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Mouche (real name Tim Karmouche) returns to Australian label Research Records with another full-length of imaginary soundtracks, instrumentals and sun-kissed digital jazz. Active on the Melbourne scene in projects such as Crepes/The Murlocs/Swazi Gold/Dreamin' Wild, Tim's first album Live From The Bubble arrived back in 2020 as an ode to his aptly named studio space - The Bubble.

Lake Songs builds on those same atmospheres, showcasing the inward-looking craft of his one-man band. Cicada field recordings and light keys open proceedings, reflecting the warmer side of 80s new age, though before long we're introduced to a variety of stylistic shifts incorporating elements of cosmic funk, lounge and library-style compositions. There are traces of Steve Hiett, Max Groove or even the recently re-discovered Ronald Langestraat, though the strength of Mouche's talent for harmony shines through on its own level.

Shifting between moods yet reflecting an overarching sense of positivity, listening through the ten tracks gives off a real sense of place, though time is somewhat irrelevant. The warm climate and sandy beaches of Australia seem eternally embodied in 'Juice' or 'Crystal Water'. Perhaps where Live From The Bubble was dedicated to the very studio that birthed it, Lake Songs is dedicated to the vast land that surrounds it.

CALAMITA = KARKHANA members TONY ELIEH, SHARIF SEHNAOUI and Lebanese drummer MALEK RIZKALLAH join forces with the Egyptian singer AYA METWALLI - the result is the improbable meeting between free jazz / improv, punk rock & Oum Kalthoum!

CALAMITA is the "rock project" of SHARIF SEHNAOUI and TONY ELIEH, two of the most active musicians on the Lebanese experimental scene (among others projects, both are members of the "free Middle Eastern music" collective KARKHANA). SEHNAOUI comes from a jazz and improv music background, ELIEH is primarily a rock musician and founding member of the Lebanese post-punk band THE SCRAMBLED EGGS whose work in the last decade has covered many directions from pop-rock to plain experimental. They are joined by Lebanese drummer MALEK RIZKALLAH (WHO KILLED BRUCE LEE, ex THE SCRAMBLED EGGS). As trio they develop instrumental pieces that draw their inspiration from artists as diverse as Tony Conrad, Last Exit or Oum Kalthoum.

AYA METWALLI is an Egyptian singer/songwriter, composer and sound artist currently based in Beirut. Grown up in Cairo, her father would play non-stop Oum Kalthoum songs on road trips to the beach and Aya's mother; known to have the most beautiful voice in the family, she always sang at home and at family gatherings, so long before Aya was able to form her own music taste, immense amounts of Arabic classic songs and melodies already settled in her subconsciousness …

After her first EP "Beitak" in 2016, Metwalli (named "a musical enigma" by The Guardian) started to integrate more experimental and eerie sonic excursions into her avant-pop, so the collaboration with CALAMITA feels like a natural or logic step.

The roots for "Al Saher" ("stay awake") were laid when SEHNAOUI and METWALLI first worked together in "Night", a dance piece by ALI CHAHROUR which included a wide collection of Arabic songs and ancient poems, later Sehnaoui invited her to work with CALAMITA. The four met in a recording studio in Beirut, using songs by "The Voice of Egypt" Oum Kalthoum as starting point.Together they aim to fully revisit the song format and explore the possibilities of classical Tarab songs, extracted from their origins and reframed within the music of the twenty-first century. The result is a mix of various styles and influences that often seek to stretch the contrasts to towering extremes - animprobable blend between free jazz & improv, punk rock & Oum Kalthoum!

The Kyoto-based musician Yusaku Arai is known for his production work in the avant-garde scenes of Japanese hip-hop and R&B. On this solo album, though, he offers more lengthy, piano-centric meditations that use the techniques of musique concrète.

Arai’s compositions on the A-side emerged out of a reflection on the corporeal and interwoven relationship between his own body and things he encountered in the world—the ocean, a flower petal, a plastic sheet, a hand. His intent is to represent a process in which colors gently well up in inside of an object, pass through its entirety—and eventually permeate into the body itself. The B-side consists mostly of a long composition, which is about an unavoidable surplus that crops up in communication, whether of gestures or of language. This narrative work describes humans as beings torn between enthusiasm and emptiness.

The album’s artwork is by photographer Azusa Yamaguchi and designer Hejiro Yagi. Mastering by Sean McCann of Recital. An 18x24 inch poster is included.

The illustrious, London-based duo Kit Sebastian, aka Kit Martin and Merve Erdem, return with a limited edition 7” single. It features ’L’addio’, a breakbeat driven, sultry ballad, and ‘Hayat’, a hazy, psychedelic scorcher that delves into the band’s Turkish and Azerbaijan influences.

‘L’addio’ saw the band perfecting their production and orchestration, with strings, horns and double bass, and an Italian synth found in a French dump. The music was greatly influenced by Italian soundtracks and Italian female singers, such as Mina or Rita Pavone. The track announces itself with a break that is guaranteed to get samplers twitching. The tone of the melody and lyrics is heartfelt and aching. It has a beautiful, intimate sadness like the closing scenes to a love affair, and it exquisitely rides over the slow, psych-funk-dramatic backing track. The lyrics are inspired by a flat opposite Merve's window that's occupied by drug addicts, with many guests coming in and out every night. Merve elaborated “Being both neighbours and strangers, and with the boredom of a post-tour everyday domestic life and a pinch of urban voyeurism, it was hard not to wonder what was happening in that flat. The words imagine an addict before her/his golden shot as if it's a love relationship between them that comes to an end.”

Having spent much of 2022 touring and writing, ‘Hayat’ was the first original composition the band recorded since their October 2021 album, ‘Melodi’. Here we see them weaving a psychedelic tapestry of Mugham melodies, organ-driven grooves, and jazz-pop harmonies in classic Kit Sebastian fashion. Recorded to Fostex 1/4” tape, the essence of the production is perfectly balanced between being brand new and retro, which is a feat very hard to pull off.

‘Hayat’ is sung in Turkish and the title translates as ‘Life’ in English. The song examines our desire to find one's place in the world and the provisionality of existence. Merve's searching lyrics ask “Where are you? Where is the universe?”. Her vocal delivery perfectly reflects the lyrical focus, its texture is probing and ethereal, almost as if sung from looking above us.

Fans of American metal act Iced Earth have long hoped for a new sign of life from their icons. On 28 April 2023, the wait will be over at last: Guitarist and founder member Jon Schaffer has announced the release of two new EPs on ROAR! Rock Of Angels Records. Entitled 'Hellrider' and 'I Walk Among You', these releases will include rare recordings from the transition phase between singer Tim 'Ripper' Owens' and predecessor/successor Matt Barlow in 2007 and 2008, a particularly exciting and eventful period in Iced Earth's band history. The 'Hellrider' EP consists of the songs 'Prophecy', 'Birth Of The Wicked' and 'The Coming Curse', originally from the album 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' (1998), voted one of the best power metal records of all time by Metal Hammer. In late summer 2007, all three tracks were re-recorded, featuring Tim 'Ripper' Owens. Schaffer: "Before now, these releases hadn't been issued on anything other than CD. Now they've been remastered, with new artwork, new mastering, new formats on vinyl, picture disc, and they'll be available for digital download for the first time."

Once is not usual Chat Noir Tools is welcoming an established producer in the name of Robbenspierre for his tenth installment. Since 2017 the italian artist and Club Vision resident has released top notch music on labels such as Land of Dance, Alphaville records, Tone Dropout, Threads, Nugs on board or System Error. After a short break, we're glad to have him for his first vinyl release in three years. His Lacrimosa EP, five tracks filled with melancholic goodness, will stand as the first Tools record sitting halfway between homelistening & the club.

Half Grand Records’ second release makes it more clear that their target is squarely between the dancefloor and headphones. This unpredictable playlist spans genres, from Golden Science’s buzzy boom bap to Jon Doppler’s sub shaking hardcore, with layers of analog goodness that seem to glow with the first days of rave. Electronic music veteran Proswell contributes a real viber, replete with growling basslines and bells. Round it out with a sprawling, spastic workout from Sweden’s A Stantz (Peel MD) and you have a chronicle that would fit perfectly in the collection of fans of early Warp Records, Tobacco, and millennium era Merck Records. Check it out!

*MILKY CLEAR VINYL - 300 COPIES ONLY FOR WORLD!!* Technology + Teamwork’s fizzling synths, interweaving textures and punchy rhythms are beguiling on their long-awaited debut album We Used To Be Friends. However, at the heart of it all it’s the connection between the group’s two members, Anthony Silvester and Sarah Jones, the friendship the much-travelled duo have managed to maintain for nearly 15 years and a showcase of the slow-burning construction of the electronic world that they’ve surrounded themselves with. We Used To Be Friends is ultimately the tale of two storied artists in their own right, holding onto each other through personal and career twists and turns, relocations and broader movements through respective phases of their lives. Silvester and Jones first met and then collaborated as part of biting post-punk five-piece XX Teens in 2008, eventually breaking off to forge their own path together even as the latter’s demand as a drummer grew. Performing with everyone from Hot Chip, Harry Styles and Bloc Party among many others, Jones has been a constant percussive presence across the sphere of alternative UK pop music – she’s also found time for her own solo project Pillow Person and played on records by the likes of Puscifer and Kurt Vile. Silvester meanwhile has performed in art galleries across Europe including: Fridericianum in Kassel, Kölnischer Kunstverein in Cologne, and Vleeshal in Middelburg, as well as providing sound design and composing work for several art films. Technology + Teamwork is the constant throughout all of that though. “Technology + Teamwork's name perfectly describes how we work” Silvester explains. “Sometimes the teamwork is between each other and sometimes it’s between us and the technology.” Although going by the name Technology + Teamwork as far back as 2014, two events conspired that pulled the project into focus for the pair of them: firstly, Silvester spent a year constructing a soundproof studio shed on the border of London and Essex where he lives. Secondly, inevitably, the pandemic brought the globe-trotting Jones back home to just seven miles away from her long-time collaborator and friend. “We probably hung out more than we had for a few years” says Silvester. “Also, after all her Pillow Person releases Sarah had gotten really good with recording vocals and knowing what did and didn’t work and had a really good home studio set up. We still worked separately though, exchanging ideas via email and WhatsApp.” As with many artists through 2020 and early 2021, working separately was a new necessity that they were forced to adapt to. However, it became clear that there were creative benefits to it. “It really changed our sound and our sounds became a lot more focused as a result” Jones says. “I wanted to use the same ideas of improvisation that I might use while playing the drums for myself and apply that to melodies and lyrics.” The album bristles with hyperpop modernity. You can hear it in the manipulated vocals most prominently on Big Blue’s disco strut and on Moving Too’s heady mix of pitched up voice and burrowing sub bass. However, the pair also looked to San Francisco and the West Coast synthesis movement of the 60s, Silvester inspired by the likes of Suzanne Ciani and Don Buchla. The plaintive lo-fi and melancholy of Amsterdam incorporates Mutable Instrument’s Marbles by Émilie Gillet which – inspired by Buchla’s own synthesis work – outputs random voltages to give the track an air of unpredictability. It’s something that occurs throughout the album, the duo revelling in the happy accidents that disrupt the flow of their hook-laden pop. “The ‘Buchlian’ ideas of music having randomness and uncertainty, completely freed us up” Silvester explains. “It felt a bit like having more members in the band, machines that didn't do what you expected or intended.” Perhaps more subtly, is the influence of 17th and 18th century Baroque music, with Silvester drawing a line between it and the 90’s R’n’B he and Jones both love – exemplified perhaps best on K+B’s percussive claps and sultry grooves. The portentous juddering synthpop of the title track, meanwhile, alludes specifically to Handel’s Sarabande. It’s typical of an album that only needs a scratch of its seemingly glossy surface to unearth a myriad of contorted touchstones and reference points that’ve fermented beneath it. Thematically there’s an anxious sense to the record, with tracks often balancing above a quiet sense of unerring tension even at their most bombastic. Moving Too is the result of an existential doubt that hit Silvester while out cycling, with the outro refrain "it's not enough to die you also have to be forgotten" a take on something Samuel Beckett once said. These worries are echoed on the album’s closing track What A Year, which borrows a lot of lines from the late drag performer and fashion designer Dorian Corey including the grimly defiant "you're gonna leave your mark somewhere in this world just by getting through it”. Those clouds offer a counter point to We Used To Be Friends, but then isn’t that what great pop albums do? Technology + Teamwork undoubtedly love the craft of the hook and the song, but they always position themselves left of centre, prepared to scuff things up, pull something out of shape or manipulate something to leave it sounding warped. Much like their friendship, nothing here is particularly linear – and it’s all the better for it. Bio: Anthony Silvester & Sarah Jones first collaborated as part of biting post-punk five piece XX Teens in 2008, eventually breaking off to forge their own path together even as the latter's demand as a drummer grew. Performing with everyone from Hot Chip, Bat for Lashes, Harry Styles and Bloc Party (among many others), Jones has been a constant percussive presence across the sphere of alternative UK pop music - she's also found time for her own solo project Pillow Person and played on records by the likes of Puscifer and Kurt Vile. Silvester meanwhile has performed in art galleries across Europe including Fridericianum in Kassel, Kölnischer Kunstverein in Cologne, and Wleeshal in Middelburg, as well as providing sound design and composing work for several art films. Technology & Teamwork is the constant throughout all of that though. "We Used To Be Friends" proves that Technology & Teamwork undoubtedly love the craft of the hook and the song, but they always position themselves left of centre, prepared to scuff things up, pull something out of shape or manipulate something to leave it sounding warped. Much like their friendship, nothing hear is particularly linear - and it's all the better for it.

On May 12th 2023, Helsinki-based duo Ya Tosiba will release their second album, ASAP Inşallah. The album will be led by two singles, ‘Mənəm’ and ‘Pul’, due for release on March 2nd and April 13th respectively.

A collaboration between Finnish electro producer Tatu Metsätähti (also known as Mesak and Mr Velcro Fastener, and of the Scandinavian skweee scene) and Azerbaijani musician and vocalist Zuzu Zakaria, Ya Tosiba absorbs electronics, live instrumentation and folkloric poetry of Caucasus into a spirited, groovy sound.

The follow up to their 2017 debut album Love Party, Ya Tosiba’s ASAP Inşallah plays with tension of living in a world of contradictions.

Across the 10 tracks musical and lyrical collaboration takes the listener on a global trek. Sonically, features come from Norway’s Center of the Universe, France’s Poborsk, Ukraine’s Zavoloka, Sweden’s Pavan and Daniel Savio, Azerbaijan’s Rahman Memmedli, plus Patric Catani and Debmaster from Berlin. As Zuzu sings in Azerbaijani, the storytelling of ASAP Inşallah comes alive. All of the album’s lyrics are taken directly from poetry and texts: with tales of romance and war, sex and gender, nature and machine, politics and society. Though the stories are varied, and some are historical, they all tap into that tension; it’s the weight of history versus the promise of tomorrow. After collecting myriad stories during her field studies, some of which are over 100 years old, Zuzu was stunned by their contemporary relevance.

When Ya Tosiba wrote ASAP Inşallah, it started with these texts-as-lyrics; melodies and music were built out from their internal rhythms and vocalpossibilities. With a range of electronic hardware and software, Zuzu and Tatu went back-and-forth, creating taut loops and clips out of Zuzu’s vocals, drums and keyboards, with samples of their collaborators instruments and Tatu’s productions.

In chopping up recordings of the live players into their electronic beats, Ya Tosiba creates an effect of tradition and modernity “being samples from the same record, taking it apart and looping it to sound like one machine.” The patchwork nature of their process, alongside the ambitious and danceable sonics, invites the listener into Ya Tosiba’s unique perspective.