Cerca:anton

Chris Liebing's first full solo techno LP, 'Evolver' is released on 27th March 2026, via his own CLR imprint. The German techno don's LP features a host of collaborators across music, images, and artwork. Luke Slater, Charlotte De Witte, Speedy J, The Advent, Terence Fixmer, Pascal Gabriel, Daniel Miller contribute to the music, while long-time collaborators Studio Bergfors deliver design, and legendary photographer Anton Corbijn shot Liebing for the project.

The Evolver LP is the sum total of Chris Liebing's three decades at the beating heart of techno. It's the record only someone whose first break as a techno DJ was playing five hours at Sven Väth's infamous Omen in Frankfurt - and who has ridden out every twist and turn of life and subcultures since, while remaining rooted in the true school, dark, sweaty techno sweat pits of the world - could have made. It's the result of deep introspection, but it's about utter immediacy. It's the sound of someone previously driven along by compulsion and happenstance at last finding the confidence to be utterly intentional about their practice, allowing them to take the most classic, familiar, proven elements from the past and render them completely new.

Evolver is also Liebing's first completely solo album. There are collaborations, yes: with old friends from the OG techno generation, Luke Slater, Speedy J, and The Advent, all on uncompromising form, and with new generation figurehead Charlotte De Witte, who provides a thrilling narration of total surrender to the moment on acid clarion call "Symphonie des Seins". But unlike all Liebing's albums to date, there's no co-pilot. Every structure, every mixdown, every choice serves his singular vision of how his untold immersion in the surging currents of the world's greatest clubs should sound. The elements are all those forged in the white heat of Omen and Tresor in the mid 90s - brutal repetition, titanium kick drums, industrial atmospherics, but also dark rave euphoria, ever present surging acid lines just on the cusp of trance, and just enough human voices to remind you of bodies on the dance floor - but rendered with all the extraordinary accumulated skill and technological developments since then.

It's Chris's vision entirely, his musings on sound, technology, and life birthing tracks like "Roy Batty." Inspired by thoughts of AI becoming sentient and hungering for more life like Rutger Hauer's titular Blade Runner character, it was one of the first tracks to emerge and a foundation stone for the album. And in pursuit of that vision, it's built like a "proper album". The anticipation and menace of intro "Unfold" tip over into the glowing hot high drama psychedelia of "Symphonie…" then the breathless headlong rush of The Advent collab and on through an unfolding narrative that goes deep, goes dark, opens out into grand vistas, takes strange turns before finally landing on the alien landscape of… well… "Endtrack".

Not everything is pummelling on Evolver - the dazzling title track feels like you've been welcomed into the courtly dance of a higher dimension civilisation, and the audacious Speedy J collab "Shaping Frequencies" is a beatless flow that tests the boundaries between signal and noise. But for all its complexity, conceptualism, and stylistic branching out, every last part unmistakably powered by that dark techno-cavern energy above all else. All of it positively radiates the qualities of Liebing's greatest work and sets to date - but somehow even more so than before. Whether you're listening for aesthetic inspiration, cerebral stimulation or just that raw physical power, this album will sweep you up into its momentum and won't let go of you until it's done.

The 18th release on Ohm Series features tracks by Anton Lanski, Drisan, Bruno Bleckmann, OHM & Lentza.
Another strong curated release by the labelowner Bjarnar Jónsson!

"Recorded in Naples historic recording studio Auditorium Novecento ‘notes from the air’ is the second Ciro Vitiello full-lenght album, that turns around the ambiguous figure of the seagull, a coastal apparition both ridiculous and divine, foolish and sacred, graceful in flight yet uneasy on land, something that knows more than it shows, carrying both wonder and threat in its gaze.

The album breathes through that tension, the desire to fly and the fear of falling, the suspicion of having already crashed somewhere unseen.
Wind, creaking ropes, invisible currents: these become signals from another uncoding state, reminders that air can be both home and haunting. The record lingers in suspension. Each track feels like a fragment carried by wind, a message blurred, a memory misplaced, something approaching meaning but never arriving.

The record drifts between orchestral gestures and dream-pop/post-rock shadows, guided by Ciro Vitiello’s fascination with shoegaze textures and cinematic atmospheres, and features contributions by Heith, Renato Grieco, Stefano Costanzo, Caraluce and Daniel Kinzelman. Vocal features include Martyna Basta, Heith and Antonina Nowacka, alongside Ciro’s own voice."

Antoni Maiovvi debuts on Sonic Groove with the four-track EP 'Subsonic Schizophrenia'. Blending Film Score, Detroit Techno, UK Braindance, and West Coast Dutch Underground, he delivers his most intense productions yet. Tracks range from the relentless 'Hard Bop' to the cinematic 'Bloodthirst' and the mutant acid 'Slig' and 'Face Dancer'.

This EP is a must for fans of cinematic, deranged dance floor weapons with deadly intent.

Ausdrucksstarke Gesänge in freien Versen, begleitet von gleitenden Violinen, gehämmertem Santouri, Gitarre und Oud - die hybriden Klänge des Mittelmeerraums zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts. ,Aman Aman" rufen die Sänger auf diesen Aufnahmen, deren Stimmen auf 78-U/min-Schallplatten aus den Jahren 1911 bis 1935 verewigt sind. Der Ausdruck bedeutet in etwa ,Gnade" und ist ein Ausdruck der Verzweiflung, aber auch der Freude und Bewunderung. Auf vielen dieser Platten wird die ganze Bandbreite dieser Emotionen auf einmal vermittelt. Einige dieser Künstler sind Legenden, andere sind in Vergessenheit geraten. Fast die Hälfte sind Sängerinnen, die einen großen Teil der Tradition des Cafe Aman ausmachen, aber in zeitgenössischen Veröffentlichungen nicht so stark vertreten sind. Alle waren von den Konflikten betroffen, die zur Kleinasiatischen Katastrophe von 1923 führten, sowie von den Zwangsmigrationen zwischen Griechenland und der Türkei davor und danach. Ihre Werke spiegeln diese Reisen wider - erschütternde Gedichte über den Verlust der Liebe und der Heimat, begleitet von einigen der besten Musiker der damaligen Zeit. Nach jahrelanger intensiver Recherche hören wir die präzisen, einfühlsamen und überwältigend kraftvollen Stimmen von Künstlern wie Antonis ,Dalgas" Diamantidis, Sofrouniou und Stellakis Perpiniadis, zusammen mit aufschlussreichen Aufnahmen von weitgehend unbekannten Musikern, deren Werke hier zum ersten Mal veröffentlicht werden. Die LP wurde von Jordan McLeod im Osiris Studio sorgfältig remastered und restauriert und enthält detaillierte historische und diskografische Anmerkungen von Stavros Kourousis sowie poetische Übersetzungen der Texte von Tony Klein. Gepresst auf hochwertigem Vinyl bei Smashed Plastic in Chicago und gemeinsam mit dem großartigen Label Olvido Records veröffentlicht.

Uscita solo su cassetta e digitale nel 2020, "Edit Sucks" inserita da Christian Zingales nel Trax di Blow Up magazine in quel momento.

Viene ora stampata su vinile con l'aggiunta di un nuovo mix dello stesso Raoh, supervisionato dal Dj Andrea Daniel per il lancio della

sua etichetta Corpo Sottile Records. Master di Marco Antonio Spaventi.



Released only on cassette and digital in 2020, "Edit Sucks" featured by Christian Zingales in Blow Up magazine's Trax at the time.

It's now released on vinyl with the addition of a new mix by Raoh himself, supervised by DJ Andrea Daniel for the launch of his

Corpo Sottile Records label. Master by Marco Antonio Spaventi.

Imagine it’s 1987.

The neon is glowing, the lasers are cutting through the smoke, and space synth is ruling the dancefloors. Laserdance just dropped their groundbreaking album “Future Generation.” Tracks like “Power Run” and “Humanoid Invasion” are setting clubs on fire, and every bedroom producer dreams of reaching that cosmic perfection.

And in this athmosphere Spacehawk appears shining like an alien spaceship.

Behind the name Spacehawk stands Swedish producer Anton Eriksson, a modern-day craftsman of analog dreams. In his vast studio, packed with vintage synths and drum machines, Anton creates electronic masterpieces so authentic, so rich in melody and power, that even Michiel van der Kuy himself, the godfather of the genre, decided to collaborate with him.

The result? “Space Patrol” – a landmark single that bridges generations of synth lovers.

On the A-side, you’ll find Anton’s stunning original version, pulsating, melodic, and bursting with energy. Flip it over, and you get a remix by Michiel van der Kuy that feels like a time warp straight back to the golden age of Italo-space glory.

“Space Patrol” has it all: soaring melodies, driving basslines, hypnotic rhythm, and that unmistakable intergalactic energy that makes you feel like you’re racing through the stars.

Fans of Laserdance, Rygar, Koto, Syntech, and all things van der Kuy will instantly recognize the DNA of true space synth excellence here.

To top it all off the single comes on a bright yellow vinyl, housed in a stunning retro-futuristic sleeve that looks like it beamed in straight from 1980s sci-fi.

It’s not just a release. It’s a revival.

And if space synth runs through your veins, this is one you simply can’t ignore.

Toni Braxton, veröffentlicht 1993, stellte der Welt Braxtons warme, samtige Stimme vor und etablierte sie als prägende Figur des R&B-Genres. Mit ikonischen Tracks wie dem Smash-Hit "Another Sad Love Song" und dem kraftvollen "Breathe Again" verbindet das selbstbetitelte Album mühelos sanften Soul, gefühlvolle Balladen und zeitgenössische R&B-Einflüsse. Die opulenten Produktionen, geprägt von komplexen Melodien und raffinierten Arrangements, zeigen das Talent namhafter Produzenten wie Babyface und Antonio Reid.

Toni Braxton, veröffentlicht 1993, stellte der Welt Braxtons warme, samtige Stimme vor und etablierte sie als prägende Figur des R&B-Genres. Mit ikonischen Tracks wie dem Smash-Hit "Another Sad Love Song" und dem kraftvollen "Breathe Again" verbindet das selbstbetitelte Album mühelos sanften Soul, gefühlvolle Balladen und zeitgenössische R&B-Einflüsse. Die opulenten Produktionen, geprägt von komplexen Melodien und raffinierten Arrangements, zeigen das Talent namhafter Produzenten wie Babyface und Antonio Reid.

Groovin Recordings proudly announce the forthcoming release of "Back From Paradise", a track co-produced by the legendary Italian DJ Costantino “MixMaster” Padovano and renowned South Italian producer Antony Reale.
This record is a dedication to the enduring legacy of Costantino MixMaster Padovano. Originally produced in the late 90's but never officially released, this collaborative piece is finally seeing the light of day as a powerful celebration and tribute.
Costantino MixMaster Padovano needs no introduction to house music aficionados. He was one of the first Italian DJs to achieve deep respect in the 90s US house scene, regularly sharing the decks with titans like Frankie Knuckles, Kenny Dope Gonzalez, Louie Vega, and Todd Terry. His studio influence was massive, including official remixes for legends such as Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Gloria Gaynor, Chaka Khan, Mary J. Blige and many more.
Antony Reale is an established Italian DJ and producer with a large discography spanning the last two decades. He has produced and remixed a roster of top artists, including Chaka Khan, Mary J. Blige, Ultra Naté, and RuPaul.
"Back From Paradise": Originally created by Antony and Costantino during their creative prime in the late 90's, Antony has now decided to finally release the track. It serves as a beautiful and fitting monument to the memory and fantastic career of this iconic Italian DJ and producer who helped define the 90's house scene.

Chaos is fundamental for creating something powerful. It teaches us to be at ease with how things are, to listen to ourselves, and find our own order’. (Enrico Sangiuliano)

Pioneering, avant garde yet chart-storming sound designer/producer/live performer Enrico Sangiuliano drops EP ‘Order In Chaos’ as release #1 in his self-destructing countdown imprint ‘NINETOZERO’, out 20th November. The EP’s three tracks respectively represent a triptych of sound exploring tension, release, and dissolution, with violinist and composer Vito Gatto joining Italian techno/melodic maestro Sangiuliano for tracks 1 and 3. The EP blends electronic, classical and electro-acoustic genres, resulting in a fresh, unique product that defies typical techno expectation, as Sangiuliano and Gatto explore the concept of disorder as a creative playground.

‘With this chapter, we dive into chaos – something that can be uncomfortable, but is the place in which you can find unexpected or new ideas. Chaos is fundamental for creating something powerful. It teaches us to be at ease with how things are, to listen to ourselves, and find our own order’. (Sangiuliano)

The ‘Order In Chaos’ EP continues a momentous year for Enrico Sangiuliano, and heralds his upcoming all-night-long SOLO show at Nitsa in Barcelona (Nov 28th, tickets here). His highly acclaimed NINETOZERO label has also previously featured Charlotte de Witte, Antonio d’Africa, Mattia Saviolo, GMS, Alex Lentini, STOMP BOXX, Zimmz, Secret Cinema and About Sofiya.

Vito Gatto is a Milan-based violinist, composer and sound explorer. He is the founder of label/collective NeMu (‘Neutral Mutation’) producing Italian projects at the interface of electronic and organic sound. His self-description as ‘Making sounds, looking for silence’ makes him the perfect collab partner for ‘Order In Chaos’, which ‘embraces the paradox: chaos births order, and order dissolves back into chaos.’

‘Whilst classically trained, I have always been fascinated by the world of electronic music, in all its expressive forms’ Gatto says. ‘I use real instruments and natural sound sources processing them through electronics to enhance their unpredictability, always remembering that the core of music - whether classical or electronic - is communication and storytelling. This philosophy guided our creative synthesis on this release.’

The collaborative workflow combined remote and in-person studio work over roughly a year, culminating in these three key tracks reflecting different musical and conceptual layers.

‘Order In Chaos’ EP tracks:
Enrico Sangiuliano & Vito Gatto ‘Adaptation for Strings and 909’: A cinematic overture built from the raw intimacy of Vito Gatto’s violin, processed and layered with unquantized 909 drums. Out of grid, out of rules. Drama and turbulence surge until thunderous kicks strike like sudden storms. ‘This track symbolises both of us. Vito sent the strings, I added the iconic Roland 909. It has no structure and no grid, the arrangement is not precise, it’s a very pure track and a great example of disorder and freedom.’
Enrico Sangiuliano ‘Order in Chaos’: The title track is a pure techno weapon and dancefloor igniter: rolling, stripped, euphoric. A shape-shifting lead synth constantly mutates, flirting with disorder until the kick restores gravity. Chaos becomes dancefloor order.
Enrico Sangiuliano & Vito Gatto ‘Dissolution’: The closing moment. Strings and drums dissolve into a weightless drone. Beatless and infinite, it invites surrender into space. ‘This cinematic track slowly melts ‘Order in Chaos’, adding processed organic sounds and field recordings from the mountains.. coming back to nature, and silence.’ (Gatto).

Still #0 to go in the NINETOZERO countdown… And then what? With Sangiuliano, it’ll be something unexpected and brilliantly innovative.

Lantern in the Woods is the new album from musician and multi-instrumentalist Misha Sultan – a project that marks an important milestone for the artist. It is his first work conceived and realized as a coherent, unified statement, from the earliest ideas and sounds to the final mastering.

The story of the album began back in 2021 in Saint Petersburg, during studio jam sessions with Anton (Mårble), Vova Luchanskiy, and Nikita (Minereed). These live
improvisations eventually led to the formation of the collective Sri Primat and left a significant imprint on Misha Sultan’s solo sound. Some of the instrumental parts on the album were recorded during this period, preserving the spirit of spontaneity and open dialogue between the musicians.

Later, after moving to Thailand, Misha recorded the second half of the material. These tracks absorbed the atmosphere of southern nights, tranquility, and comfort – bringing a distinct “bedroom jazzy vibe”, a touch of sentimentality and gentle melancholy into the music.

The album offers a beautiful blend of jazz and various other influences. At its heart, it’s a search for balance between memories and the present moment, between nature and the city, between the light of the lantern and the darkness of the woods.

“It was especially important to me that my friends and close people were involved in this album. Their presence gave the music that warmth and personal feeling I value so much. My brother Zhenya (Dyad), Anton (Mårble), Vova Luchanskiy — they all contributed a part of themselves to these tracks, as did Nina Livanova, who recorded vocal parts for several songs,” says Misha.

Lantern in the Woods is a soft and sincere work, where all things intertwine naturally.

On her fourth full-length album as Shedir, Sardinian sound artist Martina Betti offers a profound meditation on what it means to be human on the threshold of uncertainty.

We Are All Strangers is a series of ambient tapes-tries shaped by duality and introspection, where sound becomes a space to explore the tension between identity and ambiguity, presence and disappearance, connection and solitude. Inspired by the idea that we are all strangers, however, first and foremost to ourselves, Betti crafts seven fluid, slow-burn compositions that inhabit a sociological liminal zone—what she comments as an “inner elsewhere.”

These aren’t songs in the traditional sense, but evolving sonic environments that feel like emotional states made audible. Environmental textures, submerged electronics, and deep low-end pulses coalesce into a dreamlike architecture of sound: immersive, fragile, and quietly transformative.

Rather than offering answers or closure, the album invites us to live in radical openness—to stop trying to define everything we see and feel, and instead bathe in what remains unnamed. In this sense, We Are All Strangers is an invitation: to sit with uncertainty, to embrace the unfinished, and to find resonance even in our collective disconnection.

For listeners drawn to the introspective frequencies of Rafael Anton Irisarri, Félicia Atkinson, or Lawrence English, Betti’s music offers a similarly haunting and immersive experience—one where strangeness is not a flaw, but a starting point. In her hands, ambient music becomes a kind of reflective shelter: a place to brush against each other in the dark and begin to learn, as she puts it, “the difficult art of closeness.”

"I have two new records, just full of smells. "
from Scanners Live in Vain by Cordwainer Smith

Lutto Lento's new 2568 E.P. is an album in 7-inch single form. Lutto, real name Lubomir Grzelak, has for years been one of the most acclaimed sonic storytellers around. His first outing on Meakusma is another trip beyond the constraints of musical logic, interweaving elements from industrial music, early avant-garde influences, post-club tendencies, and more, conjuring up a mini-album of huge scope.

Not unlike The Residents, 2568 E.P. touches upon stories from the deep, with an absurdist touch that is at the same time forgiving and inviting. It has a hauntological feel to it, but contradicts it at the same time. It is purring and cold, whispering and layered. Beatific and up close. There is a space ship in the swimming pool, but the cocktail party goes on, kind of. On the edge of industrial music, with a choir thrown in for good measure. On the fringes of club music. Toss the wire-sphere into the air and pay the price for space. Fake composure and dive in.

Lutto Lento is Lubomir Grzelak, a sound artist, composer, music producer, and DJ. Known for his idiosyncratic productions and eclectic sets that break barriers between genres, he has steadily built a reputation for adventurous electronic music that resists easy categorization. Beyond records, he composes for theatre, film, and contemporary dance, weaving diverse influences into a distinctive sonic language.

Das Avant-Rock-Sextett aus Beirut verschmilzt auf diesem großartigen Nachfolger seines gefeierten 2023er Debüts "Mais Um" Psych/Kraut, Improv/Skronk, Elektronik, Gothic und Jazzelemente mit traditionellem ägyptischem Gesang und moderner arabischer Poesie. Produziert von Radwan Moumneh (Matana Roberts, Sarah Davachi, Jerusalem In My Heart). Der Titel des zweiten SANAM-Albums ist ebenso vielversprechend wie die Musik der libanesischen Band. "Sametou Sawtan" bedeutet aus dem Arabischen übersetzt "Ich habe eine Stimme gehört". Spukhaft oder spirituell, wie auch immer man die Phrase liest, sie spricht von der Fähigkeit von Klang und Sprache, innezuhalten, Aufmerksamkeit zu stehlen und uns für den Moment zu öffnen. In ähnlicher Weise vermischt die Musik von SANAM zarte Rasereien und feuerverbrannte Balladen, indem sie frei fließende Rock- und Jazzgerüste mit der tief verwurzelten arabischen Tradition verbindet. Sie in vollem Flug zu hören bedeutet, in der Gegenwart gehalten zu werden und sich neu zu orientieren, um einen offenen Horizont zu eröffnen. Die Arbeit an "Sametou Sawtan" begann im Frühjahr 2024. Die ersten Ideen, die in den Tunefork Studios in Beirut entstanden, wurden im April während eines Aufenthalts in Beit Faris, einem mittelalterlichen Haus in der Küstenstadt Byblos, weiter ausgearbeitet. Das Sextett: Sandy Chamoun (Gesang), Antonio Hajj (Bass), Farah Kaddour (Buzuq), Anthony Sahyoun (Gitarre, Synthesizer), Pascal Semerdjian (Schlagzeug) und Marwan Tohme (Gitarren), wurde vom Produzenten Radwan Ghazi Moumneh (Jerusalem In My Heart) unterstützt. Die letzten beiden Tracks des Albums sind Aufnahmen aus den Beit Faris-Sessions, während der Rest in den La Frette Studios in Paris während der Europareise der Band im Sommer 2024 aufgenommen wurde. Die Platte verarbeitet Gefühle der Distanz und der Entwurzelung. "In den letzten fünf Jahren hatte ich das Gefühl, dass jeder den Libanon verlässt", erklärt Chamoun. "Das Album handelt nicht wortwörtlich davon, sondern von der Vorstellung, dass dich etwas verlässt. Eine Distanz zu den Ereignissen, obwohl du in ihnen lebst, eine Distanz zu deinem Haus, obwohl du in ihm wohnst." Ob in der sehnsüchtigen Ballade "Goblin" oder dem langsam brennenden, autotune-überladenen Freakout von "Habibon", Sametou Sawtan fängt das Streben nach festem Boden in einer Welt ein, die diesen nur selten bieten kann . Das Album hat die hypnotisierende Intensität des SANAM-Live-Erlebnisses, während es der Musik Nuancen, Tiefe und eine enorme dynamische Bandbreite verleiht. Wie bei ihrem Debüt sind die Texte vieler Tracks entliehen, Worte, die in neue Kontexte gestellt werden, um die Gegenwart zu verarbeiten. "Hamam" interpretiert ein ägyptisches Volkslied neu. In "Hadikat Al Ams" treibt der krachende Hardrock-Stampfer den Text des zeitgenössischen libanesischen Schriftstellers Paul Shaoul an. Und sowohl "Sayl Damei" als auch der Titeltrack verwenden Gedichte des iranischen Dichters und bahnbrechenden Mathematikers Omar Khayyam aus dem zwölften Jahrhundert. "Wenn man etwas von Omar liest, fühlt man eine Verbindung zur Gegenwart", sagt Chamoun. "Das Gefühl, dass es keinen klaren Weg gibt." "Sametou Sawtan" enthält auch zwei Lieder mit Chamouns eigenen Texten, darunter den Opener "Harik". Es war die Keimzelle des Albums, geschrieben von Chamoun im Februar 2024, wobei die Band den Track um ihre Worte herum aufbaute. Es beginnt mit einem Schauder, zerfetzter Elektronik und einer keuchenden Stimme, die das Schlagzeug durchdringt, bevor sich die Band zu einem triumphalen Aufstieg aufschwingt. Es geht um Eintauchen in "ein unendliches Feuer", verrät Chamoun. Den Text zu "Tatayoum" schrieb sie allein, bevor sie ihn der Band vorlegte. Er spiegelt eine andere Art von Intensität wider, "eine Schleife, eine Besessenheit", wie sie sagt. Buzuq webt durch schwebende Elektronik und drängende Trommeln, während Chamoun arabische Worte rezitiert, die die Liebe beschreiben. Die unaufhörlichen Energien, die in diesen Tracks erforscht werden, sind nicht unbedingt negativ. Sie vergleicht deren Intensität mit der eines Schriftstellers, der in einem Gedankengang gefangen ist, im Guten wie im Schlechten. "Es geht nicht darum, deprimiert oder traurig zu sein", sagt Chamoun. "Es ist eine Falle, aber sie kann auch magisch sein." "Sametou Sawtan" wurde von Farah Fayyad mit ikonischen Grafiken und Design versehen.

The 16th release on Ohm Series features tracks by Ohm & Anton Kubikov, Taction, Jozef K and The Open Circle!
Another strong release - well selected by label boss Bjarnar Jónsson aka OHM.

Despite immense challenges, SOYUZ have delivered a career-defining album in KROK.
“Krok” means “step” in Belarusian - and for Alex Chumak and his band this word comes with a lot of meaning. It’s the title and theme that ran throughout СОЮЗ (SOYUZ)'s fourth album, reflecting the journeys the band has navigated in recent years, having moved to Warsaw due to political unrest in their homeland of Belarus and the outbreak of war in Ukraine. Embracing the uncertainty became both the inspiration and main lyrical theme for Alex Chumak, SOYUZ’ composer and arranger, who also decided to go a step further and change the language in which he writes songs from Russian, which is used as lingua franca in many post-Soviet countries, to his native Belarusian. The result is nine songs about dreams and outer space, ordinary miracles, things very close and very distant at the same time.

In early 2022, Chumak and original members, Mikita Arlou and Anton Nemahai, joined tens of thousands of Belarusians seeking safety abroad. Resettling in Warsaw, the band released Force of the Wind in October 2022, garnering widespread acclaim, a string of major European gigs, and led to Polish musicians Albert Karch and Igor Wiśniewski joining the band.

Deeper and more melancholic than previous works, KROK is quintessentially SOYUZ, laced with hope, dreams and a celebration of life. Given the difficulties with finding rehearsal and recording spaces in Warsaw and the departure of the drummer Anton Nemahai from the band, Chumak explored alternative options. He reached out to friend and fellow musical collaborator, Sessa, about the possibility of recording the new album in his recently finished studio in São Paulo, with Sessa and Biel Basile coming onboard as recording engineers.

At the tail end of 2024, Chumak and SOYUZ’ new drummer, Albert Karch, made the trip to São Paulo to record the first sessions for KROK. Laid down directly to tape, these sessions featured prominent Brazilian musicians Sessa, Biel Basile, and Marcelo Cabral, with a guest vocal feature by Tim Bernardes recorded at a later date. The final touches were then added back in Europe. Lush string and woodwind arrangements written by Chumak and Karch were recorded at the Polish Radio studio in Warsaw, and Rhodes parts were added by Chumak at Sven Wunder’s studio in Stockholm.

Though primarily recorded in Brazil, KROK is not a Brazilian or MPB album. It blends the band’s Eastern European roots with jazz, folk and global influences. The genre of the music is hardly identifiable: there are folk ballads and jazz-driven pop compositions covered in lush and often dissonant string and woodwind arrangements where each note is placed with care and meaning behind it.

The title track was the first song Chumak wrote in Belarusian as an adult, making for a fitting opener and one of the band’s finest tracks. Darker than most of SOYUZ’ songs, the tensions lift and lighten as the track progresses. The cinematic library jazz of 'Voo Livre', with ghostly vocals sung by Ciça Góes and Ina, feels like a modern twist on the Italian library composer Alessandro Alessandroni through its sublime choir and woodwind orchestration. Elsewhere, the heartfelt 'Lingua Do Mundo', composed, written, and sung by Chumak and the incredible Tim Bernardes, features one of the standout string arrangements from Chumak and Karch. 'Cichi Karahod' is an instant SOYUZ classic, almost Pat Metheny-esque as it opens, with the acoustic guitar and bass riff transitioning into jazzy AOR / pop-folk territory. The record closes with 'Smak žyćcia', a gentle, dreamy spoken-word poetry piece in Japanese by singer-songwriter Manami Kakudo.

In the heart of a post-apocalyptic city, Spacelunch was making his way through the ruins, wearing a heavy armour of metal plates and flickering circuitry. Cat settled on his shoulder, listening intently to every sound. This time, they weren't just looking for an artefact — their target was the Singularity Echo, a mysterious device created right before the catastrophe. Legend had it that the scientists of the past, sensing the impending collapse, had put all their accumulated experience and knowledge together to create it. It was said that one day “Echo” would awaken and allow descendants to touch the wisdom of the ancients, learn the secrets of forgotten technologies and, perhaps, avoid the fatal mistakes of the past.

— We’ve been wandering around for how long? — muttered Cat, looking around warily. — And nothing.

— Sitting up there complaining, aren’t you? — Spacelunch grinned, deftly bypassing the debris and intertwined roots that poked out from under the asphalt.



Suddenly, a glow flashed before them, gradually taking the form of a palm-sized transparent crystal. It floated in the air, surrounded by silver lining that wove into intricate patterns, like a network of ancient runes. The symbols on its facets, flickering, cast soft reflections on the debris around them. As the professor slowly reached out his hand, the crystal shone brighter, and the low whisper of distant voices cut through the silence. Their minds were enveloped by the echoes of past events, filling their minds with images of the vanished world.

The friends froze for a moment, overwhelmed by shock and a sense of profound change.

— Well, — said Cat, not hiding his surprise. — It seems we've gotten a little smarter.

— A little? Now we have what has been lost for an era.

— So, we have a new adventure ahead of us. Where do we start?

The ghost town, once seemingly lifeless, now seemed to come to life: every collapsed building and every corner sparked with traces and clues as if the world itself was holding its breath, waiting for a sign.

Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness is a 2024 biographical drama based on the life of renowned Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani.
Directed by Johnny Depp, the film stars Riccardo Scamarcio in the title role, with supporting performances by Stephen Graham,
Al Pacino, and Antonia Desplat. The film’s original soundtrack plays a pivotal role, blending evocative original compositions by The Tiger Lillies
with classic tracks from artists such as Charles Trenet, Augie March, Tom Waits, and The Velvet Underground & Nico.
The soundtrack is available as a deluxe 2LP vinyl set in a gatefold sleeve with imagery from the film
And as a 2CD Box Set with lift-off lid, featuring a 24-page booklet including exclusive notes from Johnny Depp and behind-the-scenes images

Originally issued on the ATCO/Continental label in 1973, Paleto, Nem Gravata (1973)constitutes a hidden gem from Brazil's golden era of samba-jazz.

Osmar Milito, a master of piano and rhythm, blends breezy Bossa Nova with soulful samba and rich MPB textures.

Backed by lush arrangements and a laid-back vibe, this album captures the effortless cool of 1970s Rio.

Featuring standout tracks like Jorge Ben's "Morre o burro, fica o homem" and

"Quem mandou (Pé na tábua)," Milito's work is both sophisticated and deeply groovy.

A must-listen for fans of Marcos Valle, Azymuth, or Arthur Verocai.

Archeo Recordings is a record label. Old, lost, obscure and forgotten gems and a boundless focus on the new Balearic scene for a wider audience of collectors, DJs and music lovers. All releases are limited edition. This release is the second in a series of EPs on which the label's favourite contemporaries pay homage to past masters for ‘10 Year Anniversary’. 4 new Remixes: limited edition on black vinyl (AR032). With the first volume still singing out both in our ears and on our turntables, Archeo Recordings lifts the veil on the second chapter of its celebratory EP series - another shimmering tribute to the timeless and the timely. Once again, the torch is passed to a new ensemble of sonic sculptors, who delve into the archives and emerge with reimagined treasures, equal parts reverence and reinvention. Philosopher and musical polymath Riccardo Giagni made his name as a cultural curator for RAI TV and radio, before lending his expertise in ethnomusicology as a studio musician and songwriter. Originally released to little fanfare and long overlooked until its Archeo reissue in 2019, his 1988 debut LP Kaunis Maa is a masterwork of Balearic ethno-jazz - a guitar-led journey through imagined geographies and dreamt-up dialects. Its closing track, Passeggera, pairs Mediterranean nylon with synth halos, sampled percussion, and the unplaceable vocals of Matia Bazar’s Antonella Ruggiero, singing not in language but in emotion. Now, Claremont 56’s Paul Murphy aka Mudd lends his gentle hand to the piece, reworking its al fresco fusion into something even more languorous. Highlighting the South American sway hinted at in the original, Mudd introduces jazzy synth flourishes, airy percussion, and occasional organ bass, casting the piece anew as a hammock-swung hymn - less a remix than a relocation, from the hills of Lazio to the lush gardens of Mudd’s imagination.

Archeo Recordings is a record label. Old, lost, obscure and forgotten gems and a boundless focus on the new Balearic scene for a wider audience of collectors, DJs and music lovers. All releases are limited edition. This release is the second in a series of EPs on which the label's favourite contemporaries pay homage to past masters for ‘10 Year Anniversary’. 4 new Remixes: limited edition on black vinyl (AR032). With the first volume still singing out both in our ears and on our turntables, Archeo Recordings lifts the veil on the second chapter of its celebratory EP series - another shimmering tribute to the timeless and the timely. Once again, the torch is passed to a new ensemble of sonic sculptors, who delve into the archives and emerge with reimagined treasures, equal parts reverence and reinvention. Philosopher and musical polymath Riccardo Giagni made his name as a cultural curator for RAI TV and radio, before lending his expertise in ethnomusicology as a studio musician and songwriter. Originally released to little fanfare and long overlooked until its Archeo reissue in 2019, his 1988 debut LP Kaunis Maa is a masterwork of Balearic ethno-jazz - a guitar-led journey through imagined geographies and dreamt-up dialects. Its closing track, Passeggera, pairs Mediterranean nylon with synth halos, sampled percussion, and the unplaceable vocals of Matia Bazar’s Antonella Ruggiero, singing not in language but in emotion. Now, Claremont 56’s Paul Murphy aka Mudd lends his gentle hand to the piece, reworking its al fresco fusion into something even more languorous. Highlighting the South American sway hinted at in the original, Mudd introduces jazzy synth flourishes, airy percussion, and occasional organ bass, casting the piece anew as a hammock-swung hymn - less a remix than a relocation, from the hills of Lazio to the lush gardens of Mudd’s imagination.

2026 Repress

RedNilo is an Italian-Moroccan duo composed of Reda Zine and Danilo Mineo, two musicians based in Bologna linked by a deep passion
for world music, particularly African music. Their ongoing and tireless musical exploration has led them to collaborate for over a decade
on numerous artistic and recording projects. Their new album, eponymously titled RedNilo, features six tracks characterized by a sound
reminiscent of Gnawa, Hassani, Tuareg, and experimental rock. The psychedelic, raspy riffs of the electric guitar, the repetitive rhythms
of the percussion, and the rhythmic-melodic lines of the guembri represent and evoke their journey. The resulting sound material is the
culmination of their journey and their encounters with masters, artists, griots, artisans, and instrument makers in the Draa Valley in
southeastern Morocco, bringing together the two musicians' urban and experimental backgrounds and souls. The album's artwork was
designed by Moroccan artist Aali Wica, initiator and mentor of their spiritual and artistic journey to the southern African continent,
across the long black snake.
Réda Zine, a musician and documentary filmmaker born in 1977 in Casablanca, launched his musical career in the 1990s, contributing
to L'Boulevard, Africa's largest independent festival. Raised in the Casablanca medina, he was introduced to Gnawa music by various
Maallems. After studying at the Paris 3 Sorbonne University, he founded Café Mira, a project that has performed at several international
events.
From 2011 to 2014, Zine was artistic director for Creative Commons (Middle East and North Africa), where he won the #CC10 Korea
award in 2012 with the project "It will be Wonderful," which brought together musicians from over 12 countries. He has also been
involved in exhibitions on music and censorship, participating in events in major cities such as Paris, Buenos Aires, and Seoul. In Italy,
he continued his musical research with the Hardonik project and was part of the Afrobeat group Voodoo Sound Club, recording the
album Mamy Wata. Zine collaborates with artists such as Seun Kuti and has initiated educational activities related to Gnawa music,
contributing to initiatives such as the African Symphony Laboratory for improvisers. He is the co-founder of Fawda, a Gnawa-based
project, and is part of the Gnawa Rumi collective, which explores the music of the Moroccan diaspora in Italy. He directed the documentary "The Long Road to the Hall of Fame" about Public Enemy, which won an award at the Pan African Film Festival in 2015.
Danilo Mineo graduated as a national educator from the AMMnationalscholl music academy in Milan, with a thesis entitled "Afro-Cuban
Music and the Rhythm Section." Over the years, he has attended workshops and masterclasses with international artists and masters
of percussion and drums, including Horacio El Negro Hernandez, Airto Moreira, Trilok Gurtu, Luis Agudo, Arto Tuncboyaciyan, Dudu
Tucci, Dom Famularo, Karl Potter, Rodney Barreto, and Eno Zangoun, exploring the rhythmic language of various musical genres and
styles.
In addition to publishing several educational manuals for percussionists, music critics consider him a versatile percussionist, active in
various musical productions and recordings: Mop Mop, Fawda, Guglielmo Pagnozzi "Voodoo Sound Club," Fabrizio Puglisi "Guantanamo," Panaemiliana, The Mixtapers, and many others, with whom he has performed at numerous national and international music festivals (in Europe and Africa). As a percussionist and side man he has recorded numerous albums and collaborated with Italian and
international artists including: Giancarlo Schiaffini, Gianluca Petrella, Roy Paci, Roberto Freak Antoni, Famoudou Konate, Melaku Belay, Baba Sissoko, Kalifa Kone, Jamal Ouassini, Deda, Dj Lugi, Bioshi.

Bruce Dickinson, More Balls To Picasso. Sein klassisches Album von 1994 neu interpretiert und neu
aufgelegt!
Bruce sagt dazu: „Während ich meinen gesamten Katalog in Dolby Atmos abmischte, verspürte ich den
brennenden Wunsch, die Platte neu zu interpretieren und neu zu erfinden. ‚More Balls To Picasso‘ war
eine Herzensangelegenheit. Natürlich haben wir die Gitarren verstärkt und sogar neue hinzugefügt. Der
brasilianische Komponist Antonio Teoli steuerte atemberaubende Orchesterarrangements bei und fügte – als
einzigartigen Beitrag – am Anfang von ‚Gods Of War‘ einheimische Instrumente aus dem Amazonasgebiet
hinzu (die er selbst aufgenommen hatte, als er dort lebte!).
‚Shoot All The Clowns‘ profitiert von einer Bläsersektion unter der Leitung von Professoren des Berkeley
College of Music, und die gesamte Platte profitiert vom Mix von Brendan Duffey (The Mandrake Project),
ergänzt durch Anmerkungen von Shay Baby, dem ursprünglichen Vater des Albums.
Enthält zwei bisher unveröffentlichte Live-Studio-Tracks: ‚Gods of War‘ und ‚Shoot All The Clowns‘.“

The writer Max Sebald often pondered over the nature of human memory, specifically, how our thoughts and desires - and their results - overlap and mutate over time. In A Place in the Country, he writes of the significance of what see as “similarities, overlaps and coincidences”. Are they the “delusions” of the self and senses, or manifestations of “an order underlying the chaos of human relationships, ... which lies beyond our comprehension”?

Song of the Night Mists, the new album by post-classical composer Stefan Wesołowski, often feels it draws on Sebald’s premise.

On a simpler plane, the one where the market dictates the neatly ordered information we consume, Song of the Night Mists can be described thus: recorded in the main by Stefan Wesołowski in Gdańsk, both in his studio and in Saint Nicholas' Basilica, the album incorporates acoustic instruments - piano, violin, double bass - and classic synthesizers such as the Roland Jupiter-8, the Soviet Polivoks. A Roland Space Echo RE-150 tape delay was also pressed into service as an instrument. We also hear the basillica’s organ and field recordings from the Tatra Mountains. Other musicians were Maja Miro, who played the flute parts on ‘Glacial Troughs’ and brother Piotr Wesołowski, who played the organ on ‘Wilhelm Tombeau’. Sound engineer was Marcin Nenko, who was also on hand to record the basilica organ parts. The album was mixed in New York by Al Carlson (Oneohtrix Point Never, Jessica Pratt, Zola Jesus, Lady Gaga, and Liturgy) and Rafael Anton Irisarri handled the mastering.

Ostensibly, Song of the Night Mists is the last in a trilogy, following on from albums Liebestod (2013) and Rite of the End (2017). All three deal with existential matters such as love, death, decay and “an ultimate end”; apocalyptic and Promethean in spirit, and betraying very human conceits. The Sebaldian nature of the new record starts to make itself felt when Wesołowski talks of how he used sampling. One element is unexpected, that of sampling himself: “I go back to dozens of my own unused sketches and recordings, treating them as raw material to cut, slow down, reverse, and transform in every possible way.” Memory as sound, to be reemployed by the listener through their own imaginings.

Another set of samples made by Wesołowski plays another role. These are field recordings, originally created for an audio illustration of the formation of the Tatra Mountains, and used in a film by sound designer Michał Fojcik. Wesołowski: “You can hear cracking ice, streams, footsteps in the snow and the wind, and a real avalanche, recorded from the inside.” The “Tatra connection” on the album is also found in samples referencing composer Karol Szymanowski. The album’s title alludes to a poem about the mountains by Polish poet, Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer.

Wesołowski’s Tatra recordings are “about a world without humans - about the fact that the world existed, was beautiful, and had meaning long before people arrived, and for the vast majority of its history, it was a place without us.” Wesołowski, using one iteration of the natural world, plays out in sound Sebald’s idea of another order, underlying the chaos of human relationships lying beyond human comprehension.

These feelings play themselves out on the five album tracks. Sonorous and rich, they illustrate tectonic shifts we have no control over. Wesołowski hints that the overall sound is a “meditation on the metaphysics of the non-human set against the spirituality that human presence has brought into it.” In that light, the opening number, ‘Core’, with its slow build, and crackling and straining sound effects, create an effect of the earth groaning into life in a creation myth. Once the piano part raps out a simple melody and modulated tonguing trumpet samples add to the overall atmosphere, the listener can certainly find a cue in the “spiritual”, or “human” side of the story. Human versus nature: from the strains and harmonic muscle stretches of the second number, ‘Glacial Troughs’, through to the powerful and filmic ‘Stalagmite’ and heart-on-sleeve romance expressed in closer, ‘Wilhelm Tombeau’, we listeners are cast as Friedrich’s wanderer, looking out over a landscape that will appear only if we engage with it.

Formations of melody appear incrementally, almost appearing by chance - like hidden footings in the rock shelves to give us something to grasp onto. Rhythms are used sparsely: the prolonged percussive taps on ‘Glacial Troughs’ are an anomaly and maybe there to give pace to the album to come; essentially to keep the listener strapped in. Elsewhere, percussion is used as an aid to mood, the two thudding, timpani-style passages on ‘Peak’ there to offset the short, beautiful, kosmische passage that splits them.

Elements of the borderline religious spirit that drove German electronic music in the late 1960s and 1970s also find a place on Song of the Night Mists. The swells and recessions of the organ find their emotional climax on ‘Wilhelm Tombeau’, a track which summons up echoes of the “mountain magic” vistas created by Popol Vuh or Tangerine Dream, especially with the slightly atonal wobble of the Mellotron that counters it.

This is a dramatic album, but it does feel a strangely short, or curtailed listen on ending, evoking the feeling one gets when waking from a dream, and, for all its incipient grandeur, a track like ‘Stalagmite’, for instance, ends on a minor note. Wesołowski admits that Song of the Night Mists is born of the all too human process of temptation, doubt and recalibration - Sebaldian overlaps and coincidences forming something that must live another life, away from its creator. In Wesołowski’s words, the album is “a newborn foal must stand up and walk right after birth.” Now it is yours to ponder.

DJ Support: Melvo, Dr Packer, Kevin Yost, Birdee, DJ Meme, DJ Meme, Saison, Derrick McKenzie.

Next up on Sultra Records is a standout double A-side release from label head Michael Gray and Italian soulful house stalwart Antonello Ferrari.
This package delivers two quality soulful house cuts, each receiving fresh remix treatment.

On the A-side, "Season High" gets a pair of reworks — first from rising talent Charlie Price, followed by a groove-laden interpretation from Risk Assessment, the alias of seasoned UK DJ/producer Glyne Braithwaite.
Flipping over, "Music of Life" by Antonello Ferrari takes center stage. A respected DJ/producer since 1990 and head of Sunflowermusic Records, Ferrari’s past work includes releases on D-Vision, UMM Italy, and current contributions to labels like Z Records, King Street Sounds, Quantize Recordings, and Purple Music.

Michael Gray steps in with a slick remix of "Music of Life", and the package wraps up in style with the string laden and emotive Love Family Tribute Mix.
A must-have for fans of quality soulful and vocal house.

Belgian DJ / producer down under Gratts is back with his most intriguing collection of songs to date.
Different shades of house music are on offer - always raw, real, and full of personality.
‘Off My Feet’ is dedicated to Restless Soul and features Durban force Venessa Jackson on vocals.
Adelaide’s Ed Temple destructs, rerubs and transforms it into a sleazy slice of hardware boogie.
‘Smiling’ chronicles hazy London days and nights some 20 odd years ago, brought to life by the
illustrious JPHiLo. A track both for club and airwaves use. ‘Better Days’ is a warm and uplifting chunk
of balearica, in which Rose ensures us better days are soon upon us (surely), while Belgium’s
Steven De bruyn shines on harmonica. The ‘Moody Beatdown Dub’ pulls things firmly into Detroit
territory. The EP concludes with title track ‘New Horizons’, an emotional piece that fuses a juicy acid
line with the cascading magic of Adelaide pianist (and techno veteran) Antony Coppens.

The soundtrack of Imaginária Records continues through the natural elements of our planet. Split into the three moments of a single cycle, after the journey (The Trip) and then the places (The Place), to arrive at a conclusive return. The label traces the steps of a metaphysical journey that becomes a metaphor for life, the essence of research and the richness of encounters. And it is in this record: Home. The environment contains many sets of rhythms: those dividing day from night, sun from moon, summer from winter. To all things there is a season. There is a time for light and a time for darkness, a time for activity and a time for rest, a time for sound and a time for not-sound. It is here that the natural soundscape provides a clue, for if we could register all the periods of rest and activity among natural sounds, we would observe an infinitely complex series of oscillations as each activity rises and falls from exertion to slumber, from life to death.

2025 Repress

Zara is the first album of Parus ethno-ambient project from Belarus that combines pagan songs that are sang by ethnographer and folk singer Hanna Silivonchyk on various dialects of Belarusian language and mixture of synthesizers and field recordings that where reordered in national parks of the country by electroacoustic music composer - Anton Anishchanka. The songs where collected during ethnographic expeditions in remote territories by Belarusian ethnographers in different periods of time

"What I choose to sing from the vast amount of authentic material are songs that
somehow feel like mine for all sorts of reasons, but that I love to be inside." - Hanna Silivonchyk

"Soniejka" is a summer song from the Dnepr river region, which sings about the readiness to meet life in any of its manifestations, about acceptance and love. "Zara" is also from the Dnepr river region, depicting the main Indo-European mythological story of the heavenly love between the Moon and the Dawn and their melting.

"Ruzovyja cviaty" is a lyrical song from Dzvina river region, romantic and touching, which sings about the very beginning of love between two people. And the song "Oj luhom idu" is a spring song from the territory of modern Poland, from Podlasie region, which tells about the life of a married woman, about the fate that may befall her and how it can be experienced. All of them are about one's own feeling of the present time, one's life, about personal life
experience, but at the same time - about universal human contents and meanings that exist outside of time.

RAWAX presents A&A aka Anton Kubikov & Artem Rudakov - Blue Transfer Box EP
This beautiful warm and groovy, Detroit influenced piece of art

180 G. BLACK VINYL WITH LINER NOTES IN CREOLE, FRENCH, ENGLISH

Originally released in 1979, "Spiritual Sound" lives up to its name, a soaring, triumphant album, six tracks of spirit magic from Guadeloupe.

Telluric, intense, terribly alive, the gwoka drums of Guadeloupe carry the identity of a painful and fervent island. Marked forever by the crime of slavery, Guadeloupe's créolité cherishes the ka drums and their natural environment: the low-pitched boula drum with male goatskin, the high-pitched soloist makè drum with female goatskin, the chacha, ti bwa, triangle, calabash and other percussion instruments that surround them, and the voices - the fiery, proud, timbred, urgent voices of the gwoka.



This album is also a legend for its voices: in his then dazzling youth, singer Lukuber Séjor was one of the first gwoka artists to largely feminize the chorus of répondè, who converse with his text delivered in a straight and powerful voice.

And everything here sets new standards. In 1979, Mizik Filamonik - Spiritual Sound proclaimed a spiritual patriotism of ferocious intensity. The album by Lukuber Séjor - whose spelling alone is a battle - sets out to give Guadeloupe the intangible weapons of self-respect and self-knowledge, through a singular practice of traditional music.

The genesis of gwoka music is less straightforward than one might imagine... The drums performed the servile task of accompanying the work of slaves in the fields and during the “corvées” imposed by the administration, before being freely practiced by the common people after the abolition of 1848. At the heart of the conviviality of the Guadeloupeans furthest from the cities - geographically and socially - the gwoka drums come out for carnival, funeral wakes and neighborhood celebrations, but also during strikes, fits of anger and armed vigils of the riots and revolts that have punctuated the island's history. For generations, governors of the colony and then the prefects of the overseas department of Guadeloupe have been viewing the gwoka as a potential for turbulence and a threat to public order.

But as the Beatlesmania, “chanson engagée” and rock revolutions unfolded in Europe, young people turned to the drums of mizik a vié nèg (“bad negro music”, in Creole), which Guadeloupeans had learned to despise by following the “assimilation” process advocated by the school system and most of the political class. At the end of the sixties, in a Guadeloupe mourning the deadly repression of the May 1967 social movement, they played traditional music, refusing to wrap it up in tourist prettiness and madras folk costumes. Instinctively, they played a rough and contemporary gwoka, led by the incendiary Guy Konkèt. This was the era of decisive 45 rpm records such as Robert Loyson's Kann a la richès, which brought to light the fieriest words of union rallies.

At his home in Sainte-Anne, Lukuber Séjor played with flautist Olivier Vamur and his brother Claude Vamur, who cobbled together a drum kit from tin crockery and became, a few years later, the most influential drummer in Kassav'.

These were the years of the Bumidom program, when young Guadeloupeans were encouraged to emigrate to mainland France. At the age of twenty, Lukuber Séjor embarked on the liner Irpinia, disembarking at Le Havre and taking the train to the Gare Saint-Lazare - the route taken by thousands of young West Indians who went on to study or looked for work, all the while trying to maintain a link with their homeland. In this case, it's at the Antony university residence, where Lukuber played the drum and participated in a thousand gwoka updates and aggiornamentos, while exile reinforced the need for a spiritual link with the native land.

In 1978, Guy Konkèt played at the Salle Wagram, a historic event for West Indian music. After serving as répondè - i.e. backing vocalist - on one of his home-recorded albums, Lukuber joined his live band. Little by little, he became one of the key artists on a circuit parallel to French show business. At a student party in Caen, he met a young woman from Martinique who, at the time, was more motivated by her ambitions as a visual artist than by her vocation as a musician. Her name was Jocelyne Béroard and, a few years before she plunged into the Kassav' adventure and became the greatest West Indian singer of her generation, she designed the cover of Lukuber Séjor's LP.

This ambition was obvious and imposed its will. A more or less regular band was formed, with Roger Raspail, Rudy Mompière and Éric Danquin on ka drums, Claude Vamur on ti bwa, Olivier Vamur and Françoise Lancréot on flutes and Annick Noël on keyboards. Lukuber Séjor is set on wanting to extend the gwoka palette to other instruments, as the jazz-rock revolution opens a thousand new doors. Annick Noël will play a wide range of timbres and textures on electric piano and synthesizer. Another novelty: the répondè are two men and two women, Roger Raspail, Olivier Vamur, Françoise Lancréot and Maryann Mathéus ...

Mizik Filamonik - Spiritual Sound is a self-production in which the singer and leader sank all his savings, allowing him no more than a single day in the studio. The first side is more of a musical manifesto, with the first two tracks, Éritage and Penn é plézi, being instrumentals. The third, Son, forcefully celebrates the need for Guadeloupeans to connect with the gwoka. In fact, Jocelyne Béroard's cover shows a tambouyé in the shadow of a cloudy sky, against which a radiant sun is rising and whose light will soon flood the entire landscape. The silhouette and face of this man strongly evoke the immense Vélo, master of the ka, rejected at the time on the fringes of society.

The second side of the LP is surprising. Formally, three tracks are explicitly linked like the three parts of a triptych. Primyé voyaj evokes the appalling tribulation of Africans deported as slaves to Guadeloupe; dézyèm voyaj speaks of the Bumidom program and the economic, political and social forces driving young Guadeloupeans towards the mirage of prosperity in France; twazyèm voyaj closes the cycle with the emigrants' return from Europe after years away from their island...

This gwoka, obsessed with the need to save Guadeloupe spiritually, appeals far beyond the politicized audience. Mizik Filamonik - Spiritual Sound instantly became a classic, although Lukuber Séjor never really made a career for himself as a musician.

After all, the album was released in 1980, with no promotional resources in France or Guadeloupe - and therefore no concerts. The thirty-two-year-old author, composer and performer made his own third trip back to Guadeloupe. He set up a small woodworking business, which he lost in Hurricane Hugo in 1989. His other activity, teaching in a medical-educational institute, became the core of his professional life. He continued to be an active campaigner - a campaigner for the Creole language, a campaigner for the reawakening of identity, a campaigner for special education, a campaigner for a thousand causes that he ignited with his generous and perceptive enthusiasm, such as the defense of breadfruit fries...

The echoes of his 1979 album have not died down. Of course, the use of Penn é plézi as the theme tune for Radio Guadeloupe's funeral notices from 1980 to 1992 kept him in the collective memory, but he continues to sing and compose sporadically, as with his all-female

vocal group Vwapoulouéka... Still convinced that music is a means of liberating the spirit, he continues the journey of a young man eager to deploy the power of Creole music and language.

Bertrand Dicale

‘Keep it in the Family Vol. 2’ sees Handy Records return with our first release of 2025- the second instalment of our compilation series- featuring 5 carefully curated house cuts from a range of label mainstays and fresh sounds from artists between Wales, the Netherlands, Brazil and beyond- a stellar array of emergent and established artists.

Following our club-ready releases on our recently launched sublabel Natural Frequencies throughout 2024, we felt it was the right time to return to our roots - providing the finest in timeless and broad-reaching house music.

Polish saxophonist, producer and composer Jerzy Mączyński fuses utopian electronics and organic improvisation on sci-fi jazz odyssey, DO 555ps. Building on his 2023 collaboration with Jamal Moss aka Hieroglyphic Being, DO 555ps is Mączyński’s first self-produced album – a tour de force of spacious, galactic sound design that leans into drone, minimalism and the rich history of sci-fi soundtracks for a 10-track suite of astral proportions.

Mączyński’s sound is both maximalist and restrained, sensitive to detail and atmosphere, defying categorisation and swirling in an orbit of its own making.

Set to be released on Eivind Vullum’s Vibrasjon label in Norway, DO 555ps follows the 2023’s TUNE IN, made under Mączyński and Hieroglyphic Being’s Universal Harmonies & Frequencies moniker.

Described by The Quietus as one of the most interesting records of the year (“as bold as it is massive”), TUNE IN laid the foundations for Mączyński to strike out alone on DO 555PS, inspired by Moss’s skewed production and arrangements to striking and unique effect. - Anton Spice

The story of So-Do is both familiar and completely unique. A classically trained multi-instrumentalist with a poet’s sensibility and a passion for folk music meets a worldly bar owner with a love for psychedelia, post-punk and dub in the small town neither could bring themselves to leave. Over two years, they play dozens of shows in independent live houses across Japan, cut and self-release three singles – two 7”s and a 12” – and leave behind just eight tracks, all of which are set to be reissued for the first time forty years on.

So-Do’s Studio Works ’83-’85 collects the full output of this iconoclastic post-punk phenomenon, whose sparse, syncopated arrangements were infused with a dubbed-out flair that owed more to Dennis Bovell’s productions of Orange Juice, the Jah Wobble basslines of Public Image Limited or Adrian Sherwood’s live dubs of Mark Stewart than even they knew at the time.

Because for lead songwriter Hideshi Akuta, music offered an escape from the existential malaise of small-town life, folding a melancholy nihilism into tracks like ‘Kakashi’ and ‘Hashiru’ (which translates as ‘run’), or taking aim at the inequalities and creeping apathies of the middle classes, as he does on ‘Get Away’ and ‘Nothing’.

And if Talking Heads had CBGBs, Sex Pistols had the Roxy, then So-Do had Buddha. Influenced by Buddha venue owner and amateur producer Atsuo Takeuchi, Akuta turned So-Do’s sound towards dub, crafting playful, ironic and funky compositions that crackle with live energy at the vanguard of Japan’s nascent independent music scene.“So-Do is hard to explain,” Takeuchi says. “It’s been a struggle for years to try to find the words for our music.” The answer perhaps, is just to listen.

Both familiar and completely unique, So-Do extend Time Capsule’s genre-defining exposition of Japan’s reggae-inspired music of the ‘70s and ‘80s, as collected on the label’s two critically acclaimed Tokyo Riddim compilations, and London-based live outfit Tokyo Riddim Band.

Embracing the rip-it-up-and-start-again ethos of the early ‘80s, So-Do burned bright for a short time and then burned out. Their legacy is about to be reignited. Expect it to catch alight once more.


All songs are written & composed by Hideshi Akuta

Produced by Atsuo Takeuchi

Artwork by Ben Arfur
Liner Notes by Anton Spice, Ayana Honma, Kay Suzuki

Curated by Kay Suzuki

Licensed from Atsuo Takeuchi (Oregano Cafe)

Tape Restoration and Mastered by Mike Hillier at Metropolis Studios, London, UK

Time Capsule | TIME023 | 1983-1985 → 2025