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The moroccan wizard is back once again with 4 efficient club cuts! Tested and approved!

The wait for HULKOFF's forthcoming folk-metal album "Hersir" will soon be over. The album will be released on December 15, which is the official release date. Hersir is HULKOFF's fourth album and is preceded by "KVEN" 2017, Pansarfolk 2020 and Ragnarök 2021. With a dash of Scandinavian melancholy, ancient instruments and acoustic violins, Hersir offers an assortment of rockhard, earthy, melodic and furious folk-metal - a throwback in time accompanied by familiar and ancient Nordic tones. HULKOFF's sound is a seamless fusion of melody and aggression, forged to resonate with the ancient echoes of the North. His lyrics are a gateway to the distant past, delving into the ancestral tales and beliefs of the Kvens, Scythians, Goths, Celts, Finns, and the later Norse, all of which from which influences can be glimpsed through HULKOFF's rich repertoire. Songwriter, composer, and guitarist Pär Hulkoff stands apart from other artists with his uniquely deep voice and thunderous folk-sound - that are impossible to imitate. Unusual but familiar tones surround the ancient source material of Hersir, resulting in highly varied songs that range from aggressively uplifting to gnarly and determined folk-metal. Hersir comes with eleven tracks, blended with both English and Swedish lyrics.

Sourced from the Original Master Tapes and Presented in Audiophile Sound for the First Time: Mobile Fidelity’s Numbered-Edition 180g SuperVinyl LP Plays with Riveting Detail
Three decades before he released The Philosophy of Modern Song — an insightful book devoted to 66 tunes that both impacted his career and the music world at large — Bob Dylan issued Good As I Been to You. The under-heralded 1992 album, Dylan’s first solo acoustic album in nearly 30 years and first all-covers effort in nearly 20 years, can be seen as a prophetic prelude to what has become the Nobel Laureate’s celebrated late-career arc. It’s also an absorbing continuation of the custom Dylan has embraced since he first picked up a guitar.


Sourced from the original master tapes, pressed at RTI, and housed in a Stoughton jacket, Mobile Fidelity's numbered-edition 180g SuperVinyl LP of Good As I Been to You reveals the immediacy, detail, and stripped-down nature of recording sessions that took place in Dylan’s garage studio in California. Simple, raw, and unplugged, the record presents Dylan in peak form — and showcases a diversity of vocal phrasing, soulful chording, harmonica accents, and close-up ambience that on this reissue emerge like never before. As the first-ever audiophile edition of this almost-lost classic, this LP also benefits from SuperVinyl’s extraordinary properties: a nearly inaudible noise floor, superb groove definition, and dead-quiet surfaces among them.

Recorded and mixed by Micajah Ryan, and supervised by Debbie Gold, Good As I Been to You took shape at Dylan’s home shortly after the singer-songwriter completed sessions in Chicago with a full band. Unaccompanied, he again gravitated to existing works — in this case, traditional folk music — and, with Gold serving as a trusted advisor, performed the songs in multiple keys and tempos until he arrived at what he desired. That careful, determined albeit loose, organic approach emanates from this reissue, on which each note, movement, and space come across more directly, fully, and immediately than on the original formats. It helps draw a through-line to Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964) as well as the similarly themed follow-up, World Gone Wrong (1993) and immersive old-world storytelling of Tempest (2012) and Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020).

Well before Dylan made those renowned 21st century LPs, however, he needed to find a way out of a funk that — save for his 1989 collaboration with Daniel Lanois, Oh Mercy — followed him for years. As author Clinton Heylin reported Dylan admitting in 1997: “My influences have not changed — and any time they have done, the music goes off to a wrong place. That’s why I recorded two LPs of old songs, so I could personally get back to the music that’s true for me.”

Truth: Few, if any, concepts better encapsulate Good As I Been to You. It resonates with the same originality, honesty, resolve, and age- and time-defying relevance as the seminal Anthology of American Folk Music that fired Dylan’s imagination as a kid in small-town Minnesota and, later, per Greil Marcus’ That Old Weird America book, informed Dylan and the Band’s Basement Tapes sessions. This record also contains the type of music Dylan was playing during his acoustic sets at his period Never Ending Tour shows; within a year of the record’s release, Dylan would play half the album’s songs live.

As for those songs: Rife with strange mystery, common circumstance, and epic adventure, the stories appeal to our base instincts. Their themes — jealousy, temptation, sacrifice, love, revenge, identity, opportunity — operate on a fundamentally human level immune to trends, generations, or eras. They’re ancient and modern, serious and comical, open and disguised, simple and multi-layered. They talk of vengeance and justice (“Frankie & Albert”; “Jim Jones”), romance and tenderness (“Tomorrow Night,” “Froggie Went a Courtin’”), the troubled and trouble-free (“Hard Times,” “Sittin’ on Top of the World”). They lend voice to lovers scorned and freed (“Blackjack Davey”), the used and users (“Diamond Joe”), the powerful and powerless (“Arthur McBride,” “Canadee-I-O”), the followed and followers (“Little Maggie”). And akin to much of Dylan’s finest output, things are not always what they appear to be.

Spanning country, folk, sea shanty, bluegrass, and blues motifs, Good As I Been to You re-confirms Dylan’s position as an elite interpreter and sculptor — not of just structure but emotion. Dylan delivers the tunes as if he’s known them forever. He plays with a subtle sense of mischievousness and retains a largely upbeat demeanour; his eyes seemingly twinkle as he sings and picks. His guitar serves as the guidepost for shuffles, boogies, ballads, and mess-arounds while his innate feel for each specific arrangement and melody helps inform pacing, tone, attack.

Like a great author, he understands the importance of adhering to concision, luring an audience, holding their attention, and maximizing the impact of details, actions, and unexpected turns. Though already coarse and ragged, his voice feels ideal for the subject matter and his phrasing — from the clever ways he stretches syllables to underline meanings on the surprise twists of “Canadee-I-O” to the sheer delight he gets from singing “rowdy-dow-dow” on the protest song “Arthur McBride” — outstanding.

After his participation in a masterpiece such as Popol Vuh’s Hosianna Mantra, in the early 1980s Klaus Wiese produced a series of seminal works in the field of ambient-drone and healing music. The first of these, Baraka, was released on tape by Acquamarin in 1981, and already contained all the aspects of his future research into the mysticism of sound. Wiese shares the path with other German explorers such as Hamel, Fricke, Micus or Deuter, but he focuses his attention on the most essential nature of sounds, on their acoustic purity, which is always infinite spiral, vortex of frequencies and cosmic bath. It takes only a few means (zither, tampoura, cybals, singing bowls) to reach the absolute through vibration. Like the archaic mood of a great universal harmony, the sound suggests a complete state of otherworldly meditation, an enveloping cloud of peace in the eternity of the present. The musician is only the one who distributes and directs the thickenings of ethereal matter, microtonal agglomerates, cascades of celestial harmonics and emotional floods, petals and stems of devotion.

Second album by musicians Apolline Schöser & Nocola Henry. More info soon...

The Vinyl Chill collection is back with a new voule dedicated to House Music. Relax & chill down in a cosy atmosphere with a fine selection of really cool tracks by Kid Francescoli, Somechords or Üm...

Calibro 35 unleash the new OST for the second season of TV series BLANCA, to be released on limited edition LP on December 1st 2023.

Italian cinematic cult outfit CALIBRO 35 announces the release of the ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK of the second season of BLANCA, the TV series produced by Lux Vide in collaboration with Rai Fiction, broadcast in prime time on Rai 1 starting from Thursday, October 5th 2023 and directed byJan Maria Michelini and Michele Soavi. The soundtrack will be released worldwide on limited edition, crystal clear LP next December 1st via Milan based label Record Kicks.

The new thrilling episodes of Blanca Season 2 follows the success of the first season, that was aired worldwide on Netflix, M6 France and Telecinco Spain. Accompanying the journey is once again the original music of CALIBRO 35 the Italian "cult" cinematic combo active for over 15 years and with a fan base that includes superstars such as Dr.Dre, Jay-z and Damon Albarn. Made up of 20 tracks in total, the OST was entirely composed by CALIBRO 35 that created the sound universe of BLANCA: an impressive and choral work, which has engaged all the components of the band for a long time, giving the them the opportunity to develop a very vast soundscape.

"It's the first time that we deal with the creation of a 'season 2' and we discovered that the creative process can be very different" Calibro 35 says. "In the first season, we had to build from scratch a sound and musical world consistent with the idea that Jan had (Michielini, director and showrunner of the series); this time, however, we had to develop that already existing world further, in order to describe the new stories and new different characters of the second season. There had to be undiscovered musical territories, that forced us to step out of our comfort zone." The result is that on the 20 tracks of the ost, the heavy dose of Calibro's signature funk grooves of tracks such as "Badanti, "Carignano", "Cambio di Stagione" or "Sampierdarena" is mixed with more moody and soulful tunes, world music, opera and atmospheres à la John Carpenter. Amongst the album's highlights worth definitely a mention the Opening and End titles that feature the voices of Arya, MEI and Tahnee Rodriguez. Essential contribution to the recordings were made by Francesca Biliotti - mezzo soprano of the Monteverdi Choir, Valeria Sturba - exceptional multi-instrumentalist of the avant-garde music group OoopopoiooO, Rahma Hafsi and Elisa Zoot.

Described by Rolling Stone as "the most fascinating, retro-maniac and genuine thing that has happened to Italy in the past few years", Milan-based Calibro 35 enjoy a worldwide reputation as one of the coolest bands around. Active since 2007, during their long career they were sampled by Dr. Dre on Compton ("One Shot One Kill" feat. Snoop Dogg), Jay Z ("Picasso Baby"), The Child of Lov & Damon Albarn ("One Day") and Demigodz ("The Summer Of Sam"). They played major venues and festivals all over Europe and as unique musicians they collaborated with, amongst others, PJ Harvey, Mike Patton, John Parish, Stewart Copeland and Rokia Traoré. The BLANCA OST is the latest of many activities concerning cinema for CALIBRO 35: the band has been completely immersed in the world of soundtracks since the very beginning and they have recently worked on other productions as well, both as Calibro and individually. Last June, the band released their 8th studio album, NOUVELLES AVENTURES, recorded in Naples at Auditorium Novecento. With the new LP the group has made full use of their knowledge and resources, refined and enriched over the years, back to making "Calibro's music": a unique mix of funk, progressive rock, alternative jazz and wide-spectrum cinematic music the public has known them for in fifteen years of career.

SPHERART UNK presents Unknown Gardel V.A 001, compilation of 100% Argentine Artists, presenting us with a unique piece of art with big names like Franco Radetich, Kevin Toro, Lauti Mina, Sound process and Trentz & Agus Ferreyra.

Italian cosmic couriers San Leo return with fifth album, ’Aves Raras’: a resounding statement of intent, arguably their most accomplished and well-rounded effort so far. Clocking in at around 38 minutes, “Aves Raras” has it all: analog slag of tribal ritual music, bold guitar riffs, shimmering layers of synths. Frantic grooves, ghostly vocals, dazzling walls of noise and pastoral tonal passages – the ultimate call to enlightenment through euphoria. Over again, San Leo prove to be inclined to explore new pathways in their sonic journey, without relying on formulas of any kind. It doesn’t get any tighter, crucial, and most alive than this. Recorded by Andrea Scardovi at Duna Studio. Drums recorded by Yuri Pierini at Blue Audio Studio. Additional recording by San Leo. Mixed by Francesco Donadello at Kalimba Studio and Synecdoche Music Research, Berlin. Mastered by Giovanni Versari at La Maestà

Helfró ist aus der Trostlosigkeit entstanden. Als seine vorherige Band Ophidian 2015 eine Pause einlegte, begann Schlagzeuger Ragnar Sverrisson bis spät in die brutale isländische Nacht an seiner eigenen grausamen Vision von Black Metal zu arbeiten.

Aus dieser intensiven Zeit der Einsamkeit heraus bahnten sich Helfró ihren eigenen Weg in die extreme Metal-Landschaft. Ihr selbstbetiteltes Debütalbum wurde mitten im Feuer der Pandemie veröffentlicht, aber die schaurigen Melodien und die rohe Aggression des Albums schafften es auf mehrere Jahresendlisten.

Jetzt meldet sich das Kapuzen-Duo mit seinem Nachfolger zurück. Tálgröf" enthält viele von Helfrós charakteristischen, wütenden Tremolo-Riffs. "Fláráð Fræði" schüttelt sich mit der Wut eines Hagelsturms. Doch während sich das neue Album tiefer mit Sucht und aufdringlichen Gedankenmustern beschäftigt, geht es auch über die starre Welt des Black Metal hinaus. Traðkandi Blómin í eigin Hjartagarði" schwelgt in der glorreichen Death Metal-Schredderei, die Rangar schon als Kind mit seinem Onkel gesehen hat.

Helfró sind immer noch so kalt und unbarmherzig wie die Winter in ihrem Heimatland. Aber 'Tálgröf' ist prädestiniert dafür, ein Feuer des isländischen Death Metal zu entfachen!

Helfró ist aus der Trostlosigkeit entstanden. Als seine vorherige Band Ophidian 2015 eine Pause einlegte, begann Schlagzeuger Ragnar Sverrisson bis spät in die brutale isländische Nacht an seiner eigenen grausamen Vision von Black Metal zu arbeiten.

Aus dieser intensiven Zeit der Einsamkeit heraus bahnten sich Helfró ihren eigenen Weg in die extreme Metal-Landschaft. Ihr selbstbetiteltes Debütalbum wurde mitten im Feuer der Pandemie veröffentlicht, aber die schaurigen Melodien und die rohe Aggression des Albums schafften es auf mehrere Jahresendlisten.

Jetzt meldet sich das Kapuzen-Duo mit seinem Nachfolger zurück. Tálgröf" enthält viele von Helfrós charakteristischen, wütenden Tremolo-Riffs. "Fláráð Fræði" schüttelt sich mit der Wut eines Hagelsturms. Doch während sich das neue Album tiefer mit Sucht und aufdringlichen Gedankenmustern beschäftigt, geht es auch über die starre Welt des Black Metal hinaus. Traðkandi Blómin í eigin Hjartagarði" schwelgt in der glorreichen Death Metal-Schredderei, die Rangar schon als Kind mit seinem Onkel gesehen hat.

Helfró sind immer noch so kalt und unbarmherzig wie die Winter in ihrem Heimatland. Aber 'Tálgröf' ist prädestiniert dafür, ein Feuer des isländischen Death Metal zu entfachen!

Orphax & PONI (person of no importance) is a collaboration between the two Dutch brothers, Sietse (Orphax) and Tjeerd (PONI) van Erve. Since their early years they share a broad interest in music, fed mostly from their fathers’ record collection, ranging from early blues to Pink Floyd or Beethoven. But also listening to Belgian radio channel Studio Brussels (which during the late 80s and early 90s was a common listening close to the borders between The Netherlands and Belgium), and the late night Dutch radio inspired them in exploring the rough edges of underground music.

An exploration that gave them a common interest in indie and noise rock, but soon enough both followed their own path in music. Tjeerd moving more into underground guitar music, whilst Sietse developed a wider interest in (experimental) electronic and contemporary music. Both as listeners, but also exploring their own interests as musicians.

Now many years later these musical paths cross again in this album Inheritance (with a slight imagination, a translation of their last name van Erve). An album where Tjeerd brings in his dark and noisy lo-fi guitar songs and Sietse brings in his drones and electro-acoustic composition styles.

The album opens with its longest track, “As Received”. This combination results in a slow developing drone, with the intensity and tension of a well build-up post-rock track, that slowly unfolds Tjeerd his guitar layers and vocals. The title of the song refers to one of the PONI projects, where Tjeerd would send rough recordings to befriended musicians who than would rework those recordings without any restrictions which then would be released side by side with the original rough recordings. A project which actually sparked the idea of this collaboration (and that can still be listened to on PONI’s bandcamp-page).

On the flip side of the record, three shorter works give more room for regular song structures. In “Sunburns” this results in slowcore with subdued vocals, melancholic guitars and nasty synth and organ drones. When Tjeerd wrote the basis for the song, he actually had been listening to a lot of Codeine and Bedhead. One does not need much fantasy to recognize the influences of these bands.

“The Tears Are Necessary” is build up around various broken up piano tracks accompanied by moody drones to develop a fragile song.

The album closes with “Lockdown”, opening with silence as a moment of contemplation after the previous work but then quickly develops in a playful song where improvised play on piano, guitar and modular synthesizer create a lo-fi gem that clearly shows that both brothers still haven’t lost their love for Sentridoh or Guided By Voices.
All together resulting in an album that is an ode to the love of music, experiment, and creativity and a celebration of brotherhood.

Repress!

Supermercado: a mosaic, tangible, colourful to the point of saturaton, anchored in a very real present.
Behind the metaphor that gives the new album its ttle, Corridor examines modernity, takes on this transitonal transiton by looking at where it went wrong: pushed around by big data, apathy induced by oversaturaton, the speeding up of cycles, efort stripped to its bare minimum, physical detachment.
Afer giving the art-rock and jangle-pop treatment to their frst two eforts Un Magicien en toi and Le Voyage Éternel, Corridor stcks to its signature sound: upfront, dissonant guitars upheld by minimal beats and syncopated bass lines, yet also marks a new directon. Supermercado leans on repeated strong melodies, slow progressions, bolstered by two distnct voices, yielding a more hypnotc, sharper, and strangely, poppier result. Corridor recorded this new record in the hallowed halls of Montreal's Breakglass Studios, with Emmanuel Ethier (Chocolat, Bernhari, Peter Peter) assuming producton dutes.

Die bekannteste ungarische Metalband der Welt kommt mit neuem, unberechenbarem Material zurück. "Vivid Black" bezeichnet nicht nur das bereits vierzehnte Studioalbum mit neuem Material von EKTOMORF, sondern ihr brutalstes und düsterstes jeher! Die Band beweist auch nach fast 30 Jahren Bestehen, dass sie intensiver, erbarmungsloser und ehrlicher klingen können als je zuvor.
Die Corona Pandemie hat ihre Spuren in der Welt hinterlassen. So auch bei Sänger Zoli Farkas. Aufgrund von Isolation hatte er mit Depressionen zu kämpfen, welche er auf dem neuen EKTOMORF Album verarbeitet. Geschrieben in nur drei Wochen (!) ballert sich dieser Hassbatzen direkt in die Gehörgänge und spendet auf eine obskure Weise jedem Trost, der während der Lockdowns ähnliche emotionale Schwierigkeiten hatte. Gleichzeitig ist "Vivid Black" eine persönliche Abrechnung mit alles und jedem die Hass schüren und Menschen zwingen etwas zu sein, was sie nicht sind und sein wollen.
Eben ein neues, ehrliches und wahnsinnig brutales Album von EKTOMORF. Seit bereit für die Zerstörung von "Vivid Black" - der Name ist Programm.

Somebody somewhere once said that music doesn't mean anything; it is meaningful.

The Czecho-slovakian instrumental trio, Inheritance, invite you to rediscover their sonic journey with the reissue of their previous EPs, "Frames" (2014) and "Saturate" (2016), now elegantly entwined into a single captivating package released for the first time on vinyl, on Weltschmerzen. Comprising of the trio Jakub Volovár (guitar), Alex Strapková (piano), and Peter Kušnírik (drums), Inheritance was active in the mid 2010s in Brno, later unfortunately disbanding due to own personal pursuits.

Frames // Saturate embodies the melancholic and melodic tension characteristic of contemporary post-rock, complemented by the whimsy of piano-led instrumentals with a tint of indie-playfulness and a very slight yet powerful grain of sludge heaviness that can be traced back to Volovár's and Kušnirik's earlier post-metal project, Dawn to Come.

"Frames // Saturate" is first and foremost a compact sonic voyage. Volovár's evocative yet precise guitar work builds complex yet airy scaffolding, while Strapková's piano melodies create a tapestry of moods around it. Both EPs showcase Strapková's piano prowess, transforming each composition into a living organism. Kušnírik's drumming then acts as the steady pulse, guiding you through. These songs encapsulate the kind of mutualism and appreciation for (musical) interdependence that you can only develop throughout the years of practice and playing live.

You can hear how much fun it was for the band to play these songs, and that sense of joy translates directly into your own listening experience. It's the kind of music that makes you pick up an air guitar, (piano, or drums) - and sometimes everything all at once. It is music serious and poetic, yet fun and moving and complex at the same time.

2023 Repress

It's the quiet ones we should watch, they always say. Which is particularly astute advice right now, when loud, constant self-declaration and saturated 'brand' visibility have become the norm. But above the babble and brightness, some voices will always speak quiet volumes ­- with calm eloquence and the kind of certitude that comes from valuing the playing out, not just the prize.

Sweden's José González is just such a voice. He first charmed his way into the UK's earshot via the murmurous and elegant, classically finger-picked folk pop of his 2005 album, Veneer, which has since sold over a staggering 430, 000 copies in UK alone. Two years later came In Our Nature, a further exploration of José's influences (Argentinian Folklore, the '60s US folk tradition and the British pastoral folk-pop style of the same era), on which he resisted the temptation to beef up his alluringly introvert aesthetic. The albums made the UK Top 10 and Top 20 respectively.

Conceived as the natural third part in an acoustic trilogy, Vestiges & Claws is a(nother) hushed and delicate solo set that forefronts the artist and guitarist's compellingly intimate vocal style and intricate playing technique, but it's often strikingly rhythmic in nature and cohere's perfectly, with hand claps and taps on the body of his instrument underlining the songs' mantric rise-and-fall pattern, while elsewhere, over-dubbed guitar parts and multi-tracked vocal harmonies entwine to sweetly immersive effect.

The title refers to both cultural practices and biological features that survive despite having lost their original function, and to currently useful tools, ie the 'claws' of modern life.

Vestiges & Claws was recorded almost entirely by José and self-produced, mostly in his Gothenburg home, using computer plug-ins to achieve a warm, analogue sound. He prefers working alone, mainly for artistic reasons. 'There were a couple of things that enabled me to complete this record: one was curiosity, to be able to play percussion and do a lot of harmonies and also to produce and mix the album; the other was aesthetics. I love to listen to Arthur Russell and Shuggie Otis, to music that has been done mostly by one person in their solitary state.'

As José sees it, the record is his personal, 'zoomed-out eye on humanity on a small, pale blue dot in a cold, sparse and unfriendly space. The amazing fact that we are all here, an attempt at encouraging us to understand ourselves and to make the best of the one life we know we have - after birth and before death.

Die wegweisende feministische Punkband FRIGHTWIG ist mit ihrem neuesten Album 'We Need to Talk...' (Label 51 Recordings) zurück, inklusive einer besonderen Bonus-7''-Single, die ihrer verstorbenen, aber immer präsenten Schlagzeugerin Cecilia Kuhn gewidmet ist, die 2017 diese irdische Ebene verlassen hat.

Seit ihrer Gründung in San Francisco im Jahr 1983 verfolgt Frightwig zwei Ziele: Freude verbreiten und das Patriarchat bekämpfen. Seit 40 Jahren haben sie auf beiden Fronten Erfolg, mit einer Mischung aus knalliger Hardcore-Energie und einem furchtlosen Aktivismus. Die Band war eine prägende Einflussgröße auf die Riot Grrrl-Bewegung und darüber hinaus. Sie begrüßt Mitstreiter, Sünder und Ausgestoßene, und die Anhängerschaft von Frightwig ist im Laufe der Zeit nur größer und stärker geworden.

Das Album wurde von Eric Drew Feldman produziert (bekannt für seine Arbeit mit PJ Harvey, Pixies, The Residents, Frank Black, OK Go und Captain Beefheart). Frightwig entführt eine Welt des feministischen Punkrock entführen, der sowohl Energie als auch Aktivismus verkörpert.

The BBC’s Third Programme aired four radio broadcasts between January 1964 and September 1965, collectively known as Inventions for Radio.

They were ground-breaking in both form and content, conceived by playwright Barry Bermange and consisting of the voices of the general public answering questions on four themes,

one for each programme: dreams, the existence of God, life after death and ageing. At a time when it was unheard of to give a media platform to anyone perceived as being of

low socio-economic status, the broadcasts generated many complaints for the “rough” voices of its participants.



Delia Derbyshire was assigned by the Radiophonic Workshop to edit and add electronic music/ effects.

The collaborative result is dreamlike and mesmerizing, an audial window to another era.

For many years Derbyshire was not credited for her contribution, nor were the broadcasts available commercially, although they still managed to acquire something of a cult following.



This boxset includes one LP for each broadcast and two further LPs of additional material.

There is a 20-page booklet with extensive notes by Mark Ayres (Producer) and David Butler, (one of the lead researchers and

curators of the Delia Derbyshire Archive and co-founder of Delia Derbyshire Day).

The insight into Derbyshire’s archive, her music and its influences and her collaboration with Bermange is fascinating, providing context for

these extraordinary pieces which have been the most elusive of Twentieth Century classics until now.

Big Thief's music, rooted in the songs of Adrianne Lenker, paints in vivid tones "the process of harnessing pain, loss, and love, while simultaneously letting go, looking into your own eyes through someone else's, and being okay with the inevitability of death," says Adrianne.

Masterpiece, Big Thief's debut album, is -lled with characters and visceral narratives, songs that pivot in the space of a few words. Adrianne's voice and guitar playing speak of rich emotional territory with grace and insight. In her words, the record tracks "the masterpiece of existence, which is always folding into itself, people attempting to connect, to both shake themselves awake and to shake o­ the numbness of certain points in their life. The interpretations might be impressionistic or surrealistic, but they're grounded in simple things.'

Adrianne met her longtime musical partner, guitarist and singer, Buck Meek, in Brooklyn a few years ago, and they quickly formed a creative bond tempered by the experience of traveling and performing for months on end in old dive bars, yards, barns, and basements together. They recorded a pair of duo albums (A-Sides and B-Sides), and Adrianne showcased her songs on a solo album, Hours Were The Birds.

Now, as a full rock and roll band, with Buck on guitar, Max Oleartchik on bass, and James Krivchenia on drums, they bring a steady wildness, giving the songs an even deeper layer of nostalgia. "These guys feel like a pack of wolves at my back," says Adrianne, "they make the songs howl and bark with a fierce tenderness that gives me courage."
After spending last July in an old house that they turned into a studio on Lake Champlain with producer Andrew Sarlo, the resulting collection soars on what Big Thief fan Sharon Van Etten calls "...a real journey, with intelligent stories and twist-and-turn melodies.

Dez Andres must have had a busy year in the studio because he has a few new joints dropping at the moment. Beretta Music has his latest and it comes in the form of a 7"to follow up his 'Back in My Space' from back in Spring. Once again here the Motor City native, former Slum Village DJ and house maestro dips into his more soulful side with some fresh breakbeat tunes that are sure to get the floor popping. Yelping vocals and some signature Andres basslines finish it in a fiery fashion. Fellow Detroit talent Brian Kage steps up with a booty-shaking remix that gets even heavier on the drums to make for another fine 7".