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This new released is dedicated to fans of minimal house and rominimal. Mihai Popoviciu, Christian Burkhardt, Octave and Nicolas Duvoisin are worthy representatives of these musical currents. On the A side, Christian Burkhardt brings with "Buto" a jazzy, happy orientation mixing funny keyboard, catchy bass and repetitive sound whereas "The Message" by Octave is a romantic and hypnotic ballad that will enchant you with its languorous atmosphere. On the other side, Nicolas Duvoisin's "Kempin" is a trippy dancefloor track as it has the secret of production. And finally, enter the acidulous mood of Mihai Popoviciu's "Fast Forward" with its rhythm always calibrated and like no other.

Italian DJ and producer Sourires (aka Andrea Antognoli) joins the Samosa stable for his debut with an explosive release that will take your breath away.

The EP kicks off with the title track, Pampasosa - a furiously groovy number which gets up right in your face from the get-go. Like an unstoppable train, Pampasosa hurtles along at 127bpm with its horns blaring and furnace blazing. De Gama is on the Re-Groove here, expertly applying the bells and whistles to this all powerful locomotive stomper.

A2 brings us ‘Liam’, which sounds like a track very close to Sourires heart. Think of glorious evening sunshine after the rain for this emotionally charged piece of music. The bass has you hypnotised, the strings make you soar and the vocal haunts your dreams. It bares its soul to you and you can’t help but love it for that.

On the B-side, ‘Keep Rolling’ (De Gama Re-Groove) gives no illusions as to what its intentions are. A rolling, bass-driven start builds to filtered vocals and punchy brass - we’re in house territory but it’s so much more than that. A prime-time fist pumper of a tune, this will have dance floors offering their souls to Sourires in exchange for good times.

Finishing off this four tracker is ‘Flavor’ (De Gama Re-Built). At 124bpm, it sneaks past you and taps you on the shoulder. Continuing the house vibe, Sourires brings us a swinging beat accompanied by dreamy vocals and subtle filtered keys. Strings and delicate guitar licks build to a glorious breakdown which reveals itself in full technicolour. Summery, sassy and sexy stuff.

Sourires has deliverdd a modern classic with the Pampasosa EP. This has to be in your record box for the summer - just watch the dance floor go!

After a 3-year break, the Germany-based label Malonian is back. The label's ninth release comes from the Berlin producer Mental Carnival, who should be known for his Big City Jungle / Fresh EP on La Pena Shots.

This EP features 4 unique tracks that sound like the producer made them specifically for the dancefloor of the romanian Sunwaves Festival. Because that's where the idea for the label with the subtitle "Based on friendships which started in Mamaia" was born in 2014. As usual, the record comes with the label's typical artwork and full cover.

Popular DJs like Ricardo Villalobos, Zip, Margaret Dygas, Sonja Moonear, Raresh, Rhadoo, Petre Inspirescu a:rpia:r, Dan Andrei, Pralsea, Fumiya Tanaka, Barac, Fabe, Arno and many others are already playing this record at this summer's festivals & parties .

Evelyn spreads her wings and prepares to fly. This is her first offering for the ESP Institute. On side A, 'Tremors' slams together a plethora of seemingly disparate rhythms, organic percussion, field samples, hypnotic chants and a relentless low end punch, that when in full-swing, works some seriously deep sorcery. Contrasting her pounding kick and rolling sub combo are a softer grouping of melodies, soft mallets and muted tones that lay subtly beneath the aggression, skillfully playing with a sense of spatial depth and room size. Its the kind of track that draws you in with meditative bars, concentric cycles that sit ever so slightly off-axis, inducing the mind and body to obsess and regulating its timing, and then drops you into a very intentionally arranged soundstage giving expansive space to explore. On the flip, 'Pregunta' continues this approach of natural versus industrial instrumentation. The consistent machine kick has a powerful but playful tone, the negative space between each stroke evoking a mighty gesture as its note bends in the decay. Set in 3/4, a community of live percussion successively adds and subtracts, each player’s imperfect attack accumulating into a mechanically smeared and addictive loop that toys with peaks a handful of times yet restrains any unnecessary climax for the betterment of a driving groove. Near the end, as the kick and various players mute and the base of the track is given a moment to breathe, its apparent just how layered the production was in the moments prior, as we’re suddenly at home, smitten with the wobbly and lopsided innocence of the foundational percussion. These two songs will push you headfirst into the light.

Born in Berlin, DJ, producer, and label owner Ben Rau has an unmistakable talent for getting to the wants and needs of the dancefloor. Having experienced the vibrant music scene of Berlin during the mid-'90s, Ben found himself at the heart of one of the most exciting periods in musical history. As the Berlin Wall fell, the city opened its arms to the sounds of house, techno, and trance, propelling Ben into a world of endless inspiration.

After also spending some time living in London, this EP combines the essence of his German roots with the energy of UK’s electronic music scene. He brings plenty of studio skill and musical creativity here, with three varied offerings. The EP opens with ‘Won't Stop’, a powerful track infused with acid influences, headed by a ridiculously catchy vocal. Next up is ‘Drop The Bass’, a psychedelic, mid-tempo chugger adorned with rolling drums. Finally, ‘I Luv It’ closes with playful synth patterns tumbling down over invitingly warm deep house drums.

This is a chunky bass-filled EP, ready to do plenty of damage to any dancefloor.

This July the esteemed scribe, proper DJ, and discreetly deft twiddler Bill Brewster, drops the latest instalment in his ‘After Dark’ series, for Late Night Tales.

A throbbing, louche and leisurely affair, groove is very much at the heart of this freestyle selection, a vibe which Bill de- scribes as “a basement, a red light and a sound system. Or, as the Beastie’s once rapped, slow and low, that is the tempo”.

There’s Hawaiian drum machine bossa balearica from Island Band, percussive afro post punk from Czech jazz singer Jana Koubkova, and breathy-bubbling-dubwise-slap-bass-soul from Debbe& The Code.

There’s also sultry deep house mood music from Lanowa, infectious bouncy jazz funk breaks from Canada High, and Nail’s life affirming re-edit of singer songwriter Gilbert O Sullivan’s electro pop gem ‘So What’.

Bill’s own studio skills are present and correct too, featuring an undulating bassy version of country troubadour Jeb Loy Nichols, reworked along Alex Tepper under their Hotel Motel moniker, and a chugged-up squelchy disco take on Khruang- bin, this time paired with Raj Gupta, as Mang Dynasty.

Chock full of exclusives, tracks are either completely brand new, or available digitally for the first time, whilst others are wallet-rinsing rarities if purchased elsewhere. Whichever way you slice it though, every tune is a highlight, working equally well as standalone nuggets, or within Bill’s fluidly cohesive mix.

Whether he’s taking the roof off a club with his unique selec- tion of deep and tough house music, enchanting a backroom with a genre-bending set of disco, Balearic, rock and hip hop or playing chillout music in a bay in Croatia, Bill Brewster is the man for all occasions.

In a former life, Bill was a punk rocker, a chef and also the co-editor of football magazine When Saturday Comes but has been a record nerd all of his life. He began DJing in the 1980s, but came into his own in the early 1990s, particularly during a two-year stint in New York running DMC’s office, where nights at the Sound Factory and hanging out with Danny Tenaglia gave him the musical grounding you can still hear in his music today.

Bill was also one of the founding residents at Fabric in London, a position he held for five years. There are few still playing regularly today that have his dedication, eclecticism and encyclopedic knowledge of music.

His parallel life is as a writer, and with his long-term part- ner-in-crime Frank Broughton, they have written four books together, including the acclaimed ‘Last Night A DJ Saved My Life’ (latest edition published last July), ‘How To DJ (Prop- erly)’ and ‘The Record Players’.

He has been working in the industry’s fringes for over 40 years including the running of various labels from Twisted UK and Forensic in the ’90s to Disco Sucks and Anorak in the noughties.

He is one of NTS radio’s new residents for 2023 and his ‘Low Life Loves You’ show is available on the first Tuesday of every month.

Nina Kraviz returns to Rekids with remixes of ‘Taxi Talk’ from David Löhlein and Sterac Electronics.

In the years since Nina Kraviz dropped some of her earliest music on Radio Slave's Rekids, she has become a bonafide global superstar. Founding two record labels трип (trip) and Galaxiid, she regularly headlines the world's largest music festivals and has continued to stay at the forefront of electronic music.

'Taxi Talk', initially released on Kraviz’s lauded eponymous debut LP in 2012, still stands the test of time with its spoken word vocals and smoky deep house grooves. Remixing the track alongside its reissue is Vision Ekstase founder and Lehmann Club resident David Löhlein who turns in a fresh remix, and Dutch techno mainstay Steve Rachmad, who unearths a remix made under his Sterac Electronics guise that had, until recently, been unreleased.

Löhlein’s remix sees the Stuttgart-based artist reach for his trademark ’snake sound’, delivering a sleek version flipped into a quick and urgent cut with pulsating synths and dynamic minimal drum funk. Sterac Electronics brings a distinctive sense of electric funk with a boogie-tinged remix full of colourful synths and hip-swinging drums that cannot fail to light up the floor.

Blending ambient, drone, krautrock, psychedelic, house music elements into a unique sonic universe... that's what Cloudland Canyon is known for! This American experimental music project led by Kip Uhlhorn comes with the release of their new self-titled LP on the always trustworthy Medical Records! The band continues to explore the boundaries of sound and space, taking the listener on a journey through lush soundscapes and immersive textures. Formed in 2002, Cloudland Canyon has released several critically acclaimed albums, including "Fin Eaves," "Lie In Light," and "An Arabesque."

Their recent releases have been produced by Sonic Boom from Spacemen 3/Spectrum. With each release, Uhlhorn has pushed the envelope of experimental pop music, collaborating with various musicians and producers to create intricate and otherworldly compositions. This time around Uhlhorn collaborated primarily with AI to generate and create a compositions that sound like they are meant for an alternate realm where both beauty and suffering are both present, but not at odds with one another. AI has helped Uhlhorn take one step further into the transfigurative looking glass.

The new LP, marks a new chapter in Cloudland Canyon's journey, expanding their sonic palette to include elements of techno and electronic music while still retaining their signature dreamy atmospheres. The album is a journey through a sonic landscape that is at once futuristic and nostalgic, evoking the feeling of driving down an endless highway into the sunset. Past musical collaborators have included some of the most exciting musicians working today, including Sonic Boom from Spacemen 3, Wayne Coyne & Kliph Scurlock of Flaming Lips, David Scott Stone of the Melvins, Unwound,& LCD Soundsystem, Dean & Britta from Galaxie 500 & Luna, and Jody Stephens from Big Star to name a few. "S/T" is a testament to Cloudland Canyon's ability to collaborate and create music that is both innovative and accessible. Whether you are a longtime fan or a newcomer to Cloudland Canyon's music, "S/T" is a must-listen for anyone interested in the possibilities of experimental music in the 21st century. With its combination of analog and digital textures, hypnotic rhythms, and expansive soundscapes, it is a journey you won't soon forget.

As it celebrates its 50th anniversary, Bill Withers' Still Bill remains true to its title – and stands as the greatest male-fronted soul album not made by a singer named Marvin, Al, Sam, James, or Ray. Though the saying "keeping it real" did not exist in popular parlance when Withers released his sophomore effort on Sussex Records, no words better capture the music's approach, mindset, and value. Every facet of Still Bill radiates honesty, truth, and emotion.

These characteristics – along with Withers' strong singing, hybrid arrangements, and deceptively simple songwriting – have allowed the album to endure to the point where it sounds as fresh today as in 1972.

After rising into the Top 5 of the Billboard Album charts and attaining gold status within a year of release, Still Bill has long been evaluated not by sales – but according to its merit, spirit, and agelessness. Included by The Guardian on its "1,000 Albums to Hear Before You Die" list (2007) as well as in Tom Moon's 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die book (2008), its contemporary standing as one of history's most venerated soul efforts eclipses the positive reception it enjoyed in the early ‘70s.

Still Bill walks the same hallowed ground as What's Going On, Call Me, Night Beat, and Genius + Soul = Jazz. Like those landmarks, Still Bill plays with a mix of consistency, effortlessness, and complexity that rewards repeat listening and transcends categorization.

In combining four of the era's predominant styles – Philly soul, sweaty funk, Southern-reared blues, acoustic-based folk – and melding them with standout production borrowed from both minimalist affairs and sophisticated singer-songwriter albums, Still Bill occupies a distinct universe.

Its rhythmic fare is equally laidback and invigorating; relaxing and rollicking; eloquent and muscular; soft and tough. Withers' calm, self-assured voice hovers above it all, doubling as a warm blanket that adds comfort and grace to lyrics steeped in maturity, perspective, and compassion.

Withers' balanced outlook on human desires, needs, and situations stem from his own existence as a former blue-collar employee who believed his time as a musician would soon end. That grounding forever separates Withers from other contemporary soul greats – and stamps Still Bill with a conversational nature and egoless approachability.

"I mean look, I'm really a factory worker," said Withers in 1972. "That's a real job." There's that word again: real. The songs on Still Bill are tethered to modesty and actuality, wedded to a belief in simplicity, and connected to universal truths that link us all – independent of our economic or social standing. No track better exemplifies those principles than "Lean on Me," a feel-good paean to brotherhood and community that hit No. 1 on the pop and R&B charts en route to becoming a mainstream staple.

Withers approaches the plainspoken insight on "Lonely Town, Lonely Street" and heartbreaking vulnerability of "I Don't Want You on My Mind" with similar sincerity and straightforwardness. His proclivity for authenticity extends to the record's other big hit: the sexual, funk-laden "Use Me," which reached No. 2 and reflects the singer's everyman persona. It's an identity couched in keeping it real, the very inclination that ultimately led Withers to retire in the mid-'80s rather than bend to industry pressures or risk credibility.

That commitment to truthfulness and realism helps make Still Bill feel as unaffected as the air we breathe. Looking back on "Lean on Me" years later, Withers said it seemed like "something that was there before I got here" – the kind of song that could be 100 or 10 years old, or one we encounter anew 10 years into the future. The same can be said for every note on Still Bill.

Portage Garage Sounds is proud to present the label's first LP, "Capturing Animals" (PGS 017) by Charles Trees. Recorded over a two year period, Capturing Animals preserves the isolation and individual atomization experienced by all over recent years as well as the jubilance of humanity's reconnection.

The 11 track album presents itself as an interconnected work--the listener is guided through the album's narrative and sequential structure effortlessly by Trees' arrangement and showcase of his production and composition talents. The album offerses glimpses of early Detroit techno, flashes of EBM, drips of acid (and full-on doses in "FRQDNK"), stripped-down electro, UK RNB, prominent vocals (as heard in "Stave I" and a Sophie cover), and composed works of live strings.

Capturing Animals is a high point for Trees' and Portage Garage Sounds. The raw talent and dedication is unmistakable. The artist and the label are moving onto higher ground and reaching upwards.

Intergenerational trio Dry Speed is one of the best-kept secrets of the Belgian free jazz and improvisation scene. Formed in the early 2000’s, trumpet player Joachim Devillé and saxophonist Thomas Olbrechts were in their twenties at that time, while drummer – their teacher at the art school in Brussels - Dirk Wauters was already in his fifties. Logically, twenty years later the first one are in their forties and the third one in his seventies. They only released a couple of CDs before “Indium” but never stopped to play, for themselves and for audiences, in concerts.

'Too often we describe music using classifications; genres like “jazz,” “experimental,” “avant- garde” are an easy shorthand to relay the rough parameters of the music to another person who may not have heard it. But these words are useful because they’re so vague, and they are most often used when the impression the music makes is equally vague. But when a group makes sounds that move the listener, these terms don’t hold up.

Dry Speed has released a record that is, at turns, futuristic and organic. It feels alien and new, like plastic or titanium, but at the same time as if it is shrouded in the natural, growing like moss or amplifying the sound of a great tree’s roots. ‘Indium’ gives the listener multiple entry points into the trio’s music: from a broad soundscape to a densely knitted series of minute and exacting musical gestures.'
- Nate Wooley

Two mavericks, out on the weekend, trying to make it pay...

"Maverick was the word that came to mind when I listened to this music. A slightly wayward independence of spirit and outlook. The word originally referred to an unbranded male calf that had become separated from the herd (because Texan rancher Sam Maverick was so negligent in his branding - ‘if it ain’t branded, it’s a Maverick’). But Sam’s grandson Maury Maverick gave it a different twist in his short but stormy Congressional career as the only liberal member of the Southern Democratic caucus. Maury was so out of step with his own folks that he not only voted in 1937 to make lynching a federal crime, he even addressed the House to condemn the practice as barbaric. His attempt to ban racist mob murder sadly failed, but it’s that refusal to march in step which distinguishes the two ‘mavericks’ who made this record.

Who would attempt to combine cunning ethnological forgery, Scottish folk songs, claw-hammer guitar, untutored horn-tootling, elastically relaxed drumming and garage electronic fuckery? Only Greg and Stefan, high on sea, sunshine and mis-judged micro-dosing – that’s who. ‘Don’t drown’ was offered as practical advice during the self-described ‘Yellow Submarine’ phase of making this record. And while they managed to avoid literally doing so (phew), they sound here like they got pretty ‘deep in’ to an Octopus’s sound world all their own. This surprisingly clear analogue recording has just enough Bikini Bottom grit to ensure traction. The tunes are inviting, and the sonic disruptions are too good-natured and goofy to upset even the most delicate digestion.

The sessions have had a couple of years to marinate, courtesy of some pandemic, and are here offered in that most Archducal of vinyl formats, the double ten inch. What are you waiting for, a side of Crabby Patties? Get your water-wings and dive in (unless you’re tripping)!" - Bruce Russell (The Dead C)


Pumice is the long-running, endlessly inventive project of New Zealand native Stefan Neville (1974), whose shambolic music is equally reminiscent of Kiwi pop groups such as The Clean and Tall Dwarfs as well as the country's experimental noise-rock bands like the Dead C. Largely recorded solo by himself on junky equipment, his songs typically feature blown-out guitars, wheezing chord organs, and vocals disguised by tape hiss and static.

Greg Malcolm (1965) is a guitarist from New Zealand who has played everywhere on the globe and with all most everyone, including Rosy Parlane, Toshimaru Nakamura, Tetuzi Akiyama and Bruce Russell, as well as solo releases on his own label, Corpus Hermeticum, Kraak and Celebrate Psi Phenomenon.

You know Krash Slaughta right? The man behind the recent wildly successful DOOM/Sugacubes mash-up LP Sugar-Coated DOOM, not to mention his unofficial remixes of the Wu’s K.R.E.A.M. and P.L.O. Style and collab. 45 with Phill Most Chill, Rebel Base? ‘Is he at it again?’ the monkey hears you ask. Yes, he is at it again, though the closest of the the three aforementioned releases to what he’s about to drop is the Wu remix 45. And what he’s about to drop is Diggin Deeper, not a single this time but a whole remix album of one of his (and the monkey’s!) all-time favourite hip-hop LPs – to wit, Niggamortis – more usually known as Six Feet Deep (especially in the U.S., though minus the best track under that name) by hip-hop supergroup Gravediggaz.

As many will know, this LP with its horror-movie fixated lyrics gave birth to a whole hip-hop sub-genre – that of ‘horrorcore.’ However, none of those who came after seemed to manage the lyrical humour of The RZArector, The Grym Reaper and The Gatekeeper (a.k.a. RZA, Poetic and Frukwan) and the only bit of production by The Undertaker (a.k.a. Prince Paul) that they seemed interested in was the sub-metal rap sludge of the shouty Bang Your Head – i.e. the LP’s one weak spot. But don’t worry, Krash isn’t interested in that sort of thing. Not only does he avoid rap-metal beats for Bang Your Head, he doesn’t use any on the LP at all – hurrah! What he does do is employ, arguably, as eclectic an array of sample sources as Prince Paul on the original – though with an entirely different end result. Bang Your Head with its apparently sixties garage band-derived beat for example is one of the standouts. The skeletal piano skank of 6 Feet Deep is another, while a beat featuring spaced-out eighties synths forms the new musical backdrop to Constant Elevation. Two more of the monkey’s favourites on this one are Here Comes The Gravediggaz, now underpinned by double-bass-led funk and the glorious inappropriately joyous bounce of Blood Brothers. The result? Your favourite cuts on this one might not be the same as your favourite cuts on the original. Two different versions of a much-loved LP, then; it’s why people remix hip-hop. All the vocal stems were created by Krash and the ultimate intention is to do a limited vinyl release. Cover art is by the Dead Residents’ Junior Disprol.

After the inevitable success of L'Hiver des crêtes (aka season 1 of their major new project celebrating 40 years of approximate punk), Ludwig Von 88 are back for new adventures in a second season entitled Le Printemps du Pogo. This second vinyl album (of the four planned this year) is this time illustrated by LauL (iconic graphic designer of the 80s - Bérurier Noir, Ludwig Von 88, Mylène Farmer, Patrick Topaloff).

Fourteen tracks packed with love, joy, shitty jobs, noisy neighbours, flowery pogos, fried chicken, unsanitary dungeons and a negative carbon footprint.

There are some good traditional Keupon numbers, but also ska, reggae, yodelling (Yodel to Hell), a universal anthem of destructive punk (Youplapunk), swing, the follow-up to Fistfuck Playa Club (New Club) and Kaliman (Kaliman saves the world), and the long-awaited conclusion, 38 years later, to their interstellar hit J'ai tué mon père (J'ai sauvé mon père). Or the hit Let it burn, which we'll probably be able to sing along to during the long hot days to come.

Thirteen of these songs have already been released on the internet (at a rate of one a week, because the Ludwigs like periodicity, and that's why they keep coming back and coming back) but the fourteenth track, Casques Rouges, is completely new to the galaxy.

So here's something to liven up the weeks of holiday that are just around the corner. On the beach, in the mountains or in the forest, approximate punk remains salvific and Ludwig Von 88 are its most faithful servants.

Youplapunk to you all!