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The Scunthorpian partners-in-crime Rupert and Henry Stansall, mythologized in wanted posters as Ruen Brothers, are back in the saddle with their fourth studio album: Awooo. Titled after the lycanthropic howling chorus of their melancholic track “Sitting at the Station,” Awooo finds the duo on the road again, full of ruminative wanderlust and exploring sprawling, dark deserts, carrying with only their songbook of western-inspired folklore. The meditative, building desire of “The Cabin on the Hill,” the pensive yearning etched inside “Poison Down the Wire,“ and a tasteful reimagining of the tried-and-true traditional “Mama Don’t” that could easily pass as an original, all exhibit the creative growth that these young troubadours have established over their decade-long career. This limited first edition pressing of Awooo is pressed on frosted shadow color vinyl and is limited to 800 copies worldwide.

The Scunthorpian partners-in-crime Rupert and Henry Stansall, mythologized in wanted posters as Ruen Brothers, are back in the saddle with their fourth studio album: Awooo. Titled after the lycanthropic howling chorus of their melancholic track “Sitting at the Station,” Awooo finds the duo on the road again, full of ruminative wanderlust and exploring sprawling, dark deserts, carrying with only their songbook of western-inspired folklore. The meditative, building desire of “The Cabin on the Hill,” the pensive yearning etched inside “Poison Down the Wire,“ and a tasteful reimagining of the tried-and-true traditional “Mama Don’t” that could easily pass as an original, all exhibit the creative growth that these young troubadours have established over their decade-long career. This limited indie exclusive pressing of Awooo is pressed on frosted shadow color vinyl and is autographed by both Henry and Rupert Stansall and is limited to 200 copies worldwide.

[k] 11Wall Guitar (Since You Said Goodbye) [feat. Vince Gill]

Here to dazzle you by the power of the disco ball, Lack of Afro is your friendly neighbourhood ‘Love Dealer’. Two years on from the funk & soul rebirth of ‘Square One’, powered by the ubiquitous ‘Loving Arms’ featuring Greg Blackman, Lack of Afro aka Adam Gibbons is now close to two decades deep in the game with soundtrack credits galore and online streams doing calculator-busting numbers. With extensive touring taking ‘Love Dealer’ up and down the country this Autumn, Gibbons’ ninth studio album is all for "the thrill of seeing people on a dancefloor, all collectively locked into a track that you've produced - there’s nothing like it!”.


‘Love Dealer’ is the authentic modern disco experience, packing a stacked sole’s worth of club beats full of stardusted sing-alongs, style-outs and French touch-style cool. Despite being “written during one of the longest winters in living memory”, ‘Love Dealer’, featuring some co-production from fellow South Coast dancefloor scholar Flevans (and influenced by producer du jour Barry Can’t Swim), exudes warmth and will make you sweat when its highs take effect.


Entering the scene with the radiance of ‘Make It Shine’ featuring Greg Blackman, washing over the airwaves of BBC 6 Music and Radio 2 and taking up a 10-week residency on the Jazz FM playlist, Gibbons and his crack line-up of discotheque players are your go-to team when you can’t wait for the weekend to begin, as subtle as they are straight down to business. ‘Love Dealer’ offers you nothing but the best in sparkling string symphonies, the hippest guitar licks, samples of those invited beyond the velvet rope and struts soaked in night fever.


Double A-side ‘Walls Start Rockin’ and ‘Heart & Soul’ guide the album’s glamour-and-groove, while ‘Love Saves The Day’ and ‘Plain to See’ dramatically take to the podium in a shimmer of pure peak 70s theatre. ‘Keeping Me Strong’ is the synergy of disco chic and the sound of a global advertising tie-in with Dyson, ahead of Gibbons taking a slightly Moroder/Cerrone-ish detour on ‘Idolising People Like Madlib’. “'Love Dealer' is aimed unequivocally at the dancefloor" says Adam. "As an artist, I wanted to push myself in a slightly new direction - more into the land of disco and a four to the floor sound. 'Love Dealer' is quintessentially an upbeat record, full of joy, optimism and hope for the future”. Seek your inner ‘Love Dealer’, kink your ‘fro and let your funk flag fly.
















n B7. 14 Your Love (feat. Jonah Hitchens) BONUS TRACK














n B7. 14 Your Love (feat. Jonah Hitchens) BONUS TRACK














[n] B7. 14 Your Love (feat. Jonah Hitchens) [BONUS TRACK]














[BONUS TRACK]

Young Gun Silver Fox are the captains of AM Waves, setting sail towards an isle where melodies soak the shoreline and grooves sway like palm trees. Their route traces a natural progression fromWest End Coast, an album that cast Andy Platts (Young Gun) and Shawn Lee (Silver Fox) as musical virtuosos of SoCal-infused pop. AM Waves does more than duplicate the perfection of West End Coast. It improves it.

Recorded at The Shop in London and Roffey Hall in the English countryside, AM Waves burnishes the blend between the duo's modern aesthetic and their sumptuously crafted homage to '70s-styled pop, rock, and soul. "This music hits a certain spot for me personally that nothing else quite does," says Shawn, who produced the album amidst his projects for Saint Etienne, Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra, and several other acts. "It's real high-caliber music. It's easy and breezy to listen to but it's really hard to make. Every aspect is A game."

The A game behind AM Waves fuels 43 minutes of Young Gun Silver Fox in peak form. "AM Waves is much more instinctive," says Andy, whose penchant for writing irresistible hooks and melodies also shapes his role as lead singer and lyricist/composer for the band Mamas Gun. "It's more vivid. You can see the clarity to the colors of AM Waves whereas West End Coast is slightly more impressionist, as it were."

Originally issued as a single in September 2017, "Midnight in Richmond" is the anchor of AM Waves. "I hit one chord, which I'd never played before, and the song sort of wrote itself," notes Shawn. "It was intuitive. In many ways, the primary function of what I'm doing is trying to find that chord that opens a door and takes you someplace else. Those chords have magic." Andy embellishes the song's appeal by nimbly juxtaposing wistful emotions with a sun-kissed melody, his voice evoking richly drawn memories. The qualities that make "Midnight in Richmond" an instant classic abound throughout the album.

"Lenny" and "Take It or Leave It" spotlight Andy's versatility as a songwriter. The former was inspired by a dream he had where Lenny Kravitz owned a bar. "It was surreal," he says. "He was polishing the glasses and just serving me hit after hit." Like swimming through moonshine, Andy languorously savors every syllable in the song. "Take It or Leave It" is pure pop bliss. "That was one of those songs that fell out in half an hour," he says. "I had everything and it was done." Shawn adds, "It's such a perfect song in itself. When I listen to it, it's like you've created a record that already existed."

Young Gun Silver Fox introduce a five-piece horn section on "Underdog" that literally trumpets the song's protagonist. Shawn affectionately dubbed them the "Seaweed Horns" in honor of the Seawind Horns, an LA-based unit that recorded with powerhouses like Michael Jackson,Rufus & Chaka Khan,and Earth, Wind & Fire during the late-'70s. Andy explains, "The horns grab another hue of the west coast sound, which is the starting point, but it's also maybe the point where we're injecting a little bit more of ourselves and some outside colors into the familiar west coast palette."

A bounty of treasures course through AM Waves' ebb and flow. "Mojo Rising," which the duo penned with Rob Johnson, is a veritable retreat to paradise. "Sky-bound, heaven sent / Way above the clouds watching shootingstars descend," Andy sings, mirroring the music's celestial undertones. Sensuality contours the notes on "Just a Man," a song that basks in the allure of a woman who leaves "footprints on the water" while "Love Guarantee" is festooned with the Seaweed Horns. "I wanted to bring more of that R&B slickness into the mix," Shawn notes about the latter track. "We hadn't done a tune with that sort of groove." Similar to his work on "Underdog," Nichol Thomson's intricate horn arrangement on "LoveGuarantee"exemplifies another distinction between AM Waves and its predecessor.

"Caroline" occupies a special place on AM Waves, beyond spawning the album title. It tells the story of Radio Caroline, a pirate radio station that broadcast from an offshore vessel during the '60s and '70s. "They played the music that kids wanted to hear, whether it was the old stuff or cutting edge stuff," says Andy. "'Caroline' is about Radio Caroline's eventual capture." Complementing Andy Platts' deft wordplay, which draws parallels between radio airwaves and the station's literal home on the ocean, Shawn Lee layers nearly a dozen different parts on "Caroline," showcasing the vastness of his musicality. "I loved that track as soon as I heard it," Andy continues. "It's a beautiful fusion of me and Shawn."

The Seaweed Horns joinYoung Gun Silver Foxas they detour to the dance floor on "Kingston Boogie." Shawn explains the track's genesis, "I was thinking, what have we not done yet We definitely should get an AOR disco thing happening. I quite like disco. The beat is so metronomic that it allows you to be really sophisticated on top. 'Kingston Boogie' just laid itself out. I call it 'midnight disco.'" With a nod to "Lenny," Andy Platts sets "Kingston Boogie" back at Lenny's Bar, this time revealing a detail or two about its mysterious proprietor as he pours sweet wine and moonshine.

In a sense, AM Waves ends with the beginning. Even before there was Young Gun Silver Fox, there was "Lolita," the first song Andy Platts and Shawn Lee wrote together and a crowd-pleasing staple of the duo's live sets. The tale of a femme fatale who harbors a secret was recorded for West End Coast but instead furnished the B-side to "Long Way Back" as well as a bonus track on the North American edition of the album. Despite the song's checkered trajectory, its infectious chorus sparked the brighter, more buoyant orientation of AM Waves.

Like the moon pulling the tide, Young Gun Silver Fox are a magnet for good songs. "We're both so obsessed and constantly interested in music-making," says Andy. "We're both thinking about it all the time. When you know you have an accomplice with you that's the same as you, it's very liberating. Suddenly, worlds of color start to appear." Indeed, AM Waves is elemental in its power to induce pleasure. Dive right in.

Christian John Wikane

(New York City / February 2018)

"The twentieth Altered Circuits entry comes courtesy of Attack & Disperse, the moniker Cooper runs in parallel with his Reflex Blue project. It focuses on darker, deeper moods, with a hardware-based, imperfection-embracing approach--and sits on the axis of electro, Detroit techno, and progressive. DiscoNnect revolves around a murky, slightly unstable bass with strong sub presence and a thickly accented vocal sample. Distorted synth brass interludes enable the bare-bones sections to punch as hard as they do. Higher Places works with the same energy, but channels it in a bolder way thanks to its snappy palette. The tune is indebted to the after hours, yet carries enough crossover appeal to set off any club setting. On Power Of Overthink the current shifts somewhat toward the effervescent. Its flanged square lead is surrounded by fidgetty arps and acid squelches, and feels sturdy enough to carry a dozen tracks' weight. Closer Beat from E is a composition of IDM-inspired drum patterns laced with a brash mixture of samples - pitched-down vocals, vocoders, and scratch salvos all make their way in - and propelled by a fat MS20-type bass. Cooper has been on a steady tear with his sleekly balanced, club-oriented releases, and we are delighted he's now joined our catalog with The Second Contact EP."

2025 Repress
After numerous releases in diverse labels last year, the deutsch couple 'not even noticed' display his more raver face with a clear influence from the 90s scene.

A work focused on the club full of nostalgia through acid lines, leading to hypnotic yet heavy scenarios where they show two differentiate sides but with a common flow of sinuosity and elation.

Emily A. Sprague's Cloud Time traces an audio-spiritual journey through time and place, recorded across a long-awaited debut tour of Japan in the fall of 2024. Compiled from environmental improvisations captured in and for the moment, material at once welcoming, responsive, and inimitable, the album distills a voyage guided by psychic wayfaring, unbound presence, and activating performance for a reciprocal exchange with space, listener, and each fully engaged instant. The Japanese tour documented on Cloud Time held an almost mythic significance for Sprague, taking on properties of her own sonic white whale. After many near-departures and dropped plans to play in the country, "the empty spaces of cancelled trips and forgotten music turned into strange little misty spirits that I felt followed by," she says. "When I began preparing for the tour, I couldn't shake a sense that the invitation to Japan was more about opening myself up to this new place instead of bringing something into it tightly under my control. Improvisation has always been such a pillar in my music practice, and I really wanted to meet the country, spaces and people through that process." To amplify these intuitive whispers on-stage, Sprague reimagined her time-tested live rig, designed to be as free from error as possible, as a looser, more flexible set up that would allow her to interface with what was essentially a blank sonic canvas every night. Each performance became a collaboration between environment and instinct, Sprague processing the events, energies, and emotions informing the evening through her new sound ecosystem, and projecting an entirely present and unique version of herself to each open-eared and hearted crowd. "It was very much more than just an act of playing for me, but a total experience of time and place," she says. The seven long-form pieces that plot the course of Cloud Time, excerpted from over eight hours of recordings archived on the artist's on-stage recorder and generously shared on the album with no additional mixing and only minimal editing, invite listeners to become still in these deep-rooted moments of presence as the album moves from city to city, venue to venue. Cloud Time chronicles material recorded at each tour stop, Sprague selecting and sequencing the album around mood-based storytelling more so than linear chronology. "I tried to make the whole album flow in the way that any one of the complete live performances did," she explains, "while also keeping the spirit of the whole thing as a journey." The result is equal parts travelog, love letter, and impressionistic collage channeled from the potent ferment of a now encased in the glowing amber of memory. Intrinsically inspired by kankyo ongaku, an environmental music philosophy, known both in and widely outside of Japan that tunes into the similarly expansive ethos as Pauline Oliveros' deep listening practice and posits the listener as composer, Cloud Time is ambient music that seems to be listening right back, grounded in heartfelt synthesized frequencies that abundantly hold and heal. Pieces like "Nagoya," "Tokyo 1," and the ten minute "Matsumoto" in particular hum with the atomic resonance of gently tended landscapes, offering space for tuning way in and dropping far out from perspectives that stifle and bind. Cloud Time is an invitation to embrace each moment as both fleeting and eternal, floating by with nothing to grasp onto and absolutely everything to gain. The exercise in acceptance and letting go that Sprague practiced throughout the tour deeply impacted her understanding of self as both a guest and venerable performer. "The process of loving wherever I am, being present and focusing on a clear channel of communication for mind and emotion, rooted so deeply in respect for the space, those within it, and myself, ended up being profoundly healing," she says. "My vision and hope is that this album can be released as a gift back to anyone who either was or wasn't there. A cloud time of life passing by."

Congratulations! 55th anniversary of debut

The third album "Single Man", released on April 21, 1976, was an album with many controversies from the production stage.
It was discontinued less than a year after its release, and then a movement to re-release "Single Man" arose, and it finally re-released in 1980, so it has
a twisted story.

The album features a variety of performances due to the transition period from the folk period to the electric arrangement period, and above all, many
masterpieces that can be said to be representative of the entire RC period, such as "Slow Ballad". The driving force just before the rapid climb to
"KING OF ROCK" after 1980 is already boiling in this album.

In addition to the latest remastered sound source from the original master tape of the album, this deluxe edition includes single songs from that time,
versions not included on the album, and a studio live sound source from tvk's "Young Impulse" at the time of the album's release.
It is a deluxe edition packed with the overflowing talent of RC Succession at that time.

The booklet includes for the first time all 17 images from the original jacket illustration, "Pictures for the Test of Painting Apperception of Infants and Children."

・Remastered by zAk
・Disc 1: Half-speed cutting / Disc 2: Normal cutting by Miles Showell at ABBEY ROAD
・180g heavyweight clear vinyl
・Booklet (17 images of "Pictures for the Test of Painting Apperception of Infants and Children" (illustrations by Minamioji Hajime), commentary, lyrics)
・Liner notes: Imai Tomoko, Sakai Hiroki

Stone classic Bullwackies (as excursioned by Rhythm & Sound for Burial Mix), sensationally featuring two unreleased dubs, newly extracted from the master reels. Both are equally unmissable but quite different, with contrasting effects: the second dub adds ninety seconds, including whip-dem spring reverb. Drawn from the Selective Showcase LP, the vocal mix is more open and dubwise than the Sing & Shout LP offering, with less keyboards.
Asked whether it should be mash or march, after some pondering Bullwackies replied: "That's a good question.'

Two of Lamp's masterpieces will be released on vinyl at the same time! Two of Lamp's masterpieces from the 2010s, "Tokyo Utopia Tsuushin" and "Yume",
will be reissued on vinyl! After becoming a viral hit on TikTok in the 2020s, Lamp now has over 2.1 million monthly listeners on Spotify.
In addition to his deep-rooted popularity in Asia (China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, Indonesia, etc.), he was selected as a support act for Mitski last year
and accompanied them on their North American tour. At the same time, his solo tour "FUTURE BEHIND ME" North America 2024, which visited 17 locations
in North America, was all sold out. This summer's solo show at LINE CUBE SHIBUYA was also sold out immediately, and Lamp's two masterpieces,
which are currently gaining worldwide acclaim, will be released on vinyl at the same time!

This is the sixth album by Lamp, a mixed-gender trio that has inherited the Japanese pop music of each era and sublimated it into new pop music by sprinkling
elements of 70's pop and Brazilian music throughout.
This album depicts the mental landscape of a man and woman passing each other in a certain place in a city.
It suddenly reminds us of the cold and warmth of winter, a nostalgic feeling that everyone has experienced at least once.
The jacket features many illustrations by Suzuki Oji, who was active in the manga magazine "Garo," which had a great influence on young artists in the 70s and
produced many geniuses in the manga world, and is known for his representative work "Motorcycle Girl."
The unique, fantastical illustrations resonate with Lamp's music to create a fantastical world.

Lamp's seventh album is so unique that it is difficult to compare it to a specific genre or other artists.
In particular, songs such as "Sachiko," "Symphony," and "Autumn in A City," which are a high level of harmony between complexity and beauty, are no
exaggeration to say that they have elevated popular music to the level of art.
"Yume," a beautiful culmination of sincerity in music, creative drive, and imagination, is permeated with a firm perspective and unwavering values.
This attitude can be called "Lamp-style rock."
The cover features a painting by Hayashi Seiichi, a painter and illustrator who represents the youth culture of the 1970s and is known for his illustrations for
Lotte's "Koume-chan" and the manga "Red Elegy." It adds color to Lamp's delicate and lyrical world.

STANDFIRST Titanic, the project spearheaded by Mabe Fratti and Hector Tosta (aka I. la Católica), return with a sumptuous and life-affirming new album.



In her sensational 1929 biography Tiger Woman, dancer and socialite Betty May claimed her ‘coster’s eye’ meant she liked to wear as many colours as possible. “Colours to me are like children to a loving mother. Each is my favourite, yet I can never bring myself to deny the others by preferring one.” May’s bold and inclusive strategy is one that manages to transfer itself, almost a century later, to Hagen, the new record by Titanic.


Many will know Titanic as the Mexico City-based brainchild of cellist and singer Mabe Fratti and multiinstrumentalist Hector Tosta who is now operating under the pseudonym, I. la Católica, (taken, rather unusually, from the name of the street the pair live on). With Hagen, and their previous release, Vidrio, (2023), the pair are creating a distinctive signature sound in modern alternative pop music. Nobody else sounds quite like them. Both records have an open hearted nature and simple, winning melodies that play off against a taste for drama, spectacular orchestration and a feeling of otherworldly mystery. Hagen is the more ambitious, sometimes more mystical effort. From the opening handclaps of ‘Lágrima del Sol’, (a wonderfully uptempo playground chant translating as a tear from the sun but, surely, not referencing the brand of pineapple wine?), the record dances its way through various mid-to-late-eighties inspirations, lush and widescreen passages of melancholy and vertiginous contrasts.


Mystery is often found in the simple but slightly odd song titles. English translations of various track titles give, ‘you swallowed the gum’, ‘leak’, ‘a tear from the sun’, ‘raising the trophy’ ‘digging dimensions’, ‘the owner’, ‘the decapitated hen’ and ‘the trap is exposed’. All denote striking images, metaphysical hints and emotional cues or simple, even childlike actions. Though Fratti and Tosta don’t reveal its provenance, the album’s title could even be a crafty play on words: the listener would be forgiven in thinking the moments of brash contrast and eyebrow raising theatricalism in the music constitute a musical nod to German punk chanteuse, Nina Hagen.


On Hagen, singer and cellist Mabe Fratti once again displays her brilliant knack of speaking to us directly. There is never the suspicion of her playing to the gallery, and the directness of many of the lyrics don’t allow it. Parallel to this, Fratti has an almost magical ability to give Hector Tosta’s melodies, and her and Tosta’s lyrics ones imbued with an insight and meaning that feels otherworldly. Tosta admitted it was “pretty wild to hear Mabe take the interpretations to a different place” and the listener can pick up on the delight Fratti takes in (literally) adding a voice to the many narratives.


Two examples can be shown here: ‘Gotera’ (Leak) uses harsh slashes of cello and tough, gunfire-like guitars and drums and multiple vocal lines that could be acting as a Greek chorus. They play off brilliantly against Fratti’s soft, slightly baleful vocal take that delivers lyrics such as: ‘nobody knows where the leak is / but I know where it is / they fight in front of the door and / nobody can go in’. With ‘La Gallina Degollada’ the somewhat blithe melody melody line, sung with what could be sarcastic brio by Fratti, plays against an itchting rhythm and rasping guitar part. The punch comes when you see that the song is about a chicken that has been decapitated and read lyrics such as: ‘I already saw it, it moved, the decapitated chicken’ / ‘could it be that I'm broken’ and ‘Two people hurt each other by thinking that they no longer agree’/ ‘Hours pass and the chicken represents what scares me’.


There may be death and fights to deal with, but there is also a quality of chirpy self-reliance about Hagen that is a key part of its nature. Like Betty May and her colourful outfits, Hagen’s sound often revels in its own sense of richness. Throughout, the record delivers vaulting string sections or glutinous guitar squeals that could, like the powerful, driving ‘Escarbo Dimensiones’ (Digging Dimensions) have come directly from a glossy 1980s TV series. Fratti sees this “glam sound” developed by Tosta on the aforementioned track and ‘Te Tragaste el Chicle’ (You Swallowed The Gum), as moments that were truly “revealing” for the album as a whole during its making.


What else? The thud and thump of ‘La Trampa Sale’ (The Trap is Exposed), and its sudden change of tempo and mood betrays a monstrously ambitious piece of music, the players almost greedily creating the sounds. Other moments are heart wrenching: ‘Libra’ ends on a poppy chord switch that cleverly ramps up the emotion inherent in the music’s notation. You could almost imagine a teenager in a bedroom forty years ago, rewinding the track over and over on a small, cheap cassette player, unable to get enough of that sugarsweet switch. Elsewhere, Oneohtrix Point Never adds stardust and an unearthly sense of space on the changeable, slightly moody meditation, ‘Pájaro de Fuego’ (Firebird). The record ends with ‘Alzando el Trofeo’ (Lifting the Trophy), a track that could soundtrack a state wedding, what with its beautiful cascading piano parts, a sugary vocal and short triumphal guitar riffs that add a rich patina to the overall sound. Fratti: “When I doubled those vocals on ‘Alzando el Trofeo’ I felt there was an epiphany happening, right at that moment.”


Making a good record is a team game. Tosta and Fratti recall seeing Randall from Circular Ruin Studios in NYC “tweak the drums in ‘Libra’ to make that amazing effect of the gated reverb”, or the shaping of ‘Gotera’, “when (recording engineer) Nate Salon added some synths to the track.” Drummer Eli Keszler, “an amazing and versatile player” had the songs down pat in a couple of days” and, according to Tosta, Oneohtrix Point Never “just came to one of the sessions and we hung out, and after all the recordings he and Nate were together in some studio and out of nowhere they sent us some beautiful tracks for ‘Pájaro de Fuego’! Fratti concurs. “He decided that he wanted to record because he was listening to the record (Nate works closely with him) and he really liked it! It was a total honour, indeed!”


Bedazzled by the playing, the skyscraping ambition in the arrangements and the giddy moments of contrast thrown up by Hagen, we could allow ourselves a brief moment of flippancy and state that Titanic’s new record is Yacht Rock meets Aeschylus, full-on. It’s also worth speculating that, in this hyper-sensitive, intemperate age, Titanic’s music has the power, however fleetingly, to heal hurts. Hagen is a brilliant showcase for a fresh and enriching form of pop music: displaying a magpie eye for what glints and plundering what has gone before.


Like Vidrio, Hagen was partially and additionally recorded at Fratti and Tosta’s house, aka Tinho Studios in Mexico City, as well as Golden Girl Studios & Circular Ruin Studios in New York City. Mixing was done by Santiago Parra in Pedro y el Lobo Studios, Mexico City and mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studios, New York City. The recording engineer was Nate Salon.


Hagen featured Mabe Fratti on cello, vocals & backing vocals, I. la Católica on guitar, keyboards, prepared piano, bass & backing vocals, drums by Eli Keszler and synths in ‘Pájaro de Fuego’ from Daniel Lopatin and Nate Salon.


All compositions on Hagen are written by I. la Católica, except ‘Escarbo Dimensiones’ & ‘Pájaro de Fuego’, which were composed by I. la Católica and Mabe Fratti. The record was produced by I. la Católica and co-produced by Nate Salon & Mabe Fratti. And all lyrics are by I. la Católica except ‘Escarbo Dimensiones’, ‘Gotera’, ‘Gallina degollada’ & ‘Pájaro de Fuego’, which were written by I. la Católica & Mabe Fratti.

STANDFIRST Titanic, the project spearheaded by Mabe Fratti and Hector Tosta (aka I. la Católica), return with a sumptuous and life-affirming new album.



In her sensational 1929 biography Tiger Woman, dancer and socialite Betty May claimed her ‘coster’s eye’ meant she liked to wear as many colours as possible. “Colours to me are like children to a loving mother. Each is my favourite, yet I can never bring myself to deny the others by preferring one.” May’s bold and inclusive strategy is one that manages to transfer itself, almost a century later, to Hagen, the new record by Titanic.


Many will know Titanic as the Mexico City-based brainchild of cellist and singer Mabe Fratti and multiinstrumentalist Hector Tosta who is now operating under the pseudonym, I. la Católica, (taken, rather unusually, from the name of the street the pair live on). With Hagen, and their previous release, Vidrio, (2023), the pair are creating a distinctive signature sound in modern alternative pop music. Nobody else sounds quite like them. Both records have an open hearted nature and simple, winning melodies that play off against a taste for drama, spectacular orchestration and a feeling of otherworldly mystery. Hagen is the more ambitious, sometimes more mystical effort. From the opening handclaps of ‘Lágrima del Sol’, (a wonderfully uptempo playground chant translating as a tear from the sun but, surely, not referencing the brand of pineapple wine?), the record dances its way through various mid-to-late-eighties inspirations, lush and widescreen passages of melancholy and vertiginous contrasts.


Mystery is often found in the simple but slightly odd song titles. English translations of various track titles give, ‘you swallowed the gum’, ‘leak’, ‘a tear from the sun’, ‘raising the trophy’ ‘digging dimensions’, ‘the owner’, ‘the decapitated hen’ and ‘the trap is exposed’. All denote striking images, metaphysical hints and emotional cues or simple, even childlike actions. Though Fratti and Tosta don’t reveal its provenance, the album’s title could even be a crafty play on words: the listener would be forgiven in thinking the moments of brash contrast and eyebrow raising theatricalism in the music constitute a musical nod to German punk chanteuse, Nina Hagen.


On Hagen, singer and cellist Mabe Fratti once again displays her brilliant knack of speaking to us directly. There is never the suspicion of her playing to the gallery, and the directness of many of the lyrics don’t allow it. Parallel to this, Fratti has an almost magical ability to give Hector Tosta’s melodies, and her and Tosta’s lyrics ones imbued with an insight and meaning that feels otherworldly. Tosta admitted it was “pretty wild to hear Mabe take the interpretations to a different place” and the listener can pick up on the delight Fratti takes in (literally) adding a voice to the many narratives.


Two examples can be shown here: ‘Gotera’ (Leak) uses harsh slashes of cello and tough, gunfire-like guitars and drums and multiple vocal lines that could be acting as a Greek chorus. They play off brilliantly against Fratti’s soft, slightly baleful vocal take that delivers lyrics such as: ‘nobody knows where the leak is / but I know where it is / they fight in front of the door and / nobody can go in’. With ‘La Gallina Degollada’ the somewhat blithe melody melody line, sung with what could be sarcastic brio by Fratti, plays against an itchting rhythm and rasping guitar part. The punch comes when you see that the song is about a chicken that has been decapitated and read lyrics such as: ‘I already saw it, it moved, the decapitated chicken’ / ‘could it be that I'm broken’ and ‘Two people hurt each other by thinking that they no longer agree’/ ‘Hours pass and the chicken represents what scares me’.


There may be death and fights to deal with, but there is also a quality of chirpy self-reliance about Hagen that is a key part of its nature. Like Betty May and her colourful outfits, Hagen’s sound often revels in its own sense of richness. Throughout, the record delivers vaulting string sections or glutinous guitar squeals that could, like the powerful, driving ‘Escarbo Dimensiones’ (Digging Dimensions) have come directly from a glossy 1980s TV series. Fratti sees this “glam sound” developed by Tosta on the aforementioned track and ‘Te Tragaste el Chicle’ (You Swallowed The Gum), as moments that were truly “revealing” for the album as a whole during its making.


What else? The thud and thump of ‘La Trampa Sale’ (The Trap is Exposed), and its sudden change of tempo and mood betrays a monstrously ambitious piece of music, the players almost greedily creating the sounds. Other moments are heart wrenching: ‘Libra’ ends on a poppy chord switch that cleverly ramps up the emotion inherent in the music’s notation. You could almost imagine a teenager in a bedroom forty years ago, rewinding the track over and over on a small, cheap cassette player, unable to get enough of that sugarsweet switch. Elsewhere, Oneohtrix Point Never adds stardust and an unearthly sense of space on the changeable, slightly moody meditation, ‘Pájaro de Fuego’ (Firebird). The record ends with ‘Alzando el Trofeo’ (Lifting the Trophy), a track that could soundtrack a state wedding, what with its beautiful cascading piano parts, a sugary vocal and short triumphal guitar riffs that add a rich patina to the overall sound. Fratti: “When I doubled those vocals on ‘Alzando el Trofeo’ I felt there was an epiphany happening, right at that moment.”


Making a good record is a team game. Tosta and Fratti recall seeing Randall from Circular Ruin Studios in NYC “tweak the drums in ‘Libra’ to make that amazing effect of the gated reverb”, or the shaping of ‘Gotera’, “when (recording engineer) Nate Salon added some synths to the track.” Drummer Eli Keszler, “an amazing and versatile player” had the songs down pat in a couple of days” and, according to Tosta, Oneohtrix Point Never “just came to one of the sessions and we hung out, and after all the recordings he and Nate were together in some studio and out of nowhere they sent us some beautiful tracks for ‘Pájaro de Fuego’! Fratti concurs. “He decided that he wanted to record because he was listening to the record (Nate works closely with him) and he really liked it! It was a total honour, indeed!”


Bedazzled by the playing, the skyscraping ambition in the arrangements and the giddy moments of contrast thrown up by Hagen, we could allow ourselves a brief moment of flippancy and state that Titanic’s new record is Yacht Rock meets Aeschylus, full-on. It’s also worth speculating that, in this hyper-sensitive, intemperate age, Titanic’s music has the power, however fleetingly, to heal hurts. Hagen is a brilliant showcase for a fresh and enriching form of pop music: displaying a magpie eye for what glints and plundering what has gone before.


Like Vidrio, Hagen was partially and additionally recorded at Fratti and Tosta’s house, aka Tinho Studios in Mexico City, as well as Golden Girl Studios & Circular Ruin Studios in New York City. Mixing was done by Santiago Parra in Pedro y el Lobo Studios, Mexico City and mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studios, New York City. The recording engineer was Nate Salon.


Hagen featured Mabe Fratti on cello, vocals & backing vocals, I. la Católica on guitar, keyboards, prepared piano, bass & backing vocals, drums by Eli Keszler and synths in ‘Pájaro de Fuego’ from Daniel Lopatin and Nate Salon.


All compositions on Hagen are written by I. la Católica, except ‘Escarbo Dimensiones’ & ‘Pájaro de Fuego’, which were composed by I. la Católica and Mabe Fratti. The record was produced by I. la Católica and co-produced by Nate Salon & Mabe Fratti. And all lyrics are by I. la Católica except ‘Escarbo Dimensiones’, ‘Gotera’, ‘Gallina degollada’ & ‘Pájaro de Fuego’, which were written by I. la Católica & Mabe Fratti.

Unlike anything we have heard from her before, Okkyung Lee returns to Shelter Press with "Just Like Any Other Day: Background Music For Your Mundane Activities", a deeply intimate body of recordings at the juncture of ambient music, minimalism, and the baroque, that stands as radical intervention with what experimental music can be, and the place that organisations of sound occupy in our lives. For more than two decades, Okkyung Lee has stood at the forefront of the most radical trajectories of experimental music: a virtuosic cellist and improviser, renowned for her creative rigour and emotive depth. Particularly noteworthy for her range, dexterity, and adaptability, over the last five years Lee's output has revealed unexpected shifts and developments that move far afield from the realms of free improvisation for which she is most well known. 2020's "Yeo - Neun", a heart-wrenching, ambient chamber work - drawing inspiration from the Korean popular music of her youth - was issued by Shelter Press to great critical response, followed closely by "Teum (The Silvery Slit)" - one of a series engrossing electroacoustic works created at Groupe de Recherches Musicales in Paris - on Portraits GRM, and then "Na-Reul" in 2021, regarded by Lee as a closing statement of more than two decades living in New York, which set the precedent of her allowing her emotions to fully occupy the forefront of the music for the first time. Marking her return to Shelter press, "Just Like Any Other Day": Background Music For Your Mundane Activities", encounters Lee upturning the apple cart once again, weaving a profoundly intimate artistic statement on completely unexpected terms. Like its three aforementioned predecessors, "Just Like Any Other Day" belongs to broadening shift in Lee's approach to composing that roughly aligns with her return to her native South Korea, having lived in the United States since her late teens. Infused with a deep reengagement with her own culture and relationship to memory, it is equally a response to those critical challenges and questions provoked by significant life change. Worked on in isolation, and continuously returned to, over the course of four years, the album's nine pieces began with a simple recognition that experimental music is not always what we imagine it to be. It is a practice and a pursuit - a music for which, at its inception, the outcome is unknown - rather than an idiom defined by certain syntaxes, approaches, and qualities of structure and sound. From this departure point, Lee began to inquire after the utility of music itself: what is it for, what does it do, and what place does it (or can it) occupy in our lives? This solitary and durational journey, each composition gradually moving through different phases and evolutions over years, led Lee toward uncharted ground: a music that is not only playful, introspective, and seductive, but also intended to provoke a relationship to experimental music beyond its normative expectations. Rather active or deep listening, it pursues passive listening. Rather than a grand statement, it is discreet. Rather than virtuosity, it embraces the elegant and direct. Even more strikingly, for the first time, the music of "Just Like Any Other Day" encounters Lee leaving the cello entirely behind. Created at home on keyboard, computer, and an inexpensive cassette recorder, "Just Like Any Other Day" presents a remarkable form of ambient music - organisations of sound that become their own environment, to be occupied - intended, as the album's subheading infers, as Background Music For Your Mundane Activities. An expansion of the creative pathways opened by the Korean pop imbued compositions of Yeo - Neun, aspects of electronic process explored by "Teum (The Silvery Slit)", and the emotive foregrounding of "Na-Reul", each of the pieces presented across the two sides of "Just Like Any Other Day" implies something far greater than the limits of its own temporarily: a mood, provocations of memory and place, mirrors for the solitude within which it was made, and palpable emotion lingering just out of grasp. For Lee, each of the album's compositions could be continued or looped for an indeterminate duration: straddling a ground between the minimal and the baroque, enveloping the listener in endless cycles of appreciating, repetitive and rhythmical notes, flirting with the melodic and implying a disembodied imagism that borders on the profound. Remarkably beautiful and direct, Okkyung Lee's "Just Like Any Other Day: Background Music For Your Mundane Activities" - issued by Shelter Press on vinyl - represents a radical reconfiguration of experiential music, stripped to its bare essence in defiance of the widely presumed aesthetic signifiers. Unlike anything we've heard from her before, this immersive body of intimate recordings not only reveals new dimensions of Lee's striking range as an artist, but also of how we might regard and occupy music itself: an ambience to lived and felt like a second skin.

"Taking influence from the pioneers of Música Popular Brasileira, Wolfgang Pérez has crafted an exquisite album of summery experimental pop music that encapsulates the beauty and chaos of modern Brazil. A must-listen for fans of Tom Zé, Gilberto Gil, Kiko Dinucci, Negro Leo, Ricardo Dias Gomes, and João Gilberto.

Genre-blending songwriter, arranger, and guitarist Wolfgang Pérez is set to release his highly anticipated new album Só Ouço in July 2025 on Hive Mind. Known for his unique fusion of influences, the German-Spanish artist first captured attention with his 2021 debut WHO CARES WHO CARES (Fun In The Church), followed by the critically acclaimed Spanish-language album AHORA (BAUMUSIK, 2024).

Só Ouço is the fruit of an 18-month creative residency in Rio de Janeiro, where Pérez collaborated with a group of young Brazilian musicians. Deeply inspired by the city's sounds and rhythms, the album marks an exciting chapter in Pérez’s evolving artistic journey.

In 2022, Wolfgang Pérez arrived in Rio de Janeiro on a university exchange to study composition, and quickly found himself immersed in the city’s rich musical landscape. Introduced early on to Rio icons like Thiago Nassif, Arto Lindsay, and Ana Frango Elétrico, what began as a semester turned into a transformative three-semester stay. Pérez absorbed the city's contrasts - it's beauty, its people, it's chaos and violence, all it's contradictions and life - while deeply studying Brazilian music at UFRJ/UNIRIO under the guidance of masters Josimar Carneiro, Marcello Gonçalves and Almir Cortes.

Wolfgang spent the first 6 months or so soaking in as much as possible, going to shows, to the baile funk parties, walking the streets, hiking the mountains in and around Rio, listening to music, making friends, learning where to go and where not to, learning the language, learning the slang, incorporating the culture. He used the time to forget himself in the vibrance of the city.

After this the band came together through a series of chance encounters and happy accidents...some loose jam sessions led to shows around Rio, where Wolfgang, alongside Luis Magalhães (bass), Pedro Fonte (drums) and Paulo Emmery (electric guitar), started to flesh out some of Wolfgang's compositions. At a show at Audio Rebel they met Angelo Wolf (owner of Wolf Estúdio and engineer for artists such as Bala Desejo, Dora Morelenbaum, Zé Ibarra, Marcos Valle, Antonio Neves and Ana Frango Elétrico); moved by the music, Wolf offered Pérez residency and studio time at Wolf Estúdio, providing the foundation for Só Ouço. Angelo was a catalyst for the production of Só Ouço, his openness and generosity helping to shape the sound of the record. Carol Maia, a young guitarist, lyricist and singer brought a sensitivity and tenderness to the songs, while Antonio Neves helped to pull together the brass and woodwind players who would complete the lush sound of the album.

Meticulously arranged, and beautifully composed, Só Ouço is a joy to listen to and surprising at every turn. Classic songwriting and cutting edge production blend to produce an album that is by turns tender and gentle, abrasive and unsettling, a joyful celebration of life in all its complexity."

After last year's extroverted and funky album "Be Who You Wanna Be," Stef Kamil Carlens presents a more introspective double album recorded with Nel Ponsaers and Rahmat Emonds. Featuring 14 songs—some of his own compositions and very surprising covers or reinterpretations—this album emphasizes lyrics, vocals, and a band sound primarily driven by acoustic instruments. Once again, it stands as a key addition to the already very eclectic catalog of one of Belgium’s most versatile and productive artists. Stef Kamil Carlens & The Poem will tour starting in October 2025.

A landmark recording from one of Ghana"s great musical architects, Ebo Taylor"s 1977 self-title release marked the first solo LP by the legendary guitarist, arranger, and composer after years behind the scenes shaping the sound of modern highlife.

Ferdi is an emerging saxophonist artist from the Brusselian-Parisian musical scene. Fifteen years after evolving at the conservatory, he decided to develop his artistic career. He surrounded himself with prominent artists of the modern music scene: the rapper Peet, the pianist Sofiane Pamart, his trumpeter mate Bessau, and the King of Funk Dabeull!



Ferdi’s new album « Romance » has been conceived from this artistic exchange. « Romance » offers a romantic, funky moment for two lovers of 80s music: Dabeull and Ferdi. »

Scintillating, alchemical kosmische; visionary, deep, and luminous; and beautifully sleeved, with gold foiling and silver ink.

Works In Metal fans out a set of acid treatments and finely sharpened blades — cutting, shaping, suspending form. Sounds are melted down and forged as if liquid metal.
The works are paired. Arc’s Blue Flame previews the smoking volatility at the album’s core. Echoes and resonance soften the dissonant, bright textures; all overlaid with Fofana’s signature, percussive kick drums. Welding drills into the discordant thrills and spills of metamorphosis. Sparks fly and the bittersweet arc of change unfolds.
Fofana discreetly folds in text, poetry, and field recordings, spooring their decomposition and recomposition with a prismatic point of view. The coupling Obscure Light (Decomposition) and Obscure Light (Recomposition) marks something new in his music. The pulse is brightly honed, cascading beyond the dancefloor, exultingly eluding musical genre.
Works in Metal is perhaps Fofana’s most narrative album. At its heart is the killer, extended Lure of the Fragment / So Another Sound Suggests Itself. Melodies circle in call-and-response patterns, balancing proximity and distance, signalling the inward gravity required to work with metal. A nested story-line, with birds flying in; an album within an album. Dredging up memories and associations, Fofana filters in selections from his sound-archives. Layered with synths, field recordings become instruments in their own right. The last three minutes proffer precious clarity — a memory, in miniature, flashed onto molten metal.

In 1943 Suzanne Césaire declared that ‘our surrealism will then supply them the leaven from their very depths. It will be time finally to transcend the sordid contemporary antinomies: Whites-Blacks, Europeans-Africans, civilized-savage: the powerful magic of the mahoulis will be recovered, drawn from the very wellsprings of life. Colonial idiocies will be purified by the welding arc’s blue flame. The mettle of our metal, our cutting edge of steel, our unique communions — all will be recovered’. Works in Metal is a tribute to her prophecy; its enactment, sculpted in sound.

From the crypts of Parisian funk obscurity comes the long-lost Halloween holy grail, Disco Frankenstein from Ice AKA Lafayette Afro Rock Band. A teasing album of horror-disco oddities originally released as a compilation—a misnomer cloaked in mystery, as the tracks themselves hail from the group’s playful experiments in the mid-to-late ’70s.
This album unearths a twisted treasure trove of grooves, originally scattered across obscure side-projects and international pressings, brought back to life by Strut on blood-soaked vinyl exclusively for Halloween 2025.
Originally released as a 1976 Japan-only compilation featuring the Lafayette Afro Rock Band under a plethora of pseudonyms—Sweet Exorcist, Captain Dax, Hot Blood, Krispie and Co., and more, the release was masterminded by producer Pierre Jaubert and led by bandleader Frank Abel with the funk-virtuosity of the Lafayette Afro-Rock Band group, the minds behind the much sampled ‘Soul Makossa’ and ‘Malik’ albums.
Disco Frankenstein represents the band at their most creative—layering wah-wah guitars, thunderous Afrobeat rhythms, and creepy-crawly synths into a funky stew of horror-disco gold. Tracks like “Dr. Beezar (Soul Frankenstein),” “Disco Vampire,” “Zeke the Zombie,” and “Igor’s Reggae” blur the line between Halloween novelty and dancefloor fire, conjured with full seriousness by studio wizards who knew how to raise the funk.
Resurrected by Strut Records and remastered by The Carvery, this compilation finally gets the deluxe treatment it deserves: pressed on limited blood-stained vinyl just in time for Halloween 2025.

Amonita, the ethereal musician known for her enchanting compositions and captivating live performances, is set to release her latest body of work, the Rainbow EP, under Lee Burridge’s esteemed record label All Day I Dream.

Since her debut in 2017, Amonita has been on a steadfast mission to craft iconic melodies that resonate deeply with listeners, evoking emotions that linger long after the music fades. She seamlessly blends live instrumentation with electronic elements, creating an immersive sonic experience that transports audiences to a world of serenity and wonder. Amonita is no stranger to All Day I Dream; In addition to her Secret of Happiness EP in 2019 and Aura EP in 2021, Amonita has contributed tracks on two A Winter Samplercompilations, and was featured on Gorje Hewek’s 2021 Collages album released on the label.

Drawing inspiration from her time spent in Turkey surrounded by nature, Amonita infuses the Rainbow EP with the essence of the awe-inspiring beauty she experienced: sun-kissed landscapes, tranquil seas, and the vibrant hues of a majestic rainbow. Her music speaks to the hearts of true dreamers – those who believe in love, walk barefoot in the rain, watch sunsets, admire the stars, and are impressed by the mystery and beauty of the moon.

In her own words, Amonita shares, "No matter how difficult your path through storms and thunder is, after that you will see a rainbow!"
This sentiment encapsulates the overarching theme of resilience and hope that resonates throughout the EP, serving as a beacon of light in challenging times. The Rainbow EP is a testament to Amonita's boundless creativity and passion for storytelling through music. From the shimmering melodies of title track ‘Rainbow’ to the hypnotic rhythms of ‘Amulet’ to the dark and mysterious ‘Moon Dust’, each track invites listeners on a transcendent voyage of discovery.

Prepare to be spellbound as Amonita unveils the Rainbow EP on March 29th. Experience the magic for yourself and let the music transport you to a world where you can dream while awake and rainbows reign supreme.

Bone White & Orange Splatter Vinyl. John Carpenters Soundtracks für die jüngste Halloween-Trilogie, die er zusammen mit seinen langjährigen Mitarbeitern Cody Carpenter und Daniel Davies komponierte, markierten die Rückkehr des legendären Regisseurs und Komponisten zur Filmmusik nach fast zwei Jahrzehnten Pause. Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills (2021) und Halloween Ends (2022) wurden alle von David Gordon Green inszeniert, der Carpenter bereits früh in die Vorproduktion einbezog und ihn schließlich als ausführenden Produzenten und Soundtrack-Komponisten für die Trilogie engagierte. Halloween Expanded, ursprünglich 2019 veröffentlicht, erscheint nun in einer brandneuen Verpackung und ist damit ein neues Highlight für Fans, das sie ihrer Sammlung hinzufügen können. Halloween aus dem Jahr 2018 war ein Erfolg, der die kühnsten Träume aller Beteiligten übertraf. Der Film startete mit den höchsten Einspielzahlen in der Geschichte von Blumhouse und den höchsten in der Geschichte der Halloween-Reihe. Es war unvermeidlich, dass bald zwei Fortsetzungen, Halloween Kills und Halloween Ends, grünes Licht erhielten. Green unterschrieb für die Regie beider Filme, wollte aber nicht davon ausgehen, dass John, Cody und Daniel für die Filmmusik zurückkehren würden. ,Ich nehme nichts als selbstverständlich hin", sagt er. ,Man hofft also, dass sie eine gute Erfahrung gemacht haben. Ich weiß, dass wir Spaß an dem Projekt hatten, aber man weiß nie, wie die zeitlichen und finanziellen Interessen der Leute aussehen und all diese Dinge. Die Realitäten des Geschäfts, des Filmemachens, laufen nicht immer so reibungslos ab. Aber es gab keine Probleme. Wir sahen uns an und sagten: ,Wie können wir das hinbekommen? Lassen Sie es uns noch einmal versuchen.` Zweimal." Die erweiterte Version von Halloween enthält mehr als 28 Minuten zusätzliche Musik aus dem Film und bietet ein noch vollständigeres, immersives Hörerlebnis. Das zusätzliche Material der erweiterten Ausgabe umfasst insgesamt 24 neue Titel, die auf zwei weiteren Seiten der Deluxe-Doppel-LP verteilt sind. Diese neue erweiterte Ausgabe enthält brandneues Artwork von Chris Bilheimer und ein exklusives 24x36-Zoll-Poster, das von Creepy Duck entworfen wurde. Erweiterte Versionen der Soundtracks zu ,Halloween Kills" und ,Halloween Ends" sowie ein Box-Set mit allen drei erweiterten Editionen werden ebenfalls am selben Veröffentlichungstag bei Sacred Bones erhältlich sein.

Manchester based trio, Sonnenspot have unashamedly taken their favourite records from the Kosmische Musik landscape and fused these to inform their own spontaneous sonic constructions. Motorik drums, pulsating flutes, wah guitar and almost excessive use of space echo make this a dense and dreamy listen, with a hint of the rainy pensiveness of their home town.

Notable inspiration from Neu!, Manuel Gottsching, Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo is all clearly audible in the various recordings on this album and minimal effort was made to shy away from this. The longest track 'Motorway' is an epic homage to the space rock art form and 'Madrugada' takes both John Martyn's 'Small Hours' and Gottsching's 'Inventions' as a starting point. Others include the tobacco lovers art-rock-ear-worm ('Liquorice Paper'), a dub laden celestial synth jam ('Slow Blinker') and the album opens with the first thing the band ever recorded, as a meaningless improvisation to tune their synths up to ('Figurescene'). Turned out it had a killer bass line and drum part.

Initial sessions were mostly just an excuse for the three long standing friends to get together musically for the first time, and after knowing each other for many full moons, it was long overdue.

They all bring some peripheral musical heritage to the table. Ian Smith was the guitarist in Alfie and the The Beep Seals and played on Badly Drawn Boy's 'The Hour of Bewilderbeast'. Pete Philipson played in Jane Weaver's band for ten years and has made his own ambient guitar albums. Dan Hope plays in the jazz folk band Mother Sky and promotes events around the city under the Rainy Heart banner.
They were joined by another long term musical friend Sam Kynaston who added heavenly flute to much of the album.

pictured cover sealed in shrink wrap (first time ever on Samosa)



Samosa Records comes back with a real summer bang in the form of the ‘Afro-Ritmo EP’ – a four-track journey into afro soaked vibes courtesy of Anura & Sr. Lobezno and featuring label boss De Gama!

First up on side A is the EP’s title track, the mesmerising ‘Afro Ritmo’. Anura & Sr. Lobezno announce their arrival on Samosa Records with this spicy West African rhythm bomb. Kakaki trumpet fanfares meld with intricate synth stabs and ethereal Oja flute, whilst the solid tribal beats and rolling bass dictate the dance moves. And dance you must…

Track 2 is the deliciously glitchy, conga bonanza ‘Sungu Sa’. Make no mistake, ‘Sunga Sa’ is out to get you from the very first beat – tempting you to go behind the curtain as the haunting guitar lures you ever closer to its secret door. Dark, uplifting and ritualistic, the chant of ‘Sunga Sa’ will live in your head rent free well after the sun has gone down. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Over on Side B De Gama takes the title track ‘Afro-Ritmo’ and applies his unique sonic rubs, balms and enhancers to create a pulsating after hours jam full to the brim with Afrotropic sparkle and magic dust. Like an unstoppable chugging train steaming through a savanna, De Gama is the conductor supreme as the raspy synth, bluesy guitar riff and uplifting brass fanfares entwine around that pounding beat.

Finally, Track 4 gives us the seriously powerful Javier Morrilas remix of ‘Afro-Ritmo’. The original is stripped right down and given the Big Beat treatment for this insanely good take – a peak time switcheroo of a track that keeps you guessing as to where it’s taking you. As the flutey breakdowns and broken beat madness get you, you will fall in love with this one instantly.

The ‘Afro Ritmo’ EP is a powerful, masterful four tracker from Anura & Sr. Lobezno which is well at home in the Samosa Records cooking pot. Spread the word, buy the vinyl. You won’t be disappointed.

• Reviewed with love by The Black Light Disco

Written, Produced, Arranged and Mixed by Anura & Sr. Lobezno.
Keyboards & Percussions: Anura.
Trumpet: Jimmy Garcia
Sax & Flute: Carlos Ligero
Trombone: Prudencio Valdivieso

*Remix and Additional Productions by Stefano Gamma aka De Gama for De Gama Rec - Rome.
Jazz Guitar & Acoustic Bass by Pietro Nicosia.

** Remix and Additional Productions by Javier Morillas.

All tracks mastered by Francesco Pierguidi at L’n’P Studio – Rome.

Artwork and computer graphics by Nerina Fernandez.


SMS038

Perfect Location Records in partnership with the one and only Ear Candy Music is proud to announce 00-04, a compilation of early works by Bevan Smith aka Signer, New Zealand’s most prominent name in ambient electronica and dub techno.

Smith has been producing emotive chords, pop ambience, and thick dub-ospheres since before the turn of the century. His output is prolific, ranging from various solo monikers (Aspen, Introverted Dancefloor) and collaborations (Skallander, Feeling Flying) to unique projects (Touching the Void soundtrack, Isolated Dreams’ 24 EPs and counting). A rare artist with indie crossover appeal thanks to the 2004 Signer album The New Face of Smiling released on Carpark Records (Toro Y Moi, Beach House, Dan Deacon, Montag), Smith has played as a member of bands such as The Ruby Suns (Sub Pop), Over the Atlantic (Involve), and Glass Vaults (JUKBOXR).

Encompassing field recordings and evoking a cloudy coastal sky, 00-04 is a collection of mostly unheard material written in the early 2000s as Smith navigated the chaos and stress of living in London just after 9/11. A portion of this release may be recognisable to those familiar with the Involve catalog––“Drone Early,” for example, is an alternative version to the dub giant “1201A”––and to those acquainted with Signer’s 2002 Low Light Dreams (Carpark/Involve), an iconic album composed of processed guitar, dub-influenced bass, and synth drones; as if that doesn’t sound appealing enough, Low Light Dreams is home to “Building Memories Without You,” an unforgettably engulfing track featured on Fact Magazine’s 25 Best Dub Techno Tracks of All Time.

00-04 is a (re)issue both nostalgic and new, familiar yet unknown, fresh out of the archive. It possesses the Low Light Dreams aural palette while offering a carefully curated array of never before heard icy-cold moods, soothing minimalism, and shyly optimistic melodies, all glazed with recently finalized additions.

Alan Parsons Project second studio album "I Robot", widely regarded as one of the greatest concept albums of all time, is re-issued in a variety of different formats including a limited edition 180gm clear vinyl, half-speed remastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road studios. The album was originally released in July 1977, and draws conceptually on author Isaac Asimov"s science fiction Robot stories, exploring philosophical themes regarding artificial intelligence. The album was a worldwide hit selling in excess of two million copies, achieving platinum and gold status in numerous countries including the USA, Germany, Australia and Canada. Limited Edition 180gm heavyweight clear vinyl. Featuring a half-speed remaster by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studioa. Insert contains a sleevenote featuring quotes from Eric Woolfson

Guedra Guedra ist das elektronische Musikprojekt des marokkanischen Produzenten Abdellah M. Hassak. Der Sound von Guedra Guedra ist eine schillernde Mischung aus visionärer elektronischer Musik und musikalischen Traditionen des gesamten afrikanischen Kontinents! Tipp!

MUTANT ist das zweite Album von Guedra Guedra und das erste auf Smugglers Way. Auf MUTANT mischt Abdellah M. Hassak analoge Synthesizer und Drumcomputer mit Field Recordings aus Marokko, Tansania, Guinea und anderen Ländern, die er auf seinen Reisen durch den Kontinent gesammelt hat. MUTANT erforscht Themen wie Identität, Panafrikanismus, Afrofuturismus und Dekolonisierung und verbindet das musikalische Erbe des Kontinents mit Elementen von Techno, Bassmusik und Dub. "Ich wollte einen kulturellen Sound schaffen, der Innovation mit afrikanischer und diasporischer Musik sowie den Vibes von Rhythmus und Bass erforscht", sagt Abdellah. Die Musik von Guedra Guedra ist durchdrungen von Abdellahs Vision der kulturellen und technologischen Dekolonisierung. Eine Vision, die den Panafrikanismus feiert und die Art und Weise hinterfragt, wie Mainstream-Produktionswerkzeuge nicht in der Lage sind, nicht-westliche musikalische Ausdrucksformen zu erfassen. "In afrikanischen Traditionen ist der Rhythmus, insbesondere in seiner polyrhythmischen Form, nicht nur ein Puls oder ein Takt, sondern eine Kartographie des Lebens. Er drückt soziale Komplexität, vielschichtige mündlicher Überlieferungen, Gemeinschaftsdynamik und die spirituelle Dimension der Existenz aus", sagt Abdellah. "Die Weitergabe dieses Reichtums von Generation zu Generation durch Üben und Zuhören ist auch ein Akt des Widerstands, ein Weg, Wissen und Sensibilitäten zu bewahren, die die herrschenden Erzählungen lange Zeit zu marginalisieren oder zu vereinfachen versucht haben.

- 140G schwarzes Biovinyl inkl. vierseitigem Booklet und Downloadkarte

When we did the first ever vinyl reissue of this 1972 masterpiece back in 2012 it sold out so fast and so many lost the chance to grab a copy has translated into continuous messages asking us to do a repressing of this marvel - which we did and, again, it sold like hot bread. So here is a new edition of this UK jazz masterpiece, this time with a twist :

- Silk-screened cover art : we respect the original design, but have upgraded the printing from regular offset to silk screen to give it an artistic touch!

- In adition to the limited black vinyl edition (400 copies), we offer an ultra limited clear vinyl version (100 copies-only!)

One of the big names in UK Jazz, Neil Ardley was offered the leadership of the seminal New Jazz Orchestra in 1964. Under his direction the Orchestra moved though different styles and changes of personnel, bringing in musicians such as Mike Gibbs (trombone), Harry Beckett andHenry Lowther (trumpets) or even Jack Bruce (bass), some of them also contributed with the writing of some original compositions, making the NJO the root from which the UK's 70's jazz scene was to blossom.

By 1972 the NJO was already defunct, but his legacy remained in the works of its members. Ardley's 'A Symphony Of Amaranths' is a perfect example of what was boiling in the UK jazz scene. It was Ardleys tribute to his idols Duke Ellington and Gil Evans, and featured the skills of some great musicians of the scene including Don Rendell,Stan Tracey, Henry Lowther, Harry Beckett, Jeff Clyne & Jon Hiseman. Side B is inspired by the words of Edward Lear, W. B. Yeats, James Joyce and Lewis Carroll that are musicated by Ardley and feature, among other highlights, Ivor Cutler's narration of 'The Dong With A Luminous Nose' and Norma Winstone's vocals on 'Will You Walk A Little Faster'.



Musicians that participated in the recording session :

- Derek Watkins, Nigel Carter, Henry Lowther, Harold Beckett (trumpets)
- Derek Wadsworth, Ray Premru (trombones)
- Dick Hart (tuba)
- Barbara Thompson, Dave Gelly, Don Rendell, Dick Heckstall-Smith (woodwind, saxes)
- John Clementson (oboe)
- Bunny Gould (bassoon)
- Dave Gelly (glockenspiel)
- Neil Ardley (prepared piano)
- David Snell, Sidonie Goossens (harp)
- Stan Tracey (piano, celeste)
- Karl Jenkins (electric piano)
- Alan Branscombe (harpsichord)
- Frank Ricotti (vibraphone, percussion)
- Chris Laurence, Jeff Clyne (bass)
- Jon Hiseman (drums, percussion)
- Eric Gruenberg, Jack Rothstein, Kelly Isaacs (violin)
- Ken Essex (viola)
- Charles Tunnell, Francis Gabarro (cello)
- Ivor Cutler (narrator)
- Norma Winstone (vocal)
- Jack Rothstein, Neil Ardley (conductors)

n B7 The Cut That Always Bleeds [Live]
[o] B8 Heather (Lost Verse Version) [Live]














[n] B7 | The Cut That Always Bleeds [Live]
[o] B8 | Heather (Lost Verse Version) [Live]

Easttown, one of Europe’s hottest talents returns with his third release on Cécille Records.

After making waves with his Chaos EP and following up with the acclaimed Timeless EP, Dutch producer Easttown now
delivers his third release on Cécille – the Get Ready EP. With his distinctive house sound that blends groove, depth and
uplifting energy, Easttown has already landed on respected labels such as Franky Rizardo’s LTF Records, Folamour’s House
Of Love, and most recently Jamie Jones’ iconic Hot Creations.

His tracks have become regular weapons in the sets of leading DJs across Europe, establishing him as one of the most
exciting rising talents on the continent. The Get Ready EP features four original tracks plus a digital bonus, showcasing
Easttown’s ability to fuse deep grooves, lush textures and playful energy into timeless, club-ready cuts.
Easttown is an integral member of the Cécille family and a constant presence at our Cécille Events. We’re happy to have
him with us and excited to continue this journey together.

Limitierte Picture-Disc-Neuauflage zum 50. Jubiläum des dritten NEU! Albums, das 1975 das Licht der Welt erblickte. Nach einer dreijährigen Pause legten die NEU!-Mitglieder Klaus Dinger und Michael Rother ihre Differenzen vorübergehend bei und kamen wieder zusammen, um den Motorik-Sound, den sie mit ihrem Debüt 1971 entwickelt hatten, noch einmal zu versuchen. Die seltsame Spannung und Präsentation von NEU! 2 und das Auftauchen ihrer früheren Band Kraftwerk mögen die Wiedervereinigung beschleunigt haben, aber was auch immer der Grund war, das Endergebnis war die Zeit, die Mühe und die Streitereien wert, die es gekostet hatte, dieses Album herauszubringen.

Here to dazzle you by the power of the disco ball, Lack of Afro is your friendly neighbourhood ‘Love Dealer’. Two years on from the funk & soul rebirth of ‘Square One’, powered by the ubiquitous ‘Loving Arms’ featuring Greg Blackman, Lack of Afro aka Adam Gibbons is now close to two decades deep in the game with soundtrack credits galore and online streams doing calculator-busting numbers. With extensive touring taking ‘Love Dealer’ up and down the country this Autumn, Gibbons’ ninth studio album is all for "the thrill of seeing people on a dancefloor, all collectively locked into a track that you've produced - there’s nothing like it!”.


‘Love Dealer’ is the authentic modern disco experience, packing a stacked sole’s worth of club beats full of stardusted sing-alongs, style-outs and French touch-style cool. Despite being “written during one of the longest winters in living memory”, ‘Love Dealer’, featuring some co-production from fellow South Coast dancefloor scholar Flevans (and influenced by producer du jour Barry Can’t Swim), exudes warmth and will make you sweat when its highs take effect.


Entering the scene with the radiance of ‘Make It Shine’ featuring Greg Blackman, washing over the airwaves of BBC 6 Music and Radio 2 and taking up a 10-week residency on the Jazz FM playlist, Gibbons and his crack line-up of discotheque players are your go-to team when you can’t wait for the weekend to begin, as subtle as they are straight down to business. ‘Love Dealer’ offers you nothing but the best in sparkling string symphonies, the hippest guitar licks, samples of those invited beyond the velvet rope and struts soaked in night fever.


Double A-side ‘Walls Start Rockin’ and ‘Heart & Soul’ guide the album’s glamour-and-groove, while ‘Love Saves The Day’ and ‘Plain to See’ dramatically take to the podium in a shimmer of pure peak 70s theatre. ‘Keeping Me Strong’ is the synergy of disco chic and the sound of a global advertising tie-in with Dyson, ahead of Gibbons taking a slightly Moroder/Cerrone-ish detour on ‘Idolising People Like Madlib’. “'Love Dealer' is aimed unequivocally at the dancefloor" says Adam. "As an artist, I wanted to push myself in a slightly new direction - more into the land of disco and a four to the floor sound. 'Love Dealer' is quintessentially an upbeat record, full of joy, optimism and hope for the future”. Seek your inner ‘Love Dealer’, kink your ‘fro and let your funk flag fly.
















n B7. 14 Your Love (feat. Jonah Hitchens) BONUS TRACK














n B7. 14 Your Love (feat. Jonah Hitchens) BONUS TRACK














n B7. 14 Your Love (feat. Jonah Hitchens) [BONUS TRACK]














[n] B7. 14 Your Love (feat. Jonah Hitchens) [BONUS TRACK]














[n] B7. 14 Your Love (feat. Jonah Hitchens) [BONUS TRACK]














[n] B7. 14 Your Love (feat. Jonah Hitchens) [BONUS TRACK]

In syrupy slow pursuit of a strong 2023 debut, Yungwebster's somnolent sequel is bolstered by pitch-perfect production from Space Afrika and Nathan Melja, who vaporise the rapper's auto-tuned post-Future drawl with euphoric orchestral drones, brittle micro-trap beats and weightless pads.

Over a decade ago at this point, Future released 'Codeine Crazy', the decelerated finale of 'Monster', one of his best-loved mixtapes. The track neatly summarised themes the Atlanta rapper had been circling for years at that point, layering his slurred, lean-dizzy rhymes over producer TM88's rubbery, melancholy synths. "Take all my problems and drink out the bottle," he moaned robotically, using the track's minor key bounce to represent the crushing delirium that followed fame and its tasting menu of intoxicants. It's still Future's high water mark creatively, and its traces can be observed in a full spectrum of contemporary sounds, from 6LACK's downtrodden, self-aware R&B to Lil Uzi Vert's feverish trap. But it's Yungwebster who's taken the haze to its logical conclusion, reimagining the Magic City-sculpted bumps as hypnagogic Actavis- 'n Xanax-hued ambient music. You could argue it was bound to happen - the more you sip, the slower it gets - and plays as a cracked mirror to cloud rap's long-smoked hybrid of Southern psychedelia and post-OutKast eccentricity.

Webster's opiated POV is clearer than ever before on 'II'. Just peep the cracks in his voice on the Space Afrika-produced opener 'Skyfall' as he coughs and splutters over watery samples, booming subs and SA's patented collage of soundtrack-ready strings and sirens. Presented at regular speed and in chipmunked form, it sets the pace for an album that, like its predecessor, constantly fucks with the timeline, pitching the whole master into doubletime or slowing it down to a crawl to present a curved, inebriated narrative rather than a straight line. Even without the tempo switches, Webster singles out beats that accent his warbled rhymes that sound as if they'll fall apart at any moment. French DJ and producer Nathan Melja backs 'Disheveled' with Black Ark-styled oscillations and airlock'd echoes, filtering the bassline until it almost disappears entirely; with room to breathe, Webster's able to take the lead - you might not be able to pick out the words, not entirely at least, but you get the message.

In fact it's Webster's voice that's the revelation on 'II' - with a coherent mix from producer tnotsobad, the nuances and fluttering tonalities emerge more vividly than they have before. It makes the flip between the regular speed and fast on 'Txts Red on iMessage' a textural decision, the different pace shifting the warbled cadences so Webster's voice becomes far more important than the additional elements. And on the album's Space Afrika-produced eight-minute centerpiece 'Crochet / I Swear', Webster's mumbled bio-mechanical whines create a much-needed foil for the decelerated boom-clack and suspended save room ambience. We get to encounter a personality here, not just an aesthetic, so as the album moves into its twilit fourth side, the beatless, voice-led somniferousness of 'YA SA' and ululating 'Phone' come off like a descent into tranquillised sedation. Rap has rarely sounded so chimeric.

The Complete Piano Etudes of Philip Glass available for the first time on vinyl, housed in a 4LP Box set (also available as a 2CD format).



After more than thirty years of working with and performing the great repertoire, the music of Philip Glass has, in a way, almost revolutionized my life as a musician,” confides Vanessa Wagner.

An emblematic artist on the French music scene, winner of a Victoire de la musique award and director of the Chambord and Giverny festivals, Vanessa Wagner is as inspired in her interpretation of Mozart, Debussy, Tchaikovsky and Dusapin as she is alongside Murcof and Rone.

With her innovative and daring approach, she has established herself as a major influence on the classical music landscape, crossing boundaries and blazing inspiring trails.

A tireless pioneer of new repertoires, she has been exploring the repertoire of minimalist composers for several years. For InFiné, she has dedicated 4 albums to the major figures of this movement, John Adams, Meredith Monk, Brian Eno, Ryūichi Sakamoto, as well as to the new generation Caroline Shaw, Bryce Dessner and Nico Muhly.

After giving numerous concerts based on these works, she felt the need to record in their entirety this essential monument in the history of music, which bridges the gap between the 20th and 21st centuries: Philip Glass's 20 Etudes for piano
by Philip Glass.
His approach helps to place these two books in the great repertoire, alongside the great cycles of studies by Ligeti, Debussy, Dusapin, and before them, Chopin and Liszt.

Philip Glass was born in 1937 and grew up in Baltimore. He studied at the University of Chicago, the Juilliard School and in Aspen with Darius Milhaud. Dissatisfied with much of what was then considered modern music, he moved to Europe, where he studied with the legendary pedagogue Nadia Boulanger (who also taught Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson and Quincy Jones) and worked closely with sitar virtuoso and composer Ravi Shankar.

The thread linking Philip Glass to Vanessa Wagner may be as simple as a detail: a moment, a pedagogy, a way of looking at the piano. In Words Without Music, Glass recalls his apprenticeship with Nadia Boulanger in Paris - a lesson in rigorous received just as the Nouvelle Vague was about to shatter the conventions of cinema the conventions of cinema, just as the composers of the minimalist movement had done with with the language of music. Nurtured by Ravel and Debussy, the great French pedagogue disciplined yet inquisitive minds, capable of embracing modernity without denying modernity without denying their heritage.

★Japanese obi-strip
★First time reissued on vinyl

Turning Into Small, the second album by shoegaze band All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors from New Jersey, originally released in 1998 on local label Gern Blandsten,
is now being reissued on both CD and vinyl.

Formed in the mid-90s, All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors were deeply influenced by UK shoegaze and alternative rock—most notably My Bloody Valentine—while
pursuing a uniquely experimental sound within the US emo and indie scenes. Their innovative spirit reached full bloom on Turning Into Small, which remains their
final album to date.

One of the standout tracks is the nearly eight-minute-long “Your Imagination,” a spacious sonic landscape that draws listeners into deep immersion.
It has become a signature song for the band, heralding a new wave of shoegaze that emerged in the late '90s and beyond. Even more noteworthy, however, are
tracks like “Puzzled Into Pieces” and “In Between And After,” which showcase the band's layered, synth-driven electronic textures, dynamic collage-like structures,
and occasionally buoyant melodies. These elements come together to create a strange and otherworldly sense of weightlessness—something rarely found even
within the shoegaze genre.

While resonating with the likes of My Bloody Valentine, Stereolab, and The Flaming Lips, the band's mutant-like blend of styles also draws parallels with acts like
Swirlies, Serena-Maneesh, and contemporary shoegaze innovators such as They Are Gutting a Body of Water.

This is a groundbreaking album in US shoegaze—one that still feels fresh and vital thanks to its timeless experimental spirit and originality. Now is the perfect time
to (re)discover it.

Italian producer, musician, DJ, and groove architect Sam Ruffillo drops his long-awaited debut album Tipo Così on Toy Tonics – a sun-drenched, genre-blurring statement that blends classic house with Mediterranean flair, romantic funk, and tongue-in-cheek Italo vibes. Over 11 expertly crafted tracks, Ruffillo delivers a dancefloor-ready, emotionally rich LP that connects deep musicality with irresistible rhythm and light-hearted elegance.

After three acclaimed EPs and collaborations with revered artists such as Barbara Boeing, Kapote, and Fimiani, Ruffillo has firmly cemented himself as a core artist on the Berlin-based label. Known for his unmistakable signature sound — a warm mix of vintage disco, 90s house, and Italian vocals — Sam’s music has garnered widespread DJ support from tastemakers like Gerd Janson, Palms Trax, Seth Troxler, and DJ Tennis, while becoming a staple on Italian airwaves. His infectious summer anthems like Danza Organica and Perfetta Così have soundtracked countless club nights and festivals, creating a loyal following that eagerly awaited this full-length debut.

Tipo Così is the natural culmination of a musical journey that’s both playful and profound — a travel diary written in grooves, synth stabs, and melodies that feel like postcards from a parallel Mediterranean universe. The album expands and deepens Ruffillo’s world into a fully immersive experience: lush emotional chords meet tight syncopated grooves, vintage synth textures collide with irresistibly catchy pop refrains, and the boundary between sincerity and playful irony is exquisitely blurred.

Entirely written, produced, and recorded in Italy, in his beloved hometown of Bologna, the album finds Ruffillo at the helm on keys, drum machines, and production, supported by a talented cast of musicians contributing live bass, guitar, and other organic elements — further enriching his trademark fusion of electronic grooves and natural instrumentation. There’s a tactile warmth in these tracks, a hands-on feel that adds soul and depth to every beat.

This album also marks Ruffillo’s heartfelt return to singing in Italian, with standout tracks like House Tipo Così, Mi Fa Volare, Ancora, and Dentro Di Me, where romantic naïveté meets pulsing club energy in a way that feels both timeless and refreshingly new. The vocal performances add an intimate, human touch to the music, reinforcing the personal stories woven into each song. There’s poetry in the casual, a bittersweet elegance in the way the lyrics float over groove-heavy production.

Having toured extensively across Europe, Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Mexico — with sets at iconic venues like Panorama Bar and festivals such as Sónar Barcelona — Ruffillo has fine-tuned much of this album in front of live audiences. The real-world testing ground infused the record with a dynamic energy and immediacy that only comes from genuine crowd interaction. These songs weren’t just made in the studio — they were lived on dancefloors around the world.

Tipo Così is not just a collection of tracks. It’s a philosophy — playful, stylish and unmistakably personal. A modern club album bursting with heartfelt emotion and sophistication. Music for dancers with taste; for lovers of beauty, rhythm, and the little imperfections that make things feel real.

But what exactly is Tipo Così? More than just a phrase, it’s a way of being. It’s about embracing elegance without effort, mixing irony with sincerity, and letting nostalgia slip into the room without taking over the party. It’s Sam Ruffillo’s signature language: relaxed, confident, meticulous yet never rigid — where a chord progression can say as much as a lyric, and every beat carries intention.

The album’s visual identity complements this vision perfectly. The artwork and promotional materials lovingly reference Italian design from the ’80s and ’90s, combining bold graphic elements with playful pop culture nods. This aesthetic mirrors Ruffillo’s music — a fusion of vintage warmth and contemporary freshness, delivered with authenticity and charm.

Sam Ruffillo belongs to a new generation of European artists who are reshaping electronic music by blending past and present, analog and digital, groove and emotion — without nostalgia or pose. His artistic universe is coherent, vibrant, and alive; a rich tapestry of sound, images, and stories that coexist with lightness, precision, and a distinctive voice.

Reflecting on his artistic journey, Sam describes music as a vital, deeply human impulse — a tribal connection to rhythm and body that has driven him since he was a teenager. His creative process balances meticulous planning with room for spontaneity, usually sparked by clear melodic ideas that evolve naturally. Collaborations with close friends, especially vocalists like Ninfa, add warmth and authenticity, exemplified in tracks like “House Tipo Così.” For Sam, music is honest self-expression — crafted for listeners who crave memorable melodies and rhythms imbued with genuine feeling.

While technical perfection is tempting, Sam prioritizes emotion, knowing that what truly resonates is the soul behind the sounds. His long-standing partnership with Toy Tonics has been key in nurturing his vision, offering a blend of creative freedom and professional support. Looking ahead, Sam Ruffillo is excited to broaden his live performances, and release new projects that continue to blend electronic grooves with organic, heartfelt sounds — maintaining the delicate balance between playful irony and sincere emotion that defines Tipo Così.




Kurzversion:
Italian DJ, producer and musician Sam Ruffillo drops his debut album Tipo Così on Toy Tonics - a sunny blend of house, funk, Italo and pop, full of groove and emotion. Written and recorded in Bologna with live instruments and Italian vocals, it’s a playful, elegant journey shaped on dancefloors worldwide. A stylish, sincere club album where nostalgia, irony and rhythm meet in perfect harmony.

- Mi Fa Volare
Road-tested across continents and now finally released, “Mi Fa Volare” channels 90s uplifting euphoria with big breakbeats, lush chords, and Italian vocals built to stick. Somewhere between balearic bliss and piano house nostalgia, it’s a feel-good club weapon made for peak-time moments - already sung back by crowds after just one listen.


- Ancora
“Ancora” is a vibrant hi-NRG track inspired by 80s Italo disco, sung entirely in Italian. It blends driving rhythms with dreamy melodies, capturing the radiant spirit of the decade. This fresh yet nostalgic song delivers euphoric vibes and timeless energy, making it a perfect fit for both dancefloors and reflective listening moments worldwide.


- Dentro Di Me
“Dentro Di Me” channels ‘90s sensuality through a fast-paced, UK house-inspired lens. Entirely in Italian, it’s a bold and contemporary dance track where hypnotic vocals meet high-energy grooves. Blending nostalgic textures with forward-thinking production, the result is a seductive and euphoric trip - equal parts emotional and club-ready.


- Amigo
“Amigo” blends Latin groove, acoustic guitar-driven rhythm, and Mediterranean flair into a warm, magnetic, cross-cultural dance anthem. Sung in Spanish and Italian, it celebrates connection, inclusivity, and the joy of moving together - whether stranger or friend. With its unstoppable rhythm and vibrant energy, it’s a feel-good track with a unifying spirit.


- Ma Sei Fuori
“Ma Sei Fuori” is a tongue-in-cheek dancefloor bomb blending raw house energy with catchy vocal phrases and a nod to classic French touch. Driven by hypnotic vocal lines and a playful attitude, it doesn’t take itself too seriously - while still proving serious club impact. Built for late-night moments, it’s bold, bouncy, and impossible to ignore.

LA-based producer Real Bad Man and Michigan rapper Willie the Kid release their new collaborative album, Midnight, via the producer’s own Real Bad Man Records label. The album, which marks the producer’s second collaborative project of the year following Dear Psilocybin with ZelooperZ, includes guest appearances from UK rapper Sonnyjim, New York’s Lord Sko and frequent RBM collaborator Boldy James, who will be releasing his own Real Bad Man-produced album in May.

The album came together naturally for the pair, letting each new song inform the identity of the project as a whole. Speaking about how they identified that central theme of the album, Willie says, “I think where Adam and I agreed upon is that the stand out records were all themes for the night, late night drive, after hours dinners, shopping, private rooftop hotel suites, it’s a thinking album, a cruising album preferably enjoyed at night…midnight””

Midnight marks the early stages of what’s shaping up to be a prolific run of collaborations for Real Bad Man in 2025. His second album of the year builds off of the momentum he sparked last month with his first full-length album with ZelooperZ, Dear Psilocybin, which The FADER called “clear-eyed and focused in its own fantastical way”. Working as a duo with the dynamic lyricism of Willie the Kid after the psychedelic sounds of Dear Psilocybin, Real Bad Man returns to the essential underground beatmaking that he first emerged onto the scene with through his On High Alert series. His crackling, lo-fi production pairs perfectly with Willie’s gritty delivery, laying a foundation for the longtime lyrical stylist who has worked alongside some of the genre’s modern heroes including Nas, Lil Wayne, The Alchemist, Roc Marciano, Curren$y and more.

Listen to Midnight above, see below for more details on Midnight and stay tuned for more from Real Bad Man coming soon

Steve Hauschildt returns after 6 years with a new album titled Aeropsia. After a transcontinental relocation from the US to Tbilisi, Georgia, the electronic composer emerges from a personal and global transformation to explore themes of perceptual distortion, disconnection, and renewal.

Aeropsia (which roughly translates as “seeing the air”) refers to a visual phenomenon in which objects appear to float or shimmer, often due to changes in pressure, perception, atmospheric shifts or neurological disturbance. This becomes a metaphor for the liminality that informs the record: blurry visions, dreamlike displacements, and the fragile membrane separating what is seen from what is felt.

In the years since his last solo release, Hauschildt’s world has been marked by relocation and a growing sense of global turbulence. These experiences became the raw material for a work that navigates institutional haze and uncertainty itself. The result is music that employs decay as method, structure as entropy, and mutation as expression.

While Aeropsia remains subjective in its vision, Hauschildt invited two previous collaborators to expand the album’s gravitational pull. Cellist Lia Kohl, who previously performed on Nonlin, returns and brings a tactile warmth to select tracks, while guitarist Michael Vallera threads spectral harmonics into the mix. The album’s electronic foundation and its tactile elements meet in a state of luminous suspension to navigate the shifting in physical and psychological terrain.

Victor Démé loved life, music, friends, his hometown of Bobo Dioulasso, and above all, his family — by blood and by heart. Jovial and generous, he would have been delighted to see his world gathered once again in celebration: with concerts, unreleased tracks, live recordings, and a podcast retracing his finest musical years. Ten years after his sudden passing, this album carries the simple ambition of honoring his music and memory.

Victor passed away on September 21, 2015, in Bobo Dioulasso, during the coup d’État in Burkina Faso. The hospital he rushed to for malaria treatment was closed… His third album was due to be released just days later, but he never had the chance to sing it on stage.

A prolific and unique songwriter, Victor often revived songs he had composed in his youth during sessions at the OuagaJungle studio. With his guitar, he would breathe new life into them, refining them with his musicians — making the final choices sometimes difficult. Among the previously unreleased tracks on this record are Djilon, a reggae piece from Abidjan; Sira, a radiant yet solitary blues; Ambideu, a crooner-style ballad reimagined as an elegant cello-and-voice duet; Mousso mina mousso, a love song meant for a djandjoba celebration; and Bara, a heartfelt choral tribute to the workers of Burkina Faso.

These songs remained in the studio after Victor’s passing and have now been brought to life by the talented musicians Clément Petit, Alex Finkin, and Max “Blundetto” Guiguet. On Side B, the album captures the energy and sincerity of Victor and his band live on stage, with recordings from the May 19, 2009 concert at Théâtre de la Ville in Rouen. The performance opens with Labanko — a song never recorded in studio — followed by several classics, including the iconic Djon Maya, delivered here in its most blues-infused version, carried by Issouf Diabaté’s magical guitar.

Unforgettable memories for his musicians and for all who had the chance to applaud him live. We can only hope that, wherever he is, Victor is smiling and dancing as we celebrate him once more through music.

Ska was the name given to the music that came out of Jamaica between 1961/66.Based on the American R&B and Doo Wop records that the Sound Systems in Kingston Town used to play.But the American records style started to mellow out while the Jamaicans preferred a more upbeat sound.So the Sound System boss's became record producers to cater for this demand.Sir 'Coxonne'Dodd and Duke Reid led the way putting the top musicians on the island in the studio to make music,its subtle twist that had an emphasis placed on the offbeat made the music unmistakably Jamaican.
W.I.R.L Records(West India Records Limited) was set up by the Jamaican politician Edward Seaga in the late 1950's.He had supervised the recording of an album of Ethnic Jamaican music and needed an outlet for its eventual release.In 1962 the year of Jamaican Independence ,Seaga became a member of Parliament, representing the Jamaican Labour Party and then decided to sell the label to Bryon Lee,the sale led to a name change from W.I.R.L to Dynamic Sounds.
We have compiled some of the best SCORCHING SKA SOUNDS that came out of W.I.R.L vaults...and it still sounds as fresh today as the day it was recorded...hope you enjoy the set

Furthering the passionate exploration of cinema that has guided her two previous LPs - 2017’s ‘Fassbinder Wunderkammer’ and 2020’s ‘I Should Have Been a Gardener’ - the Milanese guitarist/composer, Alessandra Novaga, returns to Die Schachtel with ‘The Artistic Image Is Always a Miracle’, two sides off shimmering, tense compositions – culminating as one of her most creatively ambitious and conceptually rich outings to date – freely inspired by the life and work of the Russian director Andrej Tarkovsky and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Classically trained at the Musik Akademie in Basel, Switzerland, over the last decade Alessandra Novaga has emerged as one of the leading figures within northern Italy’s thriving new, experimental, and improvised music scene, rendering striking solo efforts, in addition to collaborations with Loren Connors, Stefano Pilia, Elliott Sharp, Nicola Ratti, Paula Matthusen, Sandro Mussida, Kid Millions, Travis Just, Francesco Gagliardi, and others. Remarkably ambitious and forward thinking, her approach to the guitar embarks upon a relentless deconstruction and rethinking of her instrument’s unique properties through distinct applications of structure, resonance, space, and tone, creating in a deeply personal and emotive music, seeking narrative and meaning within the abstractions of sound.

In 2017, with the LP, ‘Fassbinder Wunderkammer’, issued by Setola Di Maiale, Novaga embarked upon the exploration of her love of film. Having begun with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, this was followed in 2020 by Die Schachtel’s release of ‘I Should Have Been a Gardener’, a deeply intimate mediation on the life and work of Derek Jarman. Rather than focusing on a fixed point of inspiration or a single film to work from, these pieces achieve a form of abstract portraiture, distilling elements drawn from these filmmaker’s life and work into ambient networks of texture and tonality. ‘The Artistic Image Is Always a Miracle”’ freely inspired by the Russian director Andrej Tarkovsky and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, finds Novaga radically expanding her sonic palette within this approach.

The seeds of ‘The Artistic Image Is Always a Miracle’ can be traced to a conversation that Novaga had with Alan Licht (contained in the highly regarded Common Tones: Selected interviews with artists and musicians 1995–2020, Blank Forms, 2021), relating to the connections between music and cinema, which led her to consider Andrej Tarkovsky’s use of Bach's music within a symbiotic framework: how the music illuminates the imagism of the films, and the film illuminates new dimensions of the music. Slowly developing over the subsequent years, the resulting album comprises six individual works, some of which draw directly upon pieces of Bach’s music that Tarkovsky used in his films – specifically 'Erbarme dich, Mein Gott', 'Das alte Jahr vergangen ist', and 'Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ' - while others draw upon the sensibilities and moods evoked in the imagination by the director’s films.

As a point of departure and illumination into the process and spirit that underscored the creation of the album, Novaga points toward a passage in Tarkovsky’s "Sculpting in Time”:

“Art is born and takes hold wherever there is a timeless and insatiable longing for the spiritual, for the ideal: that longing which draws people to art. Modern art has taken a wrong turn in abandoning the search for the meaning of existence in order to affirm the value of the individual for its own sake. What purports to be art begins to look like an eccentric occupation for suspect characters who maintain that any personalized action is of intrinsic value simply as a display of self-will. But in artistic creation the personality does not assert itself, it serves another, higher and communal idea.”

‘The Artistic Image Is Always a Miracle’ can be understood as a realisation of the collectivism of which Tarkovsky speaks, in the service of something far beyond the expression of self. Encountering Novaga moving into fairly uncharted waters, three of the album’s pieces incorporate the human voice we encounter the voices of others: that of the poet Arsenij Tarkovsky, the director’s father; a singer from Bach’s ‘Erbarme dich, Mein Gott’, capturing a broadcast in an underground parking lot, and Novaga’s own, rendering the melody from Bach’s “Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ”. Roughly alternating between solo excursions on guitar and bristling electroacoustic pieces, over the course of the album’s two sides Novaga weaves one of her most abstract and ambitious bodies of recordings to date, shifting between the complex tonal mediations generated by the six strings of her instrument, and phycological densities activated by the expanded pallet of sonority made possible by the tactics and approaches of musique concrète.

An immersive, deeply engaging meeting of beauty and melancholy within a labyrinth of voices and ideas, ‘The Artistic Image Is Always a Miracle’ transfigures the life and work of Andrej Tarkovski – one of the greatest auteurs in the history of cinema – into a singular, experimental statement of collective truth. Belonging to recent, ambitious stream of contemporary new music releases on Die Schachtel that’s already included Novaga’s ‘I Should Have Been a Gardener’, Stefano Pilia’s ‘Spiralis Aurea’, Jim O'Rourke & Giovanni Di Domenico’ ‘Immanent In Nervous Activity’, Claudio Rocchetti’s ‘Labirinto Verticale’, and Damāvand’s ‘As Long As You Come To My Garden’, among others, ‘The Artistic Image Is Always a Miracle’ is available on as a limited edition of 300 dark turquoise vinyl LPs released on June 21, 2024. The LP, designed by Bruno Stucchi / dinamomilano, comes with an 8-pages insert illuminated by Alessandra’s text as well as the lovely and intense photographs of Matilde Piazzi.

37 years after the release of her multi-million selling debut album "Ancient Heart" Tanita Tikaram will release the sequel entitled "LIAR (Love Isn"t A Right)". The long-awaited new album reveals the emotional and societal differences between the woman Tanita was at just 18 when she made "Ancient Heart" to the woman she is today, taking in four decades of life experience. Her first album in almost a decade, "LIAR (Love Isn"t A Right)" is an album of haunting beauty and exquisite musicianship underplaying her unique voice that tells a masterful story of emotional, political and personal truths. When it was released in 1988, the multi-million selling "Ancient Heart" was the story of an uncertain 18-year-old brown gay woman living in middle England feeling like a stranger in her own home. Almost 40 years later that same woman, now feeling like a stranger in her own country as politics and society become more divisive. "LIAR (Love Is A Right)" is a full circle moment: a comment on community and its importance for all our futures and the perfect accompaniment to her classic breakthrough.

37 years after the release of her multi-million selling debut album "Ancient Heart" Tanita Tikaram will release the sequel entitled "LIAR (Love Isn"t A Right)". The long-awaited new album reveals the emotional and societal differences between the woman Tanita was at just 18 when she made "Ancient Heart" to the woman she is today, taking in four decades of life experience. Her first album in almost a decade, "LIAR (Love Isn"t A Right)" is an album of haunting beauty and exquisite musicianship underplaying her unique voice that tells a masterful story of emotional, political and personal truths. When it was released in 1988, the multi-million selling "Ancient Heart" was the story of an uncertain 18-year-old brown gay woman living in middle England feeling like a stranger in her own home. Almost 40 years later that same woman, now feeling like a stranger in her own country as politics and society become more divisive. "LIAR (Love Is A Right)" is a full circle moment: a comment on community and its importance for all our futures and the perfect accompaniment to her classic breakthrough.

Mit ihrem neuen Album 'For The People' kehren Dropkick Murphys zurück zu ihren Punk-Wurzeln - laut, kämpferisch und voller Haltung. Zwischen Klassenkampf und Familiengeschichte, zwischen Protestsong und Pogues-Hommage - 'For The People' ist mehr als nur ein Albumtitel. Es ist ein Statement gegen Ungerechtigkeit, für Menschlichkeit und Solidarität.

Produziert von Langzeit-Weggefährte Ted Hutt und mit Artwork von Shepard Faireys Studio Number One, erscheint das Album über Dummy Luck Music / Play It Again Sam digital am 4. Juli (passend zum US-Unabhängigkeitstag) und am 10. Oktober auf CD und 2LP. Die Vinyl-Version kommt mit fünf Bonustracks.

Ob mit der ersten Single 'Who’ll Stand With Us?' oder der bewegenden Shane-MacGowan-Verneigung 'One Last Goodbye' - Dropkick Murphys liefern den Soundtrack für alle, die sich nicht mit der Welt, wie sie ist, zufriedengeben. 'For the People'!

- Ltd. Col. 2LP: (Silver 2LP/Gatefold mit Etching einer schwarzen Rose auf der D-Seite + Faltposter)

Mit ihrem neuen Album 'For The People' kehren Dropkick Murphys zurück zu ihren Punk-Wurzeln - laut, kämpferisch und voller Haltung. Zwischen Klassenkampf und Familiengeschichte, zwischen Protestsong und Pogues-Hommage - 'For The People' ist mehr als nur ein Albumtitel. Es ist ein Statement gegen Ungerechtigkeit, für Menschlichkeit und Solidarität.

Produziert von Langzeit-Weggefährte Ted Hutt und mit Artwork von Shepard Faireys Studio Number One, erscheint das Album über Dummy Luck Music / Play It Again Sam digital am 4. Juli (passend zum US-Unabhängigkeitstag) und am 10. Oktober auf CD und 2LP. Die Vinyl-Version kommt mit fünf Bonustracks.

Ob mit der ersten Single 'Who’ll Stand With Us?' oder der bewegenden Shane-MacGowan-Verneigung 'One Last Goodbye' - Dropkick Murphys liefern den Soundtrack für alle, die sich nicht mit der Welt, wie sie ist, zufriedengeben. 'For the People'!

Gatefold mit Etching einer schwarzen Rose auf der D-Seite + Faltposter)

Returning with its final instalments, Die Schachtel's Decay Music series extends its explorations of inspired contemporary experimental efforts of the ambient, ethereal, and emotively abstract with Luigi Turra and Elio Martusciello’s “Liminale” and Sergio Armaroli and David Toop’s “And I Entered Into Sleep”, two astounding electroacoustic gestures of blurred space and time, plumbing complexity of meaning bound to sonority. Creatively groundbreaking and inspired, radically rethinking the terms of what ambient music can be perceived to be, they stand among the most striking efforts to appear within the series to date.

An aural bridge between two distinct generations of Italian experimental musicians, “Liminale” is the debut collaborative outing from the creative partnership of Luigi Turra and Elio Martusciello. Active within the context for roughly two decades, Turra (b. 1975) is a reductionist/electroacoustic composer, noted from his tense deployment of concrete and acoustic sources — particularly small sounds and noises — whose work threads the balance between silence, tactile auditory perception, and aleatoric music. Martusciello (b. 1959), on the other hand, is a musician and composer working across the fields of acousmatic and electroacoustic composition, sound installation, multi-media and audiovisual art, and computer music improvisation, who is widely celebrated for both his solo efforts and his collaborations with Eugene Chadbourne, Mike Cooper, Alvin Curran, Chris Cutler, Rhodri Davies, Iancu Dumitrescu, Michel Godard, Tim Hodgkinson, Lawrence D. "Butch" Morris, Jérôme Noetinger, Tony Oxley, Evan Parker, Z'EV, and others.

A single, nearly 40 minute work, extending across the two sides of the LP, “Liminale” — as its title eludes — is an exploration of the liminal through sonic means: “places that exist on the threshold, transitional spaces suspended between a before and an after, between the real and the evanescent” conceiving the soundscape as “a liminal place, a space to be inhabited without the certainty of where it leads.” Unfurling like a labyrinth navigated in darkness, the piece’s first half is marked by sparseness and restraint, as slow-paced guitar tones and harmonics thread silences and resonant ambience within a sprawling sense of space, delicately populated by tiny sounds, fleeting punctuations drawn from undeterminable sources, vocal utterances, and the unexpected appearance of intoxicating piano tones.

As “Liminale” progresses into its second half, Turra and Martusciello enter a more densely populated notion of the in between. No less defined by the presence of space and mystery, discreet textures rustle and writhe within passages of pure concrete abstraction and a fragmented, stretched sense of musicality: long-tones, metallic pulses, minimal vibrations, processed vocalizations, guitar harmonics, and deconstructed piano melodies, buried in spectral, gauzy hazes drifting from beyond arm’s reach within an imagistic and immersive landscape of profoundly meditative scope, where each sonic element flirts the line between emergence and disappearance.

Intimate, fragile, and achingly beautiful, “Liminale”, Luigi Turra and Elio Martusciello’s debut collaboration, is a masterstroke in sound-craft and composition, revealing the potency of meaning locked within transitional spaces and the undefined, and imbuing silence with monumental gravity and weight. Mastered for vinyl by Giuseppe Ielasi, and taking electroacoustic minimalism to an etherial extreme, “Liminale” is issued as the ninth entry in Die Schachtel’s Decay Music series, highlighting inspired contemporary experimental efforts of the ambient, ethereal, and emotively abstract.

The thirteenth release on the Gladio Operations label bears the signature of the great Spanish producer Boris Divider. This artist needs no introduction, as he is considered one of the pioneering producers of the electro scene in Spain, and active since the 2000s, releasing mainly on his label Drivecom.

After betting in recent years on more experimental and hypnotic sounds close to IDM, Boris returns to the pulse of the rhythms more rooted to the dancefloor with this EP titled “In Fragments”. Undoubtedly, this work brings us back to the artist’s classic sound, which is reflected in “Content Location”, a track that envelops us with arpeggios and firm and forceful bass lines and well-developed masterful vocoders. The second cut we find is “In Fragments”, track that gives title to the EP and that lowers the pulsations to a softer and more emotional state.

The B-side opens with “Dynamic Algorithm”, where we get back to our dancing posture and enter dark territories, ready to explore a dynamic of sequences brimming with intrigue and suspense. We continue with “Fragmented”, where the Spanish artist delves into a journey of ambient sounds, with certain tensions in some passages. The EP closes with “Memories of Us”, where we discern his classic sound with subtle arpeggios and delicate sequences that flow in harmony with gloomy

After bending boundaries on the acclaimed labels Optimo Music and Höga Nord, Rudolf Abramov resurfaces with a fierce new statement – inaugurating Aquasonic Records, the freshly minted label founded by one half of the duo.

They unveil a sweeping collection of rare recordings, drawn from the shadows of their enigmatic Berlin studio.

This debut full-length album unfolds like a sonic tapestry, threading krautrock, new wave, dub, psychedelia, experimental electronics, ambient, and jazz into a singular, genre-bending experience.

True to form, the duo assembles a diverse ensemble of guest collaborators, fusing layered musical worlds into a cohesive, concept-driven whole.

At its core, the album captures a dynamic interplay: acoustic instruments recorded with raw intimacy and spatial breath meet the hypnotic churn of modular synths, samplers, and analog machines. A vivid document of process, presence, and unfiltered sound, resisting definition, yet wholly their own.

The Life You Save" ist das dritte Album von Flock of Dimes, dem Soloprojekt der Multi-Instrumentalistin und Produzentin Jenn Wasner. In den letzten Jahrzehnten sei es als Flock of Dimes, als eine Hälfte des beliebten Duos Wye Oak oder durch eine ihrer zahlreichen Kollaborationen mit Bon Iver, Sylvan Esso und einer langen Liste weiterer musikalischer Größen hat Jenn Wasner in ihrem umfangreichen Repertoire ihr Talent bewiesen, Authentizität und Direktheit mit einer unverkennbaren, unkonventionellen Sensibilität in Einklang zu bringen. Ihre Songtexte zeugen von ihrer scharfen Beobachtungsgabe, ihrer tiefen Empathie und ihrer nachdenklichen Art, Geschichten zu erzählen. Mit ihrem Talent, Erinnerungen, Herzschmerz und unheilbare Traumata zu ergründen, und einem Schleier aus Synkopierung oder schrägen Gitarrenklängen, die einen Song an einen Ort der stillen Großartigkeit entführen, ist ihr neues Album The Life You Save" ein weiterer Meilenstein in ihrer Karriere und geht noch einen Schritt weiter; einfach gesagt ist es das ehrlichste, intimste und persönlichste Album in Wasners Karriere. Die zwölf Songs sind ebenso herzzerreißend wie hoffnungsvoll und tauchen tief in die Abgründe von Sucht und Co-Abhängigkeit, vererbten und erlebten Traumata und den Prozess der Friedensfindung angesichts des Leidens anderer ein. The Life You Save" ist eindringlich, schonungslos offen wie eine Botschaft aus dem Auge eines Sturms. Doch obwohl es irgendwie sowohl viszeral roh als auch verletzlich wirkt, schwebt darüber ein Gefühl von stiller Ruhe, ein Schimmer von Rückblick oder vielleicht von Akzeptanz. Es ist die Geschichte davon, wie es sich anfühlt, zwischen zwei Welten gefangen zu sein der, aus der man kommt, und der, in die man geflohen ist; von dem Glauben, dass man irgendwie die Menschen, die man liebt, mit an diesen Ort nehmen kann; von der Trauer, zu erkennen, dass man nur sich selbst retten kann. The Life You Save" wurde von Jenn Wasner produziert und im Betty's in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, sowie im Montrose Recording in Los Angeles, Kalifornien, aufgenommen, mit zusätzlicher Produktion von Nick Sanborn. Das Album wurde von Adrian Olsen & Alli Rogers tontechnisch aufgezeichnet, von Adrian Olsen gemischt und von Huntley Miller gemastert.

After its original release in 2010, Walter Trout's Common Ground is back on vinyl, for the first time as a 2LP. The critically acclaimed album by the American blues guitarist, singer and songwriter reached #6 on the Billboard Blues chart and made waves in the UK charts as well. The album showcases a collection of powerful, emotionally charged songs including, amongst other, the tracks "Maybe A Fool", "Common Ground", and "Her Other Man"._x000d__x000a_Common Ground is produced by legendary producer and Grammy Award-winner John Porter, who is known for his work with blues icons B.B. King and Buddy Guy. The record features top-tier musicians Kenny Aronoff, James "Hutch" Hutchinson and Jon Cleary, all adding depth and expertise to the dynamic arrangements._x000d__x000a_Common Ground is available as a 15th anniversary edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on green, white & black marbled vinyl and includes an insert with lyrics.

After turning heads with their much-loved "Monaco EP" on Roy Davis Jr.'s legendary Undaground Therapy Muzik, the duo is back with a release that bridges deep-rooted house sensibilities and forward-thinking production.
To mark their 10-year anniversary, the boys return to their label roots with a 5-track vinyl-only EP - full of dusty samples, deep grooves & nods to early French house.

Time to dust off the disco ball! Sylvester's timeless disco classic Step II, featuring the smash hits "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" and "Dance (Disco Heat)" returns to vinyl almost fifty years after its original release on a very special "Disco Ball" Clear Glitter pressing. Described by Pitchfork as "a formative record in the queer canon," Step II took Sylvester's from a Bay Area icon, to a national disco superstar whose influence on popular music is as mighty today as it was back in 1978.

Emily A. Sprague's Cloud Time traces an audio-spiritual journey through time and place, recorded across a long-awaited debut tour of Japan in the fall of 2024. Compiled from environmental improvisations captured in and for the moment, material at once welcoming, responsive, and inimitable, the album distills a voyage guided by psychic wayfaring, unbound presence, and activating performance for a reciprocal exchange with space, listener, and each fully engaged instant. The Japanese tour documented on Cloud Time held an almost mythic significance for Sprague, taking on properties of her own sonic white whale. After many near-departures and dropped plans to play in the country, "the empty spaces of cancelled trips and forgotten music turned into strange little misty spirits that I felt followed by," she says. "When I began preparing for the tour, I couldn't shake a sense that the invitation to Japan was more about opening myself up to this new place instead of bringing something into it tightly under my control. Improvisation has always been such a pillar in my music practice, and I really wanted to meet the country, spaces and people through that process." To amplify these intuitive whispers on-stage, Sprague reimagined her time-tested live rig, designed to be as free from error as possible, as a looser, more flexible set up that would allow her to interface with what was essentially a blank sonic canvas every night. Each performance became a collaboration between environment and instinct, Sprague processing the events, energies, and emotions informing the evening through her new sound ecosystem, and projecting an entirely present and unique version of herself to each open-eared and hearted crowd. "It was very much more than just an act of playing for me, but a total experience of time and place," she says. The seven long-form pieces that plot the course of Cloud Time, excerpted from over eight hours of recordings archived on the artist's on-stage recorder and generously shared on the album with no additional mixing and only minimal editing, invite listeners to become still in these deep-rooted moments of presence as the album moves from city to city, venue to venue. Cloud Time chronicles material recorded at each tour stop, Sprague selecting and sequencing the album around mood-based storytelling more so than linear chronology. "I tried to make the whole album flow in the way that any one of the complete live performances did," she explains, "while also keeping the spirit of the whole thing as a journey." The result is equal parts travelog, love letter, and impressionistic collage channeled from the potent ferment of a now encased in the glowing amber of memory. Intrinsically inspired by kankyo ongaku, an environmental music philosophy, known both in and widely outside of Japan that tunes into the similarly expansive ethos as Pauline Oliveros' deep listening practice and posits the listener as composer, Cloud Time is ambient music that seems to be listening right back, grounded in heartfelt synthesized frequencies that abundantly hold and heal. Pieces like "Nagoya," "Tokyo 1," and the ten minute "Matsumoto" in particular hum with the atomic resonance of gently tended landscapes, offering space for tuning way in and dropping far out from perspectives that stifle and bind. Cloud Time is an invitation to embrace each moment as both fleeting and eternal, floating by with nothing to grasp onto and absolutely everything to gain. The exercise in acceptance and letting go that Sprague practiced throughout the tour deeply impacted her understanding of self as both a guest and venerable performer. "The process of loving wherever I am, being present and focusing on a clear channel of communication for mind and emotion, rooted so deeply in respect for the space, those within it, and myself, ended up being profoundly healing," she says. "My vision and hope is that this album can be released as a gift back to anyone who either was or wasn't there. A cloud time of life passing by." Emily A. Sprague's Cloud Time will be released Friday, October 10th in vinyl, Japanese import CD (via Plancha), and digital editions.

"The Life You Save" ist das dritte Album von Flock of Dimes, dem Soloprojekt der Multi-Instrumentalistin und Produzentin Jenn Wasner. In den letzten Jahrzehnten sei es als Flock of Dimes, als eine Hälfte des beliebten Duos Wye Oak oder durch eine ihrer zahlreichen Kollaborationen mit Bon Iver, Sylvan Esso und einer langen Liste weiterer musikalischer Größen hat Jenn Wasner in ihrem umfangreichen Repertoire ihr Talent bewiesen, Authentizität und Direktheit mit einer unverkennbaren, unkonventionellen Sensibilität in Einklang zu bringen. Ihre Songtexte zeugen von ihrer scharfen Beobachtungsgabe, ihrer tiefen Empathie und ihrer nachdenklichen Art, Geschichten zu erzählen. Mit ihrem Talent, Erinnerungen, Herzschmerz und unheilbare Traumata zu ergründen, und einem Schleier aus Synkopierung oder schrägen Gitarrenklängen, die einen Song an einen Ort der stillen Großartigkeit entführen, ist ihr neues Album The Life You Save" ein weiterer Meilenstein in ihrer Karriere und geht noch einen Schritt weiter; einfach gesagt ist es das ehrlichste, intimste und persönlichste Album in Wasners Karriere. Die zwölf Songs sind ebenso herzzerreißend wie hoffnungsvoll und tauchen tief in die Abgründe von Sucht und Co-Abhängigkeit, vererbten und erlebten Traumata und den Prozess der Friedensfindung angesichts des Leidens anderer ein. The Life You Save" ist eindringlich, schonungslos offen wie eine Botschaft aus dem Auge eines Sturms. Doch obwohl es irgendwie sowohl viszeral roh als auch verletzlich wirkt, schwebt darüber ein Gefühl von stiller Ruhe, ein Schimmer von Rückblick oder vielleicht von Akzeptanz. Es ist die Geschichte davon, wie es sich anfühlt, zwischen zwei Welten gefangen zu sein der, aus der man kommt, und der, in die man geflohen ist; von dem Glauben, dass man irgendwie die Menschen, die man liebt, mit an diesen Ort nehmen kann; von der Trauer, zu erkennen, dass man nur sich selbst retten kann. The Life You Save" wurde von Jenn Wasner produziert und im Betty's in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, sowie im Montrose Recording in Los Angeles, Kalifornien, aufgenommen, mit zusätzlicher Produktion von Nick Sanborn. Das Album wurde von Adrian Olsen & Alli Rogers tontechnisch aufgezeichnet, von Adrian Olsen gemischt und von Huntley Miller gemastert.

NYOS are a Finland-based instrumental band comprised of guitarist Tom Brooke and drummer Tuomas Kainulainen. Known for their immersive and often physically demanding live shows, NYOS create massive sonic worlds using Brooke's labyrinthine loops and atmospheric layering alongside Kainulainen's kinetic drumming, in music that is rhythmic, raw, and eclectic. Since their formation in 2014, NYOS have carved out a distinctive place within Europe's experimental and post-rock scenes, characterized by their relentless energy, polyrhythmic complexity, and hypnotic layering. While still rooted in their signature loop-based approach, new album `Growl' is "more ambitious with song soundscapes and compositions", says guitarist Tom Brooke, naturally embracing a denser, more textured sound with greater attention to atmosphere and tension. "`Growl' feels like the best we've managed to harness the dynamics, and maybe the one thing we did focus a bit on is finding new ways to create those dynamics and making sure they aren't too predictable - it's our longest record to date, and when producing it, we were very conscious to make sure it is an album that holds the listener" (Brooke) As eclectic and exciting as ever, NYOS are a band in continuous motion, unafraid to challenge themselves and their listeners with ever-expanding sonic vocabularies. `Growl' is an album that is both coherent and seamless in its movement, walking a tightrope between meticulous structure and explosive energy. FOR FANS OF Battles, And So I Watch You From Afar, Don Caballero, The Mars Volta, Lightning Bolt, Tortoise, Hella, Tiny Fingers, Death Grips, Zach Hill, Russian Circles, Explosions in the Sky, Tera Melos

NYOS are a Finland-based instrumental band comprised of guitarist Tom Brooke and drummer Tuomas Kainulainen. Known for their immersive and often physically demanding live shows, NYOS create massive sonic worlds using Brooke's labyrinthine loops and atmospheric layering alongside Kainulainen's kinetic drumming, in music that is rhythmic, raw, and eclectic. Since their formation in 2014, NYOS have carved out a distinctive place within Europe's experimental and post-rock scenes, characterized by their relentless energy, polyrhythmic complexity, and hypnotic layering. While still rooted in their signature loop-based approach, new album `Growl' is "more ambitious with song soundscapes and compositions", says guitarist Tom Brooke, naturally embracing a denser, more textured sound with greater attention to atmosphere and tension. "`Growl' feels like the best we've managed to harness the dynamics, and maybe the one thing we did focus a bit on is finding new ways to create those dynamics and making sure they aren't too predictable - it's our longest record to date, and when producing it, we were very conscious to make sure it is an album that holds the listener" (Brooke) As eclectic and exciting as ever, NYOS are a band in continuous motion, unafraid to challenge themselves and their listeners with ever-expanding sonic vocabularies. `Growl' is an album that is both coherent and seamless in its movement, walking a tightrope between meticulous structure and explosive energy. FOR FANS OF Battles, And So I Watch You From Afar, Don Caballero, The Mars Volta, Lightning Bolt, Tortoise, Hella, Tiny Fingers, Death Grips, Zach Hill, Russian Circles, Explosions in the Sky, Tera Melos

American standard-bearers for glam rock and important precursors to punk rock, New York Dolls reunited (at the personal request of longtime fan Morrissey) nearly three decades after their early-1970s heyday. Original Dolls David Johansen and Syl Sylvain still have all the sass and swagger of their prime on CAUSE I SEZ SO. Todd Rundgren had helmed the band's debut and returns in the same capacity for this 2009 Atco album, helping the quintet push its sonic envelope a bit beyond the Stonesy racket of yore. A reggae-tinged reworking of their '70s classic Trash may be the most striking example of this, but the beautiful pop melody of Lonely So Long and the propulsive R&B of Nobody Got No Bizness show the Dolls can wear any style and make it look great. We'll give CAUSE I SEZ SO another spin in memory of the band's drummer Jerry Nolan, who passed away on this day in 1992.

Yellow Vinyl. Playing it cool like it's 1974 - but sounding like 2025. Prepare to step into a parallel universe of groove-soaked funk and cinematic flair: Seoi Nage will release their debut album No Retreat, No Surrender on October 10th. Named after a classic judo throw and shaped by their shared martial arts background, the four-piece outfit from Münster- Jakob Hersch, Anton Zimmermann, Pascal Schaumburg, and Pogo McCartney - deliver an eleven-track tour-de-force that feels like the soundtrack to a cult film that never existed. Imagine Eastern martial arts cinema colliding with Italian giallo, sleazy car chases, and psychedelic noir-an instrumental crime thriller steeped in color, swagger, and funk. Mixed by McCartney, mastered by Alexander von Hörsten, and wrapped in the cinematic artwork of Benni Demmer, No Retreat, No Surrender is more than just retro-it's retro-futurism with a punch. Think MF Doom's crate-digging spirit meets the analog grit of 1970s detective flicks. This is Fan Art Music at its most vivid.

Nevertel, are set to release their Epitaph Records debut album, entitled Start Again. The Florida-based trio - comprised of vocalist Jeremy Michael, rapper/guitarist/producer Raul Lopez, and guitarist Alec Davis - are a rare breed in an era saturated with genre tags and algorithm-chasing playlists. Drawing on a cocktail of nu-metal nostalgia, hip-hop grit, and EDM adrenaline, their sound feels less like a blend and more like a carefully controlled detonation. It"s a vision honed through years of DIY hustle and an unshakable commitment to quality over trend. Bonded in adolescence over music and late-night gaming sessions, the trio turned those formative obsessions into a full-fledged project that has steadily built a digital groundswell. From self-releasing two fulllength albums and a pair of EPs to amassing over 1.5 million streams per week, Nevertel"s trajectory reflects a slow burn in a culture obsessed with instant virality. Citing touchstones like Linkin Park and Bring Me The Horizon, the band pays homage to the titans of their youth while shaping something unmistakably their own: emotionally raw lyricism, razor-edged riffs and breakdowns. It"s equal parts catharsis and chaos. Now signed to Epitaph Records as of 2023, Nevertel are poised to enter their next chapter with momentum at their backs.

After his 2024 album The Spirit Continues, Tilman returns with Altered Spaces, a tightly focused four-track EP that distills his signature sound into a concise, club-ready format.

Opening track Make My Body Move sets the tone with soulful vocals, warm piano stabs, a rolling bassline and a breezy Balearic vibe. The Last Resort deepens the mood, layering pads, organ hits and shimmering strings over a steady, driving groove. Rounding out the EP are two reimagined cuts from The Spirit Continues. Dance Department (Spirit Mix) smooths out the rougher edges of the original, adding organ stabs and a more melodic sensibility.

Need It (Dance Dub) transforms the track into a softer, dub-tinged version - hypnotic, restrained and full of subtle movement. Altered Spaces is classic Tilman: warm, understated house music that's rich in detail and groove - made for dancers and deep listeners alike.

Produced by longtime collaborator Simon Dine, MKII captures a band reinvigorated, delivering their most confident and dynamic work to date. Sullivan"s sharp, incisive lyrics drivethe album"s freshsound and renewed energy. Frontman and founder Billy Sullivan sets the scene for the album by saying: "It sounds refreshed and confident, ballsy but doesn"t mind showing a softer side and being reflective too. For me it"s not a continuation of The Spitfires back catalogue, it"s very much the start of a new chapter. I"m incredibly proud, after all these years, to be talking about a new body of work which excitesme and inspires me more than ever." From the high-octane political pop of "The Great Divide!" to the moody intensity of "I"ll Never" and the reflective, Parisian- tinged "Grateful", MKII is a bold statement: The Spitfires are back-and stronger than ever.

Produced by longtime collaborator Simon Dine, MKII captures a band reinvigorated, delivering their most confident and dynamic work to date. Sullivan"s sharp, incisive lyrics drivethe album"s freshsound and renewed energy. Frontman and founder Billy Sullivan sets the scene for the album by saying: "It sounds refreshed and confident, ballsy but doesn"t mind showing a softer side and being reflective too. For me it"s not a continuation of The Spitfires back catalogue, it"s very much the start of a new chapter. I"m incredibly proud, after all these years, to be talking about a new body of work which excitesme and inspires me more than ever." From the high-octane political pop of "The Great Divide!" to the moody intensity of "I"ll Never" and the reflective, Parisian- tinged "Grateful", MKII is a bold statement: The Spitfires are back-and stronger than ever.

Belgian singer-songwriter Emma Hessels releases her debut EP 'Constant Distance' on October 24 via Unday Records. With a voice that lingers long after the song has ended and lyrics that feel like pages torn from a diary, Hessels has quickly carved out her place in the Belgian scene. She was named laureate of Sound Track in 2023, went on to play intimate yet arresting sets at Ancienne Belgique, Botanique, and the prestigious Cirque Royal, and appeared at Best Kept Secret this summer.

Milestones that signaled the arrival of a singular new voice in folk and soul.

'Constant Distance' gathers six songs bound by a recurring undercurrent: the presence of distance in its many forms - absence, longing, loneliness, the fear of loss, but also the desire for belonging. The songs weren't conceived around a single theme, but when brought together, a pattern revealed itself. Loss implies distance, longing implies distance, even love can. Yet the EP closes on 'Breaking', a gospel-tinged anthem of connection and alignment, written during a women's writer's retreat where community and music became inseparable.

Musically, 'Constant Distance' moves between folk and soul, carrying the feel of modern blues and occasionally leaning into gospel's call-and-response. The atmosphere is warm and nostalgic, drawing inspiration from Laura Marling, Damien Rice and Big Thief as much as from Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone and Richie Havens. Emma's voice remains the constant thread: soulful, unforced, quietly commanding. "I hope my songs can be like a warm blanket, something that keeps you company, that makes you feel a little less alone."

Though written solo on guitar, often during long train rides, the songs expanded into layered productions through collaboration with Aram Santy, Nard Houdmeyers and Fender Mackenson Rooms, with additional contributions such as Marthe van Droogenbroeck's evocative trumpet. Recorded over two intense days at Studio Beertje, the EP captures both intimacy and expansiveness. The result is music that carries the weight of Emma's fears and questions, but also the joy of collective creation.

With 'Constant Distance', Emma Hessels doesn't just deliver a debut - she opens a world where fragility and strength coexist, and where music becomes a way of closing the gap between people.

"Bandleader Lina Langendorf has been known in Sweden for a long time as one of the most skilled and forward thinking saxophone players. She has been staying in both Mali and Ethopia for longer periods and has performed in concerts with legendary artists like Alemayehu Eshete, Vieux Farka Touré and...Mulatu Astatke who, at his club African Jazz Village (in Addis Ababa/Ethiopia), introduced Lina to people in the audience with the words: 'Amazing saxophone player, big respect! We should play together some day'. Some minutes later they go on stage together. Joined by the legendary piano player Dawit Yifru and the bass player from Roha Band, Giovanni Rico Bonsignori. 'Fantastic. You're so strong. Everybody loves you, they say you are ethio-jazz' was Mulatu's words after the jam session.
Lina has also been invited to the live club Le Hogon in Bamako numerous times for jam sessions and concerts with Toumani Diabaté and his band. And for Lina, these jam sessions in Addis and Bamako has been a crucial part of shaping (and sharpening) her musical vision. Last year she was also touring the UK as part of James Yorkston, Nina Persson and the second hand orchestra.
But it wasn't until feb 2023 we got to hear her own music. The debut album with her newly formed band Langendorf United was co-released between Italian label Black Sweat records and Swedish label Sing A Song Fighter and it immediately resonated with music lovers around the world (Radiohead drummer Philip Selway called it 'as if Tinariwen and Fela Kuti had a Blue Note session').
But the band is not just the composer/Saxophone star and band leader Lina Langendorf. Oh, no. The other four musicians are all highly praised musicians in various jazz bands in Sweden and Norway and together they form this sacred thythmic unity with the pulsating bass at the centre.
Langendorf United's music is vibrant and spiritual and on fire!"

Lina Langendorf - saxophone
Daniel Bingert (son of legendary South American musician Hector Bingert) - keys, guitars
Martin Hederos (The Soundtrack Of Our Lives, Tonbruket) - keys, viola
Ole Morten Vågan (Trondheim Jazz Orchestra) - upright bass
Andreas Werliin (Fire!, Wildbirds & Peacedrums) - drums