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Forever Records

Music springs eternal. Recognising the enduring power of timeless albums to guide us through life, Forever Records is a reissue series dedicated to rediscovering lost musical treasures from across the spectrum of head-feeding, heart-rending electronic music.

Established by Rush Hour co-founder Christiaan Macdonald and Delsin founder Marsel van der Wielen, Forever Records places heartfelt faith in a carefully curated sequence of seminal, largely forgotten records from disparate eras, scenes and spaces within electronic music history. Tipped towards the mellow and introspective, these are albums that stop time when the needle hits the groove, stirring only when it's time to flip over before you sink back into the experience. That's what albums were always meant to be about, back then, right now, always and forever.


The Release:
Dancing on the wildest edge of the 90s outsider techno zeitgeist while proudly independent of any so-called scene, Ov Biospheres And Sacred Grooves: A Document Ov New Edge Folk Classics is both of its time and out of time. Rooted in the experiments of electronic music pioneers, industrial culture and ethnic music from around the globe while responding to the house and techno explosion, Robbert Heynen, Reinier Brekelmans, Reinoud van den Broek and Tim Freeman's freewheeling masterpiece takes in lush electronica and murky abstraction on its singular voyage through parts unknown.

Forever Records presents an extensive reissue edition of the first 'fully released' Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia album. Originally released in 1992, this is the first time the full, previously CD-only, version of Ov Biospheres and Sacred Grooves will be pressed on vinyl. The original LP and CD artwork from the various editions released in the early 90s has been combined and designed by the band, and the audio has been remastered with their full approval. As well as a new LP edition of the album, there will also be a uniquely numbered, limited edition available housed in a gatefold sleeve that comes with a bonus 10" featuring two previously unreleased tracks.

Press response to Ov Biospheres and Sacred Grooves - A Document Ov New Edge Folk Classics:

“That’s Magick! The Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia are Holland’s best kept secret.”
Sherman, NME, UK 1992

“PWOG’s debut LP is an organic invocation rite — the soundtrack to a new world coming to life, an odyssey. Cross-cultural rhythms, ambiences and environmental samples segue into one another like a fluid relay, and unlike the majority of dance records, it never settles into a routine. It’s always evolving, always unpredictable, an indefinitely religious experience.”
John Selzer, Melody Maker, UK 1992.

"Grown men, who snorted their first ecstasy to this record, stammered with tears in their eyes about divine experiences and the cosmos, man."
Peter Erik Hillenbach, Marabo Magazine, Germany 1992.

Sacred Grooves’ introduces tribal dance music for the mind, body music leaning on the avant garde. Its ripples of sound drift through tranced out ritualistic beats into ambience and serenity resembling something akin to The Orb meeting Klaus Schulze at a brain tuning session.
Sherman, NME, UK 1992

"There's still dance for a moment, in the opening track "The Challenge," then Psychick Warriors roam the earth, where African drummers, tropical sounds, and science-fiction chords have found their place in a spiralling interplay of rhythms and sounds. A captivating, almost magical ritual." Corné Evers, Oor Magazine, Netherlands 1992.

"It's truly astonishing what these Dutchmen have come up with for their first LP. Their roots might explain the enigma, for Psychick Warriors are more in the tradition of Psychic TV than in the desolate temples of techno-house fetishists, to which they are wrongly relegated. Here, chromosomes dance, not instincts." CMK, Tip, Germany 1992.

"The transcendental essence of this album is spread throughout, with musical gravitations emerging unexpectedly from sonic experiments that are sometimes primitive, sometimes
futuristic in intention… But there is always an aura of cosmic magic that constantly puts all the parts involved in conflict and which, upon closer analysis, ends up being the main reason for the final result." Blitz Magazine, Portugal 1992.

Während einer Europa-Tournee von HADES zeichnete sich ab, dass sich die Band sehr bald auflösen würde. Gitarrist Dan Lorenzo gründete mit Dan Nastasi (MUCKY PUP, DOG EAT DOG) Non-Fiction, die in Folge eine EP aufnahmen.
Das Besetzungskarussell sollte sich aber nochmal drehen und HADES- und WATCHTOWER- Sänger Alan Tecchio, sowie Bassist Kevin Bolembach (später u.a. SEVEN WITCHES, JACK FROST) kamen an Bord. 1991 erschien auf Grand Slamm Records, in Europa auf Steamhammer/SPV, das Debüt „Preface“. Die Stilrichtung in Richtung Doom Metal dürfte damals viele Fans von HADES und WATCHTOWER verwundert haben, während Fans von diesem Stil, damals noch ohne das Internet, unwissend blieben. Erstaunlich ist, dass gewisse Trademarks von HADES trotzdem in der Musik von NONFICTION zu finden sind (siehe auch das 1995er ReunionAlbum von HADES). Das an die Glanztaten der Grafikfirma Hipgnosis erinnernde Coverartwork gibt dem Album eine perfekte Aura und gibt einen Hinweis auf den Groove alter LED ZEPPELIN.

Das zweite Album „In The Know“ ist die perfekte Fortsetzung und wird von vielen Fans als Highlight der Band bezeichnet. Bei „It´s A Wonderful Lie“ spürte man die Bereitschaft zum Experimentieren und man kann bei einigen Tracks die Neunziger und ihre Strömungen nicht überhören.

Sowohl HADES, als auch WATCHTOWER (mit Alan Tecchio), sind heute –sporadisch- wieder aktiv und nicht wenige Fans hoffen, dass auch Non-Fiction nochmal in Erscheinung treten. Die musikalische Fortsetzung, wenn auch ein Stück moderner, ist aktuell Dan Lorenzos erfolgreiche Band PATRIARCHS IN BLACK, die er zusammen mit TYPE O NEGATIVE Drummer John Kelly 2021 gegründet hat.

“Dressed In Black” was curated and annotated by Cathi Unsworth, author of the book Season Of The Witch: The Book of Goth – a woman who considers herself fortunate to have had Siouxsie Sioux, Lydia Lunch and Diamanda Galàs for role models while she was growing up. For further illumination in Cathi’s own words, read on.

“The music gathered here is an aural manifestation of turbulent times, made by women possessed of supernatural abilities. The music I fell in love with emerged from the dark end of the 1970s: The Winter of Discontent of 1978-79, when intractable industrial action left the dead unburied and mountains of rubbish in the streets. All the promise of punk came to a brutal end with the deaths of Sid and Nancy in New York; IRA bombs exploded in central London and a seemingly uncatchable ripper roamed West Yorkshire with 13 murders under his belt. Ill omens that augured badly for the events of 3 May 1979, when Margaret Thatcher became our first woman prime minister. Dressed in blue and ready to whip the country to her heel.

“But at night, malcontent youth were united by forces of opposition, whose dissenting voices were aired across the land on John Peel’s Radio 1 show, set to the sound of slasher guitars, swirling fairground keyboards, loping basslines and percussion that recalled the echo of jackhammers or the march of insect feet. Here, punk’s unruly offspring distilled the dissonance of the times into a new kind of music. Flirting with the fetishist and taboo, drawing upon horror and science fiction imagery, they were the outlaw leaders of the greatest style tribe of the decade: the goths. Dressed in black, these kohl-eyed women voiced the alienation of their generation during the decade of the Cold War, the Miners’ Strike, privatisation and AIDS.

“To make sense of the absurd is genius enough. But to then cast the glamour of sublime music around those insights – I come back to my point about supernatural abilities. I hope you will find illumination within. You know the dress code.”

Seit mehr als drei Jahrzehnten bahnt sich David Eugene Edwards einen einzigartigen Weg durch die amerikanische Musikszene. Zunächst mit dem dunklen Folk-Dringlichkeit von 16 Horsepower, dann mit der andächtigen Intensität von Wovenhand und in jüngerer Zeit durch die reduzierte Klanglandschaft seiner Soloarbeiten. Auf seinem zweiten Soloalbum "Mercurial Silence" setzt Edwards den Weg fort, den er auf seinem Debütalbum "Hyacinth" aus dem Jahr 2023 eingeschlagen hat, und dringt gleichzeitig durch den erweiterten Einsatz elektronischer Produktion und vielschichtiger Texturen in neue Klangwelten vor. Auf dem Album kanalisiert Edwards die krasse Intensität, die einen Großteil seiner Karriere geprägt hat, und greift gleichzeitig auf eine breitere Klangpalette zurück, die sich zugleich uralt und modern anfühlt. Seine unverwechselbare Stimme bewegt sich durch die Schichten aus Streichern, perkussiven Drones und gespenstischer Elektronik und verleiht dem Album die Aura einer Welt außerhalb unserer Reichweite. Über seine 12 Songs hinweg verfeinert Edwards hier die thematische Ausrichtung, die erstmals auf seinem Debüt erkundet wurde, und erweitert gleichzeitig seinen Fokus, um die wiederkehrenden Geschichten zu betrachten, die verschiedene Kulturen über Himmel und Erde und deren stetes Miteinander erzählen. Musikalisch zeichnet sich das zweite Solowerk durch die bewusste Verschmelzung akustischer Instrumente mit ausgeprägten elektronischen Elementen aus. Synthesizer, programmierte Rhythmen und dichte Ambient-Texturen verbinden sich mit Edwards' eher traditionellen Arrangements und schaffen einen Klang, der zwar karg bleibt, aber gleichzeitig die räumliche Tiefe der Songs erweitert. Während frühere Projekte oft auf rohe physische Kraft setzten, wirkt "Mercurial Silence" mit einer anderen Art von Kraft. Das Album entfaltet sich geduldig, atmosphärisch und überwältigend.

Seit mehr als drei Jahrzehnten bahnt sich David Eugene Edwards einen einzigartigen Weg durch die amerikanische Musikszene. Zunächst mit dem dunklen Folk-Dringlichkeit von 16 Horsepower, dann mit der andächtigen Intensität von Wovenhand und in jüngerer Zeit durch die reduzierte Klanglandschaft seiner Soloarbeiten. Auf seinem zweiten Soloalbum "Mercurial Silence" setzt Edwards den Weg fort, den er auf seinem Debütalbum "Hyacinth" aus dem Jahr 2023 eingeschlagen hat, und dringt gleichzeitig durch den erweiterten Einsatz elektronischer Produktion und vielschichtiger Texturen in neue Klangwelten vor. Auf dem Album kanalisiert Edwards die krasse Intensität, die einen Großteil seiner Karriere geprägt hat, und greift gleichzeitig auf eine breitere Klangpalette zurück, die sich zugleich uralt und modern anfühlt. Seine unverwechselbare Stimme bewegt sich durch die Schichten aus Streichern, perkussiven Drones und gespenstischer Elektronik und verleiht dem Album die Aura einer Welt außerhalb unserer Reichweite. Über seine 12 Songs hinweg verfeinert Edwards hier die thematische Ausrichtung, die erstmals auf seinem Debüt erkundet wurde, und erweitert gleichzeitig seinen Fokus, um die wiederkehrenden Geschichten zu betrachten, die verschiedene Kulturen über Himmel und Erde und deren stetes Miteinander erzählen. Musikalisch zeichnet sich das zweite Solowerk durch die bewusste Verschmelzung akustischer Instrumente mit ausgeprägten elektronischen Elementen aus. Synthesizer, programmierte Rhythmen und dichte Ambient-Texturen verbinden sich mit Edwards' eher traditionellen Arrangements und schaffen einen Klang, der zwar karg bleibt, aber gleichzeitig die räumliche Tiefe der Songs erweitert. Während frühere Projekte oft auf rohe physische Kraft setzten, wirkt "Mercurial Silence" mit einer anderen Art von Kraft. Das Album entfaltet sich geduldig, atmosphärisch und überwältigend.

After releasing two albums with the UK label Rocket Recordings, the Italian psych band Julie"s Haircut now release the new album on its own Label Superlove. With a title taking inspiration from the I Ching book of divination, and a six piece lineup introducing new singer and songwriter Anna Bassy joining the consolidated team formed by Nicola Caleffi, Luca Giovanardi, Andrea Rovacchi, Andrea Scarfone and Ulisse Tramalloni, Radiance Opposition collates an eight tracks cycle that generates a consistent yet multifaceted musical journey, combining psychedelia, electronica and polyrhythms - all blended together thanks to a syncretic vision juxtaposing apparently irreconcilable factors. None of this is more evident, perhaps, than in the opener "I Can See The Light", with its sudden yet flowing shift from a dark pulsating preamble to an invigorating, hypnotic coda; or in the transition from the stoner-drenched heavy chthonic blues of "Extinction Of The Sun" to the liquid nocturnal moods of closing piece "6AM Carpet Candlelight". But it is the whole record that finds a rare balance, with tracks melting deep atmospheres and summoning vocals, synth-driven shapes and dynamic cadences, noise textures and evoking chants - all of them making the album a cohesively transformative experience. Nestled in a visual frame by contemporary artist Zoë Croggon suggesting an aura of ritualistic tension and mystique, Radiance Opposition sets Julie"s Haircut in a renovated form, at once rooted in their history and rushed to a creative renascence.

Steve Louw’s 2026 album, Traces Of The Flood, is a ten-track sonic adventure where each track etches into your aural subconscious. Having retained his collaboration with career-long friend and critically acclaimed producer Kevin Shirley (Joe Bonamassa, Black Country Communion, Beth Hart, Joanne Show Taylor), Traces of the Flood celebrates his rich contribution and commitment to Steve’s talent. The musicians that appear on the past four records, from Headlight Dreams to Traces of the Flood, are a band in every sense.

Pete Lambrou, the visionary composer and multi-instrumentalist behind VLMV (pronounced "Alma"), is one of the most singular voices emerging from the ambient, post-rock, and experimental scenes in the UK. With a career that spans atmospheric solo work, film and television scoring, and evocative live performance, Lambrou has carved out a distinctive sonic universe he describes as "ambient-ish post-something" (Pete Lambrou) a playful yet accurate summation of a sound that is at once genre-fluid and deeply immersive. The album takes its title from Sara Teasdale's 1918 poem and Ray Bradbury's later short story, both of which imagine a world continuing quietly after humanity's disappearance. This idea became the gravitational centre around which the record formed. Written during a period of deep engagement with climate fiction and ecological thought, `There Will Come Soft Rains` reflects on humanity's legacy, its technological ambition, and its uneasy relationship with the natural world. A century on from Teasdale's poem, the balance of power feels less certain, and Lambrou's music inhabits that tension with remarkable subtlety. "The initial ideas stem mostly from chaos, randomness or sound exploration and then get shaped as I go. Typically, and certainly for this album. It's evolved since album 1, which was more song / chord based. It's a fun process of finding the sound and then working out whether it's speaking to me - or merely just a cool noise. That's fun, but it sometimes can't evolve or progress, so then begins the long journey of shaping it into some sort of song format - which doesn't have to be a-typica,l but whatever feels right to me. The subject matter and overall theme is important too - it's got to all make sense within itself. There's no point having a slowly creeping theme and then rush the music." (Pete Lambrou) VLMV embody an emotional honesty that works with patience and nuance. Whether you're encountering his music for the first time or returning to its quiet depths, VLMV offers an aural space that resonates long after the final note fades. Lambrou's singular sonic language sits at the intersection of ambient, post-rock, modern classical, and experimental electronic music, while remaining unmistakably human at its core. "Instrumentally it's far more synth based - as soon as I had the concept, I wanted to make sure technology clash and marry with traditional instruments (at different times) in a sort of slow-moving dance I suppose. One is nature, one is human development and technology. Sometimes working together and sometimes in opposition. On my previous albums I'd say that at least half of the tracks started life as songs, whereas with `There Will Come Soft Rains` I think the majority (if not all) started as experiments in sound." (Pete Lambrou) Sonically, the album is VLMV at its most cinematic and textural. Warm, intimate piano figures and elegiac string arrangements are set against unstable modular synthesis, fractured rhythms, and evolving sound design. The organic and the artificial are locked in a slow, shifting dialogue, mirroring the album's central themes. At times the music feels tender and nostalgic, at others unpredictable and mournful, yet it never tips into despair. Instead, a quiet resilience runs throughout the record. "The album is slightly unusual in that it was mixed in Dolby Atmos before being mixed down to stereo. Most, if not all, do it the other way round. That's because I got to work with a superb mix engineer who just happens to live opposite. It was extremely random and lucky, moving to a tiny hamlet in the South of England and there being a Dolby Atmos studio opposite with a genius of an engineer. We had in mind that we would do it this way round and enjoy the mix process and give everything its own space - it still had issues when folding down to stereo, but overall a more pleasurable mix!" (Pete Lambrou) There Will Come Soft Rains has a geological sense of time: themes creep, expand, erode, and reform, resisting conventional structures in favour of something more patient and immersive. Each sound exists because it needs to; they move, recede, and emerge with a three-dimensional clarity that enhances the music's cinematic quality, giving each element room to breathe while maintaining an enveloping sense of cohesion. Lambrou's unique voice is Intimate and fragile, his vocals hover above the instrumentation, a guiding thread through the expansive soundscapes, drawing listeners closer into the emotional core of each piece. "Long time vocal collaborator Anja Madhvani did lots of harmonies on the album - I wanted to include her voice as much as possible on this album. In terms of string players - 3/4 have been long term collaborators with me. Marie Schreer actually recorded all strings on my first album ALMA, and Fraser & Clodagh have worked on every album (and occasional live shows) since Stranded Not Lost. In terms of art - Joel Cammarata designed the cover, and accompanying art - he designed Sing With Abandon and I absolutely adore his work, but also - he's so great at understanding and developing and capturing the concept." (Pete Lambrou) Layered harmonies drift through the music like distant signals or half-remembered voices. Madhvani's presence adds a human fragility to the album's vast soundscapes, reinforcing the sense of memory and longing that runs beneath the surface. The strings, performed by a close circle of trusted collaborators, further ground the record in warmth and physicality, acting as a counterweight to the synthetic elements that threaten to unravel it. "Despite the heavy subject matter, I wanted to create an album that imparts hope and optimism, marrying traditional instrumentation as nostalgia, with technological innovation through the randomness of modular synths." (Pete Lambrou) The partnership with Pelagic Records feels both organic and significant. Known for championing artists who value emotional weight, sonic ambition, and artistic integrity, the label provides a natural home for VLMV's work. Lambrou's music shares Pelagic's ethos: immersive, patient, and unafraid of scale whether intimate or vast. With There Will Come Soft Rains, Pete Lambrou has crafted a work that feels timely without being didactic, expansive without being overwhelming. It stands as a quiet, but powerful statement that lingers long after the final notes fade. FOR FANS OF Sigur Ros * Olafur Arnalds * Radiohead * Keaton Henson * This Will Destroy You

Pete Lambrou, the visionary composer and multi-instrumentalist behind VLMV (pronounced "Alma"), is one of the most singular voices emerging from the ambient, post-rock, and experimental scenes in the UK. With a career that spans atmospheric solo work, film and television scoring, and evocative live performance, Lambrou has carved out a distinctive sonic universe he describes as "ambient-ish post-something" (Pete Lambrou) a playful yet accurate summation of a sound that is at once genre-fluid and deeply immersive. The album takes its title from Sara Teasdale's 1918 poem and Ray Bradbury's later short story, both of which imagine a world continuing quietly after humanity's disappearance. This idea became the gravitational centre around which the record formed. Written during a period of deep engagement with climate fiction and ecological thought, `There Will Come Soft Rains` reflects on humanity's legacy, its technological ambition, and its uneasy relationship with the natural world. A century on from Teasdale's poem, the balance of power feels less certain, and Lambrou's music inhabits that tension with remarkable subtlety. "The initial ideas stem mostly from chaos, randomness or sound exploration and then get shaped as I go. Typically, and certainly for this album. It's evolved since album 1, which was more song / chord based. It's a fun process of finding the sound and then working out whether it's speaking to me - or merely just a cool noise. That's fun, but it sometimes can't evolve or progress, so then begins the long journey of shaping it into some sort of song format - which doesn't have to be a-typica,l but whatever feels right to me. The subject matter and overall theme is important too - it's got to all make sense within itself. There's no point having a slowly creeping theme and then rush the music." (Pete Lambrou) VLMV embody an emotional honesty that works with patience and nuance. Whether you're encountering his music for the first time or returning to its quiet depths, VLMV offers an aural space that resonates long after the final note fades. Lambrou's singular sonic language sits at the intersection of ambient, post-rock, modern classical, and experimental electronic music, while remaining unmistakably human at its core. "Instrumentally it's far more synth based - as soon as I had the concept, I wanted to make sure technology clash and marry with traditional instruments (at different times) in a sort of slow-moving dance I suppose. One is nature, one is human development and technology. Sometimes working together and sometimes in opposition. On my previous albums I'd say that at least half of the tracks started life as songs, whereas with `There Will Come Soft Rains` I think the majority (if not all) started as experiments in sound." (Pete Lambrou) Sonically, the album is VLMV at its most cinematic and textural. Warm, intimate piano figures and elegiac string arrangements are set against unstable modular synthesis, fractured rhythms, and evolving sound design. The organic and the artificial are locked in a slow, shifting dialogue, mirroring the album's central themes. At times the music feels tender and nostalgic, at others unpredictable and mournful, yet it never tips into despair. Instead, a quiet resilience runs throughout the record. "The album is slightly unusual in that it was mixed in Dolby Atmos before being mixed down to stereo. Most, if not all, do it the other way round. That's because I got to work with a superb mix engineer who just happens to live opposite. It was extremely random and lucky, moving to a tiny hamlet in the South of England and there being a Dolby Atmos studio opposite with a genius of an engineer. We had in mind that we would do it this way round and enjoy the mix process and give everything its own space - it still had issues when folding down to stereo, but overall a more pleasurable mix!" (Pete Lambrou) There Will Come Soft Rains has a geological sense of time: themes creep, expand, erode, and reform, resisting conventional structures in favour of something more patient and immersive. Each sound exists because it needs to; they move, recede, and emerge with a three-dimensional clarity that enhances the music's cinematic quality, giving each element room to breathe while maintaining an enveloping sense of cohesion. Lambrou's unique voice is Intimate and fragile, his vocals hover above the instrumentation, a guiding thread through the expansive soundscapes, drawing listeners closer into the emotional core of each piece. "Long time vocal collaborator Anja Madhvani did lots of harmonies on the album - I wanted to include her voice as much as possible on this album. In terms of string players - 3/4 have been long term collaborators with me. Marie Schreer actually recorded all strings on my first album ALMA, and Fraser & Clodagh have worked on every album (and occasional live shows) since Stranded Not Lost. In terms of art - Joel Cammarata designed the cover, and accompanying art - he designed Sing With Abandon and I absolutely adore his work, but also - he's so great at understanding and developing and capturing the concept." (Pete Lambrou) Layered harmonies drift through the music like distant signals or half-remembered voices. Madhvani's presence adds a human fragility to the album's vast soundscapes, reinforcing the sense of memory and longing that runs beneath the surface. The strings, performed by a close circle of trusted collaborators, further ground the record in warmth and physicality, acting as a counterweight to the synthetic elements that threaten to unravel it. "Despite the heavy subject matter, I wanted to create an album that imparts hope and optimism, marrying traditional instrumentation as nostalgia, with technological innovation through the randomness of modular synths." (Pete Lambrou) The partnership with Pelagic Records feels both organic and significant. Known for championing artists who value emotional weight, sonic ambition, and artistic integrity, the label provides a natural home for VLMV's work. Lambrou's music shares Pelagic's ethos: immersive, patient, and unafraid of scale whether intimate or vast. With There Will Come Soft Rains, Pete Lambrou has crafted a work that feels timely without being didactic, expansive without being overwhelming. It stands as a quiet, but powerful statement that lingers long after the final notes fade. FOR FANS OF Sigur Ros * Olafur Arnalds * Radiohead * Keaton Henson * This Will Destroy You

Presenting the remarkable second album by the Chinese musician, DJ and creative chef Yu Su. An evolution from her 2021 debut LP and two track single released last year, Foundry radiates a fresh, fully-fledged and far-reaching sound.

The nucleus of Foundry began with material penned for live performance at MUTEK in 2025, alongside a move to London which brought about new shifts in perspective. Searching for a style that was true both to her roots and progression as an artist, Yu ventured in a post-orientalist direction, and came upon a language of ‘in-between music’.

Mixing the eclectic influence of her DJ sets with genre-defying collaborators and newfound taste for minimal and ambient techno, a dusky, dub-inflected character began to emerge. This broad palette reiterates Yu’s prior form in making connections across disciplines, which have not only consisted of music, but also multisensory endeavors which incorporate taste and smell.

With cover art featuring hammered metalwork by the artist Brendan Ratzlaff, for Yu the foundry represents a nexus of creation; a shared workspace where collaborators combined their materials and skills. With the input of Seefeel, Dip In The Pool, and Memotone, together their broad spectrum of aural elements underwent a chemical transformation, and were forged into something new.

Well-designed, ergonomic yet occasionally amorphous, the effect is that of meticulous freedom, both controlled and free flowing. Using immersive sound design, Yu creates inspiring spaces to revel in, which are warm yet steeped in shadow, with flashes of silvery light.

Featuring Yu in with duet Miyako Koda of cult Japanese art pop duo Dip In The Pool, the record kicks off in swirling but poised fashion with ‘A Jewel’. The dusky, reverberant underwater minimalism of ‘Sunless’ follows, which features British composer Memotone, and was influenced by Chris Marker’s 1983 film Sans Soleil.

The dubby, sunkissed affirmation on ‘Cul De Sac’ leads to the thumping acid stomp of ‘Foundry’, and onto the hazy glow of ‘One Place After Another’, featuring lauded soundheads Seefeel, where Yu’s voice is joined by Sarah Peacock’s, alongside Mark Clifford’s seductively gauzy fuzz guitar.

Venturing into more ominous territory is the liminal ambient dub of ‘Wanli’, followed by the rich textured flutter of ‘Os Cionn’, which translates from Gaelic as ‘above’. The album ends with the reflective, processional pulse of ‘Ripe Fruits’, which was inspired by Frederic Leighton’s 1892 oil painting The Garden of the Hesperides.

The LP’s visual was art directed by Lucas Dupuy, whose approach perfectly encapsulates Yu’s spatial sonics: “We both think in layers”, she comments. “Not linear layering, but horizontal layering, like weaving metallic threads, where a bigger picture of a grainy sphere will occur at the end.”

Mastered by Miles

Art by Lucas Dupuy & Brendan Ratzlaff

For the first time, this landmark album of ritualistic dark folk and shamanic soundscapes is pressed into Double LP, and the result is a breathtaking artifact that transcends the boundary between music and mysticism. Presented in a deluxe edition LP with a lavish 30x30 insert, brought to life by Rune Serpent Europa, this release is a kind of talisman. The packaging itself feels like a gateway: ornate, otherworldly, and perfectly attuned to the spirit of Havamal , where Nordic tradition, animistic ritual, and primal sound converge in a timeless invocation. Spinning Havamal on vinyl unleashes the full incantatory power of NYTT LAND 's music. The analog warmth deepens the resonance of the throat-sung mantras and the droning instrumentation, pulling the listener into a world that is equal parts ancient ritual, frozen landscape, and whispered prophecy.

Every track becomes a rune carved in sound, vibrating with hidden meaning, echoing the eternal cycles of life, death, and rebirth. There is a romance in this edition that goes beyond mere presentation. The act of lowering the needle becomes an invocation, a summoning of ancestral voices and forgotten gods. The record itself feels alive, as though the spirits of the sagas reside within its grooves. Each listen is a ritual, each flip of the vinyl a turning of the cosmic wheel. With Havamal now available on LP, collectors and devotees of dark folk finally hold in their hands a relic worthy of the album's mythic aura. This is music to be inhabited, to be carried into dreams and into shadows, to be used as a key that unlocks the hidden chambers of the soul. A triumph of art, craft, and spirit, this vinyl edition is destined to become a coveted treasure.

Saxophonist, producer and composer Brian Allen Simon explores darker hues, transposing waking and altered states under his studio veil Anenon. On the deeply evocative new album 'Dream Temperature', he shifts electronic processing to the foreground, introducing digitized wind instruments and unworldly atmospherics, not heard since his innovating mid-late 2010s output.

A longtime Los Angeles resident, born and raised, Brian Allen Simon has expressively operated under the moniker Anenon, releasing the highly revered 'Petrol' (2016), 'Tongue' (2018) and the viscerally beautiful 'Moons Melt Milk Light' (2023), in a line of unwavering musical dialogues. While the penultimate album was a deliberate, reductive, entirely acoustic detour that was born out of a want to unplug, 'Dream Temperature' sees Brian primed with a newly discovered wind synthesizer as his central compositional tool, alongside acoustic piano and tenor saxophone. The entirety of the album's electronics are triggered by Brian's lungs, generating otherworldly synths modulated by expressive breath control, channelled through the laptop as the core processing chamber for added textural components and field recordings.

A free floating and heavy emotional resonance marks 'Dream Temperature' from beginning to end, invoking the feeling of waking up, still heavy from a night of half-remembered dreams, and continuing one's day in this state. Simon maps out the album's spatial voice early on the statement title track, a deep, yet compact cut, generated from digital saxophone rasps that whistle by in close proximity, along with haze filled textures and sub bass. There is a sonic oscillation of urban grit and pastoral drift throughout as tracks pass by like introspective thoughts, fueling both a tense and ethereal quality that underpins the album. Interluding solo and part-solo piano improvisations 'Last Sun 1' and '2' are positioned adjacent to the buffering digital soundscapes. Their softer, still processed timbres pierce the melancholic exterior, offering a contrasting tenderness that could echo the grace of Ry?ichi Sakamoto, the spiritualist rigor of ECM's Keith Jarrett and a touch akin to Aphex Twin's piano miniatures. 'Nulle Part 1+2' signals the first appearance of an acoustic wind instrument, as tenor saxophone flourishes are juxtaposed against noisy drones, all shouting at the void, with notes resurfacing like lost digital data.

The album was recorded at home during either sunset or nocturnal hours between September of 2024 and October of 2025, a period in which Brian found himself craving more lengthy and intimate studio time as he searched for more pronounced textural qualities amidst his new sonic ambitions. 'When The Light Appears, Boy' shows further evidence of this deeper universe, revealing a grittier edge as the album's essential blueprint is sonically inked. A sprawling expanse of wind synths rhythmically encircle the listener before a dreamy, ghostly ambience blankets 'Toyama'. The sound is evocative of the productions of post dubstep era luminaries such as Burial or the productions of HTRK's Nigel Yang. More isolating and enveloping than the previous all acoustic record, this is music both disorienting and yet warmly inviting all at once. A sonic diarist at heart, personal field recordings were also taken from Sardinia, Japan, Big Sur and LA which intersect at unexpected moments throughout the album's 31-minute play time.

'Dream Temperature' is a vital coalescence of both Simon's electronic and acoustic practices with repositioned electronics akin to earlier works, both haunting and elegant, yet still profoundly personal. Simon continuously resonates as an experimental outlier treading an enthralling, non-linear musical path. This music resolutely glows with an unknowing aura, like an untapped energy source waiting to be discharged.

Is it Kasra V or Kasra the Fifth? Fifth generation, fifth of his name? V for vendetta or V for valentine? Try as we might to figure it out and whatever the answer may be, he has sauntered back toward the decks to present this aural offering. Two tried and true edits specially brewed for dancefloor mania. Limited numbers of these tantalizing records exist, get them before they fade out into the ether.

Steve O'Sullivan Returns to Phonogramme Records with New EP 'Tribal Dubs’ Following the success of his debut EP on the label, Steve is back with a mesmerizing three-track offering that showcases his signature blend of deep grooves and atmospheric textures.This marks Steve O'Sullivan's second EP on Phonogramme Records, further solidifying his relationship with the label and cementing his reputation as a leading figure in the techno scene. 'Tribal Dubs' is a testament to Steve's continued creativity and innovation, showcasing his ability to push boundaries while staying true to his roots.'Tribal Dubs' is set to release on Phonogramme Records and will be available on all major streaming platforms and vinyl. Don't miss out on this exceptional release from one of techno's most respected artists.

First coming to prominence purely as a drum & bass artist, with the likes of Metalheadz, Digital's Function and Klute's Commercial Suicide labels all over his material, veteran Slough producer Amit has, in more recent years, spread his stylistic base via his Amar label to take in deep dubstep and a touch of acid as well as ruffneck junglist behaviour. This 12", his first for more than five years, is heavyweight dub business, with echo chambers set to maximum dubbage and shuddering sub causing potential structural damage to all but the sturdiest buildings in a five mile radius. 'Dem Rude', with its gunshots and sonic soup, takes the A-side, while the flip tune 'Hush Up' marries more aural abstractions with another stepping rhythm, the hi hats fizzing and sizzling like they're encased in a deep fat fryer. Great to have this vastly underrated underground trooper back in the ranks - and well worth the wait.

Like its cover, Nicolas Remondino's Hìeratico plays in the rich shades of crepuscular spaces. A night-tuned, percussion led album where prepared drums are accompanied by flickers of spoken word, acoustic instruments and muted electronics,

The title translates to 'hieratic', for Remondino a "black and gold" term laden with dualities and complex connotations. A sense of teetering between sparkling light and richly coloured darkness imbues the music, the compositions simulating a sense of heightened acuity as they convey us through a spooky elemental soundworld. The opening title track begins with a metallic shimmer, a drum skin activated in a way that sounds like it's being smelted. A cushioned rhythm enters, a smothered timbre akin to hearing something lurking around the garden. On "litho non-danse", percussion cracks like branches and dried foliage under foot.

Remondino recorded initial outlines for the pieces at Giuseppe Ielasi's studio in Milan, before fleshing out these ideas with his own additional instrumentation and contributions from a globe-spanning network of collaborators. On "blue hymne", chiming percussion equal parts jubilant and sinister heralds spoken word from Limpe Fuchs. "Tombal" opens with Massimo Silverio whispering in the Carnic dialect, a minority language from the Carnic Alps. Around, Marco Baldini, Pierre Bastien and Remondino construct a somber soundscape that cranks and sighs in the crevices.

Hìeratico is an album of hybrids. Diverse voices, accents and dialects deliver its lyrics, the instrumentation underpinning it crosses idioms. The drumkit at its core is modified to amplify its resonant tones and harmonics. Inspired by natural substances and phenomena: stone, wood, wind, earth, metal, grass, rain, clouds and bark, Remondino explores how percussion could evoke their materiality, treating drums as lucid textural instruments as much as rhythmic timekeepers. It gives the album a finely shaded depth and clarity as it conjures the vibrancies that reside in darkened corners. Hìeratico dwells in a sensation that crosses borders, the speckles of light in the oblique night sky. Listening is an aural equivalent to stepping into a pitch black forest and waiting for your eyes to adjust, a lightless void turning into a spectacular tableau of shadows and glows. Daryl Worthington

L. Jacobs releases his second album, Behind the Great Curve, on the Belgian label Blickwinkel. Featuring contributions from Milan W., Sarah Yu Zeebroek, and Joachim Badenhorst, the follow-up to the surprising debut Enthusiasm was initially composed and recorded in Jacobs’ small attic room and later refined at Milan W.’s Van den Nest Studio, where W. also handled production and mixing.

A line or outline which gradually deviates from being straight for some or all of its length.

Behind the Great Curve explores and celebrates the beauty and universality of the abstract notion above and what we commonly refer to as the curve. Its presence, allegedly, is everywhere. It is a form that appears visually, mathematically, and symbolically — a line that suggests motion, time, expectation, and impermanence.

This album aims to listen to all of this — the poetry, the irony, and the faint background hum of modern life — with quiet curiosity. Within a gently meandering, synthesized landscape, a collection of dreamlike compositions unfolds: delicate melodies, sparse percussion, warm buzzing synths, and fragments of field recordings coexist in carefully measured imperfection. Colorful yet minimal in aesthetic, the album does not seek to explain the curve, but to follow it.

UILTY RAZORS, BONA FIDE PUNKS.



Writings on the topic that go off in all directions, mind-numbing lectures given by academics, and testimonies, most of them heavily doctored, from those who “lived through that era”: so many people today fantasize about the early days of punk in our country… This blessed moment when no one had yet thought of flaunting a ridiculous green mohawk, taking Sid Vicious as a hero, or – even worse – making the so-called alternative scene both festive and boorish. There was no such thing in 1976 or 1977, when it wasn’t easy to get hold of the first 45s by the Pistols or the Clash. Few people were aware of what was happening on the fringes of the fringes at the time. Malcolm McLaren was virtually unknown, and having short hair made you seem strange. Who knew then that rock music, which had taken a very bad turn since the early 1970s, would once again become an essential element of liberation? That, thanks to short and fast songs, it would once again rediscover that primitive, social side that was so hated by older generations? Who knew that, besides a few loners who read the music press (it was even better if they read it in English) and frequented the right record stores? Many of these formed bands, because it was impossible to do otherwise. We quickly went from listening to the Velvet Underground to trying to play the Stooges’ intros. It’s a somewhat collective story, even though there weren’t many people to start it.
The Guilty Razors were among those who took part in this initial upheaval in Paris. They were far from being the worst. They had something special and even released a single that was well above the national average. They also had enough songs to fill an album, the one you’re holding. In everyone’s opinion, they were definitely not among the punk impostors that followed in their wake. They were, at least, genuine and credible.

Guilty Razors, Parisian punk band (1975-1978). To understand something about their somewhat linear but very energetic sound, we might need to talk about the context in which it was born and, more broadly, recall the boredom (a theme that would become capital in punk songs) coupled with the desire to blow everything off, which were the basis for the formation of bands playing a rejuvenated rock music ; about the passion for a few records by the Kinks or the early Who, by the Stooges, by the Velvet mostly, which set you apart from the crowd.
And of course, we should remember this new wave, which was promoted by a few articles in the specialized press and some cutting-edge record stores, coming from New York or London, whose small but powerful influence could be felt in Paris and in a handful of isolated places in the provinces, lulled to sleep by so many appalling things, from Tangerine Dream to President Giscard d’Estaing...
In 1975-76, French music was, as almost always, in a sorry state ; it was still dominated by Johnny Hallyday and Sylvie Vartan. Local rock music was also rather bleak, apart from Bijou and Little Bob who tried to revive this small scene with poorly sound-engineered gigs played to almost no one.
In the working class suburbs at the time, it was mainly hard rock music played to 11 that helped people forget about their gruelling shifts at the factory. Here and there, on the outskirts of major cities, you still could find a few rockers with sideburns wearing black armbands since the death of Gene Vincent, but it wasn’t a proper mass movement, just a source of real danger to anyone they came across who wasn't like them. In August 1976, a festival unlike any other took place in Mont-de-Marsan – the First European Punk Festival as the poster said – with almost as many people on stage as in the audience. Yet, on that day, a quasi historical event happened, when, under the blazing afternoon sun, a band of unknowns called The Damned made an unprecedented noise in the arena, reminiscent of the chaotic Stooges in their early adolescence. They were the first genuine punk band to perform in our country: from then on, anything was possible, almost anything seemed permissible.

It makes sense that the four+1 members of Guilty Razors, who initially amplified acoustic guitars with crappy tape recorder microphones, would adopt punk music (pronounced paink in French) naturally and instinctively, since it combines liberating noise with speed of execution and – crucially – a very healthy sense of rebellion (the protesters of May 1968 proclaimed, and it was even a slogan, that they weren’t against old people, but against what had made them grow old. In the mid-1970s, it seemed normal and obvious that old people should now ALSO be targeted!!!).
At the time, the desire to fight back, and break down authority and apathy, was either red or black, often taking the form of leafleting, tumultuous general assemblies in the schoolyard, and massive or shabby demonstrations, most of the time overflowing with an exciting vitality that sometimes turned into fights with the riot police. Indeed, soon after the end of the Vietnam War and following Pinochet’s coup in Chile, all over France, Trotskyist and anarcho-libertarian fervour was firmly entrenched among parts of the educated youth population, who were equally rebellious and troublemakers whenever they had the chance. It should also be noted that when the single "Anarchy in the UK" was first heard, even though not many of us had access to it, both the title and its explosive sound immediately resonated with some of those troublemakers crying out for ANARCHY!!! Meanwhile, the left-wing majority still equated punks with reckless young neo-Nazis. Of course, the widely circulated photos in the mainstream press of Siouxsie Sioux with her swastikas didn’t necessarily help to win over the theorists of the Great Revolution. It took Joe Strummer to introduce The Clash as an anti-racist, anti-fascist and anti-ignorance band for the rejection of old-school revolutionaries to fade a little.

The Lycée Jean-Baptiste Say at Porte d’Auteuil, despite being located in the very posh and very exclusive 16th arrondissement of Paris, didn’t escape these "committed" upheavals, which doubled as the perfect outlet for the less timid members of this generation.
“Back then, politics were fun,” says Tristam Nada, who studied there and went on to become Guilty Razors’ frontman. “Jean-Baptiste was the leftist high-school in the neighbourhood. When the far right guys from the GUD came down there, the Communist League guys from elsewhere helped us fight them off.”
Anything that could challenge authority was fair game and of course, strikes for just about any reason would lead to increasingly frequent truancy (with a definitive farewell to education that would soon follow). Tristam Nada spent his 10th and 11th unfinished grades with José Perez, who had come from Spain, where his father, a janitor, had been sentenced to death by Franco. “José steered my tastes towards solid acts such as The Who. Like most teenagers, I had previously absorbed just about everything that came my way, from Yes to Led Zeppelin to Genesis. I was exploring… And then one day, he told me that he and his brother Carlos wanted to start a rock band.” The Perez brothers already played guitar. “Of course, they were Spanish!”, jokes their singer. “Then, somewhat reluctantly, José took up the bass and we were soon joined by Jano – who called himself Jano Homicid – who took up the rhythm guitar.” Several drummers would later join this core of not easily intimidated young guys who didn’t let adversity get the better of them.

The first rehearsals of the newly named Guilty Razors took place in the bedroom of a Perez aunt. There, the three rookies tried to cover a few standards, songs that often were an integral part of their lives. During a first, short gig, in front of a bewildered audience of tough old-school rockers, they launched into a clunky version of the Velvet Underground's “Heroin”. Challenge or recklessness? A bit of both, probably… And then, step by step, their limited repertoire expanded as they decided to write their own songs, sung in a not always very accurate or academic English, but who cared about proper grammar or the right vocabulary, since what truly mattered was to make the words sound as good as possible while playing very, very fast music? And spitting out those words in a language that left no doubt as to what it conveyed mattered as well.
Trying their hand a the kind of rock music disliked by most of the neighbourhood, making noise, being fiercely provocative: they still belonged to a tiny clique who, at this very moment, had chosen to impose this difference. And there were very few places in France or elsewhere, where one could witness the first stirrings of something that wasn’t a trend yet, let alone a movement.

In the provinces, in late 1976 or early 1977, there couldn’t be more than thirty record stores that were a bit more discerning than average, where you could hear this new kind of short-haired rock music called “punk”. The old clientele, who previously had no problem coming in to buy the latest McCartney or Aerosmith LP, now felt a little less comfortable there…
In Paris, these enlightened places were quite rare and often located nex to what would become the Forum des Halles, a big shopping mall. Between three aging sex workers, a couple of second-hand clothes shops, sellers of hippie paraphernalia and small fashion designers, the good word was loudly spread in two pioneering places – propagators of what was still only a new underground movement. Historically, the first one was the Open Market, a kind of poorly, but tastefully stocked cave. Speakers blasted out the sound of sixties garage bands from the Nuggets compilation (a crucial reference for José Perez) or the badly dressed English kids of Eddie and the Hot Rods. This black-painted den was opened a few years earlier by Marc Zermati, a character who wasn’t always in a sunny disposition, but always quite radical in his (good) choices and his opinions. He founded the independent label Skydog and was one of the promoters of the Mont-de-Marsan punk festivals. Not far from there was Harry Cover, another store more in tune with the new New York scene, which was amply covered in the house fanzine, Rock News (even though it was in it that the photos of the Sex Pistols were first published in France).
It was a favorite hang-out of the Perez brothers and Tristam Nada, as the latter explained. “It’s at Harry Cover’s that we first heard the Pistols and Clash’s 45s, and after that, we decided to start writing our first songs. If they could do it, so could we!”
The sonic shocks that were “Anarchy in the UK”, “White Riot” or the Buzzcocks’s EP, “Spiral Scratch” – which Guilty Razors' sound is reminiscent of – were soon to be amplified by an unparalleled visual shock. In April 1977, right after the release of their first LP, The Clash performed at the Palais des Glaces in Paris, during a punk night organised by Marc Zermati. For many who were there, it was the gig of a lifetime…
Of course, Guilty Razors and Tristam were in the audience: “That concert was fabulous… We Parisian punks were almost all dressed in black and white, with white shirts, skinny leather ties, bikers jackets or light jackets, etc. The Clash, on the other hand, wore colourful clothes. Well, the next day, at the Gibus, you’d spot everyone who had been at this concert, but they weren’t wearing anything black, they were all wearing colours.”

It makes sense to mention the Gibus club, as Guilty Razors often played there (sometimes in front of a hostile audience). It was also the only place in Paris that regularly scheduled new Parisian or Anglo-Saxon acts, such as Generation X, Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Slits, and Johnny Thunders who would become a kind of messed-up mascot for the venue. A little later, in 1978, the Rose Bonbon – formerly the Nashville – also attracted nightly owls in search of electric thrills… In 1977, the iconic but not necessarily excellent Asphalt Jungle often played at the Gibus, sometimes sharing the bill with Metal Urbain, the only band whose aura would later transcend the French borders (“I saw them as the French Sex Pistols,” said Geoff Travis, head of their British label Rough Trade). Already established in this small scene, Metal Urbain helped the young and restless Guilty Razors who had just arrived. Guitarist for Metal Urbain Hermann Schwartz remembers it: “They were younger than us, we were a bit like their mentors even if it’s too strong a word… At least they were credible. We thought they were good, and they had good songs which reminded of the Buzzcocks that I liked a lot. But at some point, they started hanging out with the Hells Angels. That’s when we stopped following them.”

The break-up was mutual, since, Guilty Razors, for their part, were shocked when they saw a fringe element of the audience at Metal Urbain concerts who repeatedly shouted “Sieg Heil” and gave Nazi salutes. These provocations, even still minor (the bulk of the skinhead crowd would later make their presence felt during concerts), weren’t really to the liking of the Perez brothers, whose anti-fascist convictions were firmly rooted. Some things are non-negotiable.
A few months earlier (in July 1978), Guilty Razors had nevertheless opened very successfully for Metal Urbain at the Bus Palladium, a more traditonally old-school rock night-club. But, as was sometimes the case back then, the night turned into a mass brawl when suburban rockers came to “beat up punks”.

Back then, Parisian nights weren’t always sweet and serene.

So, after opening as best as they could for The Jam (their sound having been ruined by the PA system), our local heroes were – once again – met outside by a horde of greasers out to get them. “Thankfully,” says Tristam, “we were with our roadies, motorless bikers who acted as a protective barrier. We were chased in the neighbouring streets and the whole thing ended in front of a bar, with the owner coming out with a rifle…”
Although Tristam and the Perez brothers narrowly escaped various, potentially bloody, incidents, they weren’t completely innocent of wrongdoing either. They still find amusing their mugging of two strangers in the street for example (“We were broke and we simply wanted to buy tickets for the Heartbreakers concert that night,” says Tristam). It so happened that their victims were two key figures in the rock business at the time: radio presenter Alain Manneval and music publisher Philippe Constantin. They filed a complaint and sought monetary compensation, but somehow the band’s manager, the skilful but very controversial Alexis, managed to get the complaint withdrawn and Guilty Razors ended up signing with Constantin with a substantial advance.

They also signed with Polydor and the label released in 1978 their only three-track 45, featuring “I Don't Wanna be A Rich”, “Hurts and Noises” and “Provocate” (songs that exuded perpetual rebellion and an unquenchable desire for “class” confrontation). It was a very good record, but due to a lack of promotion (radio stations didn’t play French artists singing in English), it didn’t sell very well. Only 800 copies were allegedly sold and the rest of the stock was pulped… Initially, the three tracks were to be included on a LP that never came to be, since they were dropped by Polydor (“Let’s say we sometimes caused a ruckus in their offices!” laughs Tristam.) In order to perfect the long-awaited LP, the band recorded demos of other tracks. There was a cover of Pink Floyd's “Lucifer Sam” from the Syd Barrett era – proof of an enduring love for the sixties’ greats –, “Wake Up” a hangover tale and “Bad Heart” about the Baader-Meinhof gang, whose actions had a profound impact on the era and on a generation seeking extreme dissent... On the album you’re now discovering, you can also hear five previously unreleased tracks recorded a bit later during an extended and freezing stay in Madrid, in a makeshift studio with the invaluable help of a drummer also acting as sound engineer. He was both an enthusiastic old hippie and a proper whizz at sound engineering. Here too, certain influences from the fifties and sixties (Link Wray, the Troggs) are more than obvious in the band’s music.

Shortly after a final stormy and rather barbaric (on the audience’s side) “Punk night” at the Olympia in June 1978, Tristam left the band ; his bandmates continued without him for a short while.

But like most pioneering punk bands of the era, Guilty Razors eventually split up for good after three years (besides once in Spain, they’d only played in Paris). The reason for ceasing business activities were more or less the same for everyone: there were no venues outside one’s small circuit to play this kind of rock music, which was still frightening, unknown, or of little interest to most people. The chances of recording an LP were virtually null, since major labels were only signing unoriginal but reassuring sub-Téléphone clones, and the smaller ones were only interested in progressive rock or French chanson for youth clubs. And what about self-production? No one in our small safety-pinned world had thought about it yet. There wasn’t enough money to embark on that sort of venture anyway.

So yes, the early days of punk in France were truly No Future!

ZENA, the contemporary ethio-jazz duo from London comprised of producer, keyboardist

and synth player Yohan Kebede and bassist/producer Menelik, have announced the forthcoming release of their debut EP ‘TEMESGEN’; is a six-track aural odyssey that balances uncompromising experimentation with a deep sense of home, comfort, and exploration. In accordance with the duo’s mission, the project is seeking to redefine and reimagine Ethiopian music for a new generation.

Speaking on the inspiration behind the EP’s title, Yohan said: “‘TEMESGEN’ means “Thank God” in Amharic, and for me, I never heard my mother receive good news without saying it aloud. After the first couple gigs we did as ZENA, we saw how people reacted to our music and how it resonated with them. It spurred in us a feeling of overwhelming gratitude, after which the EP kind of named itself”

Born out of a mutual love and respect for the music of their shared Ethiopian heritage, ZENA are charting a new endeavour where Ethiopian musical traditions meet the future. Building upon the roots and foundations laid by legendary Ethiopian musicians Haliu Mergia, Alemayehu Eshete and Mulatu Astatke, ZENA fuses the haunting spirituality and earthiness of the ethio-jazz tradition with a modernity, sensuality and sense of disruption that is distinctly London.

Following three sold-out London headline shows, plus appearances at We Out Here Festival and on NTS Radio, ZENA arrive on Brownswood Recordings with a bold debut that’s equally at home across jazz-minded selectors and leftfield crate-diggers. The duo’s momentum is fuelled by Yohan Kebede’s landmark year with Kokoroko; from the release of Tuff Times Never Last to an NPR Tiny Desk, a North American tour, and their biggest headline show yet at O2 Academy Brixton, alongside Menelik’s quietly formidable reputation in London’s inner circle, shaped by time on the road and in the studio with Muva Of Earth and Bill Laurance.






d B1 IT'S YOU (ANTE NEH) ft. Meron T




d B1 IT'S YOU (ANTE NEH) ft. Meron T




[d] B1 IT'S YOU (ANTE NEH) [ft. Meron T]

DJ Support: Garnier, Opolopo, Worldwide FM, Marcia Carr, Bill Brewster, Timeout Moscow, Craig Smith, Delfonic, Tony Nwachukwu, Marcel Dettmann, DJ Rocca, Shuya Okino, Borrowed Identity, Titonton Duvante, Alex Attias, Rainer Truby, Sol Power All-Stars, Kyri R2, Robert Luis, Severino Panzetta, Lars Behrenroth, Kassian, Alkalino, Getdown Edits, Moodymanc, Gerd, Lea Lisa, Young Pulse, Mark de Clive-Lowe, Mark Grusane, Alex Barck….

International dance music heavyweight, producer and DJ Alexander Lay-Far returns with a powerful new chapter - Lay-Far Dance Orchestra (LFDO) - a fully-fledged live band project that reconnects him with his jazz-funk and fusion DNA while pushing dance music forward with unmistakable groove, musicianship and emotional weight. Formed in early 2024, LFDO is no nostalgia exercise. With Lay-Far at the helm as bassist, bandleader, composer, arranger and sound engineer, the orchestra has already been turning heads with explosive live performances, reinventing classic Lay-Far cuts, and now unveil their first album “Skybreak” with all new and original material written and produced by Lay-Far together with his bandmates and star guests, including Lipelis, Antoha MC and Seven Davis Jr. This work shows the departure from the predominantly electronic sound of Lay-Far's previous solo albums in favour of live instrumentation recorded to analogue tape and effortlessly bridging the gap between Jazz, Library Music, Disco-Funk, House, Broken Beat and Drum’n’Bass. “Skybreak” is dynamic, passionate, spiritual, cinematic, playful, heartfelt, life-affirming, dreamy and deeply romantic. Ultimately, there’s something profoundly romantic in recording and releasing such music in this day and age!


“Take Flight (Part 1)” is opening the album with style. It takes us on a beautifully orchestrated journey, blending the sensuality of Library Music with high-octane Jazz-Funk and raw b-boy breaks, propelled by breathtaking flute and Rhodes solos of Timur Nekrasov and Maxim Glonti. This aural symbiosis of “beauty and the beats” will become more and more prominent as the album unfolds.



It’s time for “Aquarius Love” created with the inimitable artist and vocalist Seven Davis Jr. (Secret Angels, Ninja Tune). In this composition cinematic soul and heavy jazz meet the restless energy of live drum & bass with deep and heartfelt vocals - timeless sound combined with a timeless message about love and life!



Next is “Head In The Clouds” - a theme for an imaginary rom-com, an ode to all the dreamers - sweet, light, naive and heartwarming. Space-Disco-Funk at its best!

“Where You From” is a fiery Soulful House number with heavy Afro-Latin influences recorded in collaboration with Lipelis. It’s full of Sun, joy and passion. Its irresistible rhythm is emphasised by funky octave bass, wah-wah guitar, catchy piano riffs, guitar solo by Lipelis and seemingly light conscious message delivered by Lay-Far and Maryag. Summer is here!

Now the album takes an unexpected twist in the form of “The Harp of Boom” which at first glance appears to be a classic-sounding Boom-Bap banger. Yes, It’s loud, raw, and gritty, yet it gradually evolves into something delicately-touching and deeply-soulful thanks to a memorable flute melody and lush string arrangement. Definitely recorded with tongue in cheek.


Next is “Feel The Moment” a remarkable collaboration with one of the most recognisable and distinctive Russian artists, singer, trumpeter and cultural icon Antoha MC. It’s a feel-good song, hopeful, life-affirming and bittersweet. A stylish excursion into Brit-Funk and Soviet Jazz-Fusion sound, drawing inspiration from the likes of Atmosfear, Light Of The World or Soviet Jazz bands like Allegro and Arsenal, but reimagining the influences through the modern West London broken beat lens.


The spectacular music journey continuous with “Take Flight (Part 2)” - it’s all about the deep infectious jazz-funk groove, heavy beats, rolling percussion and the glory of the soloing instruments - saxophone and flute by Timur Nekrasov, demonstrating the wide range of emotions from thoughtful and lyrical to restless and borderline vicious. One for freestyle dancing!

As the album draws to an end a vibrant musical triptych “Soul Constant” awaits, mixing together the deep and sensual mood of spiritual jazz with heavy syncopated drum’n’bass rhythms by Michail Fotchenkov, lush orchestration, expressive saxophone solos and the ending which can simply be described as “aural bliss”. It’s breath-taking!

A pleasant bonus is the exclusive version of “Where You From” by Lipelis himself, who is taking it into dub territories, further enhancing the rhythm section and enriching the song with his trademark playful synth flourishes and dreamy guitar solos for maximum effect (and appeal).

The album “Skybreak” by Lay-Far Dance Orchestra is the work of real artistry and craftsmanship with timeless sound that’s not only deeply-rooted but also forward-thinking.

Magma, is a French cross-genre, jazz-rock rooted, progressive rock and fusion band founded in 1969 by drummer Christian Vander. Magma have existed in two phases, the first was formed in the summer of 1969 and debuted on LP in 1970, continuing through to 1983. Kobaia was released spring 1970 and 1001 Centigrades was released April of 71.

DYING VICTIMS PRODUCTIONS is proud to present MIDYRASI’S KULT’s highly anticipated debut album, Italian Dark Sound, on CD and vinyl LP formats. MIDRYASI'S KULT are revolutionary and uncompromised. Featuring veterans from such Italian doom stalwarts as Doomsword, Midryasi, Agarthi, and Fiurach, their unique blend of elements from the NWOBHM, doom metal, and early black metal – all fused in their distinctive national dark-sound tradition, which includes such cult legends as Black Hole and Death SS – results in an obscure, hypnotic, and exciting formula. In March 2025, after just one week on Bandcamp, MIDYRASI’S KULT were intercepted by Caligari Records, who released on cassette their debut demo, Mountain Devil. Featuring three songs in a concise 15 minutes, this demo reaped international acclaim for its originality and attitude. But that was but a foretaste of darker delights to come. Witness the first full-length of MIDRYASI’S KULT, Italian Dark Sound.

Truly titled, Italian Dark Sound is an intoxicating spelunk into catacombs both idiosyncratic and indefinable. Totaling 32 time-/mind-expanding minutes, the eight primary tracks here – the outro is titled “The Lost Son of Sylvester Anfang,” which should offer an obvious clue to the black-metal-minded out there – each offer something different from the next, and yet all add up into a shadowy experience that’s both rocking and atmospheric. In fact, if one were to single out an aspect between the demo and album, it’s that MIDYRASI’S KULT exude more energy on this full-length without sacrificing any of their occult aura. But, just like that demo, Italian Dark Sound features supremely pro production – gritty, earthy, and yet kaleidoscopic in texture – under the guidance of Gabry "The Way" Strada, head of RDF Studio and who’s now collaborating on the upcoming Doomsword new album. In the vein of an open artistic project, all the artwork is made by vocalist / bassist Geilt himself, and up to 11 musicians have been involved in these recordings

As collaborative projects often do, 33 has in time found a more fixed form, a kind of structure that turned it from a loose collection of collaborators gravitating around founders Bill John Bultheel and Alexander Iezzi into something resembling more of a traditional band. Not that there is anything conventional in their creative process tho, nor in the music itself… Nontheless Tripolar - their second album and first for Haunter - seems to take them closer to song territory than ever before.

The (progressive) graduation of multi-instrumentalist Cem Dukkha and vocalist/clarinet player Ivan Cheng from collaborators to full-time members has brought 33 to a more refined awareness of their possibilities as a creative unit, although their compositional process has retained a high level of spontaneity and musical madness. Tripolar was in fact assembled by editing hours of improvisation that Bultheel, Iezzi and Dukkah recorded with no specific endgame in mind. The sessions saw them exchange a variety of acoustic, electronic and electric musical instruments: percussions, guitars, strings, piano, hurdy gurdy, synthesizers and even CDJs as a tool of live sampling manipulation.

By molding the pieces into what they are now, the band managed to concoct some beautiful vignettes of contradictory mental and emotional states, as sonically playful as a renaissance fair happening within a broken timestream. Cheng’s lyrical and vocal contributions helped them coalesce even further into proper songs, adding a melodic presence that’s at once seductive and uncanny. But vocal duties are often ceded to guests, namely Danish pop-neoclassicist Astrid Sonne, Kenyan metal guru Lord Spikeheart, Irish goth raconteur Olan Monk and Japanese body-poet Golin.The amount of different sounds arranged into each of the tracks produces a unique sense of awe and bewilderment, a testament to the incredible talent and craft the musicians have employed into putting together such a broad range of influences and approaches into a coherent and extremely effective musical journey.

An equally erratic thematic thread seems to run through all the tracks, one ultimately preoccupied with mental health and its ramifications. Without turning the project into a concept album, 33 and their collaborators have sprinkled it with references to personality disorders and mental conditions that are all too relevant to the contemporary age, reflecting on the lineage of human inner life. A wide display of lyrical and musical tools is employed to explore these themes, ranging from Sonne’s expressionist depiction of ADHD in the opener, to Cheng’s queer-themed reinvention of an Irish murder ballad in closing track ‘Babymusicc’. Tracing lateral trajectories for introspection, Tripolar is not only highly captivating, but it ultimately sounds esoteric in the best possible way: progressively revealing layer after layer of incredible aural magic, its true meaning living in the form and in its manic scope of energies.

MEMORIALS jump off the waterslides and head above the clouds with their stunning second album proper, 'All Clouds Bring Not Rain'. The duo of Verity Susman and Matthew Simms (formerly of Electrelane and WIRE) locked themselves away in a studio in a barn secluded deep in the woods in southwestern France and re-emerged with a beautiful, unusual record that is both melodic and unconventional. For such an ambitious album it's striking that it was written, performed, recorded and mixed solely by the two of them. Sounding like an unearthed classic, MEMORIALS twist their influences into their own unmistakable sound. Imagine Nico singing with Can produced by David Axelrod and you're somewhere in the right ballpark. The record draws inspiration from a wide range of music including folk, dub, post punk, experimental tape music, 60s soul, garage rock, 70s spiritual jazz and Canterbury prog. Verity's distinctive, unadorned singing is a focal point of the record, moving from tender to wild. Her vocal melodies quickly become earworms, providing the tuneful heart around which the songs' more unorthodox elements are arranged, which is where Matthew's unconventional approach to recording and production comes to the fore. With their adventurous arrangements, classic songwriting skills and innovative production techniques, MEMORIALS have created another mesmerising listen that's accomplished and compelling in its unique approach yet remains dizzyingly immersive - just like their acclaimed live shows. "Exciting and unpredictable" The Guardian "Everything you'd expect from a duo adept in the strange and esoteric, while also in thrall to pop music's melodic bent." The Quietus "Stunning, kaleidoscopic tunes" Electronic Sound "Engagingly eclectic" UNCUT "Divinely tuneful yet confrontational" The Wire "Kaleidoscopic art-pop and adventurous psych-rock with an immersive, experimental aura." KEXP.

Transmitting from deep in the Finnish underground, Nazar sends out a signal of mysterious, synthetic auras and shadowy, skittering sequences. From smoky outsider techno to rainy-day electro abstraction, the label’s emphasis is on expression and intrigue as each release reaches across the energetic spectrum of moody machine music.

The first release on Nazar presents a cast of protagonists from the Helsinki scene who share precisely the kind of nocturnal tendencies the label is seeking out. Seasoned duo General Electrix open up the A side with ‘Redshifter’, a silken web of 606-powered electro and warmly haunted synth work that nods to the early years of Autechre. Making an early step out into the public domain, Asyx follows up swiftly with the exquisitely detailed machine funk of ‘kVelorum ‘, where a vivid tapestry of noise, squelch and bleep techno gets smartly woven between airy pad tones and a rock-solid rhythm section.

On the B side, Helsinki mainstay Kaiunta brings a dramatic flourish to mid tempo creeper ‘Phantasm’, matching a densely packed rumble of live drums with sweeps of nervy atmospherics and a murky inversion of the classic gated trance lead. 53X rounds out the Nazar mission towards broad BPMs and fresh ideas with a crunchy swerve towards sample-heavy downtempo laced with a generous dose of psychedelics and angular noise.

NAZAR001 is the kind of record that yields surprises and slots into unexpected moments depending on when and where the needle drops, providing versatile moments for adventurous selectors and continuing the fine tradition of outsider electro and techno from Finland.

In many ways, OLDE OUTLIER rise from the legacy of Australia’s late Innsmouth — a cult band whose 2014 debut Consumed by Elder Sign endures as an underground classic. The connection is more than symbolic: guitarist Askew, vocalist Appleton, and bassist Greenbank all passed through Innsmouth’s ranks, while Beau Dyer now leads this new incarnation after years spent shaping the sound of Innsmouth and the earlier project Grenade.

From Shallow Lives to Shallow Graves marks OLDE OUTLIER’s recorded debut, a four-track, thirty-five-minute descent into their own cavernous realm. While faint echoes of Innsmouth’s inspirations — Armoured Angel and early Samael — linger, the band draw from a broader and far more obscure constellation. Shades of Amon Goeth, Martyrium, Head of the Demon, and Florida’s Equinox collide with the spectral drift of Ophthalamia and early Katatonia and Tiamat, all eroded and blackened into something untraceable.

Despite these depths, OLDE OUTLIER avoid any sense of technical indulgence. Their sound carries a rough, deliberate simplicity — a raw and smoky power that pushes each of the four long tracks forward with unhurried certainty. The songwriting unfolds through patient repetition and subtle shifts, allowing motifs to seep into place and gradually hypnotise. Appleton’s low gutturals bring a grim, expressive edge reminiscent of early Septic Flesh or Thou Art Lord, while the more open, lead-driven riffing imparts a distinctly archaic heavy metal aura that separates this band from their origins.

At many moments, that union of grit and atmosphere surpasses even Innsmouth’s achievements. Accented by well-placed clean and chorused guitar lines, From Shallow Lives to Shallow Graves becomes an immersive and strangely timeless work — a glimpse into an ancient, dimly lit world where OLDE OUTLIER feel less like a new formation and more like something unearthed from a forgotten past.

Die Farben der Nacht
Die Nacht mit ihrer Stille und geheimnisvoll-poetischen Aura übt seit jeher eine Anziehungskraft auf Künstler aller Art aus, seien es Komponisten, Dichter oder Maler wie der Niederländer Vincent van Gogh. Er schrieb: „Oft scheint es mir, als sei die Nacht viel lebendiger und farbenreicher als der Tag – als wäre die Nacht nicht schwarz, sondern blau, violett und grün.“ Nicht nur mit diesen Worten, auch mit seinen Gemälden hat van Gogh den Neoklassik Komponisten und Pianisten Matteo Myderwyk dazu inspiriert, die Nacht zum Gegenstand eines ganzen Albums zu machen. Nocturnal Blues heißt diese Sammlung aus 15 stimmungsvollen Nachtstücken, die Warner sowohl digital als auch auf LP veröffentlicht.

The first resonant space Zosha Warpeha played in was the Emanuel Vigeland Museum in Oslo, Norway. Built as a mausoleum, its walls reach up into a gradual archway, creating an environment where sound expands and reverberates for twelve seconds before decaying into silence. Warpeha was greeted only by dim lights when she entered, and it wasn’t until she had spent several minutes listening that she was able to make out the frescoes that covered every inch of the room: graphic depictions of the cycle of life from conception through death. As the sound of her Hardanger d’amore encountered the walls and these slowly emerging scenes, they obscured its point of origin in both time and space, augmenting its own life cycle. The experience sat in the back of her mind over the next several years as she developed her own patient style of composition and performance, one that comes into full bloom on her new album I grow accustomed to the dark.

When Warpeha was selected as an artist in residence at Brooklyn’s ISSUE Project Room in 2025, she saw it as an opportunity to more intentionally explore how her music might fill a room with ample natural reverb. I grow accustomed to the dark documents two single-take solo performances for Hardanger d’amore and voice at IPR, with both pieces composed in a unique tuning system developed to interact with the space itself. Listeners can trace resonance from the contact of the bow on gut strings into the body of the instrument, its five sympathetic strings offering another layer of refraction, before the sound is thrown about the cavity of the room. The echoes emerge like a photographic double exposure, or wisps of smoke that linger in the air, creating ghostly harmonic convergences that blur the line between what is there and not-there. Sound begins to act like light, a synesthetic alchemy that transforms drones into beams and ornamental trills into flickers.

Both side-long compositions, “filament” and “visual purple,” exemplify a duality that animates Warpeha’s music: an expressive, individualistic style that draws on extensive knowledge of her instrument’s history in folk traditions, and an austere, devotional quality maintained by focus and precision. Though very different in character and structure, both pieces evolve slowly through numerous repetitive phrases, passages of stillness, and bursts of intensity. “filament” opens with a cycle of delicate melodic fragments played and sung around a drone before blossoming into an outpouring of swooping arpeggios, harmonics flying from the strings like sparks off a bonfire. The disorienting pulsation of harmonic beating forms the core of “visual purple,” the close-tone dissonance building to a swarm of open strings ringing boldly throughout the space. After the knotty tones reach their climax, the piece collapses into studied quietude, hushed, but without any drop in intensity.

When Warpeha first visited the Vigeland Museum in 2019, she was in Oslo to deepen her relationship to the Hardanger fiddle through the study of Norwegian traditional music, which is primarily passed down aurally. The experience of learning songs by ear, not only internalizing the tune but also absorbing the techniques and tonalities by listening, was a crucial step in her development as a composer. The years since have seen her sharpen those skills as a prolific member of the New York avant-garde and improvised music communities. Warpeha’s music encourages listeners to join her in this journey, to listen closely with each repeated phrase and through each dramatic shift. Like the frescoes on Vigeland’s walls, with time and intention, the depth of I grow accustomed to the dark comes on like a revelation.

Eine Stadt voller Flimmern. Ein Herz voller Sehnsucht. Und ein Sound, der sich weigert zu verschwinden. Nachdem Andreas Kraemer mit seinen Synthpop-Versionen von Nightshift und See My Dream sowie dem gefeierten Remix zu PLEXIPHONES – In The Unreal die Radiostationen im Sturm erobert hat, meldet sich sein Synthwave-Projekt AuraWave zurück – und erhebt sich mit RISE auf ein neues, strahlendes Level!

Dies ist kein Album - Dies ist ein Aufbruch! Zehn Tracks, pulsierend wie Neonadern, schimmernd wie die Nächte einer Stadt, die niemals schläft. Zwischen Melancholie, futuristischem Glanz und der unendlichen Suche nach Licht im Dunkel. Vom aufsteigenden Titeltrack Rise, über das treibende Run Into the Dark,die verregnete Großstadtromantik von Whispers in the Rain,bis hin zur hypnotischen Tiefe von Ghosts Never Sleep und der verführerischen Dunkelheit von Poison Lips – jeder Song erzählt einen eigenen Moment eines Films, der sich direkt in dein Gedächtnis einbrennt. Synths schweben, Drums pulsieren, und irgendwo zwischen Erinnerung und Zukunft öffnet sich ein neonfarbenes Tor in eine andere Welt

Yuvi Havkin aka Rejoicer returns with an exceptional collaborative album, California Space Craft. On this aptly titled record, he joins forces with seasoned LA bass polymath Sam Wilkes — known for his inspired studio work with Sam Gendel and his dynamic live performances alongside Louis Cole and KNOWER — and drummer Tamir Barzilay, completing the LA-connected trifecta alongside a select handful of key featured guests. The idea for California Space Craft was born out of a series of inspired live sessions in Los Angeles between 2019 and 2022, notably at Listen to Music Outside in the Daylight Under a Tree, where the trio’s natural chemistry first began to bloom. The resulting recordings encompass a wide variety of inspired sound stylings, as one would expect from any of these accomplished artists on their own; however, the sum is truly greater than the parts here, with the fluidity of their freeform improvisations over a dedicated three-day recording session feeling remarkably focused as a cohesive whole. Opening track “Traveling Light” sets the LP’s tone with equal parts Sly & Robbie-style, space echo– drenched rhythms and the cozy kosmische, guitar-led feel of early-2000s genre-fluid explorers like Tortoise. As we continue on to “Ritual in G#,” we are reminded that this is indeed a unique and timeless sonic space the trio has created, as Havkin’s crisp Rhodes chords anchor an ever-evolving psychedelic sound bed. The soaring trumpet of Avishai Cohen adorns the Afrobeat-indebted “Lion Water,” with Barzilay laying down a proper Allen-esque groove, while “Further (with you),” featuring Nitai Hershkovits on keys, offers a defining look at the titular concept of the album — with pure Cali feels coalescing effortlessly into sciNew Release Information fi narrative modes and a proper dose of Rejoicer futurism. Elsewhere, “Her Hair in the Air” shines with fresh polyrhythmic intention, illustrating the balanced bond between the three collaborators at their conversational peak, and the brisk synth strokes of “Early Porpoises,” alongside LP closer “Oceanic Friends” — again ideally named — double as a grand, in-stereo ride into the blissful Pacific sunset horizon. California Space Craft embodies the power of open, collective intention and musical kinship, offering memorable, uplifting moments and an aural glimpse of hope, warmth, and loving melodious calm in an otherwise quite chaotic time for humanity.

Die Ende der 90er Jahre gegründete Band Unwed Sailor aus Tulsa macht einen einzigartigen Bass-lastigen Instrumental-Pop mit Post-Rock-Elementen, der zwischen knallharter Härte und luftiger Melodik schwankt. Seit sie 2019 nach einer zehnjährigen Pause zurück sind, haben sie mit ihrer kreativen Energie und dem Mischen von Genres ihre bisher besten Werke rausgebracht, darunter "Mute The Charm" (2023), "Underwater Over There" (2024) und "Cruel Entertainment" (2025). Für ihr elftes Album, "High Remembrance", brachte Gründungsmitglied Johnathon Ford eine Reihe von zu Hause aufgenommenen Entwürfen, Demos und Hooks ins Studio, wo sie unter der Leitung der langjährigen Mitstreiter Matt Putman (Schlagzeug) und David Swatzell (Gitarre) unter dem Motto Nostalgie und dem bittersüßen Trost der Erinnerung zum Leben erweckt wurden. Auf den acht Tracks des Albums gibt's Anklänge an den alternativen Rock der Blütezeit, die AM-Radio-Attitüde der späten 70er Jahre und die ekstatische Unbekümmertheit der New Wave, neben anderen Einflüssen, die sich einer einfachen Kategorisierung entziehen. Die Lead-Single ,West Coast Prism" verbindet einen unvergesslichen melodischen Hook mit optimistischen Drums und einem klirrenden Arrangement, das sich in einen treibenden, farbenfrohen Refrain verwandelt. Getreu seinem Titel erinnert der Song an weißes Licht, das sich in ein Spektrum aufspaltet, während weitläufige Synthesizer und sanfte Backing Vocals eine Aura melancholischer Glückseligkeit schaffen. Ford nennt treffend ,eine tiefe Vorliebe für das Meer, das Surfen, die Redwoods und die felsige Küste von Oregon" als spirituellen Hintergrund für seine Umgebung. Inspiriert von der Art und Weise, wie Erinnerungen die persönliche Identität prägen, könnte ,Don't Let Go" mit seinem straffen Tempo, seinem knackigen Ton und seinen schwindelerregenden Gitarren ein verlorener Alternative-Radio-Ohrwurm sein, während die täuschend einfache Rhythmusgruppe und seine glitchige Elektronik ,The Longest Day" fest in der Gegenwart verankern. ,Cinnamon" stellt wunderschön arrangierte Akustikgitarren-Gegenmelodien in den Vordergrund, zusammen mit Schichten subtiler Details, Chorstimmen und entspannten, hohen Bassgitarrenklängen. Laut Ford ist der Song ,eine Hommage an die Country-Musik der 70er und 80er Jahre, die die Familienausflüge in die Wüste begleitete, als ich ein Kind war", wobei Townes Van Zandts ,Pancho and Lefty" ein besonders bedeutender Ankerpunkt ist. An diesem Punkt in der bewegten Karriere von Unwed Sailor findet Ford einige seiner stärksten Inspirationen darin, darüber nachzudenken, wo das Projekt begonnen hat, während er es ständig mit neuen Ideen, Arrangements und Genre-Einflüssen vorantreibt. ,Es geht darum, an den Dingen festzuhalten, die man am meisten liebt", sagt er, ,einschließlich sich selbst." Sein akkordbetontes Bassspiel zieht sich wie ein roter Faden durch die Alben der Band und verleiht jeder neuen Sammlung eine vertraute Ernsthaftigkeit und Wärme.

To honour the enduring appeal of a great musical rework, Hell Yeah is launching The Art of Remix. This essential new series collects the best remixes from a range of label favourites. First up is Japanese downtempo master Calm with exclusive, never-before-on-vinyl versions of originals by Cantoma, Aura Safari, DJ Sofa’s Dream Baby Dream, Seahawks, Gallo, Yuichiro Kato and more. The release comes with rich liner notes by the authoritative Dr Rob from Ban Ban Ton Ton, and a second volume from Is It Balearic's Coyote will follow soon.

Remixes have always been at the heart of Hell Yeah's output as a way of reworking classic sounds into different contexts, allowing artists to explore outside their usual remit and also to introduce new talents. Clam has long perfected the art with his famously laidback takes on all sorts of Balearic, house, dub and acid under the Mellow Mellow Acid subtitle. He's remixed many a Japanese legend but also a wealth of artists from across the world, and eight of those reimagined gems balance euphoria with solitude on this first volume.

First, his take on Cantoma's 'Way To The Sun' infuses drones and chimes with bubbly acid. 'Sur Mon Balconett' shimmers with Spanish guitar and sultry sax, ghosts of yesterday still shuffling. 'Banana Trance' jolts with breakbeats while taking a Balearic leap into hedonism. Mininn’s 'Vertigo' drifts dubwise, from monastic chants to operatic bursts. Maho’s 'Bakuhatsu' growls dark and sleazy as acid and riffs collide, 'Abysso' floats with strings and sirens in symphony, 'Blue Surround' lulls before exploding with jazz fire and Kato’s 'Kiss of Life' closes with a cosmic, romantic serenade. Calm's The Art of Remix sets a high standard for a series which will soon turn to Coyote and Scandi-house great Bjorn Torske.

Daniela Casa (1944–1986) was a singer and composer, and the wife of fellow library music artist Remigio Ducros, author of America Giovane ("Young America"), an LP that ideally precedes this second chapter. Originally released in 1975, America Giovane N. 2 is today — like much of the Edizioni Leonardi catalog — extremely rare and highly sought-after by collectors.

Musically, it shares with the aforementioned America Giovane a remarkable stylistic diversity: from folk to psychedelia, from funk to rhythm and blues. Unlike the first volume, however, this record reveals a more pronounced jazz aura — "Fix" and "Soft Bird" are virtually two brief free-jazz excursions — which makes the album even more compelling and distinctive.

America Giovane N. 2 is part of a reissue series produced in collaboration with Edizioni Leonardi (Milan, Italy), dedicated to extremely rare library music LPs originally released between the late 1960s and early 1970s — most of which had never been reissued until now. These recordings are finally made available again for collectors and library music enthusiasts.

Little is known about the origins of this project, grasping the curiosity of many 90's trance diggers, this mysterious EP was originally released in 1994 on the now defunct London based label ITP Recordings. Presenting 3 tracks that dive deep into the trancy electronics of the time, going well into the 8 minutes marker on each track the producer takes the time to allow a pallet of atmospheric qualities to gently grow and layer themselves throughout. A very unique aural signature, almost as if fractals had a sound, organised in a highly effective manner for the psychedelic electronic music inclined dancefloor.

BBE Music presents J Jazz volume 3, the latest in its definitive compilation series exploring the finest modern jazz from Japan. Since the first volume in February 2018, the J Jazz compilation series has showcased some of the most creative, inspired and sought-after jazz recorded in Japan during a golden period spanning the 1960s to the 1980s. Illustrating the richness and versatility of the composers and musicians on this collection, the music spans a wide yet coherent range of styles: samba, funk fusion, modal, spiritual, post-bop and bossa all combine to present an aural portrait of a jazz scene that was constantly moving and shifting its multiple musical centres of gravity. Mastered at the Grammy-nominated Carvery studio in London, many of the tracks featured are reissued for the first time, including mega-rare private press cuts from the Yasuhiro Kohno Trio, Masaru Imada Trio, and Hideyasu Terakawa Quartet. There’s heavy post modal bop by J Jazz legends Kohsuke Mine and Koichi Matsukaze; samba heat from Tatsuya Nakamura, Hideo Shiraki and Seiichi Nakamura; and funky dance floor energy by Hiroshi Murakami, Ryojiro Furusawa Quartet and Shigeharu Mukai. Selected albums from which the tracks are drawn will be reissued in full as part of the acclaimed BBE Music J Jazz Masterclass Series. Released as a deluxe, heavyweight x3 vinyl set in a gatefold sleeve with obi strip and insert, the collection comes with extensive artist biographies and track information. J Jazz volume 3 is also available in a x2 CD set with three bonus tracks, and selected tracks are available across digital platforms for download and streaming. J Jazz is conceived, compiled and annotated by Tony Higgins and Mike Peden for BBE Music.

Marking their 51st release, long time label collaborator and friend Owain K returns to 200 with a brand new solo 4 track EP, Kinematic Equations.

Having joined 200 back in 2012 with the “Colonius EP”, a lot has happened in that time. With 50+ releases on the imprint and Owain setting up his own blog and a label under the Innate banner. However, some things remain - mutual friendship, a shared love of underground Electronic music and Kölsch!

15 years on the Welsh rooted, Bristol (UK) based artist delivers some of his best music to date in the shape of the “Kinematic Equations”. A four track journey into astral electronics that weave together his take on deep space sounds, fused with a healthy dose of dubby aesthetics that are close to the label’s heart.

Starting with the rhythmic pulse of ‘Axial Shifts’ on side A, chords steadily arc into life as the intensity rises and falls, all whilst keeping a measured trajectory. Drifting into the ether, ‘Open Cluster’ fills the zone where heavy sub meets filtered percussion to a rounded 909 kick, set with dreamy atmospherics and shimmering delays.

On side B ‘Eta Aquarid’ blazes a powerful trail to machine-like rumbling and evolving pads which burst brightly over the course. Last but not least, the magical aura of ‘Ghost Of Jupiter’ appears - a fusion of glimmering melodies that float over driving bottom end and steady percussion, bringing the EP to a perfect conclusion.

Written and produced by Owain Kimber
Mastered by Emanuel Geller at Salz Mastering

Vor ein paar Jahren kam mir beim Lesen von Thomas Manns ,Der Zauberberg" eine Idee. Diese Idee kam nicht von der Geschichte im Buch, sondern von den Spuren und der Atmosphäre, die darin beschrieben werden. Das war's: eine hörbare, atmosphärische Reise durch die Erinnerungen an einen Ort, der irgendwo hoch in den Schweizer Bergen verloren gegangen ist. Ein Jahrhundert nach den Ereignissen, die im Buch beschrieben werden, sind wir an den Ort der Handlung gereist, um die noch vorhandenen Geräusche einzufangen, die damals zu hören gewesen sein könnten, und die Geister, die vielleicht noch immer dort umherwandern. Zauberberg basiert auf diesen Aufnahmen, auf Aufnahmen der Musik, die Hans Castorp (die Hauptfigur des Romans) spielte, auf akustischen/elektronischen Instrumenten und digitaler Bearbeitung. Das Ergebnis ist eine Beschwörung von Zeit und Dauer, eine Erkundung dessen, was bleibt und was verloren geht, eine Meditation über die Auflösung und das Fortbestehen der Aura, die alles umgibt.