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In his tenth year with Acid Jazz, the ever-prolific Matt Berry
has crafted a psych masterpiece. Once again proving that
his artistic progression and ambition knows no bounds.
Following the acclaim of last year’s Top 30 album
‘Phantom Birds’ (★★★★ The Times), Acid Jazz release
‘Blue Elephant’, Matt Berry’s sixth studio album with the
ground breaking label.
Recorded during the summer of 2020, ‘Blue Elephant’ is
testament to Matt’s exceptional musicianship, production
skills and songwriting prowess with every instrument
played by Matt - including guitars, bass, a variety of
keyboards and synthesizers (piano, Wurlitzer, mellotron,
Moog, Hammond, Vox and Farfisa organs) - with the
exception of drums (supplied by Craig Blundell), on
arguably his best album to date.
This music soundtracks an album that explores themes
surrounding today’s close scrutiny in all its bewildering,
objectifying and unnerving experiences. Very much a
conceptual and, therefore, continuous long-player, the
album’s infectious grooves come to the fore on standout
tracks ‘Summer Sun’, heavy-psych instrumental ‘Invisible’
and the three-part ‘Blues Inside Me’, which encompasses
a psych journey through a late ‘60s and early glam filter,
mixed with the propulsive ‘Like Stone’.
‘Blue Elephant’ is available on digipack CD, blue vinyl,
black vinyl and audio cassette.

In his tenth year with Acid Jazz, the ever-prolific Matt Berry
has crafted a psych masterpiece. Once again proving that
his artistic progression and ambition knows no bounds.
Following the acclaim of last year’s Top 30 album
‘Phantom Birds’ (★★★★ The Times), Acid Jazz release
‘Blue Elephant’, Matt Berry’s sixth studio album with the
ground breaking label.
Recorded during the summer of 2020, ‘Blue Elephant’ is
testament to Matt’s exceptional musicianship, production
skills and songwriting prowess with every instrument
played by Matt - including guitars, bass, a variety of
keyboards and synthesizers (piano, Wurlitzer, mellotron,
Moog, Hammond, Vox and Farfisa organs) - with the
exception of drums (supplied by Craig Blundell), on
arguably his best album to date.
This music soundtracks an album that explores themes
surrounding today’s close scrutiny in all its bewildering,
objectifying and unnerving experiences. Very much a
conceptual and, therefore, continuous long-player, the
album’s infectious grooves come to the fore on standout
tracks ‘Summer Sun’, heavy-psych instrumental ‘Invisible’
and the three-part ‘Blues Inside Me’, which encompasses
a psych journey through a late ‘60s and early glam filter,
mixed with the propulsive ‘Like Stone’.
‘Blue Elephant’ is available on digipack CD, blue vinyl,
black vinyl and audio cassette.

In his tenth year with Acid Jazz, the ever-prolific Matt Berry
has crafted a psych masterpiece. Once again proving that
his artistic progression and ambition knows no bounds.
Following the acclaim of last year’s Top 30 album
‘Phantom Birds’ (★★★★ The Times), Acid Jazz release
‘Blue Elephant’, Matt Berry’s sixth studio album with the
ground breaking label.
Recorded during the summer of 2020, ‘Blue Elephant’ is
testament to Matt’s exceptional musicianship, production
skills and songwriting prowess with every instrument
played by Matt - including guitars, bass, a variety of
keyboards and synthesizers (piano, Wurlitzer, mellotron,
Moog, Hammond, Vox and Farfisa organs) - with the
exception of drums (supplied by Craig Blundell), on
arguably his best album to date.
This music soundtracks an album that explores themes
surrounding today’s close scrutiny in all its bewildering,
objectifying and unnerving experiences. Very much a
conceptual and, therefore, continuous long-player, the
album’s infectious grooves come to the fore on standout
tracks ‘Summer Sun’, heavy-psych instrumental ‘Invisible’
and the three-part ‘Blues Inside Me’, which encompasses
a psych journey through a late ‘60s and early glam filter,
mixed with the propulsive ‘Like Stone’.
‘Blue Elephant’ is available on digipack CD, blue vinyl,
black vinyl and audio cassette.

Jasmyn is the new solo project created by Jasmyn Burke, former singer-songwriter and frontwoman of the critically acclaimed Canadian band, Weaves. Having two JUNO nominations for Alternative Album of the Year and two SOCAN Songwriting Prize nominations, Burke has established herself as one of Canada's most exciting and fresh voices. With this new project, she has decided to use her own name, Jasmyn, to mark the start of exploring her own unique sound as a solo artist. Collaborating remotely with Los Angeles-based producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten) on a body of work she had compiled over months of being in lockdown. Finally in the Spring of 2021, Jasmyn went to LA to record with Congleton, exploring themes of finding patterns in life and how to perhaps change them. On the general direction of her new album In the Wild, Jasmyn said, "This was written during the Fall of 2020; The world was feeling pretty heavy, and I felt myself wanting to write music that created a mood of happiness and space to grow. I feel like I have grown and changed as a person over the last few years and wanted to write songs that created a sense of confidence and well-being." With Weaves receiving worldwide support from the likes of Rolling Stone Magazine, NPR, Pitchfork, and more, Jasmyn is excited to share a new side of herself, perhaps her most honest and raw work to date.

Delayed...

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever return in 2022 with Endless Rooms, the Melbourne quintet's third album proper. Described by the band - comprised of Fran Keaney, Joe White, Marcel Tussie and brothers Tom Russo and Joe Russo - as them "Doing what we do best: chasing down songs in a room together", Endless Rooms stands as a testament to the collaborative spirit and live power of RBCF. While initial ideas were traded online during long spells spent separated by lockdowns, the album was truly born during small windows of freedom in which the band would decamp to a mud-brick house in the bush around 2hrs north of Melbourne built by the extended Russo family in the 1970s. There, its 12 tracks took shape, informed to such an extent by the acoustics and ambience of the rambling lakeside house that they decided to record the album there. The house also features on the album cover. For the first time, the band self-produced the record (alongside engineer, collaborator and old friend, Matt Duffy), creating their most naturalistic and expansive document yet. The result is a collection of songs permeated by the spirit of the place; punctuated by field recordings of rain, fire, birds, and wind. "It's almost an anti-concept album," say the band. "The 'endless rooms' of the title reflects our love of creating worlds in our songs. We treat each of them as a bare room to be built up with infinite possibilities."

Mark Du Mosch is a master of electronics. Gracing a glut of labels in a career spanning more than a decade, he arrives at Schrödinger’s Box with a very special release. Presence is a fiver tracker of enviable quality. Set in the canon of warm techno, Du Mosch focuses on melody and texture. “Studio M Uno” is bright and unassuming, “Koriander” both assured and fragile. The tracks on offer feel like the musical accompaniment to a Summer’s day, a time where cares are in the present and future worries do not exist. The unseen complexities of the everyday are an audio focus, the intertwined interplay of drum patterns in “Mrk I Utilities” and the mechanical dawn of the title piece throb with a human pulse. Always present, but never imposed, is the techno composition that brought this dutchman to the attention of so many. This is plain to hear in the diverse threads that are collected to produce the rich and varied closer, “Too Much.”

After making waves and receiving coverage from a wide range of outlets such as Complex and Coindesk for being the first artist in history to accept a $1M advance in Bitcoin, Money Man drops off the aptly titled crypto-inspired album, Blockchain. The album coincides with the release of his first NFT which saw fans clamoring to snatch up the limited amount of tokens available to mint within a matter of days. Money Man flexes his knowledge of cryptocurrency and financial gains across 13 tracks, enlisting help from Moneybagg Yo, Jackboy, & Yung Bleu as we see his star power headed to the moon.

"Don’t be afraid, old son, it’s only me,
though not as I’ve appeared before,
on the battlements of your signature,
or margin of a book you can’t throw out"
~ Michael Donaghy

Whytwo is a young, enigmatic artist from Scotland, UK. A talented multi-instrumentalist and performer with an extraordinarily broad range.
First coming to Blu Mar Ten's attention after entering their 2017 remix competition, Whytwo created a wildly different take on their track 'Titans', bending it into a skittering, menacing groove while somehow maintaining a playful edge.

Fast-forward a little and we've now arrived at Whytwo's debut LP, 'Ghost', an exhilarating and elasticated take on Drum & Bass that exists in the hinterland between elation, melancholy and longing.

Mirroring Whytwo's music, the album's title, 'Ghost', is richly layered word, meaning, in different places and at different times; a memory of something or someone; to disappear without communication; to move quietly and quickly; to secretly do work for another; and, of course, a being caught between worlds.
From the old English, 'Gast', meaning 'breath' or 'spirit', the word eventually transformed into 'Ghost' coming to describe "a slight suggestion, mere shadow or semblance". All of these definitions relate, in some way, to the album now before us.

In conversations with Whytwo, he describes how his Jazz musician Grandfather was the person responsible for first giving him music-making software, and whose clarinet features on some of the album tracks. At the same time that 'Ghost' was being created, Whytwo was looking after a young child and some of the drums on 'Ghost' are recordings of the child hitting things. Whytwo describes the feeling of existing between these two extreme states, young & old, naive & experienced, primitive & advanced, and taking the role of a medium 'caught between worlds' whose task was to stitch together this generational fabric.

The result is nothing less than spectacular. Despite having its roots in Drum & Bass, the rules and conventions of the style are ruthlessly disobeyed resulting in glittering cascades of melody, harmony and rhythm that somehow burst with both sadness and joy, hope & loss, memory and anticipation. The music swoops and dips, briefly casting shadows before blasting them away with sunlight, evoking memories both personal and collective. This is 'Lost Soul Music' that manages to speak to all of us.

Despite being deceptively listenable, Whytwo insists this is not relaxing background music. Listeners should fully engage with the music beyond its attractive surface and absorb it at the same deep human level where it was created. 'Ghost's production levels are astoundingly high but focussing on those would be a mistake. They only serve to carry the spiritual content of the music across to the audience and unlock the valves of feeling. The beauty here is not the machine, but the ghost in the machine.

Rotterdam-based Beyun returns to Vault Wax with four deep cuts of Detroit-meets-UK influenced breaks and electro with lush pads, emotive strings, and cosmic acid lines.

Jan Delay hat im letzten Sommer zusammen mit der Disko No. 1 “Earth, Wind & Feiern” - die Platte für den Club in unserem Herzen - auf die Bühnen dieses Landes gebracht und die Show in Hamburg gleich mitaufgezeichnet. Daraus sind 18 dynamische Live-Tracks voller Bass und Bumms entstanden, die zusammen mit den zwei neuen Studio-Songs „Der Bass & die Gang“ und „Alles gut“ die positiven Vibes zurück in unsere Herzen tragen.

Wie immer bei Jan Delay schöpft “Earth, Wind & Feiern” aus fünf Jahrzehnten Popgeschichte. Vor allem aber spielt die Platte im Hier und Jetzt. In ihr stecken Burna Boy und Stefflon Don, Daft Punk und
Drake, Sly & Robbie und Meek Mill. Es gibt Afrobeats, Disco, Trap und Ska, sogar Stadiontechno und LatinX-Riddims.

“Earth, Wind & Feiern – Live aus dem Hamburger Hafen” ist voll Seele und Bounce und positiver Energie. Denn so bedrückend und komplex die Welt manchmal auch scheinen mag: Ein paar simple Wahrheiten werden nie von ihrer Gültigkeit verlieren. Wenn Hass herrscht, hilft Liebe ganz bestimmt. Und das Wichtigste ist, dass das Feuer nicht aufhört zu brennen. Jan Delay ist wieder zurück, um es am Lodern zu halten.

Das Album erscheint als 2CD im Digipack (Studioalbum inkl. 2 neuer Songs, Live-Album) sowie als schwarze 2LP inkl. magenta 7inch (Live-Album, 2 neue Stuidotracks auf 7inch).

Eddie C descends out of the clouds with a real fun EP to mark the 16th release from Lips & Rhythm Records.

The Canadian producer and edit wizard was last seen at the helm of his seaplane en route to the island of Madeira for surfing and sunshine.
Before he took off he left us some heat we are ready to share with you all.

The title track 'Infinite Wait' is a smooth & rolling mid-tempo flute-laced groove, while EverybodyEverybodyEverybody is a thick and chugging "acid-lite" cut that's going to thump across dance floors.

With the runway cleared for landing the 'wait' is finally over for this party record.

Alex the Fairy is an artist based in Berlin producing music with an emphasis on electronic and concrete methods. Alex the Fairy is also part of the 3Ddancer trio, a live act focusing on improvisation and expression using electronics.

Alex The Fairy writes: "I had sent The Tapeworm tracks before, but I was being difficult so was asked to send a new bunch, with a deadline. I sent the new bunch, a fairly odd collection expecting perhaps some of them to be combined with the older stuff but not seeing any coherence in them. I figured The Tapeworm would find at least something. To my surprise the suggestion that came back was exclusively the tracks I had sent the second time, and, re-listening through the tracks in this new order after returning from a Christmas dinner lying on the floor of my nephews bedroom gave them a completely new context. Despite them being quite varied in terms of age (one had been flung together a few days earlier on the train while another was approaching Schulreife) they seemed to meld together in such a way that I hardly recognised them…

Last year my grandmother died. My last grandparent. I had put off seeing her during corona, as I thought it best not to put her at risk and had almost left to visit her days before her death but had delayed my departure because of a medical appointment. My failure to her weighs heavy on my mind - fates grimacing grin: too little, too late. The approaching march of death, one generation closer was a confrontation I wasn't prepared for.

While clearing out her flat in the following weeks I had kept some of my grandfathers cassettes, live recordings of jazz greats, Pink Floyd, Sade and some classical among them, none originals, several presumably from the radio e.g. a church organ rendition of Bach. At the time I wasn't sure why I was hanging on to them, other than the urge to hoard, and that it felt wrong not at least to keep some. Half a year later, half way through mixing this cassette, suffering from my first bout of COVID, I had the insatiable urge to hook up the cassette player I had received from my grandfather after his death around nineteen years earlier and had been dragging along with me since. I stuck a cassette in only to immediately return to the safety of my covers. I began to work my way into what I had saved, hearing the fruits of my grandfathers labour decades before. It felt like quite an intimate interaction with someone I had long lost contact to/was long gone. Quite a wonderful thing, these time traveling cassettes.

I returned to the tracks to mix them shortly before my corona/cassette experience, with a new mixing console at hand. I had been looking for one for several years, but nothing had ever clicked, until I found this old broadcast desk 30 minutes from my place (it also coincided with a payment from a job the sum of which matched the price identically… fates return). Installing became a massive hassle and I doubted my decision continuously, but the further it was implemented the more it made sense. The first track I recorded with the mixer is on this cassette. Shortly before the mixing I was introduced to an Effektgerät by a friend, Rapha. Another good friend Art lent me their one, and I ended up using copious amounts of it throughout mixing, alongside my usual space creators. All the tracks on this release were mixed again on this mixer and are in a sense all a bit of a dub of the originals. I wouldn't have worked this way without the mixer, and the effect gave me a dimension I hadn't had before, so, from a technical perspective, the mixer and this effect define this release, giving it a coherence, at least for me. Emotionally of course the chaos and turbulence of the preceding year and my newfound appreciation for the medium give it a meaning I will struggle to formulate." – Alex The Fairy, Berlin, 9 May 2022

Fuchs is a band that never was. It vanished as quickly as it appeared in the picture, much like the animal that can be seen on this album and after whom it was named. In 2005, Kante singer and guitarist Peter Thiessen travelled to Weilheim to visit Markus and Micha Acher in their studio, where they were joined, among others, by Notwist-affiliated musicians like Cico Beck, Robert Klinger, Carl Oesterhelt and Stefan Schreiber. Spirits were high, but schedules were full: after a week of improvised sessions, everyone went their own way. The recordings gathered dust until Markus Acher found them again in 2021 while cleaning out his studio. After carefully re-evaluating the rough mixes, the musicians decided to finally release them. The resulting album comprises six tracks that musically draw on jazz, aesthetically lean on dub techniques and ideologically pick up on krautrock: there’s no solos to be heard on this record, just a few equally skilled and open-minded musicians listening to each other carefully, providing each other with space in which to unfold. »Fuchs« is a document of egos dissolving in a collective spirit.

Thiessen and the Acher brothers met in the 1990s and bonded not only over their shared background in hardcore music and the DIY ethos in which it was rooted, but also over their love for jazz. »If you look at those two things combined, you will eventually become convinced that you don’t have to be formally trained to make music that at least resembles jazz«, says Thiessen today. He invited Micha Acher to join his band Kante on flügelhorn in 2004 for a tour that saw the expanded group play unusual encores after the official concert was over. »Micha had taught us some dixie pieces, so night after night we would play a freestyle dixieland ska set in front of the remaining audience!« Naturally, the Acher brothers didn’t have to ask twice when they invited him for a visit in Weilheim to further explore their mutual interests in a studio setting. »I got on my way immediately and took two or three loose ideas, a tape echo and a guitar on whose headplate you could create fantastic sounds with me«, says Thiessen.

Between immersing themselves in books by the photographer Leonore Mau, cooking together and drinking the occasional fruit schnapps, the trio went into the studio. Says Thiessen, »Micha brought his flügelhorn and some wonderful ideas with him, Markus an Indian harmonium and a plan, Carl Oesterhelt came with a glockenspiel and a Chinese zither and a bunch of amazing jazz musicians joined in, too.« He considers the resulting recording sessions to be a kind of attempt at musically translating their conversations during those days. They discussed different approaches to jazz, whether sampling and musical miscitations can unlock ecstatic potentials and the possible parallels between syncretistic religions and pop music. »There’s traces of glossolalia, it's like a blurry séance«, adds Thiessen in regard to the sessions.

It is especially this spirit that managed to live on even though the recordings themselves were abandoned. »What we all liked most when listening back to the recordings is probably their marginal and fragmentary character, the empty spaces—the moments in which the virtuoso solo never comes, in which the centre remains empty.« The six pieces on »Fuchs« are chock-full of exactly these moments. When at one instant, the players seem to disperse and improvise freely, they always meet again on common ground a short time later, continuing on their way together. There are no conventions or even previous agreements that guide them, just a shared will to explore a vast range of curious sounds and unusual rhythms together as a truly unified constellation of very different musicians. Fuchs is a band that never was. Its ideas still reverberate vividly even 17 years later.

Zum 50. Jahrestages des Albums erscheint ”Madman Across The Water (50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) ” in vier verschiedenen Formaten. Alle Formate enthalten Bob Ludwigs definitives Remastering des Hauptalbums von 2016.

Die Super Deluxe Version (3CD/1BR) enthält 18 bisher unveröffentlichte Tracks, seltenes Material aus dieser Zeit, Klavierdemos des Albums und den Originalton des 1972 ausgestrahlten BBC-Konzerts Sounds For Saturday. Die Blu-Ray enthält einen 5.1-Mix von Greg Penny sowie die Sounds For Saturday und seinen Auftritt beim Old Grey Whistle Test von 1971. Die Tracks des Super Deluxe CD/BR-Sets werden auf dem 4LP Set erhältlich sein.

Das Box-Set enthält einen ausführlichen historischen Essay mit Interviews mit vielen, die an der Entstehung des Albums beteiligt waren, sowie Erinnerungsstücke und Kunstwerke aus dem Rocket-Archiv.

Das Album erscheint als 2CD, Ltd. 3CD + Blu-Ray und Ltd. 4LP Vinyl Box.

**180g heavyweight vinyl** Les Racines is the latest solo album from the eminent guitarist and songwriter Vieux Farka Touré, and his first for World Circuit Records. Known as the ‘Hendrix of the Sahara’, Vieux has released 4 critically acclaimed solo albums to date, extending the boundaries of traditional West African music into new and uncharted territory. He has also released audacious collaborations with the likes of Dave Matthews and jazz guitarist John Scofield, and albums with American singer-songwriter Julia Easterlin and Israeli singer-songwriter Idan Raichel. With Les Racines, which translates as ‘the roots’, Vieux documents a deep reconnection with the traditional Songhai music of northern Mali which is one of the traditions that has come to be known in the West as ‘Desert Blues’. Vieux’s roots run deeper than deep – he is the son of Ali Farka Touré, widely acclaimed as the finest guitarist Africa has ever produced. Recorded in Bamako in Vieux’s home studio, the timeless grooves of the album are steeped in the traditional music of West Africa. But the fire of Vieux’s guitar playing and the urgency of the messages in his songs add an entirely contemporary relevance. “We are nothing if we abandon respect for the past,” Vieux says. The resulting album, the most profound statement of his career to date, marks out Vieux as the great Ali Farka Touré’s rightful heir and a major artist in his own right. “Early in my career people asked why I wasn’t just following my father. But it was important for me to establish my own identity,” Vieux says. “Now people know what I can do, I can return to those roots with pride and I hope a certain authority.”

This compilation is a euphoric mix of Korean electro-pop beats, with a side of dizzy Seoul vibes. It consists of music by 9 Korean independent music artists. These artists are mostly well-known within Korea, but some of them are globally renowned. A number of artists in this record were awarded or nominated the Korean Music Awards (KMA), while some of them have worked collaboratively with the movie industry and the fashion industry. IDIOTAPE has become a globally renowned electronic band in the last decade. Starting from their early global exposure at 2014 SXSW, USA, IDIOTAPE has actively performed every year on big stages worldwide and has collaborated with various brands such as Adidas Originals, Fred Perry, and EA Sports. KIRARA is known for her music being “strong and pretty” since her debut in 2014. She has been actively producing music and performing on stage. She was invited to a number of international music festivals including 2017 Trans Musicales, France and 2019 SXSW, USA. Featuring the amazing artwork by Coen Pohl

Repress

Brainwaltzera's debut LP 'Poly-ana' follows quickly on the heels of the producer's Aescoba EP - also released this year via FILM. Across thirteen tracks of both previously released material and fresh excursions into the artist's world, Brainwaltzera explores sounds ranging from luscious, downtempo grooves and expertly reduced braindance cuts with nods to early 90's experimental IDM to harder, more caustic outings - all bound together by a recurring theme of otherworldly ambience. Taking its name from a variety of sources dear to the artist, including polyphonic analogue synthesizers and the Pol-lyanna Principle itself - a theory that suggests individuals recall pleasurable experience more acutely than displeasing ones - the title represents a meeting point in the artistic process between creative method and conceptual choices. Production techniques range from more traditional hardware synthesis to the incorporation of a modified dot matrix printer acting as a modulation source for MIDI parameters. Sample sources include VHS material from the produ-cer's own childhood and ambient Bullet Train samples from an on-the-fly production session traveling from Tokyo to Kyoto. According to the enigmatic producer, memory and its fundamental role in the human experience is one of the central themes of the record. While the artist's own experiences shaped the sound of the record, there is no attempt to impose them on the listener through blatant exposition.

The movements of KUNZITE’s Mike Stroud and Agustin White have seen them orbiting around each other, occasionally crossing paths yet consistently admiring each other’s work. The pair traversed the globe separately with their different projects and personal adventures -- Mike touring with his band Ratatat and Agustin on a spiritual journey exploring yoga, meditation and psychedelics -- while looking to one day do something together. The formation of KUNZITE saw them finally able to merge their minds and mission, with a sound that blends psychedelia with electronic, beat-heavy production and live instrumentation. Most of the recording process for their new album, VISUALS, started while at Agustin’s stripped back studio in Hawaii, and finished at Mike’s barn studio in upstate New York, with instrumentation including acoustic, electric and lap steel guitars, organ, synthesizers and the charango.

Ted K. Kaczynski is notorious for both tragically murdering three people (and wounding an additional 23) via bombs sent in the mail and for his numerous writings on the evils of technology he composed during his primitive residency in the woods of Montana. Film director Tony Stone's choice to have the renowned electronic artist Blanck Mass score the film is somewhat ironic and creates an obvious tension perfect for the controversial and complex subject matter. 2020 saw the first Blanck Mass movie score, for the soundtrack to Nick Rowland's acclaimed cinematic debut Calm with Horses. This expansion into new areas of melodic composition and textural exploration won Blanck Mass many new fans, with the BBC's acknowledged number one film buff Mark Kermode proclaiming the work the soundtrack of the year. In 2021, Blanck Mass won the prestigious Ivor Novello Award for Best Original Film Score and has firmly established himself at the forefront of the latest wave of experimental soundscape wizards. Recording during lockdown at his studio in Edinburgh, Scotland, Blanck Mass's Ben Power was in the perfect setting for a musical piece intended to capture the isolation central to Kaczynski's story. Power was also working with a director in a time zone 10 hours behind and thus many sessions required working in the middle of the night, which added a fitting intensity to the composition process. He said of the project "I wanted it to feel like an `epic'" and drew on the legends Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone for inspiration in encapsulating the energy of the perceived good vs. evil. The gentle madness of sound achieved is exquisite and slowly builds in intensity and desperation as the score moves along. Power is able to perfectly capture the complexity, the terror and the deep emotionality of the film while presenting an often breathtakingly beautiful and always masterful album that stands on its own as a work of art. For Fans of Tim Hecker, Oneohtrix Point Never, DJ Shadow, Coil, Arca, Andy Stott, Fuck Buttons.

Rise Of The Dragon Empire“ ist das Re-Release des achten Studioalbums der schwedischen Power-Metal Macht. BLOODBOUND verfeinern ihren typischen Sound auf "Rise Of The Dragon Empire" weiter mit schnellen, melodischen Songs, die ein enormes Hymnen-Potential haben.
BLOODBOUND haben in den letzten Jahren mit Szene-Giganten wie Sabaton, HammerFall und U.D.O. getourt.
Erhältlich als Gtf. farbiges Vinyl (Clear Blue), Ltd. farbiges Vinyl (Red/ Black Marbled, ltd. auf 300 Stk.)

Moddi is 34-year-old Pal Moddi Knudsen from Northern Norway,
'Bratebrann' tells the story about a homecoming to a town that he once
knew, but has turned into something unfamiliar
It is in many ways a backlash to Moddi's Norwegian Grammy winning album
"Kaem Va Du?", moving away from the nostalgic narrative of the well- known
Northern Norway.
The theme of the album is the new, emerging Northern Norway, which according
to Moddi has yet to be written about.

First Word Records is extremely delighted to present 'Torn : Tonic' — the sophomore album from singer, performer, poet and producer, Allysha Joy.

Delivered unfiltered, straight from the soul, ´Torn : Tonic' pulls us into a 10 track journey that weaves through the multiplicity of letting go, standing tall, and creating space all at once. The album's expansive and vivid exploration of healing examines the power that comes with accepting the complexity of change. Allysha walks listeners through the remedy she finds in sound and emerges empowered to share this healing with others. Deeply moving and lyrically compelling, 'Torn : Tonic' hosts a stellar line-up of artists, creating a world of collective power, growth, and hope.

Allysha Joy is an integral member of the vibrant Melbourne soul & jazz scene, well known for both her solo work and as lead vocalist for 30/70. A uniquely-talented soul, her husky voice, and formidable Fender Rhodes prowess have garnered attentive audiences around the world.

Her 2018 debut album 'Acadie : Raw' was named 'Best Soul Album' at the Music Victoria Awards, featured in Bandcamp's 'Top Soul Albums' of the year and received a nomination for 'Best Jazz Album' at the Worldwide Awards. An incredibly prolific artist, Allysha has released on labels; Rhythm Section, Gondwana, Future Classic, Total Refreshment Centre and now another drop for First Word, after her acclaimed 2020 EP, 'Light It Again'.

Allysha's production on 'Torn : Tonic' effortlessly arches across a sonic palette, comprised of shuffling broken grooves and exquisite celestial melodies. There are healthy swathes of skippy neo-soul boom bap sensibilities, entwined with stark swing-laden electronic percussion, Detroit-esque sun-saturated synths, and Antipodean bruk backbeats. And whilst this project was produced entirely by Joy herself, she is far from alone, inviting in an array of female and non-binary artists to bless assorted tracks with their own unique gifts. Ego Ella May, BINA, Rara Zulu, Belle Bangard and Dancing Water all appear, expanding upon the formulaic roles of featured artists to share the creative space as equal collaborators.

'Torn : Tonic' exudes vibes, from the opening whiplash snare of 'Peace, to the rolling jazz-bruk of lead single 'Let It!', to the sweet soulful sonics of 'Still Dreaming', to the closing triumphant shout of "All Joy!!" on 'G.N.D.', this is a 40-minute opus that will definitely require repeat listening.

Allysha's poetic introspection reveals the album's intention to demand space, purpose, and pleasure. Her words are deliberate and direct to the alarm bells and messages her artistic vision carries. Fluid, cross-genre, and spirited with generational stories embodied, 'Torn : Tonic' sits at the intersection of a feminist manifesto of Joy's momentous leap as an artist, and her exploration of what it means to be human in today's capitalist-driven world.

In Allysha's words, 'Torn : Tonic' is exactly as the name describes. "It is looking directly into the shadow of pain and overcoming it with joy. No love songs! Just social, political, emotional anthems for change! It is the first record I have produced entirely on my own and it feels like that perseverance that I have consistently had to conjure up is embedded in this music, overcoming my own conditioning in a society and industry that constantly tells me I can't, so I must!"

The Spy from Cairo (aka Moreno "Zeb" Visini) returns with his 5th studio album on Wonderwheel Recordings: "Animamundi" features some special collaborations from his travels & live shows from over the past few years. The album reflects the move from his home in NYC to his mother's home in a quiet village in Italy to take care of her in her older age. It's been a difficult transition with Italy's challenging experience with the pandemic, including some of the strictest measures enforced on the public. He recalls by stating "This album was conceived between 2020 and 2021 in Italy, between lockdowns, restrictions, and various pandemic mandates. Its message is of hope and positivity - a reminder that we are all spiritual beings… Free spiritual beings… and that freedom can't be broken."

"Animamundi" is a reconfirmation that The Spy from Cairo overcomes all obstacles & delivers a diverse progression of his iconic "Arabadub" sound, with the help of collaborators like Andalucian vocalist Carmen Estevez, Mexican vocalist Mambe Rodriguez on the heavy hitting "Criminal," Egyptian vocalist Adii Small on "Beautiful Baraka," and former touring band member, the multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Fatima Gozlan from Hungary. The music can vary from heavy deep electronic synths and live eastern instrumentation with Zeb playing oud, saz, chiftelli, bass, percussion, and other instruments, all along giving it his signature dub mixing style.

The songs take inspiration from a wide range of musical traditions and cultures, including Turkish (on "Cosmic Pasha," "Qanun in Dub" – using the qanun, an instrument popular across the Middle East, with a sound between the European harp and a dulcimer – and "Black Sea," which utilises a typical Dabke melody), Egyptian ("Mizmirized," sampling riffs from a mizmar), Indian ("Seeds of Culture), and Sufi ("Divination," a devotional composition), fusing these reference points with healthy doses of cumbia, funk, reggae, psychedelic, and dub. Thematically, "Animamundi" deals with some of the struggles Zeb – and all of us – have faced the last two years, through the lens of his personal experiences. Yet, the tone of the record manages to remain positive, like an uplifting dance through the world's sounds; after all, "Animamundi" means "soul of the world" in Greek. With album art by Sam Angeli and layout design by Marcial Arts, this beautiful album is a truly well-rounded worldwide collaboration.

"Animamundi" will be released digitally on March 4th, 2022, with the LP to follow shortly after.

Who controls the mind controls the body. After three years of experimentation in isolation, Dopplereffekt have emerged with Neurotelepathy, an oracular narrative of cerebral entanglement and advancement. The sleek mathematical models of 2017’s Cellular Automata have evolved into these synaptic interpretations, transferences and modifications, rejecting binary expectations to meditate on the possibilities and pitfalls of what’s to come. With their second LP and fifth release in total on Leisure System, the duo of Rudolf Klorzeiger and To-Nhan have themselves achieved a near-telepathic capacity for collaborative thought and mechanical construction. They continue to use live appearances to present experimental trials of theoretical models, and that effort is heard in the sizzle and swing of the percussive highlights here, programmed with a serious depth and wriggle that reflect both an extension of and return to form. Considerations of the machine-human interface, neurological realities and physical probabilities dominate. But these tracks are economical and precise, glittering with emotional depth and cinematic effects. The album's core, a three-act movement of symphonic uncertainty and revelation, marks one of the pair's most evocative compositions in a career full of them. Territory is monitored, traced and scanned, resulting in unexpected modulations. Underlying systems are questioned, competing mindsets animated and mutated: brain-to-brain, brain-to-machine and beyond. Neurotelepathy processes these transformative mental, psychological and transgenerational states both traumatic and triumphant.

140g Black vinyl LP – Printed inner sleeve – Sealed plastic sleeve



In Trux We Pux is an editorial project organized by the Porto based label and collective Favela Discos. Focusing on the city’s thriving experimental and improvised music scene, it sets out to portrait in a series of four volumes some of the characteristic sounds and collaborative practices that have been in development in Porto during the last few years.

Milteto is an informal orchestra born out of the Favela Discos collective somewhere in 2014. The idea, that had been around for a while, was materialized for a concert in one of the first events hosted by Favela, in the extinct Picadilly Pub in Porto, a small strip club turned underground venue. It was one of those wet pre-covid nights where the condensation dripped down the mirrored walls, in a loud endurance contest that resulted in a fainted audience member.

For a very large number of reasons, it would be hard to define Milteto’s whole “career” in an album: the band has always inhabited the live context, trying to create massive immersive sound experiences for both the listeners and the musicians, subconsciously seeking to achieve transcendence by volume.

So, in reality this is a momentary reflection of an always mutating entity, instead of trying to define the several years of drastically different experiences in just 45 minutes, they took to the album as just another live presentation where they adapted to the idea of what a record could be as if they would adapt to a venue.

Faced with the idea of creating an album that reflected the project’s mutability, the band looked at the medium itself for inspiration, as the vinyl record has two sides, they thought that maybe it would be a good idea to reflect that on the music. So the recording sessions were split into two days, with two different groups of guests. One side set to recreate a more physical manifestation of the band, the other a more mental side, the first teeming with percussion, the other with electronic devices and synthesisers.

140g Black vinyl LP – Printed inner sleeve – Sealed plastic sleeve



In Trux We Pux is an editorial project organized by the Porto based label and collective Favela Discos. Focusing on the city’s thriving experimental and improvised music scene, it sets out to portrait in a series of four volumes some of the characteristic sounds and collaborative practices that have been in development in Porto during the last few years.

In Trux We Pux 04 is the last in a series of four records organized by Favela Discos, set out to shine a light on Porto’s thriving experimental and improvised music scene. Throughout the collection the label tries to expose the eclectic sound and collaborative practices that have been in development in the last few years in the city by promoting the collaboration between artists and the creation of new collective improvisation pieces.

As the first album dwelled into the electronic spectre of the scene, this volume veers itself to the physical side of experimental and improvised explorations. Although there is space for outsiders manipulating the sound by electronic means, most of the music in this album is plucked, bowed, percussed or sung. The artists themselves are as varied as the music they played, among the 13 artists that collaborated for the creation of this album are many promising newcomers but also some of the more recognizable and relevant names in the scene, with the presence of the Sonoscopia founder Gustavo Costa, João Pais Filipe one of the most characteristic drummers in Portugal, and the DIY duo and underground staple Calhau!.

As we could suspect, the diverse selection of musicians, while providing us a view on the various kinds of musical languages that populate the city’s scene, also creates a dynamic collection of sounds. Spanning a large gamut of sub-sub-genres, from near-musique concrète to tribal noise, the album is a rollercoaster collage that miraculously achieves logic and cohesion, like a voyeur listener taking us on a journey through an abandoned mall where most of the bands in Porto rehearse, whose halls reverberate with a cacophony of music.

Music For Nations release - essentially a reissue of the record from last year's ‘Kvitravn’, augmented with livestream audio from their worldwide streaming event last year, housed in limited deluxe packaging. 2CD with 28 double page booklet includes disc 1 – 'Kvitravn' (original album tracklisting) and disc 2 'Kvitravn – First Flight of the White Raven' (livestream audio featuring tracks from Kvitravn). 2LP set in gatefold sleeve pressed on 180gm vinyl with an 8 page booklet. Specialist promo/marketing activity across all relevant media outlets.

REMASTERED

Grönland Records announce a revised, remastered reissue of “Sleepwalkers” by DAVID SYLVIAN. Available as a gatefold 2LP with exclusive art print and as a gatefold digipack CD, this new edition also features the previously unreleased track “Modern Interiors”.

in the 00s, DAVID SYLVIAN produced two of his strongest and most solitary statements, BLEMISH and MANAFON. but those records don’t tell the whole story. during that the same period, SYLVIAN created an alternate body of work: a series of collaborations and side projects with leading talents of pop and improv, electronic and contemporary classical music. the best of these recordings are gathered here on SLEEPWALKERS, meticulously sequenced and remixed: the fruits of one-off meetings and lifelong partnerships, they jump from bliss to intrigue, romance to sensuality, as arch experiments lead into the lushest pop.

the single ‘world citizen – i won’t be disappointed,’ written with RYUICHI SAKAMOTO, is a sublime example, with an impeccable melody and lyric warmed by SYLVIAN’S gorgeous tenor. SYLVIAN has worked with SAKAMOTO for close to three decades. by contrast, on ‘pure genius,’ a collaboration with CHRIS VRENNA aka tweaker, he sounds like he’s walked into a heist flick, singing the part of a delusional, dangerous bedroom genius. as sylvian explains, tracks like this ‘give me a chance to write in a way that’s completely non-personal, playful. it’s an exercise of some kind, working within the parameters of a given assignment.’

intrigue of a different kind drives ‘sugarfuel,’ with music by JEAN-PHILIPPE VERDIN, aka READYMADE FC. the lyrics offered ‘an opportunity to grapple with a more overt sexual theme than anything i’d previously attempted, as suggested by a vocal sample in the original track provided, a threateningly insistent ‘i’m on your side.’ so i took that as my point of entry and ran with it. i would love to write more on this subject should i find the right context. you’re always aware of walking a thin line exploring sexuality with language alone. the failings of the great and the good are strewn all around.’

NINE HORSES’ ‘wonderful world’ strolls in on a black tie bassline and the echoing coos of swedish chanteuse STINA NORDENSTAM, whose high chirps brush hands with SYLVIAN’S lead; there’s the blistering ‘money for all’ by FRIEDMAN and SYLVIAN, an oblique response to the fallout of 9/11 and the war on iraq. this is followed by the last known recording of SYLVIAN’S singing voice in over a decade, ‘do you know me now?’, a live studio recording later augmented by JAN BANG, EIVIND AARSET and ERIK HONORÉ. it’s certainly a title that’s become more relevant over time as SYLVIAN, in the latter stages of his career, repeatedly comes face to face with a new generation of admirers fixated on the life and times of the band formed by his younger self. SYLVIAN is one of only a handful of musicians to have successfully moved on from overt pop beginnings into a domain all his own but is consistently plagued by the misguided desires or expectations of some unfamiliar with his evolution to do a u-turn, pick up where he left off in the late 90s. although this compilation, as well as his writing for NINE HORSES, adequately shows SYLVIAN’S traditional love of melody is
intact, that it’s consistently remained part of his output, there’s no denying his focus has shifted, evolved.
the refusal to embrace complacency, the need to cover new ground ‘as older generations of popular musicians have a moral duty to explore despite, or because of, the greater possibility of failure’ will, i believe, lead to a reassessment of his later work that embraces a sightly more complex relationship with what we’re referring to as ‘melodic’, accompanied by an exploration of improvisation without dogma or beholden to any ‘givens’ for which he’s not infrequently been castigated. for SYLVIAN, there are no such boundaries. it’s obvious that different facets of his work co-exist without conflict but not necessarily for the majority of his audience. again, this places SYLVIAN in the odd, rare, unenviable(?) position of moving forwards leaving many in his devoted audience behind as, should he decide to return to music, it’s unlikely he’ll be aiming to placate an audience in love with work that preceded the 00s. in fact we’ve no idea where new work, should it surface, may lead.

SLEEPWALKERS also spotlights the innovators who contributed to MANAFON and BLEMISH. CHRISTIAN FENNESZ hangs a crackling, shimmering curtain behind the vocal on ‘transit,’ matching his signature mass of sui generis sounds to sylvian’s stately performance. and the title track began with an instrumental handed to SYLVIAN by MARTIN BRANDLMAYR of POLWECHSEL, soon after the first recording session for MANAFON. spite crackles in the gaps between the percussion, and onkyo artists TOSHIMARU NAKAMURA and SACHIKO M set the stage for the scathing lyrics in the chorus.

it cuts close to the bone and so do the two spoken word cuts, ‘angel’ and ‘thermal,’ produced by SAMADHISOUND recording artists JAN BANG and ERIK HONORÉ (and featuring ARVE HENRIKSEN on trumpet). SYLVIAN describes the latter work as a ‘love poem’ to his daughter. ‘‘thermal’ reflects on a period when our time in sonoma, ca was coming to an end. we’d stayed in temporary accommodation which had lulled us into a false sense of security. we had pear, apple, lemon, and figs trees growing in the yard. a small but exotic paradise. a cocoon. but the cracks were beginning to show in the relationship between ex-wife INGRID CHAVEZ and i which is where i think this underlying sense of anxiety, which runs throughout the poem, is derived from, coupled with the need to provide physical and spiritual stability to the children, the youngest of whom was just under two at the time. the poem is addressed to her. our world was dissipating, coming apart at the seams, but we were an island unto ourselves.’

‘five lines’ marked the start of a new partnership with acclaimed young composer DAI FUJIKURA, who at the time of recording was also working on remixes of MANAFON for what became DIED IN THE WOOL. the string quartet was performed by the celebrated ICE ENSEMBLE and written for SYLVIAN, who FUJIKURA cites as an early influence. says SYLVIAN, ‘the composition moves through numerous changes in time signature but as i had no knowledge of what these were i just relied on my gut instinct, and responded, as i always do, with what felt right to me, composing an entirely new melody in the process. some months later i was working in a studio in london and dai dropped by. i rather tentatively asked if he’d like to hear a rough mix of the song as it stood, painfully aware that my contribution might make no sense to him at all but, to my relief he loved the result.’

there’s one further new addition to this collection, the first official release of a track composed in response to the tsunami in fukushma, ‘modern interiors’, featuring SYLVIAN once again in collaboration with BANG and AARSET.

like 2000s EVERYTHING AND NOTHING, SLEEPWALKERS is a retrospective of a particular decade when SYLVIAN was free of major label interference and could follow his own instincts without having to explaining himself – but it’s also an eye-opening complement to his solo releases. as SYLVIAN explains, ‘some collaborations seem to be a one-off exchange but you can never be too certain of that fact. others have been long term. in this respect, RYUICHI comes to mind. there’s others with whom you hope to continue working as you feel you’ve barely scratched the surface. other times offers come out of the blue, welcome, inspired. regardless, it’s wonderfully explorative to have so many possibilities to juggle with. each collaboration seems timely. it’s as if there’s a rightness to the exchange at a given moment in time.’

in the meantime, we hope you enjoy the work presented here, personally selected, remixed and sequenced and entirely remastered. these are the orphans, abused, estranged, exotic, migrating from diverse corners of the globe, brought together under one roof which they're learning to share despite their differences.

‘as many of you will already be aware, despite relatively continuous work on solo albums, i’ve maintained strong ties with a number of musicians throughout my life in one context or another. on this new collection, let’s call it SLEEPWALKERS 2.0, a selection of collaborative work produced over the period encompassing blemish through to manafon, i’ve included compositions by nine horses as well as more fleeting flirtations and one-offs. neglected offspring. represented also is long term friend and writing partner, RYUICHI SAKAMOTO, as well as more recent but potentially equally productive partnerships such as CHRISTIAN FENNESZ, ARVE HENRIKSEN and contemporary classical composer DAI FUJIKURA.
i hope you enjoy the work presented here, personally selected, remixed and sequenced and entirely remastered. these are the orphans, abused, estranged, exotic, migrating from diverse corners of the globe, brought together under one roof which they're learning to share despite their differences.

we contain multitudes. we’re nothing if not contradictory.’

DAVID SYLVIAN, 2010

(consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life: aldous huxley)

The body and the body are the same. The position is too low and the position is too low, the angle is too low, but it is not too much, not too much. We are eliminating revolved cuts. Cut the throat. The expansion is wrongful. Searching. Searching a search. The expansion. Searching for data deletion. Chatter. Teaching with accounting for the craftsman's function. You are not allowed into the expansion.

Black Truffle is pleased to present Landscape and Voice, a radical new work (and rare vinyl release) from major Japanese sound artist Toshiya Tsunoda. Undoubtedly one of the most influential artists working with location recordings since the 1990s, Tsunoda’s work possesses a rigorously searching quality that sets him apart from his contemporaries. Tsunoda is known to many listeners for the subtle atmospheric poetry of his early Extract from Field Recording Archive series, which focussed on vibrations recorded in various indoor and outdoor environments in his native Miura Peninsula, often inside pipes, bottles and other vessels. In more recent years, his work has explored the implications of his claim that field recording should be seen as ‘depiction’ rather than ‘documentation’. He has explored disorienting editing and processing in his works with Taku Unami, and, perhaps most radically, represented Maguchi Bay as a kind of kinetic sculpture for shaking speakers by removing all but the inaudible low frequencies from a field recording (Low Frequency Observed at Maguchi Bay).

One of the recurrent concerns of Tsunoda’s recent work, as he explains in the crystalline liner notes accompanying this release, is ‘exploring how I can establish a subjective relationship with an environment, rather than seeing it merely as an object to be recorded’. This has taken various forms, from documenting simultaneously an outdoor environment and the blood flowing through the listener/recorder’s body (captured with a stethoscope) on The Temple Recordings, to representing his own experience of the landscape as made up of ‘grains of space and time’ by inserting looped fragments into field recordings in Grains of Spring.

On Landscape and Voice, this meeting between subject and object becomes an almost mystical union between the natural and the human. As with all of Tsunoda’s work, a relatively simple concept leads to compelling, thought-provoking results. Landscape and Voice combines vowel sounds spoken by six voices with short, looped fragments of field recordings, their noise character suggesting consonants: voice and landscape thus join together in something like words. The record consists of three pieces, each using a different, richly evocative field recording, which periodically freezes, catching on a looped fragment to which is synchronised an abruptly looped spoken vowel sound. The lengths between these interruptions vary, as do the tempi of the loops. The interruption of these lushly immersive recordings of the world – bristling with bird song, rushing water, distant traffic, and clinking metal – only serves to intensify them, as if the depicted environment itself had been returned to the listener each time it abruptly reappears. At the same time, the constant interruption creates an uncannily frozen effect, as if the recorded environment were an object rather than a stretch of recorded time. When combined with the bare human presence of the vowel sounds, the result is both austere and magical. Pressed on 45RPM for maximum fidelity, in a gorgeous sleeve designed by Lasse Marhaug with liner notes from the composer, Landscape and Voice is a radical proposition from one of the deepest thinkers in contemporary sound.

The clandescent Federico Sutera and Laurent Schmidhäusler form the insidious duo Rotkeller, known for their excursions into ponderous and maundering interpretations of electronic music. Their last release on Thrènes was an experimental and perplexing delight that perpetuated their virtuosity. The Swiss pair has returned to release a pressing technoid sound on the Thrènes imprint entitled Antimatter.

The project kicks off the track 'Antimatter'. It has distinctive and emphatic patterned percussions and a wandering pad that wistfully saunders in and out. There are clever uses of claps, crisp hats and insisted clicks. The track lays the foundation of the sound to expect from the EP with comprehensive yet wonderous beats.

'DipK' follows the opening track, which has a bit more body and sways. It was made for the waning hours of a club when it might be getting bright outside, but the crowd doesn't want to leave. It has a captivating synth that runs throughout and an infectious bassline; the sound allows the mind to roam free but rhythmic drums, hits and snares make the body move.

Midway through is the Kangding Ray remix of 'Tetra4'. The French-born but Berlin-based artist is known for his mastery in blurring the lines between techno and experimental, and this track is a testament to his talents. The cut has a classic underground club feel as it simply keeps up the tempo. The oscillating synth is compounded with spacy fluttering stabs with a kick drum that adds resounding velocity to the track.

The penultimate track, 'Skpp Skpp', features B.Skupin. It has an enchanting heavy breath prominent throughout the cut, accompanied by ethereal choir chants and a deep repetitive voice before being replaced by a siren-like synth. The beats fluctuate by dropping in and out, enhanced by the catalyst of deep drums and luring drops.

The final cut is the original mix of 'Tetra4', which keeps the same modus operandi of the remix. The telling differences come in the pensive drops and ability to slow tempo momentarily with hypnotic synths and drifting rhythms.

In 2020, Sahel Sounds hosted a project called Music from Saharan WhatsApp. This series consisted of ephemeral digital EPs, documenting live performances by some of the most exciting acts in the Sahel playing music, including Nigerién techno, wedding rock, Woodabe guitar, WZN, traditional music, Mandingue music, and more.

Responding to an open call from our network of artists, musicians recorded a handful of tracks on their cellphone and sent them over the popular mobile app WhatsApp. Each session was hosted for a month on Bandcamp and sold on a sliding scale, with all profits wired directly to the musicians. After a month, the EP would disappear, replaced by another one.

Now, some of the label's favorite tracks from this series are collected for the first time outside of Bandcamp as the Music from Saharan WhatsApp compilation LP. This LP features tracks by established Sahel Sounds artists such as Etran de L'Aïr, Hama, Alkibar Jr, Amaria Hamadaler (of Les Filles de Illighadad), and artists new to the label like Bounaly and Andal Sukabe.

For Fans of Aasha Puthli, Grace Jones, Minnie Ripperton, The Supremes, Love Apple, Liquid Liquid, ESG. Say She She's debut 45 features "Forget Me Not," an homage to New York City's Guerilla Girls and to all the women's rights and protest movements who have paved the way for change. Doused in the funkiest rhythm section and bursting at the seams with harmonies, the song is a psychedelic siren's call to disrupt and dismantle male dominated spaces. "Blow My Mind" is the fiery and seductive B-side. A song about returning to reignite the fire of a former flame you still carry the torch for - even after all these years. The impassioned and sultry cries "Mayday in my heyday, crying out for you to save me!" teeter between youthful yearning and blazing independence. Let the dreamscape bridges guide you to climactic hindi riffs, accented with operatic cries that will lift you yonder.

In 1997 and 1998, the late great Japanese composer, producer, and DJ Susumu Yokota released two of the most eclectic albums of his decades-long career, Fruits of The Room and Greenpeace. Recorded under his Stevia alias for Tokyo Techno pioneer DJ Miku’s Newstage Records/NS-COM, they were Yokota-san’s homage to the foundational days of club music in Japan.

This year, Glossy Mistakes are proud to present the first official vinyl editions of Fruits of The Room and Greenpeace, originally released on CD during the golden days of the format. Packaged in reimagined cover artwork created by the celebrated Japanese visual artist Masaho Anotani, these two albums perfectly capture the diversity at the heart of Yokota-san’s oeuvre. Across Greenpeace sees Yokota-san conjuring up a heady concoction of dusty loops, sampledelic breaks, kraut-rock and psychedelic downbeat. A remarkable listening experience based on the inspired era of a genius.

When Yokota-san wrote and produced the music on Fruits of The Room and Greenpeace in 1997, he was reflecting on the broader culture that surrounded dance music in Japan in the early to mid-nineties. It was an era when the psychedelic culture of late sixties America, the afterglow of UK acid house/rave, the new age movement and cyberpunk dovetailed together. Within DJ Miku and Yokota-san’s social circles, the thinking of Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs electrified the air.

By 1996, the moment, brilliant and blinding as it was, was over. “We all felt that the rave scene fizzled out,” DJ Miku says. As he puts it, there was a collective feeling around him that it had all become too much. From the calm that followed, DJ Miku, Yokota-san and their open-eared peers made the decision to switch tracks and start from scratch. DJ Miku believes that with his Stevia releases, Fruits of The Room and Greenpeace, Yokota-san wanted to express the sweet and sour nature of the passing of those wild early days and his wish for true peace. “At the time, we saw eye-to-eye, with an implicit understanding of each other,” he explains. “Even now, twenty-five years later, I am confident it was like that.”