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2025 Repress


Australian music devotees András and Instant Peterson hold a candle to overlooked avant-pop and electronic works by antipodean artists and outsiders working through the 80s and 90s. Through co-presenting weekly radio show Strange Holiday, the duo slowly upturned their locale for inspiration - archives, country bookstores, private collections and convenience stores, searching for a place to anchor their own identities in the oceans of the island continent. The 10 tracks acknowledge a minor history, passed on via a network of friends, friends of friends, the libraries of radio station 3RRR and more often than not, the artists themselves. Renowned mixed media artist Maria Kozic enters with the mysterious downbeat of Trust Me, her husband Philip Brophy responsible for digital and analogue sonic construction. A recurring character in András and Instant Peterson's investigations, Brophy reappears with a score piece from his divisive feature film Salt, Saliva, Sperm and Sweat, recorded as (pronounced 'Tch Tch Tch"). Other links are thread under the surface. Melbourne inner north experimentalist David Chesworth explores his Australiana songcraft leading Whadya Want. The short lived project also featured Philip Jackson, whose husband-wife duo The Couch is restored from Fast Forward's dance issue - a pioneering cassette fanzine published by early-80s 3RRR personality Bruce Milne.

In 2000, after almost two decades of hibernation under the ambient waves and dub currents of the Sargasso Sea, LSD revived the seminal ‘Auntie Aubrey's' series, an Orb Remix Project. Released as a 2 x CD compilation, Part 3 is a veritable smorgasbord of classic, new and unreleased labour-of love remixes that span three decades yet still transcend space and time.

Many influential artists have been involved with The Orb since the beginning, and the project keeps evolving and adapting. Dr. Alex Paterson, the gravitation centre of the Orb is known for his playfully subversive remixes and true to form this album highlights the diversity of his musical mind.

We see the good doctor remix the melancholy and evocative “The Last Lighthouse Keeper” from The Transit Kings, an early British electronic music group that included Jimmy Cauty of The KLF, one of the original members of The Orb. The remix of ‘Davy Jones’ Locker’ from System 7 takes you surfing on a sun-dappled sea of ambient dance nostalgia, while Killing Jokes’ ‘European Super State’ remix (in which LSD label founder Martin ‘Youth’ Glover plays bass guitar) sounds like the soundtrack for an imaginary spy thriller with the powerful lyrics and hypnotizing voice of Jaz Summers.
Legendary producer Youth teams up with Lx yet again on a psychedelic rocker with spellcasting vocals by Lara Smiles, and this is just the beginning! Boasting an all-star lineup, the compilation includes many of our scenes most esteemed electronic music producers such as Coldcut, David Harrow, Sendelica and Gaudi as well as the ambient blissed out vibes from the enigmatic DF Tram, Duende India Collective and The Gyuto Monks of Tibet, this collection offers up such the variety to appease even the most dedicated Orbsessives and music connoisseurs

Hara Discs is proud to present the first EP from Sheffield-based DJ Harry Shackleton, co-owner of Grub Records and one half of DJ duo Wow & Flutter. This release draws influence from their longstanding residency at underground electro party Control., melding together sounds which have made this one of the North of England’s best kept secrets for the past 7 years. In an extremely long-winded and uncertain move, he has finally donned his rather fetching production hat and completely self generated the alias Hypno Disc with which he aims to unleash some music that is 100% OK.

The EP and alias are a homage to the late 90s and early 00s TV show Robot Wars. The title track combines the carnage of Craig Charles with something a bit UK and tribal. The remaining tracks bear the names of robots which took part in the wars. These are written from the perspective of the robots and as such are internal monologues of what each robot was thinking. The concept comes from an early fascination with this show and how it made the artist feel as someone growing up in the UK around 2000.

We hope you enjoy this release. Complaints will be tolerated.

CEASE!!!

“Sacred Aeolian music capturing and harnessing the divine power of the wind”

Aeolian Harp is somewhere between a string instrument and a receiver. Its strings are agitated by the wind without any human interference, producing tones entirely of its own volition. Archer toured the British Isles setting up his harp in various sacred and loosely mystical locations. Where he let the Devaharp transmit an otherwise unknown sacred music that has ALWAYS existed around us.

Listening to the natural swells of the strings and their unusual tonalities, the billowing wind and bird song overhead, it feels divinely calm and comforting. Something like tapping into the natural resonance of Mother Gaia or being back inside the womb.

DELUXE 2LP REISSUE
Housed in it’s original gatefold sleeve with original inserts, 2 new special colour inner sleeves, a new 2026 insert and a BONUS UNRELEASED album recorded in 1983 on Robert’s previously UNHEARD pyramid-shaped Aeolian harp the DEVAHARP 2.

A space is often described by its dimensions. The height of the ceiling, the expanse between walls. Division into functional elements of varying density follows. We have ideas of how such dimensions should be balanced to work well for sound — the classical concert hall, a Northward mastering room.

It’s tempting to try and use this idea of space to understand Space the group (Lisa Ullén, Elsa Bergman, Anna Lund). To calculate their cartesian co-ordinates: dynamics that run from whisper soft to punishing, shaking force; Ullén’s piano running the full expanse of the frequency spectrum; the mix of sudden, surprising and suggested variations in density (the space) that generates their musical structures.

But (a) space is a social phenomenon where meaning is accumulated and possibilities created by and through a constantly shifting set of social relations and their histories and entanglement inside and beyond the physical structures of a room or building. Reduced to its raw dimensions, Cafe OTO shouldn’t sound good: the low ceiling, the hollow void underneath the stage-not-stage, the hard glass windows out onto the street. But OTO as a social space — for gathering close to listen; the serious pursuit of a convivial good time (its productive mythology that an OTO audience is both up for it but also expects more); and then the idea of all that has happened before and what will come; that this is also part of ‘the music’ and changes what sounds to the point that none of those cartesian co-ordinates matter.**

It’s less of shock that Space sound good. Lisa Ullén is easily the most singular pianist in Sweden right now and Elsa and Anna’s ability to reroute in realtime reaffirms just how well they function as a group. The trio might have got their shit together holding down the rhythm section for the first incarnation of Anna Högberg Attack — but much like Högberg’s ongoing pursuit of artistic renewal, the trio avoid being shackled to any ideas about what a piano trio should be and there is something that happens (happened) in that room, on that night, with those people that made for something beyond just good.

It’s a gift that the sound of every concert at OTO gets recorded. A choice handful of these transcend their decoupling from that social space and radiate the room’s attendant energies. This record is one of them.

** See Jack Halberstam in Fred Moten & Stefano Harney, The Undercommons (2013): “…we must refuse the idea that music happens only when the musician enters and picks up an instrument; music is also the anticipation of the performance and the noises of appreciation it generates and the speaking that happens through and around it, making it and loving it, being in it while listening."

A quick scan of the world’s favourite crowdsourced discography reveals that Sonic Youth co-founder Lee Ranaldo was not a total stranger to crackling electric experimentation in the years following his songwriting turns of the 20-teens. Yet »The System«, ingeniously culled and sequenced from Ranaldo’s soundtrack work for Dutch filmmaker Joris Postema’s ›eco-doc‹ of the same name, nonetheless feels like a reawakening. Quietly released in a vastly different (and much more ›filmic‹) form by Doxy Music/Riva Media Records in 2025, this LP reimagines and reconfigures the initial release, including unreleased material written and recorded for the film, to lend it new stature as both a return to drone-improv form and a reunion with introspective Downtown angst.

Given the state of the world, it’s not surprising that the film Ranaldo scores – a documentary on three climate activists bruising their fists on the black iron prison of techno-fascist deathkultur – is a study in despair and futility. But rather than wallowing in navel-gazing doom and gloom, the film documents the unstoppable spirit that has animated human resistance since the time of the Pharaohs.

As it turns out, the gorgeous scope of Lee Ranaldo’s guitar palette is a perfect manifestation of the hope and despair that animates the film. But like other high-water marks in the guitar-centric soundtrack canon – the high plains raga of Bruce Langhorne’s »Hired Hand«, Neil Young’s sparse and ghostly solo transmissions on »Dead Man«, or the monolithic mantras of Popol Vuh’s »Nosferatu« – its devotion to spectral gestures and meditative song forms launches it firmly outside of the OST orbit into a universe fully its own.

It might seem like a long journey from the Lower Manhattan rhythmic grime of the album’s opener »Tajikistan (Nice to Meet You)« (reminiscent of guitar opuses like Robert Quine and Jody Harris’s »Escape«) to the ringing cowboy chords of the final track, but the narrative logic of the LP pulls the listener along as solidly as a pack horse. As the LP unwinds, and collaborators like Jim Jarmusch, cellist Leila Boudreil, Yeah Yeah Yeahs snare shaman Brian Chase, and guitarist Yonatan Gat take their places, new vistas unfurl: the ritualistic thrum of »Berlin Blockade«, the haunted overtone palaces of »Bergelmir«, and the cavernous acoustic strumming of »Instruments of Violence«. It all winds up with the high lonesome standard »Cool Water«, each unhurried note trailing off into long-tail reverb, layers of shifting vocal harmonies pulling everything skyward – a hopeful note in an album where existential dread never lurks too deeply below the surface.

In the end, »The System« functions both as a film score and a hallucinatory (mostly) instrumental guitar record, revealing a sensibility not too often spotted in the 21st century – a liminal space where the song, the jam, and the meditation merge into a blurred whole. »The System«’s expansive fabric, emerging from a collective sound circling around Ranaldo’s signature tones, envelops and ampl amplifies the contributions of its community of creators – the perfect antidote to narcissistic despair. Much like the subjects of the film light the way towards intra-generational resistance, the music of »The System« reveals a path through gathering darkness. The world could be yours if you follow.

– Tom Carter

A quick scan of the world’s favourite crowdsourced discography reveals that Sonic Youth co-founder Lee Ranaldo was not a total stranger to crackling electric experimentation in the years following his songwriting turns of the 20-teens. Yet »The System«, ingeniously culled and sequenced from Ranaldo’s soundtrack work for Dutch filmmaker Joris Postema’s ›eco-doc‹ of the same name, nonetheless feels like a reawakening. Quietly released in a vastly different (and much more ›filmic‹) form by Doxy Music/Riva Media Records in 2025, this LP reimagines and reconfigures the initial release, including unreleased material written and recorded for the film, to lend it new stature as both a return to drone-improv form and a reunion with introspective Downtown angst.

Given the state of the world, it’s not surprising that the film Ranaldo scores – a documentary on three climate activists bruising their fists on the black iron prison of techno-fascist deathkultur – is a study in despair and futility. But rather than wallowing in navel-gazing doom and gloom, the film documents the unstoppable spirit that has animated human resistance since the time of the Pharaohs.

As it turns out, the gorgeous scope of Lee Ranaldo’s guitar palette is a perfect manifestation of the hope and despair that animates the film. But like other high-water marks in the guitar-centric soundtrack canon – the high plains raga of Bruce Langhorne’s »Hired Hand«, Neil Young’s sparse and ghostly solo transmissions on »Dead Man«, or the monolithic mantras of Popol Vuh’s »Nosferatu« – its devotion to spectral gestures and meditative song forms launches it firmly outside of the OST orbit into a universe fully its own.

It might seem like a long journey from the Lower Manhattan rhythmic grime of the album’s opener »Tajikistan (Nice to Meet You)« (reminiscent of guitar opuses like Robert Quine and Jody Harris’s »Escape«) to the ringing cowboy chords of the final track, but the narrative logic of the LP pulls the listener along as solidly as a pack horse. As the LP unwinds, and collaborators like Jim Jarmusch, cellist Leila Boudreil, Yeah Yeah Yeahs snare shaman Brian Chase, and guitarist Yonatan Gat take their places, new vistas unfurl: the ritualistic thrum of »Berlin Blockade«, the haunted overtone palaces of »Bergelmir«, and the cavernous acoustic strumming of »Instruments of Violence«. It all winds up with the high lonesome standard »Cool Water«, each unhurried note trailing off into long-tail reverb, layers of shifting vocal harmonies pulling everything skyward – a hopeful note in an album where existential dread never lurks too deeply below the surface.

In the end, »The System« functions both as a film score and a hallucinatory (mostly) instrumental guitar record, revealing a sensibility not too often spotted in the 21st century – a liminal space where the song, the jam, and the meditation merge into a blurred whole. »The System«’s expansive fabric, emerging from a collective sound circling around Ranaldo’s signature tones, envelops and ampl amplifies the contributions of its community of creators – the perfect antidote to narcissistic despair. Much like the subjects of the film light the way towards intra-generational resistance, the music of »The System« reveals a path through gathering darkness. The world could be yours if you follow.

– Tom Carter

Dich lieb ich, Erde! trauerst du doch mit mir! Und unsre Trauer wandelt wie Kinderschmerz In Schlummer sich und wie die Winde Flattern und flüstern im Saitenspiele

The third stanza of Friedrich Hölderlin’s poem ‘Dem sonnengott’ evokes a narrator who is tortured by Spleen until slumber makes his childlike gloom disappear with music. Although today’s readers might judge these nineteenth century musings of the Imagination as mere stylistic platitudes, they also still speak beyond the grave as universal truths. A mere two hundred years later similar anxieties and hopes are still channeled through various art forms, with changing success and reverberation. Brannten Schnüre are one of those neo-romantic music experimentalists who add to a long tradition of celebrating folk tale and exoticism. Their meticulously crafted loops, hesitant melodies and heavily nostalgic lyricism could easily be translated to what the late philosopher and music critic Mark Fisher called ‘hauntology’, a postmodern longing for a lost future. To describe the beauty of ‘Geträumt hab’ ich vom Martinszug’, however, the term seems somewhat dissatisfying. Romanticism is a hard nut to crack in the Anthropocene, and Brannten Schnüre’s realms of the cerebral are too deeply ingrained in a German tradition of story telling to define them within popular paradigm.

‘Geträumt hab’ ich vom Martinszug’ was recorded in 2014 in Würzburg and functions as the autumn part of the band’s seasonal cycle quadrilogy (the other segments being ‘Aprilnacht’ (SicSic), ‘Sommer im Pfirsichhain’ (Aguirre) and ‘Durch unser zugedecktes Tal’ (Youdonthavetocallitmusic)). It deals with the Saint Martin’s parade, a mostly European tradition to celebrate the medieval spirit of Saint Martin of Tours, friend of children and patron of the poor. Around 11 November children come out on the streets with lanterns and sing ancient songs in exchange for sweets. It’s a period of snugness and expectation, of yearning and dreaming, and therefore a consummate subject for the duo to scrutinize.

To the adult’s ear the dream of the Saint Martin’s parade isn’t all that consolatory. The dark and slow loops of Christian Schoppik rather sound like motifs for a welcome paralysis. Sometimes as a gentle backdrop for vocals by Katie Rich and Schoppik himself, the repetitive structures serve as tricksters that trade innocence for the uncanny. The dream becomes a fever dream which quickly absorbs the listener into a vacuum, an eternal post-panic attack semi-relief. Maybe that’s the amazing paradox of Brannten Schnüre. The space they occupy is never comforting – as if being locked up inside a Carl Grossberg painting – but it’s also a subliminal aural zone you do not want to leave. It’s music as being, as a stream, devoid of climax or catharsis. And because it is flux and being, and exists to be taken, it speaks in art’s purest form. ‘In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art’ Susan Sontag famously concluded her essay ‘Against Interpretation’ with. Well, look no further …

Environments are sticky, they stick to whatever happens within them. They can’t help it. And neither can you.

Land of the Few and Far Between / Songs for St. Michel is a collection of musical ‘figures’ written and recorded in 2022 and 2023 using a method Lyckle and Kim call the ‘snelkookpan’, translated as the pressure cooker. The ’snelkookpan’ in essence is trying to write and live-record as many musical figures in a given timeframe in a specific place. For ‘Land of the Few and Far Between’ this was an afternoon and evening in an exhibition Kim had curated about collecting and memory in The Hague. For ‘Songs of St. Michel’ this was 6 days in the basement of an art institution in Maastricht where they were joined by Otto de Jong on guitar. The figures are usually worked out by ear, sometimes improvised, sometimes written down, but often they are simply remembered and soon after recording forgotten. For ‘Land of the Few and Far Between’ they recorded ten figures. For ‘Songs for St. Michel’ fifteen. Of each a selection of five ended up on this seven inch.

F. van Abeelen (one of whom’s drawings is pictured on the sleeve of this seven inch and of whom 750 drawings were part of the exhibition mentioned above) was forced as a boy to hide in a basement for years. Only a small window gave access to the outside world. That sliver was his reality. After these years in hiding he began drawing his sliver of reality obsessively. Daily series of similar drawings that he would meticulously catalogue in an organizer. We never met F. Our friend who discovered the drawings in a closet of psychiatric nursing home Dorestad never met F. We only recorded ten musical figures next to 750 drawings by F.

St. Michel is a house that stands on the outskirts of Maastricht. It is built on the floodplains of the river Maas and living there you see the river change daily. It is a river fed by rain. No rain means a low river. Rain means a river that sometimes comes frighteningly close to flooding. Which it sometimes does. Due to the ebb and flow of the Maas, stuff is deposited in the boggy areas that are its floodplains. A shoe, a CD, a drone, some wood.

Places impress themselves onto what you are doing. You become an unwitting prop in the place’s story.

The first ‘snelkookpan’ happened in 2017 in the water-basin of one of the earliest concrete structures in the Netherlands; a bunker that was part of Amsterdam’s defensive line, built around the 1890’s. Something that used to house water was now empty. For three days Kim and Lyckle recorded improvised music there, which is still alive on a hard drive somewhere. In 2020 they recorded ‘the third of May’ at an old pumping station in Den Helder; an eleven part piece of auditory historical-horror which was released by South of North in 2024. Since 2023 Lyckle and Kim have mainly recorded live shows. With a Clarinet, kawai K1, Ipad, organelle, samplers and a variety of instruments curated for their minimal size or odd sound they’ve made chains of brief and improvised mini compositions inspired by browsing environments (digital and otherwise).

Land of the Few and Far Between / Songs for St. Michel adds to this growing collection of recordings for environments that are somehow sticky.

Almost Starlight is the extraordinary new album by Jem Finer (hurdy-gurdy) and John Matthias (violin). Produced by Jay Auborn and recorded in a Medieval Church, deep in the Devon countryside, in the Summer of 2025, the music is suffused with light, heat and the natural acoustics of the space.

The album defies categorisation; forced to pigeon hole it the nearest approximation would be ‘modern-classical’ but this ignores its myriad influences and explorations which encompass inspiration from Arvo Pärt through Terry Riley to Can via Delius, Alice Coltrane and a subtle reimagining of electronic music played purely with acoustic instruments, bending and shaping their possibilities in surprising and unexpected directions.

Jay Auborn plays cello on a number of the compositions and his production opens up and expands the music through a skilled and imaginative use of space, paying homage to the atmosphere of the church; ‘the sound evolved… chasing the imagined acoustics of that church in my mind; a place for worshipping light with sound.’

Almost Starlight will be released on the 4th September by Touch, available as CD, vinyl, cassette and on streaming platforms.

BIOS OF THE ARTISTS

Jem Finer

Since studying computer science in the 1970s, Jem Finer has worked in various fields, including photography, film, experimental and popular music, sound recording, sculpture and installation.

Much of his work relates to systems, extended processes and extremes of scale and includes Longplayer, a musical composition repeating once every 1000 years, and the Gurdy and Hurdy stones, ancient rocks set upright in fields in East Sussex and Gloucestershire with Jimmy Cauty. Their work together includes a band, The Standing Stones, whose most recent release is Twa Sisters, featuring Iona Zajac and Daragh Lynch.

He was a founder member of The Pogues, with whom he has played, written and recorded since 1981.

Recent music revolves around a fascination with the hurdy-gurdy and includes hrdy-grdy, a cassette released by Benedict Drew’s Thanet Tape Centre. His latest collaboration, with John Matthias, Almost Starlight, will be released by Touch in September 2026.

John Matthias

Since studying Theoretical Physics in the late 1980s and 1990s, John has created music and sound in many forms, including for installation, popular music, music for film, for dance and orchestra.

Much of John’s work plays with the physics of complex systems but he is also greatly influenced by stories and song. John has collaborated with Matthew Herbert, Stanley Donwood, Jay Auborn, Radiohead, Thom Yorke, Nick Ryan and many others to create music with a variety of textures and sonorities. He is particularly interested in simplicity and form and how context informs the way music sounds.

His latest collaboration, with Jem Finer, Almost Starlight, will be released by Touch in September 2026.

DJ DIE SOON is the apocalyptic alter-ego Daisuke Imamura, whose performances of masked malice have been a fixture in the Berlin underground for the past decade. His latest record My Brothel The Wind takes inspiration from Sun Ra at his most grotesque, conjuring a distorted phantasmagoria with an eclectic crew of compatriots like Rully Shabara, Sara Persico, and longtime collaborator Kiki Hitomi. Film director Hiroo Tanaka’s visual contributions in the album art, poster, and music video complete the album’s narrative, telling a story not of villainy but of phantom caprice in a dying world.
My Brothel The Wind shows DJ DIE SOON as an alchemist of distortion, transmuting the club-forward beats of his 2020 debut Kappa Slap and the seething horrorscapes of DIEMAJIN, his 2022 collaboration with Tokyo vocalist MA. Imamura’s obsession with noise stems from his upbringing in Tokyo, where he grew up hearing the deafening roar of trains every day. “The buildings were really tall, so the sounds reflected so much and it was so loud that you couldn’t even have a conversation on the phone. Hearing this noise every minute when living in this flat, it became a normal thing,” he says. While most would content themselves with avoiding loudness, DJ DIE SOON seeks to unpack its visceral potential.
DJ DIE SOON’s subterranean productions form a monstrous gestalt with the eclectic contributions of his network of co-conspirators. “Unfinished” and “Directions” are pulsating chimeras that highlight animalistic vocalizations from Hitomi and Shabara; Italian MC Franco Franco’s verses snake underneath the noisy onslaught. The tectonic textures of “Dandelion Crackers” are courtesy of multi-instrumentalist Laure Boer’s handmade stone synth. Sara Persico’s mangled vocables hang as fleshy reminders of human fragility on “SAQ4IME”; in the Hiroo Tanaka-directed music video, the track’s sonic uncanniness is made cinematic, with an ambient dread that references Hiroshi Teshigahara’s 1964 psychological thriller Woman in the Dunes.
While Sun Ra’s intergalactic Moog reached for the stars, DJ DIE SOON plunges into the depths of hell. “Everybody, Shake Your Body, We Chill At Party” feels like the sonic equivalent of a wax museum burning to the ground, rigid smiles melting into the fire. Rather than a vision of the future, My Brothel The Wind is a laugh-cry of despair in the face of a Hadean present. DJ DIE SOON confronts the world with a new hand-made mask, reborn in the ashes.

Ed Nine hails from the birthplace of house and brings plenty of Windy City magic to this EP on Spanish label MATE. It's deliciously emotive tackle drenched in meaningful pads and, in the case of opener 'Feel It In Your Soul', an aching vocal sample that really sets it alight as the organic drums jack down low. 'Free Acid' is a stomping workout with prickly 303 lines defining the peak time vibe, then 'Out Of Line' cuts back into a more sunny sound with synths rising up through the mix and bringing joy. Closer 'The Drum Tool 3' is just that - a raw jam to help you get the floor locked in while moving through the gears.

Andreas Tilliander returns to Kontra-Musik in a grand style with his second TM404 album. Titled 'Acidub', this highly anticipated release is much more of an evolution than a repetition of the first superbly self-restricted album, where Tilliander even decided to use only one of the two Roland TB-303 waveforms. Acidub is a more playful and open listening experience, no doubt inspired by his extensive live touring with the TM404 concept. In fact, you can almost hear Tilliander's flock of acid machines breaking free from the restrained modus operandi. Every sound is like a migratory bird with a heart yearning for high altitude and favourable winds. The opening track Alinge paints a lucid picture of these acid birds leaving a cold industrial landscape behind, the flickering black shadows from their wings against the white smoke rising from a forest of chimneys below. The very last seconds of Alinge even echo of the place the silver birds are longing for, but that will remain a secret between Kontra-Musik and the avid listener. Sufficient to say, we can follow these birds of passage as they're heading south towards a warmer climate, fleeing the cold discipline of the North. Mutron Mantra, for instance, brings us to a rainforest full of serpentine lianas, giant leaves dripping with moist and green pools of water bubbling with organic life. Don't Defend Mascot guides us through a steaming savannah at dusk with hundreds of yellow eyes following our every step while Pade vividly describes the perils of the flight and the pace and courage needed to press on. In all, Acidub is a surprisingly exuberant follow-up to the more introspective TM404 album. But while the musical journey of this second album is quite different, the experience of sheer aural eminence remains the same. Andreas Tilliander has done it again, and Kontra-Musik couldn't be prouder.

2026 Repress

Italian-Iranian DJ/producer Sciahri lays down a deeply hypnotic seven- track EP on return to Mutual Rytm. Heading up the agenda-setting Sublunar label, which is one of Mutual Rytm boss SHDW's personal favourites, Sciahri has been deep in the scene for more than a decade ever since he turned heads with a debut on Ilian Tape in 2014. Well respected for his carefully balanced love of the classic sound with new school influences, always delivering cuts with a refined and personal touch, highlighted and showcased via his widely-loved ‘Pareidolia’ release series. Returning on the label following his appearance on the ‘Federation of Rytm IV’ compilation, he lands with a freshly evolved EP that kicks off with the much hyped ID, ‘Moonwake’. That cut is built on robust, rumbling drums and layered up with flashy synths that bring stark futurism to the dance floor. ‘Liminal’ follows a similar linear path with musical drums and synths that twist and twitch, firing your synapses while your body is locked to the rhythm, before ‘Night Sentinel’ transports you to a more eerie world of anxiousness and tension - the synths are spooky, and the sonar pulses keep you on edge as immersive drums race nonstop. ‘Unmoved’ lands heavy, the bulky kick drums coming on like a storm with howling synth winds adding to the all-consuming atmosphere. ‘Too Much Time’ closes out with a wall-rattling groove and subtle synth motifs that creep in the shadows. As always with the label, digital cuts ‘Silent Frontier’ - which gets dancers on their toes with a backlit synth glow - and ‘Louisiana’ - which brings a more psychedelic energy and hard, hammering groove, rounding out a stylish, meticulously produced offering.

2026 Repress

What an unbelievable record. From the wild cover to the iconic breakbeats, Roots from Ian Carr’s Nucleus is one of the dopest albums we know. This is seriously thick, funky-prog jazz-rock heaven. Originally released on Vertigo in 1973, other than a couple of versions at the time for other territories, Roots was never re-pressed since so it’s gone on to become another one of those impossible to find records.

Maybe it was a little too out there for the time, but it’s aged very, very well indeed and this Be With re-issue, re-mastered from the original analogue tapes, shows off just why this deserves to be back in press.

Genius trumpeter and visionary composer Ian Carr was one of the most respected British musicians of his era. He was a true pioneer and saw the potential in fusing the worlds of jazz with rock, just as Miles Davis and The Tony Williams Lifetime did in the US. In late 1969, following the demise of the Rendell-Carr quintet, and tiring of British jazz, Carr assembled the legendary Nucleus. Regarding music as a continuous process, Nucleus refused to “recognise rigid boundaries” and worked on delivering what they saw as a “total musical experience”. We can get behind that.

Under bandleader Carr, Nucleus existed as a fluid line-up of inventive, skilled musicians. This constant evolution and revolution was all part of the continuous musical exploration and discovery that took jazz to new levels.

Working together with producer Fritz Fryer and engineer Roger Wake, the seven compositions by Carr, Brian Smith and Dave MacRae that make up Roots flirt with perfection, and Nucleus at that time made up of the cream of 1970s UK jazz with Brian Smith on tenor saxophones and flutes, Dave MacRae on piano and electric piano, Jocelyn Pitchen on guitar, Roger Sutton on bass, both Clive Thacker and Aureo De Souza on drums and percussion, Joy Yates delivering the vocals and of course Carr on trumpet.

The spellbinding title track immediately renders the album indispensable. Riding the illest of loping breakbeats, “Roots” is low-slung, doped-out heist-funk. An absolute monster. If it sounds familiar then that’s likely down to it being sampled by Madlib for Lootpack and Quasimoto’s “Loop Digga”, as well as by a whole host of beat manipulators. “Roots” conjures prime instrumental hip-hop / beat music, only 20 years ahead of its time. Truly, these are the roots. Through sinuous bass, twinkling keys and a hypnotic guitar riff, a smoky brass motif weaves its way into a gloriously deep haze around Carr’s solos. “Roots” is over 9 minutes long, but there’s not a single wasted second, not surprising given that this is a condensed version of an originally 40 minute long commissioned composition.

The soothing vocal fusion delight of “Images” follows. Meticulously constructed, with gorgeous flute work from Brian Smith, with Joy Yates’ silky vocals and Dave MacRae’s Rhodes never sounding better. The cool, driving “Caliban” closes out the first side. Originally the third movement in a four part commission to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday it stands up on its own, all robust rhythms and blended brass. Keyboard colour and Carr’s trumpet are splashed across the funk drums and basslines (and there’s even some bamboo flute). This really is fusion: the elements of jazz and rock coming together in beautifully synthesis.

Side two opens in riotous fashion with the short, thrilling samba of “Wapatiti”. Next up, “Capricorn” forms a smoothed-out, jazzy constellation. Mellow and dreamy, its twinkling percussion and languid horns slowly build the vibe before head-nod drums and a killer bassline enter the fray. With a distinct heaviness that Black Sabbath would’ve envied, “Odokamona” is a venomous slice of riff-soaked jazz metal (yes, you read that right), elevated by Carr’s wah-wah horns.

The album closes with MacRae’s exceptionally cosmic “Southern Roots and Celebration”. Very much in conversation with Weather Report, it opens as a languorous, spiritual jazz of chiming keys and serene guitar that turns slowly, gorgeously into a mid-paced, brass-laced banger. It’s another sure-fire party starter and the sound of the band having a righteous blast, building an ecstatic chaos that ends with Yates screaming.

And of course we need to talk about Keith Davis’ cover for Roots. Perhaps the coolest record cover of all time? Certainly one of the most bonkers. Just your run-of-the-mill high-gloss, acid-tinged airbrush dystopian/utopian living-room party scene. Consider this your chemical flashback trigger warning.

Front-and-centre the hip-to-death green robot holds court with their giant ball of yellow barbwire wool, hooked up to… something(?) being teased out from under the stairs (probably best not to ask). A thoroughly zoned-out, long-legged Pop Art party-goer lounges half-plugged in to the painting behind her as a pair of legs flail into shot from the the top of the stairs opposite. We won’t even begin to guess what the chap’s up to in the middle, but the view out of the windows is rather nice, and someone’s already got the hoover out ready to tidy up. All of the Nucleus sleeves are something special, but this particular one? Crikey.

This Be With edition of Roots has been re-mastered from the original Vertigo master tapes, Simon Francis’ mastering working together with Pete Norman’s cut to weave their usual magic with these wonderful recordings. The crazy cover has been restored at Be With HQ as the finishing touch to this long overdue re-issue.

Once upoun a time Fat Mike came up with the idea of calling up 101 of the best old and new punk rock band around, have them each record a 30-second long song, then put all the tracks out on one record to make the best punk compilation ever. And guess what, the dream came true. The 101 most famous punk rock bands around doing each a 30 seconds long song Back in print for the first time in ten years! Pressed to Lime Vinyl Features super rare songs (recorded exclusively for this compilation) by Green Day, The Offspring, Blink- 182, Pennywise, Rancid, Less Than Jake, The Vandals, Bad Religion, and more

There is a hush most of us only knew as children, the warm drift between familiar household sounds and being carried to bed, a place that belongs to you and to some self you have not met yet. June McDoom’s debut full-length, Follow the Light, lives in that dream space and then keeps walking, slipping out of time and waking somewhere new, barely familiar enough to feel like home yet wholly your own. She came up in a Jamaican household on the edge of the Florida Everglades, an existence built of extended family, communal care, bass and harmonics. Her father, a carpenter and a student of sound, built his own speakers and kept three sound systems going across as many rooms. His low end would rise through her bedroom floor like some wayward cat while she lay above it with folk records, finding harmonies that were new and hers alone. Two musics in one room. Lushness as past and premonition. She found folk on her own, somewhere between the cast recording of The Sound of Music and Simon and Garfunkel, while everyone around her called it sleepy music. She did not mind being the only one. The solitude let her fall for harmony first, before words, before anything else, and harmony is still the thing she reaches for. Generationally speaking, the music was already in the air. Her grandfather, Colin Smith, is a distinguished mento man who played banjo and guitar and built his own rumba boxes, worked to keep Jamaica’s oldest acoustic folk form alive. Mento is the root of all of it: ska, rock steady, reggae, dub and everything after. He is the one who put a guitar in her hands. An inheritance, a gift and a map. Even her name is part of it, though she will tell you she landed on it more by feel than reason. She records as June McDoom, born Alyssa, June being a nickname one of her grandmothers, Joan, went by, a name she thought was cool to carry and simply liked the sound of. An etheric channel that reverberates all the same. A dub all its own.


Made slowly and by hand with her longtime partner Evan Wright, Follow the Light lays the harmony of folk over the rhythm of dub, with Dionne Warwick, Minnie Riperton, Pentangle and the washed guitars of Cocteau Twins haunting its outer edges. Voice and guitar seeking each other out first, then everything else stacked across long days in the studio they keep at home, restraint kept on purpose. The lead single “Without You” is the whole method surfacing, split open and sparkling like a geode in a creek bed. Angelic heroics, and nothing less.


At the heart is family. Her grandmother Aggie, the light behind “Memory,” guiding still. And underneath, the quieter truth the record keeps: none of us are only one person, but a continuum of selves, the ones who shaped us and the ones we have yet to meet. Future you is an ancestor your current self gets to greet. Press play and the same invitation is yours: A few minutes out of time, a place that turns familiar the longer you stay until you surface somewhere new and find it was yours all along

There is a hush most of us only knew as children, the warm drift between familiar household sounds and being carried to bed, a place that belongs to you and to some self you have not met yet. June McDoom’s debut full-length, Follow the Light, lives in that dream space and then keeps walking, slipping out of time and waking somewhere new, barely familiar enough to feel like home yet wholly your own. She came up in a Jamaican household on the edge of the Florida Everglades, an existence built of extended family, communal care, bass and harmonics. Her father, a carpenter and a student of sound, built his own speakers and kept three sound systems going across as many rooms. His low end would rise through her bedroom floor like some wayward cat while she lay above it with folk records, finding harmonies that were new and hers alone. Two musics in one room. Lushness as past and premonition. She found folk on her own, somewhere between the cast recording of The Sound of Music and Simon and Garfunkel, while everyone around her called it sleepy music. She did not mind being the only one. The solitude let her fall for harmony first, before words, before anything else, and harmony is still the thing she reaches for. Generationally speaking, the music was already in the air. Her grandfather, Colin Smith, is a distinguished mento man who played banjo and guitar and built his own rumba boxes, worked to keep Jamaica’s oldest acoustic folk form alive. Mento is the root of all of it: ska, rock steady, reggae, dub and everything after. He is the one who put a guitar in her hands. An inheritance, a gift and a map. Even her name is part of it, though she will tell you she landed on it more by feel than reason. She records as June McDoom, born Alyssa, June being a nickname one of her grandmothers, Joan, went by, a name she thought was cool to carry and simply liked the sound of. An etheric channel that reverberates all the same. A dub all its own.


Made slowly and by hand with her longtime partner Evan Wright, Follow the Light lays the harmony of folk over the rhythm of dub, with Dionne Warwick, Minnie Riperton, Pentangle and the washed guitars of Cocteau Twins haunting its outer edges. Voice and guitar seeking each other out first, then everything else stacked across long days in the studio they keep at home, restraint kept on purpose. The lead single “Without You” is the whole method surfacing, split open and sparkling like a geode in a creek bed. Angelic heroics, and nothing less.


At the heart is family. Her grandmother Aggie, the light behind “Memory,” guiding still. And underneath, the quieter truth the record keeps: none of us are only one person, but a continuum of selves, the ones who shaped us and the ones we have yet to meet. Future you is an ancestor your current self gets to greet. Press play and the same invitation is yours: A few minutes out of time, a place that turns familiar the longer you stay until you surface somewhere new and find it was yours all along

2026 Repress

On Left At Sunset, Tornado Wallace taps into those fragile, glowing moments after a long night in the club, when the lights come up just enough, the bass softens, and the first hint of morning slips through the windows. Time feels suspended.
The lead track Asahi Ga Yondeiru (“the morning sun is calling”) captures that feeling perfectly. Built around Courtney Bailey’s gentle vocal, it drifts somewhere between late-night house and early morning reflection. It is not about the peak. It is about what comes after it. That quiet euphoria when you realize the night gave you something you will carry back into the real world. The rest of the EP stays in that same emotional zone: warm, slightly melancholic, but full of light. These are tracks for the very last dance, when the floor is half-empty, hearts are wide open, and every sound feels a little more meaningful. Not an ending, really. Just the beginning of whatever comes next.

For more than two decades, AJJ has been writing albums that attempt to make sense of an increasingly confusing world. And the Arizona band has repeatedly succeeded, somehow managing to find the small traces of hope and beauty buried in the wreckage of a decaying planet. But on their ninth album, Dirty Old Power, they are coming to terms with the fact that they may no longer have the words to express it all. In fact, the proper words of communication may not even exist anymore.

Dirty Old Power takes stock of this surreal moment in American history where the post-World War II power structures of capitalism have given rise to full-on techno-fascism, and where humanity is being displaced by data centers, VR headsets, doomscrolling, and artificial versions of our loved ones.

To capture the disparate array of unique styles that make up Dirty Old Power, AJJ returned to Animal Rites studio in Los Angeles to record with their pal, Grammy-winning producer John Congleton, who also produced 2014’s Christmas Island and 2016’s The Bible 2. And for the cover artwork, the band turned to Winston Smith, the legendary visual artist known most famously for his iconic designs and logo for Dead Kennedys.

Repress!

Dan Kye is the mysteriously evoked moniker from multi-instrumentalist, producer, and vocal sensation Jordan Rakei. The New Zealand-born artist - who now resides in London - presents his first long-player from Dan Kye, ‘Small Moments’, on Bradley Zero’s Rhythm Section INTL. An ode to the dancefloor, the musical project was born out of Jordan’s lockdown experience, created from the comfort of his own home. Recorded with just a laptop, extra live instruments and guest musicians, ‘Small Moments’ seamlessly transcends across electronica, jazz and funk, with each genre being effortlessly fused with Jordan’s melancholy vocals. Allowing himself to push the boundaries, Jordan’s Dan Kye moniker draws on the energetic and uplifting elements of house and techno and perfectly mixes it with the sultry vocals and emotion that come with the live elements we know and love from Jordan Rakei. The record offers listeners a journey through more floor-heavy tracks such as ‘Mogeri’ and ‘Raro’ to more groove infused offerings such as ‘Rainbow Road’ (which is named after one of the maps in Mario Kart and inspired by the energy of Prince’s iconic live concert at The Aladdin in Las Vegas), whilst tracks, like ‘Sober’, take on a more lyrical and anthemic feel.

Jordan Rakei: “Rhythm Section INTL was my entry point into dancefloor orientated music, and it was Bradley who asked me whether I could head in that direction so he could play my music out in the clubs. Dan Kye has still got melodies, but the main focus is to keep it high energy.”

After meeting Bradley Zero online whilst living in Australia, Jordan eventually moved to London in 2014. The same day he landed, he went straight to a Rhythm Section party to meet Bradley, and it was here that he first got a taste for house music. He enjoyed Rhythm Section INTL’s ability to draw on both live and electronic talent; and thus, after Bradley asked him for some productions for the parties, the idea for Dan Kye was born. ‘Small Moments’ is a musical masterpiece that can be enjoyed as much on the dancefloor as it can in the comfort of your own home and is a perfect step into Jordan’s landscape and idealism of dance orientated music.

Bradley Zero - “In around 2014 the proprietor of the famous Northside Records in Melbourne handed me a self released 12” from a new, unknown artist based in Brisbane. It was Jordan Rakei - Franklin’s Room. I’d been home almost a year before I actually got round to listening to it and I remember that moment like it was yesterday. I lay down on the sofa, put the record on and was transported! The Dan Kye project is a testament to the experimental and independent ethos Jordan lives by and is a product of an artist reaching full stride but not afraid to still try something new. This ‘Small Moments’ LP was conceived in a record store, born in a club on Rye Lane and is now flying the nest, throwing caution to the wind and making a bold statement.”

When the first JIM album Love Makes Magic was released in 2023, it was the end product of an experiment that had begun during the strange days of the pandemic. Cooped up in his studio, James Baron started fiddling about with an as-yet unnamed new album idea. It became Vicious Charm’s first LP release. Labelled variously as Balearic, folktronica, blue-eyed soul and Laurel Canyon, Love Makes Magic was perhaps all and none of those things: a record rooted less in Californian mythology than in Baron’s own musical world, somewhere between Sherwood, Nottingham, classic songwriting, electronic soul and the no-nonsense good times that have long run through his work under his other monikers (principally the anagrammatic Ron Basejam and, of course, Crazy P) One thing was indisputable, it connected with people... and still does.

The album was a minor hit, appearing in many a Best of 2023 chart and voted Album of the Year in Bill Brewster’s Furtive 50. A tour and a few memorable festival appearances – his 2024 We Out Here Festival being one of those wonderfully timed ‘moments’ - perfectly captured the horizontal vibes on the album, while injecting some live energy into its delivery. While there was a follow-up remix album for Love Makes Magic, JIM was already preparing a sophomore LP: “I wrote the majority of The Curious Case Of Existence in a couple of months at the beginning of 2024, then it was just a case of making the record over the next couple of years in between everything else.”

Building up from his multiple appearances on the label, one of our closest producers, Luca Durán, makes his full studio album debut on TraTra. This work is meant to showcase the vast world of influences the diasporic experience comes with: his rhythm-driven tracks coexist in high contrast, but fluidly, with the experimental and textures of his european school of sound. The title itself works amongst these two edges of Luca's aesthetic existence, the softness from the flight of a Mariposa with the harsh hit of a death blow.

Killing Mariposas is filled with seemingly clashing techniques, field recordings, acoustic instruments, and analogue synthesis, which converge with modern and forward-thinking production tools to build heavily layered music. Constructing an emotional narration from the contemplative to the euphoric. A sort of contextual shapeshifter, with hints of cumbia, grasps of reggaetón and dembow, but always submerged deeply in a windy and fragmented memory.

This whole project gets rounded up by the packed lineup of collaborators, both vocal features and production partners. Astute minds from distinct internet niches: Kelman Durán, Gavsborg, Iceboy Violet, Debit, Rosa Pistola, BEBE YANA, Kamohelo & Kacha.

One true reflection of Luca's production abilities and sonic poetry.

Dire Straits' arresting self-titled debut arrived in the midst of punk's reign but couldn't have been further removed from the era's slash-and-burn style. Recorded in West London in February 1978, the band's tasteful, jazz-inflected set embraces folk, blues, and pub rock while also tracing a direct line back to the beat-oriented sound of early rock n' roll. Country and roots accents further distinguish the British quartet's stripped-down music from any 1970s peers, as does the transparent production, which has remained revered among audiophiles the world over – and which has never been better than on this meticulous pressing.

Mastered from the original master tapes and pressed at RTI, Mobile Fidelity's 180g 45RPM 2LP version of Dire Straits features natural tonalities, superb balances, you-are-there imaging, deep-black backgrounds, and pristine clarity. Even if you've heard this album hundreds of times before, you've never experienced it with such lifelike sonics and premium richness. This numbered-edition collector's set immerses you within the smoky, laidback atmospherics of every song. This is how all vinyl should sound.

Crucial to every arrangement, Mark Knopfler's winding guitar lines emerge with supreme transparency and multi-hued textural detail. His intricate playing comes across as if it's being transmitted via his 60s-era Fender Vibrolux amplifier placed right before you. The cleanliness, dimensions, and live feel are that good. His bandmates, too, benefit from the extra groove space afforded by this 45RPM edition. Rhythms skate and swirl; percussive effects resonate with crispness and attack; the leading edges of notes naturally decay.

Dire Straits' strong, well-edited batch of original material further enhances the overall enjoyment and makes the record one whose pleasures go far beyond the organic sonics. Just as Knopfler's narratives pour forth with poetic and surrealist texts, the musical settings – an intoxicating combination of easygoing shuffles, back-hall boogies, and pop-honed ballads – mirror the old-fashioned soulfulness inherent in the classic recordings of the late 50s and early 60s. The lyrics are equally captivating.

Drawing from his time as a youth in Newcastle, Leeds, and London, Knopfler invests tunes with an autobiographical slant and emotional connectivity that become obvious the moment he opens his mouth to sing. "Down to the Waterline," "Wild West End," and "Lions" all feature colloquial touches that add to their reach. By extension, "In the Gallery" functions as a tribute to Leeds sculptor Harry Phillips (father of future Knoplfer collaborator, Steve Phillips) while the record's breakout smash, "Sultans of Swing," pays homage to struggling bar bands.


Through it all, Dire Straits performs with a subtle cool and clever poise that no band ever matched. Just how good is the chemistry? Bob Dylan heard the quartet and invited Knopfler and drummer Pick Withers to play on Slow Train Coming. But even Dylan himself didn't hear Dire Straits sound this magnetic back in its original heyday. Now, everyone can.

NOW Music is proud to present the newest addition to the ‘Yearbook’ series: NOW – YEARBOOK 1982. 3 LPs of 44 defining tracks that ruled the charts in 1982.
Featuring number 1s, including ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ (Survivor), ‘Ebony And Ivory’ (Paul McCartney), ‘Town Called Malice’ (The Jam), and 1982’s biggest seller ‘Come On Eileen’ from Dexys Midnight Runners.
1982 saw the first huge hits from a wealth of new artists including Culture Club, Wham! and Tears For Fears, as well as an incredible line-up from artists who had established their chart presence in the prior 18 months and would produce some of the greatest tracks of the decade; Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, ABC, Haircut 100, Soft Cell, The Human League, and a newly solo Adam Ant.
‘Fame’ was the TV phenomenon of the year, and Irene Cara’s theme from the original 1980 film enjoyed massive success.
As ABBA released their last singles for nearly 40 years, pure-pop from Bucks Fizz, Blondie, and Madness is celebrated alongside synth-pop gems from New Order, Simple Minds, Visage and Japan.
Leading artists from the punk scene enjoyed continued and renewed success, including The Stranglers, The Clash and Pretenders, whilst Foreigner, Meat Loaf with Cher, and Steve Miller Band provided radio-favourite rock and power ballads.
1982 saw a huge chart presence for dance music – from the hi-NRG of Boys Town Gang, to the electro-infused beats of Malcolm McLaren, and Rockers Revenge, the 1980’s disco of Shalamar, alongside soul classics from Marvin Gaye and Donna Summer… plus stellar ballads from Elton John, Lionel Richie, and Roxy Music.

Built with the immediacy that comes from limitation, iPhone Grime is almost exactly what it says on the tape case. Pulled directly from the portable communication device of Front Left Life's Louis Payne, iPhone Grime is the perfect distillation of raw ideas through a simple medium. When producers can drown in the infinite possibilities of the DAW vortex, a simple phone app can steer you swiftly to the sharpest results. Snippets of real world sound captured on the mic ground these quick-fire beats in a time and place, dynamic and street-level like grime and early dubstep was when it was being imagined on PlayStation games and filmed on ropey phone cameras.

Payne is undoubtedly bringing perspective to his sketches, having forged a connection with London's club scene through his part in the widely hailed Front Left Life parties in Catford, at Venue MOT and elsewhere. With a roll call of guests that cuts a sharp line through the best of bassweight club music right now, his taste and knowledge precedes his first steps into the production arena. Rather than puzzling out the path to a thousand likes for a hardware jam reel, he's opted for a direct line between his brain and the beat at the end of it.

You can hear the naivety behind vocal loops like the one nagging away on 'Follow That', calling to mind the first time you ever tried making a Fruity Loops beat. But these are no amateur throwaways — the technology has moved on and Payne's instincts guide him towards legit constructions that could easily do damage in the club. Sometimes they exist as no more than an eight bar loop, while others like 'Wind It Up (Dream Dealers Version)' or 'Extra Dimensional Being' stretch an idea out. Throughout it all, the looming throb of square wave bass glues the record together and anchors the grime dimension of Payne's job lot of phone jams.

Payne's work is all his own, and the snatches of real life around the beats anchor this music in his own London life. But, like previous shifts in technology and accessibility, iPhone Grime also raises an important prospect—that anyone with one of these apps, a Bluetooth speaker and an idea can bring music out of studios and into the world. History has already proven, when that happens the possibilities become thrillingly unpredictable.

Over 10 years ago, Leon Michels released his first full length record, Sounding Out The City. It was Michels' first full length record under the moniker El Michels Affair. At the time, the budding retro soul scene consisted of mostly organ quartets a la The Meters and of course, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings were in the early days of their ascent to world domination. Leon Michels, who was 18 when recording Sounding Out The City began, had just released Thunder Chicken, the first record by his high school band The Mighty Imperials. At the time of SOTC, Michels was just discovering early rocksteady, afrobeat, and 60's garage rock, which inevitably crept its way into the songwriting. He purchased a Tascam 388, an 80's 1/4" reel to reel 8 track intended for home recordings, and began recording music in a 10x10 box with no windows that also doubled as his childhood bedroom. Along with fellow Mighty Imperials Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss, and Sean Solomon, and Michael Leonhart, Thomas Brenneck, and some of the musicians from The Dap Kings, Michels recorded the LP over a two year period. Upon it's release, it received some rave reviews and the small deep funk community ate it up, but due to the lack luster promotion and distribution the rest of the world was slow to catch on to the instrumental gems featured on SOTC, which Michels appropriately labelled as "cinematic soul". However, in 2005 it found it's way into the hands of the people who were organizing a series of concerts for Scion that paired bands with MC's. El Michels Affair was contacted about playing one show with Raekwon The Chef of Wu Tang Clan fame. The show was such a success it led to a tour, and then to another set of concerts that featured multiple members of the Wu-Tang Clan. This eventually led to the release of El Michels Affair's second record, "Enter the 37th Chamber" which introduced them to a much larger audience and has been their most successful release to date. Michels has since gone on to produce and co-produce numerous records for powerhouse soul artists like Lee Fields. He shares songwriting credits with Adele, Jay-Z, Ghostface Killah, Aloe Blacc, and has played on records by Ray LaMontagne, Lana Del Rey, The Black Keys and Dr. John.

Tresor Records announces GODSPEED, a new EP from NVST, out on October 23, 2026. From its origins in the Motor City and through to the themes of interstellar travel, techno has always been a genre focussed on forward movement, a tradition that GODSPEED continues boththrough music and title.

The EP is a collection that brings to mind the spirit of early, non-conformist releases on Tresor, full of hypnotic synth loops, spacious FX, and breakbeats, yet with a crisp and modern sonic palette. Side A embarks with two tracks that combine a low, buzzing bassline with trippy melodies and percussion that ventures close to breaks and electro, while the B-side moves intothe fast lane with driving acid and more regimented drums. Digital bonus track "Firliner" combines both approaches across its seven-and-a-half minutes, as a buzzy bassline and spluttering beat ignite into a steady trance-induction.

The EP title arrived the way the best ones do: not so much chosen as absorbed from the aether, the word kept popping up during the creative process until it became the ideal name for this collection, given its connotation with setting out on a journey.
"You remember the nights where you've been on the floor for hours without realising how much time has passed, the conversations you can't fully recall, or how unexpectedly open you've been to everything around you. The music speaks the language of substance not as a statement, but as a way of describing perception. It's about experimenting with yourself, your body, your hearing, your emotions. About reaching a point where things that once felt permanent suddenly lose their grip, even if only for a moment. These recordings come from that place. They capture moments where movement replaces thought, memories blur into feeling, and vulnerability becomes part of the process. They're documents of a very
specific time, but also of something much more familiar: trying to lose yourself just enough to find a different version of who you are." NVST
This fast-paced forward travel is implicit in the word speed, but once this word indicated power or prosperity so that godspeed is a wish for success, forming an appropriate double meaning for this first full release of NVST on Tresor.

With his last three records all landing within a calendar year (2024-25), enigmatic Swedish producer Civilistjävel! (aka Tomas Bodén) is on a hot streak of releases, his singular vision increasingly ambitious and expansive. There are few artists working at this level so consistently right now, reinventing, revising and continually developing their language. Following on from 2025’s radically re-worked ‘Versions’ (of Mayssa Jallad’s ‘Marjaa…’), Bodén returns to break further fresh ground with his new album, ‘Älvgång’. Featuring contributions from Soccer Committee, Carrier and guest (aka Jabu’s Jasmine Butt), ‘Älvgång’ foregrounds a more brittle and insistent rhythm-based sound, whilst comprising his most broad-ranging collection of material to date.


‘Älvgång’ grew out of a series of sketches made from late ‘24 and throughout the whole of ‘25 at Stockholm’s renowned EMS Studios, which gave Boden free rein to its extensive collection of vintage analogue equipment and rare modular synthesizers such as the Serge and Buchla systems. As a loose framework of tracks began to take shape, so did a reflection of sorts, on family and foundations, underpinned or influenced by sounds that drifted into Tomas consciousness around this time - ancient Swedish pastoral music, Georgian lithurgical chants, gongs, chimes. An idea settled into place, a dedication to his Grandfather, as the earlier release Fyra Platser (tr. ‘Four Places’) was to his Grandmother. Älvgång is grounded with the sense of time and place of an old family photograph, with the tracks over each side bearing one of two names that are more or less the same location - Strinne was the old name for a this loose collection of villages. These days it is more commonly known as Bjärtrå. Metaphorically speaking, the river runs through both.


Civilistjävel! conjures so many adjectives and descriptors, ‘glacial’ and ‘ambient’ frequently among them - but while not altogether untrue, such terms belie the tension and drama so often present in Tomas’ music. Listening to ‘Älvgång’ is not a passive experience. The eight tracks here feel like a patchwork of memories that bathe in the same ethereal, otherworldly glow of Tarkovsky’s polaroids’.


The machine pulses that dominate this landscape are reigned in and tempered by a human hand; lithe, untethered coils, breathing in and out. ‘Strinne Ett’ sets out with purpose, sensing awe and wonder through the murk, but as the final tone unfurls like a question mark, another chapter begins, unfolding/building like a Tarjei Vesaas novel. These lyrical, abstract miniatures combine to reveal a wider context, fragile humanity standing alone against nature.


Guest appearances on Civilistjävel! records have become a regular occurrence (including recent collaborations with Mayssa Jallad, Laila Sakini, Cucina Povera, Thomas Bush, Eldon + Withdrawn), but are used sparingly and with increasing precision. On ‘Strinne Tre’ Mariska Baars’ (Soccer Committee) voice feels like a balm, a clearing. But as her simple, three-word incantation drifts further into fog, the meaning changes, and her words seem to curdle. Carrier’s beats widen the parameters on ‘Strinne Fyra’, a skittering promise that builds tension then refuses to release it; all false starts, Photek gongs, and trinkling modulars. Jabu’s Jasmine Butt pulls all the threads together for the final track, Thomas Tallis’ ghost walking over offset machine impulses, that work against their own symmetry.


Side two begins inquisitively, scanning bleached, alien surroundings, its sparse pads recalling Aphex Twin’s ‘Selected Ambient works Vol 2’. 'Bjärtrå Två’ picks up the baton from ' Strinne Fyra’ with a ruptured Simmons SDS200 analogue drum synth set free from its shackles, the rhythm eventually slotting into the spaces that were hiding in plain sight. What follows seems like an epiphany; ‘Bjärtrå Tre’ is achingly beautiful, a euphoric, winding ascent that leads to devotional plainsong. ‘Bjärtrå Fyra‘s final unheralded shift feels both tragic and haunting.

Bridgeport Records is a new venture from Windy City house heads Jerry Morrison and Vick Lavender, and they kick off with a serious EP of delicious Chicago house depths from some standout stars. Glenn Underground opens up with one of his deepest and most serene sounds in some time: 'Slander' rides a rolling kick drum and is infused with dreamy, wispy pads and gentle cosmic details that empties your mind perfectly. Anthony Nicholson brings a little funk to the dancefloor with his equally classy 'Boogie Aftermath' and its jazzy melodies, while Lavender himself offers 'Deep Funk Dance', a timeless and soul-drenched gem. Dejay Cease's closer 'Seeing Is Believing' has a more pronounced, subtly off-kilter groove with loungey piano chords and lush strings. Pure class.

Phoenix-based DJ and producer Paul West lands on eudemonia with a stellar 5-track EP, seamlessly picking up right where his impressive debut Blue Sun on Rocky Hill left off.

The record delivers a wonderful blend of breakbeats, house, electro, and Detroit techno, keeping the energy raw, warm, and deeply atmospheric throughout. The A-side builds intensity towards its third track, the spacey title track "Nebulae". Flipping over to the B-side, the journey comes to a close with the playful, melodic tones of „Stardust".

**LTD 500 ONLY COPIES ON CRYSTAL CLEAR VINYL**


Time to turn on and turn it up, theres a brand new Carlton Melton in the offing… its been a good couple of years since the West Coast space/sike travellers have dropped new music.


‘Phantomize beyond the window, into the portal, the panes of eternal returns, wooden spirals, roots into the realms of everything and nothing, the reason beings’


With Anthony Taibi fully ensconsed in the metaphorical Melton Dome, this four piece is ready to soar, go deeper and wider into the sike psyche than on previous recordings, now fully recording live with drums, bass, guitars and keys...recorded at 3D Light in Freshwater, CA by Anthony Tiabi in 2025, and mastered by the inimitable John Mcbain in 2026.


We have a single LP of 40+ minutes spanning 4 tracks, that have textures, and waves and patterns to lull you into some fever dream of motorik psych! Touchstones like Träd, Gräs Och Stenar / Kandodo / Guru Guru / Eno & Fripp / Birds of Maya / Parson Sound come into view.


There are moments of gentle ambience bordered by speaker shredding guitar soloing, whole passages of Krautrock inspired jams that have form and focus.. you blink and your live flashes before you, the record ends, you want more..


There are moments of gentle ambience bordered by speaker shredding guitar soloing, whole passages of Krautrock inspired jams that have form and focus.. you blink and your live flashes before you, the record ends, you want more.. Carlton Melton masterfully blend hypnotic, long-form psychedelic jams with drone and Krautrock influences.


Band:

Rich Millman
Andy Duvall
Clint Golden
Anthony Taibi


Announced to celebrate summers solstice.. released on the Autumn equinox.. with a full UK tour to boot..


Come fly / fry with us…

To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the release of the stone-cold classic ‘Want You In My Soul’, Winding Road brings together a group of deep house legends to put their own spins on the Lovebirds feat Stee Downes original.

The Schmoov! remix is a feel-good 80s disco reimagination, cloaking Stee’s soulful vocals in uplifting synths and strings.

The Atjazz remix is a mellow and percussive beauty which has sunshine baked into its very heart. All the quality you’d expect from the master.

On the flip, the dubs – starting with a punchy dancefloor-friendly Kneedeep dub, and closing things off with the beautiful underwater vibes of Lovebirds’ own ‘Ocean Dub’.

New York-based Japanese jazz and electronic music polymath Takuya Nakamura presents his debut album Shape The Future - almost 35 years into his storied musical journey.

An expansive double album, the album’s first LP documents a spellbinding live performance by Nakamura recorded at fabric. A hybrid set combining DJing, live electronics, vocals, and trumpet, the set also features studio versions of special collaborations with Shigeto, Currency Audio and Tim Reaper. The second LP complements the first by assembling studio recordings of select album tracks. Altogether the two volumes make for a definitive display of Nakamura’s exceptional musicianship across jazz, DnB, jungle, broken beat, deep techno and more.

Across his career, Nakamura has played Brazilian music, merengue, salsa and straight-ahead jazz. He’s opened for Sun Ra Arkestra, performed with David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Wu-Tang Clan, and Arto Lindsay, appeared on sessions with Terry Riley, ASAP Rocky, Goldie, and TV On The Radio, and remixed the likes of Quincy Jones, Sun Ra, Billie Holiday, and The Streets. He’s also played under director and playwright Robert Wilson.

Although the musical past and present of the Tokyo-born, New York-based DJ and trumpet player is undoubtedly eclectic, Nakamura is abidingly steeped in the sounds of jazz and jungle. This’ll be obvious to casual observers who may have seen any viral videos of him. But there’s more to this. The depth of Nakamura’s engagement with these kinds of music, the way they’ve made him into the person he is, the decades-long path they’ve taken him on; to now arrive at the summit of a solo album is all truly remarkable. Shape The Future resonates with every chapter in this story.

In high school, Nakamura’s friends started listening to jazz and jazz fusion, which piqued his interest, especially when they started going to clubs to see it live, where they managed to see US legends like Sonny Rollins play. Eventually he began to play jazz every day and his musical skill emerged early. He soon became obsessed with getting closer to the source of this music, which led to his studies at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston with George Russell, an influential figure who had taught Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Nakamura drank it in: not only the technical aspects but the sense of a direct connection to “a music culture where Russell and his friends changed harmony forever. I wanted to know how that was possible!”.

This was a radical experience in itself, but then another revolution happened for Nakamura. He was playing in a venue called The Western Front, near Boston and discovered that the elderly owner had his own soundsystem and was playing what was then - in 1992 - only just becoming known as jungle. This was as freeing a musical revelation as his proximity to the giants of jazz was, and in that instant the two things fused. He understood that using technology to fill a dancehall with sound and a jazz musician’s reflexes are all working to the same ends: “You’re always making decisions,” he says, “but it doesn’t have to be really difficult. It’s the truth of the frequencies, and how they’re affecting people’s minds.”

From that moment on, his life path was set. Moving to New York City, he sought out jungle and its offshoot sounds wherever he could find them, gigging and collaborating relentlessly, and gradually developing his own live and hybrid live/DJ shows. Through regular appearances at New York fixtures Zebulon and CBGBs, and continual shows elsewhere in the city, Nakamura developed his live performance and DJing and it was in these environments that he gradually weaved together his twin loves without compromising either, building an international reputation in the process.

It’s only fitting then that his first album, almost 35 years after he first found his musical direction, should be a live one: a window into this never-ending process. Even here, he had to be persuaded that he should make a record. A member of the fabric team got turned on to his music after their daughter saw him play. Of course, as a jungle lover, Nakamura knew fabric – which has a special place in the history of jungle and drum’n’bass – and “had wanted to play there since I was very young.” You can hear the club in the record: this isn’t just a live show, in keeping with his jungle roots, it’s Nakamura duetting with the soundsystem, and you can feel how the emotions in the room would have ebbed and flowed.

This dynamic translates to a transfixing record. Setting the tone with lushly textured ambient and reverberant jazz, Nakamura segues into cinematic breakbeat and stellar fusion, infusing it all with intoxicating low end and hypnotic rhythms. The LP’s midway point locks into mesmeric percussion heightened by resonant echoes of piano and trumpet. There’s an endless pull to this music. Nakamura adjusts the levels for maximum impact throughout, and the overall effect begins to evoke some harmonious hybrid between a jazz ensemble, a classic Metalheadz 12” and a Theo Parrish DJ set. His electric form continues through surreal jazz, intricate electronics and rolling sub-bass velocity, right up to the subtly devastating final cover of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush’s ‘Don’t Give Up’, with Nakamura’s fragile vocal sitting in the heart of a huge sound.

From Tokyo jazz nights to formative studies and encounters in Boston to his artistic development in New York, Nakamura reaches another milestone with his monumental debut album. It’s a release that happened just the way a Takuya Nakamura record should. In the same way his instincts led him to musical revelations, taking his own sweet time has led him to make one of the most extraordinary debut albums imaginable, all executed in his own singular style. In Nakamura’s world, the universe finds a way.

Priding themselves in having cultivated a community and culture at their club nights, they play some of the best music ever cut to wax. It might not be quite what you’d expect from a typical northern soul night, it isn’t stepping back into the past, it’s the music stepping forward into 21st century.

“We’re not interested in nostalgia – we love soul music because it’s brilliant. It probably still resonates with young people because it has a message of something bigger than what’s inside your own head – that what really matters resides in relationships with other people, not material things. We think that is beautiful” – DNSC.

“Deptford Northern Soul Club have emerged as the new faces of northern soul” – Yuck.

As featured in Alan Byron’s documentary Northern Soul: Still Burning (2026).

“By recontextualising northern soul in a modern context, they empower the genre to continuously evolve, imparting new meaning to younger, perhaps previously unaware audiences” – Pilot magazine

Scott Pilgrim EX, the newest video game from the Scott Pilgrim franchise developed by Tribute Games, is out now with an all new original soundtrack from Anamanaguchi. The sprawling soundtrack, which accompanies a brand-new storyline co-written by series creator Bryan Lee O’Malley, perfectly connects the band's legendary electronic past with their fuzzed out garage rock present while maintaining their unmistakable punchy style. Known for resonant world building across past projects, the depth of emotion and the range of styles displayed on Scott Pilgrim EX are uniquely Anamanaguchi while delivering a host of melodically anthemic and new energetic hooks that are sure to pack a punch for both newcomers and old school fans of the band alike.

Anamanaguchi's collaborative relationship with the Scott Pilgrim universe goes back to the early days of the band. After cutting their teeth programming music with playable Nintendo cartridges and helping to bring a wider audience to a largely internet based 8-bit chiptune scene, the band was brought in to score the fan-favorite soundtrack for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game. The success of this game soundtrack would help them to launch an early crowdfunding success story with their campaign for their debut album, 2013's Endless Fantasy. From there the band would go on to collaborate with virtual pop star Hatsune Miku (resulting in the perpetually viral, Fortnite featured hit, “Miku”), and later develop the intricately soundscaped compositions displayed across their second album, USA, but throughout it all the connection between the band and the Scott Pilgrim universe would remain a pivotal source of inspiration.

After being brought in to score the animated Netflix series, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, in 2023, band members Peter Berkman and Luke Silas would credit the live kinetic energy they channeled when writing songs for the in-universe garage band Sex Bob-Omb with helping them get back in touch with the roots of how they learned to play music even before Anamanaguchi's earliest releases.  This process would eventually lead to Peter and Luke alongside the remaining two band members — Ary Warnaar and James DeVito — flipping their typically meticulous digital writing process for the more collaborative, straight to tape, distorted angst that can be found on 2025's Anyway, marking another significant evolutionary turn for the band to come out of their relationship with Scott Pilgrim.  

Now fresh off the heels of a nationwide tour in support of Anyway, Anamanaguchi have returned to the 8-bit beat em up world of Scott Pilgrim with a relentlessly high energy and genre defying original soundtrack for Scott Pilgrim EX.  A return to form that comes with a depth of knowledge and innovative skills that have allowed the band to continue to evolve and grow alongside the characters in the Scott Pilgrim universe and the multi-generational fanbase that continues to follow along with them.

The new soundtrack for the latest installment in the Scott Pilgrim franchise, Scott Pilgrim EX

“Carl layers willowy guitar arpeggios, foggy keyboards, and chimes over Windy’s murmured intonations and rippling basswork. Everything sounds fresh and unaffected in the careful hands of these two gentle souls. Pick it up, lie back, and allow it to lull you into an undisturbed reverie.” Big Takeover

At the time of original release it was written that the album "will transport the listener to other plains of reality.” (Acid Test). Meanwhile, Alternative Press called it “alluring and addictive.” and CMJ called it "expansive, daydream enhancing music.”

The pair have also recently released their collaborative album with Optigan Conservatory, which can be revisited here. A beautiful and hermetic energy larger than the sum of its parts was captured in the collaborative process of making this album. There are echoes of the earliest releases from Windy & Carl as well as refractions of the same opacity that surfaced in the early kranky catalog.

A fine time to be shining a light on these label stalwarts as the dark Autumn evenings roll in

Dutch producer Kid Sublime presents his first EP on Makin’ Moves, here he teams up with Philly singer/song writer Lady Alma exploring elements of soul, broken beat and house.

The EP kicks off with The Grind a super smooth soulful house track, that catches your attention straight away with its groovy baseline that remains throughout adding to that Alma’s meaningful lyrics demonstrating the power of the music as she uses it as to get herself through the day.
The positivity continues on ‘Can You Feel It’ another quality piece of soulful house as the action moves to the dance floor as the beat and grove winds you in as once again Alma’s lyrics drop perfectly on the track.
The B side shows Kid switch it up on the broken beat production wiith ‘Ready To Meet You’ a touching song about two individuals excited to meet each other for the first time, a sure shot hit for the ‘bruk’ beat and dance heads alike!