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Faitiche presents Beispiel (German for "example", also suggests playing together), a joint project by Frank Bretschneider and Jan Jelinek. Muster is their first album.

Free electronic music, the result of spontaneous improvisations.

“Meaning” is a concept that is overused in connection with music. Muster does not call for the same kind of air quotes. With its title, German for patterns/exemplars, Beispiel’s album frees itself from the ballast of teleological semantics. There is no overarching theme, no preparation, no reading list, no reason for this music. Just two facts: Frank Bretschneider and Jan Jelinek have known each other a long time and appreciate each other’s work; and they share a love of modular synthesizers and of experimental set-ups designed to capture surprise.

Bretschneider and Jelinek got together for their first joint session in 2016 and the years that followed brought more such meetings at Jelinek’s studio for open-ended musical dialog – at irregular intervals and with no clear objective. The improvisations were recorded in two stereo tracks: one track for Bretschneider’s audio, one for Jelinek’s. After each session, the recordings were processed separately, the options essentially limited to cutting and altering the frequency range. The nine pieces for Muster were selected from the resulting material.

This approach reflects an ideal: music is when you play your first note without knowing what the third or fourth will sound like. When your 290th note still sees you leaving the beaten track, and when curiosity grows as the piece unfolds. Duping is part of Beispiel’s practice. Improvisation is about disagreement. It’s a matter of addressing the right issues. What’s happening here? What’s mine, what’s yours? Are “why” and “where next” legitimate questions?

Muster is an exemplary work. Nine suggestions for what can be. Nine ideas for possibilities of listening.

Arno Raffeiner

This beloved 1963 Impulse! LP is a career highlight for both Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane. Hartman was apparently Coltrane's suggestion for the recording date, and his deep, dark voice meshes perfectly here with Coltrane's tenor. The material is well-chosen, including definitive readings of 'My One and Only Love' and 'Lush Life.' McCoy Tyner fills out the chords, augmenting the harmonies and keeping the tone of these ballads respectful but not overly sentimental. All the players get to the deep structure of the songs and are not afraid to play in the most essential and elegant manner.

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ most famous “I Put A Spell On You” was supposed to be a blues ballad. But when he and his musicians got drunk in the studio, they churned out one of the most gut-wrenching, utterly visceral songs in the history of pop. He groaned, moaned, spluttered and spat his way through the recording, giving it a haunting feel and ensuring a ban on many radio stations.

But it became a hit, which gave him license to record more of his slightly oddball operatic music, resulting in his first album At Home With Screamin’ Jay Hawkins in 1958. Featuring dancefloor sure shots such as “Hong Kong”, the stomper “Yellow Coat”, “Take Me Back To My Boots And Saddle” and of course “I Put A Spell On You”, it goes without saying that this record is a killer.

“Boot licking, piss drinking, finger frigging, tit tweaking, love biting, arse licking, shit stabbing, motherfucking, spunk loving, ball busting, cock sucking, fist fucking, lip smacking, thirst quenching, cool living, ever giving…”

There’s no fairer introduction to ‘Fist’, Joshua James’ latest contribution to Phantasy, than to advise one simply to prepare themselves. Sampling iconic performance artist, club promoter and designer Leigh Bowery, James connects the expert dancefloor pressure he exacts each weekend as one of London’s best-loved club residents with the unapologetic, defiant legacy of a personal hero. None other than Peaches then takes up the remix mantle for ‘Fist’, intertwining the provocations of two radical performers and connecting three generations of underground queer culture in one sonic menage-a-trois, perhaps the straight-up rudest club record in recent memory.

On the original production, James shifts his sound in a heavier direction still since last summer’s euphoric Amber Rush, which was remixed by labelmate and friend Daniel Avery. A bouncing industrial tilt underscores the heavy-duty production, as Bowery, originally recording alongside Richard Torry in their band Minty, espouses a catalogue of sexual acts - some specialist, all sensational - as James pushes dancers further down into the belly of some revolting rave beast.

A multi-faceted match to Bowery themselves, Peaches continues a decades-long journey dedicated to genre and gender deconstruction with her wild and playful take on ‘Fist’. Dripping in cybernetic club juice, Peaches wraps herself around Bowery’s own teaches on the mic, easily matching his demands as she careens towards a system-rattling techno conclusion.

re-release Find the Greatest Movie Scores selected by CINEZIK in an new Wagram Vinyl Collection!

Zach Condon, der Kopf hinter Beirut, veröffentlicht mit Artifacts eine Doppel-LP mit Musik, die die Entwicklung von Beirut nachzeichnet - von den ersten Versuchen des 14-jährigen Condon, die Musik, die er in seinem Kopf hörte, zum Leben zu erwecken, bis hin zu dem voll entwickelten Beirut, das wir heute kennen. Artifacts begann ganz bescheiden mit der Zusammenstellung einiger früher Beirut-EPs für eine richtige physische Veröffentlichung. Wie Condon jedoch in den exzellenten Liner Notes des Albums erklärt, verwandelte das Wiedersehen mit alten Aufnahmen durch neue Ohren ein einfaches Re-Issue-Projekt in etwas viel Expansiveres. "Als die Entscheidung fiel, diese Sammlung neu zu veröffentlichen, habe ich mich dabei ertappt, wie ich meine Festplatten durchwühlte, um etwas Zusätzliches zu finden, das ich der Compilation hinzufügen konnte. Was mit ein paar zusätzlichen, unveröffentlichten Tracks aus meinen prägenden Jahren begann, wuchs schnell zu einer ganzen Reihe zusätzlicher Musik aus meiner Vergangenheit heran, und zu einem größeren Projekt, bei dem ich alles, was ich fand, remixte und remasterte." ENG Retrospective of rarities and b-sides spanning the entirety of Beirut's catalog. 17 of the 26 songs on Artifacts have not been previously released.Artifacts began humbly as a means of compiling a few early Beirut EPs for a proper physical release. However, as Zach Condon explains in album's excellent liner notes, reconnecting with old recordings through fresh ears turned a simple re-issue project into something much more expansive.

Heiko Voss has earned near mythical status as a torchbearer for the emotional, deeply felt and quietly radical style of electronic music. The blissed-out radiance of his Kompakt Pop single, “I Think About You” remains one of the label catalog highlights and a stellar run of collaborative singles as Schaeben & Voss; others might know him for his stewardship of the excellent, much-underrated Firm imprint. But with his new album, 3:30 Minutes To Live, released by Michael Mayer’s label Imara, Voss returns after a long silence with a beautiful collection of songs that hymn heartbreak with a lusciously melodic touch.

There is something definitive and newly confident in 3:30 Minutes To Live that has it feeling like a real statement of intent if compared to his earlier releases. “Although it’s not, 3:30 Minutes To Live feels like my debut album,” Voss reflects. “All releases before were more song sketches or electronic dance tracks.” Bunkering down in Teary Eyes Studio, Voss worked up somewhere between thirty and forty sketches of songs, which he whittled down to the twelve collected here, all of them situated in a unique space, but very much in accord with Voss’s defining aesthetic, which he describes as “indie pop music with a lot of guitar, electronic elements and a great love for melancholic ‘80s synth-lines.”

Voss is sensitive to both variety and consistency – 3:30 Minutes To Live sits together as an assured, vibrant collection of pop songs, but it’s marked by all kinds of surprising incident, like the guitar solo that erupts out of “This Is My Life”, or the acoustic guitar-led melancholy of the closing “This Summer”. It’s all borne of the alchemy of the studio process and the intimate romance of music-making. “If you constantly feel a little bit like you’re in love while writing and producing your music – simply because of the sound of the synth flowing warmly and gently through the room, or because the sequence of notes awakens something in you, or even a randomly arising groove in the loop of a guitar lick makes you shout, ‘Ha!!’ – then it usually becomes a beautiful song,” Voss nods. “Those moments make me happy.”

There’s also a delicious tension between the push of the music, its melodic lushness and gliding, ballerina-like movement, and the darker currents that pull through Voss’s lyrics, inspired by a “short, dramatic and toxic love affair.” This may read like familiar terrain for a pop album, but the way Voss weaves language through both the extra-linguistic joys of music and the inarticulate speech of the heart somehow allows for direct communication that is simultaneously plain-spoken and deeply profound. “Say It” is a simple, devastatingly effective plaint of alienation; “She Wasn’t Lonely” a simple portrait of everyday living set to chiming, clacking guitars, the music in the bridge taking astral flight as the titular character ‘lets herself go.’

A smart and sharp collection of songs that captures you with its gorgeous melodicism just as it blindsides you with its aching heart, 3:30 Minutes To Live is Heiko Voss at his most assured and open-hearted best.

Heiko Voss hat sich als Fackelträger einer emotionalen, von ganzem Herzen kommenden und nicht auf den ersten Blick radikalen Spielart von elektronischer Musik einen nahezu mythischen Status erarbeitet. Das schiere Glück, welches seine Kompakt Pop-Single "I Think About You" aus dem Jahr 2003 immer noch ausstrahlt, macht sie nach wie vor zu einem der Highlights des Label-Katalogs, wo sie neben einer ganzen Reihe hervorragender Singles als Schaeben & Voss steht; andere kennen Heiko vielleicht durch das tolle und vielfach unterschätzte Label Firm, für das er zusammen mit Thomas Schaeben verantwortlich war. Mit seinem neuen Album “3:30 Minutes To Live”, das am 4. März 2022 auf Michael Mayers Label Imara erscheint, kehrt Voss nun nach einer langen Pause mit einer wunderschönen Sammlung von Songs zurück, die den Herzschmerz – getragen auf den Schwingen unwiderstehlicher Melodien – ausgiebig besingen.

“3:30 Minutes To Live” kommt mit einer gehörigen Portion Überzeugung und Selbstbewusstsein daher, was im Vergleich zu seinen früheren Veröffentlichungen wie ein bewusstes Statement wirkt. "Obwohl es das nicht ist, fühlt sich ‘3:30 Minutes To Live’ wie mein Debütalbum an", meint Voss. "Alle meine vorherigen Veröffentlichungen waren eher Song-Skizzen oder elektronische Dance-Tracks."

Im Teary Eyes Studio arbeitete Voss zwischen dreißig und vierzig Songskizzen aus, die er auf die zwölf hier versammelten Songs reduzierte, die alle ihren eigenen Raum einnehmen, dabei aber sehr gut mit Voss' übergeordneter Ästhetik harmonieren, die er als "Indie-Pop-Musik mit viel Gitarre, elektronischen Elementen und einer großen Liebe für melancholische 80er-Jahre-Synthies" beschreibt.

Voss ist sowohl für Abwechslung als auch für Konsistenz empfänglich - “3:30 Minutes To Live“ ist eine selbstsichere, lebendige Sammlung von Popsongs, die aber auch von allerlei Überraschungen geprägt ist, wie dem Gitarrensolo, das aus “This Is My Life” herausbricht, oder die von einer Akustikgitarre getragene Melancholie des abschließenden “This Summer”.

Das alles ist entstanden aus der besonderen Alchemie des Studioprozesses und der intimen Romantik des Musikmachens. "Wenn du beim Schreiben und Produzieren deiner Musik ständig das Gefühl hast, ein bisschen verliebt zu sein – einfach weil der Klang des Synthesizers warm und sanft durch den Raum fließt, oder weil die Notenfolge etwas in dir weckt, oder sogar ein zufällig auftauchender Groove im Loop eines Gitarren-Licks dich ein 'Ha!' ausrufen lässt – dann wird daraus meist ein schöner Song", nickt Voss. "Diese Momente machen mich glücklich."

Es entsteht eine besondere Spannung zwischen dem positiven Elan der Musik, ihrer melodischen Verschwendungssucht, den gleitenden, Ballerina-artigen Bewegungen und den dunkleren Strömungen, die durch Voss' Texte ziehen, die von einer "kurzen, dramatischen und giftigen Liebesaffäre" inspiriert sind. Das mag sich wie ein vertrautes Terrain für ein Pop-Album anhören, aber die Art und Weise, wie Voss die Sprache sowohl durch die nonverbalen Elemente der Musik als auch durch den nicht artikulierten Ausdruck des Herzens verwebt, ermöglicht eine Art direkte Kommunikation, die gleichzeitig ausgesprochen klar und trotzdem tiefgründig ist. “Say It" ist eine erschütternd einprägsame Anklage von Entfremdung; "She Wasn't Lonely" ist ein einfaches Porträt des alltäglichen Lebens, untermalt von klappernden Gitarren, in dem die Musik einen astralen Flug unternimmt, während die Titelfigur sich "gehen lässt".

“3:30 Minutes To Live“ ist eine kluge und scharfsinnige Sammlung von Songs, die den Zuhörenden mit ihren wunderschönen Melodien fesseln, aber auch mit einer Menge schmerzenden Gefühlen konfrontiert. Ein Album, auf dem Heiko Voss ganz bei sich ist und Euch dabei mehr als nur sein Herz öffnet.

"Black Vinyl 2022 edition, gatefold sleeve. Huge star in her native France, Christine and the Queens (partially) rerecorded her radiant debut album in English. The language shift has diluted nothing from the LP’s allure.
“The French sensation taking to the world stage with grace and apparent ease” - Vogue “Owing as much to Weimar cabaret as 1970s-era David Bowie - beguiling” - Sunday Times Culture “Empowering, bold, and vulnerable, and made for dancing” - Pitchfork “Jonathan is an implausibly beautiful ballad” - The Guardian ""The charismatic French pop sensation on the verge of international stardom” - i-D"

The new record by Eric Chenaux is his most immaculate and pristine. Say Laura perfectly incarnates the counter-intuitive interplay of instrument and voice that Chenaux has been revealing and revelling in throughout the past decade: his gently unhinged juxtaposition of resplendently smooth, seductively assured singing and puckish, frazzled, thoroughly destabilized guitar could come from no other musician. The five wandering, wondering ballads on Say Laura bring Chenaux's semi-improvised but keenly intentional songwriting to its fullest, clearest, warmest and coolest articulation; uncompromising and generous, hyper-specific and loose, spartan and luxurious, elemental and ornate. Say Laura might as well be a jazz record_certainly as much as his previously acclaimed albums Slowly Paradise and Skullsplitter tread that genre-adjacent territory_though it also features moments and melodies that come as close to pop flirtation as Chenaux is likely to get. But above all, Say Laura breathes like no other Chenaux album. Voice and guitar are inscribed with elemental clarity in a wondrously open, symbiotic sonic space. His pure tenor croon glides through a crisp, reverberant ether while his fried guitar careens dizzily and giddily, every gesture and timbre captured in unflinching detail by engineer Cyril Harrison. Chenaux has also made his most minimal, controlled, regulated and rhythmic record.

Our Lowriders album is an amalgam of the two “This Is Lowrider Soul” CDs. We have chosen 14 tracks that represent the sounds loved by Los Angelenos, often of Mexican descent, that emanate from their fabulously designed motors while cruising Whittier Boulevard in East LA or, say, Van Nuys Boulevard in the northwest of the city.

The classic Los Angeles vocal group the Superbs are featured here on their glorious ‘It Hurts So Much’, but it is mainly the records discovered by sweet soul collectors that dominate. The Carnival label has a great reputation on this scene; Lee Williams & the Cymbals’ ‘Please Say It Isn’t So’ and ‘Follow Your Heart’ by the Manhattans are a pair of killer ballads perfect in tempo and harmony for the cruisers. Other East Coast offerings include the Persians’ captivating ‘Here It Comes’ and two gems which were only on master tape prior to their Kent releases – Melvin Hicks & The Versatiles’ ‘I’m Just Passing Time’ and the similarly unknown outfit the Exceptions, with the wailing ‘So Much In Love’.

Chicago has always been a breeding ground for black harmony groups. The Esquires saw much success at Bunky; ‘No Doubt About It’ was their equally great first release at Wand. Little Ben & The Cheers hailed from the same city; their ‘I’m Not Ready To Settle Down’ fetches big bucks due to Lowrider demand, as does ‘What Am I Gonna Do’ by the mysterious Houston Outlaws – their origins are uncertain, but must be Midwestern. The Vanguards hailed from Indianapolis and deservedly charted with ‘Somebody Please’, licensed to LA’s Whiz label. All of their seven singles on Lamp are also fine, harmonic soul tracks. The Lovers were a Bay Area group who recorded in Los Angeles with the maestro Arthur Wright; their ‘Someone’ was tipped for the charts when licensed to Philips, but flopped, leaving it ripe for revival by the soul connoisseurs. Like the Lovers, the reputation of Reuben Bell’s ‘It’s Not That Easy’ has grown over the decades and a record once considered common can now fetch hundreds of dollars – class will out.

Chet Baker’s work is legendary and the arrival of this previously unreleased live set, recorded at Palermo’s Brass Club in 1976, is a real delight for his fans. Here Baker’s marvellous trumpet revelry is matched by the rest of his dynamite Quartet, this time featuring the esteemed composer and vibraphonist Enzo Randisi on piano (his only collaboration with Baker), Vito Tommaso’s brother Giovanni making full use of the fretboard on melodic stand-up bass, and Gianni Cavallaro taking an unusual approach with the drums. Their keen musicianship helps spur Baker to squeeze the best from his horn, and there’s a rare take of the ballad ‘I Can’t Get Started’ too, making this a must-have for all serious Chet devotees.

Alt-R&B singer, songwriter, and producer Marshall Vincent announces his new EP 'In No Particular Order', a collection of five tracks on SA Recordings. Inspired by his time living in Berlin, New York, and Chicago, Marshall weaves together a soulful blend of orchestral, electronic, pop and folk elements to tell stories of life and love in vivid colour. Songs that are a mix of heartfelt ballads, haunting basslines, and dramatic strings draw a strong line to the alternative R&B of Moses Sumney, and the folky inspired songs of Kate Bush. Following a series of EPs that have garnered him critical praise - as well as landing him a support set for Kelsey Lu - In No Particular Order draws upon a multidisciplinary background spanning orchestral and theatrical training to explore the idea of ‘provocative healing’ - the use of pain, conflict, and emotional turmoil to create love, honesty, and intimacy. Sonically, Marshall’s music can be defined as intimate R&B, but there are threads of classical, folk, and electronic present, and all woven together with the aim of honest, universal storytelling. More important than genre is the pursuit of clarity and meaning, and as such, the references found within Marshall’s work are abundant. "I have always been quite sensitive, since I was a child. I also experienced hardships that made me closed off, cold and detached. I had to learn to face my pain. This fight manifested itself into creation. The ability and need to create my own world helped me see myself in others. In a way, it feels no different than the creation of a universe… my mania, my intensity, and my stress go into themselves, and they explode in these moments… sonic textures, movements, visual cues… all acting as tools to put me back together." - Marshall Vincent

Billy Bruner is not only Tulsa's OG soul man, but he also wrote the best 80s soul tribute to his home city, T-U-L-S-A, not just a great nod but an earworm of the highest order. Flipped (as we love to do) with an unreleased ballad called 'I Want To Hold You' found in the archive. It came from a rough tape so we have done our best to bring it back to life, we pulled it off pretty, so don't sleep on the B-Side kids.

‘Flicker’ is the second album from Ride guitarist and songwriter Andy Bell. Written almost as a conversation with his teenage self, it follows the triumphant solo debut that was 2020’s ‘The View From Halfway Down’. This 18-track double album finds Andy moving towards classic songwriting, notably on the reflective lead single ‘Something Like Love’, the strident harmonies of ‘World of Echo’, the joyous refracted loops of ‘Jenny Holzer B. Goode’ and the fuzz-laden late-’60s balladeering of ‘Love Is The Frequency’. Stylistically, the four sides of ‘Flicker’ take in everything from modern psychedelia to fingerpicked folk, whimsical baroque pop, and Byrdsian 12-string beauty. It’s a breathtaking array and makes it even more abundantly clear that Andy has entered a purple patch in his songwriting, hitting a new velocity in contrast to his initial inhibitions about becoming a solo artist. He gradually overcame these after the passing of David Bowie in 2016, with the Thin White Duke’s bountiful 50 years of music providing inspiration from beyond the grave. ‘Flicker’ is also an apt description for the genesis of the album. At the start of 2021, Andy returned to the stems of the recording sessions he made at Beady Eye and Oasis bandmate Gem Archer’s North London studio and added fuel to the fire, writing melodies and lyrics and turning them into fully formed songs. The same sessions were also the starting point for ‘The View From Halfway Down’ and this album picks up where that one left off, quite literally, with the very first words being “I was halfway down…”. This is the first of several playful, possibly intentional, references to albums and song titles that litter the record like a musical breadcrumb trail. As much as this is a modern sounding and forward-looking record, it’s also very much about looking back, something that is clear from the first glimpse of the front cover – a previously unseen outtake from Joe Dilworth’s photo sessions for the inner sleeve of Ride’s debut album, ‘Nowhere’. “When I think about ‘Flicker’, I see it as closure,” explains Andy. “Most literally, on a half-finished project from over six years ago, but also on a much bigger timescale. Some of these songs date back to the ’90s and the cognitive dissonance of writing brand new lyrics over songs that are 20-plus years old makes it feel like it is, almost literally, me exchanging ideas with my younger self.” This conversation takes place across ‘Flicker’’s 18 tracks. Essentially it advises us to stop worrying about the future and enjoy each day as it comes, embracing the crushing, unpredictable lows of life as much as the almighty highs of being in love. Some of it remains unspoken, taking place sonically rather than verbally: the album has a reflective, meditative feeling throughout, exploring many aspects of mental health, and the beautiful stillness of first single ‘Something Like Love’ could almost be a musical salve to the heartache 19-year-old Andy poured into ‘Vapour Trail’ in 1990. “The ‘Flicker’ I’m talking about in the lyrics is that flame that makes a person who they are,” explains Andy. “I wanted to find that in myself, so I went back to the teenage me – a technique I learned in therapy and have been doing ever since – and got some advice on how to live and be happy in the 2020s.“‘The View From Halfway Down’ was about turning 50 in a very weird time of introspection. ‘Flicker’ is about gathering the tools to equip myself mentally for life in 2022 and beyond – post-pandemic, post-Brexit, post-truth.”

New limited pressing on 180g Electric Blue Vinyl. L.A. Witch’s self-titled debut album unfurled like hazy memories of late-night revelries in the city center creeping back in on a hungover Sunday morning. Guitarist/vocalist Sade Sanchez purred and crooned over jangling guitar chords, painting pictures of urban exploits, old American haunts, and private escapades with a master’s austerity. Bassist Irita Pai and drummer Ellie English polished the patina of the band’s vintage sound, adding a full-bodied thump and intoxicating swing to the album’s dusty ballads, ominous invitations, and sultry rock songs. The album had an air of effortlessness like these songs were written into the fabric of the Western landscape by some past generation and conjured into our modern world by three powerful conduits. The band readily admits that L.A. Witch was a casual affair and that the songs came together over the course of several years. That natural flow hit a snag when the band’s popularity grew and they began touring regularly, so a new strategy became necessary for their sophomore album, the swaggering and beguiling Play With Fire

"Europe's greatest clarinetist and free spirit" (Jazzthetik) plays ballads and
legendary love songs on his new MPS album. In so doing, he delivers new
meaning and a fresh sound to the pieces. A sentimental look back is simply not
his thing. Together with his new quartet of pianist Frank Chastenier, bassist Lisa
Wulff, and percussionist Tupac Mantilla, Kühn contrasts his sensitive side with
his unbridled desire to experiment. "I've chosen some of my favourite ballads for
this album. These pieces have nothing to do with any sort of trend. For me, they
are poignant and beautiful; they are simply timeless," says Kühn. "I found it
especially appealing to combine these particular choices with my latest
compositions. The album opens with "Both Sides Now", a classic by Joni
Mitchell. Kühn liked the poetic text, and says that, "Somehow, in life there are
always two sides, but it's best when they enrich each other and can smoothly
merge in order to create something new."
One of five new compositions, the title song "Yellow + Blue" encapsulates the two
perspectives: the flamboyant, the impulsively vibrant yellow next to the soft,
sensitive, warm bluesy-blue tonal colour. In turn, a new musical color is created
out of the contrast.

San Francisco Moog: 1968-72 documents a missing link in the history of electronic music, as well as the little-known moment when psychedelic music went electronic.

In 1968, Bay Area native Doug McKechnie got hold of one the very first modular Moog synthesizers ever made and began finding his own way to play it. Soon, he was hauling the finicky instrument around to perform improvised concerts at colleges and ballrooms, as well as an ill-fated appearance on the bill at Altamont. Many of the performances were recorded, and the surviving tapes—never before released—capture a free- flowing, transportive sound that fills in the gap between the austere mid-century academic avant garde and the expansive cosmic suites of Tangerine Dream and the rest of the Berlin School in the ‘70s.

This is not another corny old Moog record. San Francisco Moog sounds as fresh as anything by today’s analog-synth heads while bringing to life a lost moment in the development of the music.

All pieces were created improvisationally in an atmosphere of exploration and discovery on a Moog Modular Series III synthesizer and recorded live with no overdubbing to Ampex PR-10, Nagra 3, or TEAC four-channel recorders.

Produced by Doug McKechnie, Lee Gardner, and PJ Dorsey
Mastered by A.F Jones at Laminal Audio
Art direction by Frank Hamilton and Nolen Strals
Mandala art by Richard Winn Taylor

The pair continue to explore their love of Italian film soundtracks and library music with these two fresh offerings. The title track "Acqua" is a joyful upbeat song with a steady 6/8 groove accompanied by optimistic flutes, winding saxophones and a multitude of arpeggiated synthesizers.

The B side, "Tema Cinque", is more like an electro ballad with a hypnotic drum machine that provides the back drop to luscious sweeping pads and a moody soprano saxophone solo. These two tracks give listeners another taste of what's to come from Lorenzo
Morresi and Tenderlonious' forthcoming album, which is due for release on 22a later in 2022.

Curtis Stigers veredelt seine großen Hits und Lieblingssongs mit neuen, unter die Haut gehenden Versionen.
Vom langhaarigen Frauenschwarm mit Nummer-Eins-Balladen zum gereiften R’n’B- und Jazz-Sänger -
in den 30 Jahren seiner Karriere hat Curtis Stigers nicht nur Millionen von Alben verkauft, sondern auch
internationale Hits hervorgebracht, die man heute noch im Ohr hat.
Jetzt schließt sich der Kreis: auf seinem neuesten Album ”This Life” blickt Stigers zurück auf Welterfolge wie “I Wonder Why” und “Never Saw A Miracle”, und Songs aus seinem Schaffen, die ihm besonders
am Herzen liegen. Er interpretiert die Pop-Klassiker neu in der jazzig-intimen Weise, für die er heutzutage
beliebt ist. Das ist mehr als ein nostalgischer Rückblick: ein zeitloses Album eines Sängers und Musikers,
der lässig Genre-Grenzen überschreitet.

Making an album is never easy, but throw in a couple of lockdowns and a
singer-songwriter (Gerard Sampaio) with an inoperable brain tumour and
you've got GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS, an album which spans delicate love
songs and meditations on not being around for much longer
Gerard describes his situation as 'really shit, but good material for writing songs.
At an incredibly tricky time, making this album and the love and support of the
band itself have been a godsend. Like self- administered music therapy'.Never
slipping into self-pity, these songs paint a picture of a man staring into the abyss
with wit and humour. On the raucous POSITIVE he sings about trying to stay
upbeat in the face of his 'cancer journey' and whether being positive all the time is
really such a good idea. SISTER AND BROTHER is a sweet, heart-breaking ballad
to his wife and children. And the title track GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS describes
the rollercoaster that is 'living scan to scan'.
But before we even get to all that, there's the mesmeric FALL BACK, rousing footstomper OBVIOUS, moody waltz SODIUM GLOW, and CARELESS SHOWDOWNS –
a showcase for the gorgeous vocals of multi- instrumentalist Jen McKee (in
addition to playing cello and accordion).
Recorded remotely during lockdown, Tim Davidson makes a welcome return with
his pedal steel guitar, Jamie Houston lends his keyboard skills, while J.P. Berrie
and Gordon Kyle provide horns throughout, and a sublime muted trumpet solo on
the title track and album closer GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS.
….The Sweetheart Revue is a six- piece band from Glasgow made up of Jack
Cocker (guitar and vocals, Liam McArdle (bass), Jen McKee (cello, accordion,
piano and vocals), Heather Phillips (violin and vocals), Moshe Price (drums) and
Gerard Sampaio (guitar and lead vocals).
They've been making music together since 2007, always with an emphasis on
harmony, melody and storytelling. Lead singer and songwriter Gerard Sampaio
credits Bill Callahan, Bob Dylan and David Berman as his biggest influences.The
Sweetheart Revue released their first album THE SILENCE AND THE COMMON
SENSE in 2017. They were recently described as 'Scotland's best kept secret'.

Reissue of George Duke's classic 1975 jazz-funk-fusion album 'The Aura
Will Prevail'
With its intensive quartet, this 1975 recording again mirrors how far Duke, by his
own admission, had moved away from the "smug and overly serious jazz
musician" and towards a master of fusion, eager to experiment and add a note of
humour to the music. With Santana drummer Leon "Ndugu" Chancler, bassist
Alphonso "Slim" Johnson, and the Brazilian percussion magician Airto Moriera,
Duke designed stunning scenarios in sound which once more reveals him to be
one of the synthesizer pioneers.
He paints a fantastic morning atmosphere in Dawn; in Floop the Loop Duke
conjures animated, funky tone poems. There is a change of scene as Duke takes
up the role of soulful singer on the smooth ballads For Love and Fools. His
onetime collaboration with the Mothers of Invention rubs off on Duke's
adaptations of Echnidna's Arf and Uncle Remus, and a touch of samba is added
to the relaxed tropical magic of Malibu.

Reissue of George Duke's classic 1975 jazz-funk-fusion album 'I Love The
Blues'
On the fourth album of his fusion cycle, George Duke substantially expanded the
number of his colleagues. As before, drummer Leon "Ndugu" Chancler beats as
the heart of the rhythm section, and the Brazilian couple, Airto and Flora are again
on board. The ten tracks perform a stylistic balancing act. The jittery funk of
"Chariot" and the smooth ballad "Someday" show off Duke's soulful vocal flair.
Flora Purim crowns the complex "Look Into Her Eyes" with her spheric sound as
she and guitarist George Johnson take care of business on this stratospheric
piece with its bluesy electric shuffle. With two high- voltage guitarists (Daryl
Stuermer and Byron Miller), "That's What She Said" points to the tie between rock
and funk. The most eye- opening outing occurs with star guitarist Lee Ritenour
stomping on "Rokkinrowl, I Don't Know", and its Hendrix parody. "Sister Sirene"
shows that, naturally, the typical dreamy Duke instrumentals are not left off the
album. An almost animistic soundscape is woven into the fabric of "Mashavu",
and "Giant Child Within Us - Ego" is a small fusion suite encompassing the
spectrum from the classical to the Zappaesque finale. The title piece is indeed a
blues, dished out pure and simple - a far cry from the sounds of the preceding
piece with its mountains of synthesizers. Rather, the sultry delta heat, the
acoustic simplicity and raw truth of the song prevail - the blues.

So auch am 2. Weihnachtstag 2019 im „Gruenspan“ in St. Pauli anlässlich des 25jährigen Bandjubiläums.

Sobald OHRENFEINDT die Bühne entern, wird aus allen Rohren gefeuert. Der Kiez-Dreier macht keine Gefangenen. Wer bisher lediglich ihre Studioalben kennt, wird sich wundern, was für eine Schippe die Jungs live nochmal obendrauf packen.

Zwei Stunden volle Pulle Riff-Rock-Hits aus einem Vierteljahrhundert. Drei bis in die Haar- bzw. Bartspitzen motivierte Roggenrohl-Vollblüter ohne Netz und doppelten Boden. Da ist nix gedoppelt, da kommt kein Ton aus der Dose, selbst der Schweiß ist echt.

Zwei Stunden pures Adrenalin, ungeschönt und rau.

Exploring hybrid music styles and outernational, borderless musical influences, DJ soFa’s Elsewhere compilation series continues with a sixth instalment, and the second to appear on Kalahari Oyster Cult.

Always ahead of the tide, the Kalahari Oyster is a fine specimen when it comes to the discipline of next-level sound-snooping. Meticulously curated by Belgian sonic globetrotter soFa, Elsewhere XX showcases a dozen outstanding tunes, each dwelling in their own personal space between the imaginary worlds of post-kraut, DIY synth-punk and odd-pop ballads.

Melting these genres with contemporary club music is the mission here. Doused in a thick fog of arcane machine talk, tribal rhythms and cosmic synths, Elsewhere XX is an invitation to escape the hall of LED-backlit mirrors that we’ve so mistakenly come to call our “reality”.

Gathering artists from all corners of the globe – including Radio Hito, Anatolian Weapons, Eylul Deniz, Dame Area and Electronic Body Girl – soFa’s curation lays the groundwork for a unique and thoroughly immersive listening and dancing experience. Through a carefully selected suite of like-minded, yet diverse joints, we run the gamut from distorted funk (“Anita”, “Confiture") and cross-pollinated electroid blueprints (“Walk Away”, “An Abhainn Mhor") to oddball synthpop (“Credo” & Twin Peaks cover "She Can't Die"), reverb-soaked audio safaris (“Fifty Fifty (Anatolian Weapons Dub)") and static-filled postpunk (“Umani”).

soFa's Elsewhere series started in 2017 and this is the sixth compilation to date. Shifting focus with every new instalment, the compilations have previously appeared on labels likes Music For Dreams, Emotional Response and Crevette Records.

Together, sisters Noa, Naomi and Nataja form the band Velvet Volume. Things have moved quickly for the trio since their first concert in 2013. They have already released two albums, played at a myriad of festivals such as Northside, Tinderbox, Smukfest, Reeperbahn, Eurosonic, JA JA JA, Musik i Lejet, Rolling Stone weekender and Alive Festival. They have also performed at both The Crown Prince Couple's Awards, Gaffa Award and several times at P6 Beat Rocker. Velvet Volume has always been the guarantor of a fantastic live experience, where the audience gets to feel the sibling-energy, with all its synergy, love, and temperament - they are sisters with the same origin, but they are also three women, three individuals, and three personalities, unfolding the second they enter the stage. With new music on the way, they continue the study of their own musicality, which stands as an independent and unique sound in the Danish music landscape. What started as three girls playing rock music has now evolved into three young women who are so much more than that and who challenge the genre melodically and musically. Deep engagement to their different instruments – Bas, Guitar and Drums taking their playing to new heights and also now dareing to thing and work with more melody and listener friendly productions. Their third album “nest”will be released in Feb. 2022.

His last LP has barely touched record store shelves and Ivan ave is back with a EP for Mutual Intentions. Mid Season finds Ivan Ave in bloom as he evokes the sounds of
spring on his latest offering. The EP title also refers to a mid-album-recording process, which Ave currently finds himself in. Mid Season gives the listener insight into a
forthcoming full length album, entitled All Season Gear.
The prolific Norwegian rapper continues to charm with a seductive baritone that blows like a cool breeze through the production’s warm accompaniment. Dusty drum
machines under glacial keys and guitars offer a platform from which Ivan waxes lyrical about everything that touches him. He has crafted a unique voice in Hip Hop echelons, finding quirky analogies in the mundane. While in the past, he could find a parable for love in a bicycle lock or existential questions in an worn out sock, he turns his
attention increasingly to social realities.
He regularly takes aim at the ridiculous aspects of our contemporary society throughout Mid Season, with lyrics that poke fun as much they ask what the fuck?
“Spotify owner 'bout to buy a whole ball team… That mean I own a corner flag or some seats at least?,” he sings on «What a Day!!!». The record is peppered with these
types of anecdotal metaphors that come together like a social media story through a bionic AI. Ivan Ave is the product of this generation and it’s only right he should reflect
that. He does it in a unique way that requires the listener to untangle these preternatural allegories.
Playing with a dichotomy of words, he doesn’t labour on a thought before he’s lazily propelled onto the next at the turn of each bar. His laissez faire approach is only
emboldened by the slow moving percussion and keys that have come to define his sound. Picking up on early nineties influences from the likes of Native Tongues or Dilla,
the music on Mid Season continues to reassess and revolutionise these archetypes. It’s in the keyboard sounds of this latest EP, that Ivan Ave and producers have found
yet another new evolution in his sound.
Synthesisers that sound like they belong to a Maynard Ferguson record rather than a Hip Hop EP make the record come alive over a chugging and forceful rhythm section. It provides an airy and playful contrast to the more serious elements on the track, and much like Ivan Ave’s lyrical prowess offers an extra layer of depth that often
eludes Hip Hop’s most successful stars. The more you listen to Ivan Ave the more you get entrenched in his work and Mid Season continues to send the artist on an
exciting trajectory.

Limited Edition Turquoise/ Yellow &White Splatter Colour Vinyl 2LP Set. 1500 Units for UK.

Nina Simone’s story from the late sixties to the nineties can be told through her legendary performances in Montreux. Taking to the Montreux stage for the first time on 16 June 1968 for the festival’s second edition, Simone built a lasting relationship with Montreux Jazz Festival and its Creator and Founder Claude Nobs, which uniqueness, trust and electricity can be clearly felt on the recordings. Simone’s multi-faceted and radical story is laid bare on ‘Nina Simone: The Montreux Years’. From Nina’s glorious and emotional 1968 performance to her fiery and unpredictable concert in 1976, one of the festival’s most remarkable performances ever witnessed, the collection includes recordings from all of her five legendary Montreux concerts – 1968, 1976, 1981, 1987 and 1990.

Featuring rare and previously unreleased material from Claude Nobs’ private collection, Nina Simone devotees worldwide will be thrilled by the inclusion of the powerful I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free, poignant and fearless Four Women and Simone’s hauntingly beautiful performance of Ne Me Quitte Pas. A spine-tingling version of Janis Ian’s searing and potent Stars, which Simone covered for the very first time during her 1976 Montreux performance, sits alongside her bold and electrifying re-imagine of Bob Marley’s ballad No Women No Cry in 1990. The collection closes with the encore of Nina Simone’s final Montreux Jazz Festival concert and one of Simone’s most-loved and best-known recordings, the exuberant My Baby Just Cares For Me, showcasing the deep and multidimensional facets of Simone’s life and music.

BIOHAZARD formed in Brooklyn in 1988 and soon after released their first demo. The band consisted of founding members Billy Graziadei (vocals, guitar), Bobby Hambel (lead guitar) and Evan Seinfeld (vocals, bass). After the release of their second demo in 1989, drummer Anthony Meo left the band and drummer Danny Schuler replaced him. BIOHAZARD released their combined the urban sounds of hard-core, metal and rap with scorching lyrics describing the forces at work in our modern urban lives. With an impressive career spanning over 20 years with 10 albums (on both indie and major labels), the band sold over 5 million records. In 1990, Biohazard signed a recording contract with Maze Records. The band's self-titled debut album was poorly promoted by the label and sold approximately 40,000 copies. The album's subject matter revolved around Brooklyn, gang-wars, drugs, and violence.

In 1992, Biohazard signed with Roadrunner Records and released Urban Discipline, which gave the band national and worldwide attention in both the heavy metal and hardcore communities. The video for the song "Punishment" became the most played video in the history of MTV's Headbanger's Ball, and the album sold over one million copies. The band also began opening for larger acts such as Pantera, Suicidal Tendencies, House of Pain, Fishbone, and The Cro-Mags. In 1993, the hardcore rap group Onyx brought on Billy Graziadei for an alternate "Bionyx" version of their hit single "Slam" with Biohazard as their backup band. This led to a collaboration on the title track of the Judgment Night soundtrack. The soundtrack would go on to sell over two million copies in the United States. Months later, the band left Roadrunner Records and signed with Warner Bros. Records Inc. who released their third studio LP, State of the World Address. The album was produced by Ed Stasium in Los Angeles and contained the single "How It Is" featuring Sen Dog of Cypress Hill, for which a video was also shot. During their 1994 tour, the band made an appearance on the second stage at the Monsters of Rock festival held at Castle Donington. State of the World Address went on to sell over one million copies, and Rolling Stone magazine selected the Biohazard logo as the best logo of the year.

This was the last Biohazard album with Bobby Hambel, who left due to differences with the rest of the band. The band recorded their fourth studio album, Mata Leao, as a three piece in 1996. It was produced with the help of Dave Jerden. For the 1996-97 Mata Leao Tour, former Helmet guitarist Rob Echeverria joined the band. The band also played on the Ozzfest mainstage alongside Ozzy Osbourne, Slayer, Danzig, Fear Factory, and Sepultura. While touring Europe in support of the Mata Leao album, the band recorded their Hamburg, Germany, show for their first live album, No Holds Barred (Live in Europe), which was released in 1997 through their former label, Roadrunner Records. The band signed to Mercury Records and released their fifth studio album, New World Disorder, in 1999, once again with Ed Stasium as a producer.

The relationship with Mercury Records soured quickly as the band felt betrayed and misunderstood by the label. They severed their ties with the label amidst the merger of Mercury Records, Island Records, Def Jam Records, and Polygram into the Universal Music Group. The following year, Biohazard signed two new record deals with SPV/Steamhammer in Europe and Sanctuary Records for the remainder of the world. Despite the new record deals, the band took some personal time in order to work on other projects. Graziadei and Schuler also collaborated in transforming the band's rehearsal Brooklyn studio into a digital recording studio, known as Rat Piss Studios and soon after changed the name to Underground Sound Studios. Re-investing into the band, Graziadei and Schuler honed their engineering and productions skills while recording and producing local acts and new Biohazard demos. The band then undertook the process of writing, recording, and producing their own music. Their studio work led to the band's sixth studio album, Uncivilization, released in September 2001.
The album featured several guest appearances by members of bands such as Agnostic Front, Hatebreed, Pantera, Slipknot, Sepultura, Cypress Hill, Skarhead, and Type O Negative. Shortly after the release of Uncivilization, guitarist Leo Curley left the band and was replaced by former Nucleus member Carmine Vincent, who had previously toured with Biohazard as part of their road crew. The band had to cancel scheduled European festival dates when Carmine Vincent underwent major surgery. The band did manage to find a temporary guitarist, Scott Roberts, formerly of the Cro-Mags and the Spudmonsters, in time to join the Eastpak Resistance Tour with Agnostic Front, Hatebreed, Discipline, Death Threat, Born From Pain and All Boro Kings. Biohazard completed their seventh studio album in seventeen days; Kill Or Be Killed was released in 2003. While touring North America with Kittie, Brand New Sin and Eighteen Visions, Biohazard announced that Roberts would remain as their permanent lead guitarist. The tour was curtailed when it was announced that Seinfeld had fallen ill. With more downtime due to Seinfeld's illness, Graziadei and Schuler collaborated to mix Life of Agony's live comeback album, River Runs Again: Live 2003. Once Seinfeld was healthy again, the band toured Japan and North America, headlining over bands such as Hatebreed, Agnostic Front, Throwdown, and Full Blown Chaos.

By the end of 2003, the band had begun recording its eighth studio album, Means To An End. The completed album was lost in a studio disaster, forcing the band to completely re-record the album, which was finally released in August 2005. In October 2004, Graziadei announced that Means To An End had been the final Biohazard album and that he would continue playing with his new band Suicide City as his main focus. One month later, on the Biohazard website, it was announced that there would in fact be a 2005 Biohazard tour. On December 15, 2005, Seinfeld and Graziadei participated in the Roadrunner United conglomerate event at the Nokia Theater in New York for an all-star event. The show opened with Biohazard's "Punishment," performed by Seinfeld, Graziadei, Sepultura's Andreas Kisser, former Fear Factory member Dino Cazares, and Slipknot's Joey Jordison. Graziadei and Schuler relocated their recording studio to South Amboy, New Jersey and renamed it Underground Sound Studios. The studio was renovated to include a live room with 20-foot (6.1 m) ceilings and 4,000 square feet (370 m2) of studio space. After Schuler's departure from the studio business, Graziadei relocated the studio to Los Angeles and changed the name to Firewater Studios. In January 2008, the classic lineup of Evan Seinfeld, Billy Graziadei, Danny Schuler and Bobby Hambel made the announcement that rehearsals had begun for a 2008 summer tour to commemorate the band's 20th anniversary. They toured Australia and New Zealand in April with Chimaira, Throwdown, Bloodsimple and headliners Korn to celebrate their newly declared reunion. The band also took part in Persistence Tour 2009, and announced at one of their shows that they were working on a new record. Biohazard brought in producer Toby Wright to work on the album and after several months at Graziadei's Firewater Studios in Los Angeles, the band completed their recording sessions. In June 2011, Biohazard announced that Evan Seinfeld had quit the band and Scott Roberts returned to replace Seinfeld for two UK dates but no decision regarding a permanent replacement was made. In January 2012, the band decided that Scott Roberts would remain with the band as a permanent member. The new album, Reborn In Defiance, was released worldwide, with the exception of North America, on January 20, 2012 through the Nuclear Blast label. In support of the album, Biohazard embarked on a short co-headlining tour of Europe with Suicidal Tendencies in the latter half of January 2012. After touring the world in support of Reborn in Defiance, the band entered the studio to work on a new release and after a falling out, Roberts departed the band.

Biohazard remains as it’s core founding members of Graziadei, Shuler and Hambel. Graziadei has since ventured off onto a solo career as BillyBio and teamed up with Cypress Hill frontman Sendog to start Powerflo. Both groups are working on their second releases due out late 2021 and early 2022.

Joe Henderson had fully hit his stride by the time he made Inner Urge, his 4th album for Blue Note, recorded in November 1964. After a series of quintet dates, this was the tenor saxophonist’s first quartet album, and it featured an extraordinary line-up with McCoy Tyner on piano, Bob Cranshaw on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums. The foursome deliver a diverse set consisting of three Henderson originals including the remarkable title track and the Monkish “Isotope,” as well as a gorgeous ballad performance of Duke Pearson’s “You Know I Care” and a nimble swing through Cole Porter’s “Night and Day.” This Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

Soul singer Betty Harris – mainly known for her Jubilee and Sansu recordings – was born in 1939 in Orlando, Florida. As a teenager she worked as a mate for Big Maybelle who encouraged her to start singing. First recording was released in 1962, her major hit was a cover of Solomon Burke’s “Cry To Me” in 1963. Taken at a slower pace, Harris’ rendition turned the song into a Billboard Hot 100 number 23 hit and soon became a deep soul classic. A total of three further singles including a reissue of “Cry to Me” were released on Jubilee with “His Kiss”, which was released on January 4, 1964, another deep soul ballad, reaching the lower part of the Billboard Pop and R&B charts. In 1964, Betty Harris switched record labels to Sansu, a New Orleans label, where she was produced by Allen Toussaint. Her recordings with Sansu produced ten singles and Toussaint raw yet sophisticated Southern soul arrangements behind Harris’ rich, distinctive vocal, are considered prime specimens of the classic soul era. Soul Perfection, originally licensed on UK label Action in 1969 , was in fact a collection of her previous works on Sansu, a rare groove affair rapidly in demand between a crowd of obsessive fans all over the world. Harris retired from performing in 1970 to raise a family and made an occasional return in 2007 with the album Intuition.

More than anyone, Blind Willie Johnson embodies the archetype of the cursed bluesman. Despite the fact that his records have sold fairly well at his time, or that one of his ballads (Dark Was The Night, Cold as the Ground - that also gives the name to this compilation) was included on the Voyager disc launched into space in 1977, the American singer/preacher has lived his whole life in total misery. However, his powerful voice fascinates. His guitar style, a mixture of picking and slide, will influence several generations of musicians. And like many of his contemporaries, it was not until the 1960s that his talent would finally be recognized at its fair value (via the work of the brilliant Reverend Gary Davis).

Garage rock supergroup The Surfing Magazines have announced Badgers of Wymeswold.

Consisting of one half of Slow Club and two thirds of The Wave Pictures, The Surfing Magazines’ primary influences are Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground and all the great surf guitar music of the 1960s. They burst onto the scene with their eponymous debut album in 2017, a lauded LP described by Record Collector Mag as “a vintage-yet-modern rock’n’roll classic”.

Mixing the noir surf textures of 1960s garage rock along with west coast sun beaten harmony pop, the 17-track Badgers of Wymeswold follows the acclaimed debut and is to be released July this year. The London based foursome recorded the album at Ranscomb Studio in Rochester in February last year before the start of the first UK lockdown.

Pushing their sound forward, the band utilise their garage rock ethic and have both Drummer Dominic Brider and Rhythm guitar player Charles Watso lead on vocals across multiple tracks. The album sees a return of free form saxophone parts, eerie violins and piano all appear, notably on tracks ‘Nostaw Boogie’ and ‘I’m Going Out Tonight To Play Some Pool’. The title track is drawn from David Tattersall’s nightmare vision about his home town's population of self-governing people, the album artwork was also made by Tattersall and depicts a collage of his referenced dreams. The extensive LP showcases their characteristic sound at their brightest, from softer ballads such as ‘Poppies’ and ‘Silver Breasts’, surf guitar rock anthem ‘Locomotive Cheer’, and to the six bar blues ‘Pink Ice Cream’.

Nach Nino Rotas Meisterwerk „Amarcord“ präsentiert CAM Sugar mit „Profumo di Donna“ einen weiteren
Soundtrack-Klassiker in seiner „Heritage-Serie“.
Der Film von Dino Risi wurde 1975 bei den Filmfestspielen von Cannes gezeigt, im folgenden Jahr fand
er internationale Anerkennung mit zwei Oscar-Nominierungen für den besten ausländischen Film und das
beste Drehbuch. Der anhaltende Erfolg des Films veranlasste Hollywood, 1993 ein Remake mit Al Pacino
in der Hauptrolle zu drehen, der für seine Leistung einen Oscar als bester Hauptdarsteller gewann.
Der von Armando Trovajoli, einem Meister der italienischen Filmmusik, komponierte Score ist eine wunderbare Melange aus Orchesterklängen, Jazz, Easy Listening und sogar einer Prise Disco. Der bekannteste
Track ist „Che Vuole Questa Musica Stasera“, eine von Peppino Gagliardi gesungene Ballade, die Guy
Ritchie in seinem Film „The Man From U.N.C.L.E.“ (2015) erneut einsetzte.
Die Musik erscheint jetzt von den Originaltapes remastered, auf LP mit einem bisher unveröffentlichten
Track und auf CD mit acht unveröffentlichten Songs.

Recorded over the course of three years, the album features the contributions of over a dozen musicians, including Sam Doores (Hurray For the Riff Raff, The Deslondes), and Kinsey Lee (The Wild Reeds). There is a level of craftsmanship demonstrated in Thompson's songwriting that is rarely come by, as is the special
attention he gives to arrangement on these songs. Each track is its own living world, tied together by a distinctive overall aesthetic. Strings, clarinet, and steel guitar accompany a Slim Whitman-esque lullaby followed by muddy, howling, liveto- tape garage rock. Meanwhile, extravagant pop ballads are contrasted by stripped-down guitar-and-story folk. Thompson's sincere, expressive, and singular
voice threads together an odyssey of an album that makes for a familiar, strange, moving, and exciting debut.Duff Thompson is a songwriter, producer, recording engineer, and co-founder of New Orleans-based label Mashed Potato Records.