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On July 4th Kase Avila is set to raise the bar even higher with his latest effort ‘Minerva’ via Low Key Source. The Filipino-Australian producer is set to delve deeper into his artistry and penchant for the experimental with 14 new tracks.

When Covid-19 turned the world upside down, Kase sent himself into self-isolation. Confined to the studio, the Sydney beatmaker faced this tumultuous time with his love for producing music. Kase explored his love of 90’s boom bap, neo-soul, and the Soulquarians, while playing with the crisp sounds of electronic music to strengthen his perseverance and resolve. Taking its name from the Roman goddess of music, poetry, medicine and wisdom, ‘Minerva’ is a celebration of the resilience found in creativity when faced with uncertainty. The record envisions a sonic landscape that is as intimate as it is expansive. Lush chords pervade Kase’s signature hard hitting drum lines and smooth melodies like an evergreen being traced with graceful footsteps. The result is a sound that is regal in its confidence and joyous in it’s expressiveness. The lead single ‘Magic Birds’ strikes a harmonious balance between the sample-driven beats that have made Kase a fan favourite amongst the lo-fi hip-hop community, and ethereal synth flourishes that give the track a seamless fluidity.

Kase has long been a cornerstone of the Sydney music scene; his brand of ebullient and soulful beats have been filling dancefloors and bedrooms of hip-hop heads for the better part of a decade. In 2019 he released his first ever LP ‘Soul Calibre’, a project that also marked his debut on renowned label Low Key Source. ‘Minerva’ signifies Kase’s continuing ambition to preserve the purism of hip-hop while simultaneously pushing its boundaries with one kick, snare, and key at a time.

Les Disques du Crepuscule presents Subway, a collection of singles by cult NYC duo Thick Pigeon, originally released on Crepuscule, Factory and Factory Benelux between 1981 and 1991.
Comprised of vocalist Stanton Miranda and instrumentalist Carter Burwell, Thick Pigeon emerged from the downtown New York artrock scene which also spawned Glenn Branca, Bush Tetras, DNA, Arthur Russell and Sonic Youth. Like their chosen name, the duo were typically atypical: Miranda was previously a dancer with the Marthe Graham ballet company, and Carter a film animator and Harvard fine arts/architecture graduate. Very much a studio project, the ‘group’ hardly ever performed live.
Poised and subtle debut single Subway appeared on Crepuscule in January 1981, a connection forged by Miranda’s partner Michael Shamberg. Dog followed a year later, along with wry Christmas single Jingle Bell Rock, before the duo switched to Factory Records, recording debut album Too Crazy Cowboys in Manchester with Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert of New Order producing. Released simultaneously on Factory and Factory US in 1984, the album was billed as “a walk through the civilisation of you soul”.
Having now embarked on a career scoring movies (becoming the Coen brothers’ composer of choice), Carter was absent from the next TP project, 1986 dance single Wheels Over Indian Trails, although Morris and Gilbert remained on board as guest musicians. However Miranda and Carter would reunite for a second (and final) leftfield pop album, Miranda Dali, issued by Crepuscule in 1991.
As well as singles Subway, Dog, Jingle Bell Rock, Jess + Bart and Wheels Over Indian Trails, TWI 351 also includes b-sides (Sudan, Tracy + Pansy), album highlights (Crime, Riding) and a second festive track, Blue Christmas, previously issued only on cassette as part of a Factory Christmas card in 1986.
Alongside Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert, the stellar cast of guests include Fred Szymanski (of Ike Yard), Ikue Mori (DNA), remixer John Robie, and even artist and event designer Jean-Paul Goude on backing vocals.
Limited to just 500 copies, Subway (Singles) is newly remastered and pressed on transparent violet vinyl, reflecting the original 1981 sleeve artwork by legendary Crepuscule designer Benoit Hennebert. The album includes a free digital copy (MP3).

The distances and limitations resulting from the lockdown become the starting point for Sara to communicate a message to everyone through the groove and the lyrics of her first track “The Heart Knows”, played by C. Robert Walker. Inspired by the Underground sound and with Soul, Deep and Afro influences, "The Heart Knows" is a project conceived to offer different atmospheres in a single release, from the Soulful House of the "Vocal Mix", to the more "Deep" one of the rinidadian Deep remix. , then passing through a more “Shelter” mood in the remix of Neapolitan Soul & Luciano Gioia.

Being one of the finest exports Australia has to offer, Jules ‘Inkswel’ Habib has become very well respected the world over for his excellent musical output and undying dedication to his art.

Countless Inkswel recordings, remixes, and collaborations circulate the airwaves and internet as project after project surges through with an unstoppable force. Inkswel is a prolific artist, known for his superb album trio on BBE Records, his relentless cooperative EPs & collaborations on Rush Hour, Boogie Angst, Wolf Music & Oye, and recent output with Pugz Atoms on Jazzanova’s own Sonar Kollketiv imprint. Jules reaches even further as he launches “Inner Tribe”, his own labels boasting artists such as Ahu, Planetself with his amazing wife and vocalist Charli Umami, Kid Sublime, Stan Smith & Colonel Red to name only a few. knowing himself that working with great talent makes great music.

His latest album offering Astral Love on ARCo. is an outstanding 9 song Long-player featuring a plethora of brilliant artist backing up his bouncy-rough-cuts. Naming only a few, you will find maestros such as Dwight Trible, Stan Smith & Andrew Ashong among many others who elevate this album to great heights.

SWINGROWERS are an Italian quartet from Sicily. They have been at the forefront of the electro swing scene for many years but have evolved beyond it more recently. Their constant touring and festival appearances from Boomtown to Glastonbury's Avalon stage, from Tokyo's Blue Note club to tours in India and more have secured them a large international following while their YouTube videos regularly reach multi-million views. Starting as a DJ/Vocal duo with the debut album in 2012, via the 5 piece band on Remote (2014) to the current line-up on Outsidein (2018) they are now poised to release their best album yet and take things up another level.

HYBRID is a lyrically ambitious project held together by ecological themes but what really sets this apart is the brilliant melodic work of a tightly-knit group working perfectly together, plus exemplary musicianship in the gypsy guitar work and alto sax department, coupled with a gorgeous voice and brilliant, original production work. This album is their masterpiece. Usual support expected from previous supporters like Craig Charles and BBC 6 Music, but this album is also likely to reach out to a much wider audience than before. SWINGROWERS have also been lucky to have many significant syncs and this album is expected to generate many more. In particular future single and video WANNABE has the standout qualities of an anthem, concerning itself with female empowerment and individuality that will have wide appeal.

The three players in Chicago’s Moontype orbited each other for years before they came in phase. Bodies of Water, their debut album for local label Born Yesterday, documents travel, insecurity, friendship, and the titular element—all of which are representative of the band members’ strong connection to place and to one another. “Being rooted in the landscape became important to me while studying geology, which completely changed how I think about the world,” offers songwriter, vocalist and bassist Margaret McCarthy of the album’s central themes. The arrangements themselves feel like open-hearted negotiations; sparse fingerpicking gives way to saturated tube-screaming as naturally as the changing of tides. Over twelve tracks, Moontype revels in the woozy concoction of its many influences, but always lands on punchy hooks, shifting between arrangements both spacious and mystifying without abandoning their conversational warmth.

Conservatory students at Oberlin College’s prestigious music program, each member focused on exploring different sounds. Guitarist Ben Cruz, who came up on classic rock shredding and migrated into jazz performance, admired the indie pop of Fountains of Wayne, the groundbreaking composition work of pianist Vijay Iyer, and the genre-morphing folk of heavy hitters like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. He played in several projects alongside Emerson Hunton, who’d drummed from age six and entrenched himself in the Twin Cities improvised music scene before even heading to college. Margaret—who grew up outside of Boston playing piano, singing in choirs and writing on guitar—spent her time creating knotty, riot grrrl-and-hyperpop inspired songs for bass and voice, as well as noise soundtracks for art installations. Inspired by artists like Adrianne Lenker and Gillian Welch, she recorded the EP bass tunes at home in an apartment over the town’s optician, releasing it upon graduation. A week later she migrated even farther west to Chicago, where Ben and Emerson had already enmeshed themselves in several projects, from avant garde ensembles to a country group.

Ben was instantly impressed by Margaret’s songs, at once “challenging and unlike anything I had played before.” The duo decided to try performing together, but knew this special music would be even better fortified with drums. Emerson was the obvious choice—as Ben puts it, “He’s our great friend and also the best drummer we know. Who else do you call?” Moontype-as-trio gigged around town, eventually embarking on a first fall tour in Emerson’s Prius. On that trip, they felt the music morph into something living, and the care and trust between them intensified. They decided to put together songs for a record, recorded at the end of 2019 with Jamdek Recording Studio’s Doug Malone, a dependable collaborator whose patient process perfectly captured the magic of their newfound familiarity. While Margaret’s skeletal demos still informed the bulk of Moontype’s full-band debut (some of which are re-recordings of bass tunes cuts), the resulting arrangements are songs reborn and strengthened by the three musicians’ absorption of one another’s ideas.

On Bodies of Water, Margaret’s soothing, unadorned alto is often peppered by the gliding, eerie harmonies of her bandmates. “We love the act of singing together,” explains Ben, who describes it as “connecting and grounding and wholesome.” The push-pull search for common ground characterizes the instrumentals as well. Round basslines occupy higher octaves, trading space with guitars chugging in lower registers, and all the while drums break apart and glue back together in idiosyncratic grooves that never lose the pocket. Of the complicated rhythms that sometimes result: “Any mathy moments are based on how the lyrics fall naturally, which feels like it frees us up from having to stay in one time signature,” says Emerson. “Rhythmic elements never feel like they’re being added in, more like they’re already there and we just float on through.”

Touring’s restlessness informed these songs, but so did the DIY scene that welcomed Moontype to Chicago—including, according to Margaret, the “wild harmonies” of Ohmme, the “deadpan explanatory rock” of Ratboys, and the “luxe math rock pattern music” of The Knees. Working at beloved venue Sleeping Village inspired Margaret’s observational vignettes; “We are sitting at the desk and you are mixing all the bands,” she reports in the middle of the dextrous folk hammer-ons of “3 Weeks,” gently admitting, “I am trying to have fun and I am trying to get paid” in a world of bikes, trucks, and velvet. “About You,” a robust power-popper written about a post-gig romp around Richmond with artist Bebé Machete, opens with a Phair-ian quip: “Looking at you with my fuck me eyes / Do you wanna get inside of mine?” Meanwhile, the spectre of lost camaraderie looms over “Ferry,” an atmospheric and anthemic standout that questions, “If I’m not your best friend / then who am I to anyone?” Alongside water, this preoccupation with friendship is a focal concern lyrically, but the palpable love between Moontype’s players is essential in communicating that desire for connection, and all three members are dedicated to exploring sound and meaning organically and together. Care and generosity are at the core of Moontype, and Bodies of Water is a clever album full of insightful music, as cosily enveloping as it is incisively honest.

Zwerm is a Belgian-Dutch electric guitar quartet (with a backyard rehearsal shed located in Antwerp) that operates along the borders between styles and traverses traditions that are typically not convergent. Zwerm rhymes Larry Polansky with Nadah El Shazly and are galvanized by the likes of guitars pioneers like The Velvet Underground and Sonic Youth, the microtonal DYI-er Harry Partch, Middle Eastern sonorities and the prog-madness of Kind Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. ‘Musical adventure’ is not just a hollow cliché for this quartet, but a genuine commitment. Zwerm calls itself a ‘guitar quartet’, but that can be interpreted broadly as well as with a pinch of salt: “If we want to do something on instruments we don’t really master, we’ll just figure out a way to make it work.”
Toon Callier, Johannes Westendorp, Kobe van Cauwenberghe and Bruno Nelissen all met in 2007 while working on a project with Glenn Branca. A new guitar quartet was born and it became clear rather quickly that staying in the strictly contemporary compositions lane was not for this quartet-with-five-to-six-members (an organizational chart is available upon request).
An appetite for new and lasting collaborations has been a constant theme throughout their artistic parcours. The group has shared stages with theatrical producers like Walpurgis and Post uit Hessdalen, dancers such as Ecce and with the musicians Fred Frith, Stephen O’Malley, Shiva Feshareki, Rudy Trouvé, Mauro Pawlowski, Larry Polansky, Eric Thielemans, Yannis Kyriakides, François Sarhan, Serge Verstockt and Stefan Prins. These projects have not always translated into records, but they have been decisive in creating a unique musical approach. In 2015, when Zwerm was asked by De Handelsbeurs to collaborate with Fred Frith, they proceeded to pen a few new musical sketches over which Firth sublimely improvised. In 2018 ‘Badminton in Tehran’ was released, their first record that was made up completely of only the group’s compositions.
“a basket full of buttons here
and if you push the wrong one: fear
and if you push the right one: love
or maybe none of the above”
The route that Zwerm has taken is often defined by the question “What if... ?” - like a dart thrown at a musical map, not quite blindly, but naive enough to lead to unexpected endings.
“What if we play Renaissance pieces written by John Dowland, but instead of playing lutes we play these tunes with a Telecaster – and then jam it through effect pedals and an amplifier?”
“What if we connect one hundred guitar pedals and just leave our guitars at home?”
“What if we record a record with ten different one-page-pieces that we found on the Internet?”
In 2020 our metaphorical dart landed on “What if we tried microtonality?”.
‘Microtonality’ sounds a bit creepy, but actually there is nothing to be afraid of: there are no out-of- tune notes, just alternate notes. On the continents where Western musical theory is less stringently applied, microtonality is the rule, and has become the subject of many deep and thoughtfully written theories. However for Zwerm, this phenomenon occurs in many, often surprisingly lighthearted forms. A dilapidated piano that has settled into a beautiful microtonal tuning of its own accord, enthusiastic choral singing, a guitar whose three strings are tuned a quarter-tone higher, a saz (Turkishquarter-tone lute), a maddening guitar pedal, ...
"the dreams they were convicted for telling only lies reality came after for claiming to be wise what you don’t see is what you get just never light a spark I’m a crow in the dark”
“And… what if we work with a drummer?” Enter Karen Willems - dummer, extraordinaire, and ardent player in groups, projects and collaborations galore. One chance meeting and the deal was done. It was obvious before the start that Willems was the versatile and creative percussionist-in-a-toy-store necessary for this project. And in the studio, to our delight, she demonstrated an easy dexterity when switching quickly from one idea to the next.
At the reins behind the scenes was producer Rudy Trouvé, who – during previous sessions for ‘Badminton in Terhran’, when the classically trained guitarists went completely off the rails, staring deeply and forlornly into their scores, looking for answers – was able to pinpoint the problem and get the wagons rolling in the right direction again. Completing the team were Mark Dedecker (recording)and Joris Calluwaerts (mixing).
The results are in and it’s called ‘ Great Expectations’ – a title that, in several ways, fits perfectly with these strange times.‘Great Expectations’ goes wide! Zwerm is at its best when it can run along the borders between style and across traditions that otherwise would not necessarily intersect. The most straightforward rockers have a proggy tinge while the dreamy psychedelic songs lean more toward Richard Youngs. And if a nice melody dared come to close to becoming a ‘Kit-Katjingle’, then barbs-a-la-Pere-Ubu were trailed, tracked, found and promptly embedded. ‘Heavy Machinery’ sits neatly somewhere between Captain Beefheart and Richard Wagner, and ‘On My Way To Aguno’, set to an Iranian folk song chord progression, grew into a hyper-personal lullaby. Zwerm used the saz (Turkish lute) and the sinter (Moroccan gnawa bass instrument) without falling into pastiche psychedelia, but you can still sense the orient.

A year characterised by a pandemic, lockdowns, political ineptitude and oh, so much staying the fuck at home is enough to make anyone want to blow off a little steam. One overused piece of glib idiocy at the start of the Trump era was 'at least punk will be good', as though punk can only be good when it flips the bird to right-wing, authritarian shit-headery rather than amplifying anything else. Sure, there've been plenty of great records over the last four years, but sometimes (across the whole of 2020, for instance) the levels of anger, fear and frustration can be overwhelming and you need a little space to goof around. For some of us, though, goofing around is serious business - and here's a record to illustrate that perfectly. Smirk is the solo project of Public Eye's Nick Vicario, and while you'll hear similarities to his main outfit across these 12 excellent tracks (from the off, you can imagine how PE might refine garage-carved nuggets like 'S Construction'), here there's less sang-froid and more_ well, fun. The reference points you might expect are still there (Killed By Death comps and Wire, especially their 80s period, to name a couple), but with added scuzz and something even approaching joy - the whirling synths of 'Eyes Conversing' feel ominous, but they also convey a sense of delirious excitement. And dammit, it's all fucking cool too. With a name like Smirk, your first instinct might well be to wonder whether Vicario is laughing at us. The first line of the album (a defiant 'it's not funny') should tell you that this isn't the case, but the album certainly finds him in playful mood. The tasteful acoustic instrumental 'Lude 2' descends deliberately into farce as it speeds up and slows down like a turntable alternating speeds, or a record warping in real time.

Reuben Sawyer is nothing if not prolific. He's also a man of many talents - his various projects have included the coldwave sounds of The Column, Hollow Sunshine's blown-out psych-noise, Anytime Cowboy's take on countrified weirdo-pop, and even ambient house courtesy of Rose. Oh, and he's a visual artist too, of course. Pfft, who needs an attention span anyway? One thing he's also dabbled in, however, is post-punk. Human Trophy is firmly in line with that tradition, but pulling from multiple directions at once - one minute this album rattles along like Big Black with the tempo down and the textures dialled up, the next we're firmly in Christian Death territory. The twisting guitar lines and pummelling bass of 'Forming Horrors' even call to mind his blackened punk project Dry Insides, but with less velocity and a helluva lot more menace. Is 'Corpse Dream' a goth record? Possibly. Whether goth is a lifestyle choice for Sawyer or not, he's certainly adept at immersing himself in sounds and making them feel like a comfortable fit. As with all his projects, it feels like another effortless facet of Reuben Sawyer - and in keeping with the rest of his output, it's absolutely packed with songs you'll wanna play again and again. Penultimate track 'The Roads' is built on a none-more gloomy pile-up of darkly portentous rhythms and a firm sense of disquiet, but once you're locked into its circular riffage you'll feel an urge to keep the loop going endlessly. Then there's the closer 'Blood Apex', a dual-vocal nightmare set to music which draws you back in even as it attempts to push you away. Yeah, it's pretty great.

With 'BREAKOUT', Echoes of Zoo push their adrenaline fueled jazz sounds to thrilling new levels. Rarely did one single word capture an entire musical atmosphere this accurately: the gates of the cages fell open and won't ever be shut again. 'BREAKOUT' celebrates breaking loose and is constantly

seeking for unexpected and exciting encounters - both culturally and musically. Infused with an eclectic range of western, oriental and African influences, Echoes of Zoo let their psychedelic and energetic jazz roam the streets in all freedom - much like an animal that has just stepped out of his cage and looks you straight in the eye. Meeting is direct, barriers are gone, the adrenaline and energy are rushing high. The band takes a deep dive into the musical melting pots which the world's biggest cities are today:

Balkan ornaments meet Brazilian rhythms

Gipsy scales meet fuzz guitars

Beninese grooves meet Turkish makam

Bass guitars meet Sufi rhythms

Rage riffs meet Kurdish trance

Indian raga meets western guitars

Romanian drums meet swing riffs

Tallava meets drum 'n bass

...

Echoes of Zoo are profoundly inspired by the endless variety of animals and musical genres. Join them on their trip through the city in all diversity, victory and freedom. BREAKOUT.

Echoes of Zoo is a band with a unique sound, under the high tension of Middle Eastern rock music with the striking complexity of West African percussion and a few Dub flavors, all in the service of psychedelic jazz played with a punk attitude. For this project, Nathan Daems (sax) is accompanied by Bart Vervaeck (electric guitar), Lieven Van Pee (electric bass) & Falk Schrauwen (drums), musicians you probably know from other projects they are part of such as Black Flower, De Beren Gieren, Sylvie Kreusch or Compro Oro.

After releasing a first self-produced EP - 'First Provocations' - in January 2019, the group was well received by both the audience and professionals in the sector. Supported and followed by some pioneering organisations and festivals, Echoes of Zoo has already been invited to Brussels Jazz Festival, BRDCST Festival (AB), Brosella Festival (carte blanche guesting Pantelis Stoikos), Leuven Jazz Festival, Amok Festival (KAAP), Recyclart, ...

After an almost 6 year hiatus, and the break up of the audio-visual trio it had evolved into, Origamibiro returns with Miscellany, a body of work amassed during the years since the release of 2014’s Odham’s Standard.

Though the group never officially disbanded, a number of life-changing events meant it simply became impossible to continue together. As such, the project organically reverted back to the solo pursuits of composer Tom Hill. Fellow multi-instrumentalist Andy Tytherleigh, however, remains a strong collaborator.

Miscellany comprises a varied mixture of work, ranging from electroacoustic to orchestral chamber music. Drawing upon much of the found-sound style for which Origamibiro became known, the DIY approach to sampling and composing continues to play a central role in the process.

Exploration into the tangible nature of everyday objects and textures - both in and outside of the home - is a theme relished in much of Origamibiro’s work. Forest brambles and plastic toy Easter eggs are examined in surgical detail alongside the debris of demolished piano parts, to be repurposed into whatever sonic potential they offer up.

However, new additions to the instrumental palette - viola da gamba, piano, zither, singing bowl, glockenspiel, drum machines and gongs - contribute to an even broader timbre.

Avont is a music project by Amsterdam based artist Arjan Timmermans The music on Avont's #1 EP was mainly created with the use of a four-track tape machine, guitar, hardware synths and a eurorack modular synthesizer. Avont juxtaposes the element of chance and the glitches that are inherent in the use of tape loops, with meticulous sound design and synthesizer programming.

Genres that influenced this collection of recordings range from krautrock and noise to jazz and ambient. This resulted in combining atmospheric tape loops with the lush Rhodes piano improvisations of Onno Beukenhorst on "Camtas", while the ambient of "Even" is based on a classic jazz chord progression. Arjan Timmermans studied music at London's Middlesex University, has been a successful sound designer for creative brands such as Van Gogh Museum and Bas Kosters and gained notoriety with new wave and electro infused solo performances in European clubs in the early 00's. For the music on this EP, he was equally influenced by electronic acts like Bitchin Bajas, the krautrock of Harmonia and jazz artists such as Jakob Bro and The Necks.

Unobvious Creative Studio created the concept & design for the cover. They asked Amsterdam based collage artist Dewy Karouw to create artwork. Dewy combined fragments of black and white photo's from vintage adult magazines. By omitting the genitals of the original photos, she prevents an explicit sexual image, in favour of sensual, organic shapes. By adding geometric shapes and colour to these images, Unobvious found a way to underpin the contrast of organic and artificial sounds found in the music.

Warning: don't pull off the fluorescent sticker! Enjoy!

Songs of Comfort & Hope is inspired by the series of recorded-at-home musical offerings that Yo-Yo Ma began sharing in the first days of the COVID-19 lockdown in the United States. Throughout the spring and summer, Ma’s #SongsofComfort grew from a self-shot video of Antonín Dvořák’s “Goin’ Home” into a worldwide effort that has reached more than 20 million people.

Ma and longtime collaborator Kathryn Stott mark the next chapter in the project with this brand new album, offering consolation and connection in the face of fear and isolation. The album includes 21 new recordings, which span modern arrangements of traditional folk tunes, canonical pop songs, jazz standards, and mainstays from the western classical repertoire. Among the new takes on old favorites are Pulitzer Prize® winner Caroline Shaw’s artful and eloquently arranged “Shenandoah”; Australian composer Harry Sdraulig’s “Fantasia on Waltzing Matilda”; pianist Stephen Hough’s lush arrangement of “Scarborough Fair”, and two-time Academy® Award-nominated icon Jorge Calandrelli’s re-imagining of a pair of songbook treasures: “We’ll Meet Again” by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles, and Violeta Parra’s “Gracias a la Vida.”

Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott share the warmth of decades of music making again with Songs of Comfort & Hope, offering audiences new paths into treasured musical memories and a few notes of hope for a better future.

LP with download code!!!

SUPERSAN is the brainchild of Panama Cardoon and Mister Kentro. The dedicated party starters of the greek nightlife came up with this genre bending project and ever since they performed in festivals and venues in Europe, Africa and Asia, had their music featured in documentaries and their tracks supported by BBC Radio among other stations worldwide. A fusion of dancefloor oriented – future electronic beats and earthly exotic rhythms from across the globe directly from Athens, Greece.

The duo started working together with the idea of uniting the Tropical spirit with the Caribbean and Jamaican styles, all blended with electronic contemporary beats.

Forthcoming on Galletas Calientes Records, “Enter The SAN” is a powerful opus, a deep and electronic journey to the high frontiers of North Africa, Southern Europe and Middle East; Undoubtedly the Greek duo’s best achievment so far.

Crafted with an ear towards contemporary appeal, “Enter The SAN” consists of 10 instrumental tracks with straightforward structures and sophisticated melodies. It typically uses heavy percussion to accent modern and diverse four-beat drum patterns, prominent and often melodic electric bass-lines and distinctive chord progressions. Pop and electronic production and mixing techniques are clearly audible throughout the whole album, harmonically uniting the traditional instruments with the modern string sections and vocal samples chops.

In 2018, Sean Worsey, a successful lawyer in California, began to receive some rather surprising emails. These were not from prospective clients, or about current cases he was working on, but rather queries from record collectors. They wanted more details about a pair of obscure, largely forgotten records he’d made in the mid 1980s as part of a virtually unknown band called Passion Theatre. To say he was surprised is an understatement. “People from around the world were emailing, calling and messaging us about the music, particularly a track called ‘Vacation Day’,” he says. “Our records were rare and gaining in value, mainly because there were not many manufactured at the time. By 2019, several individuals in the music industry had emailed me about licensing tracks.”

We eventually agreed with Sean to include ‘Vacation Day’, on Charles Bals’ second compilation, Retour Au Club Meduse. Impressed with the quality of the compilation Sean approached us again to discuss whether we would be interested in reissuing both of his old EP’s in full, an idea he’d been considering for a few months already. We jumped at the idea of course and have spent the last few months putting the reissue project together. The original studio tapes were long gone but a friend of Sean’s had some mint vinyl copies which we had shipped over from California to use as the master source, restored and mastered superbly by Technology Works in London. The striking original artwork from the two EP’s has been faithfully reworked into a gatefold double vinyl LP by designer Asger Behncke Jacobsen and features extensive interview/sleeve notes by Matt Anniss.

In the words of Sean Worsey - “One of the nicest things about the renewed interest in our music is that we can now enjoy it for what it is – back then we were a bit too worried about succeeding.”

Former member of Rodolfo Alchourrón and Gato Barbieri's bands, Cevasco's first solo effort is a combination of fusion jazz with a pinch of unexpected Brazilian flavours and electronic sounds that now, more than 30 years after the original release of the album, still evoke a refreshing feel of modernity in the same vein as many other experimental Argentine and Uruguayan artists from the same era. Includes guest appearances from artists such as Litto Nebbia or Ruben Rada. Reissued on vinyl for the first time, including insert with liner notes and previously unseen photos. Details: Few musicians can boast of having played with "the greatest" without some eyebrows to be raised. The bass of Adalberto Cevasco has been heard in multiple concerts and recording sessions of artists as diverse as the Spanish divas Rocío Jurado and Isabel Pantoja, tango genius Astor Piazzolla or the cream of the Argentine jazz scene -from Pocho Lapouble, Gustavo Kerestezachi, Rubén López Furst or Andrés Boiarsky to the great Gato Barbieri- With the latter, as part of a dream band that included artists like Nana Vasconcelos as well as other Argentines such as Lapouble or Domingo Cura, he recorded two fundamental pieces in the Impulse! label catalogue in sessions held in Argentina and Los Angeles and also toured across various countries. The daily sold-out shows at the Regina Theater in Buenos Aires and their overwhelming performance at Montreux Festival are still well remembered. It is therefore out of question that Adalberto Cevasco belongs to that top-level league of musicians whose talent has also contributed to enhance those who accompany them. The history of this album begins with an encounter. Adalberto Cevasco joins Rodolfo Alchurrón's jazz-funk project Sanata y Clarificación as bassist and meets Litto Nebbia, who is invited to sing along. Some years on, when Nebbia's Melopea record company was developing, he would receive a cassette with a collection of demos recorded by Cevasco over the years. Some of the songs dated back to 1981 while others were made well into the decade and included such outstanding collaborations as that of the Uruguayan Rubén Rada, whom Adalberto Cevasco had met playing in a group of fusion candombe called Candonga. In addition to producing the complete album, Nebbia would also collaborate in a special way in one of the most outstanding tracks (Reencuentros Nº2) by adding to Cevasco's fusion jazz some unexpected Brazilian flavours and electronic sounds that now, more than 30 years after the original release of the album, they still evoke a refreshing feel of modernity. As the Argentine press of the moment highlighted, it'd seem as if the influences received and developed by the bassist during his career as a freelance musician - from post-Piazzolla tango to proyección folclórica (a movement of revision and modernization of the Argentinian musical roots) - had been added to their superb rhythmic work in this album. "Pájaros Eléctricos" was never presented live and has remained as the only published work by Cevasco as a soloist since the date of its release.

Just two months after the release of his seminal album After The Gold Rush, Neil Young played a solo show at The Shakespeare Theater, Stratford, CT on January 22 1971. The show was filmed and recorded, and the concert shown on German TV later in 1971.
 
In 2020, while Neil and his team were reviewing his Archive for future projects, Neil re-visited the 16mm film and audio recording of this show that had been preserved in the Archive for almost 50 years. Piecing together the tapes and footage, Neil realized that he had the full concert – the film of which is the earliest live footage of Neil performing that is known to exist.

Neil has written on NYA that this show is “superior to our beloved “Massey Hall”. A more calm performance, without the celebratory atmosphere of Massey Hall, captured live on 16mm. “Young Shakespeare” is a very special event. To my fans, I say this is the best ever.”
 
As an insight into Neil’s prolific song writing at the time, the concert features two songs from the recently released After The Gold Rush but four songs from the classic Harvest album that was still over a year away from being released. The wonderful set list also includes acoustic renditions of favorites such as “Ohio”, “Cowgirl In the Sand”, “Helpless”, “Down By The River” and “Sugar Mountain”.
 
The ancient analog tapes have been lovingly restored – resulting in (as Neil says on NYA) “one of the most pure sounding acoustic performances we have in the Archive”.

Young Shakespeare is being released almost exactly 50 years after the original performance.

MJN RECORDS Trondheim Jazz Orchestra & The MaXx / Live ‘Live’ with
Trondheim Jazz Orchestra & The MaXx is really a story of three young
Swedes, Oscar Gr nberg, Petter Kraft and Tomas J rmyr meeting in college
before starting their formal jazz education in Trondheim.
When The MaXx won the prestigious Jazz talent award (JazZtipendiatet) at
Molde International Jazz Festival in 2017, they decided to use the opportunity
to invite some of their best friends and amazing musicians from their college
years, both guitarist Anton Toorell and trombone player Petter H ngsel met the
guys from The MaXx at Fridheim Folkh gskola in 2006. A few years later Oscar,
Petter and Tomas reunited in Trondheim, and The MaXx was born.
The MaXx developed the music on ‘Live’ through hours of jamming in their
studio in an old German bunker in Trondheim. Simultaneously with the music
slowly taking shape, a theme dealing with the youth’s fascination for dystopian
sci-fi, involuntary heroes and time travels evolved. Combined with their love
for rhythmical riffs and extreme musical shifts a new piece of music appeared.
Some people have called it an abstract rock opera. The MaXx tells us that what
this project is really about is to amplify the undisguised energy and joy that
always has been the core of band.
Advice: Live is grasping the steaming atmosphere in the theatre a hot summer
night in Molde, and should be played on a high volume!
TJO & The MaXx:
Oscar Gr nberg - keyboards; Petter Kraft - guitar, tenor saxophone and vocals;
Tomas J rmyr - drums; Mia Marlen Berg - vocals; Thomas Johansson - trumpet;
Petter H ngsel - trombone and recorder; Mette Rasmussen - alto saxophone;
Kjetil M ster - tenor saxophone; Anton Toorell - electric guitar; Anja Lauvdal -
keyboards; Mattis Kleppen - electric bass; Recorded by Tor Breivik Mixed by H
vard Soknes.

Dalmata Daniel presents the new album by Dutch West Coast mid-veteran Roberto Auser as an opening act in the label's LP series that comes with colored sleeve and limited to 200 copies. Also includes a hand-numbered riso-print as insert.

Auser (born Derk Reneman) has been into cinematic (or b-videomatic) electro for more than a decade now, with releases on Viewlexx, Pinkman, Gooiland Electro/Enfant Terrible and more, ranging from atmospheric and hypnotic to tight and grim, but always loaded with a vision of a storyteller. In a Dutch way, for sure. Though Second Sun is, again, an audiovisual trip, that's not the primary concept here - it's probably the purest album-like experience of Robert Auser so far, presenting most of his characteristics and sounds, and also new elements, still, all are coherent and organic parts of Reneman's projective language of electronics.

Autopsia is a cult art project dealing with music and visual production.
Its art practice began in London in the late 1970s and continued during the 1980s in the art centers of the former Yugoslavia.
Since 1990, Autopsia has acted from Prague, Czech Republic.
Above all Autopsia is not concerned with music. What is Autopsia? Art? Theory? Framing? Projection? Gaze? Autopsia is
language is image is sound. Autopsia is a tombstone on the grave of time. Autopsia is archaeology. The discourse of the
beginning and about the beginning. At the beginning is Death and the pity of Death. The music is in the pity.
The music of Autopsia oscillates from romanticism to avantgarde, from industrial rhythms and dark ambient drones to relentless
choral swells and academic minimalism.
Autopsia Archive 1982-1995
Engineered & Mastered at Mustakillah Studio Prague, 2017
Released by Other Voices Records VOX 35 LP
Marketed and distributed by Kontakt Audio

Back in 2015, when we started Hip Dozer we were overwhelmed by the amount of talents that were still defending that old school way of doing beats and the amazing creativity that was circulating in the scene.

In a period of time where hip hop was evolving so much and getting always further (sometimes for the best but also for the worst), it appeared evident to us that we had to defend this rising scene of young beatmakers that were so tied up to the roots of the 'old-school' beatmaking but still bringing it to another level.

It has been 5 years since we have created Hip Dozer Records with our 1st Anniversary compilation and this is what makes this compilation such a special project every time. Its goal remains the same and will always be, championing the art of beatmaking that we love and help to showcase new artists from the scene.

This year we have the chance to have onboard some of our favorite new talent from the scene with the like of Burrito Brown, Loland, Imagiro, we also have the chance to have standard bearers like Jinsang, Saib, Flofilz, Melodisinfonie, Kazam, Shuko and, cherry on the cake, the french hip hop legend DJ Cam on top of that.

We want to thank so much all the artists who took part in this project and that were as enthusiastic as we are in its realization. It’s been such a thrill since this venture started and this is just the beginning. Much love to all of you guys listening and supporting wherever you are.

PEACE. Hip Dozer Fam.

Just two months after the release of his seminal album After The Gold Rush, Neil Young played a solo show at The Shakespeare Theater, Stratford, CT on January 22 1971. The show was filmed and recorded, and the concert shown on German TV later in 1971.

In 2020, while Neil and his team were reviewing his Archive for future projects, Neil re-visited the 16mm film and audio recording of this show that had been preserved in the Archive for almost 50 years. Piecing together the tapes and footage, Neil realized that he had the full concert – the film of which is the earliest live footage of Neil performing that is known to exist.

Neil has written on NYA that this show is “superior to our beloved “Massey Hall”. A more calm performance, without the celebratory atmosphere of Massey Hall, captured live on 16mm. “Young Shakespeare” is a very special event. To my fans, I say this is the best ever.”

As an insight into Neil’s prolific song writing at the time, the concert features two songs from the recently released After The Gold Rush but four songs from the classic Harvest album that was still over a year away from being released. The wonderful set list also includes acoustic renditions of favorites such as “Ohio”, “Cowgirl In the Sand”, “Helpless”, “Down By The River” and “Sugar Mountain”.

The ancient analog tapes have been lovingly restored – resulting in (as Neil says on NYA) “one of the most pure sounding acoustic performances we have in the Archive”.

Young Shakespeare is being released almost exactly 50 years after the original performance.

Having shone his light over the damp canals of Gothenburg for at least a decade, Paradise City Jams is the first album proper from Johannes Brander and his Skogar project, as well as his first release on Stockholm’s Studio Barnhus label. This highly anticipated record is the crown jewel of all those strangely glimmering shards scattered via the barely existent Native Parts imprint over the last 10 years, as well as numerous live performances around town. Though rooted in the mid-00's neo cassette underground, this debut album bares little resemblance to the hypnagogic era, the mostly guitar-driven tracks evoking a longing for something that has never actually existed, in contrast to yer standard nostalgic exercises. A Malmsteeninan approach to the riff is soaked in a peculiar strain of melancholia, accompanied by mesmerizing synths and bad-ass percussion. As a
visual artist, Brander works with returning images of feverish jungle scenes, often incorporating Vodou mysticism and tribal settings. These images are always present in the mysterious musical world of Skogar, painting pictures of a parallel universe far away from those Gothenburg canals. Well worth the wait! Recorded in Gothenburg, Brännö and Hawaii between 2017 and 2020, mastered for vinyl by Viktor Ottosson.

With a new project called Don Juan 73, in which Magne met up with his old crony Roger Vadim again after the wreckage of the latter's low-key Hollywood escapade. The filmmaker's project with screenwriter Jean Cau was a rereading of the legend of Don Juan, now transformed as a female in the shape of Brigitte Bardot. Together, Magne and Bergman wrote several songs based on a fusion of cultures: an English rock voice (Mister Eye) over romantic melodies, all of it structured with themes that had a stoned atmosphere (Swedish Dream, for flute and orchestra), plus power-packed pieces that cast sidelong glances at Carl Orff.

Following excellent reviews for ‘Forever Blue’, her
July-released debut album, A.A. Williams
announces ‘Songs From Isolation’, a 9-track album
of cover versions, released via Bella Union.
The ‘Songs From Isolation’ project began at the
beginning of the UK’s nationwide lockdown in
March. A.A. Williams took songs suggested by fans
and created a series of videos presenting the
tracks with stripped-down instrumentation,
recorded and filmed from her home in North
London.
The album represents a continuation of the project
into a full collection of recordings and features
cover versions of The Cure, Pixies, Deftones, Nick
Cave, Gordon Lightfoot, Radiohead, Nine Inch
Nails and more.
LP is pressed on black & white swirl vinyl and
includes a digital download code.

Back in 2015, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the BBC broadcast of Delia Derbyshire & Barry Bermange’s “Inventions For Radio: The Dreams”, The Eccentronic Research Council released their own super-limited edition cassette soundtracking the recalled dreams (and nightmares) of friends, artists, actors, musicians, scientists, poets and filmmakers. The release was called “The Dreamcatcher Tapes Volume 1”. Five years on, and with a large part of the planet under lockdown and with nowhere to go but within their imagination, the ERC put a call out once again to music collaborators, nurses, teachers, truck drivers, writers, journalists and shop workers to upon waking, record their dreams straight into their phones and to then send them to the ERC to soundtrack. And thus, Volume 2 of The Dreamcatcher Tapes was born!

How did you make the album during lockdown?
“We got around 26 dreams sent to us via email over the space of a couple of weeks then Dean Honer my partner in The ERC and I revved up the old analogue equipment and would record music and collage sounds to the dreams (remotely) from our home recording studios and bounce them back and forth to each other till they were done. It was a really good way to work actually, sometimes I didn’t even have to put on any trousers!” says ERC/ Moonlandingz founder Adrian Flanagan. Why a second volume of The Dreamcatcher Tapes? “I was really interested to see how the enforced lockdown and the removal of people’s basic needs such as human contact and hanging out in close proximity to friends was affecting the dreams of my friends, peers and those at the very front line of this horrible pandemic”, Adrian continues. “The Important shared experiences for people’s mental health such as going out to gigs, the pub, the cinema etc. ”It was an interesting experiment. Nurses dreaming of inadequate PPE and having to use blow up Elvis costumes to protect themselves. Teachers dreaming of zombies and lots of people dreaming about sex - where the hair of Greek sorceress’s Circe meets bouncy castle breasts and where other dreamers dream of serial killers or seeing dead family members, or taking baby elephants for a walk, or having discos for one in the middle of the ocean and so much more. I’m really proud of this record. It’s psychedelic in its truest most cerebral form”

Who’s on “The Dreamcatcher Tapes Volumes 1 & 2”? Who are the dreamers?
“Although our long time collaborator Maxine Peake wasn’t on the very first tape (her dream ended up on LTD edition split 7” ERC single we did with Pye Corner Audio) - she was the first dream that we soundtracked when I came up with the idea of doing the concept record. However, on the new vinyl and tape box set - she opens volume 1. Across the 2 volumes there’s film maker Carol Morley, Andy Votel from Finders Keepers records, John Doran from The Quietus (who also wrote the albums brilliant sleeve notes), acclaimed writers Benjamin Myers & Adelle Stripe, musicians such as Evangeline Ling from the group Audiobooks, Lias Saoudi from my ‘semi fictional band’, The Moonlandingz and fat white family, Sidonie from The Orielles, journalists /writers Wyndham Wallace (he wrote lee Hazelwood’s brilliant biography) and Daniel Dylan Wray amongst a whole array of musician friends, eccentrics and people with actual proper jobs!”

Why did you chose Castles in Space for this release?
“Jim Jupp at Ghost Box records suggested them to me so I looked into them and saw they were doing loads of really great strange little bespoke electronic record releases. I think that because this is a very niche limited run release, it required a label that was willing to treat it like a piece of art and not a throwaway mass produced commodity. So making sure the packaging was special, the artwork was bang on point and the sleeve notes were written by a writer we like all were very important to us. “It was also important that we could turn it around from the finished recording to being in people’s hands really quickly as Dean and I have another ten projects between us on the boil - and so far, Castles in Space have been true to their word. It’s an artists label done with love and there’s not many of them about anymore - believe it or not.“

“The Dreamcatcher Tapes Volumes 1 & 2” is an immense collaborative achievement which makes for a thoroughly compelling, and gloriously disorientating listening experience.

It is released as a double coloured vinyl LP in deluxe gatefold sleeve w/insert and a highly limited deluxe double cassette box set. The album is released on March 19th, 2021.

"Modern Uganda" is a unique project-it's the exquisite debut album of a band, which no longer exists!

delay_okwas a band from Gdańsk, Poland, which was formed in 2017 and played together till 2020 in the belief that making music must be fun. It was a trio consisting ofPiotr Chęcki(tenor and baritone saxophone, flute, casio),Szymon Burnos(synthesizers, moog, guitar, vocals)andJacek Prościński(drums, spdsx, percussion). On this, their debut album you can also hear the peculiar sounds of the Sopot's MDK Orchestra, the guitar ofMichałZ ienkowskiand a Tanzanian rap byAlex(Alex Mussa), met in Zanzibar.

"W e create impulsively, not ignoring our first - sometimes trivial - ideas,because it is in them that we find the joy that accompanied us at the very beginning of our musical paths. W e do it so that we can sit together in front of the speakers and have fun listening to our own songs again. "Modern Uganda" is a small collection of our interests, so we kind of do it out of the selfish need of doing something for
ourselves"

The band oscillates around the sound of IDM, lo-fi, and other sub-genres of modern electronics, with an element of jazz improvisation. The album was DIY recorded and is a tribute to the most famous African ski jumper from Uganda-Dunstan Odeke.

"Modern Uganda" vinyl record comes in two colors(flamingo pink and classic black). Mix and mastering were done byMaciej Milewski, the cover photo with shoebill was taken bynao-cha, a Japanese artist from Tokyo.

At the end of the '60s in Italy - but also abroad, especially in France and England - a very particular trend began to spread, that one known as 'Library music' or 'sonorization': as suggested by its name, those were real music libraries intended for the accompaniment of audiovisual productions such as

television programs, advertisements, documentaries and films. Since they were created in total artistic freedom condition, they are often difficult if not impossible to catalog, as they're not anchored to a specific musical genre; this freedom also allowed the authors to compose, sometimes in the most complete anonymity, experimental and avant-garde music, capable of anticipating the sounds that only many years later would have been widespread on a larger scale.

Egisto Macchi (1928-1992) was one of the most active composers of the sonorization and soundtrack genres together with artists such as Piero Umiliani, Alessandro Alessandroni and Ennio Morricone; he also collaborated with the latter in the experimental music project Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza. "Fauna Marina" is among his most popular and sought-after by collectors titles: a set of eleven compositions intended to accompany the images of a hypothetical fish fauna documentary, an abstract hybrid of classical, contemporary and jazz music that is still fresh and surprising today.

"Fauna Marina" is part of a reissues series, made in collaboration with Edizioni Leonardi (Milan, Italy), of extremely rare library music LP's published between late '60s and early '70s, most of which have never been released again until today, and that are finally made available again for

collectors and sonorization music lovers.

In the late ‘80s, a wave of British musicians raised on ‘70s UK pop, Caribbean sound system culture, reggae, lovers rock and Motown/Philly soul music fell in love with synthesisers, drum machines and 8-track recorders. The street soul generation had arrived.

Originally released as a white label 12” in 1989, ‘You’ve Gone’ is the sole release from Bassline, the studio project of Southeast London-raised musician Tony Henry, not to be confused with Tony Henry from Manchester jazz-funk/R&B band 52nd Street. Featuring the singer Lorraine Chambers, it’s one of the true jewels of the UK Street Soul scene. As Lorraine’s heartsick soul vocal glides over sunrise synths, dusty drums, elegant electric piano figures and a reggae indebted bassline, ‘You’ve Gone’ captures the optimism and strength of the era perfectly.

‘You’ve Gone’ was championed by Choice FM UK (now Capital XTRA), Kiss FM, and DJ Trevor Nelson. Tony went from selling white labels out the trunk to booking in Live PAs for Lorraine with London sound systems like Rampage and up north in the street soul loving cities of Manchester and Birmingham. “When Lorraine did PAs up there, she went out on stage like she was Beyoncé.”

The son of a Jamaican father and an English mother, Tony grew up around the London sound system scene. He taught himself bass guitar, keyboards, and production, before playing in the reggae band Chakwanza (Swahili for “the first”). In Chakwanza, Tony rubbed shoulders with Aswad, Barry Boom, Steel Pulse, Maxi Priest, Gregory Issacs, Dennis Brown, Ghettotone and Saxon Sound, before focusing on a career in banking over music. “Music was my first love, but it couldn’t have afforded me the sort of level of - let’s be blunt and pragmatic about it - financial success that would have allowed me to support my family.”

Outside of office hours, Tony continued to work on music at home, sometimes serving as a session bassist with local bands. In the late 80s, a work colleague mentioned her sister Lorraine Chambers was a singer. Tony and Lorraine recorded “You’ve Gone” over two sessions. “Lorraine went into the booth, put her headphones on and got into the song. My daughter turned to me and said, ‘Daddy, she can really sing!’”

Despite the success of ‘You’ve Gone’, they never recorded together again. “The world changed, and for me, it changed as well. My younger kids were born, and work started getting more intense. I got a bit more successful and was living a mad, kind of crazy life.”

Thirty-two years on, ‘You’ve Gone’ finally receives an official reissue comprising the lauded original mix, an alternate version and Tony’s Back to Bass-ics remix. Fittingly, in recent months, Tony and Lorraine have re-connected in the studio writing new material.

Swedish producer and electronic enthusiast Rivet (Mika Hallbäck Vuorenpää, Malmö) joins the Editions Mego fold with a dynamic and diverse album that pivots between the punctuated pop of Ivan Pavlov's COH project, the chromatic slink of Chris and Cosey whilst also bearing a degree of fruit birthed from Hallbäck's home country Sweden in skewered pop such as The Knife.

This is electronic music born from the worship of machines and the spirit of punk, mood music brooding with sophistication and subversive twists all underscored with a deep industrial pulse. Are these songs? Are these lyrics? Words melt as beat perpetually takes us deeper into flight.

Interpretation is flung open as the audience are invited to gauge what on earth is going on here. Are Sooty Wing Flecks a minuscule species of half keyboard half vocoder chatter? Is Gleitende Liebe to be trusted or simply laying out a guide for disorientation? Pearling Woes is a queasy ballad sung by a robot on a very special comedown. Keloid knows exactly where the party can be now whereas Sodden Healer is an uber ride sans mask to destinations dark and unknown. Throughout this trip sharp snares punctuate ghost melodies as vocals rise and vaporise. Shadows hover the walls leaving holographic traces of the duality between fun and fear, the unexpected drifts diagonally across the audio plane teasing and taunting the listener in a unique blend of industrial, techno, pop and experimental forms.

On Feather and Wire album is a deep absorbing trip through multiple moods, genres and guises, as mysterious as it is engaging and one to ingest in a single sitting, lying back, sitting up, standing up and yes, even dancing. Let the angels and angles, the voices and distorted faces take shape before your mind. Who is Ordine Kadmia? What are they saying to me, here we go, on and on...

With it's haunted vocals, coded linguistics and dark sensual propulsive atmosphere On Feather and Wire is a sublime contemporary techno pop trip both psychedelic and subversive.

Written and produced by Mika Hallbäck Vuorenpää

Post-production by Mika Hallbäck Vuorenpää and Benny Liberg at Inkonst Studio Malmö
Mixed by Oscar Mulero at Dead Souls Studio Gijón
Mastered by Stephan Mathieu
Images by Dimitrios Bizios
Artwork by Nik Void

Xqui travels back one hundred years, navigating a twisted channel to the roaring Twenties. As this record crackles into life, sounds begin to melt and warp in a visceral transgression of time. Uncompromisingly immersive; startling; melancholic; confusing; beautiful - Twenties is the rebirth of a fading spirit song of ages. "Often when I have an idea for a new track with a new approach or sound, it snowballs into something bigger. Whether that be a longer track, an EP or even an album, each time I try to have a theme that carries through the project. Lleisiau was based around voices, Microchasm was my industrial ambient album and Ambients found me in a more reflective and serene state of mind. With Twenties it was simply the thought of using archive recordings and footage to expand into something more tangible. I found dozens of recordings from the 1920s which I thought worked well with some of my more trademark sounds. I was looking at images for the search term ‘1920s’ when I came across an image of a man from one hundred years ago who was wearing a facemask which was presumably from the time of the Spanish Flu pandemic. It was not until I saw it that I realised, with irony, that the same thing was happening here and now. The finding of the photo added another angle to the album, a little bit of horror, interference and mechanical sounds. I recorded and collated more field recordings and manipulated them to give the noise on the album. I feel it is probably my most complete work to date and I’m incredibly proud of it. I present to you, the Twenties." Xqui. Xqui first appeared in April 2018 with his Britannia EP which was swiftly followed by the Dragon album in May. Using field recordings which he manipulated via mobile phone and laptop, he created incredible soundscapes and was quickly compared to Eno, Basinski and Mansell. Since then, he has been in rich productive form with Twenties being his seventh full length album. Appearing in several Albums of the Year lists over the last three years, he has also remixed for the likes of Lark, Elizabeth Joan Kelly and Assassin of Sound as well as collaborated with Transmission 13, Radio Europa and Geiger von Muller to name but a few. His work with boycalledcrow under the moniker of Wonderful Beasts received massive critical acclaim resulting in the approach from a filmmaker to provide soundtrack material as well as a sold-out debut compact disc.

It will have taken a lockdown to get talented Swiss artists and real-life friends Sophie Hunger, Faber and Dino Brandão to collaborate as a trio for the first time. Today, they unveil an exciting new project, Brandão Faber Hunger and announce a love manifesto.

“Ich Liebe Dich” is a collection of 12 original songs in Swiss German dialect, recorded in August 2020 at the La Frabrique Studio, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. This album is a movement that sounds like the beginning of the world and yet remains almost untraceable in the Swiss-German musical tradition. This is an attempt to bring love back to the centre of reality.

Since 2010, Adam Keith's solo project Cube has been supplying a steady run of records and cassettes that capture songwriterly fixations and frustrations in a dextrous style of wounded electronics. Though Cube has been the centrepiece of his activity for some years, he's all the while remained active in collaborations, playing in bands such as SPF and Mansion to name just a few. Rounding off a decade of dialogues and agitations, Alter now presents Keith's third LP under the moniker of Cube, 'Drug of Choice' Based in New York, though managing a functional transience that takes in California too, Keith's latest iteration as Cube launches a panoramic set of sonic touchstones into a gristly and hypnotic orbit. Seismic drum machine parts partition an album that layers industrial-tipped takes on digi-dub with roaming guitar lines, piano vignettes, and breakbeat theatrics. For all the abrasiveness and rhythmic allusions that Keith employs, his use of voices alongside lush manipulations of errant samples and atmospheres tempers the commotion, delivering something that feels as much focused on artful constructions of private experiences as it does the cathartic qualities of noise.

Jossy Mitsu (Rinse FM / 6 Figure Gang) makes her production debut on Astral Black. A resident DJ for the labels monthly club residency and host for their monthly radio shows, the club night-cum-label is the perfect home for Jossy's debut solo release. The Birmingham-raised, London based DJ has become known for her ability to shell down any club, whether that’s rinsing out a twisted concoction of sweaty House, Techno and left field club heaters, firing heavy-weight Rave and Jungle sets, or serenading you with her 2-step vinyl collection. Now holding down a Rinse FM residency and part of the much loved ‘6 Figure Gang’, the past 18 months has seen Jossy DJ across Europe and the UK, alongside artists such as Joy Orbison, Dance System, Maya Jane Coles & Dusky and perform at events such as The Warehouse Project, Glastonbury & Outlook Festival among many others.

Throughout the 4-tracks here on 'Planet J', Jossy invites the listener to take a step inside her sonic world. The meandering pads and scattering drum patterns of EP opener 'Odyssey' are seasoned with warped chords 8-bit arpeggiators and ticking cow bells reminiscent of producers such as Skee Mask or INVT. '1997' brings together pounding 4x4 kicks, bouncing basslines and pitched vocal samples, giving the track the makings of a house anthem and leaving the listener yearning for a return to sweaty basement clubs. The high octane energy of 'Turismo' takes the records BPM up a notch for a marathon of skittering snares drums, raucous percussion and menacing sub bass. Whilst the heavily reverbed chords and melodic basslines of subdued EP closer 'Ø' demonstrate Jossy's ability to create thoughtful electronic music whilst still retaining a
hard, dance-floor focussed edge.

The EP comes in a full colour sleeve with Planet J’s capital city visualised in a high-res CGI rendering courtesy of London-based designer Kerrie.IRL

When the pandemic hit the US, Chastity Belt’s Annie Truscott descended into a state of mourning. Her plan had been to join her partner, Jay Som’s Melina Duterte, as violinist on tour, a privilege rarely afforded since both maintain busy road schedules and for Truscott the prospect of spending most of the year in a van wasn’t met with exhaustion so much as exhilaration. At long last, she’d be making a living playing music, no side hustle needed. The cancellation of the tour represented a sidelined dream.

 Routine was born of this disappointment. Like the phoenix rising from the ashes, Truscott and Duterte’s collaborative project offers a glimpse of the creative possibilities that can emerge from a state of defeat.  Written and recorded over the course of a month in Joshua Tree, Routine’s lush debut EP ‘And Other Things’ finds the couple trying on new roles. Truscott, who plays bass in Chastity Belt, wrote the bulk of the material and sings on the EP, while Duterte, normally a band leader, used the project as an pportunity to, in her words, “Take the backseat,” as accompanist, producer, and engineer.

 Duterte describes the making of the EP as “seamless.” In the mornings, Truscott sat outside of the cabin in the not-yet-blazing sun and worked out chord progressions on guitar while Duterte slept in. Staring out at the horizon, Truscott could see a smattering of houses and the sharp outline of a mountain range but overall the property felt remote, far removed from home in Los Angeles. On long walks Truscott admired the recently bloomed spring flowers and pondered the legacy of friendships and experiences that made her. “I spend a lot of my time thinking about the people who’ve impacted my life,” she says. “‘Routine’ gave me an opportunity to explore those relationships through music.”

Award-Winning Welsh Multi-Instrumentalist The Anchoress Returns With Her New
Studio Album ‘The Art Of Losing’
Featuring Guest Appearances From James Dean Bradfield (Manic Street Preachers)
And Sterling Campbell (David Bowie, Duran Duran)
“A devastatingly powerful voice.” MOJO “Hounds Of Love, updated for the 21st century.” PROG “Davies is making music like nobody else at the moment.” NME
‘The Art of Losing’ is the second album from Welsh multi-instrumentalist The Anchoress (aka Catherine Anne Davies), following up on her critically acclaimed debut album,
‘Confessions of A Romance Novelist’, which was named amongst the Guardian critics’
Albums of the Year, won HMV’s Welsh Album of the Year, Best Newcomer at the PROG
awards, and a nomination for the Welsh Music Prize.
Written and produced by Davies, the new album features guest performances from
James Dean Bradfield (Manic Street Preachers) and drums from Sterling Campbell (David Bowie, Duran Duran) along with the mixing talents of Dave Eringa (Manics, Wilko
Johnson) and grammy-award winner Mario McNulty (David Bowie, Prince, Laurie Anderson).
‘The Art Of Losing’ ambitiously navigates the topic of loss in all its forms and was written
and recorded during an unfeasibly busy few years as Davies found solace and purpose in
a range of projects whilst navigating her griefs. Most recently this came via the release
of her collaborative album ‘In Memory of My Feelings’ with Bernard Butler (on Pete
Paphides’ label Needle Mythology), duetting with the Manic Street Preachers on ‘Resistance Is Futile’, and being personally invited by The Cure’s Robert Smith to perform at his
Meltdown Festival. She also brought a new generation of ears to legendary Scottish rock
band Simple Minds, where she spent much of the last five years appearing on the ‘Big
Music’ (2015) and ‘Walk Between Worlds’ (2018) albums.
The Anchoress will launch the album with a special show at London’s Queen Elizabeth
Hall in July 2021.
*2 LP 140gm Black Gatefold Vinyl Edition with lyric printed inner bags.

With XXI Century remastering: "La Ventana" (1973) by Los Jaivas is released now on vinyl format for the very first time. Los Jaivas has often been considered one of the most important rock bands in Chile and South America. This influential Chilean band formed in 1963 mixes psychedelic rock and progressive rock with Latin American folk instruments and rhythms. In this album Los Jaivas shows many different artistic facets from improvisation and song writing to the first steps of symphonic creation. "La Ventana" version 2020, is the first work of a series to rescue the musical heritage of the band, which includes the search for archival material saved for years and the reissue of other historical titles of Los Jaivas. More info: Finally available on vinyl, 47 years after its original release on the Chilean label IRT, here it is Los Jaivas' "La Ventana", the iconic album that includes the anthems 'Todos juntos' and 'Mira niñita'. Original master tapes have been used for this reissue, following the reels find at the IRT vaults after years unavailable. State of the art technology has also been used to guarantee a top-quality remastered sound that shows music details barely noticeable in the original pressing. The artwork restoration process has been undertaken by Martín Uribe, a member of the band's team, with great attention to detail, by using several copies of the original issue. According to Felipe Domínguez (Al Albordaje Muchachos SPA), supervisor of this reissue project, "we aimed to publish a top-quality release, improving on previous rather average reissue editions. So, when we opened the box containing the tapes of "la Ventana" and found the reels with all the annotations made at the time, we knew we would be able to make a difference." This is the first in a series of various projects that will make the musical heritage of Los Jaivas available again, including recordings that have remained archived for years and the reissue of other historical titles of the band. This is the aim of the Los Jaivas Cultural Foundation: "to pass on its experience to new generations, along with encouraging a love for music without distinction of race, faith, political color or gender", highlights Mario Mutis, bassist and vocalist of the band. This 2020 reissue is presented in its original artwork and complete tracklist.

An unlikely meeting of two like-minded spirits, »First Man in the Moon« sees the former Swans guitarist and Hallow Ground regular Norman Westberg and the prolific double bass player Jacek Mazurkiewicz collaborate for five evocative tracks. The pair finds common ground beyond the boundaries of atmospheric drone, abstract jazz and experimental music and blurs the lines between the acoustic and the electronic.The two first met when the composer Mazurkiewicz supported Swans with his solo project 3FoNIA on their 2014 European tour. »I really enjoyed his approach,« says Westberg about the Polish musician’s blending of the acoustic qualities of his instrument with electronically generated sounds. A decision to collaborate was made and when the US-American musician returned to Eastern Europe to support Michael Gira on his solo tour in late 2019, Mazurkiewicz reached out to him with the idea of booking some studio time before Gira’s two concerts in Warsaw. »Recording was very fun and easy,« remembers Westberg. »It was just two people enjoying hearing and reacting to what the other is doing.« »First Man in the Moon« is not however a plain document of these improvised sessions, but also shaped by Mazurkiewicz’s approach as a composer. Once the recordings were finished, he selected and edited the recorded material, refining the peculiar dialogue between the guitarist’s meditative drones and bright chords and his own rhythmic yet subtle approach to playing the double bass, sometimes plucking the strings and occasionally using his bow to underscore
Westberg’s fleeting melodies, but also using the instrument in unconventional ways to generate sound. A feeling of weightlessness prevails throughout the aptly-titled »First Man in the Moon.« Even at their most abstract however, these five improvisations-turned-compositions remain tangible, lively, and joyfully explorative. It is a record that you wouldn’t expect from either of these musicians, but
the logical result of two idiosyncratic minds sharing not only space and time, but also their respective visions with each other. Credits:
Recorded at Studio Diamentowy Pies/ Damian Pielka, engineering/Piotr Mazurek, engineering assistance/Jacek Mazurkiewicz, mix/
Lawrence English, mastering/John Fell, photographs.

Statistique Synthétique draws as much from the history of computer sound synthesis as from its latest developments. But well beyond developing simply as a proof of concept, this piece aims to transcend the abstract status of synthetic sound objects and lead them to a properly hallucinatory state, that is to say to a meeting point where the object and perception dissolve into each other, in a sort of transcendental field. Beyond, also, hylomorphism, to reach the world of matter-form fusions, where perception knows how to see "shoulders of hills", as Cézanne wrote.
Teum (the Silvery Slit) is, as the title suggests, an overture, an opening to the game of multiplications, fragmentations, duplications. But it is also the opening understood as the void that blossoms between two borders, a break from which escapes a double tension, both the pulling force of these two edges which move apart and the opposite force of reconciliation, of compression. Okkyung Lee invites us to a truly telluric moment, a rare moment of expression where tectonic movements and shear stresses become music. If the earthquakes were, as we thought in the 18th century, due to underground thunderstorms, there is no doubt that this piece of music, both celestial and continental, could have been their audible manifestation.
Text by François Bonnet


HeckerStatistique Synthétique2020 / 25'15Computer-generated sound with resynthesized situated texture recordingsWritten and produced by Florian Hecker, 2019 - 2020Texture analysis and resynthesis algorithm: Axel Röbel, Analysis/Synthesis Team, IRCAM, ParisMastered by Rashad BeckerPhoto by Mauricio Guillén, 2019
Thanks to Axel Röbel for his commitment to the project and special appreciation to GRM, Luke Fowler, Mauricio Guillén, Dirk Mayer and Porta33
Location Texture Recordings, using DPA 4060, DPA 4017B, DPA 4021 and DPA 4060 microphones to Sound Devices 702 recorder; except segment 04:31 - 05:37, recorded by Luke Fowler, April 2019 using Sony M10.
00:00 - 02:00 Lopud, Croatia, June 200802:00 - 03:12 Ponta do Sol, Madeira, ER 101, April 201903:12 - 04:14 Prentiss St, Cambridge, MA, February 201504:14 - 04:31 Anjos, Ponta do Sol, Madeira, ER 101, April 201904:31 - 05:37 Atelier Cézanne, Aix-en-Provence, April 201905:37 - 08:31 Anjos, Ponta do Sol, Madeira, ER 101, April 201908:31 - 09:46 Praia dos Anjos, Ponta do Sol, Madeira, ER 101, April 201909:46 - 10:39 Private garden, Kissing, September 200910:39 - 11:15 Praia dos Anjos, Ponta do Sol, Madeira, ER 101, April 201911:15 - 15:11 Porto do Paul do Mar, Calheta, Madeira, April 201915:11 - 16:53 Prinz Eugen Strasse, Vienna, June 200816:53 - 24:27 Risco, Rabaçal, Madeira, April 201924:27 - 25:15 Bois de Boulogne, Avenue du Mahatma Gandhi, Paris, September 2015
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Okkyung LeeTeum (the Silvery Slit)2019 / 20'03Performed, recorded and composed by Okkyung Lee (ASCAP)Mixed by Lasse MarhaugMastered by Guuseppe IelasiPhoto by Lasse MarhaugPart of Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

Cut by Andreas Kauffelt at Schnittstelle, Berlin, September 2020Sleeve design by Stephen O'Malley

Daniel Szlajnda (aka Daniel Drumz) and Piotr Kalinski (aka Hatti Vatti) are one of the most famouse and experienced Polish producers and this album is another step forward for them.

It started with the EP "Krzyżacy", which was released exactly two years ago. Two well-known producers - Daniel Drumz & Hatti Vatti - joined their forces to release an EP, which later on was appreciated by the worldwide listeners, journalists and festival audience. JANKA, which I am talking about, hit the stages of the best Polish festivals such as Opener, Spring Break, Tauron, Slovenian MENT and Moscow Music Week. But that happened in 2019.

On March 8th 2021 the duo's debut album, "MIDI Life Crisis" will be released. Daniel Szlajnda and Piotr Kaliński once again prove that there is much more than just musical chemistry between them. What we can hear there are fascinations from dubby minimalism and IDM to jungle and rave - it's hard to label this unique mature album which should be a pleasant surprise for people open to electronic music. "Modern vintage" might be a good description of what we experience there, music is pressed on modular and analog synths and unusual sampling is drowned in delays and reverbs. However it's not from the late '90s, nothing is typical or obvious, the sound and the style of JANKA are unique.

On the album, you hear two guest voices - Sujka (i.e. Iwona Król - known from the projects Kobieta z Wydm, Lauda, and Król) and Kacha Kowalczyk (i.e. the voice of Coals), the album was mastered by Kwazar. The unique graphic was designed and created by Zosia Paśnik on the analogue gear (as a diploma at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice). The album is released in analog form in two color versions, the 180-gram vinyl edition also includes three inserts with Zosia's graphics.