Romantic proto-acid written and composed by a young Ukrainian student Maxim Shubski in 2010 on a cold winter day in East Germany and subsequently released later same year as a limited run of 100 vinyl copies under “Andreuccio Torelli” moniker. This release was accompanied by a fake story about the lost & found master tapes by an unknown Italian producer from the 80’s. The story is still available as a PDF on the label’s website. Since the original vinyl stampers are long lost, Baran Records has made a new limited 7″ vinyl reissue featuring artwork by Pavel Golubovski from the “Elektroherd” band and careful mastering by Dunkeltier aka DJ Sneaker from Dresden/Berlin at Tail Out Mastering studio.
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A sublime techno reissue from the vaults of one of London's leading electronic labels of the last 25 years, remastered and re-presented for 2022!
Originally released in 1994 on Mr.C's cult UK house and techno label Plink-Plonk and composed and performed by Laggy Panteli and Zeno Messis (aka Megalon) in their London studio, 'Pandora's Box' is a truly unique record. Sleek, futuristic, fathoms deep and wholly original, the music contained on these 2 discs sounds as modern and as vital as it did on it's arrival all of those years ago.
Exploring a deeper vein of electronic music, Megalon craft their own sonic landscapes that are undoubtedly inspired by all forms of cerebral electronic music. Ambient, Detroit techno, electro, European electronics and of course the duo's experiences in London's early acid house and rave scene all filter through their lens to bring something brand new to the table. The arrangement, sound design and mix on the album is outstanding, lending a totally visionary and modern feel to the tracks that continues to echo today.
'Pandora's Box' is a record that has existed within the shadows for many years, with a hardcore cult following. The kind of record that one might hear deep into the early hours, at the hands of a seasoned selector or an 'insider' who has the knowledge. It is redolent of a time when innovation, ideas and imagination trumped the run of the mill and the homogenous, which goes a long way in explaining what makes this record so exciting some 25+ years later.
A totally essential mid 90's UK techno and electronic classic, as much a treat for the mind as for the body.
Reissued in full conjunction with the artists and remastered by Curvepusher from DAT and original source materials. Redesigned by Atelier Superplus and distributed worldwide by Above Board distribution, 2022.
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The fourth and final instalment of Hospital Records' popular VA EP series is upon us 'Future Symptoms Vol. 4' rounds off the 2021 release streak with four fresh cuts with some of the most exciting acts emerging to the forefront of drum & bass.
This time around expect a full spectrum showcase from Dutta, Viridity, Son, Hallow and xia - the sounds of the next generation. Rounding off the final edition of their widely loved Future Symptoms EP series,
Hospital Records have proudly shone a light on and nurtured some of the scene's most prosperous talents. With an array of artists throughout the series spanning the likes of Mozey, Winslow, Disrupta, Nia Archives, Stay-C, Mr Joseph and imo-Lu, keep an eye out for what Hospital have got in store for 2022...
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Peggy Gou's Gudu Records proudly presents 'Jack's Jive' - a long overdue re-release of a legendary lost South African record from 1987. Out of print for years and never available digitally, 'Jack's Jive' is the stuff of legend: a bold, bright synthesizer-led cut that has been demanding Discogs prices upwards of £150 and both referenced and ripped off by contemporary artists since. Re-mastered for 2021 and cut to vinyl for the first time in decades, it's backed with two remixes by DMX Krew.
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Pink Vinyl
It is with great joy that we present the Mr Bongo edition of Marcos Valle's 1983 self-titled masterpiece. A pure vintage that features the ultimate Brazilian-boogie cult-classic ‘Estrelar’ and iconic 80s cover art that sees a gloriously sun-drenched Marcos dressed in a pink v-neck t-shirt surrounded by a generous selection of deadly-looking neon cocktails.
The album was produced by the legendary Lincoln Olivetti and Marcos' brother Paulo Sérgio Valle. It showcases a real who's who of Brazilian music at the time, with stellar performances from vocalists and musicians such as Rosana, Serginho Do Trombone, Robson Jorge and Oberdan Magalhães to name but a few. This was Marcos’ second album, after having moved back to Brazil from his time living in Los Angeles, and that US influence is evident through its prominent boogie, soul and funk sounds. It also features collaborations with the US singer-songwriter, composer, pianist, keyboardist, and record producer, Leon Ware, who co-penned three tracks including 'Estrelar'. To complete the album there are tracks such as 'Fogo Do Sol', which is pure AOR / Balaeric vibes, and tracks that are more MPB and pop-inspired, making a well-balanced track list for both home-listening pleasure and dancefloor business.
What could we do to give one of Marcos' most celebrated albums the treatment it deserved and produce the most definitive re-issue possible? The answer was to enlist the services of Miles Showell, Abbey Road Studios Mastering and lacquer-cutting engineer and all-around audio-magician, to cut a special half-speed master edition. Miles had previously worked his half-speed magic on our Arthur Verocai album re-issue, and once again we are totally blown away by the richness which Miles has brought out in his mastering technique. He has enhanced the listening experience and taken this wonderful album to another level.
To celebrate the release we have pressed up several vinyl versions; both standard master, and Miles' half-speed mastering editions on Black vinyl, alongside special limited edition Rose and Mint-Green coloured vinyl variants that were inspired by the audacious-looking cocktails on the cover - sheer 80s excess!
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This archival release on Organic Analogue digs back into the prolific ‘90s period of Swedish techno maverick Jean-Louis Huhta, aka Dungeon Acid. These days he releases on iDEAL, Fit Sound, Börft and Klasse Wrecks, but he cut his techno teeth on labels like Hybrid, Svek and H. Productions. Clad in artwork details by Swedish graffiti legend Nug, Wormhole Of Time comprises unreleased cuts and long out-of-print jams spanning many of Huhta’s aliases. The release also comes with a zine featuring photographs and an interview reflecting on Huhta’s multifarious life in music.
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The debut album from the iconic American tattoo artist, TV Star, beauty entrepreneur, author, fashion designer, Kat Von D is a pastiche of shapeshifting analog synths, post-punk dreamscapes, gothic hues, and shy pop magnetism !
Enlisting prestigious guests such as Bauhaus legend Peter Murphy, Kat Von D’s brilliant debut encompasses classic gothic influences from Depeche Mode to the Sisters Of Mercy executed with a modern sound that echoes the likes of Cold Cave or I Love You But I’ve Chosen The Darkness.
A digital only companion piece to the album has just surfaced and enlists remixes from Scratch Massive, Cold Cave or Gunship, and Kat Von D will embark on a headline tour all over Europe in May 2022.
Rare and highly sought after in its original format, Os Brazoes self-titled album was originally released on RGE Discos in 1969. It is a psychedelic masterpiece that fuses samba, r'n'b and rock 'n' roll influences using fuzz guitars, synths, percussion, lush vocals and effects.
Os Brazoes formed in Rio de Janeiro in the late 1960's. They backed Gal Costa during her Tropicalia period, yet apparently never recorded in the studio with her. Miguel de Deus, the bands front man, recorded the highly sought after 'Black Soul Brothers' LP in 1977, which became an important record in the 'Black Rio' movement. Mr Bongo released the title track from that LP, on the 'Brazilian Beats: Brooklyn' compilation in 2006 and recently as part of their Brazil 45's re-issue series.
'Os Brazoes' features covers of Gilberto Gil's 'Pega a Voga, Cabeludo' and Jorge Ben and Toquinho's 'Carolina, Carol Bela'
The Mr Bongo LP reissue is manufactured in Japan, presented in a super high quality card sleeve with replica original artwork. The CD is presented in a 4-page digi-pack.
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Traditions 19 featuring underground Danish artist Brian Anthony aka AERPHAX. It includes a double EP of forward-thinking electronic music with a range that goes from Electro and Italo to IDM or Acid…Limited Editions & no repress!
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After being out of print for several years, Duval Timothy’s phenomenal ‘Brown Loop’ has finally been reissued. Recorded in New York in the winter months of 2016, this brand-new edition features a slightly adjusted track listing. The release date is 2nd of October 2020, which happens to be the multidisciplinary artist’s birthday. Duval has asked me to write a few words about his record.
I often find myself listening to Duval’s music when travelling. On an aeroplane for example, where the comforting piano pieces are set starkly against the sound of the world passing by, the constant engine humming, air conditioning running. Or when I’m walking through a city I’ve not been to before, the music blending into the continuous noise of cars and motorbikes, anchoring me when I find myself in unknown surroundings. Grounding me, one note at a time, in contrast to a city that does the exact opposite. Duval’s compositions bring a sense of comfort where there is detachment. It’s the soundtrack for an immigrant (such as myself), alienated from wherever he came, but someone who also doesn’t fully belong to the place he set off to.
I heard Duval describe the music of Brown Loop as ascending a mountain, and after you reached the top you come down to the other end. Through rhythmic repetitive patterns, the music builds. Within the pieces, melodies stray away from the theme, into unknown territories, but always find their way back to a comfortable home. Most elaborately this happens on my favourite piece, Hairs. The patterns and melodies on pieces such as Through The Night and (recently added to the vinyl version) G are stripped down to their very essence.
It is not just jazz, it’s pure hip hop, as the hooks are reminiscent of the shards of melancholy legends like Dilla, Pete Rock and Havoc used in their best work. In terms of repetition, the music is also very techno. And like in all good techno, the patterns (perhaps contrary to popular belief) ooze humanity and emotion. But most of all Duval’s Brown Loop is a very personal record. it takes courage to expose your inner self like that in the most minimal of compositions. But once you find the right notes, the right pattern, music is the most beautiful thing in the world.
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The debut recording from Grammy-nominated vocalist Theo Bleckmann and electronic musician & producer Joseph Branciforte. Vocal loops of hushed beauty framed by artificially synthesized tones, deep subharmonic oscillations, and gently layered sheets of noise, with a shared musical language drawing upon ambient, choral, microsound, and free improvisation.
Superb EP bringing in 3 fresh artists... A banging Acid Techno tune followed by an Hard Drum & Bass killer for a change : that's a bloody tune !
On the flip you'll get a long acid mental tune, here cutted in two parts for you to have a nice oversee on this liveset style tune.
Sweet and original again. A record that have something to say !
BIG UP !
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The debut album from the iconic American tattoo artist, TV Star, beauty entrepreneur, author, fashion designer, Kat Von D is a pastiche of shapeshifting analog synths, post-punk dreamscapes, gothic hues, and shy pop magnetism !
Enlisting prestigious guests such as Bauhaus legend Peter Murphy, Kat Von D’s brilliant debut encompasses classic gothic influences from Depeche Mode to the Sisters Of Mercy executed with a modern sound that echoes the likes of Cold Cave or I Love You But I’ve Chosen The Darkness.
A digital only companion piece to the album has just surfaced and enlists remixes from Scratch Massive, Cold Cave or Gunship, and Kat Von D will embark on a headline tour all over Europe in May 2022.
For Memory Pearl’s »Music for 7 Paintings« Moshe Fisher–Rozenberg traveled to art galleries throughout North America searching for paintings which would enrapture him.
Like the experience of being drawn into the worlds of those paintings, these seven tracks — each one directly referencing a single work by Joan Mitchell, Robert Ryman, Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, Franz Kline, or Jackson Pollock — are love letters to the sympathetic vibration of one creative mind encountering another. They trace the way art inspires and generates art. Each resonates with the reconstructive energy that comes from translating the visual to the auditory.
One might expect a jagged, alienating angularity, given the modernist and postmodern source material. Instead there is warmth and depth of sentiment, accented by the analogue and digital synth pitch–shifts and cascades. The pieces crackle with the energy of translation: something new is created as the medium changes, mediated across the boundaries of genre. There are associations, asides, tangents as each work is »read« into its new format. There is no alienation, no cold distance: only engagement and warmth. The album’s lead track, Natural Answer, 1976 opens with sounds that feel like the gaze being caught and drawn into an intimate emotional connection with a work. Cupola, 1958–1960 begins with a thickly layered wash of sound as nostalgic as a train ride through the outskirts of a city at night, then expands into a cavernous memory–scene of personal association.
Fisher–Rozenberg brings a vast experience to bear on the paintings that inspire »Music for 7 Paintings«. While this may be his debut full length as a solo artist, he is a consummate collaborator (Alvvays, Fucked Up, U.S. Girls, Youth Lagoon, Man Forever) best known as the drummer and synthesist in Absolutely Free. Also clear is his visual sensibility — his instinct for how to translate the emotive context of visual art into sound, honed in collaborative work on kinetic sculptures, immersive installations and film scores. But what most comes to the fore is perhaps his recent graduate work in music therapy, and the sensitivity learned through his leading of music therapy sessions at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. This direct encounter with music’s power to heal lends the tracks a sacred, therapeutic quality. They are suffused with curative frequencies that connect the isolated individual to a world of contemplative beauty.
»Music For 7 Paintings« catalogues the energy in the gaze of a seasoned musician, translating brushstroke to sound.
Came together with their musical ideas and talents to form the music production company, “Cabfare Productions”.
Under that parent company, the performing group T.A.X.I.E.
Talented
Artist
Xclusively
In
Entertainment
Archwoods Productions and Archwoods Publishing was born.
Eventually adding musicians/song writers, Charles (Ice Cream) Williams,
Oneida James, and the amazing vocalist, Carlita Durhan, the original guitarist for the R&B group Taste Of Honey.
T.A.X.I.E. performed many engagements through out the Los Angels Hollywood circuits. Opening and appearing with renowned artist such as Stevie Wonder, Dennis Edwards, and the Mary Jane Girls.
The members of T.A.X.I.E. are not only great musicians and performers, but also are very talented and awesome song writers.
Some of their compositions have been performed and recorded by, Grammy winner Diane Reeves, Tahj Mowry, AlfredaJames, Greg Rose, and musical groups such as Infinite.
Archwood’s Productions also produced, published and promoted music and live concerts throughout the United States and Europe.
Over the years, this partnership has developed a music catalog of over 100 songs, compositions, and videos. In the future, they will continue to write and produce excellent music, promoting new and established artist.
Alex Van Pelt writes songs for ghosts and broken hearts.
French multi-instrumentalist Alex started making music fifteen years ago when he was still a teenager, in bands such as Coming Soon, Mont Analogue, or as a guitarist for Sierra Manhattan, Norma, François Virot and Adam Green. But today he grows up and shows what he’s made of as a solo artist.
After his debut album Tum Tum (2019), in which he stated the basis of a rich and sensitive musical vocabulary made of DIY synth and post-romantic songs, he cultivates and confirms his originality with his new opus, Global Crush (out in November 2021). Words reverberates with sounds, and structures assumes ever shifting shapes : passed Global Crush’s melodic immediacy, one soon perceives a will to disrupt the conventional ground rules of pop music.
Like in a Kitano or Wong Kar Wai movie scene, Alex’s songs mix melancholy and humor. He has put together the intimate patchwork of Global Crush in a landscape painter fashion, and the result somehow works as a map to the artist's interests and influences (to name a few : the Everly Brothers’ breakup songs, Supertramp’s melodies, Daniel Clowes comics and video games ost such as Final Fantasy and the Sims).
Fueled By Ramen will be reissuing one seminal album from our 25- year history each month throughout the calendar year of 2021, again this will be on Silver Vinyl as part of the FBR 25th Anniversary.
FBR 25 Podcast
We are currently working on a 16 part podcast that will delve into the history of FBR, it’s cultural relevance and Global impact over the past 25 years. Each episode will look at the careers of some of our most important artists, and deep dive into the making of albums told by the artists themselves in their own words.
25th Anniversary Merchandise
We announced the 25th Anniversary around Thanksgiving last year with our first 25th Anniversary limited merch drop, and then will be working throughout 2021 on new and exclusive designs to drop throughout the year.
m 13. Good Girls Go Bad (Frank E Remix) [feat. Flo Rida]
Argentine producer Pedro Canale returns from a three-year sojourn with his long awaited third album. Originally coming out of Buenos Aires's famed digital cumbia scene, Chancha has notoriously broken way outside those boundaries to forge unprecedented mergers between Brazilian rhythms, Paraguayan harp, Andean mysticism and the solitude of Argentinian folklore - all processed through his own futuristic style of postdubstep.
Chancha's sound is without question truly unique and instantly recognizable to the point he has become a key reference point for an entire crop of artists that have begun to carry his genes.
Hailed by the Washington Post, the New York Times, Pitchfork, NPR and countless others, Chancha Via Circuito defies even the shrewdest of marketing geniuses. On one hand, he is something of a cult artist within micro-circles of electronic music, having been invited to perform at Montreal's MUTEK as well as the Roskilde and Vive Latino Festivals. At the same time, Chancha's music has found broad appeal outside of the avant-garde, most notably his magnificent remix of Jose Larralde's "Quimey Neuquen" which was heavily featured in 2013 as part of the final season of the critically acclaimed television series Breaking Bad. Fans of the show undoubtedly remember Walter White burying his millions in the desert, soundtracked by the wide and gentle grooves of Chancha Via Circuito.
Amansara is a natural progressing of Chancha's special strain of electronic South America. Lead single "Coplita" features the haunting vocals of previous collaborator Miram Garcia, while "Sueno En Paraguay" merges Andean folklore sounds with bleeps and blips and pounding drums in a way that sounds completely natural and ordained. "Jardines" features the driving vocals of Lido Pimienta merging with heavy synths, percussion and bells into an unforgettable track, while both "Tarocchi" and "Guajaca" ramp things up into deep, electronic dancefloor inna rainforest territory.
Art for Amansara comes from Argentinian psychedelic folklore painter Paula Duro who has crafted the look of all of Chancha's previous releases.
So you thought U-TRAX was all about fancy, state-of-the-art, absolutely undanceable, hard-to-understand, semi-intelligent techno Well, you're absolutely right, but this U-TRAX-release is just not!
Produced by German Heinrich Tillack, these TICK TRAX VOLUME 1 are just the good old way of making techno. Raw & uncomplicated, in the tradition of the Chicago underground.
Heinrich is a bit of an enigma. Having released some 12"s on Detroit's Plus 8 Records (as Sysex), Force Inc. Music Works (as Absolute) and Disko B (as Festival) and his own label Jakpot (both as Festival, as well as Co-Jack, together with Olivier Bondzio aka Hardfloor), he more or less disappeared from the face of the earth. It is said that he is a developer of children's apps for mobile phones nowadays.
The 5 tracks on this 12" are centered mostly around the 909 drum machine and the 303 bassline synthesizer. While two bulky techno tracks feature on side A, the flipside is completely dominated by acid tracks, most of them receiving high praise when they hit the dance floors in the mid 90s.
More recent techno heroes also know how to appreciate these vintage tracks, like Dutchman Danny Wolfers, aka Legowelt, who had this to say about 'Pump Track' on his Facebook page: "Such a fun track, how it stops and starts, almost falls apart. It's mentally challenged simplicity with a giant hall rave vibe... total dance floor control track. On the super cult U-TRAX, one of the coolest Dutch labels from the 90s!"
'There is a sense of mirth rising within me as I riddle these notes down. I'm here at the Cube Cinema in Bristol with John Stevens from Qu Junktions in the garden talking music, while Rhodri Karim whizzes through setting up gear for Matana Roberts and Kelly Jayne Jones. They are in situ for three days for another playthecube.
All the while I lounge back and time-travel back to Dec '17, picturing the times we all shared with the musicians you hear in these
recordings. To slow things down a wee touch is such a powerful gesture, it feels. Ali and Jamie Lindsay (from the Cube) where so gentle in setting up the framework for Tartine de Clous and Neil to
join in and and spend five epic days and nights with us. Showing old and new films, talking, singing tight together around a table and then en masse with the Bristol Sacred Harp group, everything weaved around the Microplexian complex. The ad hoc series playthecube is inspired by olden-day folks stopping by settlements to sing, jest and make love for a hazy period, as well as urban fairytale jazz residencies and the desire to jig up the connections that frizzle between The Cube's curious volunteer workforce, visiting artists and our audiences when you have a little more time on your hands.
Over the two nights, Tartine de Clous, Alasdair Roberts and Neil McDermott entertained plenty. The computer capturing the music at the back of the auditorium and the exquisitely placed hanging mics, like flowers at a fête, all added to the recording angel ritual. On the first evening every breath, every track and each chair inch mattered; they shuffled things round and, on the second evening, the suite of song swept the crowd and the musicians together into a fine fettle.
To have this album and to hear these songs is to taste the stews we ate, the stories we swapped, the technology we manipulated and the people we touched. The cubic circles rippled and we all loosed a little, and the way I figure it, you can hear it.'
Legendary Utrecht DJ and producer P.A. Presents (Peter Aarsman) returns with his first new release since 2000 with this vintage techno stunner, Swirling Gas. This EP also marks the first new music on U-TRAX in more than 21 years, kicking the label s comeback into a higher gear.
Peter ironically is the only artist on U-TRAX that actually is born and bred in the city of Utrecht. Even more irony lies in the fact that he hasn t lived in the city (or stadsie in Utregs, the local dialect) for the past 25 years.
Peter knew he wanted to be a DJ since he was ten years old, in a time when this was still a very unusual career to dream about. Long before house music had landed in Europe, Peter was fiddling around with disco and italo 12 -es and all those years of training is what made him the superior DJ that he still is today. In terms of skills, flair, energy and feel for the dance floor, there are probably not a lot of DJs that can rival with Peter.
While the era of house of techno of the late 80s and the 90s brought him countless DJ gigs, his reputation didn t cross the city borders much, until he bought his first gear and started producing techno music himself. Again, his DJ background proved helpful with producing his tracks, as most of his tracks are dancefloor orientated and usually have an impeccable timing.
Peter debuted with the mini-album Salicylic Acid on U-TRAX in 1993, followed by the Flight Stimulator EP a year later. Both are classics today, but neither brought him as much fame as his 12 Entangled did on Deviate, a record label that was started by a couple of our friends from Utrecht a year prior to U-TRAX. Entangled made it to many charts and compilation albums, including Carl Craig s mix CD as part of !K7 s DJ-Kicks series.
Besides two releases on U-TRAX and three 12 -es on Deviate, Peter recorded a full length album for the latter label. Unfortunately, before the album ever saw the light of day, Deviate closed their doors and the tracks remained on the shelves for the next 17 or so years. These tracks still sound surprisingly fresh and original today and we are super excited to be able to release some of them on this Swirling Gas EP!
The title track Swirling Gas obviously gets its name from the documentary sample that the track kicks off with. The almost heartbeat-like electro rhythms, layered choruses and dreamy synths will give you goose bumps all the way to the soles of your feet.
Raw is quite another thing, but way more complicated and sophisticated than the title suggests. An in-your-face electro bass drum pattern supports layer after layer of additional rhythms, some even touching on salsa, and then big fat layers of pulsating synths take you away into deep space. A unique track that will instantly reward the DJ that has the guts to play it for her/his audience.
Drum Magic on the flipside is exactly that: a magic techno trip built around complicated syncopated drum rhythms, which should serve the adventurous DJ well as a foundation for mixing all sorts of weird stuff on top of. We can t wait to see videos appear with creative mixing ideas.
Final track Freaky is opening with some heavy pounding, yet jumpy beats before it opens up into a bit of a space trip around the 3 minute mark. Though the track has a touch of the Basic Channel sound, its echoing synth tones are very distinct and will light up any venue, no matter how big.
All tracks have been revamped and edited into more current lengths by DJ Zero One, blessed by DJ White Delight and mastered by Thee J Johanz. Label art by Bonk Artwork.
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Last delivered 4 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Legendary Utrecht DJ and producer P.A. Presents (Peter Aarsman) returns with his first new release since 2000 with this vintage techno stunner, Swirling Gas. This EP also marks the first new music on U-TRAX in more than 21 years, kicking the label s comeback into a higher gear.
Peter ironically is the only artist on U-TRAX that actually is born and bred in the city of Utrecht. Even more irony lies in the fact that he hasn t lived in the city (or stadsie in Utregs, the local dialect) for the past 25 years.
Peter knew he wanted to be a DJ since he was ten years old, in a time when this was still a very unusual career to dream about. Long before house music had landed in Europe, Peter was fiddling around with disco and italo 12 -es and all those years of training is what made him the superior DJ that he still is today. In terms of skills, flair, energy and feel for the dance floor, there are probably not a lot of DJs that can rival with Peter.
While the era of house of techno of the late 80s and the 90s brought him countless DJ gigs, his reputation didn t cross the city borders much, until he bought his first gear and started producing techno music himself. Again, his DJ background proved helpful with producing his tracks, as most of his tracks are dancefloor orientated and usually have an impeccable timing.
Peter debuted with the mini-album Salicylic Acid on U-TRAX in 1993, followed by the Flight Stimulator EP a year later. Both are classics today, but neither brought him as much fame as his 12 Entangled did on Deviate, a record label that was started by a couple of our friends from Utrecht a year prior to U-TRAX. Entangled made it to many charts and compilation albums, including Carl Craig s mix CD as part of !K7 s DJ-Kicks series.
Besides two releases on U-TRAX and three 12 -es on Deviate, Peter recorded a full length album for the latter label. Unfortunately, before the album ever saw the light of day, Deviate closed their doors and the tracks remained on the shelves for the next 17 or so years. These tracks still sound surprisingly fresh and original today and we are super excited to be able to release some of them on this Swirling Gas EP!
The title track Swirling Gas obviously gets its name from the documentary sample that the track kicks off with. The almost heartbeat-like electro rhythms, layered choruses and dreamy synths will give you goose bumps all the way to the soles of your feet.
Raw is quite another thing, but way more complicated and sophisticated than the title suggests. An in-your-face electro bass drum pattern supports layer after layer of additional rhythms, some even touching on salsa, and then big fat layers of pulsating synths take you away into deep space. A unique track that will instantly reward the DJ that has the guts to play it for her/his audience.
Drum Magic on the flipside is exactly that: a magic techno trip built around complicated syncopated drum rhythms, which should serve the adventurous DJ well as a foundation for mixing all sorts of weird stuff on top of. We can t wait to see videos appear with creative mixing ideas.
Final track Freaky is opening with some heavy pounding, yet jumpy beats before it opens up into a bit of a space trip around the 3 minute mark. Though the track has a touch of the Basic Channel sound, its echoing synth tones are very distinct and will light up any venue, no matter how big.
All tracks have been revamped and edited into more current lengths by DJ Zero One, blessed by DJ White Delight and mastered by Thee J Johanz. Label art by Bonk Artwork.
The third release on U-TRAX in 1993 was also a third debut, this time by Natasja Hagemeier and Jeroen Brandjes. Early in their career, they used several artist names, but became most commonly known as The Connection Machine. With their debut mini-album The Dream Tec Album they more or less described their style: dreamy techno. It became an instant Dutch techno classic and U-TRAX is proud and delighted to offer a fully remastered re-release, including three never before released bonus tracks (one of which is digital-only).
Natasja and Jeroen resided in Utrecht back in the 90s. In 1991 they assembled all their ideas and recorded the track "24 Hours" with DJ Paradize. Soon after this experience, they started to buy their own gear, all strictly MIDI (which wasn't too obvious in those days). In their early recording years, they had three producer-names (Syndrome, The Connection Machine and Bitch&Bites), that were all collected under the The Utroid Machine Missions umbrella, which was used for their debut on U-TRAX.
All tracks on The Dream Tec Album are The Connection Machine's earliest works, from the 1991/1992 years.
"An Overflow of the Mind" is a beautiful, dreamy track with almost divine sounds and strange voice-samples that serves perfectly as an introduction to their entire repertoire.
Their first production was "24 Hours", and what a brilliant one it is! A well-known jazz-musician talks about a "24 hour party going on", on top of a sinister and trancey rug, woven of sampled sounds from pioneers in electronic music and nailed down to the floor with a deep pounding bassdrum. At the time they made this track, 141 bpm was unbelievably fast...
"Evilish Cosmos" is all about a very sad and personal emotion, so everything we say about it will be absolutely wrong. Just listen to the meandering piano line, distorted voice samples - and feel it.
The first bonus track on this release is "Recognized Pain", which was intended to be part of the original The Dream Tec Album. It had appeared on the Phuture Classical Section C cassette in 1993, on the famous Drome Tapes label that formed the roots of U-TRAX. It truly is an amazing track: pure sonic terror with haunting rhythms, psychedelic synth lines and shards of voice samples that make the listener feel slightly uncomfortable.
"X_Manray" is many electronic music lover's favorite track. It is sooo deep that it is hard not to get hypnotized by it. Warm strings are coupled with deep beats that show up and disappear every now and then. Could serve perfectly to start off any DJ's set, as long as she or he has the guts.
Though "Braindrain" is probably the most danceable track on this album, it is carefully designed to tease the listener. Everything in this track drops in too late and every tone, melody or loop last exactly a few bars too long. Designed as a DJ-teaser and so it is.
The second bonus track, "Cafe d'Anvers", is another previously unreleased work, of which unfortunately no master recording was saved. All that is left, as far as we know, was an old VHS Hifi tape from the U-TRAX Archives. And that is where this bonus track was taken from. Mastering engineer Thee J Johanz managed to restore the quality of the recording somewhat, while at the same time maintaining its dark, clubby sound, a tribute to the famous club of the track's name in Antwerp, Belgium.
"Dream Affected Dream" is one of the most recent productions on this album. It was recorded with CNN playing live on top of it. At this exact moment, CNN was having an interview with David Koresh, the leader of the infamous Branch Davidians sect from Waco, Texas, while they were under siege by an armed police force. Natasja and Jeroen were just ready to record Dream Affected Dream, and spontaneously decided to mix in the audio from CNN. Not very long after that, the cult members set fire to themselves. A very strange and oddly funky track, that also serves as a time-document.
The final track is another bonus track. Like Cafe d'Anvers, "Voight-Kampff" is taken from on old U-TRAX VHS Hifi tape and masterfully mastered into a lovely relaxed dreamtech piece. Very suitable to start the Sunday after a long night of clubbing. This track is available for free to buyers of the complete digital album only.
Original release date: July 1993.
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Last delivered 7 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
With his first release as EBM outfit Voltage Control on Antler Subway in 1989, Utrecht-based Arno Peeters can easily be considered one of the Dutch Dance pioneers.
Influenced by hip hop, electro and acid house, and his uncontrollable urge to experiment, he moved on to produce techno. Disappointed by the genre s conventions, he rather suddenly stopped with dance music altogether around 1995, letting a wealth of DATs with unreleased material collect dust in his studio.
To our great pleasure, U-TRAX was allowed to pick some nuggets from these archives, resulting in this Titanic EP and an album later this year.
Arno started experimenting with sound at very young age, resulting in his first cassette releases with experimental soundscapes in 1983. In 1986 he joined the notable Centre for Electronic Music (CEM), where he was able to take his experiments to a new level in a professional studio-environment.
In his techno episode , he recorded several 12 -es and CDs as Sp@sms and The Implant, and as part of Random XS, Urban Electro, African Nightflight and The AWAX Foundation, with most of his records being released on the famous DJAX label.
After turning his back on techno, he applied himself to more experimental music again. In 1996, he created AeroSon, a 40-minute sound collage that won him the first prize in the category Composers Under 30 at a high-brow international contest for electro-acoustic music. This piece was later released on the prestigious Mille Plateaux label.
Since then, his focus has shifted away from releasing music, towards working more project-based: on remixes, compilations and interactive (installations, video, sound design), building himself a successful career as radio maker, teacher and engineer, contributing to several award-winning documentaries and podcasts.
This EP is a nice cross section of Arno s dance productions, serving you some acid, techno and electro.
Titanic V1 was originally created to be a Random XS track, the techno band he formed in 1991 with Sander Friedeman. It was performed during their live set at one of the G.U.R.U. parties, organized by U-TRAX label boss DJ White Delight and label artist P.A. Presents.
This acid track was remixed into a techno monster when Friedeman replaced the 303 with a 101 and added a ton of delay on the bass drums, resulting in the woofer destroying Titanic (Underwater Dub).
The flipside sees a rare post-1995 recording by Arno: CEM Traxx 1. As the title suggests, this melancholic electro gem was created using the intricate machinery of the CEM Studio. Originally created as one half of a two-part composition for some project in 2003, it was never released before.
The EP closes with a typical Arno brainchild, the tongue-in-cheek acid banger XD5 Acid Master, from 1994. Tracks like this happen if you leave Arno unattended with a rather un-hip machine like the Kawai XD-5: he turns it inside out and uses it for things it was never intended for. Buckle up!
All tracks have been produced by Arno Peeters and mastered by Ruud Lekx. Label art by Botterman Ontwerp.
out of Stock
Last delivered 4 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
With his first release as EBM outfit Voltage Control on Antler Subway in 1989, Utrecht-based Arno Peeters can easily be considered one of the Dutch Dance pioneers.
Influenced by hip hop, electro and acid house, and his uncontrollable urge to experiment, he moved on to produce techno. Disappointed by the genre s conventions, he rather suddenly stopped with dance music altogether around 1995, letting a wealth of DATs with unreleased material collect dust in his studio.
To our great pleasure, U-TRAX was allowed to pick some nuggets from these archives, resulting in this Titanic EP and an album later this year.
Arno started experimenting with sound at very young age, resulting in his first cassette releases with experimental soundscapes in 1983. In 1986 he joined the notable Centre for Electronic Music (CEM), where he was able to take his experiments to a new level in a professional studio-environment.
In his techno episode , he recorded several 12 -es and CDs as Sp@sms and The Implant, and as part of Random XS, Urban Electro, African Nightflight and The AWAX Foundation, with most of his records being released on the famous DJAX label.
After turning his back on techno, he applied himself to more experimental music again. In 1996, he created AeroSon, a 40-minute sound collage that won him the first prize in the category Composers Under 30 at a high-brow international contest for electro-acoustic music. This piece was later released on the prestigious Mille Plateaux label.
Since then, his focus has shifted away from releasing music, towards working more project-based: on remixes, compilations and interactive (installations, video, sound design), building himself a successful career as radio maker, teacher and engineer, contributing to several award-winning documentaries and podcasts.
This EP is a nice cross section of Arno s dance productions, serving you some acid, techno and electro.
Titanic V1 was originally created to be a Random XS track, the techno band he formed in 1991 with Sander Friedeman. It was performed during their live set at one of the G.U.R.U. parties, organized by U-TRAX label boss DJ White Delight and label artist P.A. Presents.
This acid track was remixed into a techno monster when Friedeman replaced the 303 with a 101 and added a ton of delay on the bass drums, resulting in the woofer destroying Titanic (Underwater Dub).
The flipside sees a rare post-1995 recording by Arno: CEM Traxx 1. As the title suggests, this melancholic electro gem was created using the intricate machinery of the CEM Studio. Originally created as one half of a two-part composition for some project in 2003, it was never released before.
The EP closes with a typical Arno brainchild, the tongue-in-cheek acid banger XD5 Acid Master, from 1994. Tracks like this happen if you leave Arno unattended with a rather un-hip machine like the Kawai XD-5: he turns it inside out and uses it for things it was never intended for. Buckle up!
All tracks have been produced by Arno Peeters and mastered by Ruud Lekx. Label art by Botterman Ontwerp.
out of Stock
Last delivered 4 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Utrecht label U-Trax welcomes 90s legend P.A. Presents for an enhanced re-release of his first two releases on this label, namely "Salicylic Acid" and "Flight Simulator".
Ironically P.A. Presents aka Peter Aarsman is the only artist on U-TRAX that actually is born and bred in the city of Utrecht. Even more irony lies in the fact that he hasn't lived in the city for 25 years and has only recently returned home. He was an early player in the hip hop and boogie scenes and long before house landed in Europe he was playing disco and Italo which helped establish him as a truly vital DJ talent. The two reissue EPs presented here marked his production debut back in 1993, both of which are hugely sought after and pricey techno records on second hand markets. In 2019 he returned to the music scene with two new EPs on U-Trax in the the form of Swirling Gas and Sax Madness and new releases are planned for 2020.
The release kicks off with 'Mesopmorph', an effervescent, nostalgic cut with a deeply buried techno rhythm that eventually takes over in tribal style. 'Pop' is a brilliantly tense and dense track wired up with fizzing synths, chattering claps and haunting effects as well as pending drums, then 'Theme' is cosmic industrial, with powerful hits and metallic sounds married to searching laser synths.
'Vera S' is classic 90s techno with mad vocal sounds and frantic synth lines darting about the mix, then things grow deeper and more heady on the stripped back intergalactic journey that is 'Flight Simulator.' The timelessness continues on the dancing analogue drums and hi hats of the classic Detroit styled 'Experiental' and 'A Gasp' before 'Vexillum' brings more warm solar winds and molten techno grooves whist 'Long Metal' closes out with pounding kicks, skewed synths and real sense of space travel.
These are essential early techno tracks that sound as fresh and relevant now as ever and come with remastering and restoration from Thee J Johanz.
Pressed on 2x12" 180 grams grey marbled vinyl.
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Last delivered 12 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
"(…) Pak Yan Lau, one of the most original pianists of the new European creative scene, has the ability to build complex formal architectures starting from minimal materials – insistent rhythms, barely hinted melodies, electronic effects as evocative as they are mysterious. Darin Gray uses his long experience as the backbone of many improvisational groups with a painstaking work on timbre and a deep and multiform sound, providing a solid support to extemporary creations that have the solidity of pondered compositions. The music of the duo develops on wide structural strings, elegantly combining the continuous surprise of free improvisation with the material suggestions of electroacoustic experimentation, in a game of references and narrative developments almost cinematic, which tell a fascinating sound world, strangely familiar yet constantly new and surprising."
(Nicola Negri, Centro d’Arte Padova, Italy)
Acid lovers unite! Techno House Connoisseurs release their 2nd record with 5 tracks that blanket the acid genre offering something for everyone. Acid extraordinaire Acidulant kicks things off with a jacking, stompy monster meant for the warehouse with 808 beats and a crispy 303 throughout.
Jon Lee of Tilted records in Seattle is next up and his production shines with a moody, tech house gem that is sure to get the floor heated with it's warpy and bleeping layers on top of rubbery acid lines. A real treat!
Canada's Jay Tripwire shows why he is at the forefront of the production game with his acid ripper Kneel to Zod. This track oohs and aahs with it's heavy percussive rhythms and psychedelic leanings. A brilliant 303 wobbles throughout the 8 minute workout with dreamy synths and a wicked breakdown. More dance floor magic from Mr. Tripwire.
Label CEO Dave Zam AKA Space Ace revisits his 2019 Acid Odyssey release and reworks the original into a bass heavy punisher. Adding on more percussion and layers of 303 with dramatic deep synths it promises a glimpse of what the label seeks to achieve.
Lastly, LA's Praus brings another cosmic diamond to THC records with Luigi's Illusion. Praus continues to impress with lush layers of atmosphere and rich percussive elements followed by a whopper of a baseline with wiggling acid all throughout. Buckle up.
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Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
EXPERIENCE FRANK OCEAN THROUGH THE EARS AND SOUNDS OF HIGH PULP, AS THE MUTUAL ATTRACTION SAGA CONTINUES, WITH THE FINAL INSTALLMENT OF THE PROJECT.
While the first 2 volumes in the series pay homage to free and experimental jazz legends that have informed the lens of the Seattle, Washington-based band. Volume 3 steps into the R&B/Hip Hop world, as the band performs their fresh takes on 3 Frank Ocean tracks, from the ‘Endless’ album.
A Frank Ocean record that flew under the radar for some but didn’t miss with the High Pulp crew. The 3 arrangements are a homage and a thank you to Frank, who has had such a heavy impact on the band and the way they think about writing music. Mutual Attraction 3 challenged the band to think critically about these compositions and how they could deliver a similar sentiment that they were born out of, but also put it through the High Pulp lens.
Along with digging into a different genre of music and focusing on just one artist to pay tribute to for this volume in the series. MA 3 also has the band performing as their largest ensemble yet. A 15-piece band, including a 5-piece string section. Giving no limits to these reimagined versions of Frank Ocean tunes.
This is the second issue of the new We Jazz Magazine, 128 pages 174 x 250 mm in size and printed on 140g Edixion paper with laminated 300g Invercote covers. All articles presented IN ENGLISH. Includes inspiring stories on music including John Coltrane by Ashley Kahn, Irreversible Entanglements by Daniel Spicer, Ben Lamar Gay by Stewart Smith, Linda Fredriksson by Arttu Tolonen, Marshall Allen by David Mittleman, French Caribbean Music by Markus Karlqvist, Pablo Held by HT Nuotio, record reviews, book reviews, plus more. This is a magazine put together by a quality cast of writers and illustrators/photographers with references such as The Wire, The Quietus, Pitchfork, Jazzwise, etc.
Believed to have been recorded in 1983, ‘O Filho Do Homem’ is a newly discovered and previously unreleased single by the late Brazilian composer and keyboardist Ana Mazzotti. Though it’s her only known studio recording of the decade, ‘O Filho Do Homem’ is one of several unreleased compositions Mazzotti and her band performed on TV Cultura and Programa MPB during the 80s.*
These performances showed Mazzotti had transitioned towards a harder edged and more daringly experimental sound in this period, while keeping the core components of samba, jazz and funk that characterised her two studio albums from the 1970s, Ninguem Vai Me Segurar (1974) and the self titled Ana Mazzotti (1977). This evolved 80s sound had evidently taken a similar path to that of her contemporaries and mentors, like Azymuth, whose keyboardist José Roberto Bertrami arranged her debut album, and Hermeto Pascoal who described her as “a super musician.”
Following the resurgence in appreciation for Ana’s music that arose from the 2019 reissues of her two studio albums, her son Toni Mazzotti was compelled to re-examine the archive of artefacts he’d inherited from his parents. Amongst the LPs, chord sheets, photos and VHS recordings, Toni stumbled upon a mysterious reel of tape, which he swiftly dispatched to the Far Out office in London. Toni and the Far Out team were delighted to discover the mystery tape was a hazy jazz-funk gem recorded by his mother (and father, drummer Romildo Santos) during the twilight of her short career; Ana Mazzotti sadly passed away in 1988 from lung cancer at the age of just 37. Aside from Ana on keyboards and vocals and Romildo who produced and played drums on all of Ana’s recordings, the line-up for the quartet is unknown.
“O Filho Do Homem” will be released on 7” vinyl and digitally on the 10th December 2021 via Far Out Recordings.
As current lead vocalist and co-songwriter of the hugely successful modern progressive metal band HAKEN, ROSS JENNINGS needs no introduction in some circles, having released 1 ep, 1 Live album and 6 full length studio albums of consistently high quality with the band, HAKEN have been climbing that mountain with grace and gusto, albeit on the fringe of mainstream rock and metal. In 2019 HAKEN won ‘Best UK Artist’ at the annual PROG awards, with their latest release ‘Virus’ reaching #2 in the UK rock charts and entering the US Billboard Hot 100 at #52.
On the back of this release ROSS JENNINGS set out to write, record and self-produce his debut solo effort ‘A SHADOW OF MY FUTURE SELF’ with an ambition to become a new household name and keep mainstream classic rock alive and well.
* taken from the digital version of bio-rhythm 3 and not included on the vinyl version of the album.
Network’s two groundbreaking bio-rhythm albums in 1990 were each accompanied by much loved 12” preview samplers of tracks from the iconic compilations.
For the third release - a mere 31 years after the first sets - Network have added a fresh twist. The sampler this time around contains 2 tracks from the bio-rhythm 3 vinyl release and 2 that will only be otherwise available on digital format.
It makes the sampler a must have for all electronica vinyl junkies.
Nexus 21 “Silicon”, a mainstay of the duo’s much acclaimed live sets, was recorded in 1991 but not released at the time. Memories are thin as it why such a gem was ignored but the most probable explanation is that the transformation of Nexus 21 into Altern 8 took attention away from the track. After being found in the tape vaults it has been remastered for the bio-rhythm 3 project.
It is joined on side A by the Octave One remix of 10th Planet “Strings Of Life” - which is not on the album vinyl. There is a proper labyrinthe story behind this remake of the Rhythim Is Rhythim classic of classics. Kool Kat, the predecessor to Network, arranged for Rhythim Is Rhythim to play live supporting Inner City at a London Town And Country Club concert in September 1989. The label recorded the show which featured Derrick May and his guest Carl Craig.
Fast forward to 1995 and the tapes were handed over to Ashley Beedle to reconstruct and remix for a release on Network under Ashley’s 10th Plane moniker, . On to 2003 and Network’s Neil Rushton was running the suSU label where an attempt to record a vocal of Strings Of Life with none other than Shara Nelson on vocals was made using the 10th Planet parts. That never came to completion, but at the time Neil was working with Octave One and they conjured up this recreation, which has only ever been previously released as a track on a suSU compilation. FIRST TIME ON VINYL ANYWHERE FOR THIS AMAZING VERSION OF “STRINGS OF LIFE”.
“Neurosilence” - Doggy is previously unreleased recording by Birmingham’s Peter Duggal. His bleep classic “Labyrinthine” would have been totally at home on Kool Kat/Network and in recent months both label and artist have both been shaking their heads as to how it didn’t happen. The release of the stark “Neuroslince” finally sees an 0121 alliance bond together.
The 4th track “In The Presence Of Beauty” is taken from the digital release of bio-rhythm 3 and is a truly beautiful “Reprise” take on the version on the vinyl album.
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‘The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows’, the new studio album from Damon Albarn, is released by new label home Transgressive
Records.
‘The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows’ was originally
intended as an orchestral piece inspired by the landscapes of Iceland.
This last year has seen Albarn return to the music in lockdown and
develop the work to 11 tracks which further explore themes of fragility,
loss, emergence and rebirth. The result is a panoramic collection of
songs with Albarn as storyteller. The album title is taken from a John
Clare poem Love and Memory.
The deluxe version of the album takes the form of a casebound book
with additional photography, original scanned lyrics and artwork from
Damon, alongside a clear vinyl version of the album and a bonus 7”
featuring an exclusive song from the recording sessions, plus a high
quality digital download. Also available on black vinyl and cassette.
A recent special Globe Theatre performance in London sold out
immediately and was streamed globally to 72 countries around the world and received rave reviews across the board.
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Last delivered 4 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Triumph breeds confidence, and with confidence comes an expansion of ambition, a focus of ability, an emboldening of audacity. De-Loused In The Comatorium had risked everything Omar and Cedric possessed on the wildest of gambits, the most impossible of dreams: making sense of the riot of influences ricocheting about Omar’s head, and memorialising their departed friend Julio Venegas through Cedric’s magical realist roman-a-clef. It Clouds Hill shouldn’t have worked. But it did, and with that fiendish tightrope act successfully accomplished, the duo stretched the wire even further and higher, over a figurative fiery pit peopled with lions, crocodiles, piranha and other sharp-toothed beasts not yet known to man. Because how do you make great art without taking great risks? Frances The Mute was no De-Loused Part Two. For one thing, the band’s configuration had changed, in the most painful way. Shortly before the release of De- Loused, sound manipulator and founder member Jeremy Michael Ward passed away, a wound Omar says the group never recovered from. But even though his inspired fucking- with-the-sonic-parameters is absent from Frances The Mute, his spirit and influence can still be determined, the album’s concept derived from a diary Ward had encountered in his day-job in repossession. “Jeremy picked up lots of interesting stuff when he was a repo man,” remembers Cedric. “Weird things, including this diary, He let us read it a bunch of times. It was by a guy who’d been adopted and was searching to find his real parents. It was very surreal, it didn’t make much sense – the guy might’ve been schizophrenic – but it was very inspiring. It felt like how certain music helps you escape your boring every-day life. The names and scenes in the diary directly inspired these songs.” Some of the tracks pre-dated De-Loused, having their origins in early demos Omar recorded at the duo’s Long Beach home Anikulapo, songs such as The Widow and Miranda The Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore. Cedric had heard these jams in their embryonic state and began working in his mind on what he could bring to them. “I was attracted to The Widow like you would be to a lover, right?” Cedric remembers. “I sang over it with Omar while we were touring De-Loused in Australia on the Big Day Out, like, ‘Okay, I’ve got something for this.’” A potent ballad, laden with emotional crescendos and evoking the epic drama of Ennio Morricone – an effect aided by an elegiac trumpet part performed by Flea – The Widow would become The Mars Volta’s first song to chart on the Billboard Top 100, capturing the album’s potent sorrow and widescreen sprawl in miniature. Indeed, the lush sound of the album, the depth of detail and breadth of instrumentation, belies its grungy roots. Having tasted the luxury of Rick Rubin’s mansion, Omar veered in the opposite direction when recording Frances, cutting the album in what he describes as “a shithole... Basically a warehouse with one little air conditioner on its last legs, awful wiring and a console you couldn’t rely on. We were there night and day – I would literally lock engineer Jon DeBaun in there. He slept on a mattress in the vocal booth.” A considerably more complex and ambitious album than its predecessor – four of its five tracks lasted over ten minutes in length, with its closing epic Cassandra Gemini spanning over half an hour – Frances The Mute wasn’t recorded “live” by an ensemble, but with the individual musicians coming into the “shithole” and recording the parts Omar had scripted for them separately. “They had to have absolute trust in me,” Omar remembers, “Like actors trust their director.” In addition to the core band – now fleshed out with incoming bassist Juan Alderete, and Omar’s brother Marcel on keyboards and percussion – the album featured guitar solos from John Frusciante, saxophone and flute by future member Adrian Terrazas-Gonzales, a full string section, and piano played by Omar’s hero, salsa legend Larry Harlow. “It was a childhood dream come true,” Omar says. “We recorded with him in my hometown in Puerto Rico, and my father flew in to watch the session. Larry was a perfect gentleman, and a very lively spirit.” The album’s fevered intensity infected even the staid string section, Cedric remembers. “When they performed the part on Cassandra Gemini, ’25 wives in the lake tonight’, one of the guys in the orchestra played so hard he broke his bow, this real old, antique bow. And you could see his ‘classical’ side come out – like, ‘I broke this playing a fuckin’ rock song??’ He was pissed off. But I was like, ‘Fuck yeah, man, that’s on the record! You’ve got to realise things like that are cool.’” The album also features field recordings of “the coqui of Puerto Rico” during the opening minutes of Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore. “We took a page out of the Grateful Dead’s book there,” laughs Cedric. “They recorded air. We recorded fuckin’ frogs in Puerto Rico.”
"In Vivo" is the result of the photographic work of Klavdij Sluban at the Fleury-Mérogis Young Offender Institution (France) from 1995 to 2016 Beds in addition to his work from Izalco prison, located in El Salvador, from 2008 [visiting rooms] connected to the music of Gareth Davis.
Gareth Davis is an artist, composer and musician living in Amsterdam. He plays clarinet(s), the result of a somewhat impulsive purchase whilst window shopping in Covent Garden, London, around ten years before the turn of the century. The serendipitous location of a rather wonderful (and equally important, rather cheap) second hand record shop less than 10m from the bus stop required for seven years of schooling, combined with delivering newspapers on a daily basis, lead to a somewhat eclectic, dusty and generally unclassified taste in music.
The result. Activity covering sonic art and contemporary classical music through rock, improvisation and noise with collaborations that have included the premiering of new written pieces by composers such as Bernhard Lang, Peter Ablinger, Toshio Hosokawa and Jonathan Harvey, soloist with orchestras including the SWR Symphonieorchester, Warsaw Philharmonic and Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid, performances with groups and performers ranging from the Neue Vocalsolisten and Arditti Quartet through to improvisers Elliott Sharp and Frances Marie Uitti, electronic artists Robin Rimbaud and Merzbow and multimedia work with artists including Christian Marclay and Peter Greenaway.
"In Vivo" is his second solo release after to have recorded a bunch of collaborative albums with artists such as Scanner, Machinefabriek, Steven R. Smith, Kleefstra Brothers, Frances-Marie Uitti, Merzbow, Adain Baker, Duane Pitre and more...
Klavdij Sluban, winner of the European Publishers Award for Photography 2009, of the Leica Prize (2004) and of the Niépce Prize (2000), main French prize in photography, is a French photographer of Slovenian origin born in Paris in 1963.
He develops a rigorous and coherent body of work, nourished by literature, never inspired by immediate and sensational current affairs, making him one of the most interesting photographers of his generation. The Balkans, the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Caribbean, Central America, Russia, China and the Antarctic (first artistic mission in the Kerguelen islands) can be read as many successive steps of an in-depth study of a patient proximity to the encountered real.
His images have been shown in such leading institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Photography of Tokyo, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Rencontres d’Arles, the Museum of Photography in Helsinki, the Fine Arts Museum in Canton, the Musée Beaubourg, the Museum of Texas Tech University. His many books include East to East (published simultaneously by Actes Sud, Dewi Lewis, Petliti, Braus, Apeiron & Lunwerg with a text by Erri de Luca), Entre Parenthèses, (Photo Poche, Actes Sud), Transverses, (Maison Européenne de la Photographie) and Balkans -Transit, with a text by François Maspero (Seuil). Since 1995, Sluban has been photographing teenagers in jails. In each prison he organizes workshops with the young offenders to share his passion. First originated in France, in the prison of Fleury-Mérogis with support of Henri Cartier-Bresson during 7 years, as well as Marc Riboud and William Klein punctually. This commitment was pursued in the disciplinary camps of Eastern Europe –Serbia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldavia, Latvia – and in the disciplinary centres of Moscow and St Petersburg as well as in Ireland. From 2007 to 2012, Sluban has been working in Central America with imprisoned youngsters belonging to maras (gangs) in Guatemala and Salvador. In 2015, he started photographing imprisoned teenagers in Brazil. In 2013, the musée Niépce showed a retrospective of K.Sluban’s work, After Darkness, 1995-2012. In 2015/16, he was awarded the Villa Kujoyama Residence in Kyoto, Japan. K.Sluban is member of national and international jurys, such as prix Niépce, prix de la Jeune Photographie de Niort, prix Leica, All About Photo…
‘Feelings’ took shape amidst the months of anxious tension that 2020 laid upon us, written and produced by Turkish artist Ekin Fil, it took around 1 year for the album to manifest in its final form.
Yet underneath the opaque veneer of swooning drones, timeworn chords and verbal lamentations, glimpses of sanguinity and optimism flicker through the fabric of the work, mirroring the perpetual state of uncertainty and isolation we collectively faced in 2020; suspended between minute, optimistic spur and months of dissolute ambivalence.
Beyond the reference to the « Blue Hours » and to the New York recording studio, these albums are a hymn to life.
The orange colour reminds us of the Sun’s light at dusk, the hopes of dawn, a promise of a new day .
In that regard, we asked each artist to express three wishes for the future.
Kevin Hays-Yotam Silberstein
Nicole Glover-Alexander Claffy
Johnny O'Neal-Paul Sikivie
David Kikoski-Peter Bernstein
Recorded in Brooklyn NYC at Big Orange Sheep Studios -October 2020-