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Before there was Saturday Night Fever there was underground disco. DJs across America went out and found the music to play; dancers went out and found the clubs. At this point, in the early seventies, the disco was the venue and not a genre of music.

By the time Nik Cohn’s short story Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night was published by New York magazine in June 1976, disco was the biggest genre of music on the charts and was about to get bigger still, becoming an all-enveloping cultural phenomenon. Cohn sold the film rights to Robert Stigwood, and his classic club yarn became Saturday Night Fever.

“Tribal Rites Of The New Saturday Night” is the soundtrack to Cohn’s story, where disco began; a 1975 score for the underground clubs of Brooklyn and Queens that played R&B, soul and Latin beats to people who lived for the weekend.

Bob Stanley has put this collection together, sourcing what was actually played in Brooklyn discos in 1974 and 1975. Only a few specific records were mentioned in Cohn’s feature, but two of them – Ben E King’s ‘Supernatural Thing Part 1’ and Harold Melvin’s ‘Wake Up Everybody’ - were cosmically great and both are included here, alongside underground favourites like Moment Of Truth’s Four Tops-like ‘Helplessly’ and Gloria Scott’s Barry White-produced modern soul classic ‘Just As Long As We’re Together’. Ivano Fossati’s incredible ‘Night Of The Wolf’ has fans in northern soul, disco and prog circles.

Without Cohn’s original story, it’s quite possible that disco would have remained an underground phenomenon – “Tribal Rites Of The New Saturday Night” paints a scene in full flower. Saturday Night Fever would eventually, if unintentionally, wreck the underground nature of this scene, and clubs like Studio 54 would destroy the democracy of the party, but for two or three years the scene was largely undocumented and magical. This album is the sound of disco before it was captured.

100 Jahre Ligeti: Duo-Improvisationen inspiriert von György Ligetis Streichquartett Nr. 1 „Métamorphoses nocturnes“Am 28. Mai 2023 wäre der Komponist György Ligeti 100 Jahre alt geworden. Auch wenn ihn Filmregisseur Stanley Kubrick durch die Verwendung seiner Musik in dem Soundtrack für „2001: Odyssee im Weltraum“ bekannt gemacht hat, ist der Kosmopolit der Neuen Musik kein Publikumsfavorit geworden. Umso mehr Eindruck hat Ligeti bei den Musikern selbst hinterlassen. Mit seiner lebenslangen Suche nach neuen Wegen, von der Klangflächen-Musik über Mikropolyphonie bis zur Mikrotonalität hat er auch Jazzmusiker beeinflusst. Wenn sich ihm nun der herausragende französische Sopransaxofonist Emile Parisien und der Italiener Roberto Negro, den viele wegen seiner eigenen Projekte wie der Zusammenarbeit mit den Ceccaldi-Brüdern für einen der akt...

From Alehouse to Playhouse Bjarte Eike and his barnstorming Barokksolistene capture the vital spark of Restoration London’s entertainment scene with a captivating new recording for Rubicon Classics! The Playhouse Sessions will be released on 23 September 2022 to coincide with Barokksolistene’s concert double-bill at London’s Southbank Centre.

‘A smattering of Purcell, dances from Playford’s Dancing Master, shanties, reels and ballads succumb to a nine-piece ensemble drawing on Baroque, jazz and folk styles for a no holds barred hooley of riotous improvisatory give and take,’ (BBC Music Magazine review of The Alehouse Sessions, August 2019)

London’s musicians, pushed in the 1650s, to the margins of society by order of Oliver Cromwell, found room for new forms of entertainment in city-centre taverns and alehouses. They remained there long after the restoration of the monarchy, performing sets of dances, theatre songs and bawdy ballads to audiences glad to be free from Puritan constraints on pleasure.

Norwegian violinist Bjarte Eike and his Barokksolistene have restored the spirit and substance of those long-forgotten performances with their Alehouse Sessions, hailed by The Times as ‘irresistible’ and ‘fabulously unrestrained’ by The Guardian. Five years ago the Norwegian violinist and his band scored a best-selling album with The Alehouse Sessions on Rubicon Classics. They return to the label with another compelling collection of music and words of the kind on offer more than three centuries ago at Henry Purcell’s favourite Westminster watering holes. The Playhouse Sessions, set for release on Rubicon Classics on 23 September 2022, reflects the uplifting energy and engaging emotional contrasts of Barokksolistene’s Alehouse performances.

“The album contains a sort of inner narrative that runs through the recording,” says Bjarte Eike. “It has become like a play in its own right, with each track being a small tale within a larger story.” The recording’s tracklist includes Eike’s beguiling arrangements of music from Purcell’s semi-opera The Fairy Queen and his own original compositions on words from the play on which it is based, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; popular songs and ballads such as ‘The Irish Washerwoman’, ‘I often for my Jenny strove’ and ‘The Three Ravens’; tunes from Purcell’s welcome odes and stage shows, Come ye sons of art and Dido and Aeneas among them; the ‘Willow Song’ from Shakespeare’s Othello; Eike’s own voice in Puck’s monologue from Act 5 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and John Dowland’s sublime air ‘Can she excuse my wrongs’.

London’s theatres were closed at the start of the English Civil War in 1642 and remained shut until the Restoration. Alehouses offered redundant musicians, actors and dancers a place to scrape a precarious living and soon became their creative refuge. “Although a few surviving theatres reopened in 1660 with the return of Charles II, there was little money around to rebuild those that had been demolished,” observes Bjarte Eike. “And a generation of musicians had already found an audience in places like the Black Horse in Aldersgate Street. So popular were their alehouse sessions that Cromwell tried to abolish them! But they outlived him and became part of Restoration musical life.” The form of a Barokksolistene Alehouse, he adds, is like a creative room. “Within its framework I can frequently refurbish the show with new contents. The Playhouse project is likewise an extension of the ever-evolving Alehouse Sessions. Together they tell the story of music and theatre in London during Cromwell’s time and after the Restoration. Of course there’s an historical context to what we do. But there’s also the practical context – which is even more important to me – of connecting with a contemporary twenty-first century audience. An Alehouse / Playhouse performance is not something for the museum; it's about music made in the present moment, just as it was in the London alehouses of Purcell’s day -- with their playhouses annexed to the rear of the beer-drinking saloons. The encounter of musicians onstage and the audience in the hall is the real magic of it. We have to fuse the audience into the action of our performance!”

The Playhouse Sessions will be launched on Friday 23 September with a late-night concert at the Purcell Room and a post-concert Alehouse Session in the foyer of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Soprano Mary Bevan is set to join Eike and his Alehouse Boys for the first half of their Southbank Centre double-bill, offering unique interpretations of songs from Purcell shows and other hits from the late seventeenth-century London stage. “The Southbank Centre is a direct descendant of concerts given in the 1650s in the alehouses of London,” notes Eike. “These alehouses after all staged some of the world’s first public concerts. Later, after the Restoration, it became common for promoters to advertise alehouse concerts in the press and offer subscription tickets. Purcell and his fellow musicians were thus just as at home performing there as they were in the chambers of the royal court or in London’s new theatres.”

Bjarte Eike launched his Alehouse Sessions in company with like-minded musicians 15 years ago. The ensemble comprises a core of regular performers, all of whom have committed to memory a huge setlist of up to four hours of music. Typically they meet a day or so before a concert tour to share a meal and make music together; then next day, re-grouping thirty minutes before the show, they discover Eike’s select-menu for the evening. “That ensures that every show is fresh,” he notes. “I make sure we never repeat the same programme twice. It’s therefore essential to work with people who share my outlook and dare to adventure. We’re into a high-risk sport, with lots of traps and places where the unexpected appears - for good or for ill. And so the audience knows we’re vulnerable. But our skill is seen in how we re-act on the hoof to the unpredictable. That’s authenticity and honesty - and above all it’s a performance that’s genuine.”

Armed with a classical training and a background in folk music and improvisation, Bjarte Eike was drawn naturally to Early Music in all its stylistic variety. “I never really felt at home with only one genre,” he recalls. “Early Music allowed me to study profound, complicated compositions, but performing it has also opened up the chance of rebellion and uproar! Early music offers wide, multi-faceted areas of musical exploration for me. You find, for instance, links to different types of music wherever you look in seventeenth-century English repertoire. And I am fascinated by all these connections. They offer a foundation for the Alehouse Sessions and for all Barokksolistene performance more generally. Every member of the group plays, sings, dances and improvises without limitation. We’re all interested in the many different fields of being a stage performer and pushing hard at the ‘normal’ boundaries of what it means to be a classical musician.”

Lucinda Williams’ music has gotten her through her darkest days. It’s been that way since growing up amid family chaos in the Deep South, as she recounts in her candid new memoir, Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I told You. Over the past two years, it’s been the force driving her recovery from a debilitating stroke she suffered on November 17, 2020, at age 67. Her masterful, multi-Grammy-winning songwriting has never deserted her. To wit, her stunning, sixteenth studio album, Stories from a Rock n Roll Heart, brims over with some of the best work of her career. And though Williams can no longer play her beloved guitar – a constant companion since age 12 – her distinctive vocals sound better than ever. The band rocks out on the album’s jubilant opening track, “Let’s Get the Band Back Together,” which features a gang of background singers, including Margo Price and Buddy Miller. Inspired by “that need for community after all the isolation of the pandemic,” Williams offers, the song is “about getting old friends together again who’d drifted apart.” Price also joins her on the bluesy protest, “This Is Not My Town.” The evocative “New York Comeback” also includes guest vocalists – Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa. A Lucinda Williams fan, Springsteen had joined her onstage in London a few years back, and he and Scialfa had wanted to contribute to a Williams album for a while. With Reese Wynans on B3 and the Pettibone-Mathis guitar attack, the musical setting perfectly matches the theme of “Comeback,” as well as on the catchy story-song “Rock N’ Roll Heart,” to which Springsteen and Scialfa also contributed vocals. Says Williams, “Having Bruce and Patti on these songs feels really great. It’s just so cool!” As she promises on the powerful last track of Stories from a Rock n Roll Heart–one of the best albums of her career–Lucinda Williams is “never gonna fade away.”

Greet Death is a three piece post-rock band from Flint, Michigan. They initially made waves with their infectious debut album "Dixieland" (Flesh and Bone, 2017). The album was well received, with Pitchfork giving it a "7.7" rating and stating "...This is a remarkably tuneful, forthright pop-rock band that just so happens to play six-minute songs at bradycardic tempos". "New Hell" is the latest album from Greet Death. It was recorded by Nick Diener (The Swellers) at Oneder Studios. Additional recording was done by Jake Morse. It was all mastered by Jay Maas at Getaway Recording, and artwork for the release was created by illustrator Liam Rush. The album as a whole is a creative intermingling of lush melodic atmosphere with melancholic lyrical content. Within that haze their personal subject matter is cleverly cloaked amid beautiful vocal deliveries and dreamy guitar work. This is the case in songs "Circles of Hell", "Do You Feel Nothing", "Let It Die", and "You're Gonna Hate What You've Done". This not-so-subtle vitriol continues to spread through self reflection in unforgettable songs like "Entertainment", "Strange Days", as well as the tone-soaked "Strain". While "Crush" plays as a complex outpouring disguised as a hook-laden pop number. All of this leads to "New Hell", a nearly ten minute epic of towering proportions. Lovingly constructed before ominously swaying in the wind and collapsing under its own emotional weight.

The apartheid boycott In the 80s, the world – rightly - stepped up its boycott against South Africa’s apartheid government. But this had unexpected and sometimes adverse consequences for South Africa’s music professionals and consumers. Musicians still needed to work live shows both at home and abroad, and to make and sell records. The youth still aspired to clubbing and partying at the weekend after hard, poorly paid jobs under the thumb of an oppressive government. Music was their sanctuary: specifically, African- American inspired soul, jazz, boogie, disco and funk. Unique diversity Producing musical excellence was nothing new for South Africa, even in the 80s: both traditional and jazz music of various genres had been performed, showcased and recorded for decades with the assistance of some of the most skilled and ingenious sound-engineers and producers in the world, the jazz players rivalling their American peers in many cases. But what makes Mzansi 80s popular music unique is that it had to – and for the most part, did- appeal to a multi-ethnic, multilingual population almost like no other in the world, for its geographical size. There may have been many tribal and political differences between Zulu, Sotho, Xhosa, Tsonga and others day-to-day, but when it came to the weekend, those differences often melted away for a while on the dancefloor. Paul Ndlovu had kwaZulu fans as well as Shangaan followers; Black Moses and the Soul Brothers had followers and fans with everyone..and so on. And everyone- detractors and lovers alike- were content to settle on the monicker ‘Bubblegum’ as a general description. Mzansi took disco- and slowed it down a bit.. ..exactly as 90s and early 2000s South African DJs and mixers took House- and slowed it down a bit to develop Kwaito, Gqom and – later – Amapiano. The Roland TR-707 sampler came along in 1985- at just the right time for the flowering of Mzansi disco and boogie. And in the artful hands of arrangers, engineers and producers such as Peter “Hitman’ Moticoe, whose work figures on several of the tracks here, it became something unique to South Africa. 'Yebo! Rare Mzansi Party Beats from Apartheid's Dying Years' compiled by John Armstrong is out BBE Music on x3 vinyl set in a gatefold sleeve, CD, and across digital platforms for download and streaming.

Sichern Sie sich jetzt die farbige Vinyl-Neuauflage von Sarah Connors Top-10 Album ”Unbelievable” und erleben Sie musikalische Meisterhaftigkeit in einer ganz neuen Dimension, physisch manifestiert auf strahlender 2LP in transparentem Magenta.

Mit ihrem 2. Studioalbum ”Unbelievable”, stieß Sarah Connor zur Veröffentlichung im September 2002 direkt auf Platz 10 der deutschen Charts und eroberte die Herzen der Zuhörer ein weiteres Mal.

MEANTIME das neue Album des kanadischen Songwriters Grant Davidson aka Slow Leaves, handelt vom Warten auf etwas Bedeutsames im Leben und davon, wie all die alltäglichen Dinge, die während des Wartens passieren, das eigentlich Bedeutsame ausmachen. Wenn man blinzelt, verpasst man es; wenn man zu viel nachdenkt, verpasst man es. Wenn man Glück hat, gibt es in der Zwischenzeit die Liebe und den Tod und nicht viel weniger. Das Album ist durchzogen von einer eleganten Erdigkeit, Meantime ist eine Sammlung von Folksongs, die mit paisleyfarbenen 1960er- und 70er-Jahre-Tönen verziert sind. Während die Musik eine Retro-Sensibilität aufweist, wird diese durch eine Unmittelbarkeit in den Texten ausgeglichen, die ihn fest in der heutigen Zeit verankert. Slow Leaves ist ein in sich geschlossenes Soloprojekt, bei dem Davidson jeden Aspekt der Musik und ihrer Präsentation kuratiert, einschließlich der Rolle des Multiinstrumentalisten, Produzenten, Coverdesigners, Fotografen und Videofilmers. Er betrachtet die Gesamtheit dieser verschiedenen Aspekte als wesentliche Teile eines größeren Projekts der Selbsterkenntnis durch künstlerische Methoden. Sein Folk- und Psych-Rock-Stil erinnert an ältere Songwriter wie Mickey Newbury, Nick Drake, Roky Erickson, Gene Clark und Neil Young. Aber sie leben auch in der Welt der modernen Klassiker wie Andy Shauf, Bonny "Prince" Billy, Bedouine, Big Thief und Bill Callahan. Seine seidige Stimme wurde schon mit Roy Orbison oder Bryan Ferry verglichen.

In the End It Always does marks songwriter and producer Amber Bain’s long awaited second album as The Japanese House. Featuring collaborations with Matty Healy and George Daniel of The 1975, Katie Gavin of Muna, Justin Vernon of Bon Iver and Charli XCX, it features some of Bain’s most dynamic work to date. Her forthcoming UK headline tour announcement saw her 1600 cap London show sell out instantly with other dates close behind. The Japanese House has been championed by BBC Radio 1, BBC 6Music, NME, i-D, Pitchfork, ES Magazine, The FADER, DIY & more. The album is available on Vinyl and CD.

When Belgian Adolphe Sax invented the saxophone in the mid-19th century, he could not have imagined what he had set in motion with his invention. Neither in classical music nor in military music did his new woodwind instrument find much appreciation. It was only long after his death that it became the most important instrument in jazz music via swinging big bands. It would probably have amazed Mr. Sax if he had been able to witness a young trio from Germany playing loudly against climate change and the lack of political consequences with two noisy saxophones and a drum set on a stage in front of the Reichstag in Berlin in front of more than 50,000 people jumping up and down during the climate strike in September 2021: BRASS RIOT.

The trio around Constantin von Estorff (Sax), Simon Sasse (Drums) and Carl Weiß (Sax) have been a band since their school days in Lüneburg. What started there as street music became a permanent and sought-after formation through the proximity to political initiatives, above all the Fridays-For-Future movement, and appearances at countless demonstrations. The band's name is slightly misleading, as "brass" in music refers to brass instruments such as the trumpet or tuba, even though most brass bands always include a saxophone. Moreover, the word "brass" means something in the German language, which in turn fits perfectly with this young, energetic trio: Fury.

On the heels of their debut album "Matschsafari" (2018), their second studio album "The Never Acting Story" is now released on Fun In The Church. The album title, in critical allusion to the world-famous fantasy book by Michael Ende, sums up well what the music of BRASS RIOT is about at its core: the possibility to get a noisy outlet for all the fury about the failed politics of the last decades and the frustrations and fears that go with it, and to free oneself from it for a moment. That this path has produced the wildest live music on this crisis-ridden planet is an irony of history - and certainly not the first time it has happened. It's no different in the jazz of Charlie Parker than in the songs of Patti Smith, the raps of Little Simz or the Afro-beat of Fela Kuti.

Musically, BRASS RIOT move more in the area of the melodic ska-pop of Madness, the fake jazz of the Lounge Lizards and contemporary rave brass ensembles like MEUTE between house music and electro beats. The fact that they have managed to politicize their sound so strongly over the years, despite all the party that goes with it, and without any song lyrics at all, is truly phenomenal.

The Junkyard 2 came into fruition when it was released in May of last year, as an intimate collection of what she considered her best material. Scott has been taking piano lessons since she was eight years old growing up in California, and that instrumental talent is one of the most striking elements on the record. The songs reckoned with touchy subjects -- emotional labor, insecurity, healthcare -- with razor-sharp wit and care. Even if it was recorded poorly, the brilliance of the writing and performance still resonated. After that, she realized she had to do better, and so she unveiled Public Void in September. She ditched the piano, played with software, and gave her music a texture that was bolder, weirder, and catchier. Together, the two projects and Scott’s other singles have combined to amass 87.8 million on-demand U.S. streams, according to MRC data. The landscape of TikTok is cluttered, and hits are ephemeral, but Scott’s strike a unique chord and her image is constantly growing. When asked if she considers that music will be her full time job, she pauses, reluctant to think too far ahead. “I think, for the near future, yes,” she ultimately answers. “I’m definitely not leaving college for it. But the next couple of years are locked in.” As of April 2022, “Rät” is now a gold single. The album has streamed over 350M times in under 2 years.

The Junkyard 2 came into fruition when it was released in May of last year, as an intimate collection of what she considered her best material. Scott has been taking piano lessons since she was eight years old growing up in California, and that instrumental talent is one of the most striking elements on the record. The songs reckoned with touchy subjects -- emotional labor, insecurity, healthcare -- with razor-sharp wit and care. Even if it was recorded poorly, the brilliance of the writing and performance still resonated. After that, she realized she had to do better, and so she unveiled Public Void in September. She ditched the piano, played with software, and gave her music a texture that was bolder, weirder, and catchier. Together, the two projects and Scott’s other singles have combined to amass 150 million on-demand U.S. streams, according to MRC data. The landscape of TikTok is cluttered, and hits are ephemeral, but Scott’s strike a unique chord and her image is constantly growing. When asked if she considers that music will be her full time job, she pauses, reluctant to think too far ahead. “I think, for the near future, yes,” she ultimately answers. “I’m definitely not leaving college for it. But the next couple of years are locked in.”

Brian Jonestown Massacre, Velvet Underground, TOY. “Upon the highways of Freedom, where Evil is like a Ferrari… “ Unbeknownst to its members, Index For Working Musik was born on an evening in late 2019 amidst the discovery of a collection of faded b&w photocopies that had been marinating on the floor of a urine-alley in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona. An assortment of sacred and profane imagery were crumpled amongst an essay on early Christian hermits, entitled Men Possessed by God, the meaning of which was enticingly vague. Received together, they planted the seeds for a new endeavour. Though Max Oscarnold and Nathalia Bruno were already engaged in a creative ping-pong of sorts, the results to this point had only totaled a 30 min long ½ inch tape containing one track and four interludes. They needed a page and they needed ink, and they needed a place and it needed energy. Suddenly by chance or divine intervention, their experimental venture had been given form and direction. Back home in London’s cursed smog, they moved themselves and their 8-track studio into a basement in E8, where the project’s gravitational pull gained strength, quickly developing into an unexpected collective with the incorporation of drummer Bobby Voltaire, double bass player E. Smith and guitarist J. Loftus. As the world shifted around them and the Plague Years followed, it became increasingly clear that they were not going to leave that small basement room. The scarcity of light or outer world presence was less a limitation, instead the main tool at hand, allowing the recording to stretch for boundaryless days in architectural isolation, and forcing them to make straight forward free guitar music, adopting a ‘first thought, best thought’ approach. 35 minutes of repeat phrased guitars, slow-clipped drums and dulcet vocals where the recurring landscape is the desert. Reel-to reel-loops of Afghan music compete with the found sound overlays of voices recorded at the queue of the pharmacy and drum machines borrowed from Spanish heroes, channelling both far-off climes and snippets from a closer reality. It’s a strange psychic brew, built of imagined mysticism and domestic realities, of fever dreams and days that stretched into weeks of months. What was sparked by that discovery in the Gothic Quarter was actually a realisation that what they were looking for was with them all the while, buried as it was in piles of voice memos and recorded guitar feedback. Men Possessed By God they may be not: it was self-possession that was to guide their way in the end. “Life, despite all its destructive changes, remains indestructibly powerful and joyful

Debut Album Nottingham post-punks Do Nothing blend jerky, spidery rhythms with surreal, half-spoken vocals that recall the Fall 's Mark E. Smith . Do Nothing was formed in 2017 by four long-time school friends: frontman Chris Bailey, guitarist Kasper Sandstrøm, drummer Andy Harrison, and bassist Charlie Howarth. All had played in various acts around the city; the band got their start at the popular Maze Club. Bailey, whose father was a singer in an a cappella folk group, grew up listening to the sounds of Simon & Garfunkel , and his own biggest influence was Tom Waits . Initially attempting to copy big names like LCD Soundsystem (as heard on their first 7" single, "Gangs," released in 2019), they eventually became more confident about doing their own thing, and Bailey gave his stream-of-consciousness lyrics and outsider stage persona free rein. Associated with, but wary of, the then-popular post-punk revival, they made clear it was their intention to follow their own path. Their debut EP, Zero Dollar Bill, was released in 2020; another, Glueland, arrived the following year, with an album in the works.

Minsk Death Metal overlords EXTERMINATION DISMEMBERMENT return with bombastic force.‘Dehumanisation Protocol’ is the long awaited 3rd album from Belarus's heaviest. Since their 2009 beginnings, they have established themselves amongst most enigmatic bands on the Slam circuit today. Having forged a reputation as one of the most terrifying live acts out there today, 'Dehumanizatioin Protocol' is a future genre classic. Essential listening for fans of Devourment, Ingested and Slaughter to Prevail.

Juli Giuliani is a prolific artist, since 2009 he started at a very young age in the hip-hop scene and since then he has been releasing music non stop. In 2017 he begins a new stage under the name of Juli Giuliani, delivering collaborations with artists such as Toteking, Dano, Jonas Sanche or Big Menu, performances at Sónar, and a tour of Latin America, where he consolidates the respect of the scene at the Ibero-American level. Giuliani is a different artist due to his versatility, warmth and closeness to the listener. His new ways of making rap, maintains the essence that so many yearn for without disconnecting from actuality and building a unique discourse and identity. This profile makes his musical proposal one of the most solid, ambitious and mature on the scene, ready to fill the new spaces that are opening up on the scene. His next LP, in collaboration with Mabreezee and Karmasound, will be released at the beginning of 2023 via Costa Futuro.

Mike Viola is a producer, musician, songwriter and singer. Viola may be best known for his work with Panic! at the Disco, Andrew Bird, Ryan Adams, Jenny Lewis and Mandy Moore, but his solo career stands on its own starting with a number of acclaimed records as the leader of New York based cult favourite Candy Butchers and 7 critically adored Mike Viola records. His original music has been featured on soundtracks for movies such as That Thing You Do!, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and Get Him to the Greek. Decades into his career his music continues to resonate with and inspire new generations of musicians and music lovers. Viola is cranking out more music than ever including the fan favorites; “The American Egypt” from 2019 and “Godmuffin” from 2021. Paul McCarthy was recorded over the summer of 2022 on 1/2” tape at “Barebones”, Viola’s home studio in Los Angeles. Joined by his friends Jake Sinclair on bass and Brendon Urie on drums. Viola says, “I set out to make a sonic monster using the legs of James Gang Rides Again, the heart of Black Sabbath Paranoid, with my kid brain inside my greying middle aged head on top. I’ve hit a point in my life where instinct has taken the reins fully, logic now waits in the wings to sweep up the stage and pay the taxi fare home. This album is the result of committing to this path fully and laughing all the way.” Viola will support the album release with his first tour in over a decade with dates in Europe and the US in Winter/Spring 2023, and more dates to follow later in 2023.

Following hot in the footsteps of his debut HF release ‘Cocoa Butter’, ‘Off The Grid’ sees Renelle 893 team up with producer Bay29 on a body of work that offers an escape route from the monotonous every day; the duo taking us further and further off the beaten track, marrying moments of purest hedonism with stark reminders that the real world lies in wait, just after sunrise, with no pause button in sight.

Laying the foundations with summer anthem (and lead single) ’Spaghetti’, Renelle wrestles with the fleeting nature of youth, and his topsy turvy relationship with the finer things in life. The dynamic is both gritty and nostalgic as Renelle walks the fine line between Hollywood hedonism and slurry excess, his mood swinging between moments of invincibility and vulnerability, expertly scored by Bay29’s ethereal, bass dripping instrumentals.

Another SE London / Brighton hook up, one of many on the label in recent years, Renelle utilised his late night train rides to-and-from Bay29’s Brighton studio as an opportunity to refine the verses that make up the bones of the project.

Twelve-tracks; six vocal, six instrumental, ‘Off The Grid’ is the first in a series of new works from Renelle 893 & Bay29. A perfect scene-setter for what’s to come.

As Renelle 893 explains… “Off The Grid is about soul searching and figuring out what kind of adult I am looking to be, navigating a world filled with distractions that will do everything to numb the pain as life inevitably passes you by…”

Remastered Reissue von '3 Sessions In A Greenhouse', einem verschollenen Klassiker aus dem Katalog eines der angesehensten und einflussreichsten zeitgenössischen Songwriter Brasiliens, Lucas Santtana. Erstmals auf Vinyl - remastered von Dub-Schamane Stefan Betke aka Pole - featuring Tom Zé und den Manguebeat-Pionier Gilmar Bola 8, vereint Santtana auf diesem Meisterwerk durchgeknallten Samba und Baile Funk mit Verzerrungen im Original-Black-Ark-Style und spirituellem Dub-Dread und legt den Grundstein für das wegweisende, fünf Jahre spätere 'Sem Nostalgia' Album, das ihn als elementare Kraft der aktuellen brasilianischen New Wave etabliert.

[a] 01. Awô Dub (2021 remaster) [feat. Seleção Natural]
[b] 02. Tijolo A Tijolo, Dinheiro A Dinheiro (2021 remaster) [feat. Seleção Natural]
[c] 03. Pela Orla Dos Velhos Tempos (2021 remaster) [feat. Seleção Natural & gilmar bola]
[d] 04. Lycra-Limão (2021 remaster) [feat. Seleção Natural]
[e] 05. Deixe O Sol Bater (2021 remaster) [feat. Seleção Natural]
[f] 06. Ogodô Ano 2000 (2021 remaster) [feat. Seleção Natural]
[g] 07. A Natureza Espera (2021 remaster) [feat. Seleção Natural]
[h] 08. Into Shade (2021 remaster) [feat. Seleção Natural]
[i] 09. Faixa Amarela (2021 remaster) [feat. Seleção Natural]

Following the success of the initial standard version of this album, which connects the world to Mongolian culture and its unique core values of natural preservation and spiritual connection with the earth, The HU return with a deluxe version anchored by features from William DuVall of Alice in Chains, DL of Bad Wolves & Serj Tankian of System of A Down, plus LP. This 2xLP set includes vinyl exclusive acoustic audio tracks and has five colour variants in addition to a matte finish border with UV gloss patterns and a high gloss centre anchored by red foil stamp imagery. This new version will also see an accompanying coloured cassette and CD with poster insert and exclusive trading card for all eight band members. The HU continue to carry their core values throughout with the same deeply meaningful lyrics that are uplifting, while the band wishes for prosperity and peace among all.

Following the success of the initial standard version of this album, which connects the world to Mongolian culture and its unique core values of natural preservation and spiritual connection with the earth, The HU return with a deluxe version anchored by features from William DuVall of Alice in Chains, DL of Bad Wolves & Serj Tankian of System of A Down, plus LP. This 2xLP set includes vinyl exclusive acoustic audio tracks and has five colour variants in addition to a matte finish border with UV gloss patterns and a high gloss centre anchored by red foil stamp imagery. This new version will also see an accompanying coloured cassette and CD with poster insert and exclusive trading card for all eight band members. The HU continue to carry their core values throughout with the same deeply meaningful lyrics that are uplifting, while the band wishes for prosperity and peace among all.

Reissue!

The West coast series continues... after the huge Hasbeens release its Sumerian Fleet with a amazing 5 track ep full of big dark wave inspired tracks. The perfect sound track for a movie such as Irreversible. Scary, haunting and dirty! Do we hear some influences of The Cure~ Liaisons Dangereuses~ Adult.~ Front 242~, John Fox~. By far the most inspiring electro release we've have heard in a while with its crazy industrial drive and dirty machine funk and robotic synths. Btw check out that last track Blech Erkrankung... That track alone is worth buying this record! Big. (limited edition!!!)

Director's note : "My encounter with Wild Dee, the main actor in DOUBLEPLUSUNGOOD, was a determining factor in the making of this film. Not only are we strongly influenced by the same literary atmospheres - Among them American authors like Harry Crews, Iceberg Slim, N.Tosches and Belgian horror author Jean Ray - we also share the same cinematic tastes - low budget cinema be it French, Japanese or Spanish. Our main aim was to recreate the spirit, and play with and even subvert, the codes of Exploitation cinema. We also share the same taste for Rock & Roll, as our parallel musical backgrounds show. We were both singers in emblematic Belgian rock bands of the 80's and 90's - Wild Dee in The Wild Ones and me with Marine (79/81 - 3 singles with Les Disques du Crepuscule) and La Muerte (84/94 - 6 albums with Pias). The film's soundtrack, inspired by Francois de Roubaix, John Carpenter, Lalo Shiffrin, is like its second layer of dialogue: the original compositions of Renaud Mayeur (winner of the Magritte 2013 Belgian cinema awards for best soundtrack) and of J-M Lederman (Fat Gadget, TheThe, ... ), Moaning Cities, Ashtoreth, The Nick Leonardo Orchestra, The Manarays, Jack'O'Roonie. " A further thing that brings us together is something that has been with us since childhood and that we Belgians call: Belgitude...

Repress!

‘Shapes,’ the third album from London-based multi-instrumentalist, Robohands, fuses elements of jazz, krautrock, hip hop and ambient music. For fans of Khruangbin, Yusef Dayes, CAN, Coltrane and 70s library music moods.

Shapes is the solo project of London based composer, instrumentalist and producer Andy Baxter. His debut LP Green was released on Village Live Records in 2018 and was received with much love and acclaim in the UK Jazz, hip hop and surrounding scenes.

His follow up full-length, 'Dusk’, dropped in 2019, combining soul, funk, Latin & experimental moods. It featured vocalists & musicians from around the world including legendary New York French horn player, John Clark, who has worked with Isaac Hayes, Gil Evans Orchestra, McCoy Tyner, Jaco Pastorius, Ornette Coleman and many more greats.

'Shapes' is inspired by 1970s library music and their legendary composers including Piero Umiliani, David Axelrod, Brian Bennett and co. The album builds on these influences and incorporates modern motifs, contemporary jazz/hip hop drumming styles with a nod to 1990s Mo Wax artists such as DJ Shadow. The theme for the record is future/nostalgia, mixing vintage & modern instruments and production techniques.

Much of ‘Shapes’ was recorded with JB Pilon at Buffalo Studios in Limehouse, London. Due to the COVID restrictions that changed everything in 2020, the remaining parts were recorded in Andy’s flat using a collection of old mixing desk preamps and instruments.

For the heads – ‘Shapes’ features an array of vintage snares, including a 1960's Ludwig Pioneer and a mono, overhead ribbon mic on the drum kit provided extra old school points! The kick drum was re-amped through a huge vintage bass amplifier on a couple of tracks to give it some real character: “My favourite guitar sound achieved on this LP project is a Sontronics Sigma ribbon microphone in front of a WEM Dominator amp, which you can hear on the track 'Odysea'. The bass sound for all the tracks is a 1973 Fender Precision into an old Altec valve preamp, the one used on most Motown recordings."

Hi Scores is beyond excited to present SSR Records: In Retrospect. This 2LP compilation album presented in a beautiful gatefold sleeve and through all digital platforms, wishes to highlight the immense and hard to grasp legacy of the Brussels based label. SSR Records was founded in 1988 by Marc Hollander as a sub label of his Crammed Discs and spanned the nascent years of house, acid, rave, trance, new beat, hip-hop, future jazz and broken beat, collaborating internationally and racking up close to 200 releases until it was put to sleep in 2002. Far ahead of their time, SSR Records released music of both European and North American artists that hadn’t broken through yet, such as those collected on this compilation: Move D, Nu Era, Gemini, Bjørn Torske, Glenn Underground or Matthew Herbert.

SSR Records was run by Crammed Discs chief Marc Hollander and Minimal Compact singer Samy Birnbach aka DJ Morpheus. SSR Records: In Retrospect comes with extended liner notes, exploring the pivotal milestones in the history of the adventurous label and zooming in on the origins of all records featured on the compilation.

All nine tracks on SSR Records: In Retrospect were selected by Hi Scores’s head honcho Kong DJ and have been remastered. Created between 1990 and 1996 and in the at the time pioneering spheres of house, breakbeat, electro and trance music, these treasures from the vast SSR catalog today stand as a stunning testimony to a truly remarkable and timeless musical legacy. Kong DJ: ‘While collaborating with Crammed Discs on the releases of Aksak Maboul in 2016 and Zazou / Bikaye in 2018 on Ensemble, I began to grasp the impressive catalog of the label and its sub labels, including SSR. Surprised by the tiny footprint SSR had left on the world wide web - often the case for labels ceased before the internet revolution - I wrote an article for British website The Vinyl Factory.

This would later prove to be the first step towards this compilation album, collecting favorites from the label as a kid in a giant candy store.’

In March 2022, EMPIRE assembled some of Africa's finest singers and songwriters, the musical equivalent of Ocean's Eleven, at a writing camp in San Francisco. The result is Where We Come From, Vol. 1, a 15-track compilation featuring Afrobeats royalty Wande Coal, Tiwa Savage and Olamide as well as Tanzanian duo Navy Kenzo, Cape Verde's June Freedom and a host of other stars across Nigeria and Ghana - KiDi, Fireboy DML, Kizz Daniel, Tolani and more. The sounds traverse East, West and South of the continent, incorporating drill, amapiano, trap and Afrobeats in fashioning an album that at once sandwiches luxury between lust and love while also being a flagpost to hedonism. The cover art, created by Nigerian artist Dricky Stickman, incorporates all 15 songs into the final product, illustrating unity, community and culture. “This project ‘Where We Come From, Vol. 1’ is a perfect example of music having no limitations,” Kareem Mobalaji, Regional Head West Africa said. “Yes we are from Africa, but we are truly determined to reach the entire world with our voice, which is music.”

Undercurrent is an artist based in LA and a New Palm resident who shows his studio skills across a trio of new cuts here. 'Beliefs' is a loopy breakbeat roller with jittery rhythms that lock you into their loops and keep you there.

'No Data' is similar but more punchy, with real edge and drive in the breaks while fat bass stabs power things along from below. The same track then gets a remix from Charlie Edward that is more spaced out with searching synths and a more rubbery bassline.

Last of all is a floating ambient cut that eventually has a jungle breakbeat rise up through the mix to take you into the next dimension.

JOHN BARERA (2MR/ALLERGY SEASON/DOLLY/SORRY RECORDS) is a DJ, Producer & Label owner based in NYC. His sound is rooted in techno and house’s most classic iterations: sturdy, barreling grooves, shimmering pads, deep liquid dubs and the occasional acid burn. BRIAN ABELSON is the producer of JENNIFER VANILLA’s “CASTLE IN THE SKY” album. Here they team up for 6 mesmerizing tracks of funky disco-tech on the latest 12" from the YOU TOO CAN WOO crew. Intricate rhythms, hypnotic synth arpeggios, lush ambience & seriously funky basslines make "THE ARC" a fantastic showcase of this duo's talent and versatility.

De La Soul is never far away from the conversation about great music but as of late, they have been back in the headlines more than ever as their music finally got added to digital streaming sites. Buhloone Mindstate is a lesser-known but just as good album as the most famous Three Feet High and Rising and was a critical success at the time. The lead single has samples of Michael Jackson's 'I Can't Help It' and Smokey Robinson's 'Quiet Storm', there is a collab with Biz Markie on 'Stone Age' and MC Shortie No Mas appears on many tracks including the particularly standout 'In The Woods'.

Richie Culver had been waiting his whole life to record I was born by the sea. His debut album immediately and messily inscribed the artist into the canon of outsider music and experimental electronics, serving both as an arresting statement of intent and a painful reckoning with the difficult path that lead up to it, stealing one last glance back at a place he always knew he had to escape. Between grim lamentations, faded memories and anxiety attacks, all told with searing honesty and disarming openness, I was born by the sea excavates a space for hope, finding Culver digging through Humberside silt to find a world weary optimism, the raw material from which his visual and sound art is shaped. For this collection of expansions and inversions, Culver invites a collection of kindred spirits, contemporary inspirations and old heroes to wade into the salt water of his formative years spent living for impromptu raves and afterparties, connecting vivid memories of his birth place of Withernsea to artists hailing from as nearby as Preston and Bridlington, further afield, from Manchester and London, Berlin and Paris, before returning back to Hull, to where it all began.

For some, responding to I was born by the sea means diving even deeper into the record’s furthest reaches. Space Afrika clear away the pummelling loops of noise from ‘It’s hard to get to know you,’ revealing a cool and cavernous expanse in its wake. Distant chatter, previously heard as though through thin, plasterboard walls, now echoes from outside the maddening claustrophobia of the original’s Sisyphean sonics, illuminated as a dense storm cloud suspended amidst a more open scene, washed clean by a lighter rain, allowing the tender heart of the track to beat clear. London producer MOBBS stretches out ‘Pigeon Flesh’ into an epic, 10-minute, cold-sweat spiral, strung-out tension wrung from disconnected phone tones twisted in unexpected directions, snatches of Culver’s voice turned inside-out and deep fried bass threatening to tip the track over into oblivion, the build-and-release of a nervous breakdown experienced in real time. In an act of subversive self-reflection, Morgane Polanski switches one kind of ennui for another in her adaption of ‘I was born by the sea,’ swapping the sea for the city, English seaside towns in January for summer evenings in Paris and flashing lighthouses and sparkling oil rigs for the Eiffel Tower and the traffic around L’Arc de Triomphe. Even Culver finds time to revisit ‘Dream About Yourself,’ a track taken from his EP Post Traumatic Fantasy, breathing new words into its glacial drift, the half-remembered testimony of a shut-in: Woke up in the evening / Pray for me / Don’t trust anyone / Pray for algorithm. Reframed in a more melancholy light, the track’s reverberant keys even more clearly evoke a mournful nostalgia, fresh pain felt in old wounds.

Others find a parallel universe in Culver’s visceral world building. Rainy Miller flips the script with a scorched, avant-drill rework of ‘Daytime TV’, threading puncturing hi-hats and queasy low-end surge through the track’s steady ambient cascade, invoking the irresistible Preston beat magic of Miller’s own essential debut album, Desquamation. Aho Ssan melts away the crystalline textures of ‘Love Like an Abscess’ with the ominous crackle of a nascent fire, building through swathes of organic Max/MSP squelch and brittle, nails-down-chalkboard scrape, swelling and metastasising the original to spill over Culver’s desperate hymn to corporeal desire, at once flesh and not. Teresa Winter transports us an hour up the coast from Withernsea to her native Bridlington, replacing the sea wall of synthesis on ‘Nervous Energy’ with muffled ASMR murk and fever dream whispers, transforming Culver’s unflinching observations into a haunting call-and-response, filling in the blanks with her own eerie utterances, a fleeting conversation with a ghost. In a touching victory lap, Fila Brazillia, eccentric stalwarts of beloved ‘90s trip hop imprint Pork Recordings, whose performances at Hull institution The Lamp convinced a young Culver of the necessity to make his mark on club culture, resurface for their first remix in 20 years. Steve Cobby and David McSherry lead a low-slung, heartfelt stroll back through a suite of tracks from I was born by the sea, tracing a full circle saunter from Culver’s origins to his current musical practice, the sounds of his present repurposed by the sound of his youth. In a gesture that reflects the emotional complexity of the project, Fila Brazillia find joy at the end of Culver’s troubled reflection, picking out an undeniable groove in the stasis of feeling trapped in your hometown. Underlining Hull’s vital musical legacy, from Baby Mammoth to Throbbing Gristle, Cobby and McSherry demonstrate that, though there are certainly storms, by the sea there is also sun and through the fog, if you listen, you can hear a singular sound, a sound now carried by Richie Culver.

Participant is a record label and creative studio run by William Markarian-Martin and Richie Culver

If you are a death metal fan, GRACELESS shouldn’t need an introduction. Three full lengths and two split EPs have granted the Dutch ensemble a respectable reputation across the globe. Closer to home, the four piece has played countless live shows since their 2016 inception. The rock solid line up -unchanged since day one- has delivered ferocious, high energy live performances at Eindhoven Metal Meeting, Into the Grave, Party San Metal Open Air, Ruhrpott Metal Meeting, Stonehenge, SDF2021 and many more festivals and clubs. Joining forces with LISTENABLE RECORDS in 2023 is the next thundering milestone for GRACELESS. Tirelessly working on their fourth full-length, the next chapter for GRACELESS will be another step deeper into the abyss that started with Shadowlands (2018), via Where Vultures Know Your Name (2020), to Chants from Purgatory (2022). For fans of DEATH, ASPHYX, GORGUTS, BOLT THROWER, AMON AMARTH, BLOODBATH.

Fleetwood Mac is the tenth studio album by British-American rock band Fleetwood Mac, released on 11 July 1970. This was the first Fleetwood Mac album with Lindsey Buckingham as guitarist and Stevie Nicks as vocalist, after Bob Welch departed the band in late 1974.

The album peaked at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart dated 4 September 1976, 58 weeks after entering the chart, and spawned three top-twenty singles: "Over My Head", "Rhiannon", and "Say You Love Me", the last two falling just short of the top ten, both at number 11.

1000 Die-cut leather structure gatefold with eight artist photo cards & insert.

"Welcome to the America Dream Reserve, home to husband & wife duos, pub legends, one-man-bands, preachers’ sons, and country-lounge entertainers..."

About: America Dream Reserve is a home for kindred souls. An hour-long journey into the world of lo-fi drumcomputer folk, disco-pop-lounge, haunting ballads, obscure vanity pressings, and synthesized string ensembles. A collaborative compilation between Charles Bals, creator of the inimitable Club Meduse, and Smiling C.

Sleeve: This is a premium edition of ADR housed in a die-cut leather structure gatefold. It comes with eight loose double-sided swappable photo cards with artist photos on both sides, and an insert with write-up about the project. Limited run.

Compiled by: Charles Bals & Henry Jones.

Debut album recorded for launch of new record label by award-winning mastering engineer Kevin Gray!
Recorded all-analogue/all-tube at Gray's new studio, Cohearent Recording, for Cohearent Records!

Shapes and Sound from jazz saxophonist Kirsten Edkins is the debut LP release from Cohearent Records — the new record label companion to famed mastering engineer Kevin Gray's latest enterprise, an all-valve (vacuum tube) recording studio (Cohearent Recording) adjoining his home-based mastering facility in California.

"It's the 'essence of an era' we are trying to recapture with today's musicians, not the sound of specific spaces, engineers or recordings," Gray told music reviewer Michael Fremer.

This album was produced all-analogue/all-tube at Gray's Cohearent Recording on December 10 and 11, 2021. Dave Connor produced, while Gray and Ryan Wirthlin co-engineered. Edkins on sax was joined by Gerald Clayton (courtesy of Blue Note) on piano, Ahmet Turkmenoglu on bass, Lemar Guillary on trombone and Chris Wabich on drums.

Edkins, a composer and saxophonist from Los Angeles, graduated from Eastman School of Music on scholarship. She studied composition and arranging with Bill Dobbins, as well as Walt Weiskopf and the legendary Ray Ricker. Before her time at Eastman she studied with Bob Sheppard, a jazz recording artist and woodwind specialist. Edkins is a sought-after improviser who has performed with Arturo Sandoval (Al "Tootie" Heath), Tim Hagans, Clay Jenkins, John Beasley, and Geoffrey Keezer.

She has performed with the Clare Fischer Big Band, Bill Holman Big Band, Bernie Dresel Big Band (The BBB), Sara Gazarek and others. She's appeard on television shows such as American Idol, Duets, Knight Rider, Glee, and Bones, plus The Tonight Show. She's also a music educator whose associations include Cal State Fullerton, Stanford Jazz Workshop, Saddleback College and Golden West College. She also direct the American Jazz Institute's community outreach program and teaches saxophone at Occidental College in Eagle Rock.

The album is an excellent showcase for Gray's new recording studio. Cohearent Recording was born from Gray's relentless passion to create the best sound recordings. It was that passion that has inspired Gray's long career cutting lacquers for such noted labels as Blue Note, Music Matters and Analogue Productions.

He spent 15 years building gear for the project. "I had a novel idea: In order to get the vintage sound we all love, (I'd) design and build an all-valve (vacuum tube) recording system from microphones through to the disc cutting head, NO transistors or IC's anywhere in the signal path. That took much longer than anticipated but it is finally complete."

Gray was inspired to use his own living room as the studio space when he realized it was similar in size and shape to legendary jazz recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder's Hackensack N.J. parents' home. Many classic jazz albums were recorded there by Gelder.

Some of the same microphones used on those earlier Gelder recordings are in use in Gray's setup. The custom vaccum tube electronics are different and for Shapes and Sound Gray used a tube-based Studer C37 rather than an Ampex.

Gelder's Hackensack recordings for both Blue Note and Prestige, Gray says, are "some of my favourite jazz records, and they are also exceptionally good sonically."

Theory Of A Deadman return to Roadrunner Records with their 8th studio album ‘Dinosaur’ releasing on 17th March on CD and Digital with the vinyl version following in July. It features the single and title track from the album ‘Dinosaur’ that was released late 2022 and was A Listed at both Kerrang and Planet Rock Radio as well as brand new single ‘Ambulance’.

In 2016, After Reissuing Two Bruce Haack Albums, Haackula And Electric Lucifer Book Ii, Telephone Explosion Began Speaking With Ted Pandel (bruce's Lifelong Friend And Business Partner) About Working On The 1970 Masterpiece The Electric Lucifer. It Turned Out There Was Another Matter That He Wanted To Discuss: Finding A Final Resting Place For The Bruce Haack Archive.

We Were Shown Test-pressings Of The Electric Lucifer Board Mixes From His Columbia Studio Sessions, Countless Pieces Of Written Music, A Large Number Of Personal Photos, An Invitation From Raymond Scott Inviting Bruce To Play His Newly Created Electronium
Instrument (now Owned By Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh), Poems, Press Clippings, And, Most Importantly, A Heavyduty Shelf Containing 213 Reel-to-reel Tapes. All Of The Chosen Material On The Preservation Tapes Is Unreleased, Has Only Been Heard By A Handful Of People And Showcases A Relatively Unknown Period In Bruce's
Musical Career Where Bruce Was Recording For Sparrow Records (who Billed Themselves As "america's Best Christian Music Record Label'). Bruce's Signature Farad Vocoder Continues To Feature Prominently, But The Lyrical Content Is Decidedly More Religious.
The Bruce Haack Archive Is Now Resting In The Provincial Archives Of Alberta, In Edmonton,
Alberta, Canada.

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**NEW 2018 ALBUM FROM KIKAGAKU MOYO**The shifting dimensions of Masana Temples, fourth album from psychedelic explorers Kikagaku Moyo,are informed by various experiences the band had with traveling through life together, ranging from the months spent on tour to making a pilgrimage to Lisbon to record the album with jazz musician Bruno Pernadas. The band sought out Pernadas both out of admiration for his music and in an intentional move to work with a producer who came from a wildly different background.

With Masana Temples, the band wanted to challenge their own concepts of what psychedelic music could be. Elements of both the attentive folk and wild-¬-eyed rocking sides of the band are still intact throughout, but they're sharper and more defined.
Kikagaku Moyo started in the summer of 2012 busking on the streets of Tokyo. Though the band started as a free music collective, it quickly evolved into a tight group of multi-¬-instrumentalists. Kikagaku Moyo call their sound psychedelic because it encompasses a broad spectrum of influence. Their music incorporates elements of classical Indian music, Krautrock, Traditional Folk, and 70s Rock. Most importantly their music is about freedom of the mind and body and building a bridge between the supernatural and the present. Improvisation is a key element to their sound.



More than the literal interpretation of being on a journey, the album's always changing sonic panorama reflects the spiritual connection of the band moving through this all together. Life for a traveling band is a series of constant metamorphoses, with languages, cultures, climates and vibes changing with each new town. The only constant for Kikagaku Moyo throughout their travels were the five band members always together moving through it all, but each of them taking everything in from very different perspectives. Inspecting the harmonies and disparities between these perspectives, the group reflects the emotional impact of their nomadic paths. The music is the product of time spent in motion and all of the bending mindsets that come with it.

Japanese folk-rock legend Morio Agata stunned fans with this way-outta-left-field dispatch - a synthesizer-laden, new-wave/post-punk classic. Originally released by Osaka’s Vanity Records in 1980 and back on vinyl for the first time in nearly 40 years, this fully authorized reissue has been remastered from the original analog tapes. In tip-on sleeve, with double-sided insert.

50 years ago, Hokkaido-born singer-songwriter Morio Agata released his debut single, Sekishoku Ereji (Red Elegy), an emotive, shuffling piano ballad that (shockingly) sold half a million copies in Japan. While he would never have another Top-40 hit, Agata would spend the next half century issuing a series of idiosyncratic, experimental pop albums. Today, he’s a beloved cult figure, still actively touring and recording in his seventies.

In his first decade as a recording artist, Agata released a stream of classics right out of the gate — Otome No Roman (1972) melded American-styled folk rock with traditional Japanese melodies, Zipangu Boy (1976) was a sprawling, Haruomi Hosono-produced psychedelic opus, and Kimi No Koto Suki Nan Da (1977) saw Agata tackle slick, lightly funky AOR. While this sort of stylistic schizophrenia might sink your average artist, Agata’s singular voice and magnetic charisma elevates everything he touches, and subsumes it all into Morio Agata World — a joyous, playful and frequently unhinged world.

Arguably the biggest left-turn of Agata’s early career, however, came in 1979, when legendary experimental label Vanity Records’ Yuzuru Agi paired Agata with major players from his label’s roster and the Osaka punk scene for an impromptu recording session. An impressive list of musicians took part (SAB, Yukio Fujimoto (Normal Brain), Masahiro Kitada (INU), Taiqui (Ultra Bide), Jun Shinoda (SS), Chie Mukai (Che-Shizu), and others) and even though they all came from different wings of the underground music scene, together they built an arresting, minimalistic bedrock of synthesized and acoustic sounds for Agata to work his magic over. The recording sesssions were tense and it took a while for the collective to find their footing. But the hard work paid off — Norimono Zukan is a masterpiece of ramshackle new wave and droning dirges, topped off with Agata’s unmistakeable croon, at times delicate, other times twisted. It’s a relatively short album, but a deep one, and Mesh-Key is honored to introduce it to a new generation of music fans.

Three years after his last album ‘I Need Space’, Mounika. is back on his favorite playground: electronic music, which arouses his curiosity since his beginnings. He is now ready to unveil ‘Don't Look At Me’, a new opus that takes us, by other paths, to his unique universe. Recorded during the confinement in the intimacy of his home studio, the French artist reveals little by little another facet of his artistic personality, more raw and affirmed, without totally abandoning the cottony sounds already proposed on titles like ‘Cut My Hair’ (diamond single) or ‘Tender Love’ (gold single). We discover sensitive compositions, still inspired by his love for trip-hop, piano and artists who made his musical culture during his youth: Moby, Ratatat, Air or Bonobo. After all, a Mounika. album without a tribute to these figures is not really an album...

But something new was needed to distinguish this opus from the previous ones. From the very first tracks, we can clearly feel this need for exploration that has always guided the French producer. ‘BonXair’ or ‘Nomadics’ take us, for example, in a more straight electronic, more heady than usual. In the same spirit, the rhythms close to the deep house of a track like ‘See You Dancing In The Dark’ offer to the album a new direction, and yet is quite representative of the work undertaken by Mounika. these last years.

In this new record that will also satisfy the fans of the first hour (a sample loop well felt, as on ‘Little Love’ or ‘I Looked Into Her Eyes’, always makes its effect), the French artist has also opened to collaborations of choice. Mounika. works on the heart, and thus wished to welcome those who have particularly marked him during his more or less recent discoveries. The American artist Roland Faunte lends his voice to the effective ‘Little Love’, while Ural Thomas & The Pain (discovered notably on the series ‘It's Bruno’) takes care of the chorus of ‘I Looked Into Her Eyes’. The British rapper Lord Apex delivers a spellbinding performance on ‘Memories’.

Finally, if you listen carefully, you can even hear Mounika. singing on some tracks... like ‘20’ or ‘Don't Smoke’. Put together, these appearances perfectly complement the energy transcribed by Mounika. throughout ‘Don't Look At Me’.

And what could be better than an amazing graphic universe to open the doors of this album like no other? Meet Carl & TJ, two cartoonish characters created in collaboration with Berlin-based artist Joe Taylor, who take care of guiding the listener through this new adventure. One is dreamy and contemplative, the other asks himself a lot of questions... and between them, they form a colorful duet illustrating with tenderness the universal emotions that punctuate this third opus, and that Mounika. will notably defend in the first part of Wax Tailor's French tour starting next April.

The successive pianos composing the productions of ‘When In My Heart In Your Heart’ then ‘Outro’ come, at the end of the record, to conclude the setting in orbit proposed by this ‘Don't Look At Me’. One more step in the sensory journey that Mounika. is committed, from the intimacy of her room to the international success, to build relentlessly.

Greek DJ & Producer Le Croque joins Groovin Recordings for his second vinyl release. His latest EP "The Cure" is a mind bending journey into electronic music.

"The Cure" features the legendary artist Baby Blak in spoken word taking you on a melodic afro-deep house trip. The remix by Italian Producer Freakme injects another dimension with a deep-electronic vibe. “Summer love” is a summer soundtrack for a Santorini sunset.

It brings together 80s nostalgia via pads and synths with the amazing piano solos of Tasos Korkovelos, taking it to another level. Last but not least, “Your Story”: a deep-house track carrying memories of the scene’s golden era, influenced by Le Croque’s favourite House Producers like Fred Everything, Jimpster and Opolopo.