Last delivered 5 years ago
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Locked in a 486 glow, lightblink machines nightlight, being enters lighttime limelight. The long nineties already distending, the Major midbloats, crowds throng superclubs- strobelit honeys on a podium in Ibiza already blasted a stratosphere away from mildewed badflats, emphysemic parlours, the fug of week old washing drying slowly on the rad. Ach we’ll hang it out in the morning fire another joint of badhash and turn that tape over. We are being Here. beings disconnected, shut ins, psychick worriers, long walks to and from clubs, mostly dark, always raining, or mizzling anyway, lug bigbrick machines into cabs and Venue, setup and playing live and right now from the lounge lobby at Sativa, down the stairs from the caustic, twitching thrashpit being sits, being works. Dole sludge, shirking class zeroes, scoff pizza rolls w salad cream, that headchef gaffer never reckoned you’d graft at the potwash, a slick fur of rotfood dish slop residue right to the elbow, absolutely bowfin. Rumours of other places, people, scenes, tapes sent and emissaries return, invites to get trains, overnightbus south to London. being brought water to the ‘wells in South London and monthly emissions snaked out into the world, into badflats elsewhere where gowched couch tatties sprawl and the being burrowed deep into memories.. Tea is toast and sandwich spread and endless crisps as the binbags pile high in the backyard, the being blinks, it’s a twilit morning and it’s time to go to bed.
Last delivered 3 years ago
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Davide disanto is an amazing Italian producer born in bari, after multiple releases on excellent labels such as Let's play house, Politics of dancing or even Theory of swing, he delivers us a fabulous 12 inch which borrows as much from the heyday of the purest New-York City 90s deep house as well as the purest techno made in detroit. The 1st track from this EP seems to have come straight from an imaginary collaboration between Boo williams & Ron trent, the violence of the rhythm is counterbalanced by some airy & ultra deep pads, the aptly named Atmosfear. A banger as we rarely hear today. C'Mon, Let Me See on A2 sounds like a modern take on the awesome Jerzzey boy. On the B side, Da Love Feeling (Main Mix) & le (4am Underground Dub) revisits the 90s once again for our greatest pleasure, particularly the latter seems to have come straight out of a lost mix of the great danny tenaglia. And to end this ep in style, davide allows himself the luxury of summoning the spirit of MBG and all the best Italian deep house from the early 90s on the superb Lungomare (Ambient Reprise). ESSENTIAL ITEM !
SKYLAX RECORDS 4 EVER
Last delivered 23 months ago
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Deep spiritual jazz recorded in Germany, performed by Jamaican born saxophone player Fitz Gore and his international group The Talismen, featuring a.o. bassist Gérard Ebbo from Morocco and drummer Philippe Zobda-Quitman from Martinique. This is the first reissue of their second album, released in 1976 by the small private label GorBra from Bonn, including "Delilah" and "Requiem For Julian Cannonball Adderley". The rare LP comes in a newly mastered version with original cover design and sleeve notes. Fitz Gore's music is full of tremendous tension and movement between deep seriousness, inwardness and humility; it affects your life, it liberates and heals.
Original sleeve notes from 1976:
"Soundmagnificat" is the successor to "Soundnitia" (GorBra Records F 665 532), the first release from the Talismen, an international group with Jamaican Tenor saxophonist Fitz Gore (born1935) as founder, spiritual and musical leader, main soloist. "Soundnitia" contained concert performances of June, 1975, including compositions by John Coltrane, Horace Silver and one by Gérard "Prof. Dr. Splüm" Ebbo, bassist of the Talismen.
This second offering from the Talismen is more varied. It has four tracks recorded at four different occasions. It presents Fitz Gore as a singer, a composer, as well as, a tenor saxophonist. The opener, Requiem for Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, is a moving tribute to a great American artist, the late alto saxophonist "Cannonball" Adderley. On this track, Hungarian drummer Janos Sudy is heard with the Talismen, for the first time. The playing by the quartet on this slow lament very adequately illustrates the mood of the composition
For the next piece, a concert performance, Gore selected a gem from the American Negro Song Tradition and he displays a mighty, masculine and soulful voice in Steal Away. An example of a modern artist using an old traditional to express his own inner feelings. Delilah is taken from another concert performance, the same concert as the music on "Soundnitia". It has extensive playing by Gore, a bass solo by Gérard Ebbo, leading into some exciting conga playing by Lamont Hampton.
The final track, A Sinner Kissed An Angel, was recorded by another tenor player, Wardell Gray, in 1950, but this version is all Gore's. After the piano introduction, Gore delivers the melody with authority and with an expressive use especially of the high register of his instrument. In his improvisation, Gore's playing becomes more dissonant. Some of his playing here causes me to think of the way the late Albert Ayler sounded on his first recordings done in Sweden, in the beginning of the 60s. No drums here, but nice accompaniment and solo work of Jochen Paul on vibes.
I met Fitz Gore in Copenhagen in the fall of 1975. We were both listening to the trumpet playing of Harry "Sweets" Edison at the now defunct Café Montmartre. Prior to that time, I did not know Gore and his music, but listening to his playing on this album and the earlier one, has once more widened my musical horizon. His music has struck some chords within me. "Music is communication", John Coltrane once said. I feel sure that as you listen to the music of Fitz Gore and his Talismen, you will get the message.
In these notes, I have mentioned a couple of jazz artists and another one ought to be named primarily, because he has meant a lot to Gore: Sonny Rollins. The two met in Paris in 1966. Gore says of Rollins: "He openend my eyes ...big man … phenomenon … my man". As Sonny Rollins's artistry, the music of Fitz Gore holds many aspects, some being aggressive and even hysterical, others being those of beauty and peace. As life itself … (Roland Baggenaes, June 1976)
The music of Fitz Gore, rooted in the blues, is full of tremendous tension and movement between deep seriousness, inwardness, humility and humor, hardness and tenderness; it affects your life, it liberates and heals - a hopeful, a truly groundbreaking, a timeless, a new music - Newsic!
(Gisela Braasch, 1976)
In memory of Fitz Gore.
Mastered 2020 by Roskow Kretschmann at Audiomoto,
kindly supported by Tom Sky. Vinyl cut at SST.
Producer for reissue: Ekkehart Fleischhammer,
reproduction of original cover design by Gisela Gore:
Patrick Haase aka rab.bit.
Last delivered 5 years ago
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Newly launched Dutch electro label LDI Records follows up their first release from T/Error with a deep and dark four track EP by French producer Franck Kartell. In a homage to masterful science fiction writer Philip K Dick - Side A of Electric Sheep EP evokes scenes from future mechanized worlds. Electric Sheep kicks the 12" off with a melancholic and contemplative moment followed by a steel cold and brooding venture in Voigt-Kampff. On the B side of this release, there is a live mix of Kartell's track Electro Music, a futuristic electro work out with kicks for the dancefloor. The EP completes with Victoria - an ode to the electronic musician Victoria Lukas who passed away in 2020 - with a beautifully poised and contemplative track steeped in synths. Franck Kartell is a French producer who has releases on Between Places, Transient Force, Ukonx Recordings, New Flesh, Bass Agenda and others. Since 2005 he has been producing well thought-out Electro music filled with dark atmospheres and driving rhythms. Specializing in moody, atmospheric electro, LDI Records (Lloyd's Dark Imperium) are an essential label to watch. Distributed worldwide by Clone Distribution, while the Dutch label's main focus is on vinyl releases, available in selected record shops across the globe, releases will also be available digitally.
Last delivered 3 years ago
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Gold Marbled Vinyl
Homoagent’s 3rd EP ‘European Extreme’ operates on the fringes of industrial techno and rhythmic noise. Once again combining the exquisite sound design of Triames and the vintage drum machine worship of Antoni Maiovvi, European Extreme is a four track trip through the dungeons of your mind. Relentless and naked, complex and pure, perfect for dance floors and private films alike.
c b1 2L8[4Shuggoth]
Last delivered 5 years ago
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Be With is delighted to present Jorge López Ruiz’s El Grito (Suite Para Orquesta De Jazz), eternal Argentinian magic released on CBS in 1967 that must be one of the most sought-after South American jazz LPs.
Living in Buenos Aires in the 60s, driven by creative impulse and rage Jorge López Ruiz used music as his platform to protest the Argentine military dictatorship: “I could never stand dictatorships, to be told how you have to think, what you have to do. Nor did I endure discrimination”.
A young López Ruiz had appeared on a television panel alongside writer, politician and philosopher Arturo Jauretche, criticising the Onganía dictatorship. Jauretche told López Ruiz “Now say it with music”. This was the deep inhale that lead to El Grito, literally “The Scream”. As López Ruiz later explained “Jauretche urged me that my protests should not remain in words and acquire the consistency of a work… but it was not so much what he told me but how he told me, what prompted me to make the work take shape, first in a live concert and then in a recording”.
As the police and military began resorting to kidnapping, torture and summary executions to quiet dissent, with depressing inevitability the artist community and their work were a particular target of the increasingly brutal regime. El Grito was banned not long after it was released and the majority of original copies were unceremoniously destroyed.
The work of a genius artist living under an opressive dictatorship, erased by the government of the time, this is buried treasure in every sense and it’s been a rare record for over 50 years. But it isn’t just being hard to find that has pushed up the prices of those few original copies that survived, this is a foundational record in the development of jazz in South America.
El Grito (Suite Para Orquesta De Jazz) is a showcase for Jorge López Ruiz’s skills as a composer and arranger as he leads a virtuoso orchestra of the likes of Mario Cosentino (alto sax), Baby López Furst (piano), Pichi Mazzei (drums), Gustavo Bergalli (trumpet), Oscar López Ruiz (guitar), Arturo Schneider (flute) and Jorge López Ruiz himself plays double bass on the fourth and fifth movements.
As the album’s sub-title explains, The album is a Jazz orchestra concept suite. Five movements, to be heard as a whole, that end where they begin.
“When I wrote it there was no history of a cyclical work in jazz. But I didn't notice that, I needed to express something and I did it. At that time they told me I was crazy, that such a thing was very difficult to do. But hey, I like challenges”.
Yet this is not challenging jazz. There are certainly avant garde, free jazz flourishes, but the hard bop characteristics make this a very accessible album: easy to listen to without being easy listening. López Ruiz’s love of film brings a definite cinematic feel.
The title movement opens the album in bombastic style. “El Grito” grabs you by the lapels and refuses to let go. Raw then controlled, it’s by turns stabbing then soothing, with rage weaved in and out of the elegant styles. “M.A.B. = Amor” is our favourite here. With a tense introduction and a patient build, a gentle sax sweeps in to lift everything up to meet the serene piano and soft drums. Elegantly paced, it moves back and forth between deep contemplation and a more urgent call and response between strings and horns. A near-eight-minute, slow motion marvel.
The second side eases in with the beautifully-titled “Hasta El Cielo, Sin Nubes, Con Todas Las Estrellas” (“Up To The Sky, No Clouds, With All The Stars”) a relatively brief mid-tempo piece featuring López Ruiz’s insistent bass notes high in the mix, and again blending the sublime with the emotive with its wild horns and tight rhythm section.
It’s followed by “Tendré El Mundo” (“I Will Have The World”) which also leads with hypnotic bass, but this time swifter, driven by crashing drums, rapid horn conversations and effortlessly cool piano flourishes. Rounding out the suite, “De Nuevo El Grito” (something like “The Next Scream” or “The Scream Renewed”) is a stylish closer. Whilst López Ruiz’s bass shifts the track along, the horns and piano are more restrained, yet no less stunning.
This Be With edition of El Grito sounds sensational, if we do say so ourselves. Working with audio from the original analogue tapes, the vinyl mastering chops of Simon Francis are on full show here in what he considers to be some of his best ever work for Be With. Pete Norman’s cutting skills have made sure nothing is lost. The tortured artwork has been restored here at Be With HQ as the finishing touch to helping this revered work find a rightful place in every protest art collection.
Last delivered 5 years ago
available to reorder, subject to availability
Global electronic sound specialist - Producer and DJ Oliver Williams aka "The Busy Twist" is at it again. Among his numerous projects as a producer, this double-sider, dancefloor-focused EP is one of his seldom seen, more personal works in the vein of what he does best: an uptempo, bass-heavy madness, influenced by his regular trips to Africa, Latin America and the West-Indies, packed with undeniable British club music culture and production technique. Highly infectious energy, pure sunshine, 100% good vibes. Following up on The Busy Twist previous collaborations with Congolese singer Tres. "Nanko" is another joyful, sun-soaked, highly danceable Electro-Soukous party joint, loaded with captivating guitar grooves and soulful vocals. On the flip, "Rwendo Rweupenyu (The Journey Of Life) Remix" is an outstanding take on Zimbabwean Sungura Music (one of the country's most popular genres), originally performed by street band Daniel & Gonora Sounds, led by singer-guitarist Daniel Gonora and his drummer son Isaac. Respectfully using Daniel's mind bending guitar riffs and highpitched, uplifting vocals, The Busy Twist and his collaborator delivers an inspiring and remarkably effective version of the original song. Vinyl contains exclusive extended and instrumental Dj-friendly versions of both tracks that won't be available for download anywhere.
Last delivered 5 years ago
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Sandy Grooves Vol.1 is the debut compilation release from Boogie Bodega, a newly formed label based in Bali set up by Mexican Disco wizard Sould Out. Comprising of some of the most sought-after producers within the Disco & Edits scene of the last years, Sandy Grooves vol.1 tickles all the Disco senses with something for everyone. From laid back Balearic inspired incarnation to a more uptempo dance floor heaters, this comp focuses on the full spectrum of the Disco & Funk arena.
Opening things up, “Easy Way To Groove'' could not have a better title for the music to match, it's a definite “does what it says on the tin” kind of vibe. Hotmood works his magic once again with this bass led stomper, tidy guitar licks and cinematic string section that’s sure to get butts off seats and wiggling
Stepping up next, New York’s Razor N Tape boss JKriv fires off with his atmospheric builder “Sunshine”; a slice of filtered, loopy Disco House goodness with progressive percussive elements.
On the B side, Disco Deviance Pete Herbert & Dicky Trisco compliment the more downtempo offering of this selection with a dubbed-out guitar laden trance inducing gem that is sure to spin a few heads. Following that, Igor Gonya’s “Habibidisco” holds its place as a romantic vocal Disco funk journey through Arabia with plenty of energy - another one for the dancefloor crew.
Finally, “Keep You Burning” by Clean Is Good is a mid-tempo swinger that’s sure to heat up the listeners ears. Sleek, smooth vocals, classic disco beat and undeniable funky guitar - I dare you not to groove to this one!
Last delivered 4 years ago
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TechnoAcidElectroExperimentalBeatsBass
Adiel slowly emerged from the Rome underground onto international dancefloors, from local residencies to renowned festival stages. Following a steady slew of quality releases for her own label, the Italian producer now signs with Figure to show just how far she’s gotten. Right out the gate, Adiel proves her versatility. Method is an intricate, moody stepper, harking back to early Burial with its grimey atmosphere and skeletal breakbeats, complete with ghostly vocals and a cascading synth line, which ties it all together. Showing Adiel’s love for analog drum machines, Mad builds on a dry but lively pattern, with swelling acid arps slowly creeping in until it all breaks down in a sea of squelches, only to emerge again with full force. The B-side goes deep and fast, panning percussion setting the bleak scene for a vividly arp-driven ride beneath a starry sky. Slowing things down to a half-time measure, the final composition leaves lots of room for the finely measured details such as bubbling acid, raw drums, and trippy voices to merge in one last soothing swirl of sound. With such a strong repertoire at her fingertips, Figure X27 shows Adiel as a promising producer who has found her unique voice and is sure to make her way in the years to come.
Last delivered 22 months ago
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Lux' is what we use to measure the intensity of light as we perceive it, when it's hitting or passing through a surface.
The first track, that gives the EP its name, embodies exactly that - the fluctuating, ever-changing nature of light; from fragile and fleeting to overwhelming and powerful. 'Lux' kicks off with warm synths creeping in, like rays of sunlight breaking through the clouds. Dreamy crescendos take you for a ride and build up until they melt into a comforting blanket of piano chords, accompanied by a propelling hi-hat pattern that will make you want to move. The track is hopeful, the start of a journey, with compelling break downs, industrial rhythm elements and powerful build-ups such as the one to the final section, dominated entirely by its fusion between techno-beat and dance-feel.
Next up is 'Odyssee'. An unapologetic track that picks up the pace. Kicking off boldly with harmonic tension and enticing drum sounds, it's hard not to surrender to the rich and fast-moving soundscape. Proud drums meet steel sounds and tentative piano figures, all glued together by the driving beat, determined to get to the next stop of this lifelong voyage. Striking accents, in the form of short-lived breaths or staccato bass lines take you through a labyrinth of growing gritty synths. A track that easily leads you through space and time and makes it feel like the most natural thing in the world. We're greeted with standalone bright and sparkly synth movements as 'Phoenix' rises and wraps us in warmth. Gently, like raindrops, a rhythmic pattern starts dripping in. Definition, like in many of his other works, blends rhythmical sounds that couldn't be more different into one, making them sound like they were never meant to exist unless next to each other. The track is a symbiosis of modern and classical sounds, lets us bathe in analogue warmth but always rolls along with digital precision.
'Phoenix' starts softly and ends in roaring flames: in a repetitively enchanting party, fabricated out of dark, pumping beats and gritty synths. 'Raven', the final of the four tracks and the lead single (released alongside the Jonas Ratshman remix just 1 week ago), intrigues with chants and empowerment just as much as with its determination and fragility. Falling from the highest heights, Raven lets you rediscover who you are when you hit the ground. Carried by a throbbing four-on-the-floor kick drum and covered in a synth-haze that is hard to resist, you'll float along, fall and rise with the everlasting wave-like movement of human existence.
Last delivered 3 years ago
available to reorder, subject to availability
BeatsAmbientIndustrialExperimental
Mastered By Frederic Alstadt at ängstrom Studio Brussels.
Superb Crazy insane sound from HK. An immersions in poetry and middle age first serial killer.
Experimental zone !
LTD 200 copies - Printed Sleeve
expected to be published on 17 May 2021
What NxT is back with their latest release on vinyl, introducing 2 new artists into the fold. Agus Garcia brings his swinging live jam electro-tinged sound and Nicola Brusegan some true deep house goodness. Label Head Rich NxT supplies the remix for both artists, with his first musical appearance on the label.
Last delivered 12 months ago
available to reorder, subject to availability
In his tenth year with Acid Jazz, the ever-prolific Matt Berry
has crafted a psych masterpiece. Once again proving that
his artistic progression and ambition knows no bounds.
Following the acclaim of last year’s Top 30 album
‘Phantom Birds’ (★★★★ The Times), Acid Jazz release
‘Blue Elephant’, Matt Berry’s sixth studio album with the
ground breaking label.
Recorded during the summer of 2020, ‘Blue Elephant’ is
testament to Matt’s exceptional musicianship, production
skills and songwriting prowess with every instrument
played by Matt - including guitars, bass, a variety of
keyboards and synthesizers (piano, Wurlitzer, mellotron,
Moog, Hammond, Vox and Farfisa organs) - with the
exception of drums (supplied by Craig Blundell), on
arguably his best album to date.
This music soundtracks an album that explores themes
surrounding today’s close scrutiny in all its bewildering,
objectifying and unnerving experiences. Very much a
conceptual and, therefore, continuous long-player, the
album’s infectious grooves come to the fore on standout
tracks ‘Summer Sun’, heavy-psych instrumental ‘Invisible’
and the three-part ‘Blues Inside Me’, which encompasses
a psych journey through a late ‘60s and early glam filter,
mixed with the propulsive ‘Like Stone’.
‘Blue Elephant’ is available on digipack CD, blue vinyl,
black vinyl and audio cassette.
expected to be published on 14 May 2021
- A1: The John Coltrane Quartet — Africa 16:27
- B1: Max Roach — Garvey's Ghost 7:52
- B2: Quincy Jones and his Orchestra — Hard Sock Dance 3:20
- B3: John Coltrane — Up 'Gainst the Wall 3:14
- B4: Elvin Jones/Jimmy Garrison Sextet — Just Us Blues 5:55
- C1: John Coltrane — Alabama 5:09
- C2: Charles Mingus — Better Get Hit in Yo' Soul 6:31
- C3: Shirley Scott Trio — Freedom Dance 4:50
- C4: Yusef Lateef — Sister Mamie 5:27
- D1: Archie Shepp — Malcolm, Malcolm—Semper Malcolm 4:48
- D2: Stanley Turrentine — Good Lookin' Out 5:21
- D3: Earl Hines — Black and Tan Fantasy 5:11
- D4: Oliver Nelson — The Rights of All 3:58
- E1: Pharoah Sanders — The Creator Has a Master Plan (edit) 9:08
- E2: John Coltrane & Alice Coltrane — Reverend King 11:03
- F1: The Ahmad Jamal Trio — The Awakening 6:22
- F2: Albert Ayler — Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe 8:41
- F3: Charlie Haden — We Shall Overcome 1:19
- G1: Alice Coltrane — Blue Nile 7:02
- G2: Pharoah Sanders — Astral Traveling 5:50
- G3: Archie Shepp — Blues for Brother George Jackson 3:52
- G4: Michael White — Lament (Mankind) 2:28
- H1: Dewey Redman — Imani 7:09
- H2: Marion Brown — Bismillahi 'Rrahmani 'Rrahim 6:02
- H3: John Handy — Hard Work 6:58
Orange and black. Fire and ebony. Fury and pride. Wearing its signature colors proudly and raising its exclamation point high, Impulse! Records was the go-to label for music that harnessed the searching and political stand-taking of the Sixties. Launched in 1961, Impulse grew to become an inherent part of the era’s velocity as well as its volume, pulling jazz into the age of Black Power, Afrocentricity, and Spiritual Expansion. In its balance of tradition and transition, it bridged the golden age of jazz, that brief window from the late Fifties to the Seventies when players representing every jazz era were alive and active—from Louis Armstrong to Albert Ayler, from the legends of lore to a new generation of energy players. Impulse treated all its musicians as innovators, revolutionaries even—from swing and bebop, to free and Afrofuturist. The performances on Impulse Records: Music, Message and the Moment draw their staying power from a wide embrace of styles and sounds, as well as a tight focus on a historic moment when the promise of change was in the air and the message of racial harmony was in the music. Today that music has lost none of its relevance: the promise still deferred, the message still on time.
expected to be published on 14 May 2021
AL presents the first musical collaboration between Hamburg based Asmus Tietchens and Japanese artist Miki Yui, operating out of Düsseldorf for almost 20 years now. Highly respected and hugely influential artist Asmus Tietchens first made his mark on the electronic music scene in the late 1970s, whereas Miki Yui debuted her sonic settings in1999.
Their first joint album NEUES BOOT envelops the listener with a poetic sound sensibility and a conceptual clarity which was processed and passed back and forth between their individual studios in Hamburg and Düsseldorf.
Asmus Tietchens: After Stefan Schneider suggested to release a Yui-Tietchens album on his TAL imprint Miki and I quickly developed some ideas towards our eventual collaboration. We agreed upon an ongoing mutual exchange of material. We have both been very familiar with each other's music for a long time and we found our individual approach towards sound design to be uniquely compatible. We do not use our electronic tools in order to merely achieve the maximum of technical possibilities, but to illustrate aesthetic necessities. This entails a deliberate reduction and refined perception of the sonic characteristics of the material. Only this approach enabled us to fully realise the complete spectrum of the sounds and noises we were working with in order to construct this New Boat. Each and everyone of my treatments is e x c l u s i v e l y based on a track supplied by Miki. I added no new sound sources. Naturally the spatial and temporal dimensions of the source material were thus altered. These transformations are exactly what makes our collaboration special and unique. Very early on we had agreed on New Boat as a working title and a guiding light . Of course in the beginning we had no idea where this New Boat might take us. Now we do know. After several months of ship-building the boat has now set sails for new sonic horizons. Ahoi!
Miki Yui: The title of the album as well as the individual tracks have been inspired by conversations with Asmus. When we had a chat after one of his concerts, he told me about Kōdō, the Art or the Way of the Scent. It is a 8th century Japanese incense ceremony. Very frequently the names of Japanese incense sticks are derived from natural themes, e.g. Bairin is the plum grove, the scent of the first blossom heralding the end of winter. This poetry, the ephemeral nature of the world reminded me of Kigo, words from a Haiku (a form of Japanese poetry), which reference a particular season or a natural phenomenon. So I chose the names of the individual pieces from Kigo as if The Boat was exploring nature whilst sailing through the seasons. Only in retrospect I realised that the titles combined create this poem:
Early spring a hazy view in the night (Oboro)
Plum groves (Bairin)
Over a Dayfly (Kagerou)
A Milkyway (Amanogawa)
Dawn (Akatsuki)
Art of fragrance (Kōdō)
On fragile thin ice (Usurai)
expected to be published on 14 May 2021
In his tenth year with Acid Jazz, the ever-prolific Matt Berry
has crafted a psych masterpiece. Once again proving that
his artistic progression and ambition knows no bounds.
Following the acclaim of last year’s Top 30 album
‘Phantom Birds’ (★★★★ The Times), Acid Jazz release
‘Blue Elephant’, Matt Berry’s sixth studio album with the
ground breaking label.
Recorded during the summer of 2020, ‘Blue Elephant’ is
testament to Matt’s exceptional musicianship, production
skills and songwriting prowess with every instrument
played by Matt - including guitars, bass, a variety of
keyboards and synthesizers (piano, Wurlitzer, mellotron,
Moog, Hammond, Vox and Farfisa organs) - with the
exception of drums (supplied by Craig Blundell), on
arguably his best album to date.
This music soundtracks an album that explores themes
surrounding today’s close scrutiny in all its bewildering,
objectifying and unnerving experiences. Very much a
conceptual and, therefore, continuous long-player, the
album’s infectious grooves come to the fore on standout
tracks ‘Summer Sun’, heavy-psych instrumental ‘Invisible’
and the three-part ‘Blues Inside Me’, which encompasses
a psych journey through a late ‘60s and early glam filter,
mixed with the propulsive ‘Like Stone’.
‘Blue Elephant’ is available on digipack CD, blue vinyl,
black vinyl and audio cassette.
expected to be published on 14 May 2021
A reissue of the 2016 demo tape by New Orleans band
Special Interest, who combine elements of no wave,
glam and industrial music. First time vinyl pressing with
bonus track, new sleeve designed by Studio Tape Echo
and 8 page risographed zine insert.
Four of the tracks here are raw early versions of songs
that would appear in slightly more refined form on their
debut album, 2018’s ‘Spiralling’. The other four pieces
are unique to this release, including a cover version of
Italian new wave band Chrisma, raging opener
‘Disease’, the over-saturated shoegaze-punk of ‘ATC’
and comedown lament ‘I’ll Never Do Ketamine Again’.
The band’s second album ‘The Passion Of’ (2020) was
widely acclaimed and appeared in many album of the
year lists. It was recently followed by a companion
album of remixes on Boy Harsher’s Nude Club label,
with all profits going to NOLA charity House Of Tulip.
“A blistering vision of punk as possibility.” - Pitchfork
“Members Alli Logout (vocals), Ruth Mascelli (synth and
drum machine), Maria Elena (guitar), and Nathan
Cassiani (bass), together manage to make their
instruments and vocals sound like a fight for our
existence.” - The Quietus
Recorded and mastered by Jasper Denhartigh at Bird
Island Recording March-May 2016. Originally selfreleased on cassette in 2016. Cut by Beau Thomas at
Ten Eight Seven. All songs by Special Interest except
‘Black Silk Stalking’ written by Chrisma.
Black vinyl in 3mm spine reverse board sleeve with 8-
page risographed zine, digital download card and
sticker.
expected to be published on 14 May 2021
Juan Wauters’ fifth solo album, Real Life Situations, is a multifaceted ode to sur- rendering control and taking life as it comes. References to radio abound on its 21 tracks, and with good reason - the album spans genres, narrators, languages, and perspectives with the ease of spinning a rotary knob. Mining older songs, phone notes, new material, and snippets from TV and YouTube, Wauters has crafted an aural document of the year through his eyes.
Despite the circumstances of its creation, Real Life Situations is not a quarantine record. In many ways it’s the opposite of one, taking togetherness as both its subject and its primary medium. Pre-lockdown collaborations with Mac DeMar- co, Peter Sagar (AKA Homeshake), Nick Hakim, Cola Boyy, El David Aguilar, and more playfully offset Wauters’ more pensive solo tracks, and even in its sparest moments the album pulses with life. This is due in part to an impressive array of interludes and samples, most of which are field recordings that Wauters collects on his phone, ranging from the innocuous (“A Peter Pan Donuts Conversation”) to the intense (“Crack Dabbling”).
Under his care, these small moments become coordinates for the peaks and valleys of human experience, coloring the album with Wauters’ unique shade of realism. “Some people think I’m an optimist”, he explains, “but I’m not. I’m always seeing all sides of things.”
Of course, Wauters himself never disappears in the boisterous crowd - he lends his chameleonic songwriting to experiments in hip-hop (“Unity”), lo-fi R&B (“Mon- soon”), and deft indie folk (“Lion Dome”). Themes of loneliness, personal growth, patience, and companionship arise again and again; we can feel Wauters navi- gating a rapidly-changing world in real time. Jubilant choruses and spoken word poetry bleed into city noises and overheard conversations. Real freedom, the album suggests, comes not from gaining control, but from accepting its artifice. Like the programming on a radio station, there’s something here for everyone. All you have to do is listen.
expected to be published on 14 May 2021
This reissue of Cannonball Adderley’s classic 1958 Bluenote album ‘Somethin’ Else’ features Adderley on alto sax, Miles Davis on trumpet, Hank Jones on piano, Sam Jones on bass and Art Blakey on drums.
The bonus Riverside album, ‘Portrait of Cannonball’, recorded in 1958 includes Cannonball Adderley, alto sax; Blue Mitchell, trumpet; Bill Evans, piano; Sam Jones, bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums. The 20-page booklet contains complete information with specially prepared liner notes by Penguin Guide to Jazz’s writer Brian Morton and by France’s prestigious Jazz Magazine. “ ‘Autumn Leaves’ and ‘Love for Sale’ will never mean the same after listening to this album, this masterpiece of the 1950’s which hasn’t aged at all.” Jazz Magazine
expected to be published on 14 May 2021
Pioneers of the British music scene, ‘Blackest Blue’ will be the band's 10th studio album in a discography that spans three decades. 2020 saw Morcheeba unable to tour or perform live, which gave Skye Edwards & Ross Godfrey “time to write songs and really get to hone them,” as Godfrey puts it. “There weren’t so many pressures so we could really take our time getting the songs right,” adds Edwards.
The result of this time is a refined 10 track album that fuses previous incarnations and sound of the band - such as downbeat, chill, electro-pop & soul - into one cohesive record that dives deep into the soul of the band’s genre-mashing musical heritage. As usual, the band didn’t approach the album with any pre-conceptions, and instead created an organic journey that represents everything great about Morcheeba.
Edwards’ lyrics are primarily focused on positivity and overcoming personal adversity that lies within. ‘Sounds Of Blue’, is a stunning cut that puts Skye Edward's sultry vocals to the forefront, floating high above an ethereal backdrop.
The album includes features with Duke Garwood (known for his work with Mark Lanegan, amongst others) and Brad Barr (The Slip, The Barr Brothers). “
Morcheeba’s global reach is impressive, taking them to every corner of the world . Their signature chilled electronic/organic sound has been border-hopping ever since the London-based band emerged as a household name. The past year has been one of introspection for the duo, as they take stock of their renewed global fan base and look forward to being able to play the new album live in the not too distant future. “This was the first time since I was a teenager that I’d spent a year off the road and I enjoyed the tranquility, although I missed playing my guitar in far off lands,” says Godfrey.
expected to be published on 14 May 2021
Repress!
After a breakthrough 2020 which saw FD cement himself as one of the go-to artists for sophisticated bassline science, the Londoner now returns, outdoing himself with A Vision Of Hope. The veteran Drum & Bass technician once again shows of his range, expertly weaving together Bristol inspired basslines, Jungle breakbeats and R&B melodies. This is music as therapy for both the listener and its creator, this is A Vision Of Hope.
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TechnoExperimentalElectroBeatsAmbient
Throughout his vast career, the New York based Australian composer JG Thirlwell has adopted many masks as a means of infiltrating and subsequently subverting a wide range of pop cultural forms. His work under the Foetus moniker has taken on everything from big band to opera to noise-rock. Steroid Maximus embraced exotica and the world of soundtracks, while his Manorexia project continued his quest to the outer limits of contemporary composition and musique concrete. Thirlwell has also carved out a significant output in the field of the soundtrack via the large body of work created for the animated television shows Archer and The Venture Bros. In addition he has been commissioned to create compositions by such notables as Kronos Quartet, Bang On A Can, Alarm Will Sound, String Orchestra of Brooklyn and many others.
Now we have ‘Omniverse’, the second release under the moniker Xordox. Xordox is a synthesizer-based project, and on this evocative album we see the project branch into many new avenues. The science fiction element brushes up against crime noir, even veering into areas that could well fit in the video game soundtrack genre. With an audacious attitude and an arsenal of machines Thirlwell serves up a selection of thrilling retro-future mind capsules. This is music made from a life saturated in culture, both underground and mainstream, high and low. Tense sequencing and noir tinged keyboard lines invoke a powerful visual image of films and memory, of screens and speakers, of sound and space, all entering the cosmos and the subsequent galactic race. Thirlwell’s decades long exploration of sampling and sequencing, composing and ingesting a daunting amount of audio and visual artworks speaks volumes for the bold assimilations exposed here. ‘Between Dimensions’ lays out a tense theme which starts off like a score to a a crime thriller before morphing into a simulacra of Kraftwerk scoring a video game. The living ghosts of Giorgio Moroder and John Carpenter haunt ‘Oil Slick’ as it permeates wormholes, updating lifeforms with its stealth sequencing and tense momentum.
‘Omniverse' is a synthesised soundtrack journey, one which embraces past forms whilst reshaping them for the new unknown. ‘Omniverse' is a thrilling liquid ride through fear and hope, and like all the best of Thirlwell’s output, is simply one hell of an enjoyable journey to take.
expected to be published on 14 May 2021
‘Voyager’, the seventh album from Current Joys, rattles with the
live-wire feeling that’s thrummed through all of Rattigan’s previous
releases: quavering, scream-itself-hoarse vocals and selfinterrogation via song. But here, that bristling, sentimental rock ‘n’
roll cacophony is overlaid with a soundtrack orchestra guiding it
along. It’s an odyssey, a grand-sounding journey of self-discovery
spread across sixteen tracks.
Part ekphrasis, part personal, it’s Rattigan learning new ways to
understand his own feelings and identity while inspired by the
highly-stylized, striking storytelling of filmmakers like Alfred
Hitchcock, Terrence Malick, Agnès Varda and Andrei Tarkovsky.
‘Voyager’ is unlike anything Current Joys has released before.
On his new album, Rattigan eschews lo-fi home recordings for a
full band and recording sessions at Stinson Beach Studios. As a
vocalist/drummer in his other band Surf Curse, Rattigan had finally
opened up to the possibility of working in a professional studio.
It’s all held together by the fervour of Rattigan’s creative process.
He believes in the premonitory power of music and he latches onto
the song ideas that strike him in the moment, propelled by an
abstract existentialism or burst of feeling more than anything else.
It imbues ‘Voyager’ with an intensity and intimacy - with the sense
that you’re getting to hear, all at once, the disparate parts that
make a project - or person - into a sprawling, cinematic whole.
Similar to Tame Impala or Mac Demarco in their early days,
Current Joys is singular and with a fanbase that extends far
outside of traditional indie fans. The band managed to establish an
indie and mainstream audience while flying under the radar of
DSPs and nearly all other industry levers. They are one of the first
indie bands to have their place fully created and cemented by
TikTok.
Double LP packaged in a gatefold sleeve
expected to be published on 14 May 2021
- Two Moons (Osaka 1995)
- Replicant
- Porcelain Hands
- Doesn’t Want/ Doesn’t
- Stop (feat. Channy
- Leaneagh)
- Particle Of
- 陽の光 (Hi no Hikari)
- Still/ On Hold (feat
- Ambrose Akinmusire
- Immanuel Wilkins)
- Polaroid (feat. Channy
- Leaneagh)
- Tower of the Sun
- Expo 70’ (feat. William
- Brittelle)
- PoE (feat. Andy Akiho
- Immanuel Wilkins)
- Water Drop (Mizu no
- Shizuku)
- Dioscuri
Osaka-born and New York-based pianist Erika Dohi is a multi-faceted
artist with an eclectic musical background. From highly polished
raditional classical to bold improvisation, she is a dynamic performer
whose timeless style and unidiomatic technique sets her apart in
contemporary NYC avant-garde circles.
Dohi’s vast repertory is impressive but what makes her truly such a
barrier-defying artist is what lies ahead. ‘I, Castorpollux’, Dohi’s debut
solo album, is a profound personal excavation set to a gripping
andscape of wild, genre-fluid composition, a virtuosic but emotionally
generous convergence of the technical and the spiritual. With
understated piano and keyboards at its centre, ‘I, Castorpollux’ is
equal parts hazy nostalgia, science-fiction soundtrack and
electroacoustic experimentation.
The project features contributions from Channy Leaneagh (Polica),
Andy Akiho and Immanuel Wilkins, among others, and is produced by
William Brittelle.
The central theme to the album is the ‘split-self’ and variable
perceptions of time that Dohi has faced at formative moments in her
ife. She experienced the 1995 Kobe earthquake at age 7. Hiding
under a table during the worst of it, she later emerged to find the
world around her crumbled. In her immediate vicinity, a fixture of her
childhood remained standing. The Tower of the Sun, a type of three
aced time machine itself from Expo 70, designed by artist Taro
Okamoto, is a trail-marker on Erika’s journey, a stand-in sigil to
unlock the mysterious sounds of her work, with 70s synths and retro
sci-fi aesthetics permeating the album’s narratives.
Much of the album was written while living in Texas where the split
between her Asian self and the idea of being an American
necessitated a near mountain of self-discovery to reconcile how she
elt and who she was within the social backdrop of a strongly
conservative environment. It is no wonder that the character of the
Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux from Greek and Roman mythology
esonate so deeply with her, or Haruki Murakami’s Two Moons and
heir strange light.
From her contributions to various projects and her participation in the
Artist in Residency collaborations, Erika has become a staple of the
37d03d community.
expected to be published on 14 May 2021
Buzzing new Glasgow five-piece VLURE release their hotly anticipated
debut 7” ‘Shattered Faith’ via London-based label Permanent Creeps
Records.
Bursting onto the scene at the dawn of 2020, VLURE introduced
themselves to the world with a live audio/visual performance of their
phenomenal track ‘Desire’, captured in beautiful cinematography from
the loading bay of their Glasgow studio space. Blurring the lines between
live electronics, jarring guitars and the performance sensibilities of their
post-punk contemporaries, the video offered a keyhole view into their
captivating live shows.
Combining synth laden hooks, heavy club influenced rhythms and
emotionally confronting lyrics, VLURE have already seen support from
the likes of So Young and Wax Music praising their life affirming, intense
and enigmatic live performances.
Recorded between the halls of a deconsecrated church in the heart of
the Scottish Borders, the self-produced ‘Shattered Faith’ is an indulgent,
genre bending coming of age anthem influenced by the rhythms,
repetitions and euphoric hooks of Glasgow’s thriving afterparty and club
scene with an angular post-punk foundation. Speaking on the track the
band explain: “We wanted to create something that felt at home on the
dancefloors that we all found ourselves on growing up, yet still equally at
home in the sweat-filled venues that the band was conceived in. At its
crux, ‘Shattered Faith’ is about self-empowerment. It’s the
disillusionment with where you are and what you’ve been given. It’s lying
on your kitchen floor at 3am realising who you truly are and finding
power in that - it’s a new lease of life. We believe that, if they want to find
it, there is something for everyone in this song.”
“There is nothing comparable - this is a new era of musically skeletal
human showmanship” - So Young Magazine
“Urgent, destructive and completely absorbing. Brutalist in form -
unyielding, massive-sounding, distinctive - their atmospheric, yearning
mood is overflowing with inclination and exposed tenderness -
vulnerable and exasperated. They pound the door down with every inch
of blood, sweat and tears in their vessels” - Wax Music
“This is post-punk, but not as you might familiarly expect” - Little Indie
Blogs
“One of Scotland’s most exciting new bands” - Tenement TV
expected to be published on 14 May 2021
After a year of sadness comes an album fit to resist it. Detritus, the third solo LP by violinist/composer Sarah Neufeld, confronts anguish with beauty, turmoil with grace, gliding through the present like a dancer mid-motion, reaching through space 'til she's caught. Detritus originated with a collaboration: in 2015, Neufeld was invited to appear on stage with the legendary dancer/choreographer Peggy Baker. Baker had prepared a solo piece based on work from Neufeld's second album, The Ridge, to which Neufeld added an original lyrical prelude. The live result was an incendiary duet, almost a sort of face-off, which left each artist unsated. They agreed to reunite for a more extended collaboration - a full-length show with Baker's company, where Neufeld would write to (and perform music alongside) Baker's choreography. It was a fertile partnership, uniting the two women's intense, curious, ferocious sensibilities across an age difference of 29 years. Baker had conceived the show around the title of Neufeld's prelude, "Who We Are In The Dark," exploring themes of loss, betrayal and the emptiness of space; Neufeld was herself in crisis mode, reacting to a specific, earthbound kind of grief (including the end of a relationship). Making work together, they drew on these raw feelings - insistent, urgent darkness but also something that was, for Neufeld at least, much more unexpected: a romantic, tender-hearted love, inspired by the movements of the dancers before her. The work premiered in February 2019. Even before Neufeld and Peggy Baker Dance Projects set off on tour, she had the intuition that this music might take another form: as a distilled set of songs, refined and developed beyond the versions performed on stage. Starting that summer, she began arranging this lush and soloistic material - work that eventually became Detritus - and performed some of these experiments at her own solo gigs. Neufeld worked throughout the process with her Arcade Fire bandmate Jeremy Gara, whose drums, synths and ambient electronics co-anchored the Peggy Baker shows and helped shape the reimagined album versions. She would go on to add foot-pedal bass synth, wordless vocals and swells of French horn courtesy of Bell Orchestre compatriot Pietro, bringing in woodwind wizard Stuart Bogie as a one-man flute ensemble, layering clusters of chords atop Neufeld's luminous compositions.
expected to be published on 14 May 2021
Tape
The arcane enigma from the caucasian mountains that is Natalie Beridze, treats us with a reflective concept album, her 9th solo album, focussing on buried chapters in her own work history.
“I sought after material, piled up on my old hard drives; - various sound debris, recorded and produced in the past. I recycled them beyond recognition and fudged them together into new samples to compose this album.
Mapping Debris is a term used during an investigation of a plane crash.
Special agency collects millions of infinite small pieces of shattered metal and wiring from the crash site. They later try to reconstruct an original fuselage of the plane from assembled debris, in order to recreate its story and reveal the reason that lead up to the catastrophe.
Mapping Debris is a manifestation of dematerialization in physical domain and time: shedding skin turning into dust, decaying objects, corrosion, atrophy, rot, nonsense and factual forgetfulness, which mirrors chilling fear of perishing, losing integrity, memory of events, images, smells and sensation of touch of those, who have already perished in their earthly archetype.
Yet in the aftermath of realization, one no longer dwells in colossal dead weight of inevitability of the end. The pattern perishing has a golden thread on one end - the one that makes us dwell in ceaseless possibility of rebirth, translation and remembrance.
This album is a continuation of series of works I have dedicated to my parents lives, as well as their death...”
It is an intricate poetic net one enters while surrendering to Natalies music. The spiky grit and her heartwarming, harmonic swashes that touch you like a hug, belong inseparably together and spread that multilayerd consolation, manifesting the force of music in its most glistening form. (Thomas Fehlmann/ Natalie Beridze)
expected to be published on 14 May 2021
Montener The Menace ft. Masta Ace / Rah Digga / Wordsworth / Fatlip / El Da Sensei / Guilty Simpson /
High Noon’ / ‘The Struggle’ 7"
Certain Sound Records and Montener the Menace are proud to finally release the first single from his highly anticipated second album "Anyone Home?"
Montener has recruited Wounded Buffalo Beats on production duties who’s looped a fantastically pitched vocal-sample over some hard, head nodding drums to set the scene for the wonderfully enlisted, all-star line-up to go berserk over.
The world-renowned guests include - Wordsworth, Rah Digga, Masta Ace & Fatlip as "High Noon" sees the gang of notorious outlaws trading smoking hot verses, swaggering into your local saloon, oozing with finesse as six-shooters still smolder in their holsters and their Stetsons pulled low.
This is one of the best cross-Atlantic collaborations Hip Hop has seen to date and is a fantastic choice for the initial lead single from the upcoming album.
"High Noon" is out April 2nd via Certain Sound Records and is accompanied by a fantastic Western influenced, animated video by the super-talented animator - Taylor Bowen which can be found below:
The Struggle - the 2nd single taken from his highly anticipated album -
Anyone Home?
Once again Montener enlists a heavy ensemble of guests featuring
Stones Throw alumni, Guilty Simpson, UKHH veteran, Micall Parknsun
& Artifacts emcee, El Da Sensei.
The Struggle sees the four emcees
perform their vocal acrobatics in unrivalled style as their rhymes
reverberate over a smooth, neck-snapping slab of vintage Boom Bap -
eerily reminiscent of the rich, classic sound of the Mid-90’s. JL Beats has
created a timeless beat here with DJ JabbaThaKut providing the world-
class cuts to round the track off in superb style.
“Its gonna make a great impact on the scene, just what we need, when we need it most” - Skinnyman
expected to be published on 14 May 2021
* This series of remixes, stretching all the way back to 1993, continues to astound with its breadth of talent and epic scope, never repeating a remixer and always bringing new talent to the fore. In this case, the headline remix comes courtesy of the legendary NRG, one of the longest running acts in the scene. And on the very same vinyl, we have newcomer Simon Holmes remixing KFs original Future Primitive. Throw in a Dj Revive and a Sunny & Deck Hussy remix, and you have an EP for the ages….
Club / DJ Support
Billy Bunter, the Fat Controller, Juy Cunningham, Glowkid, Slipmatt, Dj Jedi, Dj Luna-C, Dj Brisk, Acen, Jimni Cricket, Bustin, Sc@r, Doughboy, Saiyan, Dave Skywalker, Ponder and many others
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- A1: Esther Phillips – That’s All Right With Me
- A2: Al Green – I Wish You Were Here
- A3: Eddie Kendricks – Intimate Friends
- A4: Sylvia – Sweet Stuff
- A5: Betty Wright – Girls Can’t Do What The Guys Do
- A6: The Ambassadors – Ain’t Got The Love Of One Girl (On My Mind)
- B1: The Dynamics – Get Myself High
- B2: Carolyn Sullivan – Dead ! / B3. Brenton Wood – Trouble
- B4: The Floaters – Float On / B5. Faze-O – Riding High
- C1: Ernie Hines – Our Generation
- C2: Jerry Butler – I’m Your Mechanical Man
- C3: J.J. Johnson – Keep On Movin’ (Vocals by Martha Reeves & The Sweet Things)
- C4: Monk Higgins & Alex Brown – A Good Man Is Gone (Vocals by Barbara Mason)
- C5: The East St. Louis Gospelettes – Have Mercy On Me
- D1: Jean Plum – Here I Go Again
- D2: The Staple Singers – Let’s Do It Again
- D3: The Sylvers – Only One Can Win
- D4: Della Humphrey – Don’t Make The Good Girls Go Bad
- D5: Freda Payne – I Get High (On Your Memory)
- D6: Carla Thomas – What The World Needs Now
Duke Ellington once said that there are 2 kinds of music: the good one and the bad one. With the compilation series “Shaolin Soul” we are always certain to be on the right side of the line since its 1st episode released in 1998 and which compiled two dozens of tracks sampled by RZA and the Wu-Tang Clan. Following a second episode in 2001 and a third one in 2014, the famous curator Uncle O is back to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Shaolin Soul series with a fourth episode compiling 22 tracks among the rarest and finest treats of soul music, because “everybody’s talking about the good ol’ days !”.
Last delivered 2 years ago
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Olafur Arnalds' highly anticipated second full-length album '...and they have escaped the weight of darkness', continues his mission to lure an indie-generation of pop and rock fans into an emotive world of beguiling electronic chamber music and delicate classical arrangements. The sense of an organic crossover recording is reinforced by the involvement of co-producer Bar?i J?hannsson of eccentric pop/rock/electronica-formation Bang Gang. Bar?i has successfully coloured the brittle minimalism of previous releases through the addition of an array of new instruments.
Those expecting a mere continuation of the minimal melancholia of his previous albums are therefore in for a surprise, as the record may be the most uplifting and richly orchestrated work of his career: "The album has a very clear theme", Arnalds relates, "which is that there is always light after darkness. To me, it has a more positive note than my previous works." When ?lafur saw how the opening scene of a Hungarian indie film metaphorically described a solar eclipse, he instantly connected it to the concept, naming the album after a key line of the film's introductory monologue. Staying true to this positive note, '...and they have escaped the weight of darkness' will herald another intense year for ?lafur Arnalds, with the album being accompanied by a world tour, starting in China in March 2010.
Born in the suburban Icelandic town of Mosfellsb?r, a few kilometres outside of Reykjav?k, the 23-year old composer has always enjoyed pushing boundaries with both his studio work and his live-shows. His new opus is set to again challenge his fan base, which is still growing rapidly. Over the past eighteen months Arnalds has advanced from a former support-act for Sigur R?s to an internationally respected artists in his own right. He was privileged to be invited to write the 'Dyad 1909' score for award-winning choreographer Wayne McGregor, aired on BBC Four and on ITV1's South Bank Show. 'Found Songs', a collection of pieces each written, recorded and released in a single day via the Erased Tapes label website, as well as the video for 'Lj?si?' have since managed to generate half a million downloads and video views.
In many ways, the new record is clearly inspired and informed by these events. Several of the pieces were, in fact, written on and off throughout his tour and benefit directly from the intensity of the live situation and the emotional roller-coaster-ride of life on the road: "The first half of 'Gleypa okkur' was written in a sound check in Munich, for example", Arnalds relates, "while the second part was scored in Braunschweig, Germany." On the other hand it is the result of meticulous studio work, of refining compositions in close co operation with compatriot Bar?i Johannsson, known for his eccentric personality and unique electro-acoustic sound: "I definitely wanted to do something a bit different this time, something more. Working with a producer was a part of that." The enthusiasm translates to arrangements displaying a new sense of sonic diversity.
?lafur Arnalds has created an even more open and spacious sound and taken his distinct style to a new level. Compared to his previous works, '...and they have escaped the weight of darkness' makes use of diverse instrumentation ? drums, guitars, voice, Rhodes, a selection of subtle synthesisers, alongside Arnalds' trademark piano as well as Tony Levin on bass. Traditional terminologies become void on his latest offering, which blends contrasting elements into an original, entirely organic new language and a sensitive ballet of the mind.
Arnalds fusion of 21st century electronics and classical vocabulary thereby continues to decisively unwrap the sealed-off world of classical music.
Last delivered 5 years ago
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From the rampaging start of the EP, "Eternal Remorse", not a single note, guttural vocal, or fierce drum hit is out of place. The emerging greek artist Boris Barksdale, portraits the overall feeling of militaristic order encompasses music and vocal samples. The musical equivalent of that image, industrial society's restless march to oblivion rendered as an infinite dance track, as aggressively vibrant as it is alienated.
Last delivered 5 years ago
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Mother Freedom Band’s Cutting The Chord is a funky modern soul classic. It’s both a criminally under-appreciated album and a hard-to-find record so we’re delighted to be giving this sweet disco-funk groover the reissue treatment it deserves.
Produced by the great Al Goodman from The Moments and originally released in 1977, Cutting The Chord seems to be one of the lesser known releases on the curious, and often great “All Platinum” label. Other than a 7" of a couple of these tracks, the only thing that the band seem to have released is this album, and what an album it is. Unbeatable soul-funk of the highest quality.
The album bursts open with “Love Will Stay In Your Corner”. It’s a soulful dancer that reliably slays any funk set you care to drop it in. It’s followed by the lithe disco funk “Flick Of The Wrist” that’s all bubbling baselines and elegant horns. The groovy, horn-enhanced sweet soul of “Gotta Get It Back” is equal parts heartbreaker/hip-shaker and the acidic organs on “Mr Brother” are an experiment in synth soul.
Perhaps the group’s best known track, “Beautiful Summer’s Day” might well be worth the price of an original copy alone. It’s pure piano-driven paradise soul. A tropical birdsong intro sets the scene of a warm, perfect sunshine day and the lead vocal soars over the lush, clean production. The tempo oscillates between contemplative and stomping. Essential.
The brilliantly-named “(Assistants Rag) When You’re Hot, You’re Hot” opens side two. Another huge highlight, its title refrain repeated over this laid-back, power-funk workout. It still sounds incredibly modern, like something off the last D’Angelo record, and if Public Enemy and Diamond D both sampled it you know it knocks hard.
The horn-heavy, clav-stabbing-stomper “We Like To Boogie” keeps things fast and funky before the airy, heavenly harmony soul of “Come On Home” mellows us all out. Things pick up again with “Touch Me”, and you might recognise its addictive elements sampled in Jay-Z’s Kanye West-produced “A Star Was Born”. The magical, reggae-tinged, gospel-influenced “Sweet Love” closes out this assured, classy set.
We dare to say that Cutting The Chord is a rare example of a funk-soul LP which is killer from start-to-finish. Sure, there are the stand-out bombs, but the whole thing is a complete and varied album of feel-good vibes held together by its fluid horns, tight, tight rhythm section and beautiful vocals.
Mastered for vinyl from the original analogue tapes by Simon Francis, cut by Pete Norman and artwork restored at Be With HQ, this new edition should hopefully stop this album slipping any further into obscurity. It’s just too good to be forgotten.
Last delivered 4 years ago
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Venezuelan Electronic Music Pioneer Vinicio Adames Synth-Pop Masterpiece from 1985.
With 23 years of age Vinicio Adames self-produced and self-financed his 1st Album
"Al comienzo del camino".
Released in its time in Venezuela only, the album has been unavailable for decades.
A complete restoration of the masters for this release, makes this album available now for the first time in fine audio quality.
This classic recording for the genre, with its complete analog production including the usage of samples, the unique overall sound with its "international " influences, and the modern expression within the songs, has passed the test of time and still delivers its emotional capacity today.
Vinicio Adames continues to produce music until today. The Re-edition of "Al comienzo del camino" and the 1st official release of the 7' inch Single "Amazonia" will be followed by a collection of works from the 1990's and contemporary new production by Adames.
TrueClass Records is set up to release music by artist whom we respect as true artists.
We hope you enjoy this album.
Last delivered 5 years ago
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Limited edition to 500 copies vinyl + 16 pages comic.
Record Kicks presents the reissue of the rare and in-demand Calibro 35 EP Dalla Bovisa a Brooklyn on vinyl. The EP includes an original Calibro 35's comic and is limited to 500 copies, which makes it an instant collector's item.
Originally recorded in 2012 in Brooklyn during the sessions for their third studio album Any Resemblance, Dalla Bovisa a Brooklyn (literally 'from Milan's district Bovisa to Brooklyn') came out in that same year as a limited edition 10". The EP contained an original comic by Italian gurus Gianfranco Enrietto and Marco Philopat that tells, between reality and fiction, the experience of Calibro 35 in the Big Apple. Rapidly gone out of stock, the original copies are rare to find and change hands for big money amongst record collectors and Calibro fans. Following the re-release of the first 3 Calibro 35 studio albums, now also Dalla Bovisa A Brooklyn sees the light again on the superior 12" format that includes a restored colored version of the original 16 pages comic. From the opening "Broccolino funk" to the last track, the 6 minutes of the afro-funk winner "Bushwick, Nigeria", on the six tracks on the EP the band sounds as groovy as ever, serving another funk-filled journey, full of fuzz guitars, distorted organs and brooding bass lines.
Active since 2008, Calibro 35 enjoy a worldwide reputation as one of the coolest independent bands around. During their thirteen-year career, they were sampled by Dr. Dre on his Compton album, Jay-Z, The Child of lov & Damon Albarn; they shared stages worldwide with the likes of Roy Ayers, Muse, Sun Ra Arkestra, Sharon Jones, Thundercat and Headhunters and as unique musicians they collaborated with, amongst others, PJ Harvey, Mike Patton, John Parish, Stewart Copeland and Nic Cester (The Jet). Described by Rolling Stone magazine as "the most fascinating, retro-maniac and genuine thing that happened to Italy in the last years", Calibro 35 now count on a number of aficionadosin every corner of the planet.
Last delivered 5 years ago
available to reorder, subject to availability
Distorted classical choral recordings, synths, processed guitar… The exquisitely complex human-machine interface experiments conducted by Stefano Pilia are kept in a delicate balance by John Duncan‘s lyrics and the soulful quality of his vocals, for an album of electroacoustic songs that are a unique blend for both artists. Seeds and memories from the past are re-actualized in the present through a machine electroacoustic compositional process creating a dark, gloomy and terrifying image of the future. Duncan’s lyrics offer a counterpointing liberation to the machine processes in action here, poetically revealing the dark and intimate struggle between the human soul and its rapport with the machine.
These recordings are a point of departure for Matilde Piazzi‘s inspired liner notes and photos, that take this release to another level entirely, becoming a metaphor for contemporary efforts to reach the limits of knowledge and discovery, their heroic nature and their inevitable failure.
Both artists worked on their respective sections in isolation, Pilia in an industrial area of central Bologna, Duncan in the wilderness several kilometers south of the urban sprawl. Together, their recordings developed an almost magnetic attraction that seemed to meld effortlessly.
The experience of listening quickly takes on a cinematic quality, exquisitely moving from an oceanic uplifting (Try Again) to the depths of apocalyptic, unsettling vocals (Fare Forward), constantly maintaining a lush, richly complex tapestry. The linear understanding of time is suddenly gone, dominated by a crushing machine-defined present, with Duncan’s lyrics and vocals becoming a shamanic portal to a possible future.
‘Try Again’ is released on digital/LP and was written, recorded and mixed by Stefano Pilia and John Duncan. Mastered by Ivan Pjevcevic. LP edition comes with insert, lyrics obi and text/photography by Matilde Piazzi.
expected to be published on 07 May 2021
Kleistwahr is the solo project of Gary Mundy, the legendary power electronic and noise-rock musician who is a founding member of Ramleh and runs the highly influential Broken Flag label. Solemn drones and elegiac long-form passages gird Kleistwahr’s Winter, which often chimes, glistens, and glows through a unhurried constructs for organ, synth, guitar, and electronics. Yet Mundy pivots throughout with triumphant explosions of shrill noise, redlined overload, and harrowingly anguished vocals from the great unknown. Quintessential Kleistwahr.
Winter was originally published as part of the instantly out of print On Corrosion - a 10 cassette anthology from 2019 that was housed in a handcrafted wooden box and featuring full albums from Kleistwahr, Neutral, Pinkcourtesyphone, Alice Kemp, She Spread Sorrow, G*Park, Relay For Death, Francisco Meirino, Fossil Aerosol Mining Project, and Himukalt. The collection also stood as the 50th release for The Helen Scarsdale Agency, an imprint founded in 2003 and dedicated to post-industrial research, recombinant noise, surrealist demolition, existential vacancy and then some.
With the necessary reissue of Winter, The Helen Scarsdale Agency will embark upon the reissue of much of that material from On Corrosion.
expected to be published on 07 May 2021
Tkay Maidza is a tour de force on her new EP ‘Last
Year Was Weird, Vol. 2’.
Her sonic versatility takes centre stage on eight
tracks that include spitfire summer anthem and
lead single ‘Shook’, smooth boy-bye manifesto
‘Don’t Call Again (feat. Kari Faux)’ and trap-infused
‘Awake (feat. JPEGMAFIA)’, which was nominated
for a 2019 ARIA award and earned a best of the
decade nod from The Needle Drop, as well as
praise from Pitchfork, The FADER, Dazed,
Complex, and others.
The EP follows 2018’s ‘Last Year Was Weird, Vol.
1’, which established her as an exciting voice in
the new guard of hip-hop.
expected to be published on 07 May 2021







































