponymous genre-bending ensemble of woodwinds, drumset, and bass; as well as his film scoring work, most notably on four short films for director Ari Aster. On March 3, 2023 Eder released his third album, THERAPY, a collection of meditative woodwind arrangements recorded primarily at Church of the Good Shepherd in Arcadia, California.

The quest for THERAPY came during a period of deep spiritual curiosity. Eder was avidly watching testimonies of near death experience survivors (NDEs), pouring over books of Theosophical artwork and philosophy, and
processing experiences of grief, uncertainty and spirituality.

Eder wanted to explore the threshold between the spiritual and physical dimensions, and create music that could evoke its shape and texture — a theme further illustrated in the original album artwork and single covers by Adam Rabinowitz. Eder felt he must be on to something when, on a whim, he looked up the tempo of a piece he was calling “137 Riddle.” Turned out to be “the most important number in the world” in theoretical physics, as well as a provocative number in Jewish mysticism.

Since 2020, Eder's cover of Aphex Twin's “#20 (Lichen)” has garnered over two million streams. Appropriately, THERAPY delivers two new Aphex Twin arrangements alongside eight original pieces.

Maintaining his track record of recording the best musicians Eder can find, THERAPY features special guests Nailah Hunter (harp), Henry Solomon (saxophone), and Ethan Haman on The Newberry Memorial Organ at Yale University.

Gothenburg trio Dark Horse present their new album "Listen", released by We Jazz Records on 13 November. The band, comprising of John Holmström (piano), Alfred Lorinius (bass) and Mårten Magnefors (drums) recorded their second album in a remote cabin by the ocean in Norway, owned by Holmström's family. The natural sound of the album owes a lot to the relaxed surroundings and the result is some high degree of improvised music turning into collective composition as the music unfolds.

The album recording took place at a very active spot in the trio's calendar, following extensive touring in Europe, Japan and their native country Sweden. The two days of improvising were edited down to highlights that easily fill an album's worth of quality listening and reveal what playing live brought to the three musicians: A natural ability to react to ideas, build on them and form coherent, compositional tracks on the spot. A task much easier said than done.

"We're a non-conceptual basement band all the way", laughs pianist Holmström. "We have been moving from free form music into collective composition and this is our pinnacle recording with that idea thus far. We just set out to play as honestly as possible and this is what followed."

A testament to the power of a fixed band unit developing over time, "Listen" comes across as a work by a group constantly keeping its nose to the wind when it comes to developing their music. The long-form opener "Allas Favorit" is a monumental piece building and releasing tension along its 12+ minute length. First single "Brutet Groove" assumes a fascinating, almost mechanic-sounding swing while assembling and reassembling the pieces of the puzzle, and the closing track "Fjäll-låten" gives us something of an ever-shifting sonic landscape in glorious colors, much akin to its name ("Mountain Song" in Swedish).

"That one Fjäll-låten includes some of the best musical moments of my life so far" confirms bassist Alfred Lorinius. "It's actually an edit of a 20-minute improvised sequence, and it has the real feeling of the band coming together and doing something new and fresh in the moment. I feel it's something you can revisit as many times as you like and there's always something to find in there."

Dark Horse formed in 2012 after Lorinius joined Holmström and drummer Mårten Magnefors to complete the group. Things quickly started taking shape musically from there on, but the group took their time in honing their craft with a method they now refer to as "tryout development". Their self-titled debut album appeared in 2015 and the current We Jazz album "Listen" marks the first internationally distributed release for the trio.The roots of Dark Horse lay firmly in the buzzing creative music scene of Gothenburg, Sweden, where the members have close ties with local establishments such as the legendary venue BrÖtz, and the city's vast scene of highly-regarded musicians.

In brief, "Listen" presents Dark Horse gloriously putting into use their musical philosophy what they describe "improvising as composing together".

"Listen" by Dark Horse is released by Helsinki's We Jazz Records on 13 November 2020 on vinyl and digitally. The vinyl comes in a heavy duty tip-on sleeve and the album design features the painting "Overwhelming Structure" by the Helsinki-based visual artist Maija Lassila.

“A good song can survive and shine in different ways in the hands of different musicians,” says Emmylou Harris. “It can have different meanings at different times in your life. A good song can travel with you anywhere.” That philosophy has guided her fifty-year career in country music, during which she has covered countless songs across countless genres and put her own indelible stamp on each one. More specifically, it’s the philosophy that animates both Spyboy, her touring band in the late 1990s, and Spyboy, the 1998 live album that demonstrates how these musicians made her songs shine. Sequencing old songs alongside new ones, the album tests the tensile strength of each one, pushing them into wilder and more psychedelic territory while remaining grounded in earthy country music. It’s completely unique in her catalog, a crucial document of an important chapter in her career, and it’s finally getting reissued after years of being unavailable. “It’s such a special record,” she says. “Well, they all are, but this one is really, really special. That was such a fantastic band and such an amazing time.”

Spyboy grew out of Wrecking Ball, Harris’ groundbreaking 1995 collaboration with producer Daniel Lanois. In 1996 and 1997 together with Buddy Miller, Brady Blade and Daryl Johnson, The band, also named Spyboy, toured America and Europe together, never playing a song the same way twice. Buddy Miller brought along his recording gear and recorded nearly every show on the tour. When their time on the road ended, Miller and Harris sat down together and they culled through hundreds of tracks to choose the ones that best represented the Spyboy ethos of endless possibility. They whittled the original release down to 14 tracks and in 1998 Eminent Records released Spyboy on CD.

Phylipe Nunes Araújo's songs are as rich and varied as the diverse landscapes they were written in. The hills of Pernambuco, the lagoons of Alagoas, and the beaches of Bahia are all woven into his stripped-back, folk-inspired Brazilian songwriting. As part of a wider movement of musicians originating from Brazil's Northeast, Phylipe sees the process of music-making as the search for beauty itself.

Collaborating with fellow Northeastern artists Bruno Berle, Batata Boy and Nyron Higor among others, Phylipe's debut album represents the latest flowering of this exceptionally talented community's creative search.

The Northeast holds an almost sacred importance in Brazil's collective cultural imagination. The region bore witness to the brutal histories of Portuguese colonization and the African slave trade, while simultaneously amalgamating the diverse cultures, religions and traditions of those who have called it home. Countless Brazilian music greats - Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Hermeto Pascoal, Djavan and Luiz Gonzaga - have emerged from this vast cultural melting pot.

Born in Caruaru, Pernambuco state, and raised in the city of Santa Cruz do Capibaribe (famed for its textiles industry), Phylipe describes his music simply as "Brazilian music from the Agreste of Pernambuco". His masterful compositions thread together regional rhythm, folk poetry and sophisticated harmony.

Phylipe's musical foundations were laid in youth, listening to the local elders rehearsing their forrós, attending São João street parties in front of his house and watching the Junina Quadrilhas dance through his neighborhood. At street fairs he would read the Literatura de Cordel (handcrafted pamphlets of Brazilian folk literature), and watch the rhyme battles between cantadores, violeiros, and repentistas, who improvise verses on daily life, social commentary and philosophy. This tradition of Northeastern folk poetry proved particularly formative for Phylipe as a lyricist. "I always try to write things as simply as possible. I believe that beauty must be easily understood. If I can facilitate the path to the message, there's no reason not to. It's something I learned from the traditional poetry here: it's more beautiful if everyone understands."

At the age of 11, Phylipe first got access to the internet. As he explains: "Still in adolescence I was also able to discover things like The Beatles and Nick Drake - I started to get to know music from the rest of the world and later to correlate that with my local musical experiences." Rich with extended chords and artful dissonances, it's clear from his compositions that jazz and bossa nova also took hold, but he's quick to eschew stereotypes. "Inevitably, people associate a Brazilian musician playing a nylon-string guitar with bossa nova..." "But the foundation is another story," he asserts, "It's the Northeast."

On the guitar Phylipe experiments with the binary rhythms inherent in traditional Northeastern music. Coco, frevo, maracatu and baião are recontextualised, placed alongside Brazilian popular music (MPB), gentle lullabies and stunning ballads. "In these 10 songs, I am experimenting with making pop music on a nylon-string guitar with my foundation in the Northeastern songbook."

The contemporary musical community which Phylipe belongs to developed initially in Pernambuco's neighbouring state Alagoas. Phylipe lived in its capital Maceió for three years, where he built friendships and musical bonds with Bruno Berle and Batata Boy who together produced his album. Bruno also sings in unison with Phylipe on the duet "Valise", a song Phylipe wrote aged just 15.

In recent years, Phylipe, Bruno and Batata have migrated south to São Paulo, where the majority of the album was recorded. Other collaborators on the album include Alici, who provides vocals for the ebb and flow of "Temperim", Nyron Higor who plays drums on lead single "Asa" and the sweet indie moment "Ziz"", bassist Meno Del Picchia who plays on the mystical baião "Bixin" and the propulsive "Subindo a Ladeira", and Raphael Coelho who joins Bruno and Batata on percussion for "Santa Cruz", Phylipe's hypnotically powerful portrait of his hometown.

Emily A. Sprague's Cloud Time traces an audio-spiritual journey through time and place, recorded across a long-awaited debut tour of Japan in the fall of 2024. Compiled from environmental improvisations captured in and for the moment, material at once welcoming, responsive, and inimitable, the album distills a voyage guided by psychic wayfaring, unbound presence, and activating performance for a reciprocal exchange with space, listener, and each fully engaged instant. The Japanese tour documented on Cloud Time held an almost mythic significance for Sprague, taking on properties of her own sonic white whale. After many near-departures and dropped plans to play in the country, "the empty spaces of cancelled trips and forgotten music turned into strange little misty spirits that I felt followed by," she says. "When I began preparing for the tour, I couldn't shake a sense that the invitation to Japan was more about opening myself up to this new place instead of bringing something into it tightly under my control. Improvisation has always been such a pillar in my music practice, and I really wanted to meet the country, spaces and people through that process." To amplify these intuitive whispers on-stage, Sprague reimagined her time-tested live rig, designed to be as free from error as possible, as a looser, more flexible set up that would allow her to interface with what was essentially a blank sonic canvas every night. Each performance became a collaboration between environment and instinct, Sprague processing the events, energies, and emotions informing the evening through her new sound ecosystem, and projecting an entirely present and unique version of herself to each open-eared and hearted crowd. "It was very much more than just an act of playing for me, but a total experience of time and place," she says. The seven long-form pieces that plot the course of Cloud Time, excerpted from over eight hours of recordings archived on the artist's on-stage recorder and generously shared on the album with no additional mixing and only minimal editing, invite listeners to become still in these deep-rooted moments of presence as the album moves from city to city, venue to venue. Cloud Time chronicles material recorded at each tour stop, Sprague selecting and sequencing the album around mood-based storytelling more so than linear chronology. "I tried to make the whole album flow in the way that any one of the complete live performances did," she explains, "while also keeping the spirit of the whole thing as a journey." The result is equal parts travelog, love letter, and impressionistic collage channeled from the potent ferment of a now encased in the glowing amber of memory. Intrinsically inspired by kankyo ongaku, an environmental music philosophy, known both in and widely outside of Japan that tunes into the similarly expansive ethos as Pauline Oliveros' deep listening practice and posits the listener as composer, Cloud Time is ambient music that seems to be listening right back, grounded in heartfelt synthesized frequencies that abundantly hold and heal. Pieces like "Nagoya," "Tokyo 1," and the ten minute "Matsumoto" in particular hum with the atomic resonance of gently tended landscapes, offering space for tuning way in and dropping far out from perspectives that stifle and bind. Cloud Time is an invitation to embrace each moment as both fleeting and eternal, floating by with nothing to grasp onto and absolutely everything to gain. The exercise in acceptance and letting go that Sprague practiced throughout the tour deeply impacted her understanding of self as both a guest and venerable performer. "The process of loving wherever I am, being present and focusing on a clear channel of communication for mind and emotion, rooted so deeply in respect for the space, those within it, and myself, ended up being profoundly healing," she says. "My vision and hope is that this album can be released as a gift back to anyone who either was or wasn't there. A cloud time of life passing by."

Emily A. Sprague's Cloud Time traces an audio-spiritual journey through time and place, recorded across a long-awaited debut tour of Japan in the fall of 2024. Compiled from environmental improvisations captured in and for the moment, material at once welcoming, responsive, and inimitable, the album distills a voyage guided by psychic wayfaring, unbound presence, and activating performance for a reciprocal exchange with space, listener, and each fully engaged instant. The Japanese tour documented on Cloud Time held an almost mythic significance for Sprague, taking on properties of her own sonic white whale. After many near-departures and dropped plans to play in the country, "the empty spaces of cancelled trips and forgotten music turned into strange little misty spirits that I felt followed by," she says. "When I began preparing for the tour, I couldn't shake a sense that the invitation to Japan was more about opening myself up to this new place instead of bringing something into it tightly under my control. Improvisation has always been such a pillar in my music practice, and I really wanted to meet the country, spaces and people through that process." To amplify these intuitive whispers on-stage, Sprague reimagined her time-tested live rig, designed to be as free from error as possible, as a looser, more flexible set up that would allow her to interface with what was essentially a blank sonic canvas every night. Each performance became a collaboration between environment and instinct, Sprague processing the events, energies, and emotions informing the evening through her new sound ecosystem, and projecting an entirely present and unique version of herself to each open-eared and hearted crowd. "It was very much more than just an act of playing for me, but a total experience of time and place," she says. The seven long-form pieces that plot the course of Cloud Time, excerpted from over eight hours of recordings archived on the artist's on-stage recorder and generously shared on the album with no additional mixing and only minimal editing, invite listeners to become still in these deep-rooted moments of presence as the album moves from city to city, venue to venue. Cloud Time chronicles material recorded at each tour stop, Sprague selecting and sequencing the album around mood-based storytelling more so than linear chronology. "I tried to make the whole album flow in the way that any one of the complete live performances did," she explains, "while also keeping the spirit of the whole thing as a journey." The result is equal parts travelog, love letter, and impressionistic collage channeled from the potent ferment of a now encased in the glowing amber of memory. Intrinsically inspired by kankyo ongaku, an environmental music philosophy, known both in and widely outside of Japan that tunes into the similarly expansive ethos as Pauline Oliveros' deep listening practice and posits the listener as composer, Cloud Time is ambient music that seems to be listening right back, grounded in heartfelt synthesized frequencies that abundantly hold and heal. Pieces like "Nagoya," "Tokyo 1," and the ten minute "Matsumoto" in particular hum with the atomic resonance of gently tended landscapes, offering space for tuning way in and dropping far out from perspectives that stifle and bind. Cloud Time is an invitation to embrace each moment as both fleeting and eternal, floating by with nothing to grasp onto and absolutely everything to gain. The exercise in acceptance and letting go that Sprague practiced throughout the tour deeply impacted her understanding of self as both a guest and venerable performer. "The process of loving wherever I am, being present and focusing on a clear channel of communication for mind and emotion, rooted so deeply in respect for the space, those within it, and myself, ended up being profoundly healing," she says. "My vision and hope is that this album can be released as a gift back to anyone who either was or wasn't there. A cloud time of life passing by." Emily A. Sprague's Cloud Time will be released Friday, October 10th in vinyl, Japanese import CD (via Plancha), and digital editions.

DEVO’s Hardcore documents the group’s beginning as pre-punk outcasts in the fertile Akron, Ohio, underground rock scene. Spawned at the nearby college of Kent State, site of the infamous May 4 Massacre, DEVO formed as a conceptual art project armed with the radical philosophy of de-evolution. Brothers Mothersbaugh (Mark, Bob and Jim) and Brothers Casale (Jerry and Bob) along with drummer Alan Myers soon whipped up an otherworldly brand of “devolved blues” that could hold its own alongside the beatnik groove of 15-60-75 (a.k.a. The Numbers Band) or the primal rock poetry of The Bizarros. Recorded on various four-track machines and in tiny studios, basements and garages between 1974-1977, Hardcore reveals their strikingly clear vision: rock ’n’ roll stripped bare of its collective cool and jerked back into propaganda fit for post-modern man. It’s no surprise that these transmissions would soon catch the eye and ear of Brian Eno, who later produced their landmark 1978 debut album. Noisy synth, strangled guitar chops and a primitive rhythmic thud power the early DEVO sound. Threaded beneath it all are lyrical themes of post-McCarthy paranoia, middle-class ephemera and DEVO’s long-running topic of choice: sex, or lack thereof. Few moments in pop music history can match the grinding, pent-up energy of “Mongoloid” and the spastic bounce and sputter of “Jocko Homo” (two anthems presented in their earlier and superior versions here). Cult favorites like “Mechanical Man” and “Auto-Modown” make Volume 1 essential listening. Superior Viaduct and Booji Boy Records are proud to present DEVO’s Hardcore to a new generation of spuds, lovingly packaged with Moshe Brakha’s stunning cover photography. As David Bowie said in 1977, DEVO is indeed “the band of the future.”

If there is one person, who has been causing a stir on the international club circuit recently, it is Barcelona's John Talabot. Already his debut “My Old School“ (which is meant literally by the way) on Permanent Vacation in 2009 and shortly after that the single “ Sunshine”, which he put out on his own Hivern Disc imprint, made him one of the most promising musicians of the Spanish electronic scene. And those two releases also already set the mark for John Talabot’s unparalleled music: raw, loopy, heavy on the kick drum, sample based, moderate on the tempo, distorted on the drums and light years away from the clean and ever revolving house sound of today. This unique style which also blends influences from afro beat, Detroit techno, Chicago house and cosmic disco, but also northern soul or the energy of Flamenco, immediately turned some heads around. James Murphy, Âme and Aeroplane started including Talabot music in their sets like it was the most natural thing. However - and this is quite rare - he not only gained legions of fans in the house and disco community, but also amongst the leftfield pop and indie rock followers. NME and Resident Advisor both had “Breakthrough“ features on John Talabot and he can be proud of a “Best New Music“ dubbing on
Pitchfork. (Being rather elusive on showing his face in magazines or the web it also came to some funny rumors that John Talabot was the alter ego of a well-known techno producer from Detroit).
At the same time he drew the attention of like-minded artists like James Holden and Luke Abott from Border Community, Blondes or Delorean, which lead to a bunch of fertile collaborations: Luke Abbott and Blondes remixed Talabot’s “Sunshine“ single , John Talabot remixed a track by Delorean and vice versa Delorean’s Ekhi contributed vocals to the track “Journeys “ on John’s album). Another example is the Young Turks Label (home of Jamie XX, Holy Fuck, El Guincho or SBTRKT ) on which he released the “Families“ EP in 2010. It was praised beyond limits. Pitchfork for
instance hailed: “… where pop and house influences sweetly buffer up against one another to provide an unyielding sense of elation“ and even brought Talabot a comparison with artists like Four Tet or Caribou.
While staying true to his sound, John Talabot has nevertheless shown a constant evolution as a producer since his first release. He has traced a solid musical path that has turned him into one of the big references of European House and has made him also a highly in demand Remixer (for the likes of The XX, Francesco Tristano’s “Aufgang” project, Shit Robot on DFA, Thaiti 80, Joakim or Teengirl Fantasy to name just a few ).
A progression that now crystallizes in “ƒin”, his first full-length album for Permanent Vacation. A record, in which the Barcelona mastermind sets aside the danceable immediacy to expand his stylistic palette more than ever. For that purpose, Talabot melts all the elements that have constructed his distinctive sound until now and makes them emerge from a new perspective, in which the construction of complex song structures, intricate rhythms and superpositions of ever-evolving melodies and atmospheres pick up the baton of the “a kick-drum and a sampler” philosophy of his initial productions. The result brings us 11 tracks (we should call them songs really!) dominated by dark ambiances, gaseous textures and bittersweet moods that, above all, reveal a kind of vivacity that’s really hard to find in contemporary electronics. “Fin” is far from being a track collection. From the majestic opener “Depak Ine“ to it’s solemn ending with
“So Will Be Now“ , one of the two tracks that features Talabot’s soul and label mate Pional, each song traces an overall dialogue with the rest, culminating a highly emotional journey through Talabot’s always compelling and unique musical vision.

Classic black 2LP in gatefold! "Her darkest, heaviest and most personal album yet . . . a haunting, doomy exercise in loud-quiet dynamics." Rolling Stone Sleep paralysis plagues singer/songwriter Chelsea Wolfe, and that strange intersection of the conscious and the unconscious has inadvertently manifested itself within her work. Across the span of her first four albums, there is an underlying tension, a distorted and nebulous territory where dark shadows hover along the edges of the sublime and the graceful. But until now, Wolfe's trials and tribulations with the boundaries between dreams and reality have only been a subconscious influence on her work. With her fifth album, Abyss, she deliberately confronts those boundaries and crafts a score to that realm she describes as the "hazy afterlife. an inverted thunderstorm. the dark backward. the abyss of time." Chelsea Wolfe's material has always felt intensely private, from the almost voyeuristic bedroom-production aesthetic of her debut album The Grime and the Glow to the stark themes and atmospheres of 2013's Pain Is Beauty. "Abyss is meant to have the feeling of when you're dreaming, and you briefly wake up, but then fall back asleep into the same dream, diving quickly into your own subconscious," says Wolfe. To conjure this in-between world, Wolfe continued her ongoing collaboration with multi-instrumentalist and co-writer Ben Chisholm and drummer Dylan Fujioka, with Ezra Buchla brought on board to play viola and Mike Sullivan (Russian Circles) enlisted to contribute guitar. The ensemble traveled to Dallas, TX to record with producer John Congleton (Swans, St. Vincent). In the back of her mind burned the words of designer Yohji Yamamoto: "Perfection is ugly. Somewhere in the things humans make, I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion." The resulting eleven songs reflect that philosophy as they smoulder with human frailty, intimacy, quiet passion, anxiety, and deep longing. "Sleep and dream issues have followed me my whole life," remarks Wolfe as she revisits notes from the writing and recording sessions. In a way, these issues have become a part of Chelsea Wolfe's identity, for whom the notion of sleep as an escape has been subverted. Abyss captures this dichotomy, this battle between the soothing and the upsetting, and demonstrates why Chelsea Wolfe has become one of the most intriguing songwriters of the decade.

Hatebreed vocalist Jamey Jasta described Supremacy as an “all-out onslaught of completely adrenaline-charged, in-your-face brutality,” and who are we to argue (in fact, we’d be afraid to)?! Hatebreed came up through the Connecticut hardcore scene (they actually kind of invented it), and recorded acclaimed albums for the Victory and Universal labels before moving to Roadrunner for this 2006 record, which featured the debut of guitarist Frank “3 Gun” Novinec. Supremacy’s sonic assault took it to #31 on the charts, but there’s more to it than just piledriving riffs; Jasta’s personal statement (reproduced on the insert) is remarkable for its honesty and its quasi-Nietzschean philosophy, and the lyrics (e.g. “Mind over All;” “Supremacy of Self”) follow suit. Remastered for its U.S. vinyl debut by Mike Milchner at Sonic Vision, pressed in ruby red wax!

Journeys are never just about distance. They stretch time, reshape perception, and demand transformation. With its latest vinyl split EP, Standard Deviation presents four tracks by Nastya Vogan and Phase Fatale that serves as a vessel for tracing displacement, memory, and the liminality of return. These melancholic yet powerful techno cuts serve both the concrete dance floor and moments of intimate self-reflection. Two artists--Nastya Vogan and Phase Fatale--approach Kyiv from different trajectories, but they both keep returning to the city. Vogan, a Ukrainian musician and resident DJ of Kyiv, and Phase Fatale (Hayden Payne), Berlin-based producer, Berghain and Khidi resident and founder of BITE Records, share a longstanding musical friendship. They've played B2B sets at K41 and Vogan, appeared on BITE's ''Shedding Skin'' compilation in 2023, and they share a vision for music selection, from aesthetics to philosophy. Vogan's 'Transitioning Territory' and 'This Is Not a Love Song' unravel the psycho-geography of transition. The first track captures the 24-hour journey to Kyiv as a rite of passage where 'time seems to fold; you are profoundly present yet paradoxically far from the world you left.' In this suspended state, memories surface and ordinary life recedes as the train's rhythm becomes its own meditation. Her second track explores Lacanian limerence--consciously falling for something not fully known, filling absences with personal projections as a way to discover what lies within oneself. Phase Fatale's contributions capture movement and distance with mechanical precision. 'Kekkai,' takes its name from the Japanese word for boundary, echoing 'respect my borders' ethos while reflecting on crossing into wartime Ukraine. The term also suggests a protective force field in Buddhist thought--much like Kyiv's current aura of resistance. 'Neosyazhna Rosa' (Unreachable Rose) honors Payne's Ukrainian grandmother Rose, weaving family history into his present connection with Ukraine. Both pieces balance melancholy with light, their sound palette of lush pads and rhythmic breaks crafted with K41's dance floor in mind.

With this new EP called "Last Night A Bassline Saved My Life", again released on Unsure, Stefan Schwander further refines the philosophy and sound of his latest concept While My Sequencer Gently Bleeps. Following his idea of reduction Schwander used only the Elektron Monomachine to shape four amazing tracks, beautifully balanced, searching for the perfect groove, stripped of all unnecessary.
"Compromise", the first track, may even be a reminiscence to Schwanders legendary releases as Antonelli Electr, supertransparent and supercrisp, yet still warm, deep and human, an understated wonder of a track! "Persona" and the title track got those dubby chords and effective synths, an inimitable tightness and basslines that can save your life indeed. And on "Escalator" Schwander comes up with extraordinary rolling and twisting rhythms and some sonic essentials that only the master of the sequencer can deliver. Distinguished.

WRWTFWW Records is very happy to release Swiss cult band Grauzone’s recording of their April 12th 1980 live show at Gaskessel in their hometown of Bern. The 9-track album, documenting the very beginnings of the group, is available as a limited edition white vinyl LP in heavy 350gsm sleeve with special artwork by band member Stephan Eicher.

Experience the early Grauzone days, live from Bern, Switzerland, with a concert recorded at legendary local venue Gaskessel, with Martin Eicher on guitar and vocals, Christian G.T. Trüssel on bass, Marco Repetto on drums, Stephan Eicher on synth, and Claudine Chirac on saxophone. The performance is a true time capsule of the early 80s underground, showcasing the punk side of Grauzone with renditions of songs that were never officially released, as well as future fan-favorite “Moskau”. A piece of Swiss music history, This limited release is a must have for all Grauzone fans and DIY archivists.

About Grauzone:

The pioneering band from Bern (Switzerland) had a short-lived but highly-regarded career which birthed a cult discography that still fascinates and resonates today. Consisting of core members Martin Eicher, Stephan Eicher, and Marco Repetto, and on-and-off participants Christian GT Trüssel, Claudine Chirac, and Ingrid Berney, the elusive group broke new grounds in the early 80s, experimenting with punk and industrial music, early techno sounds, minimalism, new wave, pop, and various electronics. With an innovative and polished approach to design, visuals, performance, and all around style and philosophy on top of their superb music, the constantly transforming unit developed a whole experience - the Grauzone experience: wild and unpredictable, yet sophisticated and cohesive, or as Swiss music historian Lurker Grand would call it, "an Art band with a Punk attitude".

Completely rejecting the music industry rules and refusing to play the game of promotion, touring, release schedules, and TV appearances even though they had a multi-platinum international hit with the song "Eisbär", the band quickly disintegrated in full convention-defying glory, leaving behind an inspiring music legacy for the world to discover and discover again, one generation after the other.

Stephan Eicher went on to be, arguably, the most successful Swiss musician ever, with an international career extending from pop chanson to experimental escapades and collaborations with Moondog, artists Sophie Calle and Sylvie Fleury, and author Martin Suter among many other luminaries. Marco Repetto flourished as a techno and ambient producer, releasing multiple projects including releases on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label.

Manchester-based producer Lily Mumby, the creative force behind Lapalace, has chosen Lavender as her botanical muse for this sixth instalment. Like the aromatic herb that grows from tiny seeds to fragrant purple stalks, her compositions unfold with a similar patience and elegance. Her synthesisers breathe with a natural rhythm, creating textures that emerge and recede like morning dew on lavender buds waiting to bloom.

The standout track ‘new age night’ – a stunning love child of William Basinski's decaying tape loops and Aphex Twin's intricate programming—carries subtle lavender-inspired tones, balancing the plant's calming essence with hypnotic rhythms. Just as lavender requires thoughtful tending before rewarding the gardener with its distinctive aroma, Lapalace's landscapes reveal deeper complexities with each listen.

Much like gardening itself, Mumby demonstrates an innate understanding of when to intervene and when to allow natural development. This approach echoes throughout her career, from her debut EP "Ephemera" which caught the attention of Insult to Injury Records' Timothy Clerkin, through to her contributions to Chez De Milo's "So It Goes" Remix EP and Manchester label Skiptrace's various artists compilation.

Her work across BBC Introducing and fossil.radio reflects this same philosophy – creating environments where sound, space, and organic movement find their natural harmony. But this composition really feels that Mumby has come of age. "Music To Watch Seeds Grow By Vol. 6" represents the continued cultivation of Lapalace's distinctive sound and demonstrates the maturity of an artist way beyond her years. This music stands as a lighthouse through a thick fog of nostalgia, much like lavender standing tall amidst an English cottage garden.

Early DJ support including - Auntie Flo, Ruf Dug, Courtesy, Vladimir Ivkovic.

The first in a proposed series of transmissions, Surface Detail's mystifying debut introduces an incorporeal body that exists only through sound and sensation, prompting listeners to discern a spiritual realm beyond the physical. Its surging electro-acoustic compositions push past the material world to plunge into deeper sonic dimensions, slowly revealing a philosophy borne of near-death and out-of-body experiences that challenges perception itself.

Overhauling vintage experimental techniques with their bespoke modern methodologies and processes, Surface Detail rearrange the musical timeline, merging vastly different concepts to hint at questions rather than provide solid answers. Their uniquely immersive soundscapes use texture, rhythm and tonality to help brush away the superficial and contemplate the unknown, approaching its delicate, controversial subject matter with sensitivity and sensuality. Not just an auditory experience, 'Surface Detail' tests the potential of sound itself, eliciting visceral physical reactions with its uncanny subtleties.

Those principles are divulged immediately on opening track 'Marée Noire', as breathy saxophone notes loops and swirl over cosmic oscillations and microtonally tuned drones. It's music that cracks open a passage that snakes through various genres, suggesting silhouettes rather than affirming banal musical preconceptions. Skeletal rhythms appear in the ether for only a moment, disappearing into the sonic landscape, and Surface Detail's bespoke instrumentation materializes just to bring out the cellular intricacy of the music, concentrating the gaze on microscopic textures and irregularities that discompose the senses. As the album drifts forward, it bends material reality even further: on 'Southern Breach', warm, lower-register organ tones intermingle with sinewy guitar twangs, evaporating into warped, hypnotic oscillations and eerie echoes; and by 'Superbook of the Dead', the conspicuous details have almost disappeared completely, replaced by subterranean clangs, industrial ambience and other-worldly electrical interference.

It's in this way that Surface Detail softly assert their convictions, insinuating a narrative that subliminally ushers listeners down an hypnagogic River Styx by removing all traces of the familiar. On closing track 'Broken Silicates', distant lullabies, dissociated stutters and ghostly woodwind sounds blot fractal patterns on the wide open space, reincarnating the album in a liminal zone that's not constrained by somatic logic. Whisper quiet and utterly beguiling, it transcends material existence, dissolving barriers between surface and depth.

Again Mysteries delivers 3 exellent long dark atmospheric tracks upholding the established label philosophy. Mastered by Pozek. Artwork by Darkam.
The tribal triumvirate of C. Ysme, Kbyl and Yukai supply fuel for the nomadic war machine. Relentlessly driving, pushing forward at 150 bpm, only stopping for the next gathering in pirate utopia. A maelstrom swirling, drawing you in to the centre of the dance.
Darkness merchants and veterans Too Old Boyz team up with Kaoslog and descend into the catacombs to deal with the fear factor. In the blackness a synth melody shines like a greenish light. Amply named Adrenaline this track urges to keep on moving and confront the monsters. 150 bpm, epic and hard as nails.
After Mysteries #6, #10 and VC 27 Keflat 23 is back and ups the pace going 170 beats full on pumping tribalistic yet subtle in line with the spirit of Mysteries, carefully laying out a mental map of realms and conzepts unknown. Immer geradeaus but when you see the rabbit ask it for directions.
This release includes a 2 side poster, digital download code and artwork sticker.

‘Zeitgeist’, the debut LP from celebrated Italian electronic music producer Dukwa, begins with a timeless dancefloor equation; swung drums, a clattering cobwell and flickering hi-hats lurch forward into a serious bassline. Within seconds, dancers are flung into the house anthem ‘You Don’t Want It’ that’s equally raw and charismatic, sensual and powerful. For the next forty-five minutes of rhythm, melody and studio trickery, ‘Zeitgeist’ continues to bend time, eras and bodies.

Having released EPs on respected labels including Numbers, Gudu and Diynamic Records, invariably with the support of Jackmaster, Peggy Gou and Solomun, Dukwa folds into the Slacker85 philosophy with ease, laying down a statement of intent that’s squarely for the dancers. Indebted to a youth digging in Florence’s record stores, embracing the peerless Italian rave scene, as well as his recent appearances at Circoloco and Kappa Future, ‘Zeitgeist’ subverts it’s knowing title to dance between styles with an urgency you can feel in your heels.

Before long, Dukwa is smoothly oscillating between acid overdrive and weightless house on ‘Catch All’, while the balance between softness and severity is refined even further on ‘Show Me’, showcasing the record’s first euphoric breakdown, a heads down, hands up moment that sacrifices none of his organic flow. Ably mastering many corners of his record box, ‘Avec Moi’ makes a confident left turn into tunneling trance, interspersed with a sensual french vocal.

‘All You Need’ provides the record’s beating heart, Dukwa’s overarching philosophy front and center around layers of synthesised groove, build and release: “The world is full of fighting, ignorance and greed, but right here on the dancefloor - the rhythm’s all you need”. Meanwhile, ‘My Turn’ channels more cinematic instincts, zoning in on an elegant piano riff in order to unravel a quietly epic deep house trip.

As ‘Zeitgeist’ heads toward its conclusion, Dukwa effortlessly squeezes the most emotive juice from his well-oiled studio. ‘Sad Eyes’ possesses the emotional punch of many vintage end-of-night anthems, still driving yet touched with a wistful ecstasy. Finally, for closing passage ‘Stck1’, Dukwa truly lets the machines sing, capturing a brief symphony of harmonising modulations that dip into weirdo electronica, without ever skipping his signature beats.

Now and again, an album project with no home comes along out of the blue, demanding to be licensed and shared with the world.

It was unearthed on one of Paper's digging trips. BOM's album sounded like nothing else out there, only the future. Shrouded in mystery and country-of-origin unknown, Africa runs through its DNA, but sometimes mysteries are best left...

Ase - a Yoruba philosophy signifying the power that makes things happen and produces change; given to Gods, ancestors, spirits, humans, animals, plants, rocks, rivers, songs and prayers.
BOM takes influence from all corners of Africa and its diaspora, blending them with 25 years of Western electronic music into a melange of forward facing, leftfield afro futurism.
The album features one of Africa's brightest rising stars, Luka Productions (from Mali), cosmic poet Sirius Rush (UK) and master drummer & vocalist Felix Ngindu (DRC/Liverpool) for a journey into kaleidoscopic Afro-tech funk. Gqom, Shangaan electro and township funk rub shoulders with hip-hop, bass, deep house and dub for a psychedelic celebration of collaboration and possibility.

As geographical and musical barriers are broken down, BOM's 'Ase' album is leading the charge; London to Lagos, Lisbon to Sao Paulo, Bamako to Berlin, BOM captures the sound of the underground.

Six track EP full of warm deep house music, spacy jazz not jazz, african and brasil rhythms, plus a portion of psychedelic funk poetry.

‚Children Of Zu Zu‘ is Charles Petersohn‘s restart after his previous label release from 18 years ago, besides some experiments on Bandcamp and SoundCloud. On this EP sound merges into each other, is producing an organic flow. Smooth deep house, different kinds of jazz and jazznotjazz, african rhythms, Brasil batucada, psychedelic funk poetry, inspired by Dr. John and most of all the space music and afrofuturist philosophy of Sun Ra and his Arkestra. Soundscapes and atmos in the background of each song give the music a deeper feel. It took its time to get the music ready. There was the desire of having Web Web pianist Roberto di Gioia in the music, took months. But it was worth waiting. Roberto planted some magic moments in to it. On other hand Charles is hyper critic with his own sound. If jumping into to arena again, there should be something special. When he will be okay with every inch of his sonic work, then its done! ‚Children Of Zu Zu‘ became a collage of thick, warm and smooth housemusic, spacy Ambient Jazz and two dancefloor tools with a deep Afro and Brasil feel.

Here we go with six tracks full of love, full of dreams and full of space.

"Children Of Zu Zu" ist Charles Petersohns Neustart nach seiner letzten Label-Veröffentlichung vor 18 Jahren mit dem Pianisten Jasper van't Hof bei "Jaro". Deep House Music, Jazz Not Jazz, afrobrasilianische Jazz-Grooves, Ambient Jazz, eine von New Orleans Legende Dr. John inspirierte spirituelle Botschaft, einen Gesang von Frauen und Mädchen aus Samoa vom "British Commonwealth Sound Archive" und nicht zuletzt die intergalaktische Poesie von Sun Ra und seinem Arkestra. Soundscapes im Hintergrund fast aller Tracks versetzen die Musik jeweils an einen fiktiven Ort. Es hat seine Zeit gedauert, bis die Musik fertig war. Der Wunsch, den Web Web Pianisten Roberto Di Gioia für die Musik zu gewinnen, schien fast unmöglich. Seine Teilnahme verzögerte sich um mehrere Monate, denn Roberto ist ein vielbeschäftigter Musiker und Produzent. Am Ende hat sich das Warten gelohnt. Er hat der Musik einige magische Momente beschert. Auf der anderen Seite ist Charles mit seinem eigenen Material meist überkritisch. "Wenn ich mich parallel zu so vielen großartigen Musikern und Produzenten überall in der Welt und darüber hinaus mit einer eigenen Botschaft in die Welt begebe, muss das schon etwas Besonderes werden!" Nach endlosen Sessions in seinem Mini-Studio ist 'Children Of Zu Zu' um einiges mehr geworden, als er sich vorgenommen hat. Statt zwei, sind es am Ende sechs Tracks und zwei Bonus-Versionen voller Liebe, voller Träume und voller Space, innerspace und outerspace, geworden. Musik für den Dancefloor, für Jazz Clubs, Chill Zones und obendrein für Kinderzimmer!

Rising indie soul artist Sevens announces the release of his highly anticipated debut album, Sincerely, Sevens, on February 21, 2025. At just 24 years old, Sevens emerges as a compelling voice in the contemporary soul scene, blending indie soul, neo-soul, and jazz into a collection of sincere, heartfelt songs.

With a distinct baritone voice and a gift for storytelling, Sevens explores themes of love, growth, and introspection throughout the 9-track record. His philosophy is simple: less is more. Crafted over a span of three years, much of the album was created in Sevens' bedroom, showcasing his skills not only as a songwriter and vocalist but also as a multi-instrumentalist and producer.

Sincerely, Sevens captures the artist in his purest form—a deeply personal work that touches the soul. From sparse, intimate arrangements to warm, groove-infused instrumentation, the record embraces vulnerability while exuding timeless charm.

The album features contributions from trusted collaborators: Boris Van Overschee (co-producer / Delv!s, Portland) Willem Ardui (additional production / Blackwave.) and David Poltrock (additional keys)

Tobie Speleman expertly handled the final mix, ensuring every note resonated with clarity and purpose.

Reflecting on the album, Sevens shares: “I wanted to feel more with less. I wanted to evoke, I wanted to touch. Parts of me I’ve never gone. It is honest, it is true. It is me.”

With Sincerely, Sevens, the young artist solidifies his position as one to watch—an emerging voice with both depth and authenticity.

2023 was a whirlwind year for Oracle Sisters. The trio—Julia Johansen, Chris Willatt, and Lewis Lazar—followed the release of their debut album Hydranism with a globe-spanning tour that captivated fans and critics alike. From the highways between Knoxville and Nashville to sold-out clubs in rain-soaked Seattle, and festival stages across the UK, they logged countless hours on the road. Their journey was a tapestry of exhaustion and exhilaration, falling apart, brawls and disputes, love and acceptance. By the year’s end, just two days before Christmas, they found themselves in Tokyo, reflecting on the fleeting nature of time and the fragments of inspiration gathered along the way. It was there the seeds for their next album, Divinations, began to sprout. Composing as a true trio for the first time, Oracle Sisters pieced together sketches formed during stolen moments on tour. These fragments coalesced into Divinations, an album shaped by the band’s nomadic existence. The recording sessions spanned cozy Parisian studios, a barn in northern France, and the storied Valentine Studios in Los Angeles. Their creative process embraced experimentation—swapping primary instruments, playing with toy drum machines, and crafting melodies on quirky tools like the OP-1 and a baby Casio keyboard. This spirit of discovery lent the album a sense of spontaneity and wonder. At its core, Divinations channels mysticism and timeless storytelling. The band’s songwriting draws on diverse influences, from the surrealist poetry of Baudelaire and Rimbaud to the introspective philosophies of Carl Jung. Musically, echoes of Talking Heads, Air, and Leonard Cohen resonate throughout the album and tracks like “Riverside” delve into existential questions— “How far are you going? Is it more than money can buy?” Elsewhere on the album “Marseille,” born in the city that gave the song its name, kicks off as a trance with lyrics that play between the sincere and desperate self-help affirmations, we give ourselves while trying to find a bridge between our individual lives and a universal feeling. Lead-single “Alouette” is Oracle Sisters at their most direct; propelled by a driving bassline and exuberant strings, the track summons the sound of 80’s, 90’s, and early 2000’s rock n roll as they sing about “getting out of dodge, finding a pirate ship and sailing home.” Inspired by the book Caliban and the Witch, “Blue Left Hand” is a lyrical tapestry weaving together history, philosophy, and cultural critique. The lyrics, “It’s in the harbor of every page / It’s in the corner of the playwright’s stage / And every player and every fake / And every witch that we burned at the stake,” reflect on the forces that shaped the capitalist society we know today. Across Divinations’ 11 tracks it’s not only geographic boundaries that were crossed but also the boundaries of time and circumstance. While their work may not consciously reflect specific worldly events, they seek to embrace the universal and offer a space for healing. “Good music would make sense to a farmer in 17th century France as it would to a pastry chef in Slovenia in the 21st century,” shares Lazar. “It’s not written for any temporal powers that be. It’s about expressing our common humanity and taking it from there.” This intuitive approach fuels Oracle Sisters creative process - whether composing in a frozen French farmhouse or performing live with an ever-expanding lineup of collaborators, the band remains committed to exploring the unknown. Through Divinations, they hope to leave listeners feeling transcendent, levitating on waves of intuition and discovery.

From day one, Linkin Park built the band upon the premise of fusing all of their favourite styles of music-as disparate as they might be-into one signature sound. Fast-forward 12 years to LIVING THINGS and the same six players have not only developed new tools to make that philosophy a reality, but they're finally comfortable embracing-and coalescing-every aspect of their career. OK, maybe not the XXL work shirts and neon hair dye of the early days. But in their music, the band has spent the past year reinventing how to tastefully bridge the gap between all the musical destinations they've visited, and how to marry all the ideas they've accumulated. And as LIVING THINGS began taking shape, for the first time Linkin Park was eager to use every tool in their toolbox. With each song, they flexed their expertise with both cutting-edge and classic gear, and they infused their vocals with an honest, thrilling enthusiasm; they picked apart their own ideas of what defines a song, and what defines Linkin Park. LIVING THINGS is a personal album, centered on human emotions and relationships implied by the title. It is informed by and built upon all previous Linkin Park albums, while still pushing the band's sound into new territory. It's spirited, energetic, daring and unafraid to hybridize the past, present and future. It's absolute proof to a radical theory six musicians have devoted their lives to testing.

The Trails label appeared as a natural continuation of the crew’s parties. By joining minds with select producers they aim to showcase pieces that capture their collective vision of electronic music.

On TRAILS001, they bring us their close friend and graphic designer Bogdan Năstase going by the alias DJ Bogdan. As a reflection of the label’s philosophy and taste, the EP presents themes of melancholy, introspection, mystery and hope, all wrapped in a sound aesthetic reminiscent of 2000’s electro-techno with a touch of synth-pop. Shade Detector kicks off the A side with enough energy to entice crowds during those peak hours of the night. Next up comes the title track, Freakshow Parallax, a melancholic piece for the afterhours. Moving on to the B side we find Videofreex. This one’s a creative and flexible tune suitable at any point of the party. We wrap up with Fântâna Carteziană, a wonderfully twisted minimal techno track that pays homage to a lost period of Bucharest’s history.

Rediscovered and compiled for release shortly before her death in November 2023, Further Selections from the Electric Harpsichord presents a never-before-heard recording of composer and artist Catherine Christer Hennix's early magnum opus. Originally debuted in 1976 at the festival Brouwer's Lattice at Stockholm's Moderna Museet, The Electric Harpsichord has steadily mystified fans and students of Western minimalist music for its implacable, transformative qualities, and the long-held, relative obscurity of its creator. Like the work of Hennix's close friend La Monte Young, the piece is set in just intonation and focuses on the transcendental potentials of precise tuning, inspired by their studies with Pandit Pran Nath. Composed of bursts of oscillating, synthetic tones using a carefully retuned synthesizer and a tape-based system for feedback delay, the sounds swirl, twinkle, and appear to bend time, space, and perception. Additional, sustained chords on the sheng, most likely played by her Deontic Miracle bandmate Hans Isgren, are present at the opening of the piece and reemerge towards the end of the recording. The release of Further Selections constitutes the most comprehensive original recording of this foundational work to date. Originally billed as The Well-Tuned Organ during its debut in Sweden, The Electric Harpsichord has developed a legendary reputation, predicated on a twenty-six minute fragment salvaged and circulated by Hennix's friend Henry Flynt. Promoting its importance on multiple occasions, Flynt aired the work on WBAI radio, organized a pair of tape concerts at New York alternative arts spaces in 1970s, and later penned a 1998 essay which served as the liner notes to its eventual CD release in 2010. For him, this work not only represented a sterling milestone in minimal sonic aesthetics, but also spawned a new genre that he dubbed "hallucinogenic/ecstatic sound environments (HESE)," which in turn inspired his own drone-like compositions. Gradually, interest in the recording led to a spate of archival projects, public performances, and new compositions by Hennix in the 2010s, in turn drawing into focus her multifarious practice, which includes serious contributions towards mathematics, poetry, sculpture, Noh drama, philosophy, and light art. Since 2018, Blank Forms has spearheaded a comprehensive publication effort in support of her work, including the writing collection Poësy Matters and Other Matters (2018); archival recordings like Selected Early Keyboard Works (2018) and The Deontic Miracle's Selections from 100 Models of Hegikan Roku (2019); and recent compositions such as Blues Alif Lam Mim (2021) and Solo for Tamburium (2023).

On Still + Bright, her highly-anticipated follow up to, Wary + Strange, Amythyst Kiah shares a dozen songs that mark an evolution in her sound. Kiah says, “With this album, I’ve always been incredibly interested in stories and philosophy. Lots of the songs are inspired by the cosmos, space, meditation, and mindfulness. It’s a way to piece out what it means to be a human being in the modern world. It’s the general idea that we should all have the freedom to decide what path we want to choose.” Still + Bright is produced by Butch Walker (Fall Out Boy, Green Day, Weezer) and features special guests including SG Goodman, Avi Kaplan, and Billy Strings. All of the songs were brought to life by Kiah and co-writers, including Sean McConnell, Avi Kaplan, Sadler Vaden, and Tim Armstrong, among others. Still + Bright is set for release on October 25, 2024. “Years in the making, Still + Bright explores what it means to be a human being in the modern world. Songwriting is my way to marry big, overarching philosophical ideas and questions into a musical, more organized arrangement. Inspired by the cosmos, space, meditation, and mindfulness – this record directly challenges religious and political dogma, stating that we should all have the freedom to decide what path we want to choose.” Recently Kiah featured in Salon talking about her love of country and bluegrass music and was included in a New York Times T Magazine spotlight and documentary: The Next Generation of Black Folk Singers. Her episode of PBS’ The Express Way with Dulé Hill aired nationally on April 30, Kiah is featured in Episode 2: “Appalachia”. She recently appeared on a panel at the Television Critics Association Press Conference which was attended by over 200 television critics around the globe. This June she will be on the road opening for Iron & Wine.

Rhetoric & Terror is Berlin-based Hemphill’s second album since leaving Liars back in 2016.

No stranger to reinventing his approach towards composition, Rhetoric & Terror feels like we are – perhaps for the first time – opening a doorway into Hemphill’s personal life, to his disparate sonic influences, his wide-ranging journeys through philosophy, and his own reflections on his role as an artist.

Like different thoughts and feelings emerging in a state of meditation, Hemphill invites you to pause on one ‘scene’ for a moment before moving onto the next. There’s space to get lost here – both emotionally and in the colour of the album’s wide-ranging textures.

With his wife Angelika Kaswalder on vocals throughout the album and multi-instrumentalist Morgan Henderson – a longtime friend of Hemphill’s since Henderson’s time in the post- hardcore band The Blood Brothers - adding woodwind, Nonpareils is no longer simply a solo project – and it’s apparent in this openness.

The name of the album – Rhetoric & Terror – describes this split that Hemphill is making from the conceptual nature of his first solo album (2018’s Scented Pictures), and the new direction that he – perhaps – hopes to continue taking. The title comes from a chapter in Giorgio Agamben’s book, “The Man Without Content”, where he describes the concepts of rhetoric and terror to describe two different types of writers: the rhetorician and the terrorist. The terrorist is a misologist who is only into the feeling; the rhetorician is committed to logic and form.

“With Rhetoric & Terror, I wanted to start with emotions and feeling. I was playing with my kids, listening to Cocteau Twins, I have a wonderful partner, and it seemed very contrary to any sort of growth to sequester myself from this life in order to get into character as a musician. Instead, I tried to remove the boundaries between my creative life and my. responsibilities and have it all be one fluid thing. All things at all times, and trust that this will guide my music rather than more intellectual concepts or limitations.”

Despite its catalysts being in philosophy and conceptual art, Hemphill has created an album that’s deeply “emotionally available”. It’s also helped him take a new stance on life that combines his life as a partner and parent in a kind of unity with his role as the artist. It’s plain to hear as a listener – Rhetoric & Terror, despite its intimidating name, is welcoming
and playful, even during its most intense moments.

Last Summer, Daniel Foggin, guitarist, writer and chief architect of Smote, uprooted himself from his usual home in Newcastle to live and work in a farmhouse in Kelso, near the Scottish border. “Through the summer when I was working up there, myself and Rob (Smote drummer) would finish work and go sit by a small river and have a couple of beers in the sun, and it was the best thing ever” he relates “So I guess the philosophy is that to some people it looks like any other stream, but to us it was supreme happiness.” Hence came the title of the fourth Smote album proper, one largely recorded in this same farmhouse – A Grand Stream. It’s an album that’s the truest incarnation thus far of his vision for this band – a full-scale psychic voyage into the ether and a drone-and-repetition-fuelled series of incantations that takes simple, primal ingredients and utilises them for the purposes of aural sorcery, summoning spectres and revelations aplenty in its wake. Whilst the folk-tinged, ceremonial ambience that Smote have made their trademark is present and correct here, utilising Swedish classic psych heaviness and Swans textures as fuel for the ominous rhythms of ‘Coming Out Of A Hedge Backwards’ and the uplifting cadences of opener ‘Sitting Stone Part 1’, Foggin and his cohorts also waste little time exploring new more eerie and ethereal textures and dimensions. The meditative ‘Chantry’ in particular sees them gravitate towards a headspace akin to the drone-based epiphanies of Kali Malone’s ‘Does Spring Hide Its Joy’ filtered through the transcendent amplifier worship of ‘Earth 2’. A Grand Steam takes this band – one who’ve always eschewed the cliches and stumbling blocks of all contemporary psych rock in favour of their own unique and wyrd vision – into a realm in which they transcend through willpower and skill alike into something preternaturally thrilling, mapping out their own crepuscular new territory Question is; dare you step over the threshold?

Guadeloupe’s Manix is a self taught musician drawing inspiration from traditional Caribbean Folk and Beguine, to Salsa, Reggae and beyond. In 1980 Manix met the group ‘Tamtam 2000’ in Mulhouse, France. Embarking on many worldwide tours, Manix cemented his place in the group with 'Ti Cherie’ becoming a global hit beloved throughout the Antilles, Cape Verde, and La Réunion. Describing his singular philosophy of inciting joy ”At this moment I realised quickly that the simple act of playing wasn't just about one’s own satisfaction, but rather the need to create and share music”.

Browsing the French Football Federation's website, Dijon’s ‘Under Radaar’ was able to track down Manix as he was once the match report coordinator for his club ‘Red Star Richwiller’. It’s now our pleasure to share his music once again.

Words from Manix:
"Now in my 70s, what a joy it is to discover my songs now being loved in new parts of the world that I could never have imagined them spreading to in the mad 80s. A reissue is like a renaissance, a second wind that reaffirms my believe that both music and love will never die”

We are so excited to share our debut release which has already received support from Antal, Hunee and Palms Trax.

Emerging Belgian DJ/producer STEYA shares her debut EP on IMF, becoming just the ninth artist to release a full body of work on Marcel Fengler's influential label.
The Berlin-based artist has stamped herself as one to watch since breaking through in 2022, a regular at RSO Berlin and Grelle Forelle in Vienna, she's also played Tomorrowland, Exhale, Rex Club andBasement in NYC.
Her first forays into production reinforced her quality, with 'Neon Reecho' featuring on RAW's Third Eye compilation in 2021, followed by the release of 'Elysian' on BCCO's second V/A as well as the excellent 'Prototype X' on the '10 Years of IMF' that dropped in 2022, followed by a standout contribution to the label's new HARDPROOF V/A series in 2023 with 'Trigger Me'.
Her debut EP crystalises 20 years of devotion to techno, presenting abroad palette of sonic influences formed since her early days as araver in Antwerp. At the same time, it continues the label's philosophy of pairing a next generation artist with one of the greats of the genre, with STEYA's hero Rolando featuring on her 'Dopamine EP' with a remix of the incandescent 'Things You Never Said'. Growing up in Belgium where the 'Knights of the Jaguar' was a staple childhood anthem, it was "one of her biggest wishes to have him as a remixer".
An EP borne through two years of dedicated studio time, 'Dopamine EP' kicks off with the electric title track, a gritty tribal outing marked by dynamic shifts in tempo throughout. 'Fast Life' is a slick bass-led cut with plenty of bottom-end kick before a punchy synth melody get sadded to the brew. Swedish producer Hertz - a favourite of STEYA's ("I've played one of his tracks in every set since the beginning of my career") joins the project to re-work the title track, upping the energy ofthe original. 'Things You Never Said' begins life centred around energetic rolling grooves, before warm synth rushes give it a distinct Motor City vibe. Rolando fittingly steps up for remix duties to close out the EP, delivering a masterclass in deep simmering techno, extending the original by two minutes.
"It's a big honour to release my debut EP on such an amazing label like IMF, which is very close to my heart. I poured my heart and soul into this project. It showcases the artistic direction I've developed overthe last few years and is an important milestone in my artist journey." - STEYA
"After experiencing many of her stunning DJ sets, it's wonderful to seeher thriving also as a producer. What really excites me is witnessing her continuous growth, always fuelled by her deep passion for music. So, I'm thrilled to release STEYA's debut EP on IMF, featuring three original dancefloor anthems and two stellar remixes by Rolando and Hertz." - Marcel Fengler

2024 Reissue

Although he rose to prominence in the NYC jazz scene, working as Nina Simone's exclusive touring pianist, he never blossomed as a solo artist, so he decided to take the plunge and create "Liberated Brother" on his own. This work, which was completed in just 2 days of rehearsal and 5 hours of recording with trusted musicians, is an important work that instantly boosted his popularity as a composer!

The opening title track, "Liberated Brother," is a Latin-taste instrumental covered by Weldon's mentor, Horace Silver. Freddie Hubbard, J.J.Johnson, Peter Hervorzeimer and others have covered "Mr. Clean", which has a complex melody but a memorable phrase. Stanley Turrentine covered jazz-funk "Sister Sanctified" with comical synth phrases, and the version was re-evaluated with the sampling of Boogie Down Productions' "My Philosophy". The album "A Tribute to Brother Weldon" released in 2004 on Stones Throw after Weldon's death covers Blakestra. And jazz funk with a strong blues taste, "Homey" is a super classic that was heavily played on the dance floor in the 90's. The simple and groovy drums with few sounds and the melancholy melodica played by Weldon are cool and very sophisticated songs, and I agree that it was useful in the rare groove scene.

A work that triggered the recognition of his talent as a composer, with such a large number of masterpieces recorded. Don't miss this opportunity!

HOMESHAKE ist das Projekt des kanadischen Home-Producers Peter Sagar, dessen Sound halluzinatorisch und herzzerreißend in seinen Schreien nach Verbindung ist, strukturiert, tiefgründig, auf einzigartige Weise seine vielfältigen Einflüsse würdigend. "Horsie", das siebte HOMESHAKE-Album und das zweite in 2024, vertieft Sagars Beziehung zu Einsamkeit und Angst und untersucht diese Themen im Kontext von Live-Auftritten. Die 12 Songs verwenden von Künstlern wie Four Tet und My Bloody Valentine beeinflusste Texturen, die rhythmischen Formen von D’Angelo und Sade sowie Ambient Americana-Momente im Stile Ry Cooders.
Following March's CD Wallet, HOMESHAKE presents his second album of 2024, Horsie. Written and recorded at his home studio in Toronto, it explores Sagar’s complicated feelings about returning to live performance. Deepening his relationship to loneliness and anxiety, the record examines those themes in the context of touring.

Horsie employs various textures influenced by artists like Four Tet and My Bloody Valentine, the rhythmic forms of D’Angelo and Sade, and moments of ambient Americana found in the works of Ry Cooder. The cornerstone pieces of gear used were an Ensoniq EPS and Roland Juno 60, though the album also employs a great deal of electric guitar, along with his beloved SP-404. He maintains a philosophy of “less is more,” finding the simplest route from one point to another.

HOMESHAKE, the musical project of Peter Sagar, is an expression of adjustment and contortion within the world as he experiences it and the sounds he wants to hear in it. Hallucinatory and heartbreaking in its cries for connection, Sagar’s sound is often imitated but has proven to be entirely his own; textural and profound, uniquely honoring his diverse influences but adrift within its own transportive imagination.

A kaleidoscopic sonic riot, Nandakke? is the hotly anticipated debut album from Japanese-Belgian duo Aili. Featuring 10 tracks of surreal electro-pop, joyful electronica, house music and more, Nandakke? is a euphoric album that sees Aili Maruyama and Orson Wouters more than fulfil the promise of their acclaimed debut EP.

Recorded over the course of six months in Orson's studio, packed full of vintage synths, Nandakke? captures the spontaneous spirit and creativity of those sessions. Exchanging riffs and rhythms, bouncing sounds and samples off each other, Aili and Orson would let the music take them where it wanted. The result,an album full of wild ideas and bold, playful experimentation.

More than anything an exhilarating feeling of discovery courses through Nandakke?, leaving you never sure where it will go next. One minute a pulsing electro-pop number featuring Aili's dad discussing his takoyaki (battered octopus) recipe, the next an explosive high energy workout song like Up & Down.

Certainly Aili was surprised to find herself singing in her own unique version of Japanese again.

"I thought that I was done with that after our debut EP, but apparently not as I speak even more Japanese on the album!" said Maruyama. "Every time we were in the studio these words would just tumble out. It's a complicated language but I just love to play with it.

"In many ways I'm an outsider, I left Tokyo aged 7, so there's a lot I notice as someone who is not a native speaker and it doesn't always make sense, there's a lot of mistakes in it.But in a way that sums up the whole philosophy of the album and how Orson and I work together."

That notion of duality, a sense of belonging but feeling apart, of being between two worlds and inventing your own captures the spirit of Nandakke?, itself a Japanese word that roughly translates to "Well, what was it?".

"It's something you say when you're looking for a word, like you know it but have forgotten how to say it. That's literally how I communicate with my dad the whole time," Maruyama explains. "The main feeling I have when I go to Japan is that I know the language, I can speak it, but part of me still feels like it doesn't have all the vocabulary. There's a gap there that nandakke has always filled for me. All the lyrics come from that place, that seven-year old trying to speak Japanese."

Whether Aili's singing about the language she invented with her father over the years to bridge the gap between them (Nandakke?), the idiosyncratic Japanese relationship to fashion (Fashion) or riffing on children's playground songs (Yubikiri) the result is a remarkable album that defies easy categorisation.

Bursting onto the Belgian scene in 2021 with their acclaimed debut EP, Dansu, its lead track spent 8 consecutive weeks at the #1 spot of Radio 1's VOX list and saw the band nominated for Studio Brussel's De Nieuwe Lichting ('New Generation') award. Since then Aili have appeared playing live on the Belgian TV show Roomies, been tipped by the likes of Rolling Stone, become regulars on tastemaker stations like KEXP and KCRW in the US and Nova in France, toured across Europe and, just recently, played their first sell out shows in Japan.

avigating vibrant influences of Latin-jazz, Tropicália and joyful grooves; multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, singer and producer Inês Loubet presents her utterly gorgeous debut album ‘Senga’. The album covers Inês’ experiences over the past five years, originating in Portugal, travelling through Brazil, before finding home in London.

Previously, Inês co-wrote and performed on Caravela’s album 'Orla' on None More Records, which was praised by the likes of Gilles Peterson and The Line of Best Fit. Her music has been played on Jazz FM, BBC 6 Music, BBC Radio 3, NTS and Soho Radio. A relentless live performer, she’s played alongside Brazilian legends Gilberto Gil & João Bosco, graced the stage of The Royal Albert Hall, Union Chapel, and O2 Shepherds Bush, around UK and international tours.

The album explores a range of profound themes including nature, travel, grief, unconditional love, separation, family dynamics, and the nuanced experience of womanhood in contemporary society. Dedications to the music, philosophy and revolutionary history of samba (‘Sambo Mesmo Sem’), everyday observations of joy (‘Guri’), and motivating generational change for the better (‘Sab Sabim’); glide across romantic harmonies and the Brazilian rhythms at the melodic heart of the album.

“I started writing whilst living in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, in February 2020”, says Inês. “I was shy and hadn't written fully composed tracks before then. During lockdown I received support from The Arts Council’s DYCP, started making demos, gained confidence and started playing them live”. In October 2022 Inês was presented with the Drake YoLanda award and went to Giant Wafer studio in Wales for three days, before recording the final vocals at her home studio and mixing and mastering in Porto, Portugal.

Inês is joined on the album by a band of close friends. Percussionist and long-time collaborator Jansen Santana from Salvador da Bahia brings the soul of the drums, the tambor. “I always have the Bahia drums present in my mind when I write a new composition. I studied Latin percussion at University and then lived in Salvador absorbing all that heritage and knowledge”. Playing four different stringed instruments on the album, Greg Sanders is a long-time friend and collaborator from London “I met him in a samba band in 2015 and he was the first person I ever showed my songs to and played with”. The band is completed by Ruta Sipola on flute, Jake Burgess on tenor sax, Peu Meurray who recorded a lot of the percussion and lead vocals, and bassist Julio de Castro from Sao Paulo. “I was blown away by his bass playing, his swing and creativity, his ton of experience and professionalism but also his voice - he's an amazing singer and I believe that adds a lot to the magic”.

Inês concludes, “Last year, I had a show in London and I asked everyone in the audience to write down what they felt when they listened to the music. These are some of the things they wrote: wholesome, refreshing, lifted, moving, joyful, happy, nostalgic, warmth, force, goosebumps, emotional, togetherness, transported, rooted”. ‘Senga’ captures all of these feelings and more in a memorable first impression from a highly talented musician.

GER Als Night Beats erschafft der in Texas geborene und in LA lebende Künstler Danny Lee Blackwell Musik, wie man ein Puzzle zusammensetzen könnte. Der psychedelische Autorenfilmer aus dem Westen baut sein Werk aus einem Moment, einer Initialzündung, auf, die bestimmte Kriterien erfüllen muss: Sie muss ihm Gänsehaut bereiten. Wenn dieses Gefühl eintritt, verfolgt Blackwell die Idee unermüdlich, bis er einen neuen Song hat; wenn nicht, geht er zum nächsten Moment über, immer auf der Suche nach dem perfekten Molekül eines Songs. Auf seinem sechsten Night Beats-Album "Rajan" zeigt sich der Songwriter von seiner besten Seite und erschafft Werke, die mit fesselnden Melodien und hypnotischen Rhythmen glänzen, aber auch durch subtile handwerkliche Entscheidungen unterstrichen werden, die nur nach unzähligen Stunden im Studio erreicht werden können. Blackwell erschafft ein Werk, das irgendwo zwischen Spaghetti-Western-Filmmusik und Psych-Pop-Opus angesiedelt ist, ein karrierebestimmendes Album, das viel über Danny Lee Blackwells künstlerische Philosophie verrät und gleichzeitig den so wichtigen Hauch des Geheimnisvollen bewahrt. Exklusiv für den Indie-Handel, todesrote LP, handnummeriert mit Poster und DLC.


ENG As Night Beats, Texas-born, LA-based artist Danny Lee Blackwell creates music like one might assemble a puzzle. The Western psychedelic auteur builds his work from one moment, an initial spark, that must fit a certain criteria: it must give him goosebumps. If that sensation arrives, Blackwell will pursue the idea relentlessly until he has a new song; if not, he moves onto the next moment, constantly looking for the perfect molecule of a song. On his sixth Night Beats album, 'Rajan', the songwriter is at his strongest, creating works that shine with captivating melodies and hypnotic rhythms, but are underscored by subtle choices of craftsmanship that can only be achieved after countless hours in the studio. Blackwell creates a work that lands somewhere between Spaghetti Western film score and psych-pop opus, a career-defining album that reveals much about Danny Lee Blackwell's artistic philosophy while keeping that ever crucial air of mystery intact. Indies only LP on 180g 'Dying Red Giant' coloured vinyl, limited to 350 hand-numbered copies, fold-out art poster, download card included.

Die größte dänische Rockband feiert Geburtstag! D-A-D wird vierzig Jahre alt. Natürlich wird das gefeiert. Und wie! Eine Best Of-Veröffentlichung die sich gewaschen hat! Alle Hits der Band aus vier Dekaden Musikgeschichte, zusammengefasst auf einem Werk. Die absolut wahrhaftigen Greatest Hits.
Und das I-Tüpfelchen? Ganz klar, die streng limitierte Auflage der Vinylversion mit vier alternativen Covern. Nur solange der Vorrat reicht!
Herzlichen Glückwunsch an die Band und euch viel Spaß bei diesem wilden Ritt durch Nostalgie und Gegenwart! Von Songs wie "Sleeping My Day Away", oder "Bad Craziness", bis hin zu neuen Songs wie "A Prayer for the Loud" oder "Burning Star". Es ist für jeden Fan jeder Dekade etwas dabei.

Die größte dänische Rockband feiert Geburtstag! D-A-D wird vierzig Jahre alt. Natürlich wird das gefeiert. Und wie! Eine Best Of-Veröffentlichung die sich gewaschen hat! Alle Hits der Band aus vier Dekaden Musikgeschichte, zusammengefasst auf einem Werk. Die absolut wahrhaftigen Greatest Hits.
Und das I-Tüpfelchen? Ganz klar, die streng limitierte Auflage der Vinylversion mit vier alternativen Covern. Nur solange der Vorrat reicht!
Herzlichen Glückwunsch an die Band und euch viel Spaß bei diesem wilden Ritt durch Nostalgie und Gegenwart! Von Songs wie "Sleeping My Day Away", oder "Bad Craziness", bis hin zu neuen Songs wie "A Prayer for the Loud" oder "Burning Star". Es ist für jeden Fan jeder Dekade etwas dabei.

Combining elements of post-rock, trip-hop, and industrial music, HAAL have quickly become cult favourites in the UK live scene. Their psychotropic blend of samples, DIY pedals, and monolithic instrumentation, has seen the band play and tour alongside the likes of Kyoto Kyoto, WEB, Deliluh, Treeboy & Arc, Katy J Pearson, and Gurriers, as well as appearing at festivals such as ArcTanGent, Dot To Dot and more. Coming off the heels of their recent singles “Janus” and “Judy” (and subsequent remixes by Water From My Eyes and Crimewave), the new EP “Back To Shilmarine” arrives as a blistering snapshot of the band’s protean dynamism.

The band celebrate their late-90s / early-00s influences in a caustic yet melodic blend of tracks that nod as much to the output of labels such as Dischord, Touch & Go, and Nothing Records, as they do their contemporaries in the UK scene such as SCALER, Famous, deathcrash, and LICE. The EP sees them bring all these touchstones together to create a unique and uninhibited maelstrom of sound that spans everything from intricate math-inflected guitar lines and pensive vocals to propulsive drumming, totemic riffing, and warped synths.

Arguably some of HAAL’s heaviest material to date, “Platform 1, 18:19” offers the first look into this new material melding motorik rhythms and hypnotic riffs with sudden explosions of noise and power. However, as ever with HAAL, there is more than meets the eye – the track also features samples completely abstracted from their sources, for instance, the drone that begins the song is taken from a video of frontman Alfie Hay and his friends beating Bop It.

Elsewhere on the EP, the lyrics explore themes of cosmic existentialism, absurdism, meaning, transhumanism, inner reflection, science, history, and general philosophy. “All the lyrics are musings or verses that I wrote at very different times in my life” says Hay. “I then had to fit them around the music, despite being written at wildly different periods.” The record was once again recorded with long-time collaborator Alfie Tyson Brown (Katy J Pearson, LICE, Lazarus Kane) at The Louisiana in Bristol. The band have a tight knit collaborative circle around them, this is particularly notable around the band’s imagery

Freerange welcomes Italian via Berlin producer/DJ/label boss Enzo Elia for his debut on the label entitled The Lost Guitar Tapes. Enzo is someone who has been releasing consistently great music for many years, although
often hidden behind a myriad of pseudonyms and underground imprints. For starters he's responsible for a mysterious yet established and very excellent edits label as well as being a member of Balearic Gabba Sound System alongside Bjorn Torske amongst others. Following the philosophy of this collective, Enzo is also producing lovingly and respectfully created re-edits of long lost techno and house tracks as well as many new tunes
for influential labels including Golf Channel and Compost.
But for now we turn to The Lost Guitar Tapes and specifically the original mix of Drifting which opens up the release with a brilliant tension builder. A rolling bassline, crisp minimal drums and a subtly Middle Eastern-influenced melodic line give just a hint of mysticism to this jewel of a track.
For the remix we have none other than the Tel Aviv via Berlin producer Moscoman, fresh from his brilliant debut LP on ESP Institute and releases on Eskimo and his own Disco Halal label. Moscoman's organic, percussion- heavy sound and Middle Eastern roots make him the perfect choice to take
on Drifting and we couldn't have wished for a better outcome. He manages to inject his own identity to the track with newly recorded live guitar and bass parts and taking in elements of techno, new wave and house, he's created a sublime piece of dancefloor drama. Finally we have an alternate Dub version which lays down a firmer four on the floor, extra percussion and dubby stabs for a more driving atmospheric club tool.

The upcoming album, How to Build an Ocean: Instructions is a project doused in personal conflict, but simultaneously a love letter to the normal and how beauty can be found in just being. Charged with references to literature, philosophy and film, as well as first hand experiences, the band explore thoughts of what it means to find purpose when everything feels purposeless, all whilst ultimately instructing themselves to find “small joys in the face of cosmic indifference”. Produced by George Perks (Enter Shikari, The Doves, You Me At Six), How to Build an Ocean: Instructions marks an exciting new development for Bears in Trees, being the first album they’ve recorded with the help of consultants outside of the band themselves, having previously relied on drummer George’s expertise, who outside of the band, works as an engineer at Subfrantic Studios. Tenderness, triumph, and a totally unashamed feeling of enjoying the ride whilst they're on it, How to Build an Ocean: Instructions is their definitive statement. Though no matter how far this record takes them, the most important thing is that they are together and doing what they love. Because when all is said and done, that's the connection that will last a lifetime. "We started the band because we loved hanging out with our friends and wanted to make stupid music together"; Iain concludes. "That's always been the reason, and it hasn't changed. All we want to do is make what we do as honest and authentic as possible. That's what it means to be in the Bears in Trees business."

The upcoming album, How to Build an Ocean: Instructions is a project doused in personal conflict, but simultaneously a love letter to the normal and how beauty can be found in just being. Charged with references to literature, philosophy and film, as well as first hand experiences, the band explore thoughts of what it means to find purpose when everything feels purposeless, all whilst ultimately instructing themselves to find “small joys in the face of cosmic indifference”. Produced by George Perks (Enter Shikari, The Doves, You Me At Six), How to Build an Ocean: Instructions marks an exciting new development for Bears in Trees, being the first album they’ve recorded with the help of consultants outside of the band themselves, having previously relied on drummer George’s expertise, who outside of the band, works as an engineer at Subfrantic Studios. Tenderness, triumph, and a totally unashamed feeling of enjoying the ride whilst they're on it, How to Build an Ocean: Instructions is their definitive statement. Though no matter how far this record takes them, the most important thing is that they are together and doing what they love. Because when all is said and done, that's the connection that will last a lifetime. "We started the band because we loved hanging out with our friends and wanted to make stupid music together"; Iain concludes. "That's always been the reason, and it hasn't changed. All we want to do is make what we do as honest and authentic as possible. That's what it means to be in the Bears in Trees business."

Following 2021’s Cape Cod Cottage — Eder’s concept album under the guise of Edward Blankman, a retired dentist who wrote elegant jazz in the1970s — on Therapy, Eder drops the alter ego and the drumset (almost entirely) and explores more reverberant sounds with his ensemble of woodwinds. The result is a distinctive take on new-age ambient music subtly interwoven with Eder’s affinity for 20th century classical and jazz. The quest for Therapy came during a period of deep spiritual curiosity. Eder was avidly watching testimonies of near death experience survivors (NDEs), pouring over books of Theosophical artwork and philosophy, and processing experiences of grief, uncertainty and spirituality. Eder wanted to explore the threshold between the spiritual and physical dimensions, and create music that could evoke its shape and texture — a theme further illustrated in the original album artwork and single covers by Adam Rabinowitz. Eder felt he must be on to something when, on a whim, he looked up the tempo of a piece he was calling “137 Riddle.” Turned out to be “the most important number in the world” in theoretical physics, as well as a provocative number in Jewish mysticism. Maintaining his track record of recording the best musicians Eder can find, Therapy features special guests Nailah Hunter (harp), Henry Solomon (saxophone), and Ethan Haman on The Newberry Memorial Organ at Yale University.

Katà Métron is the Greek mythology-inspired collaborative album from Italian ambient auteurs ILUITEQ and Lorenzo Montanà.

For ILUITEQ, Ancient Greek culture, with its myths and philosophy, has strongly influenced their everyday lives and has provided constant inspiration in their musical endeavors. The Greek expression "Katà Métron" means "according to the right measure," representing how human beings should live in harmo- ny with themselves and nature. More often than not, the dominant model is to go beyond our limits, and having a "sense of measure" is not capitalistically profitable as we must nourish our constant desire to always wish for more, not caring for the consequences of such a "bulimic" attitude.

Lorenzo Montanà should need little introduction, with a more than two-decades-long career, a vast body of work on labels such as FAX and Projekt, and highlighting such collaborative partners as Pete Namlook and Alio Die. ILUITEQ approached Montanà as they admired his textural take on ambient. The duo presented the Greek mythology concept in which they might collaborate, and Montanà became instantly inspired to partici- pate. Montanà's contributions to "Katà Métron" shape the sound of ILUITEQ in new, evocative music territo- ries, where meticulously crafted rhythmic patterns and melodic echos blend with the Italian duo's soothing and ethereal ambient soundscapes.

For the 15th anniversary of this timeless classic, !K7 Records are re-issuing Tosca’s seminal album ‘No Hassle’ in an audiophile 3LP format.

Multi-instrumentalists Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber have been friends since their Vienna schooldays. Richard later became half of the globally acclaimed DJ-producer duo Kruder and Dorfmeister, while Rupert worked in piano composition and sound-art installation. ‘No Hassle’ is Tosca’s fifth studio album.

A luxurious tapestry of analogue and digital sounds, submerged samples and live instruments, it evolves and expands into an hour-long ambient symphony. The title reflects not only the duo’s laidback approach to making music but their whole philosophy of life.

‘No Hassle’ is all about contemplation and concentration. While recent Tosca releases like J.A.C. (2005) and the remix collection Souvenirs (2006) were a move towards classic song structures and club-friendly grooves, their latest is a much more introspective journey into inner space.

Bill Evans and Stan Getz are about as close as musicians can get in terms of artistry, musical philosophy, technique, and personality. These previously unreleased sessions, recorded in 1963 with drummer Elvin Jones and a mix of bassists Ron Carter (Side A) and Richard Davis (Side B) are a perfect harmony of their strong individual styles and collaborative sensibilities with both at the peak of their creative careers.

Verve’s Acoustic Sounds Series features transfers from analog tapes and remastered 180-gram vinyl in deluxe gatefold packaging.

Das lebenslange Armdrücken zwischen Kopf und Herz steht im Mittelpunkt von Faith Crisis Pt 1, dem dritten Album der Emo-Indie-Rocker Middle Kids aus Sydney. Die neuen Songs legen die schmerzhaften, frustrierenden und chaotischen Teile des logischen Puzzles dar, das das Leben jeden Tag von uns verlangt. Produziert von Jonathan Gilmore (The 1975, Beabadoobee), bringen Hannah Joy, Tim Fitz und Harry Day meisterhaft Emotionen des Überwältigtseins zum Ausdruck, die den Hörer von den ersten Takten an fesseln. Das Trio greift erneut auf das Wesentliche des Indie-Rock zurück (Gitarre, Bass, Schlagzeug) und hebt seine Songs mit euphorischen Gesangsdarbietungen, einer mitreißenden Produktion und unvergleichlichen Pop-Sensibilität hervor.

Das lebenslange Armdrücken zwischen Kopf und Herz steht im Mittelpunkt von Faith Crisis Pt 1, dem dritten Album der Emo-Indie-Rocker Middle Kids aus Sydney. Die neuen Songs legen die schmerzhaften, frustrierenden und chaotischen Teile des logischen Puzzles dar, das das Leben jeden Tag von uns verlangt. Produziert von Jonathan Gilmore (The 1975, Beabadoobee), bringen Hannah Joy, Tim Fitz und Harry Day meisterhaft Emotionen des Überwältigtseins zum Ausdruck, die den Hörer von den ersten Takten an fesseln. Das Trio greift erneut auf das Wesentliche des Indie-Rock zurück (Gitarre, Bass, Schlagzeug) und hebt seine Songs mit euphorischen Gesangsdarbietungen, einer mitreißenden Produktion und unvergleichlichen Pop-Sensibilität hervor.

Sourced from the Original Master Tapes and Presented in Audiophile Sound for the First Time: Mobile Fidelity’s Numbered-Edition 180g SuperVinyl LP Plays with Riveting Detail
Three decades before he released The Philosophy of Modern Song — an insightful book devoted to 66 tunes that both impacted his career and the music world at large — Bob Dylan issued Good As I Been to You. The under-heralded 1992 album, Dylan’s first solo acoustic album in nearly 30 years and first all-covers effort in nearly 20 years, can be seen as a prophetic prelude to what has become the Nobel Laureate’s celebrated late-career arc. It’s also an absorbing continuation of the custom Dylan has embraced since he first picked up a guitar.


Sourced from the original master tapes, pressed at RTI, and housed in a Stoughton jacket, Mobile Fidelity's numbered-edition 180g SuperVinyl LP of Good As I Been to You reveals the immediacy, detail, and stripped-down nature of recording sessions that took place in Dylan’s garage studio in California. Simple, raw, and unplugged, the record presents Dylan in peak form — and showcases a diversity of vocal phrasing, soulful chording, harmonica accents, and close-up ambience that on this reissue emerge like never before. As the first-ever audiophile edition of this almost-lost classic, this LP also benefits from SuperVinyl’s extraordinary properties: a nearly inaudible noise floor, superb groove definition, and dead-quiet surfaces among them.

Recorded and mixed by Micajah Ryan, and supervised by Debbie Gold, Good As I Been to You took shape at Dylan’s home shortly after the singer-songwriter completed sessions in Chicago with a full band. Unaccompanied, he again gravitated to existing works — in this case, traditional folk music — and, with Gold serving as a trusted advisor, performed the songs in multiple keys and tempos until he arrived at what he desired. That careful, determined albeit loose, organic approach emanates from this reissue, on which each note, movement, and space come across more directly, fully, and immediately than on the original formats. It helps draw a through-line to Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964) as well as the similarly themed follow-up, World Gone Wrong (1993) and immersive old-world storytelling of Tempest (2012) and Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020).

Well before Dylan made those renowned 21st century LPs, however, he needed to find a way out of a funk that — save for his 1989 collaboration with Daniel Lanois, Oh Mercy — followed him for years. As author Clinton Heylin reported Dylan admitting in 1997: “My influences have not changed — and any time they have done, the music goes off to a wrong place. That’s why I recorded two LPs of old songs, so I could personally get back to the music that’s true for me.”

Truth: Few, if any, concepts better encapsulate Good As I Been to You. It resonates with the same originality, honesty, resolve, and age- and time-defying relevance as the seminal Anthology of American Folk Music that fired Dylan’s imagination as a kid in small-town Minnesota and, later, per Greil Marcus’ That Old Weird America book, informed Dylan and the Band’s Basement Tapes sessions. This record also contains the type of music Dylan was playing during his acoustic sets at his period Never Ending Tour shows; within a year of the record’s release, Dylan would play half the album’s songs live.

As for those songs: Rife with strange mystery, common circumstance, and epic adventure, the stories appeal to our base instincts. Their themes — jealousy, temptation, sacrifice, love, revenge, identity, opportunity — operate on a fundamentally human level immune to trends, generations, or eras. They’re ancient and modern, serious and comical, open and disguised, simple and multi-layered. They talk of vengeance and justice (“Frankie & Albert”; “Jim Jones”), romance and tenderness (“Tomorrow Night,” “Froggie Went a Courtin’”), the troubled and trouble-free (“Hard Times,” “Sittin’ on Top of the World”). They lend voice to lovers scorned and freed (“Blackjack Davey”), the used and users (“Diamond Joe”), the powerful and powerless (“Arthur McBride,” “Canadee-I-O”), the followed and followers (“Little Maggie”). And akin to much of Dylan’s finest output, things are not always what they appear to be.

Spanning country, folk, sea shanty, bluegrass, and blues motifs, Good As I Been to You re-confirms Dylan’s position as an elite interpreter and sculptor — not of just structure but emotion. Dylan delivers the tunes as if he’s known them forever. He plays with a subtle sense of mischievousness and retains a largely upbeat demeanour; his eyes seemingly twinkle as he sings and picks. His guitar serves as the guidepost for shuffles, boogies, ballads, and mess-arounds while his innate feel for each specific arrangement and melody helps inform pacing, tone, attack.

Like a great author, he understands the importance of adhering to concision, luring an audience, holding their attention, and maximizing the impact of details, actions, and unexpected turns. Though already coarse and ragged, his voice feels ideal for the subject matter and his phrasing — from the clever ways he stretches syllables to underline meanings on the surprise twists of “Canadee-I-O” to the sheer delight he gets from singing “rowdy-dow-dow” on the protest song “Arthur McBride” — outstanding.

If there's one specific component that grounds 'Sky Flesh', it's focus. Italian musician and sound designer Marta De Pascalis flexed her technical muscle on 2020's 'Sonus Ruinae', layering various sounds and processes in an attempt to touch the sublime. In contrast, 'Sky Flesh' is a single thought, composed using just one instrument: the Yamaha CS-60. A slimmed-down sibling to the gargantuan CS-80 - the analog synthesizer used by Vangelis to create his iconic 'Blade Runner' score - the CS-60 was released in 1977, a few years before the MIDI protocol was introduced to help standardize production methods. MIDI would change the electronic music landscape completely, offering a level of control that De Pascalis consciously relinquishes, preferring to highlight expressiveness and timbre, elements more readily associated with acoustic instruments. The album arrives as much of the wider experimental scene busies itself with algorithmic composition and AI-assisted modeling; De Pascalis chooses to work instead like an organologist, harnessing the CS-60's mercurial magic to suggest deeper truths about our evolving relationship with machines.

Currently based in Berlin, De Pascalis grew up in Rome, where she was surrounded by atrophied ruins that piqued her interest in decay and memory. Over her last three albums, she used tape loops and advanced synthesizer techniques to create a unique sound world that's guided by her musical philosophy, rather than a specific aesthetic. As she's developed her technique and confidence, her music has become even more idiosyncratic, and at this stage in her career she's stripped her sound down to its core elements, focusing on emotion, narrative and mystery. Using timbres that recall a time when electronic music still waved towards the future

DEVO’s Hardcore documents the group’s beginning as pre-punk outcasts in the fertile Akron, Ohio, underground rock scene. Spawned at the nearby college of Kent State, site of the infamous May 4 Massacre, DEVO formed as a conceptual art project armed with the radical philosophy of de-evolution. Brothers Mothersbaugh (Mark, Bob and Jim) and Brothers Casale (Jerry and Bob) along with drummer Alan Myers soon whipped up an otherworldly brand of “devolved blues” that could hold its own alongside the beatnik groove of 15-60-75 (a.k.a. The Numbers Band) or the primal rock poetry of The Bizarros. Recorded on various four-track machines and in tiny studios, basements and garages between 1974-1977, Hardcore reveals their strikingly clear vision: rock ’n’ roll stripped bare of its collective cool and jerked back into propaganda fit for post-modern man. It’s no surprise that these transmissions would soon catch the eye and ear of Brian Eno, who later produced their landmark 1978 debut album. Noisy synth, strangled guitar chops and a primitive rhythmic thud power the early DEVO sound. Threaded beneath it all are lyrical themes of post-McCarthy paranoia, middle-class ephemera and DEVO’s long-running topic of choice: sex, or lack thereof. Few moments in pop music history can match the grinding, pent-up energy of “Mongoloid” and the spastic bounce and sputter of “Jocko Homo” (two anthems presented in their earlier and superior versions here). Cult favorites like “Mechanical Man” and “Auto-Modown” make Volume 1 essential listening. Superior Viaduct and Booji Boy Records are proud to present DEVO’s Hardcore to a new generation of spuds, lovingly packaged with Moshe Brakha’s stunning cover photography. As David Bowie said in 1977, DEVO is indeed “the band of the future.”

Fresh from supporting Blur at Wembley Stadium this summer, Sleaford Mods are getting set for some of their biggest ever UK and Europe dates this autumn with the release of new six track EP, More UK GRIM, on 20 October. Recorded at the same time as their acclaimed 2023 album, UK GRIM, the freshly released songs not only continue Andrew Fearn and Jason Williamson's current dancefloor dominance, but with a mix of insight and wit, outrage and compassion, they critique and celebrate our turbulent times.à Lead single Big Pharma, shares a 'take no prisoners' lyrical approach with the band's recent album as it casts a doubtful eye down the 'truther' wormhole, although entwined around a slinky bass riff the track confirms the two-piece at their most dexterous musically. Big Pharma, which sets the tone for the More UK GRIM EP, is accompanied by a sharply satirical animated video directed by Sean Sears, who has applied his distinctive, stylised 2D vision to examining the consequences of a health 'philosophy' that prizes drinking urine over carefully researched medical treatments.à "Big Pharma was written in the opening chapters of autumn 2022 when Covid kicked in again. It carries a lot of the normal Sleaford Mods absurdism but also looks at the ongoing fascination with trying to find truths in information wholly pushed by very questionable people," explains Jason Williamson. Alongside the lead single, the More UK GRIM EP also features Under The Rules, Old Nottz, PO Crazeh and My 18hr Girdle, all previously unavailable.