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Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry, Henry Rollins... nur einige der Punk-Ikonen, die sich tief beeindruckt gezeigt haben von The Bobby Lees aus Woodstock, N.Y. Sam Quartin Gesang, Gitarre, Macky Bowman Schlagzeug, Nick Casa [Gitarre] und Kendall Wind [Bass] machen Musik, die von Geist und Seele her Punk ist; ungezügelt und entschlossen ehrlich.

Ein selbst veröffentlichtes DIY-Album (Beauty Pageant) erschien 2018 und erregte die Aufmerksamkeit des Garage-Rock-Impresarios Jon Spencer, der daraufhin das 2020er Album Skin Suit produzierte.

Im Jahr 2022 machte sich die junge Band, nun road-erprobt und entschlossener denn je, nach Nashville auf in die Sputnik Sound Studios, um Bellevue aufzunehmen, ihr Debütalbum für Label Ipecac Recordings, live im Studio mit Produzent Vance Powell (Jack White, Chris Stapleton, The Raconteurs).

Mit ihrem intelligenten und durchdachten Songwriting folgen The Bobby Lees ihrem Instinkt als Musiker und Freunde und arbeiten gemeinsam an der Entstehung der Songs. Der Sound ist düster, minimalistisch und viszeral, jeder Song eine Ode ans Außenseitertum.

Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry, Henry Rollins... nur einige der Punk-Ikonen, die sich tief beeindruckt gezeigt haben von The Bobby Lees aus Woodstock, N.Y. Sam Quartin Gesang, Gitarre, Macky Bowman Schlagzeug, Nick Casa Gitarre und Kendall Wind [Bass] machen Musik, die von Geist und Seele her Punk ist; ungezügelt und entschlossen ehrlich.

Ein selbst veröffentlichtes DIY-Album (Beauty Pageant) erschien 2018 und erregte die Aufmerksamkeit des Garage-Rock-Impresarios Jon Spencer, der daraufhin das 2020er Album Skin Suit produzierte.

Im Jahr 2022 machte sich die junge Band, nun road-erprobt und entschlossener denn je, nach Nashville auf in die Sputnik Sound Studios, um Bellevue aufzunehmen, ihr Debütalbum für Label Ipecac Recordings, live im Studio mit Produzent Vance Powell (Jack White, Chris Stapleton, The Raconteurs).

Mit ihrem intelligenten und durchdachten Songwriting folgen The Bobby Lees ihrem Instinkt als Musiker und Freunde und arbeiten gemeinsam an der Entstehung der Songs. Der Sound ist düster, minimalistisch und viszeral, jeder Song eine Ode ans Außenseitertum.

US Born, Manchester-based Avernian inaugurates his newest club-night turned-label venture, with the help of Stenny (Ilian Tape), Tammo Hesselink (Delsin) and Jabes (Timedance).

The first four-track compilation comes to form with opening piece 'Kembow' by Ilian Tape mainstay, Stenny; a pacy bass-ridden roller, executed to devastating effect with razor-sharp synths that stab down into the midrange of the speakers like daggers, sitting atop dread-ridden sub frequencies.

Label-founder Avernian follows suit, already being widely recognised for rowdy releases on imprints such as More Time, Fever AM and Scuffed Recordings. 'Power Stance' continues the 12" with elephant trunk synthesis, and a galloping, low-mid frequency rumble that is second to none.

Jabes (Timedance/Klunk) delivers 'Rite'; a deeply tense excursion with harrowing sound-design and analogue delays that dance around a playful stereo field, mixed down to extreme, scientific hyper-precision.

Closing out the record is Tammo Hesselink (Delsin/Nous'klaer Audio) supplying 'Water Plus' with a neck-snapping groove of warm and distorted, polyrhythmic claps that have been self-recorded among a frenzy of foley lines that spiral into fun and friendly dancefloor adrenaline, bringing the compilation to a clean close and leaving the listener pining for the label's follow-up.

For Fans Of.. Durand Jones & The Indications, Frightnrs, Thee Sinseers, Jr. Thomas & The Volcanos, Bobby Orozo. Producer, songwriter, and member of Thee Sinseers. Upcoming LP on Colemine Records. Joey embodies the East LA sweet soul scene, and it now dipping into reggae! As the leader of the modern Chicano soul outfit, Thee Sinseers, and releasing a string of singles as a solo artist, Joey Quinones and his crew have recently been ushering in a new era of modern soul. It is the type of music that shares a genesis with the birth of soul and R&B sounds emitted from the classic lowrider cruising down Whittier Boulevard to the sunshine-y vibes of traditional ska and dancehall reggae. And with his debut 45 on Colemine, Quinones shows that he's adept at not just the slow and low, but also the mellow sounds of early reggae. We are proud to present "For You" by the ever-sweet and oh-so-talented Mr. Joey Quinones.

Ghent based psych jazz collective Compro Oro, are set to release new album 'Buy The Dip' on the 2nd September via the groove-obsessed Sdban Ultra label. Having received critical acclaim for their 2020 album 'Simurg' - a collaboration with Murat Ertel, co-founder and frontman of Istanbul's cult psychedelic folk band BaBa ZuLa and his singer partner Esma Ertel - the band's fifth album is less ethno- and more techno-logy, both on a musical and conceptual level.

With tastemaker fans including BBC 6 Music's Gilles Peterson and Stuart Maconie alongside Jazz FM's Jez Nelson, the band's spontaneous quest for psychedelic sounds and jazz grooves has not stopped expanding since their formation in 2014.

After imaginative musical trips to Havana, Mogadishu and Istanbul for previous releases, Compro Oro went looking for sounds and inspirations from other corners of the globe for 'Buy The Dip'. Synthesizers and electronic effects spice up Compro Oro's distinctive musical marriage of vibraphones, electric guitars, jazzfunk rhythms, exotic percussions and dubby bass patterns. Band leader and composer Wim Segers created these new compositions often on piano or vibes in a more analogue way, leaving enough room for his band mates to colour each track when fine tuning the song.

Segers was inspired by the world of crypto markets and the specific concept of 'buying the dip': bitcoin diggers who play the markets at specific 'low' moments to gain higher profits when prices go up again. Are we all reduced to consuming creatures, seeking for nothing more than the thrill of pointless spending and endless profits? It's a fairly philosophical question - especially for an instrumental album - but it's key for the punchy and eclectic sounds on 'Ben Hur' and 'Bitcoins'.

Apart from those synths and fx, a fair bunch of neo-noir western vibes sprout up on this album as well - think detuned piano's, flamenco-like guitars, rattling snare drums, and imminent whistles. Add to that some laid back sunny pop sounds ('Kayak'), off-hook and swaying Turkish psychedelica ('Karsilama') and even some haunted, kraut-ish vocal parts ('Dungeon'), it's evident Compro Oro has a musical voice without any equal in Belgium and beyond.

Compro Oro released their first album 'Transatlantic' in 2015, an ode to jazz vibraphonist Cal Tjader, an icon of the 1950's Latin jazz movement. The release received critical acclaim back home, lauded in the press as a drunken mix of Buena Vista Social Club and guitarist Marc Ribot's, Cubanos Postizos. Subsequent live shows have been called a celebration for the hips, the ear and the soul.

2017 saw the release of 'Bombarda', a bold EP that sailed South and East of Cuba, incorporating different ethnic rhythms and melodies in elaborate jams. No palm trees and cocktails in Havana this time, but instead dingy basements and LSD in West African cities. The critically acclaimed 'Suburban Exotica' followed in 2019 with 'Simurg', released in 2020, earning the band global success.

SoHaSo continues their summer sampler series. Again, the Utrecht based record label brings you some forgotten beauties from the past. Mostly from the Lowlands this time. Perfect Virtue by British trio Shi Take is one of those gems. Tribal house rhythms from 30 years ago, with a bassline that makes you want to wiggle all the way to the center of the dance floor. SoHaSo label head honcho Nuno had been playing a demo of Tools for Fools by Dutch producer Sluwe Vos for years, when he found out the energetic rhythm track never got a proper release. Well, now it has. Flip over for some more forgotten Dutch house history. Jibaros is a project from dance veteran Eric Cycle. It has all the elements that made house music from the lowlands so good in those days: percussive beats, a decent baseline and good melodies sprinkled on top. It's a layercake of sweet stuff that just keeps on building. Very pricey on Discogs nowadays, but luckily Cycle still had the original DAT-tape lying around. Nozem is a bit of the odd one out. It's actually a project by a young dude from the south of Holland but it sounds like he stepped into a time machine which warped him back to the 90s. The vocals (in ancient Greek!) are from Sister of Iris. Closure track Tinkling Sensation by Delta (Alex Dijksterhuis) is more than 25 years old. With it's fast-paced rhythms this piano driven tune could well be something post-progressive from Scandinavia. But this is the real deal. Uplifting rave music from the days people were still carrying fluor sticks.

Born in Girona, Spain and based in Berlin since 2019, Alex Busse' Santacruz's Ameeva project previously came to life on the Lowless music label in 2020 and the album 'Fractura del SueNo'. His live set for the 9128 Birthday event took these experimental electronics to a deeper, more personal level, weaving friends' samples and conversations into a rich tapestry of drone and field recordings, creating an immersive and enveloping 40-minute narrative. That's been captured here by the 9128 label, which aims to document significant live performances by artists that previously performed on the 9128.live platform, with results that are imaginative and impressionist, like clouds of synths and other soundscapes with the serene relentlessness and sense of purpose as molten lava moving down the mountainside.

It has only been four catalogue numbers in the past since.....

Generali Minerali (Tbisili/Georgia) cooperated with RNBWS and made a fuzz. This time he’s on a solo path, or - according to the title - maybe alongside Kim Jong-un?

“Batteries aren’t low” gets to the heart of Generali’s sense for sounds: Softly billowing Electro, a vocal sample which kinda sounds like P. Diddy and harmonies that could well have been on “Selected Ambient Works II”. Come on, let’s go!
Point before line calculation or cryptic code? We don’t know for sure, but “5-5-6:5-6-5“ remains true to the ambient focus of the a-side. Retro 90s vibe, cosmic, prancing and floating - like stumbling into the chill out area for the first time on a muzzy Sunday morning.

“I got it” comes in significantly more abstract. Harmonies give way to industrial sounds, without vanishing entirely. Electric boogie with litte acid nuances - beautiful prelude to the b-side!
In terms of acid, „Smooth D“ puts a few blotters on top. A combination of psych sounds, dirty raw drums and trippy sequences. Two tickets for the 90s time capsule, please.

It’s common knowledge that KOMPAKT’s TOTAL series serves as our yearbook, a musical wrap up of the past 12 months. Therefore it doesn’t come as a surprise that this year’s edition is informed by another pandemic year, where dancefloors were still mostly deserted and the devastating developments in Eastern Europe. Kompakt’s A&R team still kept on foot on the imaginary dancefloor, while scouting different realms apart from the big room euphoria. Anyway, brain dance has always been a key ingredient to our catalogue.

The Voigt brothers are opening this years vinyl edition in an unusually romantic fashion. ‘Why’ combines a bubbly FM bassline with lush washes of looped guitars. High off the (presumably high) heels of her recent album ‘Jesus Was An Alien’ she delivers a spanking new excursion into her sonic world, ‘The Hill’. Our Mexican friend Rebolledo makes his first ever solo appearance on TOTAL with his trademark hypnotic desert sound. Jürgen Paape is calling a spade a spade with ‘Le Monde À Changé’ – The world has changed indeed. Our prodigal son, Matias Aguayo, returns to the mothership with ‘Cinco Y Rojo’. An exercise in Chicago-esque groove theory paired with a cheeky visitor from Denmark. Spot the reference and win a pair of hooves. It’s hard to find a quality party around Cologne without Jonathan Kaspar on its bill. Rightly so, as he continues to hone his craft as an impeccable DJ and producer. Michael gives the tremendously talented Danish singer songwriter eee gee a proper Mayer treatment and Kompakt founding member Jörg Burger closes off the festivities with a groovy midtempo chugger that reminisces ‘Blue Lines’ era Massive Attack as much as the late Andy Weatheralls low slung psychedelia.

Es ist allgemein bekannt, dass die TOTAL Reihe eine jährliche Positionsbestimmung des Kölner Labels KOMPAKT darstellt und der Jahrbuch-hafte Charakter war ja auch immer beabsichtigt. So wundert es wenig, dass man TOTAL 22 die Irrungen und Wirrungen des zweiten pandemischen Jahres 2022 deutlich anhört. Die A&R Abteilung des Labels hatte zwar – trotz geschlossener Clubs – weiter mindestens einen Fuss auf dem imaginären Tanzboden, aber man spürt, dass es ein eher verhaltener Jahrgang geworden ist. Dance Tracks brauchen einen entsprechenden Resonanzraum – und der war zumindest bis zur Deadline dieser Platte kaum gegeben. Aber Kopfdisco gehörte schon immer zum kompakten Repertoire. Letztlich entsteht in diesem vom Big Room los gekoppelten Bereich meist die interessanteste Musik.

Die Gebrüder Voigt eröffnen TOTAL 22 auf einer unerwartet romantischen Note. Quirlige FM Bässe schmiegen sich an verhuschte Gitarrenloops, so dass es eine wahre Freude ist. Perel hat gerade ihr fulminantes Album “Jesus Was An Alien” abgeliefert und spurtet bereits mit Siebenmeilenstiefeln (oder vielleicht auch Pumps?) zum nächsten Ziel: ‘The Hills’. Unser mexikanischer Freund Rebolledo ist erstmals solo auf einer TOTAL zu finden und beschwört mit ‘The Sharper Image’ seinen hypnotischen Prärie Sound herauf. Jürgen Paape nennt das Kind direkt beim Namen: Le monde a changé… Die Welt hat sich verändert – ein Kommentar zum Zeitgeschehen, der keiner Erklärung bedarf. Nach längerer Abstinenz hat Matias Aguayo wieder am Mutterschiff angedockt. ‘Cinco Y Rojo’ ist ein Lehrstück in Sachen Chicago-esquen Grooves, kombiniert mit einem frechen Besucher aus dem Dänemark der 80er. Findet die Referenz und gewinnt ein paar nagelneuer Hufen. Es ist derzeit schwer eine qualitativ hochwertige Party im Rheinland zu finden, auf der Jonathan Kaspar nicht spielt. Zurecht, denn er schärft seine Skills als DJ und Produzent wie ein Sushi Chef sein Messer. Michael Mayer dreht die überaus talentierte Singer Songwriterin eee gee auf links und überlässt seinem Weggefährten Jörg Burger das letzte Wort. "Crawling Up That Hill’ ist ein slicker Midtempo Groover, der in seiner behutsamen Psychedelik irgendwo zwischen Massive Attack in der ‘Blue Lines’ Epoche und Andy Weatherall changiert.

REISSUE

Associated with Charles Mingus - with whom he recorded 10 albums between 1958 and 1961 - Booker Ervin is one of the great saxophone players of his generation. That"s It! is Ervin"s third outing as a band leader. The sessions are influenced by Ervin"s time with Mingus" Jazz Workshop, and indeed Mingus is quoted extensively in the album"s liner notes with singular praise for the saxophonist. This brand new reissue of the 1961 album is available on CD and LP, and has been remastered from the original Candid Records master tapes by Bernie Grundman.

Vessels promise an escape from responsibilities towards the landscape, they facilitate our avoidance of conscientiously feeling our attachment to the mainland. The visual nothingness of deep water and clean horizons fools the brain and delivers a treacherous feeling of independence.

We ignore the truths expressed by landscapes, so we mould them into urban projects for our strange desires. We clean up the irrationalities by which nature constructs itself. Then we look up to the skies, where the abstractions we have to draw in our minds should reside and inspire us.

We peer into the various shades of blue above the waters, the emptiness guarantees possibilities of our abstractions becoming realities. The apathetic stare into neat, straight horizons transforms our ancestral landscape into dirt and danger, when looking back to it.

To be on a ship under quarantine, is an upside down experience, for the promised escape has turned into a forced paralysis. The Lima flag (? - ? ?, in morse code), presented on the outer sleeve of this record, indirectly demands of all passengers to stay aboard and contemplate their escape from the land they now desire to return to.

These four piano pieces could be considered as a classical sonata (allegroadagio-scherzo-rondo). In a recital they are accompanied by four video pieces by artist Karl Van Welden. We picked the videos out of his extensive archive, choosing images intuitively while listening to the piano music. The theme of ships relating to quarantine thus came unannounced but of course, we were in the middle of the pandemic at the time.

Solastalgia was already waiting as a title for the new album before march 2020. I first came across the word in Underland, a book by Robert Macfarlane (2019). He defines the word as "The unhappiness of people whose landscapes are being transformed about them by forces beyond their control". These forces and this unhappiness are, I believe, what constitutes the modern human. Solastalgia, about the music We haven't found them yet, the words to talk to each other about the worrying signs of climate change. Feeling worried when walking on autumn leaves in the beginning of August should be completely normal. But how do we communicate about it? We don't want to be just the next hysterical doomer.

With this music I try to focus on the climate pain itself, gently inviting the listener to investigate their latent feelings of unease and growing concerns about the environment. As in real life, we circumvent the real issues because they are just too big, there are no words, no expressions yet.

This album tries, in four different attempts, to carve out a path towards communicating about a deeper pain that eventually will connect us all. My general method is to start with a comforting melody, full of fake nostalgia, which, after changing gear to autodestruct mode, morphs into a painful question mark.

The first part sets off with an idyllic melody, accompanied by repeated notes, as a far, muted echo of an alarm. The melody starts to explain itself painfully into a dissonant whirlwind in the high register, sounding not unlike Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit bravura. In the second piece a warm Beatles like melody (And I love her) gets confronted with the weird hippie mantra of a later Lennon song War is over, if you want it. Sentences get reduced to syllables and result in lonely notes that crash and shiver under the burden of too much meaning. Like Shostakovich's latest work, the Sonata for viola and piano.

The descending melody of Bach's Erbarme dich, Mein Gott is echoed in the upper and lower voicings of the third piece, juxtaposed to a typical, threatening Ennio Morricone Western dotted rhythm accompaniment. This rhythm eventually evolves into citing the 1972 Captain Beefheart early ecological warning song Blabber and Smoke (there's a big pane/pain in your window, it's gonna hang you all,... dangle you all). Towards the middle of the piece, the music explodes and the three layers get dispersed all over the keyboard in a virtuosic maelstrom towards another painful question mark. The bitter answer is going back to business with a barely noticeable citation of the first notes of the RZA's Liquid Swords album.

The final piece is some kind of mantra, the same 7/4 pulse all throughout the piece. The dampers of all A's and B's on the keyboard are released by the middle pedal, thus sustaining an ever present resonance. Melodic cells alternate in shifting quantifications with small, bell like percussive cluster playing. While composing this piece an image crept up: walking out of the church on Sunday morning, tolling bells enthusiastically moderating the churchgoers' small talk in the local dialect. Apparently I have tried to evoke this kind of conversation, but injecting it with fictitious alarming conversation topics, the contemporary.

Frederik Croene (August '22)

"Matasuna Records" returns to Mexico for a third time to dig for rare treasures. They got their hands on a special gem - two obscure Latin/Jazzfunk tunes by a band called "Colorado" from "Mexico City". The songs were released in 1976 on the Mexican label Peerless and the super rare original 7inch is virtually unavailable. Fortunately, the release is finally available for the first time as an official reissue in a remastered edition. An unjustly under-the-radar Latin jazzfunk highlight!

The song "Colorado", named after the band, opens the "A-side" of the single. The hypnotic fender rhodes puts the listener in the right mood right from the start, before the drums and percussion set the rhythm. The horns also add depth and melodiousness before the song takes a turn and reveals its funky side with guitars, synths and bass. A nice guitar solo also reveals the affinity for rock music without losing sight of the vibe of the song or tipping it a different direction. Definitely a fabulous song that comes up with a lot of ideas and inspirations, offering an unexpected richness in the under 3-minute running time.

The "B-side" also continues musically energetic in the same way with "Para Ti". Here, too, you can feel and hear the playfulness and experimentation of these extraordinary musicians. Atmospherically dense passages alternate with quieter phases and solo parts, before the tension rises again and literally explodes. As in the song "Colorado", rhodes, brass, guitars & bass offer a great and varied interplay. The secret highlight, however, might be the drum and percussion parts in the middle of the track, which will surely enchant not only the B-Boys and B-Girls.

Artist info:

The internet, a source of almost endless knowledge, offers no information about the band Colorado. All the more fortunate that one of the band's founding members, "Emilio Espinosa Becerra", provides detailed info for the reissue.

In 1968 the three brothers "Luis", "Francisco" and "Emilio Espinosa Becerra" from Mexico City started to rehearse together to play wellknown rock & pop songs at friends or family parties. At first, they played on Japanese guitars and a Teisco bass borrowed from a school friend. They saved up money to then buy guitar & bass amps and a microphone, which they always had to rent until then. However, the budget was only enough for Mexican replicas of the legendary Fender Bassman and the Fender Super Reverb. Original equipment was simply unaffordable.

Shortly thereafter, more members joined the band. Three musicians from the school band "Tepeyac": "Marco Nieto Bermudez" (trumpet), "Raymundo Mier Garza" (tenor saxophone) and "Alfonso Romero" (trombone). Another classmate named "Carlos Mauricio Fernández Ordóñez", who studied piano, also joined the group. His father had a chemical factory in the United States and helped bring equipment (amplifiers and a Farfisa Fast 5 organ) - hidden in the back of a truck - to Mexico. In the time that followed, more instruments were acquired, including bass and guitars (from Gibson, Rickenbacher and Fender) and microphones (from Shure) for vocals and horns.

With a larger band and new equipment, they played many parties in their district of "Lindavista" in "Mexico City" and neighboring areas from 1970 to 1973, as well as gigs at various festivals and school events. The group's band name at the time was "Sound Core Brass". However, more and more often people with turntables and speakers showed up at parties, which were also able to heat up. The so-called "Sonideros", a sound system culture that was emerging in the 1960s, charged less than a multi-piece live band, so the band's performances declined.

During those years, three other "Espinosa Becerra" family members joined the band: "Jorge Rafael" (trombone), "Sergio Alejandro" (tenor saxophone) and "Felipe de Jesus" (drums and percussion).

A brother of the musicians, "Carlos Espinosa Becerra", studied electrical engineering at the University. Together with another fellow student, he designed and built a 10-channel console with a variety of functions and features that far surpassed the devices available at the time. They also went to the US again to buy JBL speakers & tweeters to build their own sound system. On another trip to Los Angeles, they bought Phase Linear amplifiers, which offered enormous power by the standards of the time and had an extremely low distortion factor. With this equipment they could turn up the volume really loud and noise-free.

This was also the time when they stopped playing music from English bands & youth groups and changed their repertoire completely. They played mambos, chachachas, pasodobles and tangos on special occasions in big ballrooms and halls. Also, every now and then they hired a string quartet of well-known Mexican violinists to provide the musical entertainment at dinner events.

During those years, classmate "Pablo Rached Diaz" joined the band, playing tenor saxophone. Pablo was very active and organized many parties. He was also the one who helped the band to record on the Mexican label "Peerless". So in 1975 they were asked by Peerles Records to record their own songs. They had recorded a total of 12 songs - six of these songs were released on three vinyl singles (45rpm). Most of the songs were composed by "Gustavo Ruiz de Chavez Sr.". The band was asked to adopt a more commercial name, and so they had chosen the band name "Colorado". In the course of the releases, the band made some promotional tours and appeared in shows on "Televisa", the most important television station in Mexico in those years.

Later, several members of "Colorado" graduated and began to pursue regular professions. They didn't stop playing at events, but priority was given to more formal duties and the band was no longer as active as it had been in its heyday.

About 8 years ago, the band got back together to play again. The next generation of musicians also joined the band: two sons, a nephew and a brother-in-law of the original band members. Currently, they are back playing at friends' parties and family gatherings in Mexico City.

repress

"The haunting ambience of Beat fit somewhat with the then-popular Massive Attack and Portishead, but the album's subsonic drone made it more of a minimal mood piece than a collection of songs." MAGNET

The second in a trio of albums released by the core duo of Lawrence Chandler and Martha Schwendener, Beat is without doubt their definitive artistic statement.

Coming 20 years to the day of its original release, this is the first time this album has been available on vinyl in almost two decades, and the first ever U.S. vinyl release. (Was released here on Beggars Banquet, original copies very hard to find..)

The second album from New York City's Bowery Electric was released in late 1996, less than 15 months after their self-titled debut, but it found them having traveled light years musically in the interim, the group having seemingly decided to see how far they could take the guitar/ bass/ drums/ vocal setup into the atmosphere.

Every aspect of their approach had been refined and focused: squalling, distorted guitars had been transformed into hazy, sensual sheets; the live drums transmuted to sampled rhythms more in debt to the blossoming downtempo sound of the day; bass lines reduced to their most basic diagrams; vocals submerged to become one with the narcotized fog of the instruments; even the lyrics were reduced to a few minimal lines used sparingly so as not to overshadow the dynamic.

Beat is a lush and dense mantra of shadowy percussion, barely-there vocals and immersive drones that envelops the listener in an opiated blanket of sound.

quotes:

"Bowery Electric have made something utterly astonishing here. So deep, so wide, and somehow as intimate as a train crash. The first six tracks are just the most crushingly beautiful thing I've heard in 1997; the last five are even better. Good god, THIS IS IT." Melody Maker

"While cymbals shower down over the songs like a torrent of shattered glass, their austere beauty is never static. Ambience has rarely sounded so messy." Exclaim

A near-perfect mix of shifting dance beats, menacing electronic drones, analogue bleeps,
syncopated rhythms and ethereal vocals." Now UK

A legendary indie audio artist blurring his lifelong attachments, from spontaneous composition (in the late 70's with John Zorn) to experimental rock (with Bongwater and other bands in the 80's) alongside his recent inquiries into the intricacies of ambient-folk songcraft (with his most recent solo LP, "And The Wind Blew It All Away"), Kramer continues to explore the possibilities of shaping naturally occuring aural landscapes into intoxicatingly affecting music. Sound and language - not just melody and ambient textures - has been his raw material for decades. He nowjuggles them more deftly than ever on his newest ambient opus. In the ten compositions that comprise this new LP, mournful at times yet mysteriouslylife-affirming and generous in their scope, Kramer sees films where there arenone, and composes his accompanying ambient soundtracks in a state of interrupted grace. Words, text, complete screenplays, character arcs, shooting scripts and storyboards swirl through his head as he puts his imagery to sound, and the results evoke a world in which moths, drawn to the bright flickering lightsof Cinema and the low humming lights of Dreams, in Kramer's own words, "...might never die". The LP's nature reveals an interior dialogue between musician and choice. Each piece represents Kramer's encounter with the blank canvas of silence that greets him as a composer. Embracing sounds as objects and instruments of Truth, the end result of his process is as much about what is absent and what has been removed or edited away than what is left in its wake as artifacts of emotion. These pieces are the Spring frost of lost imaginings, vanitas to broken connections, visions nearly unrecordable by the human eye. Kramer envisions a music that functions to stoptime, as an event that always plays in the present and never needs a past to give it a reference point. It is music that communicates in the most intimate way possible, as intricately and as deeply as the way it blossoms and shifts and evades categorizationwhen exposed to thin air. Drawn toward the light of a multitude of influences, we hear echoes of the feverishly frozen dreams of composers Morton Feldman, Terry Riley, Brian Eno and Arvo Part, melting alongside the surreal cinemas of David Lynch and The Brothers Quay, all parts converging to evoke a time and place that does not exist outside of the mind's eye of the listener. These ten works are fluid adventures in fathomless landscapes, emotions distilled and offered as a paintless painting without a physical home. Each individual composition is an offering to a future memory, a chalice to be filled with the listener's own reactions to them. As a whole, the ten pieces form an image of ten circling planets in an expanding galaxy that colors itself anew with each subsequent listen. Movement, grace, and Peace.

Opening with the buzz of a smartphone on vibrate, First Hate’s sophomore album Cotton Candy launches to life with “Someone New,” a synth-driven statement of intent. The Danish duo’s charged songs are rooted in a recognizable universe, but traverse a wide array of genre experiments and pop detours. Cotton Candy follows the quest of its protagonist stumbling through a crumbling world, winning and losing lovers, swinging from extreme highs to hopeless lows. The title alludes to transience and ecstasy, the surge of a sugar rush before nausea sets in, the way cotton candy dissolves into nothingness leaving only sticky fingers. Throughout, the productions glitter with synthetic detail and hypermodern finesse, effervescent but elusive. “Life is a rollercoaster and we’ve ridden the ups and downs.” During the recording sessions, a collage of Copenhagen musicians flowed through the studio. First Hate is a fixture of the city’s creative community, but ultimately exists in their own sphere, carving a niche as parallel universe pop stars, embracing sweet and bitter, risk and reward: “Sometimes the ones who love you most are the ones who hold you back.” Anton and Joakim grew up in Copenhagen and met when they were 15 through common friends on the street where they lived. “I didn’t enjoy being home so I used to stay at my friend Jakob's basement in an old church on Willemoesgade street,” says Wei. “His mom was the priest. She baptized Anton at age eight during his Jesus phase when he demanded a late baptism from his atheist parents. Jakob was friends with Elias who lived up in Anton’s end and they introduced us to each other. One summer my parents finally married after 20 years of dating. Joakim moved in for two weeks and we accidentally trashed the apartment while they were on their honeymoon. Later on Jakob, Elias, and two other friends, Dan and Johan, formed the band Iceage. Watching our friends’ growing success was a catalyst in creating our own project. At that point everybody in our friend group was making punk music, so the most punk thing we could think to do was start a pop duo.” The First Hate catalog comprises more than nine years of work, including their 2017 cult classic, A Prayer For The Unemployed, a collaborative album Dittes Bog, two EPs and several singles. All of the recordings are self-produced, until they are ready to be finished in the studio. “We have sort of a twin alliance. Like couples finishing each other’s spaghetti at restaurants, we finish each other’s music. Having people enter this sacred mix has been such a pleasure.” On stage Anton and Joakim embody the contrasting yet complimentary energies of yin and yang: Joakim pushing buttons, steering the ship, working synths and samplers with harmonious calm, while Anton’s body bullets around the stage, pounding out his kinetic dance moves. The name Anton means fragile flower, an apt metaphor for his stage presence. A fragile flower shooting through concrete. To behold a performer who consistently delivers such intense live performances is a rare pleasure. “Live means love. When everything is right. When we meet the audience heart to heart. Then the planet spins even faster.” First Hate has performed over a hundred shows across Europe, Asia, the U.S., and Russia, both as headliners and alongside fellow Copenhagen acts Iceage, Lust For Youth, Communions, Soho Rezanejad, Trentemøller and Grand Prix. “We are on a quest of love, yes it’s as cheesy as that.”

4 LP set is for Indies only until further notice. Unravelled: 1981–2002 shines a loving light on lo-fi pioneers Tall Dwarfs, the prized New Zealand duo of Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate. The collection, available as a 4-LP or 2-CD box set, compiles songs from Tall Dwarfs' two decades of recordings. The vinyl edition includes a 20-page collector's booklet of photos, comics, posters, and other ephemera. The songs on Unravelled: 1981–2002 were curated by Alec Bathgate, who also designed the box set packaging; Chris Knox suffered a debilitating stroke in 2009 just as they had started work on a new album. The collection captures the different sides of the Tall Dwarfs in 55 songs. Though the band was an excuse for two good friends who lived in different cities to get together, drink beer, watch shitty old movies, and do some recording and drawing, Tall Dwarfs created music unlike anyone else. Capturing the initial excitement of creation and taking pride in what they did, Knox and Bathgate showed a whole generation of musicians what could be done at home on a 4-track and what magic could be made if you mixed pop melodies and hooks galore with homemade sounds. After a failed flirtation with success in their previous band Toy Love, Knox and Bathgate formed Tall Dwarfs in 1981, opting to record themselves on a 4-track reel-to-reel. New Zealand’s AudioCulture wrote of the duo’s project: “Early live performances were a ramshackle work in progress. Knox described them in an interview with American magazine Forced Exposure as ‘two minutes of song followed by five minutes of fucking around,’ and they dismayed many Toy Love fans—but the pair had no interest in a career spent in pubs cranking out ‘Pull Down the Shades.’” Tall Dwarfs was meant to be a one-off, but after the founding of their New Zealand label Flying Nun, they continued to record music for the next 21 years, releasing seven EPs and six albums. Their process was spontaneous, with songs being recorded as they were written. Typically, Bathgate would work up something on guitar while Knox provided vocals, lyrics, and tape loops. Then they added any sounds that seemed necessary to finish a song, using whatever was lying around: pans, chairs, baby rattles. Though Tall Dwarfs could be weird, they were never too experimental; Knox and Bathgate both loved melody too much (“Beatlesque” appeared more often than any other adjective in their reviews).

823 is a multifaceted Perth-based record label, fashion brand, and artistic community, founded by Australian producer and all-around creative, Ta-ku (846k monthly listeners on Spotify). With an ethos of attention to detail and appreciation for the everyday things in life, 823 doesn’t stick to any particular genre. 823’s releases include Cabu’s (800k Monthly Listeners on Spotify) “So Far To Go” EP, Ta-ku and matt mcwaters’s duo project “Black and White,” which featured Masego collaboration “Flight 99” (14 million streams on Spotify), their debut release with Australian producer and instrumentalist Kuzich, and multiple sold out clothing capsules. “All Things Considered Vol. 1” set off a collaborative series of curated compilations, featuring both budding and well-established artists around the world including Idealism, Wun Two, pastels, SwuM, Jinsang, Saltyyyy V, and more. “All Things Considered Vol. 2” sees the continuation of this project, this time in partnership with fellow Perth-based powerhouse, Butter Goods.

Butter Goods is a Perth clothing brand rooted in skating culture and style, but drawing inspiration from hip-hop, jazz, and music at large. Butter Goods has been featured in major publications, including GQ, Complex, and HYPEBEAST. They’ve collaborated on releases with Peanuts and Puma, and have reached international levels of popularity. Butter Goods co-founder Garth Mariano’s deep love for and eclectic tastes in music drive his creativity, and are front and center in his partnership with Ta-ku and 823 on “All Things Considered Vol 2,” where the two team up to curate a wide-ranging compilation.

Arriving on September 2nd, 2022, “All Things Considered Vol. 2” is an exploration of Ta-ku’s and Mariano’s extensive and often overlapping musical palettes in two parts. The record pays homage to the love of instrumental music and hidden gems of new school jazz and funk that act as a source of inspiration and nostalgia for the both of them. The collaboration brings together over a dozen producers and instrumentalists from Sydney to Chicago, including Jadu Jadu, Gnarly, Tenderlonius, silentjay, and more. Side A is curated by Ta-ku and 823. It’s as much a love letter to the past as it is a nod to the future of beat-making. Featuring sample heavy, drum looped beats, sprinkled with the occasional ear candy for the attentive listener, it presents cruisy soundscapes & easy listening. Side B is curated by Garth and Butter Goods. It’s a raw and eclectic companion to Side A, leaning heavily into the texture and grit of multi-layered jazz and funk-driven beats.

As with any 823 release, the project is as visual as it is sonic. The artwork and visualizers are a celebration of Garth’s love of thrift culture and old nature documentaries, fused with 823’s design aesthetic of bringing everyday inspirations to the forefront. CRT style visuals are paired with 90’s spin, slide and fade away transitions. When partnered with the music, each visualizer could easily work as the intro for an episode of a VHS series of nature docos.

1st single, “senzu bean,” arrives on July 7th and kicks off Side A, showcasing Ta-ku’s hip-hop-centric tastes. Sydney producer Jadu Jadu teams up with UK-based TAMBALA, apltn, and Makzo for a vibrant instrumental. From a head-nodding bassline beneath fuzzy synths, to soft horn licks sprinkled over electronic drums, “senzu bean” is sonically rich and multilayered.

2nd single, “Too Much” by UK producer saaaz arrives July 20th. It’s a moody and low-tempo beat that builds itself up over time, complete with cryptic vocal samples and syrupy drums and bass. Also off of 823’s Side A, “Too Much” maintains a laid-back hip-hop theme but with saaaz’s signature and definitive lo-fi twist.

3rd single, “Goodmorning” from Baro Sura and silentjay of Melbourne arrives August 3rd, kicking off Butter Good’s Side B. The track is bright from start to finish and is a sun-filled track perfect for closing out the summer with. Final single, “Fool’s Gold” by Los Angeles producer L.Dre arrives August 17th. The infinitely creative beatmaker layers soft hums and the sounds of crashing waves over crisp drums and an infectious bassline. Together, it makes for a beat that sounds like it was made outside, under the sun, and is best enjoyed in the same way.

Focus track, “Seventh Wonder” by Tenderlonius, comes off of Side B, and is a window into the ideas and palettes on both sides of the compilation. The beat slowly fades in, one sound at a time, until it reaches a full-fledged groove, soaked in synths, bass, and horns, that’s impossible not to move to.

On the whole, “All Things Considered Vol. 2” is a forward-focused, sonic journey into the minds behind two of today’s great creative brands, and is as artistically eclectic and varied as those minds are, and a proud follow-up to its first volume.

LP contains A2 poster on uncoated stock.

Berlin’s Pure Hate drop their 5th release ‘Chrome Horse Diplomat EP’ by Mickey Nox. Having previously remixed MDD on PH003, this time he takes both sides of the record and delivers 4 heavy hitting original signature hammer tracks. Mickey spawned out of the cracks of the Melbourne club scene in 2007. Which led to several residencies & festivals around Australia. In 2013 he launched his label & brand ‘Green Fetish Records’ which has since gone from strength to strength cementing its position in the Techno scene worldwide. Outside of Australia & GFR he has played clubs such as Tresor, Moog, Basis, Jaded to name a few and has released music on labels such as Perc Trax, Mind Cut Music & South London Analog Material, having been remixed by the likes of Ansome, Ayarcana, Myler & Manni Dee along the way. Mastering by Joe Farr. Artwork by Slave To Society.

Glenn Astro and Hulk Hodn (to some known as mighty Hodini) release their new full-length record “Ghosts” via Kommerz Records on August 26th.
Producers Astro & Hodn‘s first joint album “Turquoise Tortoise” in 2018 combined uptempo beats, hiphop and spaced out lo-fi slow jams effortlessly. On “Ghosts” the duo develops their exploration of new
aesthetics even further through synthesized soundscapes and numerous collaborations with young talent from all over the world. Artists such as Danish neo soul discovery AGGi, King Krule collaborator Gal Go, Kamohelo from Studio Barnhus band Off The Meds, Berlin-based voice experimentalist Yosa Peit and many more deep dived into the collaboration and transformed the album into a sonic multiverse.
New Release Information
Glenn Astro and Hulk Hodn are connected through a long lasting musical friendship. With their Detroitinspired house releases they gained wider recognition by critics and listeners alike. Nevertheless,
they’ve never been one dimensional artists. Berlin-based Glenn Astro‘s diversified approach to production as showcased on labels such as Ninja Tune and Tartelet bridges the gaps between ambient, hip-hop, techno and bass.
Meanwhile Cologne‘s Hulk Hodn gained the status of a German underground hip-hop legend. Through his records and shows with rapper Retrogott he gathered a cult-like following besides dropping high quality projects with other beat makers such as Hubert Daviz and Twit One and rappers such as Eloquent. Most recently he dropped the instrumental LP “Sparklez” on Sichtexot sub Casual Low Grind.

Our Albarika Stores 7-inch series returns with one of the masterpieces of lo-fi Afro-funk: 'It's A Vanity' by Gabo Brown and Orchestre Poly-Rythmo.

Originally released in the early '70s, it is a fine example of the way that Benin's premier group could perfectly nail a James Brown-style groove and then twist it to make it uniquely their own thing.

'It's A Vanity' is one of the masterpieces of low-fi Afro-Funk, and has been widely sought after (and become extremely valuable) since it was comped in 2008. We've paired it with the first reissue of 'Nougbo Vehou (La Verité Blesse)' - licensed directly from bandleader Clement Melomé's family - for a must-have double-sider!