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Vintage Pleasure Boutique once again dives deep into the vast catalogue of super-productions by Roberto Zanetti, better known as Robyx and Savage. This time, the journey takes us back to 1984, unearthing a true gem created at the suggestion of Marco Bresciani, Italian DJ and producer, and the same creative force involved with Radiorama. Zanetti delivered flawlessly. He transformed the elegant, high-grade British synth-pop original by OMD into a first-class Italo disco weapon, infused with that unmistakable sweet, melodic touch and fat kick that blended perfectly in clubs alongside genre-defining tracks of the era. “Souvenir” by Saxophone quickly became a classic, a staple of the sound and a cornerstone in countless old-school DJ record bags.

Today, original copies are scarce, highly sought after, and often prohibitively expensive on the secondary market. This reissue is both a tribute to long-time fans of the record and a nod to devotees of Robyx’s unmistakable sound. The vinyl also features a special remix of “Souvenir”, sonically aligned with Savage classics such as “Radio,” “Fugitive,” “Only You,” and “Don’t Cry Tonight.”

A true feast for lovers of this timeless Italo disco aesthetic, equal parts nostalgia, elegance and dancefloor power.

Tilaye Gebre is one of Ethiopia’s most soulful saxophone giants, with a musical legacy that’s hard to surpass. A founding member of the Equators, later renamed the Dahlak Band, he was a key figure in Ethiopia’s vibrant hotel music scene and a sought-after musician and arranger for artists like Aster Aweke, Mahmoud Ahmed, Tilahun Gessesse, and Muluken Melesse.

Tilaye — still going strong — was at the epicenter of the Ethiopian music scene during one of the most turbulent periods in the country’s history. Tilaye’s musical trajectory, regardless of the forms it has taken over the decades, is simply ceaseless. The road to a musical career spanning six decades started out winding, and the first steps came almost as a fluke.

With the Dahlak Band, Tilaye had managed to secure a musical residency at the legendary Ghion Hotel, where they honed their skills and developed their musical expression to unparalleled levels. From the late sixties onwards, Dahlak Band lit up Addis Ababa with a mixture of James Brown and Wilson Pickett tunes, rhythm and blues, soul, funk, and the sound of the disco era — mixed with modern Ethiopian styles — serving up majestic concoctions with full-range instrumentation, featuring trumpet, keyboard, saxophone, bass, drums, and guitar. Through their hotel sessions, Tilaye developed further as an arranger, arranging fellow band member Muluken Melesse’s first solo album, Muluken Melesse with the Dahlak Band (Kaifa Records – LPKF 39), recorded during the turbulent years of 1975–1976, following the fall of Haile Selassie. Everything was in flux in this transitional period, but a constant was how Tilaye stood in the spotlight. On that record, there’s a loose vibe to the soundscape that lets Tilaye’s skills shine, while all the other musical contributions coalesce into a slowly cooking atmosphere where the groove at times fluctuates into psychedelic territory, making the music stand out from most contemporaries.

Most of their recorded output came from one-take live cassette recordings at the Ghion, or from music shops at that time — one microphone at the front, hit record: no EQ, no reverb, just some delay. Some of the Dahlak Band’s releases featured Tilaye as frontman, such as Tilaye’s Saxophone with the Dahlak Band from the late 1970s — typical of a rare groove on the Ethiopian scene — with excursions into reggae territory, including the band’s characteristic sound featuring Tilaye Gebre (tenor and alto saxophone), Dawit Yifru (organ), David Kassa (electric guitar), Shimelis Beyene (trumpet), Moges Habte (tenor saxophone), Abera Feyissa (bass guitar), Tesfaye Tessema (drums), and Muluken Melesse (cowbell). The Dahlak Band’s output was so prodigious that they simply couldn’t be pigeonholed.

No saxophonist in Ethiopia influenced the sound of popular music more than Tilaye in the 1970s, yet his recordings have been hard to come by for ages, which has meant that newcomers to the scene have gems to uncover in retrospect. Arguably, Tilaye shifted gears when he relocated to the U.S. to such an extent that his musicianship became even more renowned, accompanying the greatest of his contemporaries internationally. Tilaye is one of Ethiopia’s all-time greats, with a musical legacy — both as musician and arranger — that’s hard to surpass. It’s a wonder to be able to enjoy a recording like this half a century later.

ohn Fahey’s Takoma label is best known for pushing the envelope when it comes to acoustic guitar playing, but in 1967 it released a record that has become one of the true cult classics of the ‘60s free jazz movement. Charles Martin Simon was an aspiring writer whose artist wife died in 1965. When he tried to pick up the torch and become an artist using her art supplies, he was, in his words, “reduced to nothing,” and thus created an alter ego or “psyche fragmentation,” Charlie Nothing. Under that moniker he became most famous for creating “dingulators,” working guitar sculptures made from parts of American cars; in 1967, though, he recorded The Psychedelic Saxophone of Charlie Nothing/In Eternity with Brother Frederic, an album consisting of two separate saxophone improvisations accompanied only with gong, tabla, and ukelele. Its cover adorned by Nothing’s own hand-drawn art, this record has since become not only something of a “secret handshake” among free jazz fans, but also a classic of outsider art, fitting right next to your Moondog records if not in sound than in spirit. For its first ever reissue in any format, we’ve gone back to the original tapes to present an all-analog release of The Psychedelic Saxophone of Charlie Nothing/In Eternity with Brother Frederic on black vinyl with the original art intact, offering an unfiltered experience of this man’s cracked genius. A memorable look ‘n’ listen to say the least.

OTOROKU is proud to reissue Evan Parker's first solo LP "Saxophone Solos". Recorded by Martin Davidson in 1975 at the Unity Theatre in London, at that time the preferred concert venue of the Musicians' Co-operative, Parker's densely woven and often cyclical style has yet to form; instead throaty murmurs appear under rough hewn whistles and calls - the wildly energetic beginnings of an extraordinary career. Reissued with liner notes from Seymour Wright in an edition of 500. "The four pieces across the two sides of Saxophone Solos - Aerobatics 1 to 4 - are testing, pressured, bronchial spectaculars of innovation and invention and determination. Evan tells four stories of exploration and imagination without much obvious precedent. Abstract Beckettian cliff-hanging detection/logic/magic/mystery. The conic vessel of the soprano saxophone here recorded contains the ur-protagonists: seeds, characters, settings, forces, conflicts, motions, for new ideas, to delve, to tap and to draw from it story after story as he has on solo record after record for 45 years. 'Aerobatics 1-3' were recorded on 17 June 1975, by Martin Davidson at Parker's first solo performance. This took place at London's Unity Theatre in Camden. 'Aerobatics 4' was recorded on 9 September the same year, by Jost Gebers in the then FMP studio in Charlottenburg, Berlin. Music of balance and gravity, fulcra, effort, poise and enquiry. Sounds thrown and shaken into and out of air, metal and wood. It is - as the titles suggest - spectacular." - Seymour Wright, 2020.

Jazz Saxo Session is one of the first connected discs of Jazz Collection.

Grouped by instrumental theme, this jazz compilation features the greatest names in jazz: Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Stan Getz...

The podcasts on the history of jazz offered in the Viny application (on IOS or Android) are fascinating.

And if jazz is in you, you'll love to continue the experience with the Jazz Collection by Vinyl & Media suite.

Saltern’s latest offering marks the first-ever release of “lost minimalist” Terry Jennings’ visionary 1960 composition, Piece for Cello and Saxophone, as arranged in just intonation by legendary composer La Monte Young for renowned cellist Charles Curtis. Born in Los Angeles in 1940, Jennings was a close associate of Young, Terry Riley, and Dennis Johnson, and an early adopter of minimalist tendencies, creating slow, sustained music, influenced by jazz, modalism, and late romantic classical music. Jennings died tragically in his early forties, most of his work lost to a chaotic life; however, his forward-looking music quietly exerted a lasting influence on composers including Young and Harold Budd. Composed over sixty years ago, Piece for Cello and Saxophone, foreshadows a number of movements in postwar avant-garde music.

Despite the title, there is no saxophone on this album. At over eighty minutes, La Monte Young’s justly tuned realization of Piece for Cello and Saxophone for cello alone unifies and extrapolates Terry Jennings’ dense harmonies, creating an extended field of complex sonorities in motion, all brought to life by the immaculate playing of Charles Curtis. The recording captures Curtis in a performance from 2016 reflecting more than twenty-five years of dedication to the piece.

Highlights:
• Saltern latest offering marks the first-ever release of “lost minimalist” Terry Jennings’ visionary 1960 composition, Piece for Cello and Saxophone, as arranged in just intonation by legendary composer La Monte Young for renowned cellist Charles Curtis.

LIMITED EDITION CLEAR VINYL

onny Rollins had already been a regular member of the celebrated Max Roach Clifford Brown Quintet for half a year when he entered the studio on June 22,
1956 to record Saxophone Colossus, one of his most acclaimed albums as a
leader. Age 26, Rollins was already a well-known jazz figure.
He had recorded some albums as a leader but, above all, he had been part of
some of the most outstanding combos of the period: the Miles Davis Quintet
and the Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quintet. The present album introduced his
famous composition “Saint Thomas”

Elations Recordings presents "Terra Ignota", the long-awaited new full length album from elusive Melbourne-based fusion ensemble Krakatau. "Terra Ignota" marks a return and an epochal shift for the group, a deep exploration of possible sonic spaces and a portent of things to come.

In the years since 2016's cosmic jazz funk-prog-spiritual 12" "Tharsis Montes/Apogean Tide" Krakatau have worked on refining their craft as instrumentalists and writers, expanding further into the world of jazz and fusing influences from world folk musics, contemporary jazz and the European post-minimalist music of the 1980s and early 90s. "Terra Ignota", literally translated as "Unknown Land", takes its name from the cartographer's notation for uncharted territory, the blank spaces on maps where knowledge gives way to imagination and speculation, gesturing towards the group's studio explorations and search for new sonic worlds in the years spent developing the record.

The results are a diverse yet unified combination of sounds and influences across five tracks that see Krakatau drawing closer to the independent underground "world" jazz scene of the 1980s than anything contemporary. The album opens with the digi-minimalism and fourth world atmospherics of title track "Terra ignota", a percussion heavy latin fusion sound in "Birds of Passage", and melancholic ambient saxophone and synthesiser duo "In Memory". Three-part epic "Cosmetic Surgery" journeys through a long, complex post-minimalist arrangement into latin fusion and contemporary jazz, followed by the contemplative ECM-styled acoustic quartet closer "Trial in Absentia".

The album features significant contributions from saxophonist Rob Vincs, former Victorian College of the Arts head of Jazz and Improvisation and a collaborator with Australian musician Brian Brown; layered percussion and wordless vocals from Brazilian percussionist and esteemed songwriter Alcides Neto; and a guest performance from trumpet player Reuben Lewis on the title track.

Nicola Conte and Nico Lahs’ Tema Due project finally comes to full realization in a double LP entitled “Universo Astratto”,adding a wealth of new musical shades and ideas to the two EPs released on Schema Records in 2025. The albumrepresents not only the natural evolution of their artistic dialogue, but also a statement of intent in terms of sound.Fans of the most sophisticated and refined club music, elevated by the fusion of exquisite electronica with spiritual jazz (it isno coincidence that the opening track evokes the baseline of “A Love Supreme”), African-American rhythms and tribalpercussion, will be thrilled by this complex and multi-layered album, which unveils new hidden details upon each listen.A meticulous selection of exceptional musicians contributes in a distinctive and significant way to broadening the scope ofthe project: Giovanni Guidi, Pietro Lussu, and Dario Bassolino on keyboards, Gabriel Prado and Abdissa Assefa onpercussion, Magnus Lindgren on wind instruments and Hammond organ, and Pasquale Calò on saxophone. On vocals wehave Lalin St. Juste, Siya Makuzeni, Nina Miranda - for what is probably the best track on the album, “Share Your Love”- and Toco - for a new and previously unreleased version of the track “Macumba de Oxalà” featured on the first EP.In “Universo Astratto”, Tema Due’s vision is finally fulfilled: a world of ancestral grooves, cosmic jazz, and electronic musicconceived for clubs as a type of “active experience” in which one is transcended by music. This record is an invitation—tomove, to feel, to elevate—and a manifesto for those who see the dance floor not just as a location, but as a shared experience of awareness and rhythm

Following the success of his debut EP 'Departure', J Michael Harris returns with a dynamic neo-jazz album that marks his evolution as an artist. Bringing together legendary musicians from London, Los Angeles, and Atlanta, the album embodies elements of jazz, dance and electronica while drawing inspiration from luminaries such as Robert Glasper, J Dilla, Aphex Twin, Sampha, and Herbie Hancock.



All music written by J Michael Harris (saxophone, piano, fender rhodes, synths, EWI, clarinet, flute)

featuring

Freddy Sheed (drums, percussion, programming/ Lewis Capaldi, The Japanese House, The 1975)

Jimmy Haslip (bass/ Yellowjackets, Allan Holdsworth, Jeff Lorber Fusion)

Mo Pleasure (piano, hammond b3/ Earth Wind and Fire,

Michael Jackson, Ray Charles)

Karlos Edwards (percussion/ Nitin Sawney, Spice Girls, Mark Ronson)

Henry Collins (trumpet/ Amy Winehouse, Tom Jones, Van Morrison)



Mixed and Mastered by Guy Massey (The Divine Comedy, Kylie, The Beatles)

Water Sign is the debut EP from producer and instrumentalist John Silas: a five-track suite that moves fluidly between peak-time dance and inward reflection. Deeply aligned with the open-eared ethos of NYC’s Love Injection Records, the release channels house and jazz into an emotive personal chronicle shaped by movement, memory, and community.

At its thematic center is “Boundaries,” a dynamically arranged dance-floor meditation that begins with piano, 4/4 kick and restless hi-hats before blooming into radiant synth work reminiscent of classic disco auteur Patrick Adams. Midway, the track shifts—electric piano, whistles and percussion reframing the groove into what Silas calls “hues of vulnerability.” The result mirrors the arc of love, release and renewal.“Cyber Dreams” leans into lush escapism, buoyed by surging keys and impassioned flute from Domenica Fossati, while a remix from Detroit mainstay Patrice Scott (Sistrum Records) adds unmistakable Motor City weight. “Foster Child” nods to Silas’ hero, the late Paul Johnson with exuberant Chicago spirit, and “Nasty” delivers a concise workout featuring Marquinn Mason’s robust saxophone.

Water Sign reflects Silas’s trajectory—from a childhood steeped in Soul Train, coming of age with hip hop, to MPC craftsmanship, his Detroit musical family and present-day Brooklyn—into a deeply personal record equally suited to discerning DJs and deep listeners.

Noko is a Gda?sk-based (Poland) band operating at the intersection of jazz, electronics, and club music. Their sound grows out of improvisation, but instead of following a traditional jazz narrative, it focuses on trance, repetition, and the physicality of rhythm. The band's sound is built on a fusion of acoustic instruments-trumpet, saxophone, double bass, and drums-with electronics and synthesizers. The result is a dynamic structure that works just as well at jazz festivals as it does in a club setting. ?oko's second album is a sonic residue suspended somewhere between a jazz festival and a Berlin techno club. KO is a form of recycled jazz and electronics that opens up wide, cinematic landscapes for the listener. It's deeply physical music, driven by a trip-hop groove that keeps things grounded while allowing the mind to drift into less obvious territories. For this release, ?oko invited two outstanding artists who add a unique character to the whole. Novika brings her signature dreamlike calm, while the voice of Maciej ?winiarski appears in a song about death, closing the band's improvised journeys. This is a personal record the band wants to share with you.

Renowned Italian jazz master Nicola Conte presents an incandescent limited edition 7" single for Record Store Day 2026. "Terra Em Transe" and "Naquela Base" are brand new tracks from sessions for Conte's forthcoming Far Out Recordings album, drawing deep from early 70s Brazilian jazz and modal hard bossa while underlining the vital role of the arts in social and political struggle.

In Nicola's own words: "Terra Em Transe' is a dedication to visionary director Glauber Rocha and to all free thinkers willing to portray the conflicts, contradictions and lies of those in power around the world." The original composition takes inspiration from Milton Nascimento's vocal harmonies and Tamba 4's sophisticated samba-jazz.

'Naquela Base' is a stunning reinvention of João Donato's classic: pure modal hard bossa recorded entirely live in the studio. Inspired by samba-jazz classics like Tenório Jr.'s "Embalo" and Paulo Moura's "Fibra", the track is carried beautifully by Teppo Mäkynen's masterful drumming, with solos from Gaetano Partipilo on alto saxophone and Pietro Lussu on piano, supported by Ameen Saleem on double bass and Abdissa Assefa on percussion.

Having released music with Blue Note, Impulse! and Schema records, Nicola Conte's relationship with Far Out Recordings has produced his acclaimed Umoja project, his five-part Viagem compilation series, and most recently Viaggio, a compilation exploring Italy's library music renaissance from 1970-79.

'Terra Em Transe / Naquela Base' will be released as a limited edition 7" single for Record Store Day 2026 via Far Out Recordings.

A few words for the album
Moment’s Aeternity:
a 12/8 composition celebrating the raw power of the “moment”, marked by whirling improvised moments between drums, bass clarinet and Harris P’s Armenian duduk.

Pajko, fire in the forest on the mountain:
in Sokratis own words: “I have a really vivid memory as a child. I was staring at the Djena mountain from my window in Archangellos which sits on the Pajko mountain. A little beam of light shone far in the horizon; it was a fire that in my little eyes looked as if the giants of Almopia were trying to communicate with each other using phryktoria (a way of contacting through fire in Ancient Greece).”

Footprints of some Giant Steps:
While the classic compositions of two true Jazz Giants- Wayne Shorter and John Coltrane- are certainly different, they do both connect in a mystical way. Rearranged in 5/8 combining half of each melody and half of each one’s chord progression, keeping the form of the piece for improvisation, still in 5.

Oson Zeis Fainou (Seikilo’s Epitaph):
found in a tomb stone in the Northeast of Greece, this is the only melody saved from the ancient times. It is accompanied by lyrics contemplating the meaning of life:
Ὅσον ζῇς φαίνου
μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐστὶ τὸ ζῆν τὸ τέλος ὁ xρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ.
‘’While you live, shine
don’t feel blue for anything because our life is short and time demands an end.’’

Here is to Oghene K:
’’Hey man, where is the groove?’’, he would say, just to trigger another wave of inspiration for Sokratis. Oghene was a true force of nature, a well of kindness, a masterful artist that left this world too early. This one is for him.

Balkan Riff (for Milcho Leviev):
Milcho Leviev (1936-2019), was a long-time friend and collaborator and a true inspiration for expression, creativity and colorfulness. Expressing the deep sentiments evoked by the Balkan sound and history, this is a sorrowful dialogue between bass clarinet and contrabass.

Spirits of Djena:
one of the most esoteric and personal moments of the album. Composed and recorded during the challenging times of the COVID-era, you can hear the baritone and tenor saxophone firmly grounded on a crispy, hypnotizing contrabass groove.

Sokratis Votskos Quartet
Kostas Anastasiadis / Giorgos Klountzos - Chrysidis: Drums
Leandros Pasias: Piano
Vaggelis Vrachnos: Contrabass
Sokratis Votskos: Soprano Saxophone, Bass Clarinet and Compositions


Sokratis Votskos is a jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer, educator, and bandleader from Greece. Deeply invested in unearthing the folk sounds and heritage music of Greece and Eastern Europe, he weaves these into modern jazz compositions though the use of melodies, polyrhythms, and his reedy, timeless tone. He leads the Sokratis Votskos Quartet, he is one half of Kolida Babo and member of the Reggetiko Project. A highly regarded sideman and ensemble player, he has worked extensively with renowned jazz musicians with several highly acclaimed releases (MiC, Jazzman, Walt Disney and now Fair Weather Friends Records).

He has performed his music in numerous venues and festivals worldwide from Vinterjazz in Copenhagen, to the EFG London Jazz Festival where he performed at the legendary Ronnie Scott’s alongside Greg Foat.

He is also an archaeoacoustics researcher and enthusiast, having completed his Master studies on the field of ancient ritualistic caves of Greece research.

Leandros Pasias was born in Thessaloniki, Greece. At age 10 was introduced to piano, continuing his studies at the Modern Conservatory of Thessaloniki and later at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in the department of jazz piano.Ηe holds a classical harmony diploma and a BA at the Department of Music Studies at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. In 2020 he received jazz improvisation lessons from Aaron Parks.

With a series of appearances in multiple international jazz festivals, Leandros has collaborated with a wide range of musicians from Nicolas Masson and James Wylie to Marina Osk, Ivo Papasov and Haris Lambrakis, among others.

A member of the Yako Trio, he released “OdesSea” on Fair Weather Friends Records (2021).

Vangelis Vrachnos was born in Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1989. While he started playing the bass at the age of 12, alongside his brother, his studies would commence a few years later. Introduced to double bass at the age of 23, he undertook jazz double bass studies at the Codarts Αcademy of Rotterdam. He has participated in several festivals such as the Technopolis and Odessa international jazz festivals. Since returning to his hometown, in 2015, he has been a founding member of Mordana and Yako Trio and has collaborated with a series of musicians like James Wyllie, Sokrates Votskos and Dimitis Agelakis, among others.

Kostas Anastasiadis is a tireless researcher, that has been diligently studying Tradition and its evolution, creating a fresh amalgam of sound moods. His mature improvisational virtuosity highlights a uniquely individual artistic expression and was recognized with the ̈Unique Individual Stylist" award by the PIT (Percussion Institute of Technology) in Los Angeles, California. He has been associated with various ensembles that have garnered significant interest in the global music scene. As an educator, he is the founder of "The Harmony of Rhythm" musical method, which aims to explore and establish the elements that constitute the concept of rhythm.

Giorgos Klountzos-Chrysidis was born in Thessaloniki in 1991. Following studies at the Modern Conservatory of Thessaloniki, he moved to France and the Conservatoire de Nice. With performances at well-known festivals like Nice Jazz Festival, Nuits du Sud and Jazz à Vienne, he had the opportunity to meet the American drummer Leon Parker, who encouraged him to move to Paris, where he spent the next two years under his tutoring and guidance.

In 2016, came a defining moment in his career as he traveled to New York for the first time. He participated in the quartet of saxophonist Diego Rivera for a series of performances and attended lessons by Rodney Whitaker and Randy "Uncle G" Gelispie at Michigan's State University.

Collaborations include Xavier Davis, Ricky Ford, Nicolas Masson, Diego Rivera, Craig Bailey, Baptiste Herbin, Marc Abrams, Pantelis Stoikos, Antonis Anissegos, David Lynch, Ziad Rajab and Ivo Papasov, among others.

Passages in Time, the third album from Kasper Bjørke Quartet, traces the contours of a blend of spiritual jazz reverence and the calming grandeur of '80s ambient. Inspired by Christopher Nolan's observation that "time is the most fundamental part of our human experience," the compositions are approached as fragments of time and memory. Meditations on the elusive nature of time form the heart of the work, merging freeform jazz improvisations with cyclical synthesizer patterns that mirror its quiet undulations.
Dreamy synths intertwine with guitar, harp, trumpet, flugelhorn, saxophone, and flute, creating a spacious environment for contemplation. The music invites reflection on the choices that shape our lives and the lives of those closest to us, and on the quiet weight of our priorities within the brief span we call life on this planet. Each passage unfolds as a fleeting moment suspended in time. The subtitles hint at fragments from someone's diary, tender observations of love, parenthood, and connection. Together, the passages form a musical memoir of sorts, where memory and emotion are gently woven into the compositions.
Passages in Time does not impose structure or meaning, it reflects them, offering an open space as the instruments drift in and out of focus, tracing time's subtle rhythms and inviting the listener to infuse their own memories and meaning into these passages.
The album also marks a transformation for the Quartet project itself. Langstrakt (Claus Noreen), part of the original ensemble, continues to operate the synthesizers alongside Bjørke, while the wider constellation of contributing musicians has evolved. Strings and piano give way to flute and saxophone by Oilly Wallace, guitars by Danish ambient composer Anna Roemer, trumpet and flugelhorn by Malthe Kaptain, and cascading orchestral harp by Katie Buckley, principal harpist with the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra.
The cover painting is by American artist Marcus Leslie Singleton, courtesy of V1 Gallery, and reflects the meditative and timeless atmosphere of the music.
Passages in Time is released on Bjørke's own imprint, Sensitive Records, following the two previous Quartet albums released on Kompakt Records: The Fifty Eleven Project (2018), a debut that introduced Bjørke's ambient and neoclassical explorations, and Mother (2022), which expanded the ensemble's sound with emotive choir compositions and guest appearance by Sofie Birch (Unsound / Stroom). Together, these three albums trace a journey of artistic growth, from introspective experimentation to a fully realized, contemplative expression of time, memory, and human connection.

180g Heavy double vinyl LP with liner notes by Tyran Grillo. Limited Japanese Obi for the first pressing. Original artwork by Russell Mills and photography by Jean-Baptiste Mondino.

The third Time Capsule is a body of dub reinterpretations by celebrated producer Bill Laswell of Ethiopian singer Gigi. Curated by Tokyo record collector, music researcher and seasoned reissue supervisor Ken Hidaka, it is the first time Illuminated Audio is pressed to vinyl after its CD release in 2003.

Ejigayehu Shibabaw was born in 1974 in Chagni, northwestern Ethiopia and by pursuing a career as a singer, went against her father’s strict, traditional gender roles. As Gigi, she embraced the same musical freedom she had strived for in her personal life, incorporating the Ethiopian church, funk, hip-hop, West and South African music into her work. She first settled in Nairobi, then Addis Ababa, where she quickly established herself as one of the city’s leading singers. A move to San Francisco in 1998 led to a long and fruitful creative partnership with bassist and producer Bill Laswell.

Around the same time, Chris Blackwell had stepped away from Island Records to start the art house film company and label Palm Pictures. He took an interest in Gigi and together with Laswell, pulled together an all-star cast of musicians for her self-titled US debut album, including Herbie Hancock, Pharoah Sanders and Wayne Shorter. It won international critical acclaim, not just for its musicianship but for making Gigi a “defining voice for the Ethiopian expatriate community”, as journalist Tyran Grillo praises in his Time Capsule liner notes. From the nation-defining 1896 victory over Italian invaders to the quiet revolutionaries who wear simple shemma garments, Grillo believes the themes in Gigi make it “a shower of sunlight on her homeland for those ignorant of its struggles.”

After its success, Blackwell encouraged them to go back into the studio to rethink the album and Illuminated Audio was born. “Anyone can make a voice sound worldly”, Grillo remarks, “but rare are those who can make one sound inner-worldly.” Gigi was clear with Laswell to give her vocals a minor role “because it’s already been done.” Instead her Amharic verse is fleeting, exhaling through the textures like ghostly fragments; soaring yet muted. Yet the album is still titled under her name, an assertion by Laswell of her central role in the album’s creation. Not only was it a fully endorsed project by Gigi, but she would be present throughout its development, giving feedback on half-finished ideas as Laswell played them back in the studio. “It works perfectly”, she reflected after the album’s release. “We wanted to capture the whole spirit of each track, and Bill’s remixes create a different music language that really puts you in a pleasant place”.

This new vocabulary takes its lead from a technical approach that Laswell had been perfecting during a furtive creative period at the turn of the millennium. Much like his ambient interpretations of Miles Davis (Panthalassa, 1998), Bob Marley (Dreams of Freedom, 1997), and Carlos Santana (Divine Light, 2001), Laswell approached Illuminated Audio by returning to the original multitrack masters. Gigi wasn’t just reworked, but recomposed into an expansive lattice of instruments, submerged in a watery ambience of dub and trance undercurrents.

Sonically, this new language that Gigi refers to, is manifested by the original album’s more understated parts being pushed to the fore. Explaining his contrasting methods, Laswell saw Gigi as being “put together in a way that fits”. Contrastingly, in Illuminated Audio, “a lot of things that I featured in the remix weren’t as audible in the original.” Instrumentation laying near-dormant, deep in the mix, are brought to the fore: the acid rock guitar and Wayne Shorter’s saxophone on ‘Tew Ante Sew’, Graham Haynes’ flugelhorn on ‘Nafekeñ’, Laswell’s bass on ‘Kahn’, the melodica in Mengedegna or the floating synths and talking drums in ‘Gud Fella’.

Brought to his attention by mentor DJ Nori, Hidaka describes Illuminated Audio as a “masterful sonic exploration into ethereal ambience and dub” and made sure this reissue also contained a full remaster to give its “deep musicality” much better dynamics and density in the overall sound. Hidaka admits that Laswell's music “is sometimes so out-there, it is often misunderstood” and, indeed, to dub album non-believers this might seem like a prolific producer imposing himself on another artist’s work; eternally developing rearrangements that never quite get to its destination. But that’s missing its true power and triumph. This is more than the reissue of a remix, but “a wholly unique musical entity”, as Hidaka describes. Illuminated Audio refers to the illuminated manuscripts that comprise the major part of Ethiopian art and its new compositions stand in proud solitude as a rare body of reworks that both informs and enhances their originals.

For vinyl enthusiasts and music lovers alike, this 7" release is an inspired pairing that bridges generations and genres. The A-side is Rock & Smooth’s masterful blend of soulful production and heartfelt lyricism. The iconic saxophone sample and poignant verses have solidified it as a timeless classic. On the flip we have The Beginning of the End's 1971 “When She Made Me Promise”, a vibrant funk track that exudes a breezy, carefree vibe. Its infectious groove and lively melody have made it a favourite for sampling by various hip-hop artists over the years

Hiriketiya is a small, enclosed bay on Sri Lanka's southern coast, where jungle leans toward the water and the days unfold without urgency.
Passing through in early 2025 on the way to Europe, Alex Albrecht spent a week here at MOND's artist residency, allowing the rhythms of the place to quietly shape the work that followed.
During the residency, Albrecht recorded and exchanged ideas with Sri Lankan musicians Dhyan Basho on sitar, Dinelka Liyanage on electronics, Uvindu Perera on double bass and Pasindu Herath on saxophone.
Their performances appear throughout the album, sampled and re-contextualised, influencing its melodic language, pacing and emotional tone.

Much of the music was shaped directly by its surroundings. Field recordings were gathered across Hiriketiya, and instruments were played wherever it felt necessary. This included rocks beside the ocean where waves set irregular rhythms, tall grasslands where wind and insects blend into the recordings, and open decks overlooking the sea. 'Round Table' captures this approach most clearly. Recorded while sitting together overlooking the ocean, a large steel table in front of the group gradually became part of the composition, used instinctively as an unplanned percussive element.

Not everything could be captured. Some of the most meaningful moments occurred before recording was possible. Those sounds exist only in memory, and the album is shaped in part by an attempt to hold onto their feelings.

Rather than documenting the residency in a linear way, the album gathers fragments, recordings, electronic sketches and field sounds, assembling them into a continuous listening experience shaped by place and recollection. MOND owners Jess and Renato foster an environment that supports artists without directing them, creating space for focus, trust and connection.

The result is a record shaped by Hiriketiya's enclosed bay, dense vegetation, heat and night air. Music formed through listening, restraint, missed recordings and the sensation of being temporarily held by a place.

Following on from his debut album, Miles Spilsbury returns to New Dawn with Spirit Level. A new project in collaboration with close friend Gorse Panshawe (formerly known as Slugabed - who also produced Miles Spilsbury's first album Light Manoeuvres).

Recorded over one weekend in a weaving shed in Frome, in the English countryside. Surrounded by reels of yarn, they explored saxophones, flutes, dusty old keyboards & drum machines. The resulting record conjures the murk and moss of Forestland and grounds with grooves from the Bongo setting on a Casio keyboard. Jake Long added mallet drums from his London studio to round off the album.

Hold Jah Strength

A special Spain-based collaboration between Bukkha and Boadub Music, with rich, uplifting saxophone courtesy of Jahwind, Hold Jah Strength is a powerful, sound system-ready release built to move the dance.

Tested and approved on heavyweight systems, the tunes hit with clarity, depth and that unmistakable dub energy. Jahwind's saxophone lifts the riddim beautifully, adding warmth and soul to an already infectious production.

• “Guerrilla Girls!”, Ace Records’ much-anticipated first release of 2023, takes us on a thrilling ride from punk’s mid-70s origins, via the left-field post-punk groups, jangly female combos, grunge bands and vigilante Riot Grrrls of the 80s and 90s, to the she-punk bands of recent years – a five-decade alternative to the macho hegemony of rock.

• The collection highlights songs that emerged out of a dynamic underculture of female creative expression. What unites the featured artists is a healthy disregard for the way the music industry ties up its female performers into pretty, neo-liberal packages. From Patti Smith, universal mother of the punk movement, to the Bags, Bikini Kill and Skinny Girl Diet, this music is anti-A&R. Including lesser-known names such as San Francisco street punk Mary Monday and London-based experimentalists pragVec, it shows that, rather than being a few novelty bands existing on the margins, these performers represent a stronger, more three-dimensional version of the female experience.

• Glorious resistance was on display in the first wave of UK female-fronted punk bands. Poly Styrene’s charged vocals on X-Ray Spex’s ‘Iama Poseur’, for instance, were a deliberate refusal to be a pretty punkette. With 15 year-old Lora Logic on saxophone, X-Ray Spex epitomised a fearless, self-defined agency that was at odds with the pastel shades and flowery, submissive Laura Ashley version of 1970s girlhood. By the early 80s, there was a hugely vibrant scene propelled by the diverse rhythms and voices of post-punk feminism. Lora Logic had left X-Ray Spex to form the interweaving textures of Essential Logic, the Mo-dettes mangled ska and off-kilter pop, and Birmingham band Au Pairs sliced political rigour into their lyrics and funky guitar work.

• Some female artists took that elemental energy into pop, creating pop-punk with a twist. We’ve Got A Fuzzbox And We’re Gonna Use It!! made a statement on music technology and female power with a cheeky play on words. Their song ‘Rules And Regulations’ shows that what Guerrilla Girls do well is debunking – taking genres of popular song and turning them inside out – like the way the Pandoras and the Pussywillows would amp up the driving beat and high vocals of the 60s girl group style, and subvert it with a DIY garage element.

• In its fanzine culture, use of montage and DIY music, 90s Riot Grrrl bands such as Bikini Kill and Bratmobile drew direct inspiration from 70s punk, articulated through the prism of Third Wave feminism. Too often, Riot Grrrl gigs were invaded by men intent on heckling “the enemy”. Liz Naylor, manager of British Riot Grrrl band Huggy Bear, says that their concerts became war zones. From the US grunge and Riot Grrrl scenes emerged more female instrumentalists, with bands such as L7 and Babes In Toyland proving that it was possible to recruit cutting-edge drummers, bass players and guitarists. Lori Barbero, whose relentless power drumming is a major element of Babes In Toyland, took the one instrument that has been a staple of male rock’n’roll and made it her muse.

• In the 2000s a new generation of girl-punk bands drew on the Riot Grrrl underculture to form their own sound. London trio the Tuts refashioned C86, Riot Grrrl and lush dream pop on songs like the ironically titled ‘Let Go Of The Past’, while the Regrettes injected shots of ska and doo wop into their explosive West Coast pop-punk. What began with Patti Smith and 70s punk has grown into a vast, spikey infrastructure of girl music. Many take inspiration from their foremothers, like Skinny Girl Diet whose vigilante feminism and punk distortion has been championed in return by Viv Albertine of the Slits. As long as these female artists stay aware of their musical vision and what they are trying to express – in a sense, A&R themselves – the underculture will continue to grow and flower. And this “Guerrilla Girls!” compilation is a celebration of that power.


• The back sleeve of the release features a scene-setting introductory essay by Lucy O’Brien (author of She Bop: The Definitive History Of Women In Popular Music). Each of the two discs come in a swanky inner bag containing a track commentary by compiler Mick Patrick (Ace Records’ long-serving champion of female artists of all persuasions) and exclusive interviews with many of the featured artists by Vim Renault and Lene Cortina (founders of the Punk Girl Diaries webzine).

Tucked in the heart of Koreatown, Los Angeles, lies The Libra Hotel—the titular architecture of Nick Malkin's new album and site of his musical and psychogeographic exploration. Unlike most musical "site-specific" studies, Malkin remains wholly ambivalent to the documentarian approach, instead sharpening an auteur-like focus on the site as a conceptual and highly expressive backdrop. The Libra is musically explored as a space that houses a noir fragmentation of identity—the exhausted trope of a complicated protagonist walking through rain-soaked street corners and fumy neon lights—where an inner monologue is rendered in both miniature and at a cosmic scale. Casting aside stifling tropes around field recording, ambient, and improvised music, Malkin's work finds its own unique fidelity and emotional core through the assembly and reassembly of memory. Nearly every sound on the album—from frayed saxophones, lambent pianos, and dissected jazz drum kits—are multiplied, shattered, and reconstituted into shapes that adorn The Libra in a motion-blurred fog. The narrative of the Hotel suddenly appears as if out of the mist, with intersecting characters interacting within its walls by happenstance. Adminst the languid set pieces, wraith-like sonic grains gravitate around wide subbass beams that give structural form to The Libra, a narrative tension like when a scene is shot from hundreds of different perspectives: an image both luminous and veiled.

Much like Frank Sinatra's own spatial residency immortalized on "Live at The Sands," "At The Libra Hotel" showcases an exuberant view of entertainment, hospitality, and a form of masculinity, one that can quickly detourn into darkness. Knowing this, Malkin extracts a melancholic core out of The Libra locale. The flickering shadows of American decadence are shown in their ephemeral honesty, lines that trace how even in everyday life virtue is tested, sanity is tested, even reality is tested within the confines of desire, within the night. The album is draped in fleeting textures, carefully arranged with a trance-like microtonality, the faint inflections and articulations of a jazz band cascading into dissipated stillness. Voicemails about changed locations and covert eavesdropping on guests' whispered conversations provide an atmosphere of missed connection and voyeurism—a purloined letter of desire receding into a vanishing point. Like the music itself, The Hotel, a chapel perilous at the intersection of desolation row, the center of it all, yet simultaneously at the edge of town, becomes a structure between libidinous virtuality and actuality—our inevitable half-light.

Ultimately, the pensive atmosphere of "At The Libra Hotel," powerfully asserts a plea for the kinds of intimacy only possible in transient spaces. Here, memory cascades into a force that feels like something supernatural, perhaps even religious, yet always subject to the infidelity of our imagination. Here, the album opens into its primary psychodrama, the transient nature of subjectivity itself and how this becomes fractured in the tumult between our commitments and desires. Within this nocturnal space, to quote Louise Bourgeois, "you pile up associations the way you pile up bricks. Memory itself is a form of architecture."

New album by FLOCKS, the duo of drone specialist WERNER DURAND and percussionist ULI HOHMANN. Musical landscapes that move between traditional as well as experimental sounds with influences from Krautrock and JON HASSELL's "fourth world" aesthetics.

WERNER DURAND has made himself a name with various projects with Dhrupad singer AMELIA CHRISTIANSEN, DAVID CHRISTER HENNIX, as the co-founder of THE 13th TRIBE, ARMCHAIR TRAVELLER and TONALIENS (with ROBIN HAYWARD and HILARY JEFFERY) plus numerous solo albums, released on labels like Black Truffle, Unseen Worlds or Edition Telemark. Having studied saxophone as well as Indian / Persian flutes, the Berlin based DURAND is a highly reputated protagonist in the drone scene, famous for his self-built wind instruments like buzz-clarinets or his PVC neys & horns.

His partner in FLOCKS (and longtime personal friend) is ULI HOHMANN whose early encounters with music from Asia, India and Africa led to studies with the Ghanaian master drummer MUSTAPHA TETTEY ADDY and later Tombak and Daf with NEMAD DARMAN (Iran). HOHMANN played in a couple of projects that explored the language of classical Persian music, and started building his own stringed instruments (being an educated carpenter). In 2014 he joined DURAND and AMELIA CUNI for the album "Clearing", and 2018 DURAND and HOHMANN decided to con- tinue as a duo: FLOCKS was born.

On “Lagoon”, the duo further explores the aesthetics it has crafted on its selftitled debut (2023, on the now defunct ZEHRA imprint): DURAND and HOHMANN shape drone-y soundscapes based on their self-built wind- & stringed instruments, Persian percussion and subtle electronics, drawing ad- ditional inspiration from Krautrock (listen to the irresistible, hypnotique, ever-changing rhythmic pattern of the title track) as well as JON

Ein aufmerksamer Zuhörer der Welt zu sein, bedeutet, von Sprache umgeben zu sein. Sprache hallt durch fast jeden Raum, in dem sich Menschen aufhalten, ob unerwünscht oder erwünscht, banal oder tiefgründig. Worte stehen auf der Seite und klingen im Ohr nach, vermehren sich endlos. Diese Überfülle fasziniert den Komponisten und Musiker Ben Vida schon lange, aber in den letzten Jahren hat sie zu einer neuen Art des Musikmachens geführt, die die Vorrangstellung der Sprache in unserer Klang- und Kulturwelt gleichzeitig hervorhebt und hinterfragt. Sanft und spielerisch bricht Vida die Hierarchie von Bedeutung und Klang der Sprache auf, bis sie in egalitärer Harmonie existieren. Oblivion Seekers ist Vidas neuestes Album in diesem Kompositionsstil, nach der Zusammenarbeit mit dem New-Music-Ensemble Yarn/Wire The Beat My Head Hit aus dem Jahr 2023. Wie bei seinem Vorgänger liegt der Fokus der Musik auf koordinierten Duetten aus gesprochenem Wort in neutralem Ton, wobei die variablen Rhythmen der bewegten Worte komplexe interne rhythmische Strukturen schaffen. Er wird von den Stimmen von Nina Dante, Christina Vantzou, John Also Bennett und Félicia Atkinson, die einen einzigartigen Klang erzeugen, der weder ihrer noch seiner ist und in seiner Geschlechtsdarstellung, seinem Akzent und seiner Aussprache fließend ist. Die instrumentalen Kompositionen, die den Hintergrund des Albums bilden, haben den ungezwungenen Fluss eines Dialogs, gesprächig, aber zurückhaltend, selten als Motor der Veränderung. Es herrscht eine ruhige, konzentrierte Stimmung, die durch den zurückhaltenden Rhythmus der Stimmen noch verstärkt wird, sodass man das Gefühl hat, die Musik sei ein langes Mantra, das nie ganz zu seinem Ausgangspunkt zurückkehrt. Der Effekt ist bezaubernd, gleichermaßen einschläfernd und fesselnd, und suggeriert Wiederholung, ohne sich jemals genau gleich zu bewegen. Die Instrumentierung der vier Stücke des Albums variiert; ,Be Yr Own Abyss" wird durch den wellenartigen Kontrapunkt der Saxophone geprägt, während der mehrdeutige Klang des Vibraphons über ,Oblivion Seekers" schwebt und Frasers anschwellender Bass den einzigen dramatischen Auftritt des Albums liefert. Die Musik verändert sich im Ohr, während der Text die Form und Bewegung der Komposition ständig neu definiert und in einen neuen Kontext stellt, auch wenn sie in ihrem jenseitigen Glanz konsistent bleibt. Der Text besteht oft aus Sprachfetzen, denen Vida während seines Lebens beim Komponieren begegnet ist: zufällig mitgehörtes Gemurmel in der Schlange im Supermarkt, eindrucksvolle Sätze aus einem Roman, den er gerade las, Eindrücke von Musik, die er immer wieder auf seinem Plattenspieler hörte. Kleine, ansonsten unbedeutende Details sammeln sich an, nicht um eine Erzählung zu bilden, sondern um einen Eindruck vom komplexen Prozess der Bedeutungsfindung zu vermitteln, der im täglichen Leben stattfindet. Charaktere und Szenen tauchen im Bild auf und verschwinden wieder, und Sätze, die nach einer Erklärung verlangen, dürfen einfach vorbeiziehen. Vidas Liebe zu Robert Ashley ist gut dokumentiert, aber vielleicht noch bedeutender sind Mark E. Smith und The Fall, Neil Tennant und die gesprochenen Verse der Pet Shop Boys, die gesamte Geschichte des Hip-Hop und Meredith Monk. Die Art und Weise, wie die Worte dargeboten werden, ist genauso wichtig wie die Worte selbst und offenbart eine Intentionalität und Direktheit, die Vida mit den abstrakten Konstruktionsmustern des Textes hervorhebt und untergräbt. Auf Oblivion Seekers ist der omnidirektionale Lärm der Marmor, den Vida abträgt, um zu beleuchten, wie wir die unermessliche Fremdheit der Welt verarbeiten. Der Triumph des Albums besteht darin, dass wir nichts von dem schönen Geheimnis verlieren, wie diese Zeichen unsere äußere und innere Welt miteinander verbinden.

Baccanalia is the new EP from PS5 : a collection of visionary dances inspired by the world of classic mythology. The syncopated rhythms and the ritual chants evoke war dances, satyrs ‘ parades and rites of passage and transformation. A deep sonic trip emerges, in which stylistic features of contemporary jazz interlace with ancestral suggestions creating a musical experience that is both physical and mystical. Pietro Santangelo is among the most prominent and recognizable voices of the contemporary Neapolitan music scene. Starting from the seminal experience of Slivovitz and the underground of the Crossroads Improving improvisation collective, in recent years it has given shape to PS3 and PS5, two of the most innovative ensembles in Italian jazz in recent years.The sound of his saxophone has characterized iconic records such as Nu Genea ’s Nuova Napoli and Dario Bassolino’s Città Futura, is featured in bands such as Fitness Forever, Funkin’ Machine, Khalab, Ex Generation (Napoli Exchange), Circolo Psiconautico, and many others.

No matter where you are in the world, distance fades when like-minded people connect.
Clima Futuros understands climate as a condition rather than a setting. An environment where trajectories take shape, move forward and, sometimes by chance, intersect. Each track follows its own path until those paths briefly align — not as a destination, but as a shared moment in time.
At the center of the record, DJ F outlines a common atmosphere shaped by movement, reinterpretation and intent. The EP unfolds through original cuts and reworked versions, where ideas circulate, transform and return with renewed meaning.
One of the tracks features saxophone lines by Nala Rami, adding a melodic presence that sits naturally within the climate, while remixes by Less J and Jarren expand the EP from different angles.
Rather than a fixed narrative, Clima Futuros presents a shared space — shaped by aligned paths, recycled forms and the quiet convergence of futures moving in the same direction.

Besides his work as a painter, filmmaker and set designer, Philippe Lamiral Poirier (1951-2025) played guitar and saxophone in the group Kat Onoma, which he co-founded with Rodolphe Burger.

His fifth studio album combines his written texts with music composed by his son, Roméo Poirier, whom he considered to be cut from the same musical cloth as he was. It also confirms what has emerged from his previous albums, namely songs more spoken than sung and whose words evoke images, thus the album’s title – Images parlées.

A book of his paintings, Images traversées, will be published simultaneously with the album.

In this continual back and forth movement between text and image, music has always been present – sensitive and abstract, expressing nothing other than itself. It hollows out a place to tell us where we are. It is life without delay.

Roméo Poirier is working in the field of electronic music, focusing on heavy processing of samples and digital collage. He released albums on the London based record label Kit Records (Plage Arrière), the mancunian record label Sferic (Hotel Nota), and Jan Jelinek’s own imprint Faitiche (Living Room and Off The Record).

‘Warm Waves’ first appeared in 2020, ten years after Turn On The Sunlight’s debut self-titled album was first released in Japan. During that decade, Turn On The Sunlight’s Jesse Peterson and Mia Doi Todd welcomed their first child and co-founded a music venue in Los Angeles. When performance spaces were required to close at the start of the pandemic, Jesse’s focus shifted back towards home recording. Since ‘Warm Waves,’ five more Turn On The Sunlight albums have followed (including ‘Drives To The Beach,’ also on Tokonoma Records), all of which can be seen as an expansion of the musical direction set forth on this album.

The group heard on ‘Warm Waves’ consists of musicians who Mia and Jesse were regularly playing with at the time - Sam Gendel, Mitchell Brown, Andres Renteria & Gabe Noel - joined by Laraaji, Arji & Luis Pérez Ixoneztli, making their first recordings together.

The group’s blended signal was routed through Mitchell’s tape loops and modular synthesizer, which contributed to the unique communal sound of these recordings. Further extending this approach, Carlos Niño then reprocessed and reimagined ‘Passing Rain’ with Jamael Dean for his Elemental Beat Mix.

Originally released one week into the official lockdown period, some listeners found the warm, collective sound well-suited for the time of introspection and shifting priorities that followed. Now, in 2026, ‘Warm Waves’ returns on vinyl to once again encourage peaceful contemplation and open-hearted togetherness, in echo of the spirit of its creation.

Credits
Sam Gendel: Saxophone & Electronics on A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3
Laraaji: Voice & Zither on A3
Luis Pérez Ixoneztli: Bird Sounds on A1, Aerophones & Water Drums on B2
Mia Doi Todd: Voice on A1, A2, B2, B3; Piano on A3
Jesse Peterson: Guitar, Bass, Organ & Bird Sounds on A1; Organ on A2; Guitar & Bass on A3; Wooden Whistles, Guitar, Ukulele & Piano on B1; Ice Breaking on B3
Andres Renteria: Percussion on A1, A2, B1, B2, B3; Marimba & Percussion on A3
Mitchell Brown: Synthesizers & Magnetic Tape on A1, A2, A3, B2, B4
Gabe Noel: Bass on A2, A3, B1
Arji: Bells & Shells on A3
Carlos Niño: Production / Remix on B4
Jamael Dean: Additional Keyboards on B4

Produced, mixed & recorded by Jesse Peterson
Except B4, produced by Carlos Niño

‘Warm Waves’ first appeared in 2020, ten years after Turn On The Sunlight’s debut self-titled album was first released in Japan. During that decade, Turn On The Sunlight’s Jesse Peterson and Mia Doi Todd welcomed their first child and co-founded a music venue in Los Angeles. When performance spaces were required to close at the start of the pandemic, Jesse’s focus shifted back towards home recording. Since ‘Warm Waves,’ five more Turn On The Sunlight albums have followed (including ‘Drives To The Beach,’ also on Tokonoma Records), all of which can be seen as an expansion of the musical direction set forth on this album.

The group heard on ‘Warm Waves’ consists of musicians who Mia and Jesse were regularly playing with at the time - Sam Gendel, Mitchell Brown, Andres Renteria & Gabe Noel - joined by Laraaji, Arji & Luis Pérez Ixoneztli, making their first recordings together.

The group’s blended signal was routed through Mitchell’s tape loops and modular synthesizer, which contributed to the unique communal sound of these recordings. Further extending this approach, Carlos Niño then reprocessed and reimagined ‘Passing Rain’ with Jamael Dean for his Elemental Beat Mix.

Originally released one week into the official lockdown period, some listeners found the warm, collective sound well-suited for the time of introspection and shifting priorities that followed. Now, in 2026, ‘Warm Waves’ returns on vinyl to once again encourage peaceful contemplation and open-hearted togetherness, in echo of the spirit of its creation.

Credits
Sam Gendel: Saxophone & Electronics on A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3
Laraaji: Voice & Zither on A3
Luis Pérez Ixoneztli: Bird Sounds on A1, Aerophones & Water Drums on B2
Mia Doi Todd: Voice on A1, A2, B2, B3; Piano on A3
Jesse Peterson: Guitar, Bass, Organ & Bird Sounds on A1; Organ on A2; Guitar & Bass on A3; Wooden Whistles, Guitar, Ukulele & Piano on B1; Ice Breaking on B3
Andres Renteria: Percussion on A1, A2, B1, B2, B3; Marimba & Percussion on A3
Mitchell Brown: Synthesizers & Magnetic Tape on A1, A2, A3, B2, B4
Gabe Noel: Bass on A2, A3, B1
Arji: Bells & Shells on A3
Carlos Niño: Production / Remix on B4
Jamael Dean: Additional Keyboards on B4

Produced, mixed & recorded by Jesse Peterson
Except B4, produced by Carlos Niño

"All the tracks on this release come from a live concert at Sharmanka, a beautiful and unique museum of kinetic sculptures in Glasgow, and throughout the record, the sounds of the sculptures moving and emitting noises are incorporated into the music performed. The four pieces presented are entirely improvised. There was no discussion beforehand of what instruments or what approach would be taken, and each piece evolved as a musical negotiation as the performers individually made choices about what instruments to play and how to support and meet each other within the unfolding musical narrative. While Macdonald and Ferlaino both share a lifetime of work with their chosen primary instrument, the saxophone, they also share a passion for exploring other instruments and objects for their sonic and socio-creative potential. This record foregrounds both these aspects of their work: they use saxophones, but also incorporate bells, toys, bagpipes, accordions, percussion instruments and voice.
"Raymond MacDonald is a saxophonist and composer with an extensive career in music, cross-disciplinary arts and academia. He has played on and released over 100 albums, toured and broadcast worldwide and has composed music for film, television, theatre, radio and art installations. He is a founding member of the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, and his work is informed by a view of improvisation as a social, collaborative, and uniquely creative process that provides opportunities to develop new ways of engaging musically.
"Christian Ferlaino is an Italian saxophonist, bagpipe player, improviser, composer and ethnomusicologist. He composes for ensembles of improvisers, both from the jazz and improvised music scene, as well as for contemporary music ensembles. His work explores the relationships between composition and improvisation, and the expressive potential of improvised music. His musical research also focuses on creatively engaging with the sonic and musical realm of Calabria, with special attention to its performing techniques and approach to sound and music generation."

Born from Amsterdam’s intimate dance night, Notturno now steps into a new phase as a record label. Simon Paw unveils the debut release on his new imprint with Inner Space, a deeply personal two-track EP that sets the tone for the label’s sonic identity.
The title track, “Inner Space,” is an introspective and atmospheric journey rich in texture and feeling. With additional keys by Marco Airaghi and expressive flute and saxophone from Maurizio Moscatelli, the track unfolds with haunting elegance and organic warmth.
On the flip, “Eternal Sunshine” reveals a deeper, spiritual side of Simon’s production. Warm grooves carry evolving melodies and delicate piano moments, creating a track suited for immersive dance floors and reflective listening alike

Berlin-based label Ascension on Wax continues its deep, jazz-inflected trajectory with the forthcoming release A Quiet Storm EP from DFRA, arriving June on 12" vinyl and digital formats (Cat No: AOW005). Available to buy and pre-order from May 15, the EP showcases DFRA's refined blend of soul, jazz, and classic house sensibilities, enriched further by a remix from Detroit's Jon Dixon.
Hailing from Colombia and now based in Buenos Aires, DFRA (Diego Ruiz) brings a deeply musical approach shaped by formal studies in composition and a lifelong immersion in hip-hop, gospel, soul, and disco. His productions balance two complementary sides, lush, jazz-rooted musicality and the raw, driving energy of Detroit and Chicago house. This duality is fully realised across A Quiet Storm EP, marking another step in his evolving sonic identity.
The title track, "Quiet Storm," opens the record with a deep, rolling groove elevated by exquisite saxophone work, setting an introspective yet dancefloor-ready tone. "Strings" follows with a dreamy atmosphere, rich piano textures, and a warm jazz undercurrent that highlights DFRA's compositional finesse. On "Charlene," soulful vocals intertwine with chord progressions reminiscent of early Motor City Drum Ensemble, delivering a nostalgic yet forward-looking house cut.
Completing the package, Jon Dixon reimagines "Charlene" through a distinctly Detroit lens. Stripping the track back and rebuilding it with deeper textures and signature keys, Dixon channels the spirit of Underground Resistance while pushing into more meditative territory, bridging jazz improvisation with machine-driven rhythm.
Founded in Berlin, Ascension on Wax continues to honour the legacy of jazz within house music, pairing contemporary producers with a strong visual identity and limited vinyl releases. With A Quiet Storm EP, the label reinforces its commitment to soulful, authentic club music rooted in the traditions of the 90s US scene while looking firmly ahead.

"Nusa" is the last part of a trilogy started in 2020 with Masao Yamamoto and Akira Uchida. A project that began with light (“Sasanami”, 2020), moved through darkness (“Kurayami”, 2023), and returned to the ambivalence of the two (“Nusa”, 2026), which ultimately sustain and complement one another in all their variations and complementarities. Both in terms of tones and in the humanity that runs through us in these times of such stark contrast.

For this last part of the trilogy, Masao Yamamoto and Akira Uchida travelled to the island of Hokkaido at the beginning of 2026 to supplement the project with photographs and audio recordings of the ice and the surrounding landscapes.

Graduated in saxophone from Senzoku Gakuen College of Music, Akira Uchida explores sound through tuning, medieval music, and acoustics, supporting jazz pianists as a piano tuner. After training under instrument maker Masahiro Adachi, he became an independent clavichord builder. In 2020, he created an instrument for Ryuichi Sakamoto. In 2021, he crafted one using reclaimed wood from Kiyomizu-dera Temple (FEEL KIYOMIZUDERA). His work focuses on making, tuning, and performing instruments.

With Dispersion, Loom & Thread return to the volatile architecture of the expanded piano trio - and quietly fracture it from within.

Daniel Klein (drums), Tobias Fröhlich (double bass) and Tom Schneider (keys, sampler) remain the sole agents on stage and in the final recording. The triangle holds. And yet, the field has expanded. For their second studio album, the trio fed their improvisations with the timbral signatures of guest saxophone and vibraphone players - not just as additional voices to be featured, but also as material to be absorbed, atomized and redistributed. The result is not augmentation but thorough refraction.

Where the debut album explored the recursive labyrinth of Schneider's live sampling of his own piano, Dispersion introduces an external grain into the feedback system. Breath and metal. Reed turbulence and struck resonance. The trio sampled extended improvisations by saxophone and vibes players: Victor Fox, Asger Nissen, Volker Heuken, and L&T's own Daniel Klein; dissected their attacks, overtones and decay curves, and integrated these fragments into the trio's internal circuitry. What emerges is a play of presences without bodies - instrumental ghosts circulating through the dense weave of rhythm and keys.

At first, one might hear the familiar relational tension: Klein's polyrhythmic elasticity interlocking with Fröhlich's tensile double bass figurations, Schneider poised at the hinge between tonal field and percussive impulse. But soon, the surface splinters - again. A vibraphone shimmer appears, yet no mallets are visible. A reed multiphonic surges through the texture, bending space between bass and drums. These events are neither quotations nor overlays; they are redistributed energies, dispersed across the trio's grammar. A digital multidimensional interplay ensues.

If the first album unfolded as a two-tiered game - live phrase and sampled reflection - Dispersion adds a further axis. The sampled materials from other improvisers are stripped of their erstwhile two-way interaction and reconstituted as malleable particles. Signifier detached from origin, resonance detached from gesture. The trio navigates a constantly shifting topology in which acoustic memory and electronic manipulation are indistinguishable.

Crucially, the album never abandons the physical urgency of three musicians reacting in real time. The additional timbral layers do not thicken the texture into opacity; rather, they introduce stark points and arrows of diffraction. Density opens into prismatic clarity. Lines splinter and regroup. What seems like a quartet or quintet collapses back into three bodies negotiating an expanded field.

Dispersion is not about addition but about distribution - of agency, of timbre, of temporal perspective. It is an album in which the trio setting becomes a site of multiplicity without surrendering its immediacy. A dissolution not only of the divide between present experience and memory, but between inside and outside, self and other.

Three musicians. Countless vectors. A music that fractures in order to cohere.

CREDITS:
Tom Schneider: piano & sampler
Tobi Fröhlich: double bass
Daniel Klein: drums & percussion

sample sources:
Victor Fox: tenor saxophone
Asger Nissen: alto saxophone
Volker Heuken: vibes
Daniel Klein: vibes

Recorded by Martin Dressler at Bauer Studios, Ludwigsburg.
Mixed & mastered by Martin Ruch.
Artwork by Viet Hoa Le.

2026 REPRESS

COEO are back on Toy Tonics! After uninterrupted touring around the globe, followed by a short creative break the guys come back with an even stronger sound. With the new EP they go more underground again. Its addressed to the clubs and night owls out there, who turn night into day and won't stop dancing!

The sound is based on classic house patterns and includes a lot of cool saxophones, big piano stabs & rhythmic piano solos. They even go tribal, use arpeggios and switch into breakbeat heaven. The four Originals are a great next step in the COEO evolution. The unique warm, catchy atmosphere of the tracks can create that special COEO euphoria which made them a lot of fans. From Moodymann to Disclosure, Mall Grab to Kenny Dope, the list is long.

It’s fantastic to see how popular they became over the last couple of years. The last COEO vinyl sold over 2500 copies and some of their tracks have millions of Spotify plays. It’s DJ FOOD. Pure bliss!

Maximum Exposure Inc. presents Joy Rider, the debut album from Down Town, the Toronto duo of Ian Elias Afif (bass+effects) and Maxwell Cecil Stover (soprano saxophone + electronics).

Produced and mixed in collaboration with Tony Price in Toronto, Joy Rider portrays a new vision for low-end music as sculpture. Liquid bass paintings, alloy tone abstractions — a virtual still life formed out of fretless aluminum bass, specular soprano saxophone cybernetics, and metallic rhythm architectures.

These pieces belong to a lineage of post-minimalist, low-end experimentalism that treats electroacoustic improvisation and ambient synthesis as mutable sound matter - Joe Zawinul's circuitboard cartographies, the insurgent bass guitar mutations of Bill Laswell, Mick Karn, and Robbie Shakespeare, Evan Parker's recursive multiphonic sax investigations, the most textural sides from the ECM catalogue and the sonic holography constructed by Jon Hassell and Michael Brook during their sessions with Eno and Lanois Hamilton, Ontario.

The album unfolds like a series of suspended environments - music for inside a city.

2026 Repress

London based composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Akusmi announces 'Lines', an exhilarating new collection of works born from the desire to take where the acclaimed debut album 'Fleeting Future' left off - in search of new forms.

" 'Secant', I must have listened to this tune 3 times in a row, this one soundtracked my night drive through the winding roads" - Benji B, BBC Radio 1

'Lines' is presented as a Limited edition clear vinyl (500 copies only worldwide), printed in heavy-weight reverse board sleeve with a hand-numbered edition sticker. The vinyl edition also features 'Oblique' (A2), an exclusive version for the vinyl format, plus the now revered 'Longing for Tomorrow' - (Brandt Brauer Frick Remix), previously unreleased physically and now pressed on vinyl format, ending side B. The cover artwork features another collaboration with Dutch visual artist Sigrid Calon and design by label founder Adam Heron.

Formed with a sense of urgency and a reductive approach 'Lines' is almost entirely comprised of alto saxophone, clarinet and piano with embellishments of ambience and minimal percussive elements. Recorded in full at his home studio in London, Pascal Bideau speaks about the process:

"I wanted to go a bit more a bit more horizontal and ambient, work with layers of lines, might they be dotted or straight, and leave them to unfold and see where they would take me."

Akusmi uniquely finds the spaces in between experimental jazz, crossover classical and ambient music.

Growing together both personally and musically… That is indeed the good fortune of the musicians in the Marseille-based trio ubaq. We’re talking about bassist Antoine Carletto, guitarist Lucas Schemidt, and drummer Antoine Saussol, winners of the Rezzo springboard competition at Jazz à Vienne 2025. In their early twenties, they met in their late teens while still honing their musical skills. Nearly ten years later, they burst onto the scene, in perfect harmony, with their very first album, “Night WIP,” a follow-up to their EP, “20bis,” released in 2024. They owe their stylized stage name—written in lowercase with a “q”—to the ubac, that side of a mountain with very little sun exposure, where twilight reigns. “We liked that idea because we’re night owls,” says bassist Antoine Carletto. Hence the “night” for “nuit” and the “WIP” for “Work In Progress,” explains guitarist Lucas Shemidt. ubaq’s music is characterized by a nocturnal, melancholic heaviness, pierced by beams of light. “We love creating music that soothes us and highlights the precious nature of composing and playing in complete harmony,” says Antoine Carletto. “We cultivate complex tones, sometimes difficult to bear, whether they’re nostalgic or even verging on depression. But we manage to convey emotions without falling into clichés,” adds Antoine Saussol. Night and twilight serve as the perfect catalysts for this trio, which moves forward with perfect chemistry and harmony.

On this album, they feature the German-Armenian rapper and singer Talin, who is also based in Marseille. She appears on the track “Regarding Others,” where she chants that even though the year 2026 may see mothers weeping in every corner of the world, she still manages to smile. Thus, this track explores the three musicians’ relationship with the world and the necessity of looking at others. The unsettling “Sciatiq,” the haunting “Sakakinik,” and the ambivalence of “Flayosc”—the final track, on which the trio features trombonist Jules Regard—owe their titles to the musicians’ own observations and experiences. The multi-faceted track “Proud,” in two parts, is a tribute to Lucas Schemidt’s mother, who has since passed away. The presence of wind instruments—whether Jules Regard’s trombone or Mathieu Fabre’s saxophone on the intense track “From The Ending”—adds textures missing from the natural landscape depicted in “Night WIP.” This debut album captures the obsessions and introspective wanderings—sometimes anxious, sometimes enchanted—of a trio that cultivates melody as a pledge of warm fulfillment.

Golden Earring were together between 1961 and 2021, and their last and best known line-up included two founding members George Kooymans (vocals and guitar) and Rinus Gerritsen (bass, keyboard) along with Barry Hay (vocals, guitar, flute and saxophone) a member since 1968 and Cesar Zuiderwijk (drums) a member since 1970.

They had over 40 hits and released 30 albums, many achieving either gold or platinum status in their home country, The Netherlands. They are best known for their 1973 hit single "Radar Love" and their 1982 single "Twilight Zone".

Around 1992, the unplugged sessions on MTV were a trend; almost every rock band or artist was doing them. Bass player Rinus Gerritsen suggested to record an acoustic album themselves. The record company wasn't very enthusiastic at first so with a small budget the band recorded the album live in an intimate cafe in Amsterdam. The Naked Truth turned out to be the Golden Earring's best selling album.

The Naked Truth is available as a limited edition of 2000 individually numbered copies on purple vinyl. The 2LP is packaged in a deluxe sleeve with linen laminate finish and includes an insert.

Art Blakey is one of the inventors of the modern bebop style of drumming. Known as a powerful musician and a vital groover his brand of bluesy, funky hard bop was and continues to be profoundly influential on mainstream jazz. For more than 30 years, his band Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers included many young musicians who went on to become prominent names in jazz.

Released in the late fifties, A Night In Tunisia is a jazz milestone and prime example of Blakey's exceptional rhythmic prowess. This album is not all about drumming though; it leaves much space for great melodical interplay by fellow musicians Sam Dockery on piano, John Griffin and Ferris Benda on saxophone, Bill Hardman on trumpet and Jimmy De Brest on double bass.

A Night In Tunisia is available as a limited edition of 1500 individually numbered copies on orange vinyl, and is packaged in a deluxe sleeve with linen laminate finish.

The small print:
• Due to rights restrictions, this item is only available in the MOV store to European customers.

Jazz-fusion, disco-funk, Latin jazz and batucada rhythms get the Filipino treatment onAfter Midnight, the sublime second album from keyboardist Boy Katindig. Originally released in 1980, After Midnight draws heavy influence from soul and funk contemporaries in the US as well as Latin America, in particular the famed Brazilian percussionist Paulinho da Costa.

It’s a testament to his musical prowess that Katindig weaves effortlessly between styles and tempos. His reverence for Paulinho da Costa extends far, with covers of several songs from the latter’s 1979 Happy People album. This includes slow-burner ‘Déjà Vu’ written by Isaac Hayes originally for Dionne Warwick; on the Filipino instrumental version, local legends Jun Regalado and Roger Herrera (from Regalado’s ‘Pinoy Funk’ single) are reunited on drums and bass respectively.

But Katindig’s original compositions hold just as much weight and unique personality: title track ‘After Midnight’ opens with a sultry funk serenade reminiscent of The Isley Brothers, and quickly transforms into a catchy, blistering, saxophone chorus that brims with swagger. Hidden B-side gem ‘Got The Need’ is an uptempo tribute to batucada that would not be out of place in a jazzy house set, and boasts increasingly elaborate and psychedelic solos from Katindig on keys and Ben Concepcion on soprano sax.

Meanwhile, ‘Love Till the End of Time’ is a masterclass in instrumental disco funk, penned by the prolific Greg Phillanganes who at that same time was writing for many of the greats including Chaka Khan, George Benson, Stevie Wonder, The Jacksons and Cheryl Lynn.

This album is lovingly reissued by Sama Sama Records, a boutique label from DJ and collector Norsicaa, who ran the esteemed Soundway Records for 8 years and released the compilation Ayo Ke Disco in late 2024.

2026 Repress

Akusmi is the project moniker of French-born, London based composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Pascal Bideau, who signs to the new Tonal Union imprint for the release of his album 'Fleeting Future.' With its hallucinatory, genre-defying blend of minimalism, cosmic jazz and Fourth World influences, and in its quest for optimism in the face of unknown and limitless possibility. 'Fleeting Future' stands apart as an inventive and inspirational debut.

The creation of the album's richly colourful and multi-layered sound world was originally inspired by Bideau's journey to Indonesia, where he immersed himself in traditional Gamelan and gong music. Many of the themes, motifs and melodies on 'Fleeting Future' seed from the 'Slendro' scale, one of the essential tuning systems used in Gamelan. However it is not musical scales, but scales as in the size or extent of things that most fascinates Bideau, specifically he explains; "the compelling way things dramatically change when you shift from any given scale to another."

The album connects directly to nature and the wider world in its evocation of perceptive shifts and transitions from microscopic to macro scale, as evidenced by the opening title track 'Fleeting Future', on which a simple dotted saxophone line morphs and billows into synths, brass and strings, indicating the musical voyage that lies ahead. Like the start of a journey or adventure it is full of anticipation, its arborescent growth conveying the optimism of the unknown and of limitless possibility. The album centrepiece 'Neo Tokyo' is a vibrating, ebullient mass of colliding elements which feels like zooming in to the electron level, as it teeters on the edge of chaos. The title is a reference to Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira, a dizzying work of art set in a sprawling futuristic metropolis.

'Yurikamome', meanwhile, is an imaginary soundtrack inspired by Bideau's yearning to visit Japan which he fuels by watching Youtube videos of drives and rides through Japanese landscapes and cities. "It's amazing" he adds, "that we have the ability to access almost anywhere in the world and see what it's like, that people document it and upload it. It's never going to be any replacement for the real thing, but with places that really touch you, it works." The track is named after a Japanese monorail train line which rides from Shinbashi to Toyosu, a last journey that feels like a new beginning.


'Fleeting Future' was composed and recorded by Bideau between 2017 and 2019 in his North London studio and features additional contributions recorded in Berlin by Florian Juncker (trombone), Ruth Velten (saxophone) and regular collaborator Daniel Brandt of Brandt Brauer Frick (drums / electronic percussion). Having been living through uncertain times, one thing that keeps spiralling into the unknown is the future, about which Bideau leaves us with a final thought:

"The future is fascinating: It is constantly readjusting to new events. I feel we left a linear approach to the future to enter an arborescent one where all the data and information we have about what could happen is exponentially ever-growing. Following a branch might allow you to glimpse into what it may become, but the evolution of the whole picture might very well render the prediction totally obsolete, and even meaningless. In that sense, there is not one future but innumerable ones all cancelling each other. That's what makes it fleeting."

This first-time reissue of Quinteplus’ 1971 album revives a key moment in Argentine jazz, featuring crisp trumpet and tenor sax, electric piano-driven funk and modal grooves, and a tight, spacious rhythm section. It showcases prominent figures like Jorge Anders and “Pocho” Lapouble.

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Quinteplus was born in Buenos Aires at the end of the 1960s, emerging directly from the ideas and experiments of the legendary Agrupación Nuevo Jazz. Founded in the early ’60s, this collective brought together some of the most forward thinking figures in Argentine jazz functioned as a creative lab where musicians questioned where jazz could go next. Among the key ideas discussed was the fusion of jazz with Argentine folk styles such as zamba, chacarera, malambo, cueca, and candombe, as well as a deeper look into African rhythms as a bridge between musical worlds.

Two members of that collective, keyboardist Santiago Giacobbe and bassist Jorge “Negro” González, carried those ideas forward when they formed Quinteplus in 1969. The group came together naturally: all the musicians already knew each other and had played in different projects around the Buenos Aires scene. They shared a strong admiration for Julian “Cannonball” Adderley’s quintet, along with a clear goal—to develop a modern jazz language grounded in local Argentine rhythms.

From the start, Quinteplus stood out for its openness and adventurous spirit. Rhythm was central, and so was experimentation. The band belonged to a generation of Argentine jazz musicians eager to explore electric instruments and new textures, anticipating what would soon be known as jazz-rock. This was happening in Buenos Aires at the very same time Miles Davis was opening new doors with “In a Silent Way” and “Bitches Brew”. Giacobbe introduced one of the first Fender electric pianos in Argentina, while González pioneered the amplification of the upright bass and even developed a hybrid electric, boxless version of the instrument. Trumpeter Gustavo Bergalli, meanwhile, maintained close ties with the emerging Argentine rock scene, collaborating with Luis Alberto Spinetta and appearing on Almendra’s first album.

In 1971, Quinteplus recorded its first and only studio album for EMI. The original lineup featured Jorge Anders on tenor saxophone, Bergalli on trumpet, Giacobbe on keyboards, González on upright and electric bass, and Norberto “Pocho” Lapouble on drums and percussion—who also illustrated the album’s iconic sleeve. The record is a refined showcase of the band’s musical vision: original compositions, fluent jazz language, folk-derived rhythms, funky electric textures, tight ensemble playing, and standout brass solos. Though critically praised, the album received little label support and sold modestly, eventually becoming a sought-after collector’s item.

Quinteplus disbanded in 1973, their music was perhaps too bold and unconventional for its time.

Numbered 150 copies on green vinyl.

The duo Sławek Pezda & Witek Ryć is a project by Krakow-based musicians, a hybrid of ambient, noise, experimental music, jazz, trance, electronica, and ethnic music. The two musicians' musical paths were united by the practice of meditation, which also significantly translates into their musical language and the need to share the peace that flows to the listener through sound.

In their recordings and live performances, the musicians utilize tenor saxophone, modular synthesizers, electronics, drums, flutes, drum pads, Tibetan bowls, gongs, and a wide array of percussion instruments. They have played together in improvised concerts, relaxation concerts, chamber sessions, and even spiritual jazz.

"Kardamon" is the result of one of the live sessions, where the rhythm, based on a simple pulse flowing from a frame drum, accompanied by Ankle Bells (Indian janissary bells played with the foot), is enriched by Sławek's tenor saxophone. In addition to the aforementioned instruments, a synthesizer and a Roland HPD 20 drum machine were also used, accompanied by various percussion instruments (shaker, chimes, bells, etc.), as well as a fragment of Witek's own field recordings from the Polesie National Park.

The remix on the B-side was created by DJ PLASH, who gave the duo's original sounds a completely new dimension. Plash (Marcin Przeplasko) is arguably one of the most sought-after DJs playing for b-girls and b-boys worldwide, a feat culminating in his official performance behind the turntables at the last Summer Olympics. PLASH is Witek's neighbor from Krakow's Nowa Huta district.

The front cover artwork is a painting by Witek Ryć, and the entire album was assembled and framed by Animisiewasz. Mastering was handled by Eprom. The single is limited to 150 copies and is being released by Funky Mamas and Papas Recordings, a label specializing in seven-inch singles since 2008.

Berlin lo-fi crooner Der Assistent returns with "Ultramarin", a sun-faded suite of soft-focus pop, Balearic grooves and late-night yacht moods drifting between languages, moods and references – slightly surreal, and quietly melancholic.
Following the tropical haze of its predecessor "Amnesie am Amazonas", his third album makes a slightly bigger splash: classic late-80s digital pianos, downbeat grooves and flashes of dub-reggae intertwine with subtle soprano and alto saxophone lines that drift between lounge melancholy and nocturnal jazz.
Laid-back opening cut “Wenn der Scirocco weht” pays homage to Japanese lovers rock, while the dubby downbeat title track celebrates the color blue in French, English, Italian and German, echoing situationist slogans and painter Yves Klein’s idea of “the invisible becoming visible.” Lead single “Mann am Telefon” dives into hazy yacht-pop and lo-fi soul, gradually unfolding into an instrumental outro that recalls the early synth romanticism of Vangelis.
Across the album, Der Assistent traces a playful tale of split personalities – with subtle nods to Fight Club and Blade Runner – culminating in the lush closing 80s R&B ballad “Total Confusion”.

Written, recorded, produced and mixed entirely by Der Assistent, Ultramarin also inaugurates his new imprint of the same name.
RIYL: Fishmans, Eddie Chacon, The Zenmenn.

Downtown Boys have pushed relentlessly forward as an artistic and political project since their founding. Singer Victoria Marie and guitarist/singer Joey La Neve DeFrancesco first met at union meetings while working together at a hotel in Providence, RI, writing many of the band's early songs about labor organizing and exploitative workplaces. The quintet is completed by Joe DeGeorge (sax/synth), Mary Jane Regalado (bass), and Joey Doubek (drums). Over years of touring, and three acclaimed albums, Downtown Boys have continued to grow as artists, musicians, and organizers. Now, the band has arrived with Public Luxury, an enthralling album that keeps politics front and center while summoning the band's most urgent and powerful sound to date. The definition of Public Luxury falls very much in line with that of the title of the second Downtown Boys LP, Full Communism. Straight up, Public Luxury means, "everything for everyone." It's the stubborn insistence that a better world is possible, while fully recognizing the horrors we witness daily, and the individual and collective responsibility to resist the nihilism and hopelessness we all feel. Sentiments like "everything for everyone," and "we will have it all" perfectly represent the cathartic, communal live experience this cadre of multi-instrumentalists create. These sentiments also encapsulate the inclusive, joyful sonic fusion that defines the album: anthemic punk and indie rock mix with Latin traditions, drum machines blend with acoustic drums, saxophones punctuate riffs, and layers of synths add flourishes from new-wave to industrial. The amount of ground covered on Public Luxury can't be overstated, and yet the album feels totally vital and cohesive. Public Luxury is a revisitation of the band's past for the sake of their future. It was co-produced by DeFrancesco with recording engineer and longtime Downtown Boys supporter Seth Manchester (Lambrini Girls, Lightning Bolt, Model/Actriz) at the Pawtucket, RI studio and arts space Machines With Magnets, not far from the band's first home of Providence, RI. Victoria Marie's grandmother-a monumental figure for the band throughout their existence-passed away in May of 2025, and her influence looms large over the album; the songs "No Me Jodas" and "Sirena" are crystallized representations of the love between a woman and her ancestor. Beyond the loss, rage and frustration of the present, Public Luxury points boldly towards a vibrant, open-hearted vision of both music and the world: "Our music is simply for anyone and everyone who believes in the new future we can make together," Victoria Marie declares. "A world that will be awkward, inconsistent, yet truly free when it comes to all that matters."

Black Truffle is pleased to present Radis, the first recording by the Oslo-based trio of Andrea Giordano (voice and organetto), Kalle Moberg (accordion) and Jo David Meyer Lysne (guitar and snare drum). Now based in Norway, Giordano is a native of Cuneo, in the Piedmont region in the north-west of Italy and her exploration of the Piedmontese language provides the starting point and conceptual anchor of the trio improvisations heard on Radis, which make use of the words of 20th century Piedmontese poets Nino Costa, Bianca Dorato and Oreste Gallina. As the musicians explain, the project is an attempt to preserve the beauty and singularity of a language at risk of extinction.

Fittingly, the first sound we hear on the opening piece ‘Fiorìa’ is Giordano’s unaccompanied voice. She sings a poem from Oreste Gallina as a kind of floating cadenza, the accompanying silence sensitizing the listener to the pellucid quality of Giordano’s voice and the unique sound of the Piedmontese language. The voice dies away and into the silence swells a single tone, sounded by Moberg’s accordion and—special guest on this opening piece—the alto saxophone of Mario Gabola. Extended techniques and preparations create unexpected timbres from the acoustic instruments: Gabola’s saxophone is augmented with tin cans and springs and Moberg’s unorthodox techniques allow the accordion to generate wheezing, buzzing textures and patterns of microtonal beating. Giordano’s voice returns, picking up the thread of the languorous opening melody, coexisting for a while with the shifting drone before the piece takes an unexpected yet organic left-turn into a delicate saxophone solo of sorts.

Recorded in several locations across Italy and Norway over the course of three years, Radis documents an ensemble who have developed both a distinctive sound-world and a remarkably sensitive group dynamic. Moving from folkish duets between accordion and Giordano’s organetto (the small accordion used in Italian folk music) to episodes of metallic guitar scraping from Meyer Lysne, the music is both quietly contemplative and gently chaotic. Ensemble roles shift with disarming ease. If on ‘Profij dëspers’ Meyer Lysne’s prepared guitar adds a haywire noise element to a lyrical episode of organetto and accordion, the next piece, ‘D’antorn a lor’, is grounded in chiming guitar chords of stunning beauty; once Giordano’s joins, the result calls up the most spacious moments of Maria Monti’s Il Bestiario. Throughout the seven pieces, the trio explore countless possibilities of group interaction and the margin between conventional euphony and pure abstraction: at times the voice floats against silence or seems almost disconnected from the gentle clatter of the instruments (sometimes reminiscent of Nikiforas Rotas’ haunting settings of Cavafy), while at other points the instruments touch on conventional harmonic accompaniment. What is perhaps most striking of all is the way that voice and instruments relate to each other, the extended technique reframing the voice as a kind of abstract sound object, while the melodic beauty of Giordano’s voice lends a contemplative, almost melancholic air to the wheezing and scraping of accordion and guitar.

Captured in gorgeously intimate recordings, Jim O’Rourke’s careful and beautifully spacious mix highlights the wealth of textural detail in each element. Accompanied by notes, session photos and the text of the Piedmontese poems, Radis is a work of stunning beauty that demonstrates the vitality of exploratory music in Norway today.

DJ Support: Garnier, Opolopo, Worldwide FM, Marcia Carr, Bill Brewster, Timeout Moscow, Craig Smith, Delfonic, Tony Nwachukwu, Marcel Dettmann, DJ Rocca, Shuya Okino, Borrowed Identity, Titonton Duvante, Alex Attias, Rainer Truby, Sol Power All-Stars, Kyri R2, Robert Luis, Severino Panzetta, Lars Behrenroth, Kassian, Alkalino, Getdown Edits, Moodymanc, Gerd, Lea Lisa, Young Pulse, Mark de Clive-Lowe, Mark Grusane, Alex Barck….

International dance music heavyweight, producer and DJ Alexander Lay-Far returns with a powerful new chapter - Lay-Far Dance Orchestra (LFDO) - a fully-fledged live band project that reconnects him with his jazz-funk and fusion DNA while pushing dance music forward with unmistakable groove, musicianship and emotional weight. Formed in early 2024, LFDO is no nostalgia exercise. With Lay-Far at the helm as bassist, bandleader, composer, arranger and sound engineer, the orchestra has already been turning heads with explosive live performances, reinventing classic Lay-Far cuts, and now unveil their first album “Skybreak” with all new and original material written and produced by Lay-Far together with his bandmates and star guests, including Lipelis, Antoha MC and Seven Davis Jr. This work shows the departure from the predominantly electronic sound of Lay-Far's previous solo albums in favour of live instrumentation recorded to analogue tape and effortlessly bridging the gap between Jazz, Library Music, Disco-Funk, House, Broken Beat and Drum’n’Bass. “Skybreak” is dynamic, passionate, spiritual, cinematic, playful, heartfelt, life-affirming, dreamy and deeply romantic. Ultimately, there’s something profoundly romantic in recording and releasing such music in this day and age!


“Take Flight (Part 1)” is opening the album with style. It takes us on a beautifully orchestrated journey, blending the sensuality of Library Music with high-octane Jazz-Funk and raw b-boy breaks, propelled by breathtaking flute and Rhodes solos of Timur Nekrasov and Maxim Glonti. This aural symbiosis of “beauty and the beats” will become more and more prominent as the album unfolds.



It’s time for “Aquarius Love” created with the inimitable artist and vocalist Seven Davis Jr. (Secret Angels, Ninja Tune). In this composition cinematic soul and heavy jazz meet the restless energy of live drum & bass with deep and heartfelt vocals - timeless sound combined with a timeless message about love and life!



Next is “Head In The Clouds” - a theme for an imaginary rom-com, an ode to all the dreamers - sweet, light, naive and heartwarming. Space-Disco-Funk at its best!

“Where You From” is a fiery Soulful House number with heavy Afro-Latin influences recorded in collaboration with Lipelis. It’s full of Sun, joy and passion. Its irresistible rhythm is emphasised by funky octave bass, wah-wah guitar, catchy piano riffs, guitar solo by Lipelis and seemingly light conscious message delivered by Lay-Far and Maryag. Summer is here!

Now the album takes an unexpected twist in the form of “The Harp of Boom” which at first glance appears to be a classic-sounding Boom-Bap banger. Yes, It’s loud, raw, and gritty, yet it gradually evolves into something delicately-touching and deeply-soulful thanks to a memorable flute melody and lush string arrangement. Definitely recorded with tongue in cheek.


Next is “Feel The Moment” a remarkable collaboration with one of the most recognisable and distinctive Russian artists, singer, trumpeter and cultural icon Antoha MC. It’s a feel-good song, hopeful, life-affirming and bittersweet. A stylish excursion into Brit-Funk and Soviet Jazz-Fusion sound, drawing inspiration from the likes of Atmosfear, Light Of The World or Soviet Jazz bands like Allegro and Arsenal, but reimagining the influences through the modern West London broken beat lens.


The spectacular music journey continuous with “Take Flight (Part 2)” - it’s all about the deep infectious jazz-funk groove, heavy beats, rolling percussion and the glory of the soloing instruments - saxophone and flute by Timur Nekrasov, demonstrating the wide range of emotions from thoughtful and lyrical to restless and borderline vicious. One for freestyle dancing!

As the album draws to an end a vibrant musical triptych “Soul Constant” awaits, mixing together the deep and sensual mood of spiritual jazz with heavy syncopated drum’n’bass rhythms by Michail Fotchenkov, lush orchestration, expressive saxophone solos and the ending which can simply be described as “aural bliss”. It’s breath-taking!

A pleasant bonus is the exclusive version of “Where You From” by Lipelis himself, who is taking it into dub territories, further enhancing the rhythm section and enriching the song with his trademark playful synth flourishes and dreamy guitar solos for maximum effect (and appeal).

The album “Skybreak” by Lay-Far Dance Orchestra is the work of real artistry and craftsmanship with timeless sound that’s not only deeply-rooted but also forward-thinking.

We Release JAZZ is very happy to announce the limited vinyl edition of Obad’s powerful new album Suspended, a vivid document of the Tehran ensemble’s endlessly evolving sonic universe — now available as a limited LP housed in a heavyweight sleeve with an Obi strip and featuring original artwork by Iranian painter Sadra Baniasadi.
Suspended is a superbly spontaneous, improvisational blend of exploratory jazz fusion, progressive funk-rock, and transcendental groove. Built from lived experience and shaped by Tehran’s pulse, Obad’s music is kinetic and intuitive — an ever-morphing dialogue between rhythm and texture, emotion and message.
With Farid Farzian Pour on drums, Siavash Karimi on electric guitar, Kiarash Radmehr on bass guitar, and Hamidreza Keshavrpajuh (aka Pajuh) on tenor saxophone, Obad creates a soundworld where hypnotic basslines meet thunderous, free-flowing percussion; where searing guitar motifs coil around saxophone phrases that move from whispered invocation to explosive catharsis. Suspended captures the quartet at full creative stretch: alive, unguarded, and deeply attuned to one another.
Sadra Baniasadi’s striking cover painting mirrors the album’s energy — bold, dreamlike, charged with movement, and extending Obad’s world into the visual realm.
Suspended stands as a major statement from one of Iran’s most compelling contemporary ensembles, marking Obad’s first release on We Release JAZZ and continuing the label’s commitment to boundary-pushing music born from profound listening, place, and collective intuition.

DJ Support: Dimitri From Paris, Dave Lee, DJ Spen, Danny Krivit, Simon Dunmore, Seamus Haji, Grant Nelson, Brian Tappert, Opolopo, Cj Mckintosh, Tedd Patterson and more...

Veteran Italian DJ Corrado Alunni makes his debut on Groove Culture 7 with “Any Time” and “Soul Groove” . Both tracks are floor-filler, packed with incredibles guitars grooves, Chucky bass lines, evil Rhodes chords, funky saxophones and flutes loops. A must Have for funky Lovers!

IZIPHO SOUL is thrilled to release the epic “HIGHER POWER”- better still these are unearthed and unheard versions, especially commissioned for this 7” release.

Paul Tillman Smith wrote, produced and assembled the cream of Bay Area musicians - Featuring the legendary late greats - Freddie Hughes, Pharoah Sanders and Calvin Keys.

Freddie Hughes powerful tenor voice is ’Dripping with soul’ and at it’s captivating best - the warm tones of Pharaoh Sanders’ tenor saxophone intertwines with the harmonic richness of the backing vocals, making this an immense piece of music!

There’s a special kind of feeling when everything falls into place - when the drums bounce easy, the bassline rolls steady, and a bright guitar line cuts through the warmth of tape. That feeling became the heart of the FULLNESS, from Marcus I meets aDUBta. The sound of FULLNESS is built on simple, living elements: real drums, deep bass, a warm sound, and melodies that leave space to breathe. It moves between Early Reggae, Rocksteady, and Roots - sometimes straight and solid, sometimes stretching out into Dub and Echo. With its voice, from singer and lyricist Marcus I, FULLNESS carries the message about gratitude, love, freedom, and the small moments of everyday life. While Marcus’s singing style nods to the great singers, he stays grounded in his own experience, which perfectly complements aDUBta’s production, giving him space to shine. This LP is a complete, warm, balanced, and uplifting experience from start to finish.

FULLNESS grew from a steady musical exchange between Marcus I and aDUBta - two people on different sides of the Alps (Marcus I in France and aDUBta in Germany), finding a shared rhythm. What began in early 2022 with a few Riddims sent back and forth soon turned into a regular flow of songs. Every week brought new ideas, new words, and new melodies. When they finally met in person at aDUBta’s Attic Roots Studio in Bavaria, Germany, it all fell naturally into place. Most of the instruments were played by aDUBta, and the whole LP was mixed live on his Tascam 388, keeping that raw, handmade feel. With several friends helping bring even more color into the music, aDUBta brought in Viti Sanchez to lend his expressive saxophone and horn lines, Michael Salvermoser with his warm trombone tones, and members of the Black Oak Roots Allstars - King HuHa and Jannis Klenke on bass and guitars, along with Morry 'Da Baron' (Dub Inc.) on bass. FULLNESS means the fullness of music, of life, of friendship, of gratitude. It’s what happens when music becomes more than a project - when it turns into a shared space where things just flow.

Fresh for 2026, Something System Records returns with its second four-track EP, showcasing a carefully curated selection of forward-thinking underground sounds from across the DnB and jungle spectrum.

A1 – Creativity
Oxford-based producer SR makes his label debut with Creativity. Having already built a strong reputation through multiple vinyl releases and production collaborations with JEMONE on Metalheadz, SR delivers a powerful opener defined by tense atmospheres, razor-sharp drum programming, and weighty sub-bass. Designed to move both dancefloors and minds, this is a standout introduction.

A2 – 3 Times Around The Sun
Duburban & Peeb return to Something System Records for their second appearance following a prolific period of releases on some of the scene’s most respected labels. This track channels lush, uplifting pads reminiscent of the golden era of Good Looking Records, underpinned by warm sub frequencies and expertly edited drumfunk breaks that evolve beautifully throughout. A deeply musical and rewarding listen.

B1 – Fresh Outlook
Bristol-based producer Loma returns to the imprint with Fresh Outlook, a finely crafted 140 BPM jungle roller. Featuring intricately layered breaks, precisely placed subs, and an immersive atmospheric backdrop, the track takes the listener on a dynamic journey. With previous releases on John B’s BETA Recordings, Loma continues to demonstrate a bright and promising trajectory.

B2 – Tell Em Purdie
Closing the EP, Something System Records proudly welcomes Pixl to the label for the first time, collaborating alongside Duburban & Peeb. A seasoned producer with releases on numerous highly respected DnB labels and founder of Loop Progression Records, Pixl brings depth and experience to this jazz-infused finale. Smoky club atmospheres, textured breaks, deep subs, saxophone lines, and a spoken-word sample referencing a legendary drummer combine to deliver a rich, soulful conclusion to the EP.

Something Very Bad is Going to Happen is a brand new 2026 Netflix horror series produced by the Duffer Brothers, the creative minds behind the global hit Stranger Things. From the Executive Producers of Stranger Things, and the Director of Baby Reindeer, Something Very Bad is Going to Happen is on Netflix from March 26th. Created by Haley Z. Boston.

The music for the series is composed by Grammy Award-winning musician and composer Colin Stetson, renowned for his idiosyncratic use of saxophone in his projects. He has collaborated with acclaimed artists such as Bon Iver, Arcade Fire and The National, amongst others. Scoring Something Very Bad is Going to Happen builds on Stetson's extensive experience in film and game music. He has composed soundtracks for films like the psychological horror Hereditary (2018) and the dark thriller The Menu (2022), as well as the epic Rockstar game Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018). For this series, Stetson delivers a suspenseful soundtrack, perfectly complementing the Duffer Brothers' signature storytelling. A must-have release for fans!

The soundtrack of Something Very Bad is Going to Happen is available as a limited edition on red vinyl and includes an insert.

Originally released in 2003, With A Heartbeat brings together Pharoah Sanders, Bill Laswell and Graham Haynes in a collaboration that remains as elusive as it is forward-thinking. Now reissued by Glossy Mistakes, the album receives its first official vinyl edition, remastered and available both in standard black and a limited burgundy pressing.

At the core of the record lies an unusual but striking element: the steady pulse of a human heartbeat. Rather than a conceptual gesture, it becomes the foundation of the music itself-treated as a deep, bass-like rhythm that anchors the entire album. Around it, Laswell builds his unmistakable sonic world, drawing from dub techniques where basslines expand, dissolve, and re-emerge, and where space becomes as important as sound.
Across its extended compositions, the album unfolds slowly and deliberately. Layers of electric sitar, guitar, keyboards and subtle percussion drift in and out, creating a fluid, almost tidal movement. The heartbeat remains present throughout, grounding even the most abstract passages in something physical and immediate.

At the center stands Sanders' saxophone-searching, expansive, and deeply spiritual. His playing moves freely across the structures, at times echoing the lineage of John Coltrane, while also reaching beyond it. Alongside him, Haynes adds a complementary voice, weaving through the shifting textures.

The result is a work that resists easy definition: part spiritual jazz, part future-facing experiment, shaped by dub's sense of space and transformation. Meditative, immersive, and deeply rhythmic, With A Heartbeat unfolds like a living organism-guided not by fixed tempo, but by the pulse of life itself.
With this release, Glossy Mistakes continues its work of bringing essential and forward-thinking recordings into new formats, preserving their depth while opening them to new listeners.

Originally released in 2003, With A Heartbeat brings together Pharoah Sanders, Bill Laswell and Graham Haynes in a collaboration that remains as elusive as it is forward-thinking. Now reissued by Glossy Mistakes, the album receives its first official vinyl edition, remastered and available both in standard black and a limited burgundy pressing.

At the core of the record lies an unusual but striking element: the steady pulse of a human heartbeat. Rather than a conceptual gesture, it becomes the foundation of the music itself-treated as a deep, bass-like rhythm that anchors the entire album. Around it, Laswell builds his unmistakable sonic world, drawing from dub techniques where basslines expand, dissolve, and re-emerge, and where space becomes as important as sound.
Across its extended compositions, the album unfolds slowly and deliberately. Layers of electric sitar, guitar, keyboards and subtle percussion drift in and out, creating a fluid, almost tidal movement. The heartbeat remains present throughout, grounding even the most abstract passages in something physical and immediate.

At the center stands Sanders' saxophone-searching, expansive, and deeply spiritual. His playing moves freely across the structures, at times echoing the lineage of John Coltrane, while also reaching beyond it. Alongside him, Haynes adds a complementary voice, weaving through the shifting textures.

The result is a work that resists easy definition: part spiritual jazz, part future-facing experiment, shaped by dub's sense of space and transformation. Meditative, immersive, and deeply rhythmic, With A Heartbeat unfolds like a living organism-guided not by fixed tempo, but by the pulse of life itself.
With this release, Glossy Mistakes continues its work of bringing essential and forward-thinking recordings into new formats, preserving their depth while opening them to new listeners.

EP2 Limited 2 x 12" Vinyl & Digital Release The second digital and vinyl EP from Brian Jackson and Masters At Work’s highly anticipated ‘Now More Than Ever’ project is a masterclass in soulful innovation, musical legacy, and collaborative excellence. Carefully curated and expertly packaged for true fans, this release brings together extended versions and rare cuts that were simply too expansive, deep, and powerful to fit on the forthcoming triple LP — but far too important not to be heard. The double pack also includes the title track off the forthcoming album ‘Now More Than Ever’, a brand-new, never-before-heard track birthed organically during the energy and creative momentum of the recording sessions. It stands as a testament to the spontaneous brilliance of Jackson, MAW and their collaborators, capturing a moment of pure musical inspiration. The EP features seven tracks, including reimagined and extended versions of classics such as Kenlou Cult Classic ‘Moonshine’, Jackson and Heron’s ‘Lady Day and John Coltrane’, and ‘Home Is Where the Hatred Is’, plus a deep focus on ‘Racetrack in France’ — first recorded by Brian Jackson and Gil Scott-Heron in 1977 for their landmark Bridges album. Highlights include: The MAW (Masters at Work) Live Mix of ‘Moonshine’, featuring former Midnight Band/Amnesia Express multi-instrumentalist Carl Cornwell on saxophone. A sprawling 12" version of ‘Home Is Where the Hatred Is’ — a jazz-fuelled dancefloor reinterpretation blending political fire with sonic elegance. The 12” version of ‘Lady Day and John Coltrane’, featuring Rahsaan Patterson’s soulful vocal performance set against a lush, cinematic arrangement. A masterful reworking of ‘Racetrack in France’ featuring legends Josh Milan, J. Ivy, and Moodymann, each bringing their distinct voice and flavour to this seminal piece. The instrumental version is also included in this 2 x 12” EP. Whether you're a long-time devotee of Brian Jackson and Gil Scott-Heron’s influential catalogue, a DJ or collector chasing rare wax, or a new listener drawn to future-leaning soul and jazz, Now More Than Ever ‘EP Two’ is an essential release — a bridge between the past, present, and the music still to come.

For the first time EVER on 7" single come two of Don Blackman's most classic tracks from the 1982 album "Don Blackman" for GRP. multi-keyboard wizard Blackman played with the biggest names in fusion music including Lenny White & "Twenny-nine". As a leader and featured recording artist Don's keyboard, vocal and composing talents all came to shine on the debut LP from which these two songs are taken.
Don has toured the world with his band and "The Marcus Miller Band", "The World Saxophone Quartet", with jazz and bassist Tuero Nakamura.. His work on the acoustic piano and other keyboards was recorded on Mary J. Blidge's, "Feel Like A Natural Woman" and Janet Jackson's "That's The Way Love Goes"

With this new remix EP, The Lovers explore different shades of disco and house through a carefully balanced and personal approach.

The opening track sets the tone with a playful and hypnotic groove, built around arpeggiated patterns and a steady modern rhythm. A female spoken vocal, instantly recognizable from Italian television culture of the 1980s, takes center stage, while a smooth saxophone line adds a sensual, cinematic layer.

The second cut moves into deeper emotional territory. Beginning with a restrained atmosphere, the track slowly builds tension through a rebuilt bassline and a solid house pulse, eventually opening into a more expansive and powerful moment on the floor.

A warmer disco-driven piece follows, focused on groove and feeling. The original spirit is preserved, while a heavier low end gives the track new confidence and presence within a contemporary club setting.

The EP closes with an elegant house reinterpretation inspired by French pop sensibility. A melancholic melodic theme and subtle references to tango shape the final moments, blending emotion and rhythm with a refined sense of flow.

A concise collection of remixes for selectors drawn to groove, memory and understated elegance.

Saxophonist and producer Ben Vince announces the release of his sixth album, Street Druid, the first in almost six years via AD 93.

Street Druid merges acoustic, manipulated and electronic sound and it has saxophone, synth, voice, guitars and drum machine, and features drum kit from Moses Boyd. It features artwork by Byzantia Harlow. It is at once tender, psychedelic and fierce. It is not interested in genre or category. It lasts just under 45 minutes.

A prelude for the future, hands join to cast a peace spell. Consciousness is vast water seeking divine essence and meaning where colours merge and refract. The street druid walks through the night, a benevolence in the darkness, guiding you home. Immersed in noise, life can feel empty, like hollow vessels, a sentient interlude. At times we are found in Gaia’s rhythm, kinetic and rebuilt, transcending through the impact of sound on the body. Every moment is a new change, a new challenge, a new life, we must ride the wave if we are not to be caught adrift or drown. Trying to keep hope intact, we must not retreat into fear, recognise we all live here in Longville and stop the fire before it engulfs us all.

Kin Gajo is a Brussels based electro-acoustic jazz trio drawing inspiration on the one hand from J Dilla and Flying Lotus, and on the other from the sound of British jazz artists such as The Comet Is Coming, Yusef Dayes, and Alfa Mist. With their atypical instrumentation-accordion, saxophone, and drums-the trio has developed a sound entirely of their own, with the accordion often resembling a heavy analog synthesizer.



DJ and producer Lefto featured Kin Gajo on his compilation Lefto Presents Jazz Cats Volume 3, positioning the trio at the forefront of the young Brussels jazz scene. The music clearly demonstrates how original and vibrant the results can be when elements of contemporary jazz merge with diverse influences from a metropolitan melting pot.



With Tsuki ?, Kin Gajo releases their first full-length album.

"Next up in Mr Bongo's Groove Merchant Records reissue series, we present the only solo album saxophonist Ramon Morris recorded as a bandleader. Having cut his teeth playing with the iconic band Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers and working with other jazz greats, including Reuben Wilson, Shirley Scott, Rashied Ali Quintet, and Woody Shaw, 1973 saw Ramon take the step into solo territory. The resulting album Sweet Sister Funk became a certified classic and a landmark showcase of the cherished ‘70s jazz-funk sound, later sampled by the likes of DJ Premier, The Alchemist and DJ Shadow.

Originally released on Sonny Lester's iconic Groove Merchant record label and produced by Lester himself, Sweet Sister Funk is a jazz-funk masterclass. It features a slick line-up including Cecil Bridgewater on trumpet, Mickey Roker on drums, and Albert Dailey on electric piano. Rich and beautiful, the seven songs ebb and flow in energy, fusing jazz funk and soul jazz with style and swagger. There are bags of groove with Ramon and Cecil trading off on sax and trumpet in an effortless conversation throughout the LP, supplemented by brilliant solos from the rest of the players.

A gold mine of sampling material, the album includes a sublime cover version of The Stylistics' much-loved 'People Make The World Go Round', which was sampled by DJ Shadow on Blackalicious's 'Swan Lake' in 1994. Elsewhere, the percussion and bass intro of the opening track 'First Come, First Serve' is a sampler's delight - a deep, heavy groove with a fine saxophone workout by Ramon. Head to 'Don't Ask Me' and you’ll find the swinging horn intro that formed the basis of 'You Came Up' by Big Pun featuring Noreaga from 1998, whilst 'Wijinia' has echoes of ‘70s indie jazz by labels such as Strata East & Black Jazz.

Here at Mr Bongo, we are proud to be delving into the vaults of Groove Merchant Records once again, reissuing this iconic LP from Ramon Morris."

Dragutesku’s new EP "Tenebre" immerses listeners in a dark sonic universe, featuring four tracks that explore obscure energies through deep basslines and rhythmic layers. The title track pulses with acid synths and ethereal vocals, while "Ciclon" creates a sonic storm with spatial effects and fleeting snippets. "Contrabass" offers an organic groove with violins and saxophone, and "Macabru" combines glitching piano with punchy drums for an intense storytelling experience. Hypnotic and atmospheric, "Tenebre" showcases Dragutesku’s evolving sound, captivating the mind, body, and soul.

Released in limited numbers in tandem with Black Mahogani back in 2004 and never repressed. Black Mahogani II was a departure from Kenny Dixon Jr's usual house based music and featured cuts from Kenny Dixon Jr's late night jazz band sessions
The centrepiece is the eighteen minute 'When She Follows', a deep jazz session skittering live drum rolls into an electric Fender Rhodes, loping acoustic bass and distant saxophone all wrapped up in an amorphous vocal that drifts ever onwards like some epic detroit techno cut replayed by Gil Scott Heron's band in 1970. Incredible music.
'Rectify' follows in a similar mode, jazz in a detroit techno framework, while the final two tracks 'Dirty Little Bonus Beats' and 'When She (Reprise)' are revisions of the main cut, the former altering the bassline, adding vocal sighs and more rhythmic drums, while the latter shifts up the tempo with a wigged out techno synth element.
Stone, cold.

Pharoah Sanders has been described as ‘probably the best tenor player in the world’, emerging as a star from playing saxophone with John Coltrane in the 1960s. As a solo recording artist he is best loved by fusion fans for the jazz dance classic “You’ve Got To Have Freedom”. It’s taken from his 1980 album “Journey To The One” featured here for the first time on the complete side of a 12” single.
“Got To Give It Up” is Pharoah’s outstanding rendition of the Marvin Gaye classic. It has previously been on 7” but never until now in its full length version on 12” single. It was originally a feature on the 1978 album “Love Will Find A Way” produced by Norman Connors. To have both of these masterful recordings on one 12” single is something special.

Ambroos De Schepper and Pepijn Gyssels became roommates when PiP moved to Brussels in 2021. Both paid close attention to each other’s musical approach and interests. One year later, Ambroos moved out. When he swung by to pick up some boxes, they decided to record something for the fun of it. Between May '23 and November '24 they continued experimenting with textures and improvisations. This collaboration has become the deepening of a friendship and a way to maintain it at the same time.

PiP: “We would have coffee or the occasional beer and everything we recorded came very organically. Ambroos would just bring his saxophone, a clarinet, some FX pedals or a weird flute. Whatever he felt like on that particular day. A few hours later he would usually be on his way again, leaving me with the recordings. I could treat them as I pleased.”

Ambroos: “I liked the idea of working with someone focussing on the physical side of music. Not so much on chords and tonality, but on texture and atmosphere. This gave me a framework with less concrete references, using words like “dark” or “busy”. I could improvise freely and we would try and catch a particular moment."

“l’Esprit de l’Escalier” is meant to be a musical meditation, opening up a continuous and detailed sound palette, aimed for the right mental state to listen with. Ambroos came up with the melody in COVID times and later in PiP’s studio, they recorded it on clarinet.
“Sans Loup” is the first jam the duo did together, after Ambroos and Lou moved out of the apartment they shared. Lou Wéry eventually found her way back to the album, as she can be heard playing the wing piano in this track.

PiP: “We recorded in the apartment we used to rent together. Since the title track and the entire album are named after Lou being absent in this dynamic, it seemed only natural to invite her in a later stage.”

“Spring Whistle” was an attempt to embed Ambroos’ musicality in dreamy textures and “Bring Back Bones” was built around an endlessly evolving krakeb recording that PiP took home from on a trip to Morocco. Both tracks are not aimed to end or evolve drastically, they just make the clock tick slower.

To conclude this release, “Velours de Tendre” is built out of a deconstructed groove and a field recording of the “Ronde van Vlaanderen”, a small reference to the countryside where PiP grew up. The reverberating chords you hear are the echoes Tijn Driessen squeezed out of an old harmonium, in a staircase of De Grote Post in Ostend.

PiP: “During a residency in De Grote Post we recorded in a staircase with a spaced pair of omni microphones. And you can take ‘spaced’ quite serious; one was positioned 5 stories higher and the other 3 stories lower.”

Sans Loup is the first vinyl to release on PiP’s label. They look alike, but none will be identical. The cover is screen printed in various combinations + a risograph insert. A highly personalized object.


credits

Released on Zitstill Records
Recorded in Brussels, Horebeke, Morocco and elsewhere, between September 2021 - November 2024

Music, mixing and production by Pepijn Gyssels
Saxophone, flute and clarinet by Ambroos De Schepper
Grand piano on “Sans Loup” by Lou Wéry
Harmonium on “Velours de Tendre” by Tijn Driessen
Mastering and lacquer cut by Anne Taegert at Dubplates & Mastering
Pressing by Objects Manufacturing
Layout and graphic design by Liselotte Van Daele & Otis Verhoeve
Photography by Willem Mevis

Special thanks to: Stijn Cools, Victor De Greef, De Grote Post

MOb return this November with their second album on Veego Records, continuing the adventurous journey they began with their 2023 debut MOb 1. Hailed by the press as one of the boldest and freshest statements in the Greek scene, their first record moved seamlessly between jazz, punk, and electronic forms, creating a sound often described as “an entire orchestra played by just three musicians.”

On their new release, Marios Valinakis (saxophone, effects, synthesizers), Alexandros Delis (bass, double bass), and Panagiotis Kostopoulos (drums) construct an even more intricate and ambitious sonic universe. The compositions range from the explosive energy of “Tipping Point” and the dark atmospheres of “Utu and Sin”, to the radical reimagining of Wayne Shorter’s “Fall” and the polyphonic outburst of “The Listener”, featuring the Kos Choir.

Guest appearances further expand the palette: Phillip “Felipe MC” Manev lends his voice to “Tipping Point” and “Encounters”, while Angelos Polychronou enriches “Encounters” and “The Listener” with his percussions.

The album was produced and recorded by MOb themselves, with Bruno Ellingham handling mixing and mastering for most tracks, while “Utu and Sin” was mixed by Malcolm Catto at the Quatermass Sound Lab. The cover artwork is designed by Apostolos Mitrelis, and the back cover features a photograph by Maciej Moskwa.

If MOb 1 revealed a band capable of fusing free improvisation with rhythm-driven “bangers” that reached audiences beyond Greece, the new album confirms their evolution: more intense, more diverse, and more imaginative. With one foot rooted in tradition and the other firmly in the present, MOb deliver a work that breaks boundaries and builds bridges across genres and audiences, solidifying their reputation as one of the most exciting groups in today’s Greek music scene.

MOb return this November with their second album on Veego Records, continuing the adventurous journey they began with their 2023 debut MOb 1. Hailed by the press as one of the boldest and freshest statements in the Greek scene, their first record moved seamlessly between jazz, punk, and electronic forms, creating a sound often described as “an entire orchestra played by just three musicians.”

On their new release, Marios Valinakis (saxophone, effects, synthesizers), Alexandros Delis (bass, double bass), and Panagiotis Kostopoulos (drums) construct an even more intricate and ambitious sonic universe. The compositions range from the explosive energy of “Tipping Point” and the dark atmospheres of “Utu and Sin”, to the radical reimagining of Wayne Shorter’s “Fall” and the polyphonic outburst of “The Listener”, featuring the Kos Choir.

Guest appearances further expand the palette: Phillip “Felipe MC” Manev lends his voice to “Tipping Point” and “Encounters”, while Angelos Polychronou enriches “Encounters” and “The Listener” with his percussions.

The album was produced and recorded by MOb themselves, with Bruno Ellingham handling mixing and mastering for most tracks, while “Utu and Sin” was mixed by Malcolm Catto at the Quatermass Sound Lab. The cover artwork is designed by Apostolos Mitrelis, and the back cover features a photograph by Maciej Moskwa.

If MOb 1 revealed a band capable of fusing free improvisation with rhythm-driven “bangers” that reached audiences beyond Greece, the new album confirms their evolution: more intense, more diverse, and more imaginative. With one foot rooted in tradition and the other firmly in the present, MOb deliver a work that breaks boundaries and builds bridges across genres and audiences, solidifying their reputation as one of the most exciting groups in today’s Greek music scene.

Chalice Sound next release as a music label is ready!

Following the six tracks previously released under the project MAFIA & FLUXY "MEETS" CHALICE SOUND, it's time for a brand new 7” record with Dean Fraser & Matic Horns. 4 Reggae Legends unite in this new instrumental song.

In addition to the riddim makers that are the backbone of this project; Mafia & Fluxy, this time we have 2 of the greatest Reggae Horns that exist: Dean Fraser on the saxophone & Matic Horns on the trombone.

On the B side we’ll find the track on its Riddim version, a Sound System hit for the best sessions.

A song standing for freedom in this times of war and tribulations; music against slavery & oppression, against racism & inequality.

After years of work, the two labels established by members of the Spanish sound, Cosme Deyah Productions and Infini-T Music merge together for the creation of a series of releases available on digital platforms and some vinyl singles:

Mista-T (Infini-t Music) and Cosme Deyah (Cosme Deyah Productions) have been working together for many years and now by joining efforts, Chalice Sound (est. 2000) is ready for its first releases as a music label.

This project include singles and their dub versions, having all riddims composed by the legendary Reggae musicians Mafia & Fluxy, arrangements by Maga Lion (Emeterians) and mixed by Mario Olivares (Daddy Cobra) at Cobra Studio, Madrid, Spain.

Promises is an extraordinary, collaborative album by the electronic giant Floating Points and saxophone titan Pharoah Sanders. The album features the London Symphony Orchestra and cover art by the acclaimed American artist, Julie Mehretu. Five years in the making, it will be released on Luaka Bop, March 26, 2021. The album is composed and engineered by Sam Shepherd aka Floating Points, who's second album Crush earned Best New Music from Pitchfork and a major feature in the New York Times, and placed him on several 2019 critics lists. His debut album Elaenia, released by Luaka Bop, was another Best New Music pick and hailed as one of the best debuts of the decade. It is also the release that made Pharoah Sanders want to work with him in the first place. A restless, ever- evolving producer and composer, Shepherd has toured with the xx, and also holds a doctorate in neuroscience. For Pharoah Sanders, who recently turned 80, this is a rare outing and his first album in fifteen years. One of the last icons of his generation, Pharoah performed with John Coltrane on his late-career free jazz masterpieces, and released a string of expansive recordings under his own name for the Impulse! label which have been cited as a pivotal influence by everyone from The Stooges to Marvin Gaye. Most recently, he was featured in a 2020 Supreme campaign. The music unfurls, patiently, over nine movements, and 46 ever-undulating minutes. It's a work of pure feeling, like no other record you'll hear this or any other year.

The album delivers masterful arrangements, inventive rhythms, rich harmonies, and a perfect balance of flute and saxophone interplay. Funk, Jazz, Gospel, Afro, and traditional elements all merge seamlessly into something unique and timeless.
Joshua Sithole (1947–1999) was a self-taught multi-instrumentalist and vocalist from South Africa who first started busking with the Kwela kids in 1959 and then went solo in 1978. He became popular in the 80’s, performing widely in Durban and Cape Town.

Originally released in 1975, this overlooked masterpiece is now reissued for the first time by Voom Voom Records — the first 500 copies include a poster of Vladimir Tretchikoff's painting, "The Pennywhistlers" which captures the beauty of Joshua's playing.

“Joshua Sithole, Errol Dyers, and Jonathan Butler come from some of the most influential and esteemed musical families in South Africa. You cannot write about Jazz in Cape Town and not mention some of these families and their contributions to the art form.” — Fanie Jason (Music Photographer - Cape Town)

"South African spiritual funk gem. slick guitar, banks of horns" - Chris Albertyn (Matsuli Records)
"Dynamic South African funk. An album that will make you want to dance from start to finish" - Franck Descollonges (Heavenly Sweetness)

Two years after making their bow via a fine contribution to the Claremont Editions 3 compilation, Nuremberg’s Neumayer Station are ready to drop their debut full-length excursion, the mesmerising and immersive Crossings.

The brainchild of drummer-turned-producer Michael Kargel, a musician with a bulging CV that includes stints in various German indie-pop and rockabilly bands, Crossings was co-produced and mixed by Frank Mollena (best known to Claremont 56 fans as the man behind the Fürsattl and Bambi Davidson projects), with additional contributions by Alexander Sticht and an impressive roll call of guest musicians plucked from Nuremberg’s vibrant musical underground.

Recorded at different points over the last three years, the eight tracks showcased on Neumayer Station’s inspired debut album draw influence from the hypnotism of classic German ‘kosmische’ recordings, the freewheeling and stoned headiness of CAN, and the gently unfurling beauty of sun soaked Balearica. Kargel, Mollena and their collaborators set the tone with opener ‘Unterführung’, where Sticht’s layered and sonically hazy vocalisations rise above space-rock guitar motifs, droning analogue synth sounds, languid bass and slow-motion drum breaks. With effects aplenty and all manner of melodic electronic flourishes, it’s a deeply psychedelic and mind-expanding affair.

‘Nalut’ follows, with Kargel’s own atmospheric howls and whistles cannily combining with sun-bright tropical guitars, echoing chords and delay-laden saxophone solos riding the dub-flecked, low-slung groove. The collective’s Balearic influences are explored in more sonic detail on ‘A Gentle Flow’, a shuffling and soft-focus affair marked out by emotive piano & jazz guitar, brushed percussion, sunrise-ready synths and pleasingly stretched-out electronic textures. Neumayer Station return to this drifting, morning-fresh and eyes-closed sound later in the LP, via the wonderous ‘Von der Morgenröte’.

The heady influence of spaced-out dub production techniques comes to the fore on ‘Bassrutscher’, an Alexander Sticht co-production rich in Americana-influenced guitar textures, metronomic dub bass, rim-shot heavy drums, mazy organ and orange-hued sundown sounds. It ushers in the more up-tempo shuffle of ‘Zielgerade’, an inner space, out-of-mind affair whose driving but loose-limbed groove provides a platform for exotic, droning and otherworldly guitar, sax and synth sounds. As with all great albums, Crossings gently builds towards a triumphant and memorable conclusion. The spacey Balearic/kosmische crossover of ‘Feeling Forst’, where darting intergalactic synth sounds rub shoulders with gentle acoustic guitars in a hallucinatory soundscape, tees up closing cut ‘Crossings’, the krautrock-rooted, sax-sporting slab of enveloping late-night beauty that first introduced listeners to Neumayer Station back in 2023. It’s a fitting conclusion to a staggeringly good debut album.

First Word Records are very proud to bring you 'Ghouls', the 6th studio album from Bastien Keb.

Through the reflective and introspective multi-mood journey of its 19-tracks, this album spans psychedelic-chamber-funk, warped anti-ballads, cinematic instrumentals, Ethio-jazz & ethereal ambience.

Part soundtrack, part beat-tape, part memoir, this is a dreamlike soundscape sewn together from half-forgotten memories & late night breakdowns.

Entirely sample-free, this album is full to the brim with musical experimentation, with Keb's compulsion to make all the individual pieces of music independently; combining strings, harps, saxophones, theremins, clarinets, flutes and trumpets.

He signals to the fuzzy, nostalgic nebulous of mid '90s skate videos, as well as harking back to the scores & moods of movies like The French Connection, Taxi Driver, The Warriors and La Haine. There are whispers of sounds in the air from jazz clubs, street preachers & Turkish restaurants.

Keb describes the sonic experience of this album simply as this… "You're half awake, and half asleep, but you're warm…"

For this 19-track opus, Keb is joined extensively by Malik Ameer Crumpler; a poet, composer, editor and professor based in Paris, who's been involved in numerous albums while writing for various forms of experimental media.

A multi-instrumentalist originally from the Midlands, Bastien Keb (aka Sebastian Jones) previously released his highly-acclaimed album '22.02.85' on First Word back in 2017; this new album being a very welcome return to the Worldwide Award-winning UK independent label.

His music has been widely supported across BBC Radio in the past by DJs including Gilles Peterson, Huey Morgan, Huw Stephens, Jamie Cullum, Lauren Laverne, Mary Anne Hobbs, Nemone and Tom Ravenscroft. This is in addition to glowing press reviews from the likes of Pitchfork, The Guardian and The Line Of Best Fit.

He's built up a steady fanbase through his extensive catalogue over the years, with material for labels like Def Pressé, Gearbox, One-Handed Music and most recently for Shabaka Hutchings' Native Rebel Recordings imprint, on a collaborative project with South London's Confucius MC (Speakers Corner Quartet).

Keb concludes "this record is for anyone feeling lost in a world that seems to have lost itself without knowing it. It's for the people who know that the world is missing the beauty of the lights in the distance, whilst being distracted by new shoes and flashy phones..."

'Ghouls' is due to be released on vinyl & digital worldwide, November 14th 2025.

A duo concert featuring universal artist and activist Moor Mother and Archie Shepp was planned for October 19, 2023, at the Enjoy Jazz Festival. However, a spinal disc operation on the then 86-year-old saxophone legend led to the cancellation of this eagerly awaited world premiere – and to a spontaneous demonstration of respect.
To honor the great Archie Shepp, one of the most influential intellectuals in jazz, an Enjoy Jazz all-star cast spontaneously recorded a tribute song during the festival – organized by festival director Rainer Kern. The line-up consisted of Nicole Mitchell, the most important flutist in the history of jazz, as well as the Enjoy Jazz “Artists in Residence” for 2023 and 2024, Moor Mother (spoken word) and Nduduzo Makhathini (piano).
In her lyrics, the poetess creates a powerful linguistic monument to Archie Shepp, whom she greatly admires, by playing with the titles of the saxophonist's legendary recordings (instead of with him himself). The title “One For Archie” is an allusion to Shepp's 1964 Impulse debut, “Four For Trane,” which, according to “Jazzwise”, is one of the “100 Jazz Albums That Shook The World.” In her moving text, Moor Mother also celebrates Shepp's political and social commitment.
The way Moor Mother rhythmically and aesthetically picks up on Shepp's unique playing style, which oscillates between rugged clarity and deep humanity, begins to improvise on it, and thereby creates new connections, is impressive proof of her masterful artistry. Her recitation is peppered with haunting dramatic climaxes that give listeners goosebumps due to their authenticity.
The B-side features “They've Got A Plan,” a song that is like a beacon. An intense and powerful invocation of “Agenda 2063,” a master plan of the African Union to transform the continent socially, economically, and politically.
Both tracks are available on vinyl for the first time.

Indian Summer of Love finds The Bongolian immersed in a new set of sounds and influences for a new Belle Epoch. It’s a musical landscape informed by the Sixties psychedelia of India via a Haight Ashbury happening.

It’s a kaleidoscopic vision that takes us from a 20th century Fin de Siècle and lands us in the here and now of the 21st Century. It’s for dancers, for seekers and is all underscored by The Bongolian’s trademark heavy rhythms and breaks. It’s another fine instalment of essential cuts for the dancefloor and for high fidelity listening, quality is guaranteed.

From the East to the West, welcome to the Indian Summer of Love. Nasser Bouzida performs drums, percussion, guitars and keys whilst the album features several new flavours to the Bongolian sound with the prominent instrumentation of sitars and bansuri, along with flute, trumpet, saxophone and trombone performances from several stellular international guest musicians.

An’archives is proud to present Hanabi, a compilation of material from legendary Japanese folk singer, actor and writer, Kazuki Tomokawa. Hanabi draws from Tomokawa’s three most recent albums, Vengeance Bourbon (2014), Gleaming Crayon (2016) and Going To Buy Squid (2024), all released in Japan only on the Modest Launch imprint. Pulling together highlights from these three extraordinary albums, Hanabi collects ten songs of shattering intensity, with Tomokawa performing at an ecstatic peak, a mere six decades into his musical career.

Tomokawa’s life story is one of change, risk and dedication. He appeared on the Japanese folk music circuit in the early 1970s, performing at such significant events as the legendary 1971 Folk Music Jamboree. Over the second half of the decade, he released five stunning albums that cemented his reputation as an expansive, lyrical singer-songwriter and performer whose music jack-knifed between pensive melancholy and righteous fury. His recorded output slowed in the 1980s as he became immersed in theatre, acting and painting, but his connection with the sainted Japanese label P.S.F. led to a prodigious burst of albums across the 1990s and 2000s.

Some of those albums had Tomokawa playing alongside free jazz musicians, such as his long-standing collaborator Toshiaki Ishizuka (Brain Police, Vajra, Cinorama), and late double-bass improviser Motoharu Yoshizawa. Some of that spirit can be found amidst the songs on Hanabi, leavened by a more romantic sensibility on a song like “Night Play”, where Tomokawa’s impassioned vocals and guitar swim and bob amongst a drifting string arrangement. The ferocity of “To The Dead Man” is reinforced by a guest appearance, on saxophone, by upcoming free jazz player Harutaka Mochizuki; the two spar with each other while Hiromichi Sakamoto’s cello and electronics swarm under the surface.

For those who’ve missed the three albums that Tomokawa has released across the past fifteen years – understandably so, given the relative impossibility of finding them outside of Japan – Hanabi is a welcome re-introduction to one of Japan’s most significant, poetic and quixotic folk singers and songwriters. As Michel Henritzi notes in his typically perceptive liner notes, capturing the oneiric and unique spirit of Tomokawa’s song, he is nothing less than “a poet who cries out, opening the darkness and shadows with his song, throwing handfuls of ashes from lives that have fled into the wind, to us, his fellow human beings.”