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Opaque pink vinyl LP. For fans of: Tirzah, Caroline Polachek, Erika de Casier, Oklou, Smerz. Between the ages of 2 and 18, Cora Gilroy-Ware lived in a haunted place. On the outside, this small edge of Connecticut coastline was a quintessential New England town. Yet beneath its quaint surface was a netherworld that got steadily darker over the course of those sixteen years. From a serious drug problem to environmental pollution leading to deadly illnesses, frequent suicides and an above average number of fatal accidents, something about this place was cursed. Amid this world Cora was an outsider, someone who preferred pop and RnB to the music of her peers, who mostly subscribed to the dregs of a Deadhead culture that was more nihilistic than utopian. Still, she found herself on weekends drinking in the woods with the rest of them, playing along until it was time to leave. Christmas breaks and summer months were spent across the Atlantic in a completely antithetical environment. In London, the city of her birth, Cora spent her teen years taking the bus home at dawn after raves under the railroad arches, or riding the tube to her cousin’s house in Camden. For a long time, Cora’s life was composed of these two strands—ghostly East Coast suburbia and inner-city London—which she was forced to fold in and out of one another like a two-strand French braid. She quickly learned to adapt and be whoever the particular moment demanded. Her outsider status was intensified by the fact that, being of mixed Afro-Caribbean and European descent, her family didn’t look like the others in Connecticut. In the 2000s, this meant Cora had to contend with a deeply ingrained kind of folk-racism, both conscious and unconsciously expressed. Nobody talked about these things back then, and she internalized a lot of shame. The ability to shape-shift became integral to Cora’s artistic practice. Her survival mechanism at school was to carve out her own worlds through visual art and dance. Music was less of a creative outlet than a way of life, something like a form of religion for her family, who all played instruments and saw music as the form to which all art aspires. She studied violin and learned enough guitar chords to write her first songs. Cora always wanted to be a performer, but, having moved around constantly, craved stability and independence. Eager to make her own way in the world, she began to write about painting and sculpture, which eventually led to time spent working in Naples, Italy and a day job teaching the History of Art at university level. It wasn’t until 2018 that Cora first shared her first songs with the wider world. Having collaborated and played live with Jam City (Jack Latham, who has co-produced each of her releases), she finally embarked on a solo career, which for her felt inevitable, only a matter of time. Following four acclaimed EPs—Toxic Femininity (2018), Lashes in a Landfill (2019), Dreamcatcher (2020) and Maiden No More (2021), this year will see the release of her debut album The Golden Ass. For her artist name she chose, “Fauness”: a play on the Latin faunus, a woodland god with the body of a man and the horns, ears, and legs of a goat. The feminine equivalent—fauness—is a modern invention, made up by rococo sculptors in 18th century France. Cora was drawn to this pseudonym because of its temporal layers and amalgamation of beauty and beast, which, for her, captures something of her complex personal story. an utterly individual voice in underground pop music" - The FADER // "a sparkling sweet pop ride" – NYLON // “It is hard to write a perfect pop song. It’s even harder to make it look as easy as London artist Fauness” - GUARDIAN GUIDE // Tracks 01. Lonely 02. Mystery 03. Peaches 04. Hours 05. Siena 06. Grape & Grain 07. Laura 08. High 09. Cinnamon 10. Girl In The Moon

XAM Duo – the Yorkshire-based pairing of Matthew Benn and Christopher Duffin – follow-up their The A-side features a reworking of the album’s closing track, ‘Cold Stones’, by legendary electronic artist and DJ, James Holden. In one of his first remixes for a number of years, he has taken the original’s calming, comedown energy and transformed it into an epic, 11-and-a-half-minute journey, which somewhere around the five-minute mark comes right back up. “It didn't turn out quite how I expected, but as they say the sculpture is already in the stone, we just have to find it,” says Holden. “It's like the most rave thing I’ve done for ages and also not rave at all, like a blurry dream about a rave?” Whatever it is, it’s incredible, as are the two further reworkings on the B-side. The Early Years resurface after another lengthy hiatus and reframe ‘LGOC’ as a divine astral jazz / krautrock crossover, while Richard Pike (of PVT and Deep Learning, among others) turns ‘Blue Comet’ into a glitchy and discordant soundtrack to the best 1980s computer game you never played. “It’s lovely to hear three different interpretations of songs that we already tend to keep quite loose and elastic,“ says Matthew Benn. “These remixes feel like a natural extension of the music on the album, like they're from the same world, but perhaps in a different language.” Praise for XAM Duo II: “Thirty minutes of top-quality retro techno ambience and high-tech jazz” – MOJO “An elegant swirl of MIDI exotica, digital wind chimes and health-spa tones... threading saxophone through Boards Of Canada-style funk” – Uncut “Simultaneously more eclectic and more concise, the album expands, refines and folds down the twosome’s electro-organic explorations” – Concrete Islands “XAM Duo’s layered electronics pivot between the meditative and the assertive” – Clash “Made up of sweet synths, precise beats and some piano and sax, they create an atmosphere that feels as if it’s designed to accompany times of concentration and calm” – Loud And Quiet A1 - Cold Stones (James Holden Remix) B1 - LGOC (The Early Years Remix)
B2 - Blue Comet (Richard Pike Remix)

Talkbox is multidisciplinary artist Michael O’Mahony’s third album and his first for 33-33. It’s his most complete and cohesive music project to date, a culmination of ideas, happy accidents and compositions that have been cut up and re-arranged over many years. The album’s sonic signature is the Vocaloid software synthesizer – the titular ‘talkbox’ – famously by Japanese cartoon Hatsune Miku. O’Mahony became aware of Vocaloid in 2015 through the popular Nyan Cat meme, which em marketed ploys the software. Excited by the emotive potential and realism of Vocaloid’s voice synthesis, he began to imagine an album that combined its capabilities with italo disco- and UK garage-inflected sounds. As the version of Vocaloid O’Mahony had access to sang only in Japanese, O’Mahony relied on Google Translate to obtain the required characters to enter into the software. In early experiments with the software, the north Londoner translated BBC match reports from his beloved Arsenal FC. Eventually, he amassed a library of syllables and phonetic sounds, from which he created the melodies crystallised on the record. As far as we know, these vocal lines have no meaning in lyrical terms. O’Mahony works largely in an iterative way; song ideas are reworked over and over in different styles, sometimes over a period of years. Multiple versions of a song might appear on an album, each one with its own particular nuances in feeling. Music perhaps does not always flow out of O’Mahony, but emerges over time. O’Mahony’s album forms part of his wider project: an analysis of his subjectivity through art and psychotherapy. The music complements his writing and video work, which feature in his performances. He writes in chains of association, speculating on topics such as family dynamics, or the meaning of recurring dreams about a childhood game console. His video practice features footage of objects found in his parents’ house, such as his sister’s childhood My Little Pony toy and his retired psychiatrist father’s lecture tapes. The music, at once synthetic and heartfelt, imbues the writing and video work with a strange tenderness. Taken together, these various aspects of O’Mahony’s work form a meditation on the emotional attachments we make to consumer objects and the role of early life in character formation. Tracklist 1/Talkbox 2/More Succinct 3/Electricity 4/Not Giving Up 5/Dinosaur 6/Trumpet 7/Electricity (Rock Version) 8/Aliss 9/Be Good 10/Not Giving Up (Slow Version)

Red vinyl LP. Lars Finberg, confirmed genius guy and poet laureate of sunken 21st century Rock, acts as manager in perpetuity of THE INTELLIGENCE, primary vehicle for his prolific creative swirl and a project that has taken on new shapes across myriad trials and shifts. The project began in his Seattle bedroom – a lad and his Tascam cassette 8 track – with the classic Boredom & Terror and has now landed in his Los Angeles studio apartment – an urchin and his Tascam digital 12 track – with Lil’ Peril, a new album that finds Finberg 1000% back at the controls. Over the course of 11 albums (!), The Intelligence has established a backbone that boogies through revolutions, allowing each jam-crammed dispatch to feel and sound admirably unique. The angular sharp shocks heard in earlier years have steadily evolved into the ballooning grooves heard on more recent releases (including Finberg’s recent solo work). Lil’ Peril is a dreamy gamble that captures this current bubbling penchant in The Intelligence’s inaugural homemade mode. With inspirational templates as far-flung as LES PAUL, THE SPECIALS, LEE PERRY and MARY FORD, Lil’ Peril pulls off the absurd shift “from ‘No-Wave SANTANA’ to ‘SCREAMERS recorded by JON BRION’”. Playing shoulder parrot to studio engineers has no doubt informed Finberg’s approach to home recording, specifically in how much further he can go without wincing budget-minded eyes staring him down. This is immediately sensed on the opener “Maudlin Agency,” which begins with canned minimal bleep and closes with a full recreation of the “Brass Monkey” hook. These surprise-attack conclusions are a running current throughout the Lil’ Peril’s program and demonstrates that the main lesson Finberg has learned in The Intelligence is to never reel it in. Centerpiece banger “My Work Here Is Dumb” ranks among the finest Intelligence moments existent and an apex in Finberg’s songcraft, boasting a bonkers arrangement and a thematic gnaw that is both brutal and playful. The collection closes with the epic “Soundguys,” a suite cut-up that fuses CAN and STEELY DAN into one of the most dastardly tunes available for consumption in the plague age. As Finberg himself states, “They may say this is ‘lo-fi’, but I say it’s ‘no-CGI’”. “The band disintegrated, so it devolved back to the core idea: if I do every aspect, it’s indestructible.” 20 years on and Finberg has finally let everyone know what The Intelligence actually means! All those wily experiments and warm flubs have come back full circle and the shit’s pure goddamn gold. Proof positive that there is always some sort of cute trouble, farcical tragedy and Lil’ Peril at play with The Intelligence. - Mitch Cardwell, 2022. Tracklisting: 01 Maudlin Agency 02 70's 03 Keyed Beamers 04 Purification 05 My Work Here Is Dumb 06 Lil Peril 07 Frog Prints In Preset City 08 Portfolio Woes 09 Soundguys

experiment in markmarking and sound, as a kind of writing by ear - metallic, brushed, wooden - lines imprinted and pressed circular. The record takes its name from the discarded title of the several-hundred-page draft of Clarice Lispector’s eventual 96-page novel Água Viva. Devoid of characters or plot, Água Viva appears always in suspension between the interior and exterior and impression and expression. Weird and formless (like the jellyfish ‘agua viva’ translates to in Portuguese) Lispector’s text deals less in the cerebral or the knowable realms of words and more in the unknowable moment of experience. Its joy is found in its looseness, its meaning found in its lack of definition. Loud Object began as six sides of violin improvisations, four of them abandoned and the last of them added to or processed using samplers in moments Steiger calls ‘wells’ - gaps or dips in the recording which could be filled or poured into. The process of filling up and taking away, of repeating and multiplying, of building tension between the finite and the lost - all wrestle with actualisation. Which line will be drawn? In the liner notes for the LP, Evie Scarlett Ward writes, “The record holds loss.” Though the lines are fixed, its contents are fluid - forty minutes filled in and manipulated, before time moves on. Steiger’s relentless rearranging of convention means no two of his live shows are the same, and his decade-plus involvement in London’s free improvisation scene constantly surprises. Loud Object is no exception. Recorded on the 12th, 13th and 14th February 2021 by Daniel Blumberg. Produced by Billy Steiger. Mixed by Billy Steiger and Shaun Crook. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Artwork by Billy Steiger. Layout by Oli Barrett. Liner notes by Evie Scarlett Ward.

LP colour is Transparent Blue. Stu Spasm (Lubricated Goat) + Russell Simins (Jon Spencer Blues Explosion) + Kate Bjelland (Babes In Toyland). One off garage-sleaze rock masterpiece. Remastered. Crunt began in 1993 as a kind of indie rock supergroup and had their 1994 debut album touted by Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder. Crunt's members included guitarist/vocalist Stuart Gray (aka Stu Spasm) and bassist/vocalist Kat Bjelland. Gray was well-known in Australia by the start of Crunt for his past involvement in the bands Salamander Jim and the horn/guitar punk rock of Lubricated Goat, which included drummer Martin Bland who went on to play in the Monkeywrench. As for Bjelland, she was the frontwoman/guitarist for the Minnesota-based Babes in Toyland. Crunt was rounded out by drummer Russell Simins, who was the full-time sticksman for New York City's Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Each of Crunt's members were temporarily residing in Seattle when Gray conjured up the idea of starting a new group. After writing almost a dozen songs, the trio entered Seattle's Ranch studio in February of 1993 with Simins and Gray acting as the producers, and their friend John Dunleavy -- known for his work with the Supersuckers -- filling the role of engineer. A year passed before the group's self-titled album was released on February 15, 1994, on Austin, TX label Trance Syndicate, owned by Butthole Surfers' drummer King Coffey. The record was the imprint's first release from a non-Texas group. The debut of the full-length album coincided with the "Swine"/"Sexy" single on Australia's Insipid label, which was known for releasing singles by other bands such as the Cows, Urge Overkill, and the Jesus Lizard. Prior to the releases, there had been talk that the band was not going to just be a side project, but a full-time band in the same tradition as Babes in Toyland and the Blues Explosion. The trio had even planned a full-scale tour. By January of 1995, however, Crunt came to an end.

As a teen Kim Salmon blew his mind on the fusion of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew, the stellar freakout of Sun Ra's 'Space is the Place' and the generally unhinged groove of Can's Ege Bamyasi. They showed him an alternative to just 'playin the blooze'. Then Punk Rock came along! The earlier inspirations, however, where not idealistically opposed to the free expression espoused by the punk movement. Some of the freeform freakout fusion can be heard in Kim's seminal band the Scientists on tracks like Nitro, Revhead and Human Jukebox, in fact most of what the band played throughout the nineteen eighties. As that band and decade came to a close Kim resolved to give free reign to that avant garde, jazz, in fact, downright weird streak, on his 'solo' venture The Surrealists. Their debut 'Hit Me with the Surreal Feel' is soaked in it all! Alas, as the nineties progressed, so did this band into a highly respected but conventional indie rock band. It did much successful touring around Europe, the USA and Australia on its own and with the likes of, U2, The Bad Seeds, Jon Spencer and the Cramps. It's best known and best selling album was 1993's Sin Factory. With the 2006 reunion of the Surrealists, for the Spanish Azkena Festival, Kim was re-acquainted with the free jazz/noise/ fusion bug and resolved to get the band back together for at least long enough to work through what it started back in the late 1980s. Recorded throughout 2008 and 2009 over a series of live sessions, 'Grand Unifying Theory' has the band given some framework compositions by Kim. The band - Kim, Stu Thomas and Phil Collings - then takes these ideas to the outer limits of punk/jazz/ thrash freakout!. The results are taken by Kim and producer Mike Stranges and assembled into the most far out music Kim Salmon has been responsible for to date! 'Grand Unifying Theory' with its polyrhythmic beats, its atonal keys, its heavy funk/punk grooves, its spaced out use of equipment buzz and Dictaphone.

For Fans Of: J. Tillman, Phosphorescent, Low, Damien Jurado, Bill Callhan. “It’s going to be hard to talk about this when it’s done.” So begins A Mold For The Bell, the new album from Colorado singer-songwriter and producer Logan Farmer. What follows that enigmatic lyric is a collection of stark and ambient folk songs, tethered solely by Farmer’s unadorned vocals, acoustic guitar, and moving embellishments from contributors, including saxophonist Joseph Shabason (who also mixed the album) and renowned harpist Mary Lattimore. With the help of Grammy-nominated producer Andrew Berlin (Gregory Alan Isakov), Farmer tracked all of the vocal and guitar parts over two days in the early months of 2021. The tracks were recorded quickly, live in the studio to capture the raw intimacy and immediacy of Farmer’s live performances. The rest of the album’s creation occurred remotely, over texts, phone calls, and emails with Shabason and a handful of other musicians, as wildfires, insurrections and the pandemic raged around them. “I was working at a bookstore that winter,” Farmer explains, “and I’d walk to my shift every day, obsessing over lyrics and early mixes in a cheap pair of earbuds.” These daily walks would take him past a church, where he’d often stop on the sidewalk and listen to the bells at the top of the hour. “I’ve always loved the sound of church bells, but as the situation worsened, what began as a comfort began to feel ominous, almost threatening.” This experience, alongside influences as disparate as Tarkovsky’s film Andrei Rublev and the novels of Olga Tokarczuk, led to a collection of songs that are similarly foreboding, expanding upon the stark and spacious universe of Farmer’s last album (2020’s Still No Mother) to reveal an atmosphere that’s even more oppressively still, like an abandoned Victorian home. Tracks: 01 Silence or Swell 02 Cue Sunday Bells 03 Horsehair (feat. Mary Lattimore) 04 Crooked Lines 05 William 06 The Moment 07 Renegade 08 South Vienna

Combining elements of indie-pop, punk, emo and just a little bit of 2009 vintage math-rock for good measure, adults are four pals trying to find their way in a disintegrating world. for everything, always reflects on how we look after ourselves, one another and people in our community; it’s a riotous collision reminiscent of Johnny Foreigner, The Beths or Trust Fund, bursting with crunching guitars, speedy drums and yelping dual vocals. The first single all we’ve got // all we need is a song about individual torments: “having a breakdown on the Megabus to Bristol", and about collective support: “mutual aid, building strong networks of community resistance to the hostile environment, to food insecurity, to the homophobia and transphobia by the state and about trying to look after one another”. the secret song to end side one deals with loss, guilt, rejection and anxiety, exploring the travails of a messy breakup and the masculine urge to bury everything deep down despite the fact that that only hurts people more. tfl has a lot to answer for is a “reflection of drinking way too much in yr mid 20s, staying up too late, burning yrself out and how it impacts on yr relationships and mental health”. Recorded and produced by Rich Mandell (Happy Accidents, ME REX) over a couple of weekends in the summer of 2021, for everything, always is the constantly naive, but optimistic, outlook: always striving for a better future in the face of modern society’s bullshit. lts are a noisy pop band desperately clinging on to the ghosts of 2009. Their songs are a silly, joyful, and occasionally sad, look back at the tail end of their 20s, a way to grapple with breakups, parties, alcohol and loneliness, and looking hopefully into the future. They’ve released singles with Art Is Hard and For The Sakes Of Tapes, and self released an EP (The Weekend Was Always Almost Over), which was subsequently released on vinyl by Caballito records. adults are based in south London. Faster, messier and sillier than they have any right to be, adults are hopeful and joyous, fighting through the existential angst of youth to try and find their place in a world on the brink, as grown ups, as adults. Like the octopus on the artwork says: “we're all we've got, we're all we need”. // “a cacophony of clattering drums and belt-it-out choruses Los Campesinos! or Martha would be proud of evidence that adults seem to have stumbled into something rather marvellous” For The Rabbits // “There’s an ample buoyancy from the vocal work, and the guitars are crunchy, though I like how they’re a bit tempered here; think of Martha having to play at your local library…hooks, but just a little more subdued. There’s just something about this that radiates joy” Austin Town Hall // Tracklist: A1) I Had A Little Snooze & Now I Will Probably Never Arrive At Yr House A2) Janine (JG Forever) A3) All We’ve Got // All We Need A4) Tfl Has A Lot To Answer For A5) 2 Sqs A6) The Secret Song To End Side One B1) Things We Achieve B2) The Nod B3) The Pitch And Yaw Of The 6.12 To Brighton (Plain Wrong) B4) Between Buildings B5) Killing & Dying & Something More Positive B6) The High Watermark (Thoughts Of U) B7) Wasn’t Like That

Revisiting a press release for the Nightingales' last album, Four Against Fate, we recalled hesitant anticipation for the forthcoming King Rocker, a film documentary of Robert Lloyd and Nightingales, made by Michael Cumming and Stewart Lee. After forty years of activity, Robert and the band had seen hyped recordings go lost, scant commercial success. Royalties? Ha. Yet response to King Rocker was immediately positive. Fab reviews galore, a long process regaining master rights which led to a series of expanded reissues with Fire. A tour postponed three times finally took place, to fully-packed houses. It was a very good year. The band felt a degree of anxiety prior to the sessions, which took place at Valencia's Elefante Studios. With bassist Andi Schmid isolated during Covid, the band had yet begun working out individual rough sketches, typically battered into songs over a period of months. They went into a new studio blind, with a new producer, Jorge Bernabe, without rehearsals . . . and produced a top-to-bottom masterpiece. Thirty seconds in, "Sunlit Uplands", is already a classic showcasing Fliss Kitson's increased songwriting power and the core dichotomy of the groups's best songs: perverse as fuck, catchy as fuck. I � CCTV is highlighted by a fab Jim Smith astral-garage guitar riff . . . and that's a one-two punch few albums ever equal, let alone carry over to the affectionate "Frances Sokolov", Robert's ode to mentor Vi Subversa, the playground riff that underlines "Spread Yourself Out" and then "Bloody Breath", the best encapsulation of all the band's genius in developing a kind of "pop" that no other combo has ever cracked. Other highlights include the lopsided mysterious beauty of "Magical Left Foot", the courtly raver of "I Need The Money At The Time" with a wonderful motorik groove driven by bassist Andi Schmid, and the album closer, "My Sweet Friend", a rockabilly lullaby which sounds like a magical outtake from Robert's one and only solo album It's a corker, it's a marvel, it's the best Nightingales record to date. Try and deny it. Tracks: 1 Sunlight Uplands (Turn That Frown Upside Down) 2 I � CCTV 3 Frances Sokolov 4 Spread Yourself Out 5 Bloody Breath 6 Mind Of Stone 7 I Needed The Money At The Time 8 The Very Nature 9 Magical Left Foot 10 Mark Meets No Mark 11 My Sweet Friend

Collapso Calypso is the long-awaited third album from dreampop artist Chorusgirl. Initially planned for release in 2020, but the pandemic and a nervous breakdown brought everything to a screeching halt. It took Silvi Wersing - aka Chorusgirl - the rest of 2020 and 2021 to rebuild her life and reconsider everything, including her music and the band. She decided to relocate from London to her small hometown in Germany, to become a carer for her increasingly ill father and to take Chorusgirl back to its roots as a solo project, just like in 2014. She revisited old demos and wrote a few more songs, and steadily worked to complete the album as an anchor at a time of turmoil. With the album charting her progress back to health, she decided to call it Collapso Calypso, a riff on taking her despair for a dance. The album includes a multitude of references from music and film and features Silvi's trademark self-reflective lyrics on the themes of coming through a crisis, grief, resilience, and ultimately letting go, or the inability thereof, all set to the sounds of 60s girl groups and her favourite bands from the 80s. The release follows on from 2018 album Shimmer and Spin (Reckless Yes) and the self-titled 2015 debut (Fortuna Pop). “Chorusgirl pertain to a certain kind of cold, detached dreaminess you’d associate with a label like 4AD in its prime: their overall sound being seemingly informed by Lush’s successful hybrid of classic pop, fiery punk and shimmering soundscapes. … Yet, rather than reliving a sound there’s a sense here that Chorusgirl are more intent on reinventing it. Look no further than their debut self-titled LP for conviction.” (8/10) Line of Best Fit “Chorusgirl’s sound is distinctly London (although, more the London of the 80s than of now) but it’s also the sound of escaping London. (…) It’s the feeling of sleeping with the bedroom window open for the first time in months and waking up with a fresh wafting across your face.” Noisey “Chorusgirl explore universal themes with the catchiest of tunes, thundering rhythms, a wry sense of self and fascinating multi-meaning lyrics.” (8/10) Louder Than War “There’s no slack on the album – from the starting gate to the finish line, Chorusgirl bristle with static and nerves.” … Chorusgirl are simple, until they’re not. You might recognise the distant spirits, the razor chords, the surfy snarls. But where other bands coast on borrowed sound, Wersing bends it to her own life, creating a space that resonates with insight and empathy. Ever felt separate from the human race? Be comforted, for here is your kind.” (7/10) Drowned In Sound This is a record with teeth… one of the most impressive first albums of a year rich in strong debuts.” (5/5) NARC Magazine “Sparkling with bright rhythms and jangling pop…with hints of something shadier, bittersweet and more potent.” London In Stereo “Lovingly smudged guitars” (7/10) Loud & Quiet

Since first forming in 2014, New York trio THICK have triumphed at
turning the harshest truths into wildly exhilarating punk songs
On their second album Happy Now, vocalist/guitarist Nikki Sisti, vocalist/bassist
Kate Black, and vocalist/ drummer Shari Page deliver their most complex and
confessional work yet, exploring everything from self-sabotage and insecurity to
victim-blaming and destructive relationships. Raw, irreverent, and brutally honest,
Happy Now ultimately offers both joyful catharsis and much-needed instruction
for living well in turbulent times.The follow-up to 5 Years Behind (a 2020 release
praised by Under the Rader as a "dazzling debut album…laced with anger, humor,
killer guitar riffs, and soaring punk melodies"), Happy Now finds THICK working
again with producer Joel Hamilton (Iggy Pop, Juiceboxxx) and recording at Studio
G Brooklyn. In a profound evolution of their previous work, the 11- track album
encompasses sharper arrangements and stickier hooks and a more explosive
energy — an effect often achieved through the sheer force of their three voices
singing in unstoppable unison.

Baltimore’s Julien Chang writes music that tunnels
toward a series of deeper truths, investigating
everyday existentialism, love and life, art and the artist.
Arriving in 2019 with his critically acclaimed album
‘Jules’, Chang set a precedent with his breezy, dreamy
debut and is now exacting his focus on 2022 with new
music.
 Chang’s second album, ‘The Sale’, testifies to his
talents as he wrestles with enviable grace across his
new 12-track opus the idea of estrangement and the
problematics of artistic creation. Chang leans sonically
into indie-pop, with guitar-driven instrumentation
burbling across punchy drums and his layered,
ethereal vocals, yet the album is still replete with
touchstones of the psychedelic popcraft that
enamoured listeners on his debut.
 Recorded partially in his hometown of Baltimore and
partially in his dorm room at Princeton, ‘The Sale’ is a
homegrown effort with Chang playing all instruments,
bar the odd exception of a few notable cameos from
Baltimore locals, classmates and old friends. Following
his debut ‘Jules’ - which saw Chang earn praise from
the likes of Pitchfork, Fader, The Guardian, NME, Loud
& Quiet, DIY and Billboard, alongside support from
BBC Radio 1 and 6 Music via Annie Mac, Jack
Saunders and Jamz Supernova - his new album
explores the discrepancy between two worlds, a
struggle to get comfortable in either one of them, and
ultimately an artistic fascination with this very struggle.
 A statement of intent from an artist who promises to be
an important rising voice of our times, Chang’s new
album is released on CD and crystal clear vinyl.

LP is on baby blue vinyl in a jacket w/ spot gloss + printed inner sleeve + LP3 album download. On October 21, 2022, Merge Records will release Pigments, the debut collaboration between New Orleans electro-revival dynamo Dawn Richard and multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer Spencer Zahn. Pigments is a project about the power of self-expression through living art, through motion. It’s also a love letter to New Orleans, Louisiana. Not strictly classical, jazz or ambient electronica but rather a body of “movements,” Pigments is an expressive soundscape that is an immersive passage through the city as seen through the eyes of a young Black girl with dreams to paint her future with the pigments given to her. Richard explains: “Spencer wanted to create one long piece of music that would ebb and flow around my lyrics and emotions, which tell a story of growing to love my own skin. I wanted my voice to be moss surrounding the roots of Spencer’s compositions, never forcing the moment to fill every space but rather reveling in the openness of thought and breath.” Zahn agrees, saying, “I wanted to work with all these different textures, tones, and colors to have a new sound to frame Dawn’s voice and lyrics. To hear a lone clarinet as the breath fades and a cello continues its melody to cue Dawn’s vocal entrance is unlike any other record she has made. These are things that excite me as a composer but more as a listener. I hope that other listeners feel the same.” Coming on the heels of Dawn Richard’s critically acclaimed Merge debut Second Line, Pigments will introduce listeners to a different facet of Richard’s outrageous talent and bring Zahn’s thoughtful creativity to a new audience

Treviso, Italy-based two piece Kill Your Boyfriend will release their fourth album 'Voodoo' on October 14th via Sister 9 Recordings (Europe), Little Cloud Records (North America) and Shyrec (Itay). A frantic and hypnothising bacchanalia of Psych & Industrial tinged soundwaves, the new album is a collection of reverb laden necromantic charms, summoning the souls and bones of the greats in the Rock & Roll pantheon of the 1950s. The duo delivers such glittery dark enchantment via 7 hoodoo hymns, travelling with a crumbling, ghostly and magically whizzing Rocket 88, in the company of Marie Laveau and madame Lalaurie. It's a relentless whirl of Voodoo-Psych, Industrial-Billy, Electro-GrisGris, which you can dance to. The new LP follows 'Killadelica', where Kill Your Boyfriend had refined their debut signature sound, bridging the gap between the semi-obscure but hauntingly fascinating tradition of Veneto's Post-Punk (Death In Venice, Evabraun, Pyramids, etc.) and contemporary Psych-Nouveau. With 'Voodoo', Matteo Scarpa and Antonio Angeli, explore new genres and expand the sonic borders, without losing their original intent. They replace the synth bass with a bass-guitar, adding more fluidity and weight to a renewed and punchier rhythmic section. Electronic and acoustic percussion are fuller and heavier, and the band's new stomp-machine is a hyper-convulsive version of the saturated Rock & Roll and R&B drumming, from the cheap garage studios of 1950s indie labels. Sida A is the most Rock & Roll of the two, and it is inspired by Michael Ventura's essay "Hear that Long Snake Moan", which brought forward the idea that "the Voodoo rite of possession by the god became the standard of American performance in Rock’n’Roll" where the performers "let themselves be possessed not by any god they could name but by the spirit they felt in the music”. Each song invokes one or a set of the lost souls of the Rock & Roll era, with 'The Day The Music Died' referring to the infamous 3rd of February 1959. Side B descends deeper into the magic swamps of Creole magic, with music taking on a much more liturgical function, conjuring shamanic possessions via extra layers of tribal percussion. The band says of side B: "we see it as a one long ritualistic descent into a psychedelic underworld made of echoing voices, claustrophobic spaces populated by lost souls, enchanters and witchdoctors."

TRACKLIST 1. The King 2. The Man In Black 3. Mr Mojo 4. Buster 5. The Day The Music Died 6. Papa Legba 7. Vodoo

12 track vinyl LP and 18 track CD including bonus single and demo recordings. The Daggermen all went to Rede Secondary School in Medway, Kent. It was a school for those that failed their 11 plus, or who passed it but decided to go there anyway (as Jon pretends). Being in some of the same classes we became friends and found we liked the same music; The Who, The Small Faces, The Kinks, The Beatles and The Jimi Hendrix Experience. We started going to Carnaby Street, wearing Beatle boots and generally being a bit Moddy. Dave’s older brother, James Taylor, played organ in The Prisoners and we’d listen to cassette tapes of them along with other local band, The Milkshakes as we bounced on the trampoline during P.E. After watching both bands play live in local venues such as the M.I.C. club in Chatham we formed The Daggermen, working out who was going to play which instrument as we stood next to the now demolished school sports hall. No one can quite remember who thought of the name, The Daggermen (it was me) or how comes Jon was playing bass on a guitar in the band at the very start and then Terry took over when we started gigging (it was because he had a real bass guitar and a car). But the next thing was that we were supporting The Prisoners both in Medway and places such as the 100 Club in Oxford Street. Then, one sunny day at around the age of 17, I bumped into Billy Childish walking across a field. I formally introduced myself and told him that he should definitely come and see our band that night because we were “fucking brilliant”. He did turn up and bought us a tray of whiskies whilst we were on stage, a sure sign that he had liked it. This led to him and Russ Wilkins, bass player in The Milkshakes alongside Billy, asking us if we wanted to record an E.P. for Russ’s label, Empire Records. This was our first ever recording called Introducing The Daggermen which was made in a brick arch under Rochester bridge that we rented for £2 a week to rehearse in and lovingly referred to as ‘The Hole’. We got ourselves a “manager” (our mate, Vic Templar) and started playing up and down England, drinking as much as possible in the van on the way to each gig, often paralytic by the time we went on stage. Our musical style was a sort of mixture of punk and mod and we played covers such as ‘Heatwave’ (The Who’s version) and ‘Get Ready’ by the Temptations, along with Dave and Terry’s originals. Then came a change of line up when Jon resumed his position as bass player and Terry left for America. We started wearing military jackets thanks to Jimi Hendrix and made our first long player, Dagger In My Mind (I got the title off an episode of Star Trek, although I remembered it wrong and it should have been ‘Dagger Of The Mind’). The album was produced by James Taylor and Allan Crockford of The Prisoners at Woolly Studios on the Isle of Sheppey in 1986. This line-up played together for a couple of years up and down the country (also with a few gigs in France) before we called it a day and sailed off into the future in bands such as The James Taylor Quartet, The Kravin’ “A”s, The Solarflares and Billy Childish and The Buff Medways. As energetic youths we had a lot of fun and I am very proud to have been part of The Daggermen. We hope you enjoy these recordings, now all gathered together for the first time. Sincerely yours, Wolf Howard, Cafe Mozart, Chatham CD TRACKLISTING 1 – It’s You I See 2 – What Do I Do For You 3 – There’s No Escaping 4 – I’ve Been Hurt 5 – I Have Lost Heart 6 – You Were Meant To Be 7 – Every Moment 8 – Dagger In My Mind 9 – That Girl 10 – D’you Think Of Me 11 – I Feel The Regret 12 – I’ve Been Searching 13 – Now It’s You I Need 14 – Ivor 15 – One More Letter 16 – I Wish You Were Mine 17 – Bundle 18 – No Reason LP TRACKLISTING 1 – It’s You I See 2 – What Do I Do For You 3 – There’s No Escaping 4 – I’ve Been Hurt 5 – I Have Lost Heart 6 – You Were Meant To Be 7 – Every Moment 8 – Dagger In My Mind 9 – That Girl 10 – D’you Think Of Me 11 – I Feel The Regret 12 – I’ve Been Searching

We love nothing more than belated success, from the Nightingales' rise to top cult band, to the string of five marvelous Blue Orchids LPs in six years (as much as Martin Bramah had managed in the previous four decades) . . . so give us more. Like David Westlake. The release of NME's C86 cassette heralded a new generation of artists who'd emerged since the preceding C81 assembled a set of acts who'd coaxed new dialects out of punk, rhythms, reggae and the avant-garde. Though variable, C86 became a phenomenon, making a bigger splash and enduring longer than anyone could have predicted. The evolution by 1986 of "independent" or "alternative" music into "indie" brought a modified focus. From C81's post-punk negotiations of politics and cross-cultural influence to C86's compact blasts of, on the one hand, effervescent melodic pop and, on the other, jagged Beefheart-esque racket. Tiny Global Productions has proudly presented already one of the best from C86. The Wolfhounds' leader David Callahan's talent evolved masterfully into Moonshake, and more recently to a strain of blistering raga-folk psychedelia which deals with sociopolitical issues in brilliantly idiosyncratic fashion. And what of another of the best from C86 - the Servants, David Westlake's band? Ambivalent about the invitation to be on C86, Westlake gave the NME a wrong-footing b-side, before keeping a distance from the noise around the compilation. Subsequent releases from Westlake and The Servants and Westlake attracted fine reviews but settled quietly into relative obscurity, despite musical involvement from various Housemartins, Go-Betweens and Triffids, a quest by Stuart from Belle & Sebastian to find Westlake and form a band; not to mention Luke Haines' own five-year presence in the Servants before forming The Auteurs, Baader Meinhof and Black Box Recorder. Westlake went first into the law, then spent years in literary academia. Now the surprise arrival of My Beautiful England. The album is a masterpiece of concept, composition and performance, a conceptual work of truths and reflections of difficult but deft and unflinching expression. "It is not only fashionable now to denigrate England and its past; it is heresy to recognise good in it. The place that made me is disappearing. Its values and traditions. Among them: good manners, humility and clemency, resilience and perseverance, good humour. History is being refashioned – in spirit and material fact – by ideologues unshakeably certain they are in the right, and people are being distanced from their pasts. Some find themselves forced into passive acceptance of new distortions of the past, out of imitativeness or cowardice. I resist. This album is a memorial. Intentionally, a museum piece. It is a personal tribute to the England I knew."

While she might be best known as an improviser (most notably in the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, the Feminist Improvising Group and more recently with the likes of Les Diaboliques), Maggie Nicols’ talents stretch into song, dance, poetry, performance and composition. When Cafe OTO was shut over lockdown we invited her to follow up the wonderful solo ‘Creative Contradiction’ with some time spent singing alone at the piano. ‘Are You Ready?’ comprises an LP of songs and a 2CD edition which includes a companion disk of freely improvised meditations entitled, ‘Whatever Arises.’ Songs - seemingly contradictory to the practices of free improvisation - have been a vital part in Nicols’ relationship to music. It was singing bebop with pianist Dennis Rose which nurtured and challenged Nicols, allowing her to develop her own skills and sound amongst a repertoire of standards sung in clubs and pubs. Singing alongside Julie Tippetts in Centipede showed her how heady experimentation could be woven into composition, and a more recent gig with pianist Steve Lodder played out ‘The Maggie Nicols Songbook.’ Are You Ready? recalls Nicols’ own compositions from memory, working out tunes and turning them over. New routes down old paths form in moments of improvisation and all wrong turns are played out with joyous discovery. What John Stevens dubbed Maggie's “ability to find the ‘rhythmelodic’” meets a willingness to be understood and to understand. Solo at the piano, Nicols is still firmly rooted in the collective however - “Sans Papiers” sets the words of poet Vicky Scrivener to tune; a story of migration and struggle which is as important to Nicols as the songs her mother wrote. Such an intimate recording of her own compositions came with a certain amount of reflection and anxiety - best confronted with time spent freely improvising. ‘Whatever Arises’ - a companion disk to the ‘Songs’ - is a meditation of sorts, a process of ‘following the energy’ which has its roots in John Stevens’ work. “Improvisation gives the confidence to compose,” Nicols told us in an interview about some of her archival tapes, and here the two are as important as each other. Beginning with breath and repetition, ‘Whatever Arises’ allows Nicols’ to find new voices, accompanied by the piano and over dubbings of her tap shoes on the concrete floor. Brilliantly she is able to share her moments of discovery with the listener, finding comfort in vulnerability. Whilst rooted in Stevens’ work, Nicols’ improvisational techniques also remind us of Pauline Oliveros’ Sonic Meditations. They are what has allowed Nicols to find her own sound, to ‘teach herself to fly.’ They have allowed Nicols to grow and share and to be able to keep close the songs that mean so much to her, now shared with us. Recorded at Cafe OTO on July 15th, 16th and 17th 2021 by Shaun Crook. Mixed by Shaun Crook. Mastered by Sean McCann. Artwork by Annalisa Colombara. Lettering by Rosella Garavaglia. Layout by Maja Larrson. ‘Slow Within The Urgency’ inspired by mindfulness teacher Jeff Warren. Original poem ‘Sans Papiers’ by Vicky Scrivener. Original poem ‘You Darkness’ by Rainer Maria Rilke. Music and lyrics to ‘Music Is The Healing Force of The Universe’ by Mary Maria Parks.

First Time Pressing on Heavyweight 160 Gram Black Vinyl LP at 45rpm. Merchandising Sticker. Jodi is the solo project of Chicago based singer-songwriter Nick Levine. A co-founding and former member of the band Pinegrove, Levine first launched their solo project Jodi in 2017 with the release of the Karaoke EP as one of the first releases on Chicago indie label Sooper Records. The project would prove formative, going on to garner millions of streams online and launching Levine’s solo career as Jodi in earnest. Back in 2017, the following was said about the project: “Jodi has left us broken, bereft but in awe of a talent that can take a couple of seconds and make it your whole world.” – THE LINE OF BEST FIT // “Jodi nudges the listener into attention rather than pushing them into a forced experience: songs that feel nostalgic and hopeful – a comforting blanket of reassurance that’s sincere in its utterances of uncertainty and regret but ultimately optimistic for the future.” – GOLD FLAKE PAINT // Now, for the 5-year anniversary of the EP that started it all for Jodi, the project is being pressed and released for the first time on Vinyl. After the success of Karaoke, Levine went on to release their debut LP Blue Heron on Sooper Records in 2021, an album that received accolades from FADER, UPROXX, STEREOGUM (Album of The Week), THEM, COUNTRY QUEER, PASTE MAGAZINE, FLOOD MAGAZINE and Others. Tracks: Side A: 1. Remember 2. Coffee 3. Passerine Side B: 4. On The Sly 5. Scratchoff 6. Visitors

The expansive & emotive, 'Screamnasium' is O R k's most essential album
to date - Spontaneous yet intricately crafted, it is perhaps the most
concise statement of the band's sonic aims yet. With the quartet having
formed a strong creative bond over the course of three previous studio
albums & with countless miles clocked up on tour, the highly anticipated
follow up to 2019's acclaimed 'Ramagehead' has finally arrived
The pent up, derailed energies of O.R.k. have found a release with their gutsy &
striking new album 'Screamnasium'.Setting the pace, lead single/ album opener
'As I Leave' delivers the distilled O.R.k. spirit directly to the listener. Lef's powerful
vocals, Carmelo Pipitone's energetic riffing, Pat Mastelotto's inventive rhythmic
accompaniment & Colin Edwin's distinctive bass tones all infuse 'Screamnasium'
with a refreshed intensity & a new luminosity. Energy levels are maintained
throughout the 42-minute runtime as O.R.k. state the case for optimism, tolerance
& inclusivity - these are hopeful anthems for an increasingly uncertain world.
A highlight is 'Consquence', where Lef spars with Grammy winning vocal phenom
Elisa, best known outside her native Italy for her collaboration with the legendary
Ennio Morricone on Quentin Tarantino's 'Django Unchained' soundtrack.
Album closer 'Someone Waits' features virtuoso cellist Jo Quail who provides
seductive, intertwining melodies which contrast the huge riffs underpinning
Screamnasium's sound.
The creative duo of Grammy winning art director Adam Jones (of Tool) & Marvel/
DC Comics illustrator Denis Rodier have handled the artwork & layout to create an
iconic album artwork with remarkable visual imagery, while mixing & Mastering
duties have been undertaken by Machine (Lamb of God, King Crimson, Clutch).
Encompassing a wide breadth of emotional landscapes, 'Screamnasium' is the
perfect catharsis for our troubled times.

A mysterious object is revealed; the drum sound of the rite arouses;
flares are blazing; the soul slides through water's surface; the breath
lights up the air; the body as a sacrifice, I hear myself, in this dream - The
12 songs that constitute Dreams, the third full-length from the Kaohsiung
trio Elephant Gym, explore the deep spacetime continuum that
consciousness cannot capture
Beyond the trio's staple instrumentation of guitar, bass, and drumset, Dreams
blends in wind instruments, traditional drums, and Taiwanese narrative. Through
collaboration with Hakka singer- songwriter Lin Sheng Xiang and pop musician
9m88, notable for their accomplishments in jazz, soul, and R&B, Dreams is a
sweeping narrative about a fantastical dream that crosses the boundary. After
pressing play, please do close your eyes, and enjoy the dream. Pressed on Orange
color vinyl.

'The Size Of The Night' is Peter Kernel's fourth studio LP, originally
released in 2018
The duo is composed of Barbara Lehnoff (Camilla Sparksss) and Aris Bassetti,
who are trying to accept that they can be both sensitive people and huge jerks.
And that it's ok. Considered a little masterpiece among indie rock critics, this
album expands the noise pop spectrum through larger ambitions and new
instrumentals.

Jet Set is a collection of 15 carefully crafted guitar-driven songs that
prove to be the most diverse and inventive of Los Straitjackets' oeuvre
The album was recorded at The Pow Wow Fun Room studios in Los Angeles with
producer and friend Janne Haavisto (of Laika and the Cosmonauts) and includes
a few guest appearances by The Basic Cable Horns (from the Conan show) and
Finnish actress and musician Irina Bjorklund. Jet Set delivers the high-energy rock
and roll instrumental music fans have come to expect from Los Straitjackets.
This 10th anniversary edition of Los Straitjackets' long-out-of-print 2012 classic is
pressed on sky blue vinyl

Ireland based American songsmith Peter Broderick announces the release of Piano Works Vol. 1 (Floating in Tucker’s Basement) — a new comprehensive album of solo piano recordings out November 25. Shining a light on the artist’s ongoing piano-based compositions, this release offers an opportunity to celebrate his more intimate work. A comprehensive collection of Peter Broderick’s piano work to date, these recordings were originally captured in Berlin to accompany the 2017 sheet music book Piano Works Vol. 1. The book contains 20 pieces for solo piano and a download code to access new recordings of all 20 pieces. Up until now, the only way to hear these recordings was to purchase the sheet music book. This release sees the original recordings receiving further treatment and processing by Tucker Martine in the customised echo chamber of his studio in Portland, Oregon—the region where Broderick grew up. The clean and unaffected original recordings were intended for educational purposes, so for this release Erased Tapes founder Robert Raths suggested to ‘throw the recordings into the well’, for a more dynamic and conscious listening experience. “We gave these recordings a bit of a makeover. We sent all the tracks over to legendary engineer/producer Tucker Martine, who processed all 20 of them with unique tape and reverb treatments, utilising the echo chamber of his Portland studio, Flora Recording & Playback,” explains Broderick. Now these recordings are set to be released on doublevinyl, double CD and all digital platforms.

­The mysterious afro-­soul of The Shaolin Afronauts first echoed across the dance floors of Australia in early 2008, captivating audiences with a highly evolved and unique approach to avant-garde soul music matched with an improvisational pedigree that immediately set them apart from their peers. In the almost fifteen years since the ensemble's debut they have released three albums on Freestyle Records and toured across Australia and around the world.

After an extended hiatus punctuated by rare live performances, The Shaolin Afronauts return with The Fundamental Nature of Being, an epic five album release that expands the sonic vision of the ensemble to towering new heights of burning afro-funk alongside esoteric and ethereal new sonic excursions. This expanded musical journey further explores the wide spectrum of the band's musical identity – with each of the five parts designed as both standalone records, while also offering a singular listening journey across the band's expansive musical world. This third part in the collection starts to explore influences from spiritual & free jazz sounds while still retaining the band's rich pan-african groove pallette.

Far over on the west coast of the USA we find a room full of drum
machines, samplers and keyboards. Hard at work is Israel ‘Iz’ Gravning aka Tone Scientist, who’s been using this Seattle studio to produce genre-defying future music for more than 25 years.
An avid student of jazz fusion, hip hop, house, techno and others, he
was galvanised to build his own studio after hearing jungle and drum & bass on a trip to London in 1995. His musical course thus intersected with the collectives then pushing new dancefloor sonics rooted in the rich tradition of Black music – like Nuyorican Soul over on the east coast, and the new broken beats of IG Culture, Dego and Bugz In The Attic in London. Then, in the early 2000s, Iz put out a handful of EPs under different aliases, including ‘Lion Dub’ on the Guidance sublabel Subtitled, but soon stepped back from the public stage. That’s not to say he stopped making or playing music, though. Far from it. Fast forward two decades and our very own Walrus, chilly but happy in the depths of a Toronto winter, happened across ‘Lion Dub’ in the legendary Play The Record store. Intrigued, he tracked Iz down and discovered he had been active all this time. A short email exchange later and this 2xLP of archive material was born.

These six tracks explain fully why Iz calls his studio the ‘Time Machine’: vintage equipment and instruments converse with up-to-date software; classic sounds and textures twist into fresh configurations; and Iz’s own creativity and musicality sings to us from a location beyond the trappings of time or genre.

All music written, produced and mixed by Israel Gravning aka Tone
Scientist in Seattle/Washington between 2005 - 2008 except for “Things

For the fourth offering of Still Techno, newcomers Ke Thu drop a massive deep techno EP - 'Like A Beacon Against The Fog'.
Ke Thu is a Detroit-based live act consisting of Tim Barrett and Steven Stavropoulos. The two have been making music together for the last decade, developing the Ke Thu alias in 2018. Their music is an earnest exploration of techno and everything it is capable of: ethereal soundscapes, broken beats and rhythms, deep textures, and more

The purest reflection of DRS as a musician to date, his self-titled 'Del-Rok-Ski' album sees one of the most heavyweight lyricists in the game delve deep into the intricacies of himself to deliver an honest, inward, and characteristically beautiful work of art. His fifth album in the space of three transformative years, the Manchester-based artist has found a home for his latest album on Shogun Audio, traversing an eclectic and beguiling selection of sonic soundscapes across twelve of the purest tracks that you'll hear this year.

Whilst incorporating the powerful messaging and undeniable lyrical expertise that DRS has demonstrated for over a decade, 'Del-Rok-Ski' offers something that none of the previous albums has been able to. Marking two years sober, this latest offering investigates previously unexplored territories for DRS. "I feel like music has never been me", says the vocalist, who truly feels that this album, which evolves from moods of darkness and loss to those of lightness and hope, is an unadulterated reflection of himself to its core.

Teaming up with a selection of hugely talented collaborators, including the likes of Calibre, LSB, Dub Phizix, Duskee, Disrupta, Monrroe, and many more, 'Del-Rok-Ski' sees DRS serve up a heartfelt, intimate, and personal lyrical journey that is arguably his best work to date.

Through the heartwrenching, high-energy feels of 'Can't Explain (Faded) ft. Document One', summer anthems such as 'Waiting To Go ft. Disrupta & Duskee' and 'Heavens Not Cheap ft. Drumantle', certified dancefloor destroyers like 'Comme Ci' and 'They Ain't Listening', which are both produced by T95, and many other gems embedded in this album, DRS further cements his reputation as one of the most unique, talented, and iconic lyricists to ever grace the drum and bass scene.

"I feel like I've never been so cleared-headed during my whole career of making music. 'Del-Rok-Ski' is me.
DRS

To celebrate the forthcoming release of 'Del-Rok-Ski', DRS is now embarking on 'The Man Who Fell To Earth Tour', which sees him tour the U.K and work with 8 Gold Rings, Dom Lawson, and Dogger to curate a deeply personal Live Show that'll see appearances from numerous special guests up and down the country.

The renowned trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O’Rourke and Oren Ambarchi return to Black Truffle with their 11th release, “Caught in the dilemma of being made to choose” This makes the modesty which should never been closed off itself Continue to ask itself: “Ready or not?” Demonstrating once again their commitment to continual experimentation in instrumentation and approach, the record begins with a long-distance collaboration made in response to a commission from New York’s Issue Project Room in 2021 during widespread lockdowns and travel limitations. A unique piece in the trio’s extensive body of work, this side-long epic finds Haino performing on metal percussion, O’Rourke on electronics and Ambarchi on gongs and bells. Initially dominated by rapid patterns on resonant, high-pitched tuned percussion, the piece sets Haino’s dynamic and dramatic performance against a calm backdrop of cycling electronics, thrumming gong strikes and hanging bell tones. The performance develops a heightened, intensely concentrated atmosphere reminiscent of Haino’s classic Tenshi No Ginjinka or his Nijiumu project; when Haino moves to clashing hand cymbals in its second half, the piece’s ritualistic energy suggests aspects of the music of Tibetan Buddhism.

The remainder of the double LP documents the trio live at Tokyo’s SuperDeluxe (the location of all but their very first recording) in a wide-ranging set recorded in December 2017. The concert opens, in another first for the trio, with Haino on drums, O’Rourke on Hammond organ and Ambarchi on his signature Leslie cabinet guitar tones. Haino’s explosively untutored approach to the drumkit will be familiar to some listeners from the radical duo iteration of Fushitsusha heard on Origin’s Hesitation. Setting flurries of rapid activity against moments of silence, his drumming here at times suggests Milford Graves in its tumbling toms and thudding kick-drum propulsion. Accompanied by O’Rourke’s organ and Ambarchi’s guitar, which in their shared use of long tones and shifting modulation speeds almost blend into a single voice, the opening sections of this performance are some of the most magical music the trio has committed to tape thus far.

After an interlude of spoken vocals in both Japanese and English, Haino makes a dramatic entrance on guitar. Against O’Rourke and Ambarchi’s increasingly intense electronic backdrop, Haino unleashes a stunning passage of slowly moving chromatic melodies and sudden shrieking explosions bathed in distortion and reverb. By the time we reach the third side, the guitar/bass/drums power trio is established and lurches into a passage of massive, lumbering rock that threatens to fall apart at every beat, O’Rourke’s strummed chordal work on six string bass creating a harmonic density equivalent to a second guitar. An abrupt edit throws the listener in media res into a frantic locked groove grounded by fuzzed out bass patterns and caveman drums. As Haino moves through a variety of approaches, from massive edifices of stuttering fuzz to ominous swarms of feedback, the trio eventually stumble into a kind of Harmolodic military tattoo, Haino’s guitar weaving and slashing across the rhythm section’s irregular accents. Moving through an epic opening duet for O’Rourke on Hammond and Haino’s wailing guitar, the fourth side eventually ramps up into a frenetic finale of mad bass riffing, crackling snare hits and guitar squall.“Caught in the dilemma of being made to choose” This makes the modesty which should never been closed off itself Continue to ask itself: “Ready or not?” is a testament to the continuing power and invention of this trio, who continue to seek out new terrain after over a decade working together. 2LP set presented in a lavish gatefold sleeve on heavy stock along with inner sleeves containing live pics by Tsuyoshi Kamaike. Photography by Jim O’Rourke, design by Lasse Marhaug and translation by Alan Cummings.

Sasu Ripatti, now sporting the new "Ripatti Deluxe" moniker, presents his very own abstract take on early rave and happy hardcore. "Speed Demon" marks the first release on Ripatti's newly launched label "Rajaton".

The Finnish word ”raja” has multiple meanings. It could refer to a ”border”, ”limit”, ”boundary”, or even ”capacity” if understood broadly. It feels that ”border” is the first interpretation that comes to mind when the word is met in isolation of additional context. It often includes political energy of some sort. Or perhaps it’s just this particular point in time that leads the mind into such field of thought.

As the Dutch author Rutger Bregman notes in his book Human Kind – A Hopeful History, the real trouble with people began when the first person had the idea of drawing a line on sand and claiming ownership of the area on their side. The concept of physical borders was born.

Naturally, there are mental borders, as well. Think about all the things you shut out because they’re ”not for you”. They are numerous and we do it all the time. The issue is not to stop that, but to recognize when to let new things in, even if they’re not commonplace. Mental borders might often be easier to rewrite than physical ones, but the challenge remains a real one.

That’s where the derivative form ”rajaton” comes to play. By simply adding the ”-ton”, all borders, limits, boundaries and capacities are lifted in an instant. We have something ”borderless” instead, and are thus free to expand our thinking.

One could argue that the word ”rajaton” implies not the removal of borders but instead their very non-existence at large. How will our mind work when the concept of borders doesn’t even enter the conscious thought?

Mental borderlessness is a truly fascinating concept. A maximalist array of opportunities and potential ideas enters the picture – one which is also limitless, unlimited, sans boundaries, and also without a danger of being depleted. It’s an all-existence of multitudes where hierarchy also starts to deteriorate, giving way to a new form of full understanding without judgement.

Music is one fine place for such thinking, especially when thinking about the role of the listener. Occupying a much more active position than is generally recognized, the listener can greatly benefit from borderless thinking, and thus help to enhance the collective perceived significance of any given body of work. When there are no boundaries, the interpretation remains unchained and honest.

Basically it was all already said by the late revolutionary jazz pianist Burton Greene: ”Borders are boring!”

crystal clear vinyl / limited

Vargmal Records is an independent record label and multidisciplinary platform founded by Gent Gjonbalaj. Operating from Prishtina, Kosovo, the imprint publishes hypnotic compositions of various forms, exploring the realms of electronic music and beyond. The label's debut release marks the birth of an initiative started several years ago, reflecting on a process of growth, research and refinement.

Conceived as a foundation record, the 'Classics' EP demonstrates Vargmal's concept and overall spirit. The Italian pioneer Leo Anibaldi inaugurates the label featuring two cuts on the A-side, originally produced in the early 1990s--'Muta 5' and an as yet unheard version of 'Endurance 4'--replete with Anibaldi's signature sound programming and high-octane output. On the flip, the torch is passed to another Italian master, Donato Dozzy, who takes them to another level with his peculiar and precise remix treatment. Where Anibaldi paves the way for a possible future, Dozzy applies a modern touch to the same fundamental approach--a balancing act that shows a spectrum within the conceptual framework from two different points in the continuum, transcending any individual style or place in time.

Selected by their ability to extract the full potentiality of the sound, the tracks on this release reflect a minimalist approach that is inherently resourceful and discerning, whilst maximizing effect and impact. The efficiency of the sound can be heard in the stripped-back elements, practical arrangement and execution of the creative idea. 'Muta 5' opens the EP, a throbbing mass of pressure cooker action, continuously building tension with rippling percussion lines and syncopated beats. Ahead of its time in 1993, 'Muta 5' has a raw, driving energy and commanding authority. Dozzy reworks it into a tighter, linear forma--whilst retaining the angst of the original, he applies new synth motifs and notches the speed down for extra poise. 'Endurance 4' (Version II) is a tribal workout with hallmarks of the classic Italian deep techno sound. With arching drones, chugging rhythms and dramatic narratives, 'Endurance 4' presents an idiosyncratic style and emotive character which later became the model for this sound. Dozzy's hypnotic faculty shines through on the remix, a polished re-run that elaborates on the ominous melodic theme, and lifts the sound majestically to a gliding altitude--marking the end of this record and the beginning of Vargmal's journey.

Magazine is glad to announce the album Waves 3 by Curd Duca, 
 the third and last part of the trilogy Waves: Austrian electronic composer Curd Duca is widely known for his 1990es series of critically acclaimed easy listening 1-5 (Normal) and elevator 1-3 (Mille Plateaux).

After a long break from the studio, Duca has issued part 1 of the Waves series in late 2020 on Magazine. This was in fact his first album in 20 years. The Waves recordings pick up the thread of his 90s work and open up a new chapter. Again, everything is shifting constantly and all tracks are quite different (soft, rough, melodic, abstract ... ), but complement each other in a surprisingly coherent way to form an idiosyncratic universe.

While other experimental artists can sound as if they're attempting to lift lead weights over their heads, Duca is content flicking feathers into their faces. After his impressive 1990s/00s run on Normal and Mille Plateaux, Curd Duca had disappeared for 20 years before emerging from the aether last year.

The albums of the new "Waves" Trilogy represent a flawless examination of sound and texture. The Vienna-based producer still straddles high and low culture, but approaches his sonics with a more historically aware ear. So plain and resonant gong recordings are placed next to pop music loops and DSP-fractured cut-ups, and icy electronic jams nudge up against cassette warped instrumental sketches.

Waves 3 is a continuation and culmination of the series. In the final chapter, we’re drawn in with church bells on dome, but quickly transported to another era entirely with the crackly bläser and absurd zither, a tongue-in-cheek plunderphonic experiment assembled from zither samples. Duca follows this evocative run of tracks with a machine-gun blast of experimental sound, from the percussive 500 GRM to the ferric ASMR birdsong of ziegenmelker.

This is Duca at his most uncompromising, grabbing central European culture and dragging it through his array of processes. Playing the album from beginning to end opens up a weightless cut-and-paste mixtape, stitched together with expert foresight and a knowing wink to camera.

Like the best psychedelic experiences, memories are triggered and turned inside-out, and knowledge is allowed to blossom. Curd Duca has been refining his process for three decades now, and few artists have quite the same ability to challenge, provoke, and inspire.

Produced by Laurel Halo and released via Norway's respected Smalltown Supersound label, Anja Lauvdal's first solo release, From a Story Now Lost, is a gorgeous musical essay reflecting on time, its perception, and lost histories rediscovered. Finally exploring her own voice after more than a decade of collaborative improvisational playing - starting at her time in jazz conservatory in Trondheim - the album is a jewel of subtle beauty and innovative detail. A freeform musician on piano, synthesizers, and electronics, Lauvdal's discography stretches back to 2013 and includes her participation in a myriad of ensembles and collaborations exploring the limits of sound and music in many forms, including noise, jazz, and more. Following her move to Oslo after graduation, she became deeply embedded in the music community there, touring with Jenny Hval as well as playing on her records. When pandemic hit and isolation was the norm, Lauvdal began working on her own, recording her improvisations in an attempt to capture something new for herself. Connecting to Laurel Halo via Smalltown's founder Joakim Haugland, the acclaimed American artist agreed to work with Lauvdal in shaping her solo record, becoming integral to its creation through all of its stages. Lauvdal credits Halo as a deep listener and gentle "thought-provoker", who contributed ideas as well as helping to shape the finished versions (Halo also worked alongside Rashad Becker on the final mix of the album). Together, they found a method of recording Lauvdal's improvisations, making small loops from those, feeding them back into the synthesizers, and making synthesizers out of the improvisations, which Lauvdal would then re-improvise with. She describes the end result, "like seeing different pieces of time around in the universe." While the record is based on Lauvdal's improvisations, some tracks were inspired Agathe Backer Grondahl, a Norwegian classical pianist and composer from the latter half of the 19th century. Lauvdal notes that Grondahl is not widely known, although her best friend Edvard Grieg is still considered Norway's most famous composer. Yet now, partly through Lauvdal, her story resurfaces and persists. "From a Story Now Lost means the story is still there," Lauvdal explains. "It hasn't gone anywhere even though nobody heard it, or maybe you're hearing it for the first time. And actually it was told a long time ago - maybe you weren't ready to hear that story at the time." This hints at the limitless nature of her music, as well as its new emotional texture. Direct in its vulnerability, immediate in its tenderness, From a Story Now Lost is a sophisticated evocation over restrained artistry spilling over with meaning.

Since 2014, Wand have made five albums (and an EP) in the studio and a living playing on the road. Business/pleasure: the two sides of their (multiverticed, decagon) coin, flipping in the strobe light of ongoing self actualization. And yet, by doing both at the same time-making a record of them playing live-they"ve now made their best one yet. How do you get Spiders In the Rain? Start by going all the way back to January 2020. Do you remember? Wand do. They"d been touring Laughing Matter for ten months. They"d done the coast, spanned the country, crossed the water twice, came back home and kept on going...driving, flying, occasionally floating (or maybe just thinking they were?), always on to the next town. They did all kinds of shows-clubs, ballrooms, festival gigs with no roof overhead-the songs expanding and contracting according to the dimensions of each day. Seventy-nine shows, and everything that was involved-the miles that ran beneath them, the different places and people everywhere, the music as it reathed, making everyone change every night-alchemized the band, and they drove deeper into their far horizon than they"d ever previously gone. The essential truth of the live vibe-that it"s always better when everybody"s here-was clear, so they booked a few shows more in Cali, from L.A. up to Marin. They brought along light and projections from The Mad Alchemist Liquid Light Show and Mike Kreibel and Zac Hernandez too, to tape everything-to get the big-deck energy out of performances in S.F. and L.A., but also to draw it out of the margins in Sacramento, Novato and Big Sur. It all happened, too. Everyone brought their experience. Packaged sumptuously with artwork from Sam Klickner, Spiders In the Rain is an arc of natural beauty and man-made abstraction inside and out, on an epic scale. Wand are orchestra and machine on Spiders In the Rain, one with the audience, able to get inside any dimension of their sound, whether its songs from their second album or their last one.

2xLP + Book (Black) Heavy metal? Glam? Hard rock? Make your own fuckin' call, you poser. We're not gonna do it for you. Bound for Hell is early `80s L.A. rock as it actually was: a California cataclysm of drunk and horny headbangers, dressed in sharp, shiny, leather androgyny and fire, kicking crowds in the teeth to clear the way to that one big shot. This 2LP set delivers 21 tracks by 21 artists in an ephemera-stuffed gatefold, plus 144-page hardbound book detailing the Sunset Strip's most razor-sharp heathens. Drumsticks burned. Hands were severed. Faces bled. Heavy was HELL for a half decade and it was a long, long way down.

2xLP + Book (Black) Heavy metal? Glam? Hard rock? Make your own fuckin' call, you poser. We're not gonna do it for you. Bound for Hell is early `80s L.A. rock as it actually was: a California cataclysm of drunk and horny headbangers, dressed in sharp, shiny, leather androgyny and fire, kicking crowds in the teeth to clear the way to that one big shot. This 2LP set delivers 21 tracks by 21 artists in an ephemera-stuffed gatefold, plus 144-page hardbound book detailing the Sunset Strip's most razor-sharp heathens. Drumsticks burned. Hands were severed. Faces bled. Heavy was HELL for a half decade and it was a long, long way down.

Hot on the heels of last year's Dear Diary EP on Lobster Theremin, explosive performances on HOR and an intimate interview with celebrated German publication Groove Magazine, frequent Berlin & Leipzig DJ Narciss comes through with four deep and groovy cuts of bass-driven techno.

'Feather Boa Constrictor' features one of Copenhagen's most exciting emerging producers in recent years - Vixen - fresh off her own acclaimed release, Hard Magik For Soft Souls, on Lobster Theremin in December. Now the pair link up on the DJ Mag Breakthrough Label of the Year imprint that blends all the best elements of the Berlin and Copenhagen scenes in a highspeed trip through psy-trance, synth-wave and techno.

Narciss is on his ones as we enter the A2; 'Lovechild' (Outrun Mix) is aptly named with its reference to the 1986 arcade game Outrun, which featured some of the best video-game music to ever be created. Deep basslines, swirling synth-stabs and a soothing deepness and contemplativeness that can only come with driving a virtual car down a never-ending highway. 'Tokyo' makes use of polyrhythms and textures blended with what sounds like an old Sampha record. It's a wonderful combination of dark, deep and forward-thinking sound, before Copenhagen producer Repro comes through with a typically EBM-focused remix combining elements of every track.

Simon Crab's Invisible Cities album explores the outer edges of ambient, electronic, soundscapes, industrial, dub, and beyond.
This was recorded at his Hastings studio in 2021.

Additional percussion from Fritz Catlin & David J Smith, vocals by Ksenia Sadovski.

Artwork Simon Crab

Mastering Justin Drake

Pur, roh und ungefiltert, so präsentieren sich Disharmonic Orchestra live. Vier Songs aus den Kult-Alben
”Expositionsprophylaxe”, ”Not to be undimensional conscious” und ”Ahead” gibt es nun in brachialen
Liveversionen auf dieser streng limitierten und farbigen 12inch Schallplatte. Aufgenommen ”Live in Austria”.
Die Musik ist es, die bei den Avantgarde Metallernaus Österreich im Vordergrund steht. Direkt und
schnörkellos bringt das Trio-Infernale ihre Songs auf den Punkt. Die Spielfreude sieht und hört man ihnen
an.