Cerca:act one

Rain and experimental music have had an interesting connection for decades. Under the umbrella of American film music promotion, Hanns Eisler was already looking for "Vierzehn Arten, den Regen zu beschreiben” (fourteen ways to describe the rain) in 1941. A good 20 years later, The Cascades interpreted the periodicity of rain as a rhythm of mourning. For the Beatles ("If the rain falls, they run and hide their heads"), the precipitation inspired the band to use backward running tapes. However, it seems that there has always been a lot of rainfall in popular music. In the early seventies, David Toop and Paul Burwell even had a band project with the great name Rain In The Face...

That was a long time ago and today, rain, which in the age of climate catastrophe mainly occurs as heavy rain or an enervating endless loop, has lost a great deal of its inspiring quality. Perhaps as a reminder of the musical quality of rain, but knowing full well that it can only be enjoyed in theory, Razen call their new album "Rain Without Rain". In the music of the Brussels collective led by the two multi-instrumentalists Brecht Ameel and Kim Delcour, it certainly pours down on the roofs. In fact, the album opens with the sound of pouring rain before we hear the sequence of an oscillator played through a guitar amp on the first track „Lazy, Lazy Eye“.

The album is the captivating result of an one-night mobile studio field recording in an abandoned pedestrian tunnel in the centre of Düsseldorf, and it is finding beauty with brutal(ist) means: recorder, oscillator, guitar amp and reverberation, two musicians and four microphones, early electronics versus Early Music. “Suicide meet Hildegard von Bingen”, as Stefan Schneider, who recorded the session, admits. “Ghostly occurrences”, he adds.

Brecht Ameel states: “We do put a lot of weight and care on acoustics. On some of our recordings, the room acts as another band member, or as the main ‘mixing board’. Most of the albums we have recorded so far are not mixed in the traditional sense: they are simply „captured”, and we let the room decide what is left on the tapes. The studio recordings, then, give us the possibility of bringing other elements to the fore; precision of interplay, or tiny variations in breathing.”

The group Razen exists since 2010 and has since released numerous records on labels such as KRAAK, Marionette and Hands In The Dark. "Rain Without Rain" is their debut on the Düsseldorf label TAL. If there has been an increased international interest in experimental music from Belgium in recent years, this is not least due to musician collectives such as Razen. In terms of its electro-folkloristic intensity and instrumentation, Razen's music is quite unique worldwide. What does Razen actually mean? “We took the word from a poem by Paul Van Ostaijen, not specifically because of its meaning but because of the way it looked on paper”, Ameel explains. “But the meaning goes in the direction of ‘thundering / raging / speeding’ … although we prefer playing with a strong notion of restraint, building our world from (and with) silence.”

Olaf Karnik, Köln 2024

This is the first reissue of the “Piece Of The Action” LP since 1973, and the CD has bonus tracks with everything Bobby Hutton recorded between 1969 and 1974. Everything taken from the original master stapes and restored.

Bobby Hutton is from Detroit, Michigan and began his career after winning a talent show at the 20 Grand nightclub. In 1971 he performed on the very first nationally aired Soul Train TV programme. He cites Jackie Wilson as his biggest influence. He began writing under his real name Harold Hutton, then Billy Davis at Chess Records persuaded the change to Bobby Hutton. He had decided not to pursue a career at Motown, and after one single for Checker, then another at Blue Rock (a subsidiary of Mercury) he moved to the Philips label for the huge Northern Soul favourite, “Come See What's Left Of Me" which was first played at the Stafford All-Nighters back in1985, covered up as Casanova Brown. Talents that produced and arranged for Bobby during those Blue Rock/Philips sessions include Donny Hathaway and Joshie Jo Armstead, and in fact it was with Jo that Bobby co-wrote that Northern Soul classic.

The Philips tracks are all on the CD as bonus tracks to the Piece Of The Action” album for ABC Records in 1973.

Produced by Dee Ervin, there are several fine tracks to enjoy but surely none better than the Gary Wright-penned “Lend A Hand” which became one of the biggest 'modern' Northern Soul tracks of all-time after spins at venues like the Highland Room at the Blackpool Mecca and Wigan Casino. The track was first championed by DJ Colin Curtis in 1974.

The album is beautifully produced with vocal accompaniments from artists including Patti Hamilton of The Lovelites, Jean Plum, Mikki Farrow and Frankie Karl. It received great reviews at the time and that persuaded ABC to release a non-album follow-up 45 produced by the brilliant McKinley Jackson and Reginald Dozier credited “Loving You, Wanting You, Needing You, Wanting You”/'Watch Where You’re Going” which is an elusive, highly sought-after single by soul collectors worldwide (now an Expansion 7” reissue).

In 2007, Bobby was honoured as he was voted the best singer in Chicago, quite an achievement and something that Bobby is quite rightly very proud of

Crime In Australia follows 2022's The Real Work, the first Party Dozen record that (some) people were actually waiting for; the one that Nick Cave sang on; the one that had a track that billy woods jumped on for a rework; the one that took them to the USA, Europe (twice), Japan, China and New Zealand; the one that saw Party Dozen hook up with a cool US label (Temporary Residence Ltd.); the one that made Bandcamp, Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan and a whole swathe of Australian radio stations declare it their Album of the Day/Week/Epoch; and the one that made KEXP invite the band in for a live session, and made Sub Pop add to their hallowed Singles Club. The Real Work was not the first Party Dozen record, but it was in many ways where Party Dozen really started to put it all together. Crime In Australia continues to build on their arc, and elevates their ascent with a slew of new songs that are simultaneously more focused and more feral than anything they've ever done. And there are no guests on this one.

Crime In Australia follows 2022's The Real Work, the first Party Dozen record that (some) people were actually waiting for; the one that Nick Cave sang on; the one that had a track that billy woods jumped on for a rework; the one that took them to the USA, Europe (twice), Japan, China and New Zealand; the one that saw Party Dozen hook up with a cool US label (Temporary Residence Ltd.); the one that made Bandcamp, Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan and a whole swathe of Australian radio stations declare it their Album of the Day/Week/Epoch; and the one that made KEXP invite the band in for a live session, and made Sub Pop add to their hallowed Singles Club. The Real Work was not the first Party Dozen record, but it was in many ways where Party Dozen really started to put it all together. Crime In Australia continues to build on their arc, and elevates their ascent with a slew of new songs that are simultaneously more focused and more feral than anything they've ever done. And there are no guests on this one.

Recorded in 2014, Mid-City Island is the first ever project to be released from Moses Sumney. Moses recorded the entire EP from his apartment in Mid-City, Los Angeles straight to cassette on a four-track recorder that TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek lent him. To mark the 10 year anniversary of Mid-City Island, Moses kept good on a promise he made to himself all those years ago, broke and starting out - that he would press it to vinyl in a decade. Reflecting back on that period, Moses says "Mid-City, Los Angeles was more of a concept than a place. Seemingly nobody had ever heard of it, and yet it was the geographic center of the city. Living there felt analogous to my disposition as a 'rising' Angeleno - highly visible and invisible at the same time. I sat on my bedroom floor and wrote 'Plastic.' Throughout his 10-year career, Moses Sumney has consistently evaded definition as an act of duty: technicolor self-directed videos and monochrome clothes; Art Rock and Black Classical; blowing into Fashion Weeks from a small town in North Carolina; seemingly infinite collaborators, but one staggering voice. Consistent across the worlds of music, fashion, and film is his assertion that the undefinable still exists and dwelling in it is an act of resistance.

The true test of originality for any musician comes when you hear an instrument being played and you instantly know who’s playing it. For electric guitarists, certainly Hendrix qualifies; Page and Clapton, too. Maybe Eddie Van Halen before the legion of imitators. You probably have your own list, but to us, standing toe-to-toe (or pick-to-pick) with those legends is Television guitarist and solo artist Tom Verlaine. His self-taught, jazz-influenced style, largely devoid of effects, and vibrato tone (oh, that tone!) makes any Verlaine solo unmistakably a Verlaine solo. That he was quite an accomplished, idiosyncratic songwriter is just a bonus. Real Gone Music is very, very proud to announce that we have arranged with the Verlaine estate to release Tom’s last three solo albums on LP; Songs and Other Things was the last record he released, in the same year (2006) as the all-instrumental Around. As the title indicates, this was indeed a return to lyrics and vocals, the first record with “songs” since 1990’s The Wonder (although the first track, “A Parade in Littleton”—one of the “Other Things”—is a low-key, funky instrumental that would have been home on a late Talking Heads album). The time off clearly allowed Verlaine to build up a strong cache of compositions, with “Nice Actress” and “The Earth Is in the Sky” among the highlights. The record also marks a welcome return of Verlaine’s enigmatic lyrics, which as always prompt head scratching while somehow making intuitive sense. But in the end, it’s the amazing guitar work—ably supported by Fred Smith of Television fame and Jay Dee Daugherty of The Patti Smith Group among others—that elevates Songs and Other Things to essential status, worthy of its exalted position as the final release of Tom Verlaine’s career. Bassist and original engineer Patrick Derivaz has mastered the album for its vinyl debut; Verlaine’s long-time partner Jutta Koether contributes notes. Teal vinyl pressing!

The core members of Jaubi are true masters of their craft, coming from a rich lineage of accomplished musicians. Kashif Ali Dhani is a classically trained tabla master from the Punjab gharana, and is the accompanist of choice on the local scene for some of Pakistan's great classical vocalists and instrumentalists, as well as in Europe and the USA. Zohaib Hassan Khan is a 7th generation sarangi master, who has performed globally, and is one of only 3 professional sarangi players left in Pakistan. Multi-instrumentalist, composer and Jaubi bandleader Ali Riaz Baqar aka Ila Zair began his musical journey as a hip-hop enthusiast, evolving into a jazz guitarist following the exposure to the genre’s rich sampling culture. He then became a disciple of the Senia-Shahjahanpur gharana, a lineage of musicians specialising in the sarod. His playing now focuses on merging North Indian classical music with modern jazz harmony on a traditional, unaltered 6-string electric guitar.

The collaborative relationship between the core group and wider collaborators dates back to April 2019, when 22a label founder and multi-instrumentalist Tenderlonious and EABS/Bloto keyboard and synth maestro Marek ‘Latarnik’ Pędziwiatr travelled to Lahore, Pakistan to take part in some improvised recording sessions with Jaubi. Nothing whatsoever was written down during the recording sessions – no sheet music, no song titles. It was sincere, bottled lightning. All egos were left behind, with hearts and souls being opened and poured into the music. The result has been described as spiritual jazz-fusion meets psychedelic Hindustani classical with nods to golden era hip hop.

An adventurous and absorbing record ‘A Sound Heart’ is the next chapter for Jaubi, both sonically and spiritually. The title is inspired from a verse in the Holy Qu’ran (26:89), where one comes to God with a spiritual or sound heart (Qalb) which is sincere, without doubts and free of materialistic attachments. Importantly it refers to a state where the heart is spiritually healthy and content with only God. A Sound Heart’s basis is goodness, rooted in love. In this case, it is the love for one’s creator. The album also acts as a tribute to fallen heroes, paying respect to the greatness that has come before, casting new light via cross-cultural collaboration and improvisation.

Throughout this incredible journey, meditative ragas blend with Herbie Hancock-esque motifs, joined by lament-filled contemporary melodies intertwining with the intricate sounds of the sarangi and earthy layering of the tabla. A true masterpiece of composition from start to finish.

Black Truffle is thrilled to present a Song for two Mothers / Occam IX the first ever solo release from Laetitia Sonami. Born in France in 1957, Sonami studied with Éliane Radigue in Paris before moving to California in 1978 to study electronic music at Mills College, going on to make important innovations in the field of live electronics interfaces and multi-media performance. Sonami is perhaps most closely associated with one of her inventions, the Lady’s Glove, an arm-length tailored glove fitted with movement sensors allowing the performer fluidly to control digital sound parameters and processing, as well as motors, lights and video playback. Having performed with the Lady’s Glove for 25 years, Sonami retired it in 2016, turning her attention to the interface/instrument heard and pictured here, the Spring Sprye.

In Sonami’s own description, “The Spring Spyre is composed of three thin springs that are attached to reverb tank pickups, mounted on a metal ring. The audio generated when the springs are touched, rubbed or struck is analyzed in Max/MSP. The extracted features are then used to train machine learning models in Wekinator and Rapidmax and control the audio synthesis in real time. We never actually hear the springs.” After decades of aversion to documenting her work on recordings, a Song for two Mothers / Occam IX treats listeners to two side-long performances with the Spring Spyre: the very first piece developed for the instrument and the most recent, the two contrasting remarkably in sound palette, energy and form. A Song for two Mothers (2023) spins an intricate web of rippling synthetic burbles, rapid sweeps and fizzing textures. Performed in real time with the sensitive and partly uncontrollable Spring Sprye ("a bit tyrannical," Sonami calls it), the music is delicate yet chaotic. Abrupt gestures hover against a backdrop of silence, "devoid of spatial or temporal direction". After several minutes, the sound-world becomes metallic and percussive, tapping and ticking in pointillistic flurries before a wavering harmonic cloud emerges, sprinkled with resonant drips and pops.


Occam IX is a radically different proposition. At the outset of Sonami’s exploration of the Spring Sprye, she asked her former teacher Éliane Radigue to compose a piece for it—and her: like all of Radigue’s work since she ceased working with analogue electronics at the beginning of the 21st century, Occam IX is written not only for an instrument but also for a particular performer. These scores are developed verbally, through meetings and conversations between performer and composer; each is grounded in an image (usually kept from listeners, to avoid influencing their experience); all magnify the subtlest acoustic phenomena and require great commitment and patience from the performer. Sonami’s is one of the few Occam pieces to make use of electronics, bringing it closer to Radigue’s famous longform pieces for ARP 2500. Beginning from a rumbling low tone, the listener is gradually immersed in slowly lapping waves of synthetic tones, eventually thinning out into delicate bell-like pings against a background of white noise, reminiscent of one of the most beautiful sections of Kyema from the Trilogie de la Morte.


Accompanied by notes from Sonami, her longtime collaborator Paul DeMarinis, and Radigue, and illustrated with scores, photographs and images of the Spring Spyre, a Song for two Mothers / Occam IX is an essential document celebrating an under-recognised pioneer of electronic music and performance.

Coming out on September 6th on Sharptone Records, Sundiver is Boston Manor’s fifth album and one that represents a glimmering dawn for the Blackpool five-piece. Grown from a seedbed of optimism and sobriety, the LP celebrates new beginnings, second chances and rebirth. With two members recently stepping into fatherhood, hope is baked into every note. “Datura came out of these really dark few years over the hangover of the pandemic,” Henry reflects. “I'd been struggling a lot with drinking and not taking care of myself and bad mental health and stuff. We wanted Sundiver to be the next morning of the following day.” He explains that it feels good this time round to write through the lens of positivity. “The themes began to emerge, of rebirth, spring, dawn, sunshine and then other elements just started to fit into that.” It was during the making of Sundiver that Henry found out he was going to be a dad. This album is a significant one for the band. Originally coming out of the emo and pop punk scene, they’ve explored sonics and genres throughout their career, taken risks and achieved more than they could ever had dreamed of. They’ve grown up as Boston Manor – their lives and the world changing around them. They’re now taking stock, at a crossroads of the band they were and the band they could be.
While writing the album, they revisited the bands that shaped them in the late 90s and early 00s. “I was listening to the music I loved when I was a teenager and I just thought, why don't we make music like our favourite bands?”, guitarist Mike Cuniff remembers with a smile. “So we brought our interests to the table that way. Y2K kind of vibe. There are elements of Deftones, there are elements of Portishead in there, some Garbage, The Cardigans.” He laughs and adds NSYNC to the list of inspirations. From this cocktail of classics comes a dynamic and ambitious record, rich with depth, groove and more hooks than Peter Pan’s nightmares. Lyrics that foxtrot from parallel universes to personal growth, vivid dreamscapes to raw grief. Individually they’re single strokes full of meaning and magic. Together they’re a landscape.
Container (out Feb 15th) is the first single and it’s them at their best – impassioned and infectious. “This song is about the stagnancy of life creeping up on you & how that can bring about change.,” Henry explains, citing Ocean Song by US band Daughters as an inspiration.

The concept of the butterfly effect is present on Sundiver – how small actions can lead to big changes. This is no clearer than on their second single, Sliding Doors (out April 5th). It has the golden sound of late 90s Lollapalooza rock – think Smashing Pumpkins - rebooted with crisp 2024 production and a potent heaviness. In the lyrics Henry wonders, what if?, pondering on what could be. The idea that there are infinite versions of you whose lives splinter off in different directions at every decision you make. That there’s another you out there somewhere right now reading this sentence, and another me writing it. “So much is down to chance and circumstance,” Henry says. “You might catch that train and your life totally changes. Or you might miss it and things stay the way they are.”
Heat Me Up (out May 30th) is defiant and victorious, the audio equivalent of quitting your shit job and driving into the hot summer sun with a head full of dreams. “The lyrics are about love and gratitude,” Henry shares. “Another theme on the record is just appreciating what you have. It’s about not taking for granted the things that you've been afforded.”
There was some natural magic in the creation of Sundiver. They worked with their usual producer, Larry Hibbitt, and engineer, Alex O’Donovan, but instead of recording in London again they ended up in the green pastures of Welwyn Garden City. “Because Larry lives out in the countryside now, it was a way different environment and way different experience recording this time,” Mike remembers. “That contributed a lot to the brighter sound of the record.” The daily barbecues they had during their recording sessions imbued the process with harmony – five old friends spending quality time together and making quality music.
However, the album is by no means one-note. Birthing this new world they’ve created wasn’t without it’s pain, and that can be heard in the heavier moments on Sundiver. What Is Taken Will Never Be Lost is the most-stripped back on the album, a slow rock number seasoned with the downtempo Portishead influence. The heartfelt lyrics are Henry’s way of processing the loss of his grandfather, who died in a hospice last year(?). “It was just fucking horrible. It was always cold when I went there and they were always trying to get rid of me. The song title, What Was Taken Can Ever Be Lost, is the idea of his memory fading at the time because of dementia.” Henry goes onto explain that shoeboxes of photographs, diaries and a legacy is what he’s left behind. “He lived a really rich life and it has really impacted me and my father. His legacy is etched into the fabric of history in a very small way.” This song continues the connection between his grandfather and the band, as his painted face is emblazoned on the cover of the very first Boston Manor EP, Driftwood. As well as emotionally heavy themes, there’s heaviness in the music of Sundiver too. The closing song, Oil In My Blood, descends into an intense shoegaze outro with Debbie Gough from Heriot screaming hellfire. It’s in moments like this that the band show us aggression and fury can be as much a part of positive change as quiet introspection. The last lyrics of the song, “It resets and starts again,” leaves us in contemplation as the final chord rings out.
Touring the US, Europe and Japan over the years makes for an impressive CV, but if you know anything about Boston Manor you’ll know that they’re all about their hometown. Their choice to work with Blackpool-based photographer Nick Barkworth is testament to that. They’ve been working with him since the pandemic. “He captures Blackpool in a light that really reflects the weirdness and quirkiness of the town,” Henry says.” He's got a really good way of presenting that.” For the Sundiver cover, Nick photographed a 30ft tall abstract glass sculpture made by the local artist John Ditchfield. A striking and bewitching monolith that’s familiar to them but unusual to most people. “It has such kind of a gravity and power to it,” Henry describes the sculpture which stands in a field just outside of the seaside town. “It reminds me of either an explosion or a star or a supernova. To me it represents new life, power and radiance.” Boston Manor have got a knack for that - connecting the otherworldly and the everyday, the stars and the streets.
They’re a band known for using their music to make bigger statements about society. This time round they’re harnessing the uplifting power of music, and the communion it creates, as an antidote to the daily doom and isolation. “It seems like absolute chaos out there at the moment,” Henry says. “You’ve got Gaza and Israel, you've got Russia, you've got the fact that 40% of the world is going to have an election this year and increasingly most governments are leaning very far to the Right. The internet is dividing everybody, people are getting poorer and more desperate. It's really, really scary.” They considered trying to tackle the weight of it all in their music. “We could’ve written Welcome to the Neighbourhood on steroids, where it's just absolute darkness and misery”. He’s referring to their 2018 concept album that deals with class, inequality and the bleaker side of Blackpool. “But I think it's really important to write something that people can be immersed in and find some sort of solace in. Somewhere they can escape to from the modern day pressures and everything that’s going on. We’re all in this together.”

Carving an unlikely and elaborate niche in the stoney academic landscape
which she once shared with the likes of Phill Niblock, John Cage and Sorel
Hayes, the excitable proto-punk poèmes sonores of the linguistic loose
cannon known as Beth Anderson first rolled through New York in the mid-
1970s (from Kentucky via San Francisco) like a jumbled tumbleweed of lost
Letterism, face paint and threadbare drummy funk to astonish gallery floors,
lecture theatres and loft apartment stages.
One thousand leagues under the radar of the commercial music industry,
with a sense of humour that elevated way above her highbrow peer group,
the music of Beth Anderson has successfully evaded the pressing plant for
most of her creative career, and not unlike fellow New York gallery actionist
Suzanne Ciani, it has taken decades to successfully collect and contextualise
these early recordings - expanding her elusive discography beyond the rare
and mysterious solo single entry in the process.
When uttered amongst the type of vinyl vampires that haplessly gravitate
between both art school vintage vanity pressings and family funded plunder
funk, there’s an outside chance that the name Beth Anderson might muster
some vague recognition on account of her one and only solo wax sojourn
into the expansive DIY market. In 1980 the 45rpm single, ‘I Can’t Stand It’,
combusted into the consciousness of adventurous participants with its deep
rhythmic backbeat (courtesy of future Sonic Youth / Dinosaur Jr producer
Wharton Tiers, member of the new wave band Theoretical Girls), climaxing
with two colourful and commanding linguistic tantrums before disappearing in
a puff of smoke leaving would-be fans dumbstruck without so much as a
label name or distribution contact to explain what they had just heard.
For those who have spent the subsequent years on the edge of that same
seat, it might come as some comfort knowing that somewhere out there,
there is also a contrasting world of gallery patrons and experimental sound
poetry enthusiasts that similarly didn’t know that their regular performance
poet Beth Anderson even made the ambitious pop record. For the uninitiated,
the enigmatic Beth Anderson has straddled both sides of the art / rock fence
placed between two equally niche pastures.
Hopefully this first ever vinyl compendium will succeed in joining the dots,
loops, yelps, squeaks, beats and repeats. Let us follow Beth’s lineage, along
her magnetic tape highways crossing multiple boundaries in a hope to bridge
unlikely anti-genres like ‘yoga punk’, ‘ramble rap’, ‘combustion pop’ and
‘formroom funk’… all of which were officially neatly bracketed under the
curious Text-Sound movement where Beth garnered utmost respect as a key
practitioner.

The world is a firework of overstimulation - and Future Palace have dedicated an album to this feeling of overwhelm. On the new record "Distortion", the Berlin post-hardcore trio deals with an almost oppressing mass of mental illnesses and problems. In doing so they create music that - appropriate to this topic - hits more hooks than ever before from one moment to the next, from the quietest depths to the loftiest heights. While the band had already leaned more towards musical extremes on their previous album, "Run", "Distortion" is the ultimate culmination of all the tones that Future Palace have absorbed on their Europe-wide journey as one of the most exciting acts in alternative guitar music: the most powerful metalcore breakdowns meet trembling darkwave beats, anthemic emocore refrains a la Bad Omens are contrasted with sacred choirs, the coldness of industrial encounters the powerful emotionality of Sleep Token. An album like a manifesto.

The world is a firework of overstimulation - and Future Palace have dedicated an album to this feeling of overwhelm. On the new record "Distortion", the Berlin post-hardcore trio deals with an almost oppressing mass of mental illnesses and problems. In doing so they create music that - appropriate to this topic - hits more hooks than ever before from one moment to the next, from the quietest depths to the loftiest heights. While the band had already leaned more towards musical extremes on their previous album, "Run", "Distortion" is the ultimate culmination of all the tones that Future Palace have absorbed on their Europe-wide journey as one of the most exciting acts in alternative guitar music: the most powerful metalcore breakdowns meet trembling darkwave beats, anthemic emocore refrains a la Bad Omens are contrasted with sacred choirs, the coldness of industrial encounters the powerful emotionality of Sleep Token. An album like a manifesto.

Beloved Spanish indie rockers Hinds are back with their utterly triumphant fourth album, VIVA HINDS. Written by the band’s co-founders, co-vocalists, co-guitarists and co-songwriters Carlotta Cosials and Ana Perrote, it features their first-ever fully Spanish language songs, as well as first collaborations with the likes of Beck and Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten. Recorded in rural France, the album was produced by Pete Robertson (Beabadoobee), engineered by the GRAMMY-nominated Tom Roach, and mixed by GRAMMY-winning engineer Caesar Edmunds (The Killers, Wet Leg).

Shortly after the band made their debut ten years ago, they hit what felt like an insurmountable obstacle – they had to change their name from Deers to Hinds for legal reasons. But, as their fans began to greet them at shows by cheering “¡VIVA HINDS!”, the band soon realized that what initially felt like an ending was actually just the beginning. Fast forward to 2023, and VIVA HINDS was written by Cosials and Perrote after a series of endings. They hit a creative rut after releasing their 2020 album The Prettiest Curse, and their bassist and drummer devastatingly decided to leave the band. They also split with their management team, lost touring revenue due to lockdowns, and were without a label for the first time. But when Perrote and Cosials got together to write again it became clear that their connection, one so special that they call themselves “millionaires in friendship,” would be all they needed to get them through. VIVA HINDS – the most accomplished, sonically adventurous, honest and celebratory record of Hinds’ career – is only the beginning.

PRESS/ONLINE: “The track, though signaling a new era for Hinds, arrives rapturous and catchy, as Perrote and Cosials trade verses and riffs. ...'Coffee' is a sweeping first chapter of where the duo aims to
“‘Coffee’ is a a gorgeous punk-indie cross contamination, instantly memorable, grungy” - Wonderland


“They bring the energy of a thousand rock bands, entrancing the crowd with their searing indie riffs, the constant interlocking of guitars and smiles, and deeply charming banter” - Rolling Stone

“The Prettiest Curse is an evolution. It is striking, complex, uncompromising indie-pop. More than that, it makes a bold statement: it canonises Spanish indie-rock” – Loud and Quiet 9/10
“They’ve taken their sound and unashamedly experimented with it. They’re all the better for it” – NME 4/5

“The Spanish group’s second album displays the superior songcraft of the band, as vocalists Ana Perrote and Carlotta Cosials wade through love’s messy feelings with confidence and exuberance” - Pitchfork

On their seventh long player The Breaks - their second for Joyful Noise Recordings - SUUNS are lost in limbo. For some artists, being caught in flux may result in songs that are either naive, out of touch or both, simply as a consequence of being cut off from human civilization. But for SUUNS, a band who have grown more than comfortable in the oblique and the intermediate, it actually had the opposite effect. The Breaks marks the Montreal experimental rock outfit's most emotionally resonant and tonally rich collection of music to date. The trio of Ben Shemie, Joseph Yarmush and Liam O' Neill leans more zealously than ever into their pop instincts. Yet remarkably enough, with that same dauntless abandon, SUUNS have mined a more extreme sonic palette this time around, one that stretches far beyond their core fundamentals as a band. The Breaks finds Shemie, O'Neill and Yarmush gleefully experimenting with loops, synths, samples and MIDI-instruments like a post-millennial Tangerine Dream messing with downtempo triphop beats. O' Neill took point in the producer's chair for The Breaks, arranging, structuring and editing many of Shemie and Yarmush's ideas from sporadic rehearsal sessions into Pro Tools, reimagining the songs over and over during a two-year time frame. Forged between countless plane rides, road trips, van tours and text threads, The Breaks became a product of endurance and a lot of trial-and-error. It's a record forged in tight fissions of freedom, where spells of whispered intimacy - like on the stunning ballad "Doreen" - are allowed to branch out into the vast glacial dreamscapes of the album's majestic title track. It captures SUUNS at their most panoramic, curious and exuberant: a constant relay of being adrift and enlightened anew, geared up to eleven. And guess what: the wheels keep on spinning.

PM Warson returns with the new album "A Little More Time". Having established himself as "one of the leading lights on the modern-day R&B scene" (Shindig! magazine UK), his third long-player represents an expansion of his mid-century vision. Less a departure, more an arrival, the album moves beyond the R&B revivalism of his previous work, taking in a breadth of styles and moods within its distinctly '60s sonics.

Recorded at Lightship 95, London's floating analogue studio, the 10 original tracks combine the direct feel of live performance, alongside a developed songwriting and production approach. The album is led by the second single (following "Right Here, Last night") and title track "A Little More Time" setting the tone with a dose of sweeping vintage pop and uptown soul. "For this record I wanted to channel the sound I'd developed playing live with a band, while at the same time further exploring my songwriting. I allowed my wider influences to permeate a bit more and placed the vocal and lyric more forward in the songs" PM Warson says.

PM Warson is a UK musician, songwriter and producer. He emerged in 2021 with the album "True Story", after a series of DIY vinyl releases. Breakout single "(Don't) Hold Me Down" surfaced initially among soul collectors (with the original release clocking in at over $200 on collector sites), before finding a wider audience on European radio and streaming platforms.

With touring opportunities limited due to the ongoing pandemic travel restrictions, he turned his attention to a quick-fire follow-up. The lean, brooding "Dig Deep Repeat" was released in May 2022, led by the single "Leaving Here". Extensive tour and festival dates throughout Europe followed, where he gained a reputation as an impressive live act, performing alongside the likes of Cedric Burnside, Robert Finley, Nick Waterhouse and GA20.

After a run of dates in France, and an appearance at the legendary 100 Club in London, he set about working on new music during 2023. Having released the single "Right Here, Last Night" as a 7inch vinyl on his own Acid Jazz-distributed FYND marque, he teams up again with Légère Recordings for his third album, the expansive "A Little More Time".

This collection is reviving the most popular pieces from blockbuster movies by offering a fully fledged state-of-the-art orchestral sound. As the Original Soundtracks for many tracks are recorded in sound quality of the 50s/60s or even in mono – this recording brings a truly revolutionary listening experience to those pieces.

Damien Quintard, who took care of the mastering, co-founded with Brad Pitt “Miraval Studios” in 2021, a recording studio inside Chateau Miraval, bringing back to life the iconic “Studio Miraval”, considered in the 70s till the late 90s as one of the most prestigious studios in the world, recording acts such as Pink Floyd (The Wall), AC/DC, Rammstein, Sting, Muse among others.

This year's compilation is once again dedicated to the Bärenherz children's hospice here in Leipzig.
The people in this organization do such incredibly important work, but unfortunately it is all too often "invisible" - because if we're honest, it's not a topic you like to deal with unless you are directly or indirectly affected yourself. And then you realize that the costs of care, accommodation, supplies and psychosocial therapies are only partially covered by health insurance. The children's hospice does not receive any state subsidies, and that's why it is dependent on private donations.

We asked a few old friends from our new hood (now that we are no longer just mentally but also physically located in Leipzig) for tracks, as well as new ones - from Connewitz to Chicago - bridging the gap between Neo-Soul, good old Boom Bap, Modern Funk, Electro, Synthiepop, Breaks and of course, House Music in all its shades.

One love goes out to all artists and supporters!

As Country music continues broadening its influence in every corner of the modern soundscape, the quickly growing 'Red Dirt' genre, which encapsulates the Western lifestyle and outlaw sound, is taking centerstage lead by acts such as the influential Randy Rogers Band. For over 20 years, the band's roster and traditional approach has remained unchanged and inspired the surge in a new generation of artists. Acts such as Parker McCollum, Koe Wetzel, Flatland Cavalry, and William Beckmann all began their musical careers on the building blocks set forth by Randy Rogers Band.

The band's second album, Rollercoaster, is applauded as one of the most impactful collections in the Texas music scene. The influence of this record garnered the band bookings in venues once thought out of reach and made them a pillar of 'Red Dirt' Country music.

Now, as the record prepares to celebrate its 20th anniversary, the Randy Rogers Band is releasing a newly re-mastered/re-sequenced edition of Rollercoaster to commemorate the music that ignited their long-lasting journey as a Texas music staple act.

Two classic cuts from Jorge Ben and Miriam Makeba take either side of this Mr Bongo Brazil 45 reissue.

’Xica Da Silva’ is one of Jorge Ben’s most well-known and well-loved cuts, housed on the legendary Africa Brazil LP that deserves a place in every collection. A magical MPB cut, it instantly transports you to the shores of Rio de Janeiro. With a low-slung funky samba flavour, Ben’s absorbing vocal recounts the legend of one of Brazil's oldest black icons.

On the flip side, Miriam Makeba serves up an entrancing, slowed-down, grooved-out version of ‘Xica da Silva’. A highly influential singer, songwriter, and civil rights activist from South Africa, this low and slow interpretation is doused in strutting guitar, off-beat piano stabs and hypnotic drums providing the perfect platform to let Miriam’s vocal shine through.

Remastered with refreshed artwork.

Almost three decades on from their last release, Acid Jazz forefathers Galliano are back with news of their new LP ‘Halfway Somewhere’ which is being released on Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings on 30 August.

Born out of London’s underground clubs and warehouse parties of the mid to late eighties, with the debut single on the Acid Jazz label in 1988, Galliano came out of a culture that spanned music, dance, fashion, art, design, and the written word.

When they arrived as the first act on Gilles Peterson’s Talkin’ Loud label in 1990 with ‘Welcome to the Story’ (produced by Chris Bangs who invented the term Acid Jazz) dressed in Gabicci sweaters, beads and skullcaps they captured a scene built on re-invention. “We were all playing around with what we could get our hands on whether that was a seventies book on Jamaican style or old Last Poets and Watts Prophets records,” says Gallagher. “We’d been recycling things for a few years but suddenly everything had coalesced and you’ve got an amalgam that seemed quite solid.”
For their first album since 1997, Rob Gallagher and his partner, vocalist Valerie Etienne, are joined by Galliano stalwarts Ernie McKone on bass, Crispin Taylor on drums, and Ski Oakenfull on keys (with guests including saxophonist Jason Yarde and percussionist Crispin ‘Spry’ Robinson).

Where the old Galliano recycled records they heard at clubs, today they are responding to the kaleidoscopic global jazz scene - from Total Refreshment Centre in London to International Anthem in Chicago. More than forty years since they came together, Galliano are still only ‘Halfway Somewhere’, but listening to the album they are obviously having fun getting there. “I think the stars have to be aligned when you redo things,” says Gallagher. “Coming at it from this door is very different to the door we came into back then. But once it's existing it is something. But I’m still not sure what that something is.”