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White Vinyl. Shine is the sophomore album from Grammy Award–winning songwriter and artist Tobias Jesso Jr.

Sweatmaster releases a new full-length album after a 15-year hiatus via Svart Records Sweatmaster, one of the aristocrats of Finnish garage rock, is making a big comeback with the release of their fifth album More! in January 2026. After the release of their 2010 album Dig Up the Knife, the band took a long break, which ended a few years ago with live performances both domestic and abroad. At the same time, new material began to emerge in the rehearsal room, and the band quickly found a common strategy for working on it. "We were unanimous about the strengths of our band and decided to get to the heart of the matter. The main idea was to make straightforward songs carried by the vocals. The kind that would work well live with our aggressive playing style," says the band's drummer Matti Kallio. Svart Records will release Sweatmaster's fifth album early next year. More! is a sharp package of fourteen songs that has not been polished to death. "We wanted a raw and electric sound for the new album, built tightly around the three of us playing. The aim was to stick to Sweatmaster's original energy and not spread ourselves too thin. However, despite our efforts, the intervening years brought some new tones with them," guitarist Mikko Luukko explains the background of the new album. The album's first single will be released on Friday, September 19th, and according to singer-bassist Sasu Mykkänen, Destroyer is the essence of Sweatmaster. "The drum fill draws you into the pull of the electric triangle. The guitar taps at the ballads and wants nothing more than to drive the rhythm until the passionate vocals take over. The song doesn't lead anywhere, it's already there. 2 minutes, 37 seconds. Wham bam. Here you go." More! is available for pre-order now at Svart’s webstore on Svart exclusive vinyl, limited coloured vinyl, classic black vinyl, and CD. Release date January 30th, 2026.

'In 2023, sound artist and composer Weston Olencki toured across the American South. Beginning in their hometown in South Carolina, they snaked a circuitous path from the mountains of West Virginia to the banks of the Mississippi River. As the miles accumulated, so did the initial seeds of new work.
'Instruments and artifacts they acquired hitched a ride in the backseat, while songs and sounds filled their portable recorder: water in its various states, the familiar insectoid buzz of those summer nights, trains cutting through the landscape, the traditional music that lived alongside the communities that kept it. Olencki took it all in, and over time, found ways that these experiences coalesced into a bramble-like perspective of time, where past, present, and future intersect in ways both barbed and beautiful.
'Broadsides, Olencki’s newest solo full-length is the multilayered result of this journey. The album follows their landmark release Old Time Music from 2022, which presented radical interpretations of traditional tunes from Appalachia and throughout the South alongside original compositions that drew significantly on archival recordings. On Broadsides, Olencki rejects delineations between the unmoored avant-garde and the rootedness of one’s cultural heritage, revealing their porous and intertwined nature. “My mother was a quilter. Her mother before that,” they write in the album’s liner notes. “Quilting, like music, is a practice of embedding knowledge and remembrance into the very core of the thing you are making. It’s not just about the materials, but how they’re reassembled, recontextualized, stitched, woven to form new patterns - the minutiae of craft holding significance to those looking to find it. Stories woven from stories, never told the same way twice.”
'Like all great road trips, Broadsides unfolds slowly and continuously, with moments of dramatic reverie punctuating the endless melt of highway in the rearview. We’re immediately confronted by the uncanniness of revisiting old haunts, as Southern storms break through the initial churn of the freight locomotives of Alabama. Olencki’s interpretation of the bluegrass standard “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” captures the euphoria of melancholy in motion. The permutational plucks of banjo are bounced around the frame by a computer, its pitches determined within algorithmic sequences and transcriptions of classic three-finger licks. The tonalities of old-time are smeared and stretched until all that’s audible is the insistence that Heaven might be real.
'In the album’s second half, “Omie Wise,” a murder ballad made famous by Doc Watson, follows an interlude recorded on the river in North Carolina in which the titular character’s body was laid. Ghostly echoes of a dozen other renditions float through the substrata as Tongue Depressor’s Henry Birdsey accompanies them on the pedal steel guitar. The album’s central composition, “all my father’s clocks,” is a profound meditation on entropy and impermanence. The sound of their father’s extensive clock collection ticks away as Olencki pulls a bow across the length of an autoharp sourced from a rural strip mall. The instrument was left as detuned as it was found, the resonance of its deep bass drone and clanging high-end the result of years of neglect and the warping effects of Southern humidity.
'Historically, broadsides were an early form of broadcasting, an often- musicalized telling of current news pasted in the public square. The name was later taken up by Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen in the 1960s, whose Broadside magazine published songs and social commentary when American folk music resurfaced as an urgent way of communicating the multifaceted politics of its time.
'Olencki borrows the phrase to recall both this old form of songmaking and that later prominent reexamination of traditional music’s role in modern life, but also to draw attention to the fragmented and machine- mediated way heritage is diffused in this very different, but no less pivotal, moment.
'As a sanitized past is used as justification for current violence and domination, we can turn to these artifacts to better understand the history of ourselves, but only if they are consciously pushed to evolve. Broadsides represents one personal, striking vision of what far-flung futurisms could be respun from = these high, lonesome sounds: a reflection of the unbridled joy and deep sorrow inherent to living together through time, and a desire to push further into the untold and unknown.'

Although they emerged from Melbourne bayside outer suburbs onto the local live scene with their fresh and spirited indie-rock update of the garage-beat sounds of The Easybeats, Kinks and early Beatles only a year or so ago, Gnome actually started out as a bedroom solo project for teenaged singer/songwriter/ guitarist Jay Millar a few years back. Jay, playing everything himself, started recording and releasing a steady succession of material - quite a few albums' worth - on his own Goblin Records label via Bandcamp. Realizing he needed a band to start playing out, Jay approached some like minded players from Frankston's rehearsal hub Singing Bird, and with Jay on lead vocals and lead guitar, Ned Capp on guitar, Olly Katsianis on bass, and Ethan Robins on drums, Gnome became a band.

Early in 2025, the last solo Jay recordings released under the Gnome name caused something of an international underground sensation when the Bandcamp only I Like It EP - four songs of kranked up Kinks-style mono riffage - was posted by a Spanish garage-punk YouTube page and quickly clocked up over 50,000 views.



At the same time, the band quickly began gaining attention on the thriving Frankston scene and around Melbourne. They started breaking out, sharing bills with the likes of Drunk Mums, Skegss, Split System, The Prize, The Unknowns, Cosmic Psychos, Hockey Dad, Guitar Wolf, The 5.6.7.8's, The Breadmakers, Loose Lips, fellow Frankstoners/Singing Bird alumni The Belair Lip Bombs, and, on a quick trip to Sydney, Cammy Cautious & The Wrestlers.

And now, finally, we have The Gnomes' debut album. Twelve killer tracks that combine the best of the '60s with the best of today. Twelve killer tracks that show off assertive and accomplished songwriting, singing and playing and an explosive and authentic swinging group sound. Twelve killers slices of raw rock'n'roll running the gamut from the savage Rhythm & Blues of "Play With You" and “Better With You” to the vibrant beat pop of "I'll Be There" and "I'm Not The One", with forays into the heavy reverb psych of "Stung", the Cavern/Star Club stylings of "Flippin' Stomp" and the first flyte jangle of "Time Will Tell" along the way. There’s more of course, including a new version of that Kinks-style kranker “I Like It” for good measure.

Frankston’s Fab Four are taking their sound to the world. Join them for the ride!

Then known as Catacomb, their early recordings of unusual gothic doom metal were to quickly gain the band interest. It was around 1993 that the brothers decided that a name change was in order & Novembre was born. Following swiftly on the back of 2006's 'Materia' release - Novembre's first album for their then new label, Peaceville - & in the wake of the great acclaim the band was receiving at the time for its highly captivating blend of atmospheric, emotional & progressive rock/metal, arrived the follow-up opus, 'The Blue', in 2007.

Featuring among the band's strongest compositions to date & with twists of doom/ gothic which brought to mind classic bands such as Opeth, 'The Blue' was a flawlessly executed opus of soaring majestic anthems in the unmistakable Novembre style. 'The Blue' was recorded at Outersound Studios, Italy, by the band & mixed at Finnvox Studios in Finland (Nightwish, Finntroll, HIM). Artwork was created by Travis Smith (Katatonia, Opeth). Following the recent release of the band's stellar 'Words Of Indigo' album, this edition of 'The Blue' is presented on black vinyl with printed inner sleeve featuring lyrics & arrives on the vinyl format for the first time.

From 1986-1987, Chet traveled and worked with the photographer and filmmaker Bruce Weber on a project that would become their Oscar- nominated documentary "Let's Get Lost"1988. During this period, Chet performed at the Cannes Film Festival and recorded sessions at Studio Davout in Paris and Sage and Sound Studio in Hollywood. All remained unreleased until now. Inspired by the film - which celebrated its 35th anniversary last year - SWIMMING BY MOONLIGHT is a two-record soundtrack album curated by Bruce Weber and produced by John Leftwich that compiles music, dialogue and live concert recordings.

On Air is the second solo release by Alan Parsons following the split of The Alan Parsons Project. One of the creative forces was APP long-time guitarist Ian Bairnson. The concept of the album revolves around the history of airborne exploration.

The theme of “Too Close to the Sun” is escaping the labyrinth of the Minotaur. “Brother Up In Heaven” is an emotionally driven song, about the unfortunate death of Ian Bairnson’s cousin. “One Day To Fly” is a song about Leonardo da Vinci’s search to design a flying machine.

A who’s-who of lead vocalists are featured on this album; Christopher Cross, Eric Stewart, Neil Lockwood, Steve Overland and Graham Dye. The amazing looking artwork was recreated for this vinyl edition by none other than Peter Curzon of Storm Studios. Although On Air might be the most underrated Alan Parsons albums, many consider this as one of his best albums. The package includes an insert with lyrics and pictures.

Technological agitation. Narcissism fatigue. A galaxy of isolation. These are the new norms keeping Weyes Blood (aka Natalie Mering) up at night and the themes at the heart of her latest release, And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow. The celestial-influenced folk album is her follow-up to the acclaimed Titanic Rising. (Pitchfork, NPR, and The Guardian admiringly named it one of 2019's best.) While Titanic Rising was an observation of doom to come, And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow is about being in the thick of it: a search for an escape hatch to liberate us from algorithms and ideological chaos. "We're in a fully functional shit show," Mering says. "My heart is a glow stick that's been cracked, lighting up my chest in an explosion of earnestness." And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow opens with the wistful, winsome "It's Not Just Me, It's Everybody," a song about the interconnectivity of all beings, despite the fraying of society around us. "I was asking a lot of questions while writing these songs. Hyper-isolation kept coming up," Mering says. "Our culture relies less and less on people. Something is off, and even though the feeling appears differently for each individual, it is universal." Other tracks follow in kind. The lullaby-like "Grapevine" chronicles the splintering of a human connection. The otherworldly dirge "God Turn Me into a Flower" serves as allegory about our collective hubris. "The Worst Is Done" is an ominous warning, set against a deceivingly breezy pop melody. "Chaos is natural. But so is negentropy, or the tendency for things to fall into order," she says. "These songs may not be manifestos or solutions, but I know they shed light on the meaning of our contemporary disillusionment."

Whitelands' second album Sunlight Echoes builds on their elemental debut - that won them fans from Slowdive to David Jonsson - with a more expansive sound that takes them out of the shoegaze shadows to somewhere bigger, better and brighter. Produced by long-time collaborator Ian Flynn and mixed by double Grammy Award-winner Eduardo De La Paz (New Order, The Horrors, The Charlatans, The KVB, Drug Store Romeos), there are soaring string arrangements (by Iskra Strings) and Lush guest vocals from labelmate Emma Anderson. "We're coming back with a lot more maturity and realness," says singer and guitarist Etienne Quartey-Papafio of their step up. "It shows in how much more emotional our music has become." With maturity comes a newfound confidence, so not only are there stunning melodies everywhere, but Etienne's vocals are front and centre throughout. "It's been really cool to watch Etienne push through boundaries," adds bassist Vanessa Govinden. "I like the direction we've taken on this album. We're taking a risk. It's half and half." She's right - the first half of the album has an almost Britpop breeziness, that belies the serious subject matter that inspired the songs, while the second half gets heavier, in all senses, with added grit and gravitas."This album is one of enduring," says Etienne of the overarching theme. "We had family that were dying, I was broke, there was a shortage of my ADHD medication_ I was suffering, but not just me, everyone around me was too." "The last two years have been challenging," concludes Vanessa. "The universe really fucked with us. That's why there are themes of loss, disconnection, fragmentation and yearning, but on the other side there is also unity and hope." Sunlight Echoes is a poetic, melodic statement of intent from this formidable band. Whitelands have fought back and triumphed in the face of adversity.

Strong one on Voyage Direct from Rotterdam's Benny Rodrigues...TIP!

The label say "Benny Rodrigues seems to delight in confounding critics. Since making his debut alongside Darko Esser with 2007's Underwater Records-­-released 'Paradox', the Rotterdam-­-based DJ has surprised and excited at every turn.

Variously delivering woozy tech-­-house, rave revivalism, stripped-­-back minimal, jackin' acid, wide-­-eyed deep house and, under his occasional ROD alias, shirts-­-off warehouse techno. Along the way, he's released music on some of Europe's most prestigious labels, including Desolat, Soma, EC Records, Be As One and Wolfskuil Records.

Here, he makes his debut for Tom Trago's Voyage Direct imprint with two undulating, hypnotic, heads-­-down tracks that blur the boundaries between house and techno. Rhythmically loose but impressively tough - like all of Rodrigues' best productions - both cuts are built around mesmerising late night grooves and intoxicating chords.

'Master French' kicks things off, lacing nagging shakers, subtle synth strings and fluttering chords over a robust, shuffling tech-­-house groove. Rodrigues works the mix like a master, bringing elements to the fore before sliding them into the background. It's a simple, heads-­-down, 4am groove, but it's executed brilliantly.

'Z', on the other hand, is an altogether breezier affair, with repetitive, new age-­- inspired synthesizer melodies seemingly drifting over a rock solid house groove. Notable ride cymbals and warm beats proper the track forward, giving it a humid, tropical feel. This is music to move the body, mind and soul. "

The journey through French-speaking pop archives continues with this fifth volume, packed with fuzz, gimmicks, and dissent. Far from the charts, the selected tracks display a great creative freedom, often backed by corrosive humor. Welcome to the surprising, kaleidoscopic, and colorful world of the late sixties and early seventies, Wizzz!
Born in Montauban, Robert Pico stumbled into music by chance when he met René Vaneste, then artistic director at Pathé-Marconi. René brought him to Paris to record his first 45 RPM EP in 1964. A year later, Pierre Perret introduced him to Vogue, where he recorded his second album with Claude Nougaro’s orchestra. Sylvie Vartan then introduced him to RCA, where he recorded four singles, including the astonishing "Chien Fidèle," a track backed by a hair-rising fuzz guitar. Alongside his solo career, he also composed for other artists like Alain Delon (the song was recorded but remains unreleased), Magali Noël, Bourvil, and Georges Guétary. In the Paris of the sixties, he mingled with Mireille Darc, Elsa Martinelli, Marie Laforêt, France Gall, Françoise Hardy, Petula Clark, Régine, Dani, Serge Gainsbourg, Joe Dassin, Franck Fernandel, Charles Level, and Roland Vincent. Despite his efforts and winning a Grand Prix Sacem for his final record, Robert Pico didn’t achieve the expected success in show business and decided to leave Paris and return to the Southwest, where he devoted himself to writing. He is the author of 23 books (including Delon et Compagnie, Jean-Marc Savary Editions 2025, a memoir about his youth and his many encounters). Today, he is relieved to never have become a celebrity and devotes himself to his work with passion.
In 1969, the Franco-Italian movie Erotissimo was released, directed by Gérard Pirès (who later directed Taxi in 1998, written and produced by Luc Besson). This pop comedy features Annie Girardot, Jean Yanne, Francis Blanche, Serge Gainsbourg, Nicole Croisille, Jacques Martin, and Patrick Topaloff. The soundtrack was written by Michel Polnareff and William Sheller, with lyrics by Jean-Lou Dabadie. "La Femme Faux-cils," performed by Annie Girardot. It recounts the feelings of a rich CEO's wife who seeks to develop her sex appeal under the influence of advertisement and magazines. Groovy, sparkling and light, this track, with ITS lush arrangements humorously critiques consumer society and feminine beauty standards.
“Je suis l’Etat” (1967) is the flagship track of the first EP by singer-songwriter Spauv Georges, aka Georges Larriaga, better known as Jim Larriaga (1941-2022). Born into a family of bakers, the young man was initially planning to become a hairdresser when he discovered English-speaking music through Elvis Presley and the Beatles. After this revelation, he decided he would become a songwriter and gave himself five years to succeed. He recorded his first two EP’s independently for RCA under the pseudonym Spauv Georges; meaning “that poor George”, a nickname given to him by the mother of her friend Jean-Pierre Prévotat (future drummer of the Players, Triangle, or Johnny Hallyday). Portraying a depressed and eccentric young man, Spauv Georges created corrosive and amusing songs that didn’t reach a wide audience, despite a TV appearance with Jean-Christophe Averty.
Supported by his loyal friend and fellow songwriter Jean-Max Rivière, Georges Larriaga met the future singer Carlos in the early '70s, then Sylvie Vartan’s assistant. He wrote songs for Carlos, including the popular "La vie est belle," "Y’a des indiens partout," and "La cantine", which went onto become a huge hit in 1972. He also composed for Claude François (“Anne-Marie”, 1971), Charlotte Julian (“Fleur de province”, 1972), helped launch child singer Roméo (who sold 4 million records), and later wrote the hit "Pas besoin d’éducation sexuelle" (1975) for the young Julie Bataille. In 1971, Jim recorded an album for Disc'Az: “L’univers étrange et fou de Jim Larriaga”, which featured pop gems like “La maison de mon père”.
The story of the song "Zoé" began when Pierre Dorsay, artistic director at Vogue Records, asked Swiss singer and musician Pierre Alain to write a song for a new female singer. The inspiration came when he realized that Zoé (the artist's name) was also the name of France's first atomic battery, created in 1948, which consisted of uranium oxide immersed in heavy water! The lyrics reflect a bubbling energy that must be handled with caution, while the instrumentation echoes this atomic theme, notably with the use of a theremin.
Zoé’s career lasted only as long as a single 45 RPM, but it seems Christine Fontane was the vocalist behind this pseudonym, who is known for several EPs, a good "popcorn" album in 1964, and a handful of children’s singles in the '70s. Regardless, the photograph on the cover is of a different girl entirely.
Later, Pierre Alain continued his career, writing songs for himself, Marie Laforêt, Danièle Licari, Alice Dona, Arlette Zola (3rd place in Eurovision 1982), and achieving multiple gold and platinum records in Canada. Also an inventor with several patents, president of the Romande Academy, and head of the French Alliance in Geneva, he now composes atonal music, books, and poetry. Moreover, he is also the host of "Les Mardis de Pierre Alain" at "Le P'tit Music'Hohl" in Geneva.
Filled with oriental choruses and fuzz guitar, "Fou" is from Jacques Da Sylva's only EP released by Vogue in 1967. Despite the quality of this recording, all traces of this singer disappear after this first effort.
Valentin is a baroque pop singer born in Belgium. He is the songwriter and composer of most of the tracks on his three singles released in the late 60s in Canada. A legend says that he reincarnated himself as Jacky Valentin during the 1970s for a rock'n'roll revival career in Belgium, but his older brother sadly debunked this story. Valentin's first two singles were arranged by Claude Rogen, a Parisian session pianist who had come to Canada to promote the song “Mister A Gogo”, a cover of David Bowie’s “Laughing Gnome”, adapted by singer Delphine, his wife at the time. Far from his usual network, Claude Rogen arranged music for Polydor, including the arrangements for “Je suis un vagabond” in 1969, a jerk tune with string arrangements and a furious optimism.
Jacques Malia wrote, composed, and recorded his only 45 EP for Festival in 1966. “Histoire de gitan” is an incredible beat track with bohemian scat that tells the story of a gypsy musician who came to Paris to make it in the Music-Hall, to no avail. The hero of the song and its author probably shared a similar fate, as Jacques Malia faded into anonymity after this remarkable attempt.
Bernard Jamet recorded two EPs for Barclay in the late sixties and co-wrote several songs with Christine Pilzer, Pascal Danel, and prolific songwriters Michel Delancray and Mya Simile. The track “Raison Légale” (1968), his masterpiece, immerses the listener in a courtroom right when a murderer is being judged, with jerk rhythm and free arrangements. A unique, paranoid, judicial, and psychedelic oddity.
Jean-Pierre Lebrot-Millers started his career in show business in 1967 as a singer and songwriter for the Philips label. After three singles, he wrote several songs of a new kind with his friend Pierre Halioche, in the midst of the sexual liberation movement and the democratization of drugs. With provocative lyrics, “Les filles du hasard” and “Barbara au Chapeau Rose” were released on a Philips singles in 1968. The character of Barbara was inspired by a queen of Parisian nightlife during the psychedelic years: model Charlotte Martin, who dated Eric Clapton from 1965 to 1968, then Jimmy Page from 1970 to 1983. Jean-Claude Petit’s arrangements, with a table-filled intro, soul brass, and Hendrixian guitar, emphasize the flamboyance of a hedonistic and sexy character, whose dog is named Junkie because “Junkie est un nom exquis”! The track was recorded live in three takes with a full orchestra.
Upon its release, the record was censored by Europe 1 and RTL due to its references to drug use. Jean-Pierre Lebrot was then banned from the airwaves and later dismissed by his record label. He changed his artist name to Jean-Pierre Millers, while his companion Pierre Halioche became D. Dolby for a new dreamy composition, “Chilla”, which Jean-Pierre produced himself with arrangements by Jean Musy. Once again, the song was immediately censored everywhere. After this setback, he decided to stop singing and started taking on odd jobs to support his Swedish wife and their son until the day he met Jean-Pierre Martin, then production manager at Decca, who had worked with Manu Dibango. Martin offered Jean-Pierre Lebrot-Millers, then employed at Rank Xerox, the position of artistic director at Decca. He accepted and became, a year later, promotion director (radio, press, TV). He worked on Julio Iglesias’s first album for Decca, which became a massive hit and allowed him to meet Claude Carrère. The latter asked him to write new songs and find their performers, much like a “talent scout.” It’s through him that Jean-Pierre discovered Julie Pietri and Corinne Hermès. He composed “Ma Pompadour” for Ringo, Sheila’s husband, and took the microphone again for the syncope hit “Rendez-Vous” in 1982.
That same year, Jean-Pierre Lebrot-Millers tried to release a track for which he had heavily gone into debt: “Si la vie est un cadeau”. Having recorded it in London, he presented it to numerous professionals, all of whom refused to get involved. The same thing happened with Antenne 2 and the Sacem when he proposed the song as France’s entry for Eurovision. He then met Haïm Saban, who was producing cartoon soundtracks and had just launched the Goldorak theme song. Saban, having listened to the song, declared it had the potential to become a hit. He sent Jean-Pierre and Corinne Hermès to meet the CEO of the Luxembourg radio and television network. The latter received them, asked to hear a verse and chorus a cappella in his office, and immediately hired them to represent Luxembourg at Eurovision 1983. They reworked the arrangements and recorded a new version with Haïm Saban as co-producer. The song ended up winning Eurovision 1983, a great comeback for our hero. He continued producing and hung out with the band Nacash in Belgium when a couple came to introduce their daughter for an impromptu audition in a hotel room. The girl sang “Les démons de minuit” while dancing to a radio cassette. Impressed, he had her take singing lessons for a year and composed a song for her (for which he had the melody and title, but no lyrics). This required him to go on the hunt for a lyricist, who ended up being Guy Carlier. They recorded the song, which was initially a ballad, at Bernard Estardy’s CBE studio, and gave the singer a new name: Melody. They showed the song around their industry network without success. Later, Estardy called Jean-Pierre to suggest changing the rhythm and making it pop-rock. Orlando, Dalida’s brother, liked the result and decided to co-produce the track. “Y’a pas que les grands qui rêvent » became a classic hit. The song has since been covered by Juliette Armanet (as a ballad, like the original) and Valentina.

Born into an aristocratic Breton family, Hervé Mettais-Cartier worked as a DJ at Queen Kiss, a nightclub in Poitiers, where he formed the band Les Concentrés with Michel (an actor) and Christian (a radio technician). Together, they created a repertoire of whimsical songs (“Ma bique est morte”, “J’suis un salaud”, “Fils de dégénéré”...) that they performed on stage dressed in white (in homage to “concentrated milk”). They performed at Bliboquet and Olympia in 1968 for the 10th edition of the “Relais de la chanson Française” organized by L’Humanité-Dimanche and Nous les Garçons et les Filles, sponsored by Pepsi Cola. Winners in the author-composer category, alongside Danish singer Dorte, their visibility allowed them to record a 45, and appear on television in Jean-Christophe Averty’s show. The A-side of the disc features Bruno le ravageur, a casatchok dedicated to Bruno Caquatrix, the director of Olympia, nicknamed in the song “Coq Atroce” or “croque-actrices”. The B-side is dedicated to “Fils de dégénéré”, a quirky tribute to Hervé's aristocratic roots, mixing absurdity with sophisticated vocal harmonies.
After Les Concentrés, Hervé Mettais-Cartier formed the duo La Paire et sa Bêtise with his friend Olivier Robert. They performed in Parisian cabarets and toured with Pierre Vassiliu. In the late 1970s, Hervé began a solo career. He recorded two albums for the Motors label in 1978 and 1979, which did not achieve their anticipated success due to lack of promotion. In 1980, he met Bernadette, with whom he started a family and created a “Chansons à voir” (songs to see) show that he performed until his death at the end of 2024.

Publicité comes from the final EP by the Missiles (Ducretet Thomson, 1966), a disc that also includes “La (nouvelle) guerre de cent ans”, featured on Volume 4 of our Wizzz! series. Please refer to the booklet for the story of the band.

“He’s 1.82 meters tall, 28 years old, weighs 135 kg, is black and Belgian”: this is the description of singer Hegesippe on the back of his sole single (Decca, 1967). He appears on the album cover wearing a Greek toga, like a hippie gag – we are at the end of the year 1967. In “Le crédo d’Hegesippe”, this former bodyguard of Antoine and the Charlots plays the delightful card of the thick brute converted to Flower-Power and non-violence, with arrangements by Jean-Daniel Mercier, aka Paul Mille.
“Ethéro-disco” was released on a promotional record for clients of the Maréchal company (Liège, Belgium) for the New Year 1979. Over a funky rhythm, celebrity impersonations (Brigitte Bardot, Jacques Dutronc, Fernandel…) deliver an enigmatic text about pharmaceutical products like ether, bismuth, and aspartate. The track was composed by Dan Sarravah (responsible for Joanna's “Hold-up inusité” featured on Wizzz! Volume 3) and Tony Talado, who was also a singer (one 45 in 1967), songwriter (with over a dozen credits between 1964 and 1985 in various styles from surf music to disco), author (Devenez Végétarien, Dricot Editions, 1985), ad designer, and psychologist.

Décollez-les is on the A-side of Mamlouk's only single, a pseudonym for Marsel Hurten, who is known for his work on several EPs in the late sixties, as well as composing music for Hervé Vilard’s “Capri, c’est fini”, Claude Channes' “La Haine”, Annie Philippe’s “On m’a toujours dit”, and Nancy Holloway’s “Panne de Cœur”.
This strange song, with Afrobeat horns and absurd dialogues between a chef and his kitchen staff, is the result of a collaboration between Marsel Hurten and one of his neighbors, a photographer from Pavillon-sous-Bois (93), where the musician settled after returning from the Algerian War. A music video was shot to promote the record.
Marsel Hurten was born in Tourcoing (59) into a musical family. At a young age, he joined the brass band founded by his grandfather, playing the piston before studying trumpet at the conservatory, as well as teaching himself how to play the guitar. As an orchestra musician, he toured in France, Belgium, Germany, and England. He released a series of solo 45’s between 1965 and 1968 for the DMF and Az labels before stopping recording to focus on working for other artists (Gilles Olivier, Noëlle Cordier…).
“L’amour nu” (Vogue, 1971) is the work of the short-lived Belgian band Mozaïque. The track, written by singer Jacques Albin, closely resembles another of his compositions, “Carré Blanc”, which he recorded in 1969 for Disc’AZ.
Represented by the Lumi Son micro-label based in Marignane (Côte d'Azur), Jean-Marc Garrigues released two 45 RPMs in the late sixties, defending the French jerk sound. The song “Je dis Non” is a short, joyful ode to youth, pop music, and rebellion.
Songwriter and performer Jacques Penuel released three singles. The first one, “Astronef 328” (Fontana, 1969), features a dizzying series of chords punctuated by sound effects, a sci-fi story, and arrangements by Jean-Claude Vannier.

We would like to sincerely thank Pierre Alain, Moon Blaha, Marsel Hurten, Bastien Larriaga, Jean-Pierre Lebrot-Millers, Bernadette Mettais-Cartier, Robert Pico, Olivier Robert, Claude Rogen, Micky Segura.

New FLEE publication focused on Arabian Gulf's pearl divers, their culture through their soundscape, traditional songs & rhythms. Including archival recordings and reinterpretations by moderns electronic artists such as Joakim, Tomaga, Ben Bertrand, Conny Frischauf, Hieroglyphic Being .....

Available as 2LP, black vinyls & 2LP+258p book (English & Arabic text) bundle.

The pearls of the Gulf have stoked the imagination and desire of people around the world for centuries, their magnificence matched only by the courage of the divers who found them. This project aims to honor the memory of these valiant free-divers, their culture and their music by the means of a 2XLP compilation with undisclosed original recordings of pearl divers and inspired modern-day compositions by artists like Tomaga, YPY, Ben Betrand, Tarek Yamani or Hieroglyphic Being. Along with that record, a 258 pages long book in Arabic and English is available featuring contributions from regional experts and artists to contextualize the tremendously rich theme that is pearling and its music.

On his debut album “Scattered Memories”, the composer, musician and true master on the Iranian spike fiddle kamancheh SABA ALIZADEH blends his instrumental virtuosity with spherical electronics, samples of Persian music instruments and field recordings from his hometown Tehran.

Born in Tehran in 1983 as son of the world renowned Tar and Setar virtuoso HOSSEIN ALIZADEH, SABA ALIZADEH studied the Iranian spike fiddle with SAEED FARAJPOURY and KEYHAN KALHOR plus photography and later experimental sound art with MARK TRAYLE at the California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles. His musical activities that lead him all around the globe for performances (a.o. at Carnegie Hall) branch into 2 different areas: on the one side ALIZADEH is a highly reputated virtuoso on his traditional instrument, on the other he likes to approach music from a more experimental / technological aspect in his electronic / electro-acoustic pieces. This not being enough, he founded Noise Works in 2014, a platform and label for organizing experimental concerts and for the transfer of knowledge of music technologies among young Iranian musicians which makes him a central figure at the forefront of the current, very vivid Persian music scene that gained a lot of attention through artists like SIAVASH AMINI, PORYA HATAMI and of course SOTE who included a track by ALIZADEH on the compilation “Girih: Iranian Sound Artists” that he had curated.

In 2018, ALIZADEH self-released his debut “Scattered Memories” on CD in Iran which now, in a reworked version, sees its deserved world-wide release as LP and DL. Over the course of 10 tracks ALIZADEH melts his 2 musical worlds into 1: tradition meets modernism, eastern sounds meet western production, folklore meets contemporary electronics. An album that will appeal to an open-minded “world music” audience as well as fans of current streams like ambient or drone in its most subtle forms.

Chicago producer Ellery Cowles lands on Apnea Records with three tracks that draw from the city's foundational rhythms while reaching for something more devotional. Walking by Faith isn't chasing nostalgia--it's after deeper ground. "Fall of Jericho" kicks things off with syncopated Chicago swing colliding with latin percussion and acid basslines that curl and bite in equal measure. "Fly" builds around a looped vocal fragment, letting raw drum patterns stretch and breathe as the track slowly reveals itself. Closer "Crying of Yahweh" is the most patient of the three--seven minutes of hypnotic techno coiling around latin rhythms, carrying a quiet spiritual weight that lingers long after it fades. Cowles moves between reference points with ease--Chicago house, devotional threads, latin heat--but never forces the connection. The music feels like it's been lived in rather than simply constructed, generous with its time and intentional with its space. Out now on Apnea Records.

There are techno classics, and there are techno classics! It’s without doubt that Joey Beltram has played a pivotal role in the growth of the techno sound that gestated in Detroit and was lapped up in Europe during those early years. Beltram spearheaded a darker sound that became a staple in the UK and European rave scene in the early 90s, and a sound that continues to come back around for revival and a new twist on the genre from the producers and DJs of the day.

‘Beltram Volume 2’ was first released on R&S Records in 1991, and despite the huge success of the ‘Energy Flash’ single, released a year prior, ‘Volume 2’, some say, is ‘Beltram’s definitive release on R&S’. Deep, dark and deliciously hypnotic, all four cuts on this EP still sound as raw and devastating 30 years later. Big tunes at seminal clubs like Rage (Fabio & Grooverider) and the network of UK raves soundtracked by the likes of Carl Cox, Colin Faver, Eddie Richards et al, Beltram’s unique sound help spawn the bass heavy drum & bass genre that was also burgeoning at the time.

‘Beltram Volume 2’ has been remastered by Beau Thomas at Ten Eight Seven Mastering, and the release comes in an updated sleeve, faithfully recreating the 1991 packaging featuring Christel Brodahl’s now legendary oil painting.

‘Beltram Volume 2’ by Joey Beltram is available on R&S Records from 9th December 2022.

CAY unveils his personal side on Another Life, a debut album rich in melancholic euphoria

The expressive, multi-faceted 10 tracker comes on Mind Against's HABITAT label in January 2026

Cologne-born producer CAY explores beyond the dancefloor with Another Life, a debut album that trades peak-time pressure for an ambitious and artful exploration of self. Far from being rooted in one genre, the record weaves his own honest vocals with a wide range of powerful rhythms that pull from progressive, broken beat, techno and trance.

For CAY, making music has always offered refuge and a place to calm his mind, process life’s chaos and channel personal experiences into sound. His journey started in the clubs of Cologne, in illegal forest raves and with trips to Berlin to soak up big room techno. His search for more purpose, away from mental demons and the darker side of the party lifestyle, led him to production. DJing followed after a push from his brother turned Manager, and while those experiences around Europe shaped his understanding of dance floor dynamics, he was never in a rush to release his early experiments.

Instead, CAY took private time to evolve into an accomplished artist with his own musical voice. Label heads Mind Against were so impressed when they heard what he sent to their demo inbox, they both reached out to collaborate, and he has since released on their label HABITAT.

With Another Life, he is making music that is multilayered and rich in narrative, rather than defined purely by big moments. It is drawn from years of writing, with more than 60 tracks whittled down to one concise, impactful statement. "There wasn't one big concept,” says CAY “but there was direction. It's a big risk for me, but I wanted to introduce people who like club music to something deeper. I want the music to say something real.”

Because of that, Another Life introduces CAY the vocalist. For the first time, he sings on several tracks. The subjects are real, whether that's an important friend, a moment with his girlfriend or, on 'Runaway', the thought of giving up and escaping everything. The lyrics are honest but often slightly oblique, so they invite your own readings rather than spelling everything out.

Sonically, the album moves between optimistic grandeur and introspective reality. It's cinematic but personal and bridges the gap between dancefloor drive and vulnerable storytelling. There is a grand scale to many of the tracks, with arching synths reaching and heavyhearted drums anchoring a groove: you'll dance, you'll cry, maybe both at the same time.

Another Life is the sound of a producer granting himself permission to sing, turn inwards and risk audience expectations. It’s intimate without being insular, club-capable without being confined, and a compelling first chapter for an artist who has spent years building toward this moment of truth.

In 2016, a year after the 50th entry in the long-running series, none other but the iconic Detroit artist, DJ and producer Moodymann stepped up to helm the next landmark edition of DJ-Kicks, his first ever multi-artist DJ mix compilation. Following !K7's 40 th anniversary, this classic DJ-Kicks mix is now being repressed on coke bottle clear vinyl.
Born Kenny Dixon Jr., Moodymann is a one-of-a-kind electronic music icon, hailing from, and wholly synonymous with the Motor City. He is an outspoken, impossibly charismatic artist who has been putting a distinctive and soulful stamp on house and techno since the early 90s. Melting together jazz, funk, soul, blues and rock in captivating ways, he is responsible for some of electronic music’s most definitive tracks, EPs and LPs on labels like Planet E, Peacefrog and his own KDJ and Mahogani Music imprints. As able to serve up the sweetest and most sensual sounds as he is the darkest and most depraved grooves, his own unique voice and stream of conscious musings infuse expertly sought-out samples for music that is decisively alive and authentic.

Across 75 minutes and 30 tracks, Moodymann does not disappoint: despite being a notorious vinyl fetishist, Dixon’s aim is to present music of quality, not to one-up fellow collectors. Rather than serving up ridiculously rare or hard- to-find records, he instead focuses on creating a libidinous, blues-drenched mood that takes in heart-breaking soul, gorgeous hip-hop and love-fuelled house.

In addition to cuts from his own creative circle, the mix features 11 exclusive Moodymann edits. Like everything Kenny Dixon Jr. touches, his DJ-Kicks showcases the taste, skill, and soul of a dance music original.

A chopped-and-screwed love letter to the sounds of rebajada – half-speed cumbia, pioneered by Sonido Dueñez in the 1990s, and born from an overheated turntable motor that didn’t make the crowd stop dancing. With Debit’s treatment, rebajada becomes an ethereal, at times intense ambient tapestry that’s also a history lesson.

Spend any amount of time pacing the streets of Monterrey, the bustling city in the north of Mexico where Delia Beatriz, aka Debit, grew up, and you’ll be sure to catch traces of cumbia echoing from Bluetooth speakers, DIY soundsystems, or car stereos. An Afro-Latin dance form and »practica cultural« originating in Colombia in the early 19th century, cumbia evolved rapidly in the early 1900s, as a localised sound played on drums and flutes quickly modernised to integrate European instrumentation like the accordion. When it reached Mexico in the 1940s, the sound shifted again, fusing with mariachi styles and integrating further vallenato folk elements. Eventually, cumbia spread across the entirety of Latin America, splintering into a spectrum of different musical styles such as chicha in Peru, and cumbia villera in Argentina. And over in Monterrey, cumbia inadvertently found its own idiosyncratic groove.

From the 1950s to the 1970s, waves of immigrants from across Mexico and Latin America headed to Monterrey to find work, making a home in Colonia Independencia. Colombian cumbia records, shipped in from Mexico City, Houston, and Miami, became the soundtrack of the neighbourhood, relaying familiar stories to a rural working class adjusting to their new industrial reality. The sound struck a chord with locals, and huge street parties hosted by ramshackle soundsystems known as sonideros unified the diverse community. So when cumbia rebajada materialised serendipitously in the 1990s, it emphasised and highlighted the memory distortions at the heart of the immigrant experience. Local record collector, selector, and sonidero Gabriel Dueñez had been playing cumbia for hours one night when disaster struck: his turntable’s motor overheated and slowed down, turning the music into a warped groan, with half-speed voices echoing over wobbly accordion drones and splashy drums. But the crowd kept dancing, and Sonido Dueñez realised he’d struck gold – cumbia rebajada was born.

Over the next few years, he dubbed a popular series of mixtapes, hawking them at the flea market on the dried-up Santa Catarina riverbed beneath El Puente del Papa, the bridge that links downtown Monterrey with Independencia. These woozy archives became the stuff of legend, poetically but subconsciously shadowing DJ Screw’s series of epochal cassettes that appeared over the border in Houston. Beatriz uses Sonido Dueñez’s first two tapes as the starting point for »Desaceleradas«, entering into a dialogue with time, culture, and geography as she recalls the sonic ecosystem that surrounded her decades ago, long before she emigrated to the USA. If 2022’s acclaimed »The Long Count« was an attempt to recover concealed pre-Columbian history in the face of colonisation, »Desaceleradas« jumps forward, figuring out how memory and shared celebration can resist a more contemporary form of cultural erasure. As AI systems scrape, blend, and decontextualise culture around us, leaving vapid slop, »Desaceleradas« proposes a slower, more careful, and ultimately more human kind of engagement. It’s an archive with a pulse.

Announcing Perseverance Flow, the latest album from acclaimed Chicago-based ensemble Natural Information Society (NIS), release date 2024-10-24. After a trilogy of double LPs by expanded manifestations of the band that began in 2018 with Mandatory Reality & continued through Since Time Is Gravity (a Pitchfork Best Jazz & Experimental Album of the Year selection & Mojo’s #1 Underground Album of 2023), NIS returns to its core formation of Lisa Alvarado on harmonium, Mikel Patrick Avery on drums, Jason Stein on bass clarinet, & composer/multi-instrumentalist Joshua Abrams on guimbri for one continuous 37 minute composition across a single LP. As the rocket boosters on spaceship earth sputter closer to burnout, lower your stylus into a soundfield that grows stronger the deeper you travel into it; a dose of the medicine many of us look to music to deliver awaits you inside.

One of the deep contemplations of this natural information (thanks Bill Callahan) is the wide range of source materials Abrams draws from over the band’s more than 15 year history: Ideas from minimalism, modal jazz & traditional musics are regularly reimagined in these compositions. The 2021 double LP descension (Out of Our Constrictions), with guest soloist Evan Parker, reflected aspects of Abrams’ love of party music, Chicago house, & John Coltrane. *But even veteran travelers with the NIS best brace themselves for the Perseverance Flow.

Speaking to the history & the inspirations behind the album, Abrams offers: “We played the piece for a year in concert before the recording. At Electrical (Audio Studios, Chicago) we went in at 11 & were done in time to pick our kids up from school.” Abrams continues: "In a reference world, I imagine Perseverance Flow like a live extended realization of a Jaylib lost instrumental as remixed by Kevin Shields. Or vice versa. I also think it has sympathies to some of the more rhythmically intricate dance musics out of Chicago & Lisbon.”

The core NIS ensemble heard on Perseverance Flow always address Abrams’ writing with the discipline of orchestra musicians & the creativity of improvisers. But this time around, instead of inviting living legend status musicians Evan or William Parker or Ari Brown as honored guests to solo freely over the composed materials, Abrams’ invited guest collaborator was the medium of the recording studio itself. Situated at the board with engineer Greg Norman, Abrams pushed post production techniques found only sporadically on earlier NIS records deep into the heart of the music, distorting & reshaping instruments to subtly &, at times, aggressively mutate timbre & texture, color & time.

Refracting the band’s signature mesmerizing chains of overlapping rhythmic patterns through the sonic funhouse of dub makes Perseverance Flow the most formally experimental NIS album to date. Now a soundworld fully unique to itself is listening to itself, consoling & humoring itself, & consoling & humoring you. A destruction myth & a creation myth of a soundworld together at once —”energetically nutritious” (October 2025 Issue 500 The Wire) supernatural information society.

“Perseverance Flow is skipping rope in slo-mo. A dance of co-operation to rally guts & humors & keep marching through pouring tears” (Abrams).

For AI-41 Astral Industries presents a vinyl reissue of Robert Henke’s multifaceted concept album ‘Layering Buddha’. An erudite masterclass on sampling and composition, ‘Layering Buddha’ encapsulates the material process of metamorphosis and a well of nascent, ever-present potentialities. This new edition comes remastered by Henke himself. 

Originally released in 2006, ‘Layering Buddha’ began with a curious encounter with the ‘Buddha Machine’ - a pocket-sized, battery powered playback device that, over the past two decades, has quietly achieved a cult status around the world. Conceived by the Beijing-based group FM3 (Christiaan Virant, Zhang Jian), the machine takes inspiration from Tibetan Buddhist prayer boxes and consists of nine sound loop compositions of varying length, which can be toggled with a single switch. Due to low production cost and manufacturing imperfections, each Buddha Machine is unique, giving slight variations in sound, pitch and duration.

Using a state of the art A/D converter Henke made high quality recordings from a single machine, providing the source material for the album. Through various processing and arrangement methods, new pieces emerged, most of them all deriving from a single source loop. The pieces were then set up on the computer as generative arrangements, living as continuously permutating structures that could theoretically go on forever - just as the loops do within the Buddha Machines… 

The final pieces featured on the album are rendered excerpts of these infinite permutations, and therefore exist as momentary views on a perpetual machinery, as opposed to closed works. Upon initial exploration, it also became a natural development to format the work into an immersive multi-speaker performance - which premiered on January 31, 2007.

Within the music, subtle artefacts and idiosyncrasies are transmuted into new realms of texture and timbre. Through the extractive hand of subtle augmentations, an array of ethereal dimensions emerge from the vast unseen ocean. Suspended in a sense of timelessness, their undulating rhythms point to a pool of endless mysteries. 

The Chambers Brothers are four biological brothers who cut their teeth in church choirs and on the gospel and folk circuit around Southern California. But, things really picked up halfway the 1960s when they started performing in New York and in 1968 scored their only hit “Time Has Come Today”. This 11-minute opus spent five consecutive weeks at #11 (yes, really!) on the Billboard Hot 100 and really showcased the progressive mindset of the brothers; the group combined American blues and gospel traditions with the effects-laden sound of psychedelic rock that was very much in-vogue around that time. If you’re fan of psychedelic soul such Rotary Connection, you can’t miss this. The Time Has Come is available as a limited edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on red coloured vinyl.

Yes, after a hiatus of 15 months, The ReMix Collection makes a highly anticipated return as Yotto steps up to take on the Shakra Mix of Power Circle’s ‘Garden Of Peace’.

Originally released in 1993, the track was an immediate Renaissance anthem, finding favour with all their key DJs. However, it became synonymous with one man in particular, namely, John Digweed, who cemented the track’s legendary status when he included it on his Journeys By DJ compilation the following year. Even today he’s been known to slide it into the mix, most recently episode 10 of his legendary Bunker streams. And the track has other contemporary fans too; a certain Mr. Plex was heard dropping it in 2020.

In short, it’s one of those records that’s stood the test of time and grown in stature year on year. Now, its evolution takes yet another step as it joins the ranks of Renaissance’ flagship ReMix Collection series.

Yotto’s modern interpretation is a high-octane juxtaposition of thunderous bass, rising pads and THAT vocal. ”Garden Of Peace is a record I missed first time around as a kid and had only heard on a mix, never knowing what it was, so when Renaissance approached me about a remix there was a strange sense of familiarity,” he explains, “The original is full of classic progressive house mystery and, while I took the whole thing apart, I wanted to keep that emotion with my interpretation.” On the B-side there’s a re-mastered cut of the original Shakra Mix, which isn’t released digitally and remains exclusive to vinyl only.

"Eau" is the lovely new album from aus, the solo project of Tokyo-born composer and producer Yasuhiko Fukuzono, who has gained attention, in Japan and overseas, for his thoughtfully paced and sensitively skillful music as well as his intriguing sound design for exhibitions and experimental cinema. Having worked primarily with keyboards and electronic sound up to this point, "Eau" is a slight yet fascinating shift for aus; the album, while still primarily an electronic work, revolves around the sonic world of a stringed acoustic sound source, the koto, that most characteristically Japanese of musical instruments. The very accomplished Eden Okuno provides the delicate-yet-rich koto sounds on offer here; Fukuzono, in the liner notes, acknowledges the importance of Okuno's artistry to the project.

The compositions on the album are designed to balance the sound of the koto, with its subtly variable attack and flickering resonance, with the timbre of other instruments. The delicate decay and metrical flexibility of the koto is enveloped by sustained synthesizer sounds and contrapuntally constructed piano melodies, creating a flowing ambience with absorbing undercurrents, a languid and liquid quality that reveals the suitability of the title.

Avid fans of contemporary Japanese music might hear the influence of pioneering works such as the the 1979 Hiroshi Yoshimura composition "Clouds for Alma", realized by koto player Tadao Sawai, and the 1993 album "Koto Vortex I: Works by Hiroshi Yoshimura" which featured performances of Yoshimura's works by the Japanese koto quartet Koto Vortex. These works attempted to remove the koto from its traditional context and place it within the context of ambient and techno. "Eau" is available on CD/LP/cassette/digital, with E/J liner notes by aus. "Eau" is the first collaborative release by EM Records and FLAU, the label run by Yasuhiko Fukuzono (aus).

Throughout her long career, Lucinda Williams has never shied away from writing about difficult but real things. If you think about it, you could call "Change The Locks" a topical song ahead of its time. There were several biting and brave songs on her Good Souls Better Angels album, as well as the post-Covid masterpiece Stories From A Rock N Roll Heart. With World’s Gone Wrong, Lucinda ups the ante on topical songs. It is a pure reflection of our very turbulent times, intense and musically powerful.

One of the leading Japanese alternative rock band, GEZAN’s leader, MahitoThePeople’s director debut film, i ai was released in March 2024, and it is an atypical coming-of-age film decorated with tinge of red.

　The film takes place in Akashi and Kobe, Hyogo prefecture. This film’s main characters are Ko (Kentaro Tomita), a rookie member of a band and a brother-like figure of his, Hee (Mirai Moriyama) who Ko idolizes and the story of this movie is based on their struggles with life and death. The story is also based on Mahito's real-life experiences and while reality and fiction are duplicated, the boundary between them slowly melts away. The film co-stars Honami Satoh, Kazuki Horike, Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Eita Nagayama, Kyoko Koizumi, K-BOMB, Ichi Omiya and many other unique personalities. It should also be noted that the transparent images filmed by photographer, Masafumi Sanai gives the film, a special emotional quality.

　The film is not bound by any film theory but it poses a theme common to GEZAN's recent works and Mahito's writing activities: How can we live in a crumbling society while interacting with others? We can never live alone but living with others is also never easy. How can we overcome this time of extreme division of the world?

What left quite a strong impression in this film that not only Mahito personally directed but also wrote the script and composed the soundtrack as well was the main theme song, entitled “i ai”. This new piece of GEZAN is an extension of the work that this band has continued doing over the last few years. This 12" single, contains the song, “i ai” and it will be the first time released on vinyl.

Led by soft guitar arpeggios, the song gradually builds to a fever pitch, condensing the mood of the film which encompasses both tranquillity and intensity. The chorus of ineffable, multiple voices united together sounds like a lament that has spilled out of society or a cry of joy. GEZAN's collaboration with the 15-member chorus group, Million Wish Collective has been in development of late and the cultivated sensibilities through their activities are put to use in this song.

The song can also be considered a slow, relaxed dance track that lasts 9 minutes and 8 seconds. It has something in common with organic dance tracks from South America and other regions, and it is significant that GLOCAL RECORDS which represents glocal music from around the world in Japan are releasing it as a DJ-friendly 12-inch single.

The B-side features a remix by COMPUMA who is also closely associated with GEZAN. The song starts with an African styled percussion, with a thumb piano in the middle of the song and then returns to that memorable chorus. This song feels like a 18 minutes and 18 seconds long short movie like suite, with some dizzying changes from the beginning to the end. It is remix filled with enormous drama!

The cutting and mastering of this 12” was done by TOREI who is also active as a DJ and the artwork was created by jvnpey, a visual artist and graphic designer based in Tokyo. Their loving work also makes this 12" very special.

When I asked AI to find a synonym for the word, “division,” it displayed in succession, a series of words: “integration,” “consolidation,” “unification,” “unity”, and “reconciliation". All of these phrases are somewhat whitewashed and embarrassing but the mirage-like chorus echoing in the song, “i ai” seems to be trying to find a new word, that is a synonym for the word, "division. In this film, “i ai”, the message, “Let's live together after the end roll” was thrown out but included in this 12-inch, the message, “Let's live together after the music stops”, emerges.

For over six decades, Charlemagne Palestine (b. 1947, New York) has been a pioneering composer, performer, and multimedia artist, celebrated for his ecstatic sonic explorations and ritualistic, metaphysical performances. Emerging from the cross-disciplinary New York art scene of the 1960s and ’70s, he helped shape a heretical edge of minimalism alongside figures like Conrad, Riley, Niblock, and Glass. Trained as a Jewish cantor and later as the carillonneur at St. Thomas Church, Palestine cultivated a deep fascination with resonance and overtone—an obsession that evolved through his use of percussion, early synthesizers, and monumental piano works, influencing artists from John Cale to Nick Cave.

Animated by a spirit of ecstatic play and what he calls his »meschugge« (Yiddish for »crazy«) sensibility, Palestine’s universe blends the sacred and the absurd, filled with soft toys, ritual gestures, and immersive sound environments. Rejecting the »minimalist« label in favor of a maximalist, »spontanimalist« approach, he creates long-form, resonant performances that transform spaces into vibrating, living organisms—opening portals into the nature of time, sound, and devotion.

In the same vein, the aptly titled live record »The Organ is the World’s Greatest Synthesizer« – performed during the Sonic Acts Festival at Amsterdam’s Oude Kerk in 2025, and taking its title and cover art from a drawing realized by Palestine himself during the concert – adds to his opaque yet vibrant personal mythology and intimate transcendence, marking a return to the Staalplaat catalog after »Fffroggssichorddd« (2020) and »Music for Big Ears« (2001).

Beginning with a resonating bell and his falsetto overtone singing, then surrendering to the endless, wild soundscapes of tone-feeling and beat frequencies generated by the church’s organ, across 40+ minutes, single sound sources evolve into clusters, entangle fully with one another, and establish their own spatial existence and aural architectures. We witness the traces of something that can be described as a perpetual performance, a test for the ever-changing interaction between artist, instrument, space and, ultimately, us.

Since Palestine has always defined his execution as a form of anti-composition - of simply »being in the music« as if inhabiting a space - the true power of »The Organ is the World’s Greatest Synthesizer« lies in encapsulating a moment of Palestine’s practice in its most authentic, live dimension. Sound becomes at once subtle substance and strange telluric force, animating physical forms from some unknown channel beyond and within, accessible only through our sensorium. The point in this liminal temple of tone, timbre and frequency is not to learn anything but to simply enter. Palestine earns once again his self-given title of contemporary shaman by keeping this sonic portal open, allowing us to witness and make it last.

»I have always felt and heard and mixed the sounds in my world as liquids not as solids. Sonic liquids are material that is endlessly transformable. But I’m not crazy about people who go around defining stuff.«

Already fifteen years that Cléa Vincent has been stepping on stage with that childlike fervor, that passion for pop and its elasticity, from her early days in Parisian bars to last year’s show at the Bataclan for the release of her third album Advitam Æternamour. You could say she needs no introduction, her name being inseparable from some of the most exciting work to emerge in contemporary French independent music. From the very beginning, she asserted her taste for spontaneous, candid, sunlit music, turning her songs not only into spaces of introspection but also into small capsules for dialogue. She collaborates constantly, with Kim Giani, Jeanne Balibar, Alison Wheeler, Jacques, NUSKY & VAATI, João Selva, Les Clopes…driven by a desire for sharing, for visions that meet and collide across genres. Alongside her work as a composer, she dedicates herself to giving a voice to the artists around her, notably through her show Sooo Pop, broadcast on YouTube in 2018 and 2019, where she welcomed guests as varied as Christophe, Moodoïd, Mathilde Fernandez, Katerine, and The Pirouettes. Like others of her generation, she claims the influence of francophone pop from the 1980s, but rather than being a successor to Jacno, Cléa draws from everything that shapes her era, fully plugged into the present, its faces, its energies, its collisions. She travels too, a way of reshuffling the cards of her inspiration, and her discovery of South America, of bossa nova and samba during her tour dates, became the catalyst for her series of EPs Tropi-Cléa.

SF's Fog Lamp have been at it for a few yrs now, repping heavily around the local environs, garnering a solid word-of-mouth reputation. Originally a trio sans tubs, the synth-driven iron gulp of their early days was like Animal of Anti-Nowhere League crashing a Cabaret Voltaire rehearsal. 'Power to the paradox' I like to say, or in the immortal words of Tug McGraw, "Ya Gotta Believe!" So after a couple tapes & whatnot, Siltbreeze got clued in & have solidly backed their debut vinyl lp, Still Entangled. Along the way, the band enlisted the solid drumming prowess of Rachelle Hughes & by doing so, Fog Lamp have zoned in an intensive, beguiling churn of Dossier era Chrome slipping into The Sleepers panic-creep of 'Sleepless Nights'. Their hauntingly dense & layered murk is as authentically Bay Area as a bowl of Cioppino. Look for them on tour (West Coast only) in Jan. of 2026. Flannel is the new Goth

A box of this limited 7” showed up in the post, The Dahlmanns’ new single.. Norwegian power pop masterminds scoring dues from their whole rock and roll journey, Suzi Quattro, Dictators, Stooges, and all the great Scandinavian power pop / garage rock scene. Its been 15 year ssince their debut, and they still have a knack for perfect pop tunes wit ha hard edge. The A-side is a classic power pop, clap along to this… Line says ”the lyrics are inspired by the images of Finland’s Touko Laaksonen. It’s about a ”Tom of Finland” type character meeting up with his gang to attend shows at Max’s Kansas City in New York”. And on the flip, the Dahlmanns have turned a Prince classic into one of their own, Line explains, ”In my early teens, around the time of the release of his ”Sign O’ The Times” album I was obsessed with Prince. I never cared much for the over-the-top, experimental funk stuff but I liked ”Controversy” and ”Dirty Mind”, the latter includes another pop gem, ”When You were Mine”. ”Dirty Mind” was released on October 8th 1980, Johnny Ramone’s birthday and also mine. Such coincidence in life makes me happy”. A new album is pending, but jump in quick to get ahold of one of these 7”s.

After three decades of musical escapades as both a solo artist and 1/4 of The Four Owls, Verb T returns with his most ambitious offering to date in the shape of ‘To Love A Phantom’.

Reuniting with Canadian producer Vic Grimes on the follow up to their 2023 LP ‘The Tower Where The Phantom Lives’, the duo leave the traditional ‘rapper + producer’ stereotypes at the door on an insanely adventurous LP; Vic Grimes expertly soundtracking Verb T’s low fantasy across a double album 26-tracks steeped in suspense and intrigue.

Picking up where the previous album left off, ‘To love A Phantom’ sees the duo expand upon their collective love for the language of cinema; each track expertly blurring the everyday with the supernatural; spectres and spirits swirling around our protagonist as he exits the tower and extends his arc…

A deeply emotive, visceral and visual listen, the plot thickens with the help of a supporting cast of featured artists from across the UK underground, each adding their own distinctive flair to the wider narrative.

A truly unique universe of sight and sound, ‘To Love A Phantom’ is a shining example of Verb T & Vic Grimes at the height of their collective powers

After three decades of musical escapades as both a solo artist and 1/4 of The Four Owls, Verb T returns with his most ambitious offering to date in the shape of ‘To Love A Phantom’.

Reuniting with Canadian producer Vic Grimes on the follow up to their 2023 LP ‘The Tower Where The Phantom Lives’, the duo leave the traditional ‘rapper + producer’ stereotypes at the door on an insanely adventurous LP; Vic Grimes expertly soundtracking Verb T’s low fantasy across a double album 26-tracks steeped in suspense and intrigue.

Picking up where the previous album left off, ‘To love A Phantom’ sees the duo expand upon their collective love for the language of cinema; each track expertly blurring the everyday with the supernatural; spectres and spirits swirling around our protagonist as he exits the tower and extends his arc…

A deeply emotive, visceral and visual listen, the plot thickens with the help of a supporting cast of featured artists from across the UK underground, each adding their own distinctive flair to the wider narrative.

A truly unique universe of sight and sound, ‘To Love A Phantom’ is a shining example of Verb T & Vic Grimes at the height of their collective powers

After three decades of musical escapades as both a solo artist and 1/4 of The Four Owls, Verb T returns with his most ambitious offering to date in the shape of ‘To Love A Phantom’.

Reuniting with Canadian producer Vic Grimes on the follow up to their 2023 LP ‘The Tower Where The Phantom Lives’, the duo leave the traditional ‘rapper + producer’ stereotypes at the door on an insanely adventurous LP; Vic Grimes expertly soundtracking Verb T’s low fantasy across a double album 26-tracks steeped in suspense and intrigue.

Picking up where the previous album left off, ‘To love A Phantom’ sees the duo expand upon their collective love for the language of cinema; each track expertly blurring the everyday with the supernatural; spectres and spirits swirling around our protagonist as he exits the tower and extends his arc…

A deeply emotive, visceral and visual listen, the plot thickens with the help of a supporting cast of featured artists from across the UK underground, each adding their own distinctive flair to the wider narrative.

A truly unique universe of sight and sound, ‘To Love A Phantom’ is a shining example of Verb T & Vic Grimes at the height of their collective powers

‘Clyppan’ is an Old English verb meaning “to embrace” or “to clasp.” It also referred to an ancient ritual in which people gathered in a circle, singing together around a sacred shrine. It’s a fitting title for the latest release from Newcastle’s Smote – a visceral document of the band’s electrifying live set, captured within the walls of London’s Bear Bites Horse recording studio.
Following the release of their acclaimed 2024 album ‘A Grand Stream’, Smote embarked on an intensive tour schedule, refining their live performance along the way into something transcendental – a full-spectrum psychic voyage. Anyone who caught them at Supernormal, Supersonic, or this year’s Roadburn Festival can attest: Smote are an unforgettable sonic presence, a near religious experience.
Recognising the urgency and potency of the band’s current live form, Rocket Recordings encouraged Smote’s founder and sonic architect Dan Foggin to document their live set in the studio. It was a sound too powerful to be left undocumented – it was something that needed to be clasped for future generations.
On January 22, 2025 – the day before their thunderous performance at London’s ICA alongside labelmates Teeth Of The Sea – the four members of Smote entered Bear Bites Horse studio. With producer Wayne Adams at the controls, they laid down a live set brimming with raw, elemental power.
What emerged is ‘Clyppan’ – four drone-and-repetition driven incantations, distilled from the primal essence of Smote’s sound. These tracks channel something ancient and urgent, summoning spirits and revelations in their wake. It’s music as ritual, as invocation – pure aural sorcery.
So gather together. Form a circle. Join hands. And embrace the ecstatic, untamed energy of Smote in their most untethered and primal form.

“Innovative, hooky and full of depth” - Far Out Magazine

“Songs that lodge into your brain in the opening ten seconds” - Brooklyn Vegan

“Breezy, melodic… a clear ear for a hook” - UNCUT

“Playful and unexpected, emotional but not overstated” - CLUNK

‘Crows’ is the new single from Bristol’s Langkamer and the first to be revealed from their new album ‘No’, which is due for release on 22nd January 2026. Their fourth album in as many years, ‘No’ saw the prolific band taking to the mountains at the invitation of veteran producer Remko Schouten (Pavement, Personal Trainer, Bull). The much loved Bristol band holed up for a week in the wilds of Southern Spain at his brand new Zarzalico studio. Over a week, under the Murcian heat, they laid down the perfectly formed eleven tracks that make up ‘No’.

Since the band’s conception, Langkamer have worked out of anywhere affordable and available, whether it be the basements of renowned venues (‘West Country’, ‘Red Thread Route’, ‘Langzamer’) or secluded cottages (‘The Noon And Midnight Manual’). Over the years, their frenetic pace and quality of writing has earned them fans across the world, plaudits at UK media, and built an ever-growing musical community around them - not least via Breakfast Records - the independent label that is home to Getdown Services - formed by Langkamer’s Dan Anthony and Josh Jarman in 2006 alongside acclaimed singer-songwriter Jasmine 4.T.

To call Langkamer ‘your mid-level indie bands favourite mid-level indie band” sells them short. They have always scraped by on irregular incomes, plagued both by daily financial pressures and the occasional cash sinkhole so well known to any musician in the current impossible climate. Once Schouten offered to host them at his new studio (Zarzalico), they couldn’t refuse. A relentless recording schedule found the group only breaking for the daily long lunch and to occasionally fire an airgun across the hills. If the last half a decade had been a pressure cooker of constant touring and recording, their brief time in the remote Zarzalico could not have been more symbolic. Lead single ‘Crows’ perfectly captures this nervy balance and is a wiry slice of atmospheric proto-punk, drawing from the shadows of the late-70s UK landscapeit also defies these conventions, striking an anthemic chord from beginning to end. From the scaling chromatic guitars at the breakdown, to the final chants of ‘suffer’ and ‘struggle’, there’s a loud desperation and defiance to ‘Crows’ that lends it an unparalleled urgency. As singer/drummer Josh Jarman states:

“Crows is a song about the crazy shapes we contort ourselves into trying to create art in the era of late-stage capitalism. Working a thousand jobs. Writing songs with the left hand while writing emails with the right hand. Your day is already doomed the moment you open your eyes. Everything’s a bad omen.”.

With ‘No’ arriving early next year, ‘Crows’ is the perfect introduction to Langkamer, a band that has only taken new bold steps with each release, always hiding a keen experimentalism behind a charming hook. It is also the surest sign yet that they are ready to step up, and take on the road once again vision unclouded.

Limited to 250 copies !

The Deadheads had never had much luck with spaceships. Their first mission had ended in a catastrophic engine failure, leaving them adrift in deep space for weeks. This time, their craft was hardly more reassuring. A hodgepodge of outdated technology and shoddy repairs made it more of a floating death trap than a reliable cruiser. As they began their descent toward the strange planet, the hull creaked and rattled, sending a wave of dread through the crew.

"Hold on," Matt's voice crackled over the intercom, without much conviction, as if he himself doubted they would make it out alive. Outside, a thick, grayish atmosphere swirled ominously, while the planet's gravity became far stronger than anticipated.

“Fuck, we’re gonna burn at the entrance!” M yelled, his hands flailing on the console as sparks flew from the control panel. The ship’s sensors were completely jammed, and the navigation system flickered intermittently, like a dying light. Below, the planet’s surface was a tangle of lava rivers and jagged rock formations, the kind of place no sane person would ever land. But the Deadheads had never pretended to be. They lived in a state of constant emergency.

As the descent intensified, the alarms blared. On the bridge, the screens lit up with red warnings and flashing messages: "SYSTEM ERROR," "UNSTABLE TRAJECTORY," "SUIVITY SYSTEM COMPROMISED." The lines of code scrolled by too quickly to be read, while a mechanical voice repeated relentlessly: "Imminent impact. Structural integrity at twenty percent."

The once pristine shell of the vessel began to disintegrate, with shards of metal breaking away and disappearing into the atmosphere.

With a final, piercing screech, the ship crashed onto the planet's surface, sending up a cloud of dust and debris. The crew was violently thrown from their seats, stunned but barely alive. They struggled to their feet amidst the wreckage, the ship reduced to a charred shell around them.

"Well," M said, wiping the dirt off his suit with a grimace, "at least the air is breathable." Matt scanned the hostile expanse stretching before them and smiled slightly. "Perfect. Let's hope we have better luck with the planet than with our ships."

With that, the Deadheads gathered their equipment and headed into the unknown, while the remains of their ship slowly sank into the unstable soil of the planet.

Fresh out of Skudge HQ, we witness a return to home base after a few releases on other labels.

Coming back in strong form, SKUDGE 015 opens with "Corrosion", pulsing around at 143 BPM and accompanied by warm synth work.



Steadily pacing on, A2 brings us "Source", which captures a haunting vibe with a funky twist. A tune that echoes memories of the past but framed in the zeitgeist.

Flipping over to "Code", we're instantly thrown into a tension-ridden force, built from compact and steady sonic machinery.



Finally, "Distressed" provides the counterweight, keeping the pace and rhythm steady with sharp sonic directions, revealing itself as a hidden peak-time monster disguised as a closing track.