Cerca:bedroom

Proper Monday Number is an electronic duo from Brighton, UK featuring Suzi Horn of cult DFA act Prinzhorn Dance School and producer Christoph Boseley. Their Deep clean your house EP is a sure shot of cynicism-defying DIY dance-pop spanning five tracks in 15 minutes, not a second or minute wasted. The ingredients may be familiar - mid-2000s electro and bassline, 90s house, those shitty, overused speakers in your teenage bedroom - but the attitude is ever forward. Fun with a purpose.

"Chasing the funky symphonies that filled my head and my dreams..."

December 25th, 2023 - an Instagram post. Stimulator Jones shared half a dozen FIRE tracks from his beat tape archive. We were immediately drawn to the rough hewn boom bap.

"I'd release that", Rob commented.

Hours of material was shared and the result is this: Cool Green Trees (1999-2005). A collection of beats and loops Stimulator Jones created between the ages of 14-20 at home in his basement, bedroom and computer room in Roanoke, Virginia.

You will not believe the profound soulful genius contained within these naive schoolboy melodies.

December 25th, 1998 - 25 years ago to the day and his much-coveted Yamaha SU10 sampler was finally bestowed upon young Stimmy AKA Sam Lunsford: "I immediately hooked up a CD Walkman to the input jack and looped the beginning two bars of Grover Washington Jr.'s "Mercy Mercy Me". I don't know what exactly was so thrilling about hearing two measures of music repeating over and over but it was so infectious and hypnotizing and enthralling to me. I'll never forget that ecstatic rush of making my first loop - an uncontrollable, gleeful smile plastered all over my face." When you hear the pocket breakbeat symphonies featured here on Cool Green Trees, you'll feel the same sense of frisson.

In the wake of his Stones Throw breakthrough - Exotic Worlds & Master Treasures - Stimulator Jones was pegged by many as a 90s throwback artist. However, he literally IS a 90s artist. He's been recording music most of his life and he's now 40. He created the bulk of Cool Green Trees as a teenager. Everything before 2004 was recorded when Sam was still in school. He was in 8th grade when he made the 1999 tracks - he didn't even have his learner's permit. This album is a snapshot of a young man in a simpler time. Things were still mysterious back then and he was flying blind, relying on his ears and having to figure things out for himself: "I had no road map for becoming a beatmaker. I have been collecting music since I was a kid, I am a lifelong digger and seeker of cool and interesting sounds. I was there in the golden age of Hip Hop, and while I may have been a suburban white kid in Roanoke, Virginia, I was tuned in and I bought so many classic albums when they came out. I was attracted to Hip Hop because of the musical and poetic quality. I was hypnotized by the rhythms, partially because I was a drummer. I didn't brag about collecting my breakbeat records or making beats - it was something I did in isolation. It wasn't something I generally wanted to bring attention to and it didn't really score me any cool points. I certainly wasn't flexing on social media about it."

Hell, he can do that now!

Opener "Pharoah Jones" was inspired by Yesterday's New Quintet and Madlib's ability to capture that classic 70s sound whilst playing all the instruments. Sam created this one stoned afternoon by laying down a 2 bar loop and a shaker loop on his Yamaha SU700 sampler. He hung a microphone from the ceiling and played his Yamaha Stage Custom drum kit over the top before adding ender Rhodes and playing his dad's Selmer tenor sax through an Electro Harmonix Memory Man echo pedal. Yes! Up next, "Ghost Gospel" utilises a dope loop from a gospel record and adds some soul-funk drums overtop, whilst working that filter knob. Says Sam: "The loop reminded me of something Ghostface would rap over. The sample was in 3/4 waltz time but I flipped it for a 4/4 groove, a technique I picked up from RZA. "Ill Feeling" uses sped-up pieces from a dusty old funk record and putting them over a classic NOLA drum loop; gain chopping up a slow, bluesy 3/4 time signature and bending it to a 4/4 groove. Classy shit. "Capital Punishment" features drums tapped in live, inspired by MF Doom's Special Herbs series. "Do Not Adjust" consists loops found on a compilation of 70s French music at Happy's Flea Market, a classic Roanoke digging spot.

The sublime, evocative title track, "Cool Green Trees" was created when Sam was still living at home. He dumped samples off his SU10 into the family desktop and arranged them in a demo version of Pro Tools: "This track was sort of my ode to the DJ Shadow style of sample based production. Super spacey, slow, and moody. The heavily filtered drums were inspired by Alec Empire's 'Low on Ice' album. I later added some scratches and sounds from a Spider Man storybook record." "Chill Scratch" snags the final bit of a bossanova record and pairs it with a drum loop before adding experimental scratching run through an Electro Harmonix Memory Man echo pedal. "Poisonous Fumes" was made using a sampler, mixer and a turntable; a kind of mixtape beat collage with added scratches and sounds from various records. Using dialogue from superhero records was a nod to Madlib. "Welcome Aboard The Starship" is dark, downtempo trip-hop with a spooky bent. Sam paired a slow, hard drum loop with a guitar sample grabbed off a psychedelic rock record. To finish, he added various backwards sounds and weird atmospheric effects and a little scratching. Swoon.

Side B opens with "Keep On Runnin", made on a borrowed Roland SP202 sampler. Having always loved the sound of the Lo-Fi filter on those machines, reminiscent of the Emu SP1200, Sam always imagined Del or another of the Hieroglyphics crew rapping over this beat. You can certainly hear why. "Sounds Impossible" sees Sam experimenting with layering multiple kick samples at different volumes to create patterns similar to those heard by Showbiz and Lord Finesse during their God-level 1995 period. "Painted Faces" was made by chopping up a REDACTED record which he had gotten from Happy's Flea Market and paired it with a REDACTED drum loop. By the time Sam recorded "The Knew Style", he had acquired a shitty old 1960s portable turntable off eBay. It didn't function properly when he bought it but his brother opened it up, cleaned it out and got it working: "I remember he told me that there was a bunch of sand inside of it when he opened it up, as if its previous owner had taken it to the beach. I would take that turntable on my Happy's Flea Market digs so I could preview records...that's how I found this loop."

"Chicken Wing Blues Sauce" loops up a classic blues joint and pairs it with some REDACTED drums. A bit of filtering and arranging et voilà! "Kool Breeze", from 1999, is one of Sam's oldest surviving beats, as is "Sexx Bullets". The Roots sampled the same record, leaving Sam frustrated yet vindicated. "Soul Child" was an early SU10 creation, looping a dusty old Soul Children 45 and pairing it with 70s rock drum loops to great effect. "Take Off Runnin" was another loop found digging with a portable turntable. Paired with some boom bap drums it makes for a hypnotic head-nod groove. "Centurian" was intended to be a little beat interlude a la Pete Rock. The sample is from a sun-dappled soft-psych record and it's paired with a Robin Trower drum loop that just happens to fit perfectly. Sometimes you slap things together kind of haphazardly and magic happens. "Bozack" was the first beat Sam made using Pro Tools, his first foray into using chopped sounds instead of loops, an exciting new world. "Church" is beat interlude using a Phil Upchurch loop with the "Long Red" drums - a favourite break of Dilla et al. Sam was really on a tear in late 2004, probably because he was unemployed and phoneless and able to just make beats all day. He made "Splash One" on a borrowed Yamaha SU700 and again was experimenting with tapping the drums in live with his fingers, instead of using a loop or sequenced pattern. Channeling 9th Wonder, Sam used a water splash sound effect from a Batman record as a percussive element, hence the title (also a 13th Floor Elevators reference). The main loop is a backwards portion of one of his favourite Roy Ayers songs.

"Hank" is another fun little beat interlude thing, created on a borrowed Roland SP202 sampler with the fantastic Lo-Fi effect that resembled the Emu SP1200 at a fraction of the price. "73 goatee", from 99, is another of his oldest surviving beats, created in his bedroom with his Yamaha SU10 and his brother's Vestax MR-300 4-track recorder: "This one will always feel special. I can remember having a feeling all the way back then on the night that I created it that this was a solid beat with a catchy loop. There was something in the Fender Rhodes melody that resonated with me emotionally, and I had never heard a producer sample that portion before. I felt like I had found my own unique sound, my own unique loop. It came from an Ahmad Jamal '73. I actually even recorded myself rapping and scratching over this beat way back then, I still have that version in all its imperfect sloppy glory."

Sam explains just how much these tracks mean to him: "They all have immense historical and sentimental value and I'm proud of them. These beats come from an innocent, simple time when I was just figuring out how to craft these sounds. They're something very personal to me. They are the initial part of a journey that I really was taking *alone*. There was no YouTube. I couldn't Google shit. I didn't even know any other beatmakers, producers or DJs in my town that could teach me anything. It was always just me, alone, in a room with some equipment - chasing the funky symphonies that filled my head and my dreams. What I was doing wasn't cool. Most of my peers thought I was a weirdo and couldn't care less. Creating these sounds was an anti-social endeavour. In a sense, I felt like it was me against the world, and all I had to instruct and assist me were the recordings produced by my heroes - RZA, DJ Premier, Erick Sermon, Beatminerz, Showbiz, Diamond D, Beatnuts, Prince Paul, The Bomb Squad, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, E-Swift, Mista Lawnge, DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, Peanut Butter Wolf, El-P and so many more...I dedicate this collection to them, and to my older brother Joe who has always been a musical and technical guiding light for me.

This was a time before every kid was a self-described producer and beatmaker, before everyone had a DAW, before Kanye and "chipmunk soul", before Red Bull beat battles, before there was any social media beyond chat rooms and AOL Instant Messenger, before Soundcloud, before SP-404 mania, before lo-fi beats to study to, before Splice, before targeted ads for MIDI chord packs, etc. In 99 when I told people that I had a sampler and made beats I was mostly met with bewildered confusion and indifference. Kids and adults alike would wonder why I got this weird machine for Christmas instead of something worthwhile like a Playstation or a mountain bike or even a guitar for that matter because at least that could be used to make "real music". Back then, sampling was still not widely respected as an art form - it was seen as lazy, talentless and unoriginal at best and outright criminal theft at worst. I had gotten respect for playing drums and guitar and things of that nature but this was a step in the wrong direction in the eyes of many."

The cover photo is a picture of Sam standing on his back porch in the latter part of 1998, just before he got his first sampler. He was 13 years old, in 8th grade. His dad took the picture with his 35mm film camera: "I actually wanted to be pointing my dad's .22 pistol at the camera lens but he wouldn't let me. He gave me an old walking cane to use instead. The Tommy Hilfiger puffer jacket came from the lost and found at William Fleming High School where my mom worked as a secretary. I was thrilled when she brought it home because we never spent money on expensive name brand clothing like that - we were for the most part strictly a sale rack, bargain bin, thrift store, yard sale, flea market kind of family when it came to clothes. My watch is some cheap off-brand fake gold department store watch." Mastering for this vinyl edition was overseen by Be With regular Simon Francis and it was cut by the esteemed Cicely Balston at Abbey Road Studios to be pressed in the Netherlands by Record Industry.

[b] A2 Bedroom Eyes, Double Bass [Upright Bass] – Fred Chalenor




[g] B7 Tiger Tatoos, Resonator Guitar [National] – Bill Frisell


[j] B10 Devil's Hootenanny, Alto Saxophone, Clarinet – Amy Denio, Banjo – Danny Barnes, Double Bass [Upright Bass] – Fred Chalenor

Rémi Klein debut studio album, Friend In Need will be released on June 20, 2025 by Tricatel.

Behind his keyboards, between the walls of his bedroom or in studio, Rémi Klein fashions music that is both intimate and generous, instinctive and precise. He is a craftsman who composes, arranges and produces with obsessive meticulousness. Playing with LORD$, Please and now Clara Luciani, he built up a collective experience before recording his own album.

Signed to Tricatel, his first album, Friend In Need, due 20 June, is a plunge into his cinematic universe, where the lush orchestrations of Hollywood's golden age rub shoulders with the best of songwriting. His music and songs, rooted in the present and the future, are visceral and innovative. It's the music of today and tomorrow at its most promising and audacious. There are a million new tracks a week on streaming platforms, no two albums like Friend in Need and no two artists like Rémi Klein.

Iori Wakasa, one of the leading lights of the Tokyo club scene is set to release his second 12” from his own label, “BOTANICA” which he established to express his own primal sensibilities.

The Concept of the Label:
Tokyo-based DJ/producer, Iori Wakasa launched BOTANICA to assert that his label’s activities in itself is art and a palette for his creative, self-expression. It is also based on 2 main concepts: To integrate the sensibilities of both "nature" and “artificial and human activities" and to “contribute music that presents a scenery from the listener's point of view”.

For Iori, his label is an interface of some sort and is also a symbol of his own personal musical expectations.

Iori produced these 2 new tracks during the recent pandemic when the world was under severe restrictions. While taking into account and focusing on both 'his current outlook' and returning to “the roots of his own production aesthetic', he strived to produce something that would substitute it and as a result, created these two new tracks and the artwork that are presented in the label's second release, 'The Party Is Here EP’.

In this EP, he also attempts to express the sentiment that 'the experience that music provides to people is invaluably infinite' and that 'if you truly want to go out and party, it will happen, then and there!’.

About the tracks:
For the track, ’Bedroom Disco’, Iori tries to express his memories of 'a virtual night of partying’ that he experienced during Covid and created this track while being ‘in a state of wanting to break free from oppression’ and reminiscing about a party in a bedroom at night.

He also wanted to express the idea that no matter what situation or environment you are in, you can go to anywhere you want if you really want to and with that sentiment, he wanted to express a scenerio that transcends it and at the same time, he also wanted to convey his feelings of nostalgia for the past, rebellion against the environment and his feelings of desire.

For this track, Iori did not use any sampled voices or field recordings and created it by layering pure sonic imagery repeatedly folded and desolved which triggered the creation of new developments while imagining the thought that “a party actually begins when you step out” and the swaying of emotions that take place from it.

’Tropica' is a track that Iori produced by heavily mixing a utopian feel that people have inside of them with his own sensuality and is designed to ‘guide you to a tropical seaside', regardless of what the listener may have experienced in the past.
Unlike 'Bedroom Disco', this track uses a variety of samples and envisages "many elements intertwining with each other, working together to create this sound structure”. And it also expresses that equal opportunity exists for anyone who wants to visit an imaginary tropical land as well as the hope that even a brief break of the mind can be created by yourself and those close to you, if one pursues it.

About the artwork:
The cover of this new EP, the concept text 'Is your window open?', and the label's logo was designed by illustrator, HILOSHI SHINOZAKI who also worked on the first release, BOTANICA EP. For over 10 years, he has been a regular visitor of Hawaii, where he tries to cultivate his "true way of life” in his art.

And, artwork for the cover and label design of the EP is complemented by the label design and art direction of the record by hiro, a graphic designer who has been his partner and best friend since the first Botanica EP.
hiro expresses Bedroom Disco track's shifting compositional changes and its complex series of sound waves by creating an intricately multi-layered design that is a perfect representation of the way he sees it.
Also initially inspired by the fluctuations of waves, islands, sun, rays, sky and time, the artwork of Tropica also found inspiration from a drawing that made by Iori’s daughter who drew a picture of a scenery when she listened to the track. So through this design, one of the label’s concept of “the label’s activities is in itself art” was realised via the surprising contribution coming from his own family.

Die Chicagoer Künstlerin Lipsticism verbindet auf ihrem Debütalbum "Wanted To Show You" auf einzigartige Weise Elemente aus Shoegaze, House, Hyperpop, Experimental-Pop und Ambient zu einem vollendeten Hörerlebnis, honigsüss und emotional mitreißend zugleich. Lipsticism ist das Soloprojekt der Produzentin Alana Schachtel aus Chicago. Zu den Höhepunkten ihrer Karriere zählen Auftritte und Tourneen mit Chanel Beads, Urika's Bedroom, Avey Tare (Animal Collective), Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Blue Hawaii und Jerry Paper. "Sie erkundet die Weiten schwebender Pop-Psychedelia und schwebt durch makellose, glasklare Klanglandschaften, gefärbt von sanften Melodien. Kosmisch." - Under The Radar

SWEARING AT MOTORISTS haben einen langen Weg hinter sich, seit der Name 1994 auf Plakaten für eine Fake-Band erschien Die hingen auf mysteriöse Weise in Plattenläden und Musiklokalen in Dayton, Ohio, Ein paar Monate nachdem die Plakate auf auftauchten kritzelte Dave Doughman den Namen auf eine Kassette mit homerecordings, die er an Freunde verschenkte, und 1995 war die Band dann offiziell geboren. Ende der 90er Jahre veröffentlichten S@M eine Reihe von 7"-EPs bei verschiedenen Labels, und nachdem sie wiederholt von John Peel gespielt wurden und die Presse weltweit positiv über sie berichtet hatte, erhielt die Band einen Vertrag mit dem damals neuen Label Secretly Canadian. Sie veröffentlichten 2 EPs und 4 LPs auf Secretly Canadian, darunter Number Seven Uptown aus dem Jahr 2000 und This Flag Signals Goodbye aus dem Jahr 2002, die beide in den Jahren ihrer Veröffentlichung vom MOJO Magazine zum Underground Album of the Year" gewählt wurden. Swearing At Motorists zogen 2005 nach Berlin, Deutschland, und veröffentlichten im folgenden Jahr ihre letzte LP für Secretly Canadian, Last Night Becomes This Morning, bevor sie leise in der nicht enden wollenden Berliner Nacht verschwanden... 8 Jahre später war die Band plötzlich in Hamburg wieder aufgetaucht, mit einem neuen Album: "While Laughing, The Joker Tells The Truth", das 2014 auf Anton Newcombes Label A Recordings Ltd. erschien. Co-produziert von Dave und Rick McPhail (von Tocotronic), erzählt das Album die Geschichten dieser verlorenen" 8 Jahre im klassischen Motorists-Stil. Der Autor Camden Joy, vielleicht eine weitere Underground-Figur der 90er/00er Jahre, beschreibt es am besten: "Like Iggy Pop's great lost Nashville record or the legendary demos for the Strokes masterpiece that never was, this recording is full of catchy courage, significant low notes, bedroom rhythms, hooks, and so on, all of which make for an impossible amount of pleasure. This Swearing At effort towers heads and squirrels above whatever that was you were just listening to. I see why Rolling Stone gave it five stars." - Camden Joy 11 Jahre später ist die Band in Hamburg erneut aufgetaucht, aus einer weiteren Auszeit und mit einem neuen Album, das im Herbst 2025 über BB*ISLAND erscheinen soll. Vor der Veröffentlichung stellen wir euch das Album von 2014 noch einmal, oder zum allerersten Mal vor. Vielleicht lag Camden Joy genau richtig. Zu gut, um vergessen und vergriffen zu sein. Das Beständige an Swearing At Motorists sind ihre Auszeiten als Band. Alles andere ist Bonus, aber das ist natürlich der beste Teil. "...While Laughing...demontrates Doughman's unerring abilitity to turn autobiographical minutiae and emotional turmoil into exquisitely heartfelt rock'n'roll poetry. From the warmly familiar powerpop chug of Groundhog Day (Damn The Piper) and Great Actress, to the tearjerker wistfulness of Wrote You A Letter and acoustic closer It's Love That Chooses You, this is classic Swearing At Motorists throughout...." - Andrew Carden/ MOJO

Howdy punkè rocke fans, welcome to FORCED COMMUNAL EXISTENCE - the wonderful and frightening world of ALIEN NOSEJOB’s EP’s & singles. Anti Fade and Agitated Records are teaming together to bring you a paint stripping, mind altering, rare collection of EP and compilation tracks recorded in various Australian bedrooms and garages between 2017 and 2022. The sound of goofy obnoxiousness will soon be permeating your bedroom airwaves and perforating your eardrums. Kicking off this long player is an EP that was recorded by Billy from Anti Fade in his childhood bedroom in July 2017. The songs came to fruition while AUSMUTEANTS were on tour in Japan 2016.

There was a lot of ‘WALLABY BEAT’ / ‘MURDER PUNK’ being played in the background while seeing the sites of Mount Fuji and ‘Bar Fuck Yeah’. In between shows Jake was organising the release of DANNY GRAHAM and PLASTIC AND THE EP’S records on the label he co-ran XEROX MUSIC. Both artists played parts in the sound and ethos of the PANEL BEAT EP. The goal was to make the songs sound unapologetically Australian without pretending to be something they’re not. There’s no fake accents or songs about VB and mullets. Instead, there’s songs about every day struggles, like dealing with fickle fashion followers, having too many fucking records, playing PlayStation, resentment and manipulation.

500 copies were pressed and self released, with a photo slipped inside each copy at random. Next is THE DEATH OF THE VINYL BOOM which was self recorded in a shed in November 2017. This is the only Alien Nosejob release (besides this comp, smartarse) to feature a cover - Flyblown by Adelaidean arty weirdo band JACKSON ZUMDISH. The idea behind this EP was to incorporate the simplicity and scrappiness of the late 70’s DIY Australian sound, but give them the complicated structures of prog songs. Scum stats - 500 copies, self released. Several copies were smeared with Jake’s blood and had smashed pieces of vinyl glued to the front cover.

Now we have a cover of the DEAD KENNEDYS. The conspiracy theorist wet dream Government Flu. Recorded September 2020 during lockdown in one-man-band with a tape recorder fashion for a 20 minute unedited ‘live set’ video where all instruments were played one by one, sung and mixed in the space of a couple of hours. The HC45 7” was recorded at the same time as a disco 12” maxi, which I hear were originally meant to come out on the same day. Shit happens I guess? This EP came out in Feb 2020 and sounds somewhere between early GANG GREEN, DIE KREUZEN and the BEASTIE BOYS old bullshit. Self recorded on a 4 track with a broken pinch roller. Lyrically this thing is cynical and choc-a-bloc full of satire and hate. A year later a sequel was recorded the same way, on the same machine.

No fucking disco this time though. Cold Bare Facts is the most recent recording on this comp. Self recorded in Jake‘s bedroom 2022 It has the same mid paced tempo as DYS or SSD when they’re at their slowest (pre-Boston Curse, of course!). Both songs take a stinky shit on the Australian state police. 300 copies. Finishing the record is a cover by THE AINTS. Originally written by ED KUEPPER for THE SAINTS Eternally Yours album, but it sounded too similar to Lost and Found. Originally released on ‘ALTA’ cassette compilation during the lockdown. FORCED COMMUNAL EXISTENCE binds this mouthful of releases into one neat package from June 6th, 2025. Catch the ALIEN NOSEJOB band on tour in Europe & UK from June 13 - July 2nd, 2025.

Howdy punkè rocke fans, welcome to FORCED COMMUNAL EXISTENCE - the wonderful and frightening world of ALIEN NOSEJOB’s EP’s & singles. Anti Fade and Agitated Records are teaming together to bring you a paint stripping, mind altering, rare collection of EP and compilation tracks recorded in various Australian bedrooms and garages between 2017 and 2022. The sound of goofy obnoxiousness will soon be permeating your bedroom airwaves and perforating your eardrums. Kicking off this long player is an EP that was recorded by Billy from Anti Fade in his childhood bedroom in July 2017. The songs came to fruition while AUSMUTEANTS were on tour in Japan 2016.

There was a lot of ‘WALLABY BEAT’ / ‘MURDER PUNK’ being played in the background while seeing the sites of Mount Fuji and ‘Bar Fuck Yeah’. In between shows Jake was organising the release of DANNY GRAHAM and PLASTIC AND THE EP’S records on the label he co-ran XEROX MUSIC. Both artists played parts in the sound and ethos of the PANEL BEAT EP. The goal was to make the songs sound unapologetically Australian without pretending to be something they’re not. There’s no fake accents or songs about VB and mullets. Instead, there’s songs about every day struggles, like dealing with fickle fashion followers, having too many fucking records, playing PlayStation, resentment and manipulation.

500 copies were pressed and self released, with a photo slipped inside each copy at random. Next is THE DEATH OF THE VINYL BOOM which was self recorded in a shed in November 2017. This is the only Alien Nosejob release (besides this comp, smartarse) to feature a cover - Flyblown by Adelaidean arty weirdo band JACKSON ZUMDISH. The idea behind this EP was to incorporate the simplicity and scrappiness of the late 70’s DIY Australian sound, but give them the complicated structures of prog songs. Scum stats - 500 copies, self released. Several copies were smeared with Jake’s blood and had smashed pieces of vinyl glued to the front cover.

Now we have a cover of the DEAD KENNEDYS. The conspiracy theorist wet dream Government Flu. Recorded September 2020 during lockdown in one-man-band with a tape recorder fashion for a 20 minute unedited ‘live set’ video where all instruments were played one by one, sung and mixed in the space of a couple of hours. The HC45 7” was recorded at the same time as a disco 12” maxi, which I hear were originally meant to come out on the same day. Shit happens I guess? This EP came out in Feb 2020 and sounds somewhere between early GANG GREEN, DIE KREUZEN and the BEASTIE BOYS old bullshit. Self recorded on a 4 track with a broken pinch roller. Lyrically this thing is cynical and choc-a-bloc full of satire and hate. A year later a sequel was recorded the same way, on the same machine.

No fucking disco this time though. Cold Bare Facts is the most recent recording on this comp. Self recorded in Jake‘s bedroom 2022 It has the same mid paced tempo as DYS or SSD when they’re at their slowest (pre-Boston Curse, of course!). Both songs take a stinky shit on the Australian state police. 300 copies. Finishing the record is a cover by THE AINTS. Originally written by ED KUEPPER for THE SAINTS Eternally Yours album, but it sounded too similar to Lost and Found. Originally released on ‘ALTA’ cassette compilation during the lockdown. FORCED COMMUNAL EXISTENCE binds this mouthful of releases into one neat package from June 6th, 2025. Catch the ALIEN NOSEJOB band on tour in Europe & UK from June 13 - July 2nd, 2025.

When Ella Hanshaw (1934-2020) first picked up the guitar as a 12-year-old girl in Procious, West Virginia, she dreamed of being a country star. But over the next 74 years, as she wrote hundreds of songs, her artistic goals slowly ascended to a higher realm. Ella Hanshaw's Black Book, lovingly compiled by her granddaughter from home and church recordings, features a selection of Ella's original gospel songs (Side A: Big Black Book), performed solo and with her Hallelujah Hill Quartet, and her broken-hearted country songs (Side B: Little Black Book) recorded in a back bedroom during quiet moments at home. Despite differences in style and intent, common themes remain the same across the sacred and secular sides of the record: love and longing for what we cannot quite touch—not yet, anyway—and the physical pages of possibility that we can hold in the meantime.

Fit for Consequences: Original Recordings, 1984–1987 is the first ever archival release from Repetition Repetition, the “two-man electric minimalist band” consisting of Ruben Garcia and Steve Caton hailing from Los Angeles in the mid 1980’s. Repetition Repetition’s unique blend of cosmic art-rock minimalism / maximalism was self-released across a series of cassettes produced in micro editions, and while garnering the attention and participation of luminaries such as Harold Budd, remained under the radar during the band’s existence. Fit for Consequences: Original Recordings, 1984–1987 collects select material from across the duo’s catalog.

It was over a plate of Mexican breakfast food when Ruben Garcia and Steve Caton first told Harold Budd of Repetition Repetition and the worlds they intended to explore by respective way of synthesizers and guitars --- a rendezvous instigated by the former’s fan mail to the legendary composer. If the upstarts entered this restaurant from a one-way street of admiration, they would leave with not only Budd’s interest but, sometime later, a blessing in the wake of many hours shared by the three in Garcia’s Los Angeles home recording studio: “This is going to be difficult, but God help them, I think they’re great,” noted Budd in a USC lecture in 1985. Now several degrees removed from prior rock music aspirations, the real game was afoot.

Between 1984 and 1988, Repetition Repetition operated within something akin to the underground of the experimental underground, although even that designation perhaps overstates the case. The duo’s sparse output consisted of three cassettes self-released on Garcia’s Third Stone Music label: Repetition Repetition (1985), Lakeland (1987), and The Machinist (1987). Their songs would also be included during this period on Trance Port Tapes’ vital scene-scanning compilations assembled by A Produce. Live performances occurred with similar infrequency, but Garcia and Caton counted converts in quality over quantity, numbering among them the aforementioned Budd, a Chambers Brother, and, judging by a memorably drop-jawed reaction following a rare Repetition Repetition gig, Jackson Browne.

Likewise, critical support materialized in the form of KCRW deejays Brent Wilcox and Dean Suzuki, whose steady airplay positioned Repetition Repetition’s music amidst fearless company like Jon Hassell, Hiroshi Yoshimura, and Richard Horowitz. Yet, to hear fellow Trance Port featured players like Tom Recchion and Bruce Licher of Savage Republic tell it, Garcia and Caton moved as ghosts --- a notion more vexingly endorsed by the silence of record companies that failed to come knocking --- and therein lies an overarching truth to the work itself.

Journey to the heart of Repetition Repetition and one discovers a collective ear impossibly attuned to the hypnotic possibilities of stylistic convergence, the resulting music possessed of seamless multimodalities which beckon to a glimmering plane of the disembodied. Where Caton sought his artistic fixes at an intersection of popular genres, Garcia zoned in on the sonically spare, drawing from the same wellspring as the Enos and Rileys of his personal avant-garde pantheon, and in their coming together the two tapped into a deeper cosmic source. Synthetic walls of keyboard sound in forever states of reprise met waves of shimmering --- and at times even punishing --- guitar in reply, their soundscapes hovering convincingly between, as suggested in fittingly dualistic fashion in a press kit assembled by Garcia, such disparate sensations as bird flight in one song and oil drilling in the next.

But don’t call it a push-pull dynamic, as this was a creative partnership founded upon fluidity and organicism by way of, naturally, repetition. In contrast to, say, the Bressonian ideal of repetitive motion as a great stripping away, the concept in the hands of Garcia and Caton equated to ascendancy via continuous unfolding, a maximal route to minimalism. To be sure, their recording philosophy morphed over the course of the act’s short history, and what started as a process defined by consistent in-person interplay developed into a more isolated method formulated by Garcia, who eventually took to his own one-man bedroom-studio sessions in order to fully chart any and all potential ostinato-loaded paths which he could travel down, the Tascam-captured resonances subsequently provided to Caton as blueprints from which to take flight himself, adding layer upon layer of steel to the proceedings.

If the practice and execution changed, however, the evidence certainly didn’t rest in the results: The seamlessness remained, and, despite the brevity of their time together, so has Repetition Repetition. With this finely calibrated collection of songs in Fit for Consequences: Original Recordings, 1984–1987, Freedom To Spend sees to it that the private worlds of Garcia and Caton can now be visited by all rather than just the count-‘em-on-both-hands lucky few whose musical endeavors or collector vocations carried them into this once-distant dimension.

Repetition Repetition’s Fit for Consequences: Original Recordings, 1984–1987 will be released on Freedom To Spend in vinyl and digital editions on May 30, 2025. The collection includes extensive liner notes from Bill Perrine, and wil be offered alongside Over & Over, a supplemental collection of music available exclusively as a mail order cassette from Freedom To Spend and RVNG Intl.

Keine 400 Songs später und nach etlichen Konzerten geht das Solo Projekt des 19 jährigen Ennio De Caro namens AIN'T UR ENN den nächsten Schritt.Das Album LANGUISH erscheint am 30. Mai 2025 auf Tomatenplatten. Aufgenommen wurde im heimischen Schlafzimmer in Luzern. Das Tonstudio heisst Garage Band. Die erste Trennung wird in Musik gegossen. Ennio De Caro schreibt die Songs, spielt alle Instrumente und singt. Die Drums sind programmiert. Die Emotion ist direkt. Krankhaft traurig, desillusioniert und überbordend energetische klingen die Lieder, die im Frühsommer erscheinen. Das Album heisst LANGUISH. Die Musik ist nicht einzuordnen - Herzzerreißender Bedroom-Pop trifft auf Japanese influenced Hyper-Indie-Pop-Rock. Y2K - Cybercore-Ästhetik trifft auf Emo. Rock and Roll trifft auf Autotune a la Julian Casablanca. Ist das dann Nintendo-Rock? Oder Alex G. auf Crack?

The promise of a Florry show, a now familiar caravan that has been honed over ambitiously trekked zig zags across America and Europe since the release of Dear Life Records debut The Holey Bible, is the redemptive promise and prodigal joy of rock and roll guitar music. Bred in the crackling warmth of the Philadelphia DIY scene, and forged with the alloys of community action, queer liberation and bedroom poetry, bandleader Francie Medosch and her absolute unit of collaborators have put in the work of sharpening their homespun tools to take up the mantle of the great lip-puckering rock and roll tradition pioneered by the likes of The Band and the Rolling Stones, but with proudly displayed Aimee Mann and Yo La Tengo bumper stickers on the rusty frame of the truck. At any second, the wheels could come off but they are steering just fine. For 'Sounds Like' Florry's sophomore effort as a fully realized band, Medosch and co. decamped to Drop of Sun studios in the nest of the Blue Ridge Mountains to record with Asheville wunderkind Colin Miller, a critical voice behind the records of MJ Lenderman, Wednesday and Merce Lemon and a powerful songwriter in his own right. Three powerhouse days in late 2023 solidified writing work done by the band earlier that summer in the now defunct Haw Creek compound under Miller's guiding suggestion. The result is a portrait of a ripping band cresting towards the height of their powers, uniquely equipped to capture a wildly loving, barn-burning camcorder clip of a turbulent trip with your best friends, without dipping into nostalgia bait. Lyrically, Medosch's utterances are both careful and excessive, the product of sifting through the rubble of classic good-time media, and finding what works for both her and her community to reach the heights of abandon. "The Jackass theme song was actually a really big influence on the new album" The expansive personnel and continent spanning footprint of Florry casts a wide net for this community. Florry the band rolls deep in the heard of North American DIY, featuring Jon Cox (Sadurn, Son of Barb) on pedal steel, John Murray on electric guitar, Collin Dennen on bass, Will Henriksen on fiddle, Katya Malison (Doll Spirit Vessel) on Vox, and Joey Sullivan (Bark Culture) on drums. Medosch's recent move to Burlington Vermont entrenches the Philly born project firmly within the ranks of fellow alt-country upstarts Lily Seabird and Greg Freeman, and gives them a vantage just outside of Pennsylvania at the thresholds of New England and the Midwest. There is a new life breathed into this music that confirms Florry as equally rooted in place work, and at home on the vast roads of America. For listeners who fell in love with Florry's infectious charm on sweeping tours with the likes of Kurt Vile, Real Estate, MJ Lenderman, Greg Freeman and Fust, 'Sounds Like', provides a refreshing memento of the band that surely left them smiling. If the support behind 'The Holey Bible' provided validation for the insistent vision of these young artists, 'Sounds Like' finds them reveling in and honing their vocabulary. Praise from outlets like Pitchfork, Stereogum, Paste, and Brooklyn Vegan touched on the potential of their wild idiosyncrasies, and accurately predicted that their next steps would see them continuing to write their own story, like a 10 car pileup that you can't take your eyes off if you tried. Florry proves that they can let the car spin just out of control whenever they want, and you are welcome to ride shotgun while Medosch does donuts in the WaWa parking lot. The ceiling, it turns out, is truly the roof.

The promise of a Florry show, a now familiar caravan that has been honed over ambitiously trekked zig zags across America and Europe since the release of Dear Life Records debut The Holey Bible, is the redemptive promise and prodigal joy of rock and roll guitar music. Bred in the crackling warmth of the Philadelphia DIY scene, and forged with the alloys of community action, queer liberation and bedroom poetry, bandleader Francie Medosch and her absolute unit of collaborators have put in the work of sharpening their homespun tools to take up the mantle of the great lip-puckering rock and roll tradition pioneered by the likes of The Band and the Rolling Stones, but with proudly displayed Aimee Mann and Yo La Tengo bumper stickers on the rusty frame of the truck. At any second, the wheels could come off but they are steering just fine. For 'Sounds Like' Florry's sophomore effort as a fully realized band, Medosch and co. decamped to Drop of Sun studios in the nest of the Blue Ridge Mountains to record with Asheville wunderkind Colin Miller, a critical voice behind the records of MJ Lenderman, Wednesday and Merce Lemon and a powerful songwriter in his own right. Three powerhouse days in late 2023 solidified writing work done by the band earlier that summer in the now defunct Haw Creek compound under Miller's guiding suggestion. The result is a portrait of a ripping band cresting towards the height of their powers, uniquely equipped to capture a wildly loving, barn-burning camcorder clip of a turbulent trip with your best friends, without dipping into nostalgia bait. Lyrically, Medosch's utterances are both careful and excessive, the product of sifting through the rubble of classic good-time media, and finding what works for both her and her community to reach the heights of abandon. "The Jackass theme song was actually a really big influence on the new album" The expansive personnel and continent spanning footprint of Florry casts a wide net for this community. Florry the band rolls deep in the heard of North American DIY, featuring Jon Cox (Sadurn, Son of Barb) on pedal steel, John Murray on electric guitar, Collin Dennen on bass, Will Henriksen on fiddle, Katya Malison (Doll Spirit Vessel) on Vox, and Joey Sullivan (Bark Culture) on drums. Medosch's recent move to Burlington Vermont entrenches the Philly born project firmly within the ranks of fellow alt-country upstarts Lily Seabird and Greg Freeman, and gives them a vantage just outside of Pennsylvania at the thresholds of New England and the Midwest. There is a new life breathed into this music that confirms Florry as equally rooted in place work, and at home on the vast roads of America. For listeners who fell in love with Florry's infectious charm on sweeping tours with the likes of Kurt Vile, Real Estate, MJ Lenderman, Greg Freeman and Fust, 'Sounds Like', provides a refreshing memento of the band that surely left them smiling. If the support behind 'The Holey Bible' provided validation for the insistent vision of these young artists, 'Sounds Like' finds them reveling in and honing their vocabulary. Praise from outlets like Pitchfork, Stereogum, Paste, and Brooklyn Vegan touched on the potential of their wild idiosyncrasies, and accurately predicted that their next steps would see them continuing to write their own story, like a 10 car pileup that you can't take your eyes off if you tried. Florry proves that they can let the car spin just out of control whenever they want, and you are welcome to ride shotgun while Medosch does donuts in the WaWa parking lot. The ceiling, it turns out, is truly the roof.

Punching our ticket for the tenth trip on the Drum Chums line, we rattle past the control centre, where Approach Release delivers another masterclass in genre-blurring brilliance.
Darting through emotional New Beat, psychedelic soul, stomping Afro-disco and coastal cosmic, AR keeps things right on track and perfectly off the rails.

'So Wrong' starts the party with a growl and a gurn, all gnarly sequences and robotic drums until that mournful vocal moves us into a land of Lynchian longing. Teardrops on the dance floor, clouds in your coffee, it's, it's, Goth Italo folks.

Shifting tone like McCrae shifted gears, Approach Release moves on from Main-Room Gloom into the smooth and sensual soul of 'LuvLuvLuv'. Low-slung, lilting, loose and lysergic, this versatile version-excursion works wonders as warm up and rub down, its brilliant bedroom vocals floating atop the synthetic and psychedelic groove.

Over on the B-side, 'E-Killa' bursts out the speakers with about 100,00 volts of Afro-disco energy, each one perfectly harnessed to whip a crowd into a grinning frenzy. Armed with an unstoppable arrangement, vital vocals and a stomping rhythm section, this delicious drink of tropical pop just keeps on fizzing.

For an encore, Approach Release drops the deeply dramatic 'Lou Cee', a full-hearted bit of Balearique-brilliance stacked with enough synth strings, faux-accordion and earnest outpourings to give Chris Rea a run in the anthem stakes.

100% Drum Fun Guaranteed. .

2025 Repress.
Originally released in limited formats in 2017 and having since been repressed several times, 2025 sees
a new pressing to acknowledge the enduring legacy of this recording. In 2024, the song Trees & Flowers
became an unexpected hit on Tik Tok and introduced a new generation to these timeless songs.

“1982 4-Piece Demo” is the first official, fully-licensed and unreleased material to be released under the name
Strawberry Switchblade in 30 years. Since disbanding amid major record label acrimony and personal differences
in 1986, the already-cult band have since grown in stature and legend. Trailblazers in many ways, the band’s
mythology justifiably centers around the charismatic duo of Jill Bryson and Rose McDowall, but that isn’t a
complete picture.

Bryson and McDowall’s growing friendship, having met some years earlier on the punk scene, became a creative
partnership: Bryson’s art school background and McDowall’s history in avant-punk group The Poets meant
Strawberry Switchblade was a band pitted against many established norms. The band’s very first incarnation,
an all-female 4 piece, recorded one demo at Glasgow’s Hellfire Club and played a handful of gigs. Friends
Janice Goodlett and Carole McGowan completed the line up on bass and drums respectively. Strawberry
Switchblade would eventually pair down to a duo and go on to chart success but it’s in these raw, passionate
recordings that the songwriting and vocal elements were being hammered out and explored in real time.
“Spanish Song” is a previously unreleased song. With Rose McDowall’s instantly recognizable lead vocal
dovetailing with Bryson’s harmonies and lead guitar, it’s the first glimpse at an alternative history of Strawberry
Switchblade. This incarnation could easily have been featured on a Nuggets compilation or a precursor to the indiepop revolution that would take over British bedrooms a couple of years later. Trees & Flowers is instantly
recognizable, a bona fide classic that would earn the band its first record deal. Here it’s given a more forceful rhythm
section: Goodlett and McGowan’s playing is in fact accomplished and doesn’t hint at the bands’ youth. Go Away
would also surface later on the band’s debut LP but here it is a moody-garage stomper with a psychedelic, haunting
refrain.

These 3 songs point to a tantalizing future of the band that was never realized.
Remastered and restored by Sean Pennycook from the original cassette, with artwork based on a single
photographic contact sheet (the only visual evidence of the band in this form) and with a booklet of photographs and
new text from contemporary Stephen Pastel.



Spanish Song' is a previously unreleased song. With Rose McDowall's instantly recognizable lead vocal dovetailing with Bryson's harmonies and lead guitar, it's the first glimpse at an alternative history of Strawberry Switchblade. This incarnation could easily have been featured on a Nuggets compilation or a precursor to the indie-pop revolution that would take over British bedrooms a couple of years later. "Trees & Flowers" is instantly recognizable, a bona fide classic that would earn the band its first record deal. Here it's given a more forceful rhythm section: Goodlett and McGowan's playing is in fact accomplished and doesn't hint at the bands' youth. "Go Away" would also surface later on the band's debut LP but here it is a moody-garage stomper with a psychedelic, haunting refrain. These 3 songs point to a tantalizing future of the band that was never realized.


Remastered and restored by Sean Pennycook from the original cassette, with artwork based on a single photographic contact sheet (the only visual evidence of the band in this form) and with a booklet of photographs and new text. Pa

1982 4-Piece Demo' is the first official, fully-licensed and unreleased material to be released under the name Strawberry Switchblade in 30 years. Since disbanding amid major record label acrimony and personal differences in 1986, the already-cult band have since grown in stature and legend. Trailblazers in many ways, the band's mythology justifiably centers around the charismatic duo of Jill Bryson and Rose McDowall, but that isn't a complete picture. Bryson and McDowall's growing friendship, having met some years earlier on the punk scene, became a creative partnership: Bryson's art school background and McDowall's history in avant-punk group The Poets meant Strawberry Switchblade was a band pitted against many established norms. The band's very first incarnation, an all-female 4 piece, recorded one demo at Glasgow's Hellfire Club and played a handful of gigs. Friends Janice Goodlett and Carole McGowan completed the line up on bass and drums respectively. Strawberry Switchblade would eventually pair down to a duo and go on to chart success but it's in these raw, passionate recordings that the songwriting and vocal elements were being hammered out and explored in real time.


Spanish Song' is a previously unreleased song. With Rose McDowall's instantly recognizable lead vocal dovetailing with Bryson's harmonies and lead guitar, it's the first glimpse at an alternative history of Strawberry Switchblade. This incarnation could easily have been featured on a Nuggets compilation or a precursor to the indie-pop revolution that would take over British bedrooms a couple of years later. "Trees & Flowers" is instantly recognizable, a bona fide classic that would earn the band its first record deal. Here it's given a more forceful rhythm section: Goodlett and McGowan's playing is in fact accomplished and doesn't hint at the bands' youth. "Go Away" would also surface later on the band's debut LP but here it is a moody-garage stomper with a psychedelic, haunting refrain. These 3 songs point to a tantalizing future of the band that was never realized.


Remastered and restored by Sean Pennycook from the original cassette, with artwork based on a single photographic contact sheet (the only visual evidence of the band in this form) and with a booklet of photographs and new text. Pa

Yuno's full-length debut, Blest, out May 16 on Sub Pop, finds the enigmatic indie-pop visionary transforming the emo-tinged suburban malaise of his 2018 Moodie EP into more expansive, widescreen pop drama - suited for big moves and bigger stages. The kaleidoscopic sound he devised as a millennial hermit in his childhood bedroom in Florida has since broadened his horizons, taking him on tour with Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Superorganism, and soundtracking various series for Netflix and HBO. Imbued with elements of dream-pop, rock, trap, and psychedelia, his eclectic songs serve as bids for love and connection, which especially in the fractured era of social media, have resonated with many listeners who find solace in his vulnerability. Yuno's superpower lies in the way he mines a multitude of genres for their pop potential and surfaces with a tapestry that feels novel and fresh. Take, for instance, "Blest," the immediate, blissful, and bright title track, which is inspired by Rich Harrison-breakbeats and Neptunes-esque jangle. Or the breezy single, "True," in which Yuno moderates a lover's quarrel with slick, trap percussion. Amid the breakbeated dream-rock of "Gimme Ocean," he introduces his guitar solo with a searing emo scream, run through an EarthQuaker Devices pedal. Don't let his sanguine aura or his sherbet pink wardrobe fool you; he can shred as hard as he wants to when he wants to. All songs on Blest were written and performed by Yuno, co-produced by Yuno and Frank Corr (Morning Silk), who also contributed keyboards, drums, and guitar throughout the record, with additional production and instrumentation by Patrick Wimberly (Chairlift) at The CRC in Brooklyn, and Nick Sanborn (Sylvan Esso) at Betty's in Durham, NC. Blest was mixed by Steve Vealey and mastered by Joe La Porta.

Kumachan Seal: solo project of Japanese vocalist / songwriter / producer Sairi Ojima, who has been playing in numerous indie bands, including Neco Nemuru, since her teens. She began her solo career in 2013, and released her first cassette in 2017. This EM Records release is her first CD/LP album, with all compositions by Ojima, who co-produced the album. Each of the eleven songs reveals beguiling layers of detailed and surprising sounds, with Ojima's DIY sonic core embroidered by vibrant and colorful beats and guitar from EM artist Le Makeup and the quintessential ambient-pop synths and keyboards of fellow EM-er Takao. Le Makeup mixed ten of the eleven songs, with Takao mixing "China Sandwich". The heart of Ojima's musical identity is her clear, aque- ous voice; apart from one instrumental, all the tracks here feature that mellifluous voice, but in an interesting twist, only half the songs have lyrics, with the remainder employing her wordless voice as melodic and textural elements. Although Kumachan Seal can be heard as a sort of bedroom pop filtered through ambient music and the new-age revival, listeners will note that the final two songs, "Atsumono" and "Tiny Cell", are respectively a slightly skewed four-on-the-floor track and a lightly skanking Doo-wop- flavored confection, slightly reminiscent of the UK's Brenda Ray. This album, full of Ojima's calm and cool observation of the world, is available on CD, LP and DL, and includes an English lyric sheet.

Timbeau bezeichnet seine Musik schlicht als Pop - und meint damit seinen ganz eigenen Mix aus Synthpop, Neuer Deutscher Welle und Indie-Postpunk mit Discoeinflüssen. Als Multiinstrumentalist erschafft er intime und authentische Songs, die sich auf humorvolle und zugängliche Weise mit schweren Themen wie mentaler Gesundheit oder kritischer Männlichkeit auseinandersetzen. Seine Texte sind auf deutsch, wobei er es darauf anlegt, das Cringe-Gefühl der deutschen Sprache zu zelebrieren. Timbeau ist ein Grenzgänger, der großen Wert auf das Visuelle legt. Seinen Musikvideos ist das in der Liebe zum Detail deutlich anzumerken. Nach erster EP `Wundersam' in 2020 mauserte sich das Projekt Timbeau vom DIY-Bedroompop zur versierten Studioarbeit mit Bandintervention. Das Debutalbum `Sensitiv' ist nun da! In Der Stadt Havarie Brut Diorama Urlaub Jammertal Sensitiv Heute Nacht Melatonin Katamaran

With Short Circuit Control, Berlin electronic duo Diagram (made up of Brian Jonestown Massacre guitarist Hákon Aðalsteinsson and Fred Sunesen) re-emerges ith a refined yet unpredictable sound, a testament to resilience, collaboration, and the endless possibilities of analogue synthesis. What began as a bedroom project by Aðalsteinsson culminated in the debut album Transmission Response (2019, Fuzz Club), a raw and exploratory work that set the foundation for what was to come. When Sunesen joined, Diagram evolved into a live act, carving out a space for itself in Berlin’s underground music scene. Built on mechanical rhythms and eerie textures, their second album Short Circuit Control plays with tension and release, its analogue pulse imbued with a restless, human energy. There's a hypnotic, almost ritualistic quality to the music, where modular synths hum and crackle, beats loop and fracture, and melodies emerge like ghostly transmissions from some distant, flickering signal. The result is an album that feels both controlled and unpredictable—moody, immersive, and always teetering on the edge of something unknown. It is released on P.U.G Records, the new label from the Psychedelic Underground Generation music blog.

Taba voices a subtle yet surprising shift for the Japanese musician and producer Satomimagae. Observing and absorbing the fleeting scenes and sounds of life flowing outside of her home studio, Taba unfolds as a series of vignettes that document the personal and the universal. Satomi sings beyond herself in an orbit of souls and systems known and unknown, seen and unseen, in the present and in the strange flux of memory, leaving linear songwriting to rest for circuitous stories expanded and expansive in tone and texture. Following the logic of taba, a Japanese term for a bunch, bundle or grouping together of different things, the album is assembled as a loose collection of short stories. Shapeshifting into something like a poet-narrator, Satomi casts her writer's eye to the often perplexing shapes that form from quotidian events and exchanges defining our increasingly alienated age. Where Satomi's last full-length, 2021's Hanazono, bloomed from the lush soil of a private inner sphere, the bird's eye of Taba searches to place the artist_somewhere, somehow_within a wider, wilder world. Collaborations with other artists and musicians close to Satomi's universe further elevate the album's sweeping sonics. Synthesizer lines from Norio, who also helps define the album's visual identity through photo and video, enliven the tender ballad "Kodama." The bell-like Rhodes piano ringing in and around Satomi's guitar on "Dottsu" is played by Akhira Sano, who created the cover art for her 2021 Colloid EP. Yuya Shito's clarinet was the missing puzzle piece that completed "Spells," and it was also Yuya who mixed Taba with an ear for its organic textures and elegantly frayed edges, giving utterance to a distinctly different energy than Satomi's earlier expressions. The tonal and rhythmic play that lay the foundation of these songs also animates a colorful palette of melodic gestures, noisy resonances and pointed moments captured by Satomi's close-at-hand recorder. While Taba is still carried by the innate intimacy that has defined Satomi's music to date, these songs channel her newly spacious and inquisitive songwriting approach, unlocking unusual layers in the process. Some are subsumed in the speculative poetics of sound design, while others peer through the window of bedroom pop. Gathering imagistic reflections, tracing vast ideations and quietly lingering in humble moments, Taba connects vivid lines between the individual and the collective, the constructed and the cosmic, the articulated and the felt. Satomi's sonic tales gain an eloquent coherence by the simple fact of existing in conversation, humming a harmony of parts that buzzes with the tangled circuitry of a life in motion. Taba is the fifth album from Japanese musician, songwriter and dream traveler Satomimagae, following her 2021 album Hanazono and the 2023 reissue of her debut album Awa, both for RVNG Intl. On Taba, Satomimagae leaves linear songwriting to rest for circuitous stories expanded and expansive in tone and texture, unfolding as a series of vignettes that document both the personal and the universal. Some of the songs on Taba feature intimate moments captured on Satomi's hand recorder, poetic moments of sound design animated by tonal and rhythmic bedroom pop foundations. As with Hanazono, Taba's album artwork features a wooden block print by Satomi's sister, the artist Natsumi Magae.

Emerging from the suburbs of North London in the early 1990s, Hulusi was an experimental electronic music collective formed by four friends of multi-ethnic origin: Cypriot, Caribbean, Indian and English heritage. Cultivating their musical practice within very specific parameters of time and space, Hulusi instills the essence and spirit of the acid house movement (and its aftermath) that had taken much of England by storm from 1988 onwards. The ‘Dream’ EP was the collective's first release of their self-funded and limited output, offering up a categorically elusive record that could soundtrack the most esoteric and life affirming club moments, whilst simultaneously satisfying the ears and obscure desires of those found dwelling in the heavily occupied ‘chill out’ rooms and nocturnal after parties. As the emerging UK rave scene aligned with newfound accessibility of music production, the late 80s and early 90s became a fertile ground for experimental electronic music, spawning a generation of bedroom and basement producers interacting with and creating music for often the very first time. Like many, Hulusi was a musical project that connected the dots between DIY spirit, technological advancements and the burgeoning cultural phenomenon of acid house. The project operated outside of the then perceived, traditional band conventions, instead developing their sound and exchanging ideas through the format of demo tapes and floppy disks, nurturing their work through individual bedroom studios and feedback sessions. Considered a crucial and possibly defining element of the record, is Hulusi’s unconscious exploration of the groups hybrid cultural identity. Rooted in a shared desire for self-invention, the Dream EPreflects Hulusi's response to a world of rapid musical and technological change. Each track on the record draws inspiration from both Western and Eastern musical frameworks, symbolized through the record’s structure. The ‘Western Side’, featuring "Dream," echoes the ambient techno and acid house influences of early rave culture and bands like 808 State and Orbital. In contrast, the ‘Eastern Side’ of the record is highly decorated with samples, yet stripped back, through its purposeful use of organic sounds, reflecting the group's fascination with blending Western modernism with imagined Eastern themes. Despite operating in near obscurity, Hulusi - The Dream EP acts as an audible catalyst to transport the listener to a different time and place, offering a lucid snapshot into the musical and cultural explorations of the past whilst simultaneously remaining a timeless piece of music.

Hailed by Pitchfork for his “ambient, intimate…songs that blossom gently with intricate musical details and enigmatic lyrics,” Conner Youngblood gained early acclaim with a series of self-released singles and EPs before breaking out internationally with his 2018 full-length debut, Cheyenne, which fused electronic and analog elements into a lush mix of bedroom pop and chamber folk. Youngblood toured the record heavily until 2020, when the pandemic forced him off the road and, hungry for fresh inspiration, he began enrolling in Russian, Danish, Spanish, and Japanese language lessons. He didn’t realize it at the time, but those classes weren’t just expanding his vocabulary, they were laying the groundwork for his most ambitious, experimental album yet: Cascades, Cascading, Cascadingly.
 
Written and recorded at home in Nashville, the collection is a dreamy series of meditations steeped in desire and yearning, loneliness and loss, exhilaration and escape. The lyrics blur the lines between fact and fiction, toying with magical realism and outright abstraction in various languages, and the arrangements are surreal and cinematic to match, hinting at everything from Cocteau Twins to Atoms For Peace. In addition to producing and engineering, Youngblood played every instrument on the album himself, and the result is a pure, unfiltered journey deep into the subconscious of a relentlessly curious artist, one with a boundless imagination and an insatiable appetite for sonic exploration. 

Lean back on the beat. Inhale, exhale. A new voice from an old soul. Kick drum rolls deep with Fender Rhodes. Charlotte Day Wilson sparking up a blunt, skateboarding at midnight with Brittany from Alabama Shakes. Jazzy intonation on a funky tip. Utterly confident in its own sense of time. Just in time. 

You may not have heard of GC O'Connor before, but ask any working musician in Sydney and they know her name. A stalwart of the scene, multi-instrumentalist and composer O'Connor has been putting in the work for years, quietly dropping gems as she readies her debut EP, a self-described 'bedroom soundtrack'. Soul Lament is the kind of assured, accomplished record we delight in putting out into the world. It's representative of a fertile scene in Australian music that deserves celebrating. 

Includes an individually-numbered, specially-designed obi strip.

In the winter of 2022, Holy Wave had a week off after a short tour that ended with a show in Los Angeles. The band found particular glee in playing those shows at that time, as they weren't sure they'd ever be doing that again just a few months prior_this batch of songs results from hanging out with some very good friends at Studio 22. "The band have fashioned themselves into mainstays in the world of gauzy psychedelia, infusing dream pop soundscapes with colorful instrumentation, lush melodies, and weighty pathos." - Under the Radar Magazine"_narcotic neo-psych with synthed-out bedroom-pop undertones." - Shindig Magazine"_lush-yet-tempered instrumentation that's undeniably pleasant, if not downright attractive." - Flood Magazine"The sound of Austin's Holy Wave has been getting progressively dreamier with each successive release, their music lush and immaculately arranged." - Post-Trash"Wonderful aural tones, meandering genteelly." - Narc Magazine

*180g virgin leaded vinyl in a deluxe textured heavy gatefold cover, with paste-on artwork and special anti-static innersleeve.* Note: The pressing is absolute on point!!!!

Vincent Gallo and Harper Simon with a beautifully recorded suite of songs and instrumentals.

" More than two decades since he blew minds with a suite of brilliant releases on Warp, Vincent Gallo returns to the world of music at long last in Butterfly, his duo with Harper Simon, with the project’s full-length debut, “The Music of Butterfly”. A gesture of gentle, DIY / bedroom left-field pop, falling within the rough territory for which Gallo became renowned during the late '90s and early 2000s, while interweaving fascinating flirtations with minimalism and experimentalism, it’s a truly captivating piece of work that’s hard to get off the turntable after the first needle drop.

In the arts, the lines between genius and madness, as well as fact and fiction, often blur. Such, it seems, has always been the life of the artist, filmmaker, actor, musician, and composer Vincent Gallo. A cult figure and a member of various creative undergrounds for the better part of half a century, Gallo has courted controversy, ruffled feathers, and made some of the most singular statements to flirt at the outer edges of popular culture that can be called to mind. Arguably most well known for his work in film, during the late '90s and early 2000s - notably with his soundtrack for “Buffalo 66” and a suite of releases on Warp - Gallo became something of a sensation in the world of independent music for a visionary, incredibly unique and sensitive approach to sonority. For a time, the world was abuzz, waiting on bated breath for more, and yet time passed. Bar a few fragments, appearing here and there, almost nothing has been heard from Gallo, within the world of music, for more than 20 years. That is, until now, with the release of “The Music of Butterfly”, the debut full-length of Butterfly, his duo with Harper Simon: beautifully produced and issued by Family Friend Records - Gallo’s own label, founded in 1981 - in a deluxe edition that simply left us speechless: 180g vinyl in textured heavy gatefold cover with paste-on artwork and thick anti-static innersleeve. More or less picking up from where we last encountered him, spinning captivating melodies and gentle song-craft within the quieter temperaments of DIY, left-field pop, once again, and at long last, Vincent Gallo, encountered in an incredibly successful collaboration with Harper Simon as Butterfly, reminds us that he’s as much a force within the realm of music as he is within film. Not to be missed. This one isn’t going to sit around for long.

Vincent Gallo’s biography reads like the stuff of blaring beauty: a figure of moderate fame in his own right, who has remained at the centre of cultural ferment as the decades have rolled by. Born in 1961, in Buffalo, New York, as the story goes he ran away to New York City at the age of 16 and fell into the brewing counterculture of the Downtown scene, William Burroughs and John Giorno, in addition to the cream of his own peers, and began making paintings, music, and experimenting with film. In addition to being a member of the now legendary band Gray, with the artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and the filmmaker, Michael Holman, Gallo appeared in the cult 1981 film “Downtown 81”, before slowly beginning a career as an actor and catching the eye of Claire Denis, who brought his talents into the broader cultural gaze. Catapulted into the public by his own subsequent career as a filmmaker with “Buffalo '66” (1998) and “The Brown Bunny” (2003), both of which were marked by controversy and praise, Gallo further captivated the public with a partially brilliant, if not relatively brief, flurry of activity in the realms of music.

While Gallo had already been making music for roughly two decades at the time of his release of the “Brown Bunny” soundtrack, and the four release issued by Warp in rapid succession between 2001 and 2002 - “When”, “Honey Bunny”, “So Sad”, and “Recordings of Music for Film” - the almost fanatical fandom reached a fever pitch at the moment, allowing him, for some, to be regarded as much, if not more, as a musical artist than an actor and filmmaker. Anyway you cut it, in a few short years, he proved himself to be a polymath of rare talent. Somewhere along the way, while both were working as members of Yoko Ono's Plastic One Band, Gallo met the New York based, highly regarded singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer, Harper Simon, who also happens to be the son of Paul Simon. The pair fell into an incredibly fruitful duo collaboration, which came to be called Butterfly, and “The Music of Butterfly” being their debut full-length release.

Written, performed, and recorded by Vincent Gallo and Harper Simon in New York City between the winter of 2018 and the spring of 2019, the ten tracks comprising “The Music of Butterfly” are cumulatively a gesture of gentle, DIY / bedroom left-field pop, falling within the rough territory for which Gallo became renowned during the late '90s and early 2000s, making one feel like barely a moment had passed since we’d encountered his graceful hand at song-craft. Stripped back and raw, while retaining a sense of warmth and intimacy, across the length of “The Music of Butterfly” the duo of Gallo and Simon weave something completely captivating at the juncture of minimalism, experimentalism, and pop: meandering moments of texture and tone, slowly forming toward flirtations of melody that flower into song and back again. Somehow playful and light, while also remarkably emotive and personal, it’s almost as though each of these tracks crystallised out the air, unlabored and exactly as they should be without a note or beat more.

An engrossing immersion into both Gallo and Simon’s remarkably accomplished minds, having followed the path toward one another after radically different experiences and careers, “The Music of Butterfly” is one of those records that’ll be hard to get off the turntable after that first needle drop, and rarely leave the listening pile for some time to come. Issued by Family Friend Records in a beautiful deluxe edition that is unmatched even among the most stunning recent productions we can call to mind - 180g vinyl in textured heavy gatefold cover with paste-on artwork and thick anti-static innersleeve - it’s lovely to have Gallo back in the musical mix after so many years. "

As a founding member of Dublin experimental folk group Lankum, Ian Lynch explores submerged leylines of music and song. Forging a musical path that is all at once dark, mysterious and foreboding, but ultimately transcendental. His new solo project One Leg One Eye sees him taking a fresh approach to musical arrangement culminating in a sound that is more rooted in the raw aesthetics of second wave black metal than contemporary folk. The project was born across 2021, a period in which Lynch was able to enjoy the freedom of experimenting and exploring different paths of sound design without expectation or pressure. Seeking out interesting settings to record music and gather field recordings, there are several environments, external and interior, whose respective essence have seeped into the spirit of the music and come to represent Lynch’s artistic approach and development with this singular debut album, …And Take The Black Worm With Me. Rediscovered spaces in Dublin and the familiar enclave of his bedroom are intrinsic to the distinct and sometimes harrowing atmosphere conjured throughout the album’s five enveloping compositions. One particular location, an abandoned factory where his father worked when Ian was a child, provided a space of great inspiration and intrigue during this time. Lynch frequently visited the large abandoned warehouse and sang with his shruti box, contented in his solitude. ‘I’d Rather Be Tending My Sheep’, grew into existence from those initial sessions, eventually finding a home as an emotive centrepiece to the album. Reflecting on the overall recording of …And Take The Black Worm With Me, Lynch says, “Everything I was doing with these songs was all kind of new to me; experimenting with different sounds, textures and palettes and seeing what I could come up with by piecing it all together. I spent about a year making the album. I loved the whole process because it was basically just me in my bedroom recording everything. The experience of recording like this and having my own time to do it was amazing. I could focus on recording a specific element and happily spend all day working on that one part, doing it as many times as I wanted. At the end of the day if it didn’t feel right, I could just try it again the next day. When you’re on your own you can spend as much time as you want on particular parts until you feel that it’s absolutely perfect. I found that to be a really liberating experience. It was probably my favourite experience recording music.” The collection of songs (and their chronology) featured on …And Take The Black Worm With Me tell a story unique to Lynch’s experiences with anxiety and recognising his shadow self. Whilst the album became an outlet of personal expression for Lynch, the overarching themes and subsequent journey to confront one’s internal dichotomy of light and dark before accepting this inherent duality is universally shared. The eerie and often unsettling world contained within the album’s texturally dense opener ‘Glistening, She Emerges’, driven by the captivating drone of distorted uilleann pipes, immediately immerses the listener in this transportive work. It descends with a great heaviness, yet woven throughout the arrangement is a fascinating and indescribable entity that draws you further into this otherworldly dimension. This mood continues as the tracklist progresses and transitions into Lynch’s haunting realisation of ‘Bold and Undaunted Youth’ which further demonstrates a cinematic influence to Lynch’s compositional style. Sonically, Lynch effectively builds an impressively vast terrain with brilliantly murky lo-fi recording techniques and an unshakable curiosity to move beyond conventional structures and play with the timbre of the instruments available to him. From recording hurdy-gurdy or concertina to tape and experimenting with loops and effects pedals to stitching field recordings together, there’s an intimacy established between Lynch and his audience established through the simultaneously eerie and beautiful tones courting through …And Take The Black Worm With Me. This culminates in ‘Only the Diceys’, the extraordinary closing track in which we reach a place of resolution mapped into the album’s narrative structure. Mixed by longtime collaborator John ‘Spud’ Murphy in his Dublin-based Guerrilla Sounds Studio and mastered by Harvey Birrell …And Take The Black Worm With Me features contributions from Ruth Clinton (Landless) on church organ and vocals by Laurie Shanaman (Ails, Ludicra). Of Shanaman’s participation, in particular, which further illustrates the lo-fi and DIY ethos to the recording, Lynch says, “Laurie is my favourite black metal vocalist of all time and so I reached out to her hoping to have her involved in some way. She did, and she features on the opening track by providing some incredible screams. She recorded them into her phone and sent them over to me; what appears on the album is literally a phone recording of her screaming in her kitchen!” …And Take The Black Worm With Me continues Ian Lynch’s groundbreaking work with Lankum; recontextualising traditional forms and generating new spheres of music in his wake, confirming his status as one of the most interesting and innovative artists working in Ireland today.

Dedicated to the power of pop music, Sobs are Singapore’s premier indiepop propagandists. After releasing a breakout bedroom pop EP Catflap and a dream-jangle LP Telltale Signs that brought international embrace, Sobs now assemble a front-to-back indiepop behemoth – Air Guitar – after a much anticipated three-year wait.

A thirty-minute trip for the post-Internet consumer, Air Guitar calibrates inventive pop hooks for the indie rock lover, instantly accessible yet intricately arranged. The album draws a line through the history of pop stylistics from 80s new wave ("Last Resort") and 90s power-pop ("Burn Book") to 00s sk8er punk and radio pop ("Air Guitar"). Further informed by the cosmopolitan, culturally astute ethos of PC Music – Sobs connects the uptempo of Shibuya’s Advantage Lucy ("Lucked Out"), heart-on-sleeve indie rock of Bettie Serveert and Big Star ("World Implode"), with the eclecticism of New York’s Darla Records ("Friday Night") to define the pulse of indiepop then and now.

180g black vinyl - limited to 200 numbered copies.

"What is my heart now"is the debut solo album by Ziemowit Klimek, known so far from bands such as Immortal Onion, Hania Rani, and Magda Kuraś Quintet. It is a cycle of five improvised compositions – "What," "Is," "My," "Heart," and "Now" – unified by a unique artistic concept, with each piece created in collaboration with a different musician.

The creative process for each of the five duets began with a conversation between Ziemowit, the guest artist, and the video team. Deconstructing the title word into its fundamental elements through questions like "What does 'What' mean? What emotions and associations does this word evoke in us? How can we capture its essence in sound and image?" became the starting point for artistic exploration.

To preserve the authenticity of the material as much as possible, both sound and image were recorded live, with no cuts or post-production editing. Equally important was the choice of spaces that corresponded to the meaning of each title word. Instead of sterile studios, the recordings took place in a variety of unique locations – "Heart" was captured in Ziemowit's most personal space, his bedroom, while "Now" was recorded inside a car during a dynamic drive, where the physical forces acting on the musicians significantly influenced their decisions while playing.

The album resonates with dialogue – not only musical but also emotional and intellectual. It is a meeting of individualities who, for Ziemowit, are not only inspirations as artists but also significant people in his life."What is my heart now"is an album about defining one's identity and capturing the moment, created in an atmosphere of honesty and trust. Ultimately, the question arises: is it even possible to definitively answer the question posed in the album's title?

"What Is My Heart Now"

Ziemowit Klimek (Double bass, Bass, Piano, Moog)

feat.

Krzysztof Hadrych - Guitar

Michał Jan Ciesielski - Saxophon, Volca

Hania Rani - Piano

Mikołaj Kostka - Violin

Jacek Prościński - Drums

QUEENDOM is an album that marks a new era for the project while staying true to the essence of Minuit Machine. Produced under the SYNTH RELIGION label, this opus immerses us in Amandine's introspective realm, oscillating between darkness and light, between doubt and self-conquest. While retaining the emotional DNA of previous productions, QUEENDOM stands out with a more pop-oriented touch, featuring tracks where Amandine sings in French for the first time.

The first single, "HOLD ME," is a powerful pop anthem addressed to the queer community, celebrating the freedom to be oneself and breaking free from societal and patriarchal norms. This track is a true empowerment statement, with striking electro beats supporting a strong message of emancipation and pride.

"Créatures," a collaboration between RAUMM and Minuit Machine, is a modern fairy tale—a timeless love story that could take place in any era. This salvific love, rarely seen today, embodies a poignant depth and beauty.

Continuing the journey, "Cent Fois"—a French-written track—takes us into a techno-pop universe with nostalgic yet hopeful undertones. This song perfectly reflects Minuit Machine's evolution toward a more radiant approach while staying faithful to its dark heritage.

"Party People," on the other hand, is a return to roots with dark wave/italo sounds. This hypnotic and haunting track questions identity in an increasingly robotic society, where individuals are forced to conform to imposed norms. This exploration of the individual versus the collective lies at the core of Minuit Machine's DNA.

"Mes Souvenirs," created in collaboration with Rebeka Warrior, dives intimately into the memories of Amandine and Rebeka. Together, they reveal fragments of their past—precious and vibrant memories that resonate through powerful and melancholic electro sounds.

Finally, the eponymous track "Queendom" invites us to plunge into the depths of Amandine's world—a universe that is both tormented and icy, yet resilient. Supported by a slow and captivating rhythm, this track is designed to grip and haunt the listener, like an incantation.

QUEENDOM is a bold and hybrid work where each track reflects a pursuit of sincerity and artistic reinvention while maintaining the ability to express emotions through rhythms that are both danceable and introspective. The album showcases Minuit Machine's artistic maturity, establishing itself as a must-listen in the darkwave and electronic pop scene.

Amandine entrusted the artistic direction of this album to Manon Dupeyrat, a brilliant young artist who crafted a bespoke universe perfectly aligned with the produced tracks. The album cover, both intimate and anachronistic, invites listeners into Amandine's private world through her bedroom, revealing what she wishes to share.

Donny Benét is an adult Entertainer, Hit-Maker, Attentive Lover- and one of Australia’s most acclaimed- and experienced Jazz-Musicians. He has toured Europe- and the UK five times through 2017/2018, playing Festivals & Headline-Shows in 14 different Countries- and will be returning in 2020! The Don’s gigs are rammed with 20-somethings partying like a scene out of Miami Vice.

Recorded in the infamous Donnyland-Studios using the finest Japanese, American & Italian synthesizers, The Don speaks to the heart, promising love as soft as Italian leather. Donny’s immaculate Armani grooves hint at the dancefloor and the bedroom The Don is transportive. ‘Night In Rome’ opens the shutters of your hotel room onto a view of The Colosseum, ‘Reach The Top’ thrusts you on a frenzied race to success through the streets of NYC.

‘Working Out’ urges you to break a sweat wherever you may be. ‘Konichiwa,’ is a song assmooth as the silken tofu from whence the song’s spirit is inspired, and ‘Santorini,’ an ode to love worth fighting for along the crystal-waters of the Aegean Sea.

New album “Mr Experience” due for Release on 22nd May, 2020

Nouveau monde is the fourth album from Jonathan Personne, also known as the singer, guitarist and lyricist from the Montreal-based indie rock band Corridor. Bringing together previously unreleased songs from different eras, the LP is by no means an outtakes album. Assuming the mismatched quality of his compositions, Jonathan Personne opted for a “bedroom” production just polished enough to create a cohesive bond that makes this melodic jumble a real tour de force. The result is an album whose “mixtape” structure echoes that of ’90s classics such as Check Your Head by the Beastie Boys or early Beck records, which shaped Jonathan Personne’s youth.

Recorded in Tilburg between February and April 2023 at Catacomben Studios
De Droom sees Noctambulist diving deeper into post-punk and shoegaze
influences while retaining the fierceness of their debut record Elegieen
What sets De Droom apart from the first record is that the writing was done with the
entire band on board whereas full song ideas used to be presented by a few
members. The songs this time around are just that, songs
While De Droom is not a concept album most songs reflect on the beauty of a
mediocre co-habitual existence while also struggling with the seemingly impossible
dream of homeownership. The album cover features a bedroom of a derelict villa,
reflecting the themes of hope, failure and heartbreak present on the album.

Ltd Classic Black Vinyl with bonus 7inch, DL card. Monde UFO, LA-based duo of Ray Monde and Kris Chau, are a monochromatic sunset for the senses. A sonic journey through psychedelia, space rock and jazz. A cosmic space where Spacemen 3 meets Vanishing Twin, by way of Sun Ra. 7171 perfectly embodies the framework of lo and hi-fi sounds which have helped define the band. Included in this expanded package is Four Songs, Monde UFO's radical interpretation of Fugazi's music, housed for the first time on LTD 7" with new artwork. In a downtown Los Angeles warehouse, on 7th Street, Ray Monde began writing songs on an old Yamaha church organ for a project that eventually became Monde UFO. Utilizing the organ as a bass, alongside keyboards and a drum machine, he began making demos on a four-track cassette recorder. Heavily influenced by the musician Sandy Bull, sonically landing in a similar no-man's land of Worldly Jazz and Psych Folk. Monde experimented with the themes mostly of meditation and UFO lore. In time Ray moved in with the artist Kris Chau. With little crossover in musical tastes, they exclusively started listening to jazz, ambient and new age music in the house. Increased interest in sound baths and experimental music led to seeing music in a different light. Envisioning something that would sound like Don Cherry making a record with Yo La Tengo. '7171' is an amalgam of influences, interpretations and otherworldly sounds channeled through genre bending experimentation. This expanded edition of '7171' includes the sought after 'Four Songs' EP, a reimagining Fugazi's early classics, songs that take on a life of their own, lost amongst the haze and sugar sweet psych. Ray Monde explains, "Long Division was one of my favorite tracks off 'Steady Diet of Nothing' the first Fugazi record I ever owned; more than ever, it also feels truly poignant in the times we live in.Version 2 is our interpretation of Version from 'Red Medicine', my favorite Fugazi Record." "A slice of low-key bedroom pop-psychedelia in the vein of Syd Barrett." Aquarium Drunkard "Monde UFO wander through a humid mist of exotic samba shuffles, shamanic whispers, and reverberating laser beam synthesizers." New Commute

She’s out of this world…

Maltese musician & producer Joon’s galactic debut arrives on our shores fully formed a decade after she first set sail. 12 cuts of uniquely addictive Synthesized Pop twist & turn on the rocky waters of life.

Her story begins after a life-changing car crash on the streets of Malta many moons ago. She was lucky to walk away in one piece. “That car crash was a wake-up call,” she says. “It made me realize how precious life is & I started living the life I felt was worth living.” Inspired to finally pursue her love of music full time, she began collecting instruments. Starting with a Stylophone& a vintage rhythm box, she started documenting ideas. Returning home to Malta after a few years in London, she only met one other woman making electronic music on the island. Driven by the desire to make music possible & accessible for the next generation, Joon co-founded the Malta Sound Women’s Network.

Ten years later, she sends us messages in a bottle from across the Mediterranean Sea. Armed with a Moog & her ethereal voice, she transmits hope & joy from a bedroom somewhere between Sicily & North Africa. Her music is right at home alongside outsider pioneers like Fever Ray, Grimes, Laurie Anderson & Molly Nilsson. Dream Again glides across heavy rhythms & eclectic electro. Telling stories of alienation with a throbbing heartbeat & space-age melodies, she lets us into her ultra-vivid world where anything is possible. Produced by Johnny Jewel, the album shines bright like comet orbiting the label’s dark sky, a much-needed vision of light on the horizon.

“Even if I’m sad or heartbroken, I remain optimistic. I want to grow old with no regrets.”

It’s time to Dream Again…

For this special release, we’re excited to unveil something brand new: a triple vinyl, perfect for casting a spell on your Halloween night

Witches brew and cauldrons bubble, as Halloween stirs up an eerie trouble! Step into the world of spooky beats with Lofi Girl's 'Halloween 2024' compilation. Featuring talented artists from around the world, this potion of ghostly rhythms and haunting melodies sets the mood for a night of chills and thrills. Whether you're conjuring up potions or unwinding under the moonlit sky, let the witchy magic of these chilling beats take over your Halloween night!

HotWax are a band set on experiencing life at its most intense. In the past two years, the Hastings-via-Brighton trio – comprising Tallulah Sim-Savage (vocals/guitar), Lola Sam (bass) and Alfie Sayers (drums) – have toured the world over, clocking up over 150 dates, including shows with Royal Blood and Frank Carter, and major festival appearances at Reading & Leeds and All Points East. Out of all this comes debut album Hot Shock (due March 7 via Marathon Artists), a record of adrenaline-jolted anthems about abandoning fear and leaping boldly towards the future.

HotWax worked with an all-female production team at the prestigious RAK studios, Catherine Marks (Boygenius, Wolf Alice) and Steph Marziano (Hayley Williams, Let’s Eat Grandma), as well as additional recording with Stella Mozgawa of Warpaint in Joshua Tree, California.

These songs were made to be played to a crowd, loud and with abandon. But there’s also a beating pulse of vulnerability underscoring the album. It’s an honest, moving sentiment sure to propel HotWax towards becoming the UK’s next big crossover rock act – and beyond.

"Britain’s most thrilling and fiercely confident new rockers” - NME “they’re a total inspiration – wicked songwriting, stunning stage presence, and a sheer, raw, couldn’t-give-a-flying attitude that punches you to the gut.” - Clash

Julek ploski’s ‘Give up Channel’ is on mappa. It’s the follow-up to the Poland-based FL Studio demon’s ‘Hotel *’, released via Orange Milk in 2023.

It’s an album that wrestles against a shadow self. It’s about shelter from the hailstorm of unwanted memories and guilt pangs and serrated blades of thought. It’s about clinging on to some semblance of hope, knuckles taut and teeth gritted.

The fragmented drift of opener ‘Naysayer’ flows forward like an anxious daydream, pad eddies and piano plinks anchored by Trapaholics drops and bursts of guaracha drums. It’s a mess of mind: the bleakness of ‘Truth’ is punctuated by gun cocking and bullet spray and sudden jester-like blasts of unhinged, schizo-whimsical melody. An internal war without a clear winner.

Shame snakes through this music like venom through an emaciated body. Blue screenlight in a dark bedroom, pulsating temples, lockjaw. ‘Titanic’ hits like the thrashing resistance of a being built for love grappling against the scalding vengefulness it’s forced to contend with, the song’s abstracted rave synths giving way to warped voices and spiralling derangement. ‘Hollywood’ is a scarred battleground, the martial bludgeoning of a tightly wound hardstyle stomp blistering and shredding a delicate piano-and-string arrangement.

This music is about deep solitude, a meditation on simmering, slow-marinating hatred. But it’s ultimately about prevailing. It doesn’t revel in negativity, it roils and twists and writhes against it. Dots of light in oppressive darkness. Clarity and purpose against chaos and filth. It’s a struggle worth waging.










h I Was #AllAlone Movements V - VIII
[i] Economy [Movements I - IV]