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LADYTRON--Helen Marnie, Mira Aroyo, Daniel Hunt and Reuben Wu--formed in 1999 and sparked an entire movement in music pop culture powered by vintage synths and electro-rock engines. Originally released in 2002 by Emperor Norton Records and re-released by Nettwerk in 2011, Liverpool electropoppers Ladytron’s second studio album Light & Magic was written and co-produced in Los Angeles by the band & Mickey Petralia and featured the underground hits “Seventeen”, “Blue Jeans” and “Evil.”

dreamcastmoe is the recording project of singer, songwriter, producer, and DJ Davon Bryant, a lifelong resident of Washington, DC. His music moves freely between moods and modes, hypnotic, romantic, traversing electronic, R&B, funk, soul, and hip-hop... Resident Advisor dubs it "soulful, cross-genre dance music." This ability to adapt and finesse, to twist in different directions while staying true and coherent in vision, can be traced to his home city and its complex cultural history. "Most Black kids in DC don't ever get to this point," he says. "This is what I am making this music for, in the DC tradition of soul and empathy and love that is rooted in this city. My music is for real people dealing with shit every day." A versatile, modern artist and collaborator, dreamcastmoe has thrived in the underground since his first uploads to Soundcloud and Bandcamp in 2017 and subsequent releases with labels like People's Potential Unlimited, Trading Places, and In Real Life Music. Bryant's laid-back personality, emotional honesty, and infectious energy shine through his work and how he talks about it, as Crack Magazine notes in their 2021 Rising feature: "a steady combination of confidence, creativity, and calmness." He grew up playing drums in church; he's worked dead-end jobs, had ups and downs, even sold off all his gear one time, but never stopped reinvesting in himself. He is quick to praise his co-producers, rattle off influences _ the visual feel of NBA 2K, the comedic timing of Bernie Mac, the savvy legacy of Duke Ellington, for starters _ and credit resourceful DC breakouts like Ankhlejohn that showed him the roadmap. His voice, a steady instrument, seemingly connects it all, capable of slow falsetto flow, swaggering talk-rap, and outright croon. His storytelling style is choppy yet fluid, like a mixtape, which is how Bryant sees Sound Is Like Water, his debut on Ghostly's International's freeform label, Spectral Sound. The two-part project culminates as a full-length LP release in November 2022. The first side, released as Part I, opens on the blurred beats of "El Dorado," which dreamcastmoe dedicates to his journey. It's a head-nodder, an off-kilter earworm co-produced by Max D (Future Times, RVNG Intl, etc.), with Bryant harmonizing hooks with synth jabs and a pitched-down presence. "Complicated" is the slow jam, delivered smoothly from a Saturday night crossroads. dreamcastmoe is contemplative and committed... gliding and locking ad-libs into skittering rhythms courtesy of co-producer Zackary Dawson _ but also willing to let something go, "acknowledging that everything in life IS NOT easy." "RU Ready" takes off from the jump as a tribute, challenge, and promise to his partner and his city ("The times you sat with me when I needed you the most / Told me the things that I needed to see / Young black man, really trying to be what I can be / And I'm really from DC). In its potent two-plus minutes, the sonics (co-produced by ZDBT) press the message, all cymbal crashes, breakbeats, and serrated synth lines. "Cloudy Weather, Wear Boots" is a blitzing dance-punk track made in collaboration with Jordan GCZ on Bryant's first trip to Amsterdam. The album's flipside opens on "Much More," the first of two synth-and-beat ballads co-produced by ZDBT. Later on "Long Songz," he claims, "I'm not writing love songs no more," prioritizing the vibe with "all my day ones." He calls it "a cry for more normal moments. Everything doesn't have to be a fantasy love story, more time spent getting to the money, growing, and making a way." He saves two of his most propulsive cuts for the finale, co-produced by Sami, co-founder of DC dance label 1432 R. As their titles suggest, "Take A Moment" and "Make Ya Mind" operate as anthems for movement, with Bryant free-flowing commands above wildly-styled percussion. Per Bryant, the latter is both "wake & bake jam" and a "dance floor bomb." His parting line: "Action / You got to show me action / Reaction." The world of dreamcastmoe straddles virtual reality and the realness of DC, images both imagined and lived-in. Bryant has a knack for unexpected melodies but what makes his music so exciting is his capacity to defy the expectations of genre and image. A fluid ingenuity and vulnerability bottled by Sound Is Like Water, and this is just the beginning.

The Crystal Hum is the debut vinyl release by Taiwan-based artist Yuching Huang and her first release for Night School.
A beguiling dreamscape of crackles, spluttering, love-struck Casios presided over by the the spectral vocal and guitar work of Huang, Yuching sings love songs at the end of this world and the beginning of the next. Recorded during a hiatus from her group Aemong (a duo with artist Henrique Uba) in Berlin, these songs elevate Huang’s unique vocal style and grasp of atmospherics. The Crystal Hum deconstructs balladry, Garage, guitar music and reforms it into a
unified ghostly otherworld version of these languages.

The Crystal Hum thrums with buried desire, trails of nocturnal reverb seeping out of apartment windows, diaristic vocal performances and deeply emotive, evocative Western-style strings. Formulated by Yuching Huang after periods of frustration and experimentation, the album is an exercise in minimalism and paring back, with some tracks like JohnJohn featuring little else than an elastic bass, spring reverb trails, an interjecting vocal and swelling, dislocated synths. The effect is spellbinding, the soundtrack to getting lost in the labyrinthine, closed streets of Venice, Taipei, Hong Kong, or mirror versions of them in the imagination.

On opener Fly! Little Black Thing, a subterranean funk bassline roots Huang’s singing, a rudimentary, unreliable beat floundering in whimsy underneath. Demure, dream Dance music, Huang references classic lo fi experimenters Suicide and Arthur Russell as well as Night School label mates The Space Lady and Ela Orleans. In fact, after the release of Aemong’s third album Crimson, Huang credits the direction of The Crystal Hum to being enchanted by The Space Lady’s Greatest Hits,
the landmark lo-fi recording made by Susan Dietrich Schneider in 1990. The new, minimalist approach to her sound world reveals and shrouds in equal measure. On the heart-melter Love, a sultry mid-tempo Casio + bass backing drops into the ether with Huang’s vocal swimming in preternatural void before emerging anew, in awe at the world. Every chord change heralds new perspectives, every guitar flurry swells and drips emotion, nothing is wasted and space billows out from between the grooves.
Huang never reveals more than necessary, making this an in-between love album: the right amount of mystery and darkened mirror shines wanely on The Crystal Hum while remaining fragile and vulnerable in the sweet spots. Turning over in pillowing smoke and night in the dark corners, Huang sings in both Mandarin and English. The songs speak of earthly matters seemingly at the edge of dissipating into nothing. Distorted, beguiling Sambas warble like sweating dancehalls in an imagined Lynchian 60s, as on Thoughts. Closer You, An Illusion warps a classic 60s Girlgroup bassline beloved of the likes of Les Rallizes

Denudes into a slight ballad on the edge of the void, held back by the teary-eyed, wistful and enveloping vocal cooed by Huang. Each song feels like a love song dedicated to the bits between worlds, between beats, the negative space between people where desires, feelings and loss hangs in the air, resolute and unresolved.

When Creed Taylor was setting up his CTI label one of his proposed signings was Billy Vera. This led to a deal for Vera’s younger sister Kathy McCord. In fact, McCord was the first artist signed and recorded by CTI. Her debut, “Kathy McCord” was released in 1970.

Although the label would go on to establish a fine reputation in jazz, “Kathy McCord” was a folk rock album. A gifted young poet the 17-year old McCord wrote many of the tracks on the album which were then interpreted in the studio by a crack team of jazz musicians that included Harvey Brooks (bass), Hubert Laws (flute), John Hall (guitar) and Wells Kelly and Ed Shaugnessy (drums). Musically and lyrically both the musicians and McCord stretched out on tracks like ‘Rainbow Ride’, ‘Jennipher’, ‘Candle Waxing’ and ‘Take Away This Pain’ to conjure up an amazing fusion of folk and jazz. The only cover on show was a version of Lennon and McCartney’s ‘She’s Leaving Home’ which McCord repurposed as ‘I’m Leaving Home’.

Upon release the album sold poorly. Creed’s expertise and contacts were in the jazz field and he had no idea how to market an album of folk jazz songs sung with fragile beauty by a good looking girl still in her late teenage years. Also, when Billy Vera did not sign to CTI McCord was dropped.

Over time “Kathy McCord” attracted a dedicated following amongst folk-rock collectors in America and the UK. In many respects it was an echo of something like Deena Webster’s 1968 folk rock LP, “Tuesday’s Child” that also came, went and is now sought after.

Ace are delighted to give the world the first vinyl reissue of “Kathy McCord” since 1970. Pressed on black 180gm vinyl it also includes liner notes from Billy Vera - who has this to say about his late beloved sister: “My sister had the goods. She could sing, she could write and she looked great. Like so many other talented people, she just failed to get lucky. Listen and enjoy her. I love her stuff”. You will too...

Limited edition classic black vinyl mini-album of cathartic slowcore by The Declining Winter, the new vehicle of Richard Adams, formerly of Domino Records post-rockers, Hood. The next release on the acclaimed boutique English independent label, Second Language Music, will be ‘Last April,’ the new mini-album by The Declining Winter, a raw, deeply emotional monument of loss, grief and heartbreak that treads in the footsteps of Red House Painters’ ‘Down Colorful Hill,’ Low’s ‘I Could Live In Hope’ and Songs: Ohia’s ‘Didn’t It Rain.’ This is not a heart-on-your-sleeve record. It does away with the sleeve and goes straight for carving a heart on the arm. Recordings which emerged out of a period of shock, grief and trauma, these six songs were all written on the same night and form a stately tribute to a loved one lost. The Declining Winter strip things back to just Richard Adams’ plaintive voice and acoustic guitar, alongside the beautiful, irrefutably melancholy string arrangements/playing of Sarah Kemp (Brave Timbers). There’s been no attempt to plane off any rough edges – here and there, the creak of a chair, a guitar note missed, a voice almost cracking with emotion – these recordings are like cathartic scrawls in a diary. Only this one has been left out for anyone to read. As with his previous band, Hood, Adams has a way of evoking a particularly pastoral, English melancholy, of lonely morning hikes in inclement weathers, of rain on slate in the West Yorkshire streets where he was raised and still lives.

Mit ihrem Debütalbum, 'Portraits', aus dem Jahr 2015 und dem ebenso hochgelobten 'Kingdom In Colours' aus dem Jahr 2018 haben Maribou State die Weltbühne betreten und gefühlvolle Downtempo-Electronica für eine neue Generation neu definiert. Ihre Musik wurde von Medien wie Kulturnews, Beat, TV Spielfilm & TV Today, Piranha & Start und wurde beim Münchner Radiosender, egoFM, sogar das Album des Jahres! International gab es zudem Support von u.a. NME, Complex, GQ, Clash und Crack Magazine, Mixmag kürte Maribou State zu einem ihrer 'Künstler des Jahres' und BBC 6Music huldigte 'Kingdom In Colours`' als „Album des Tages“, während Annie Mac, Gilles Peterson, Pete Tong und viele andere die Band unterstützten, sowie US-Radioplay von KCRW & KEXP - wo sie auch eine spezielle Live-Session spielten. Außerdem gab es Welttourneen, Auftritte an majestätischen Orten wie der Sydney Opera sowie Auszeichnungen als Künstler des Jahres und mit „Feel Good“ auch eine äußerst erfolgreiche Single mit Khruangbin. Bei 'Hallucinating Love' hat sich das Warten jedenfalls definitiv gelohnt: es ist ehrgeizig, vollgepackt mit erhabenen Hymnen und gespickt mit rastloser Energie, schwebenden Streichern und umwerfendem Gastgesang von Holly Walker, mit der sie schon seit vielen Jahren zusammenarbeiten, und neuen Freund:innen, wie der MOBO-nominierten Künstlerin Andreya Triana. Es unterstreicht Maribou States sich entwickelnde Balance zwischen Intimität und Komplexität, sowie ihr Talent, epische Musik für Sonnenuntergänge zu machen. Die engere Zusammenarbeit mit anderen half auch dabei, musikalisches Gold zu schürfen, und zwar bei verschiedenen Aufnahmesitzungen in idyllischen Gegenden im ganzen Land. Liam und Chris luden Kollaborateur:innen wie den unglaublich talentierten Produzenten Jack Sibley und den Bassisten Jonjo Williams ein und schufen so überall, wo sie hinkamen, kleine provisorische Gemeinschaften. Das verlieh ihrer Musik eine neue Energie.

Mit ihrem Debütalbum, 'Portraits', aus dem Jahr 2015 und dem ebenso hochgelobten 'Kingdom In Colours' aus dem Jahr 2018 haben Maribou State die Weltbühne betreten und gefühlvolle Downtempo-Electronica für eine neue Generation neu definiert. Ihre Musik wurde von Medien wie Kulturnews, Beat, TV Spielfilm & TV Today, Piranha & Start und wurde beim Münchner Radiosender, egoFM, sogar das Album des Jahres! International gab es zudem Support von u.a. NME, Complex, GQ, Clash und Crack Magazine, Mixmag kürte Maribou State zu einem ihrer 'Künstler des Jahres' und BBC 6Music huldigte 'Kingdom In Colours`' als „Album des Tages“, während Annie Mac, Gilles Peterson, Pete Tong und viele andere die Band unterstützten, sowie US-Radioplay von KCRW & KEXP - wo sie auch eine spezielle Live-Session spielten. Außerdem gab es Welttourneen, Auftritte an majestätischen Orten wie der Sydney Opera sowie Auszeichnungen als Künstler des Jahres und mit „Feel Good“ auch eine äußerst erfolgreiche Single mit Khruangbin. Bei 'Hallucinating Love' hat sich das Warten jedenfalls definitiv gelohnt: es ist ehrgeizig, vollgepackt mit erhabenen Hymnen und gespickt mit rastloser Energie, schwebenden Streichern und umwerfendem Gastgesang von Holly Walker, mit der sie schon seit vielen Jahren zusammenarbeiten, und neuen Freund:innen, wie der MOBO-nominierten Künstlerin Andreya Triana. Es unterstreicht Maribou States sich entwickelnde Balance zwischen Intimität und Komplexität, sowie ihr Talent, epische Musik für Sonnenuntergänge zu machen. Die engere Zusammenarbeit mit anderen half auch dabei, musikalisches Gold zu schürfen, und zwar bei verschiedenen Aufnahmesitzungen in idyllischen Gegenden im ganzen Land. Liam und Chris luden Kollaborateur:innen wie den unglaublich talentierten Produzenten Jack Sibley und den Bassisten Jonjo Williams ein und schufen so überall, wo sie hinkamen, kleine provisorische Gemeinschaften. Das verlieh ihrer Musik eine neue Energie.

Well over a decade since their last collaborative LP, Philadelphia legend Freeway has once again teamed up with Seattle superproducer Jake One for their second full-length collaboration: “Stimulus Package 2”. Having been a key part of countless hit albums over the past 20 years, Jake One crafts timeless and versatile soundscapes that connect with both underground and mainstream hip hop audiences, and few sound more at home over his beats than Freeway. All-star guest appearances on the album include Black Thought, Jadakiss, Conway the Machine, Sauce Walks, Peedi Crack, Scholito, and Symba.

Steven Wilson is no stranger to composing music that appears to counter everything else before it in his catalogue. Bass Communion, his long running solo electronic project, is no exception to this perverse streak that apparently likes to turn all expectations upside down. The Itself of Itself, Bass Communion's first album for 12 years, skilfully pays testament to this. Long established as a purveyor of mostly atmospheric or ambient textures, the seven cuts that represent The Itself of Itself take detours from this approach in order draw as much from musique concrete, noise music, abstract electronics and uneasy listening. Whilst still rippled with the same shades of light and dark that can be found throughout all of Bass Communion's work, The Itself of Itself reveals a fascination with analogue sounds and, more importantly perhaps, 'unwanted' analogue artefacts like tape hiss, wow and flutter, static noise, and sonic break-up, taking the music into a space at once different yet familiar. 'Apparition 3' presents a stark nod to Wilson's established command of shifting textures steeped in penumbral gauze, while 'Bruise' is akin to a space probe adrift and headed towards a white dwarf as all communication is reduced to a disturbing and indecipherable crackle. Between the other five cuts we witness fragmented, garbled and buried voices, vast vacillating banks of grainy hum, what sounds like the dying gasps of an oboe, spooky swirls from an indiscernible source, swathes of tape hiss, moody drones, and spiralling slivers of noise. Meanwhile on the title track, a mellotron flute rusts and collapses in on itself in a way that renders it the very antithesis of the one deployed on 'Strawberry Fields Forever'. Everything adds up to a dynamic listening experience where unease, dread and comparatively claustrophobic torrents of sound make (un)natural bedfellows to moments of enchantment and serenity. Above all, The Itself of Itself sees Steven Wilson cutting his teeth on an album that's at once cinematic and moody whilst proving him to be a master in electronic music craftsmanship. It's an album that might surprise some of those who have thus far been paying attention to his work as Bass Communion, but setting out to please everyone was never part of his raison d'etre. The Itself of Itself catches Bass Communion spreading its weatherbeaten wings to embrace new strategies and a strong desire to journey elsewhere. Arriving in a wonderful Carl Glover designed deluxe cover also comprising a 24pp. booklet of his photographs and an obi strip, this version of The Itself of Itself arrives in December on Lumberton Trading Company as a 2LP pressed in an initial run of 1000 copies.

Smiling with No Teeth is the full length debut studio album by Ghanaian Australian artist Genesis Owusu.
The record channels Owusu's experiences with racism and depression into a gloriously chaotic collage of mutant rap, digital dub, electro-punk and psychedelic funk, heralding the arrival of Australia’s most unpredictable auteur.
Smiling with No Teeth was incredibly well received by fans and critics alike, winning 4 x ARIAS at the 2021 awards including album of the year.
The record was featured on multiple end of year best of lists including NME, Paste and triple j. Spin Magazine called it - "Equal parts musical shape-shifter, limitless creative beast, badass, humorous and undefined, Genesis Owusu is a little bit of everything and everyone. This Daybreaker has come onto the scene with a monstrously diverse and impactful project, "Smiling With No Teeth", which has quickly positioned him as an ambitious artist with mass potential to be a true pioneer in today's music scene."

The seeds of composer Rafael Anton Irisarri’s latest LP were first planted during his 2016 tour in Italy, months before that Autumn’s unexpected presidential election. The linguistic glitch of an innocuous diner in Milan named “il Mito Americano” – meant as “The American Dream” but translated literally to English as “The American Myth” – sparked a series of ideas, both conceptual and musical.

Amid the chaos of 2020, while exploring the stark world of brutalist architecture and inspired by the false fronts of Potemkin villages, a vision started to take shape: FAÇADISMS. Composed over three years, it’s a late capitalist lament of simmering electric despondency.

Irisarri’s obsession with repeating motifs mirrors the cyclical nature of our tumultuous political history. The album’s eight tracks heave and storm like a tempest being drained of its rage. This is the sound of majestic dissipation, of morning afters, fashioned from a mournful haze with cavernous guitars and granular twilight. A euphony of a receding tide as one sifts through the remnants of what remains: dust, delusion, and memory.

Opening with the somber gauze of “Broken Intensification," FAÇADISMS moves fluidly between moments of absence and abandon. Ashen swaths of electronics billow above smoldering embers of melody, guitar, and scattered streaks of processed strings and voice, as on the rapturous doom of “Control Your Soul's Desire for Freedom,” featuring Julia Kent on cello and Hannah Elizabeth Cox on vocals. "The impoverished peoples of the Americas have known all along that 'freedom' is a cruel illusion crafted by the elites, akin to Potemkin's fake villages designed to impress Catherine the Great," Irisarri indicates. "FAÇADISMS illustrates a twisted inversion where the rulers deceive their subjects with illusions of safety, democracy, and free speech to create a grotesque mirage of control over their own lives.”

Elsewhere, Irisarri leans into passages of hushed oblivion (“Hollow,” “Dispersion of Belief”), while ragged drones rumble and disintegrate into wind-battered ambient wreckage. One has the sense that it’s all too late. The hour of fury has passed. The beauty has come and gone. Irisarri’s muse has become the crack in the façade of the unraveling myth.

The record closes with a climax of grand departure. Co-written with Kenyan sound artist KMRU, “Red Moon Tide” surges from flickering elegy to celestial disquiet, roiling waves of hymnal descent, and bristling noise. The effect is unsettling and unmooring: a soundtrack for the soul leaving the body, only to discover a void. It’s the sound of the center not holding, of shared illusions being dissolved in a tunnel of white light.

The cover photograph captures a profound sense of desolation. Taken in the historic shanty town of La Perla, Puerto Rico, where Irisarri spent his childhood, brutal colonial mysteries are lost to time. A skeletal concrete structure decays against an expansive blue horizon. Only the shadow of its shell ripples on the empty sea.

Has the American myth finally run its course?

The seeds of composer Rafael Anton Irisarri’s latest LP were first planted during his 2016 tour in Italy, months before that Autumn’s unexpected presidential election. The linguistic glitch of an innocuous diner in Milan named “il Mito Americano” – meant as “The American Dream” but translated literally to English as “The American Myth” – sparked a series of ideas, both conceptual and musical.

Amid the chaos of 2020, while exploring the stark world of brutalist architecture and inspired by the false fronts of Potemkin villages, a vision started to take shape: FAÇADISMS. Composed over three years, it’s a late capitalist lament of simmering electric despondency.

Irisarri’s obsession with repeating motifs mirrors the cyclical nature of our tumultuous political history. The album’s eight tracks heave and storm like a tempest being drained of its rage. This is the sound of majestic dissipation, of morning afters, fashioned from a mournful haze with cavernous guitars and granular twilight. A euphony of a receding tide as one sifts through the remnants of what remains: dust, delusion, and memory.

Opening with the somber gauze of “Broken Intensification," FAÇADISMS moves fluidly between moments of absence and abandon. Ashen swaths of electronics billow above smoldering embers of melody, guitar, and scattered streaks of processed strings and voice, as on the rapturous doom of “Control Your Soul's Desire for Freedom,” featuring Julia Kent on cello and Hannah Elizabeth Cox on vocals. "The impoverished peoples of the Americas have known all along that 'freedom' is a cruel illusion crafted by the elites, akin to Potemkin's fake villages designed to impress Catherine the Great," Irisarri indicates. "FAÇADISMS illustrates a twisted inversion where the rulers deceive their subjects with illusions of safety, democracy, and free speech to create a grotesque mirage of control over their own lives.”

Elsewhere, Irisarri leans into passages of hushed oblivion (“Hollow,” “Dispersion of Belief”), while ragged drones rumble and disintegrate into wind-battered ambient wreckage. One has the sense that it’s all too late. The hour of fury has passed. The beauty has come and gone. Irisarri’s muse has become the crack in the façade of the unraveling myth.

The record closes with a climax of grand departure. Co-written with Kenyan sound artist KMRU, “Red Moon Tide” surges from flickering elegy to celestial disquiet, roiling waves of hymnal descent, and bristling noise. The effect is unsettling and unmooring: a soundtrack for the soul leaving the body, only to discover a void. It’s the sound of the center not holding, of shared illusions being dissolved in a tunnel of white light.

The cover photograph captures a profound sense of desolation. Taken in the historic shanty town of La Perla, Puerto Rico, where Irisarri spent his childhood, brutal colonial mysteries are lost to time. A skeletal concrete structure decays against an expansive blue horizon. Only the shadow of its shell ripples on the empty sea.

Has the American myth finally run its course?

The seeds of composer Rafael Anton Irisarri’s latest LP were first planted during his 2016 tour in Italy, months before that Autumn’s unexpected presidential election. The linguistic glitch of an innocuous diner in Milan named “il Mito Americano” – meant as “The American Dream” but translated literally to English as “The American Myth” – sparked a series of ideas, both conceptual and musical.

Amid the chaos of 2020, while exploring the stark world of brutalist architecture and inspired by the false fronts of Potemkin villages, a vision started to take shape: FAÇADISMS. Composed over three years, it’s a late capitalist lament of simmering electric despondency.

Irisarri’s obsession with repeating motifs mirrors the cyclical nature of our tumultuous political history. The album’s eight tracks heave and storm like a tempest being drained of its rage. This is the sound of majestic dissipation, of morning afters, fashioned from a mournful haze with cavernous guitars and granular twilight. A euphony of a receding tide as one sifts through the remnants of what remains: dust, delusion, and memory.

Opening with the somber gauze of “Broken Intensification," FAÇADISMS moves fluidly between moments of absence and abandon. Ashen swaths of electronics billow above smoldering embers of melody, guitar, and scattered streaks of processed strings and voice, as on the rapturous doom of “Control Your Soul's Desire for Freedom,” featuring Julia Kent on cello and Hannah Elizabeth Cox on vocals. "The impoverished peoples of the Americas have known all along that 'freedom' is a cruel illusion crafted by the elites, akin to Potemkin's fake villages designed to impress Catherine the Great," Irisarri indicates. "FAÇADISMS illustrates a twisted inversion where the rulers deceive their subjects with illusions of safety, democracy, and free speech to create a grotesque mirage of control over their own lives.”

Elsewhere, Irisarri leans into passages of hushed oblivion (“Hollow,” “Dispersion of Belief”), while ragged drones rumble and disintegrate into wind-battered ambient wreckage. One has the sense that it’s all too late. The hour of fury has passed. The beauty has come and gone. Irisarri’s muse has become the crack in the façade of the unraveling myth.

The record closes with a climax of grand departure. Co-written with Kenyan sound artist KMRU, “Red Moon Tide” surges from flickering elegy to celestial disquiet, roiling waves of hymnal descent, and bristling noise. The effect is unsettling and unmooring: a soundtrack for the soul leaving the body, only to discover a void. It’s the sound of the center not holding, of shared illusions being dissolved in a tunnel of white light.

The cover photograph captures a profound sense of desolation. Taken in the historic shanty town of La Perla, Puerto Rico, where Irisarri spent his childhood, brutal colonial mysteries are lost to time. A skeletal concrete structure decays against an expansive blue horizon. Only the shadow of its shell ripples on the empty sea.

Has the American myth finally run its course?

Alternative Jazz. This is a 5 track EP of brand new, previously unreleased material from The Near Jazz Experience (Terry Edwards, Mark Bedford and Simon Charterton). Whilst recording the new album Terry asked pianist Mike Garson (best known for his work with David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins) - whom Terry has toured with if he'd like to play on a track. Mike said yes, recorded a stupendous solo for Character Actor at his home studio and sent it over. All in the space of 24 hours! On hearing the piano part NJE bassist Mark Bedford came up with the idea of having the piano mixed with the original track (as intended) but also using it as the basis for a completely new recording with the piano leading rather than complementing the band. Side 1 of the EP has these two very different versions from the same seed. Unidentical twins indeed. Side 2 of the EP contains 4 outliers from the album sessions. These aren't out-takes or unfinished pieces. They simply couldn't find a place for themselves within the album - along the lines of the tunes Tom Waits put together for his Orphans compilation of 2006. They are standalone tunes which have found a home together on this EP because in some way they all have filmic qualities. Side 1 contains 2 takes on Character Actor (the title being a nod to Cracked Actor, a tune on Aladdin Sane, the album that introduced Bowie fans to Mike Garson), and Side 2 has The Loping Four; Projector; MacGuffin and Lockstep, all titles which contain strong cinematic elements, MacGuffin in particular. It was Alfred Hitchcock's favourite word for a red herring in the plot. The musical cast on this release has a remarkable pedigree. The NJE consists of Terry Edwards (solo artist and session player with PJ Harvey, Franz Ferdinand, Siouxsie, Jimi Tenor, Piroshka, Tindersticks etc); Mark Bedford (Madness, Robert Wyatt, Robyn Hitchcock, Nightingales etc); Simon Charterton (The Higsons, Alex Harvey, Zook, Serious Drinking etc). Alongside featured guest Mike Garson there is an appearance by Oliver Cherer (Aircooled, Miki Berenyi Band) on keys and synth. This is an RSD exclusive, 500 copies on black vinyl in full colour sleeve which reflects the filmic quality of the recorded material. No download. The title track will appear on the next Near Jazz Experience studio album. The 4 additional tracks, however, will remain exclusive to Record Store Day.

Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare or Sly and Robbie as they are affectionately known are the drum and bass backbone of Reggae Music, they have played on, produced, invented, reinvented more records then many of their contemporaries put together.

Sly Dunbar born Lowell Charles Dunbar on 10 May 1952, Kingston, Jamaica, drummed his first session for Mr Lee Perry which included a Jamaican hit ,a track called 'Night Doctor', before moving on to the group Skin, Flesh & Bones who had a residency at Kingston's famous 'Tit for Tat' club. This band would evolve into the Channel One house band The Revolutionaries where Sly named after his fondness of the band Sly and the Family Stone would begin to play alongside a bass player who would become his long standing partner in music, namely one Robbie Shakespeare.

Robbie Shakespeare born 27 September 1953, Kingston, Jamaica, had worked his way through session bands including the legendary Aggrovators before uniting with Sly Dunbar in The Revolutionaries. Both musicians had worked with other respective bass / drum players including such figures as Lloyd Parks bass, Carlton 'Santa' Davis drums, but everything seemed to fall into place when they worked together.

They also both had a quest to push the boundaries of reggae music, which they would do throughout their careers, over many sessions to numerous to mention. But highlights would include the groundbreaking Mighty Diamonds 1976 set 'Right Time' with its fresh rockers rhythms which lead the way in the 1970's. Also their work with the bands Culture and Black Uhuru the later of which they toured extensively with, spreading the reggae vibes across Europe and America. Not to forget to mention their Taxi label / productions which are always inventitive whether its in the reggae field or outside where their playing / production skills are much in demand.

The third piece of this jigsaw is the mighty Mr Bunny 'Striker' Lee who brought these legends together. Born Edward O'Sullivan Lee 23 August 1941, he must be one of reggae's most underrated producers. Leading the way in the 1970's especially in the dub field and being one of the early exponents of a King Tubby remix ,which would see nearly all his 7'' releases carrying a Tubby reworking on its flip side. Bunny started his musical career in 1962 working for Duke Reid's Treasure Isle label and soon moved into the world of production gaining his first hit in 1967 with 'Musical Field' by Roy Shirley for the WIRL label. The 1970's was a very productive time for Bunny Lee and saw the launch of his LEE'S label which was producing hits in Jamaica. Not having a studio of his own and renting studio time from the existing establishments like Randy's Studio 17 and Channel One he had to have a crack team of session players to carry out this task, fast and efficiently. This happened firstly under the guise of THE AGGROVATORS see The Aggrovators dubbing it studio 1 style JRCD005 and then with the group of musicians THE REVOLUTIONARIES[ see The Revolutionaries at Channel 1 dub plate specials JRCDOO3]. It’s here in the latter of these groups that Bunny matched Sly and Robbie together for the first time and it’s this match made in heaven that these tracks on this release are culled from. Sessions that Bunny Lee produced with Sly and Robbie during this magical 70's period. These rare dubs are taken from the original master tapes, you may have heard the tune before but not these versions. So sit back and enjoy Reggae Musical History in the making....

Scale and Scope is a set of four colour flexidisc records, each containing an instantiation of an individual microtonal designer scale, developed by Stefan Goldmann. The four discs are housed in a printed cardboard portfolio.
The flexidisc medium plays like a vinyl record, but is inherently noisier and tends to exhibit more signal disruptions than conventional vinyl. Expect occasional clicks, crackle and other variations, which differ substantially from copy to copy. These make each set unique.
The digital file versions are re-recorded directly from the flexidiscs, with very few corrections and a few spectral interventions by the original artist. The full resolution digital files used for cutting the flexidiscs will be available exclusively and individually to collectors who wish to acquire one of the scales as
instantiated in the recordings.

First Word Records are very proud to present a brand new album from Kaidi Tatham!

'An Insight To All Minds' is Kaidi's 3rd solo album under his own name, following several EPs and two albums for First Word; 2018's acclaimed 'It's A World Before You' and the re-press of his seminal 2008 sophomore album 'In Search Of Hope' last year.

For those that don't know, Kaidi Tatham is a legendary multi-instrumentalist. Once dubbed "the UK's Herbie Hancock" by Benji B, he's a virtuoso on the keys and a true innovator in sound production as one of the original creators of the Broken Beat sound. Over the years his musical prowess has blessed numerous projects, initially with the likes of Bugz In The Attic and The Herbaliser, and more recently with DJ Jazzy Jeff (through the PLAYlist projects), Andrew Ashong (on the acclaimed 'Sankofa Season' EP last year) and with longtime accomplice, Dego. This in addition to session work for artists such as Mulatu Astatke, Slum Village, Amy Winehouse, Soul II Soul and Leroy Burgess, along with First Word label mates such as Eric Lau, Children of Zeus and Darkhouse Family. Kaidi is also a revered DJ known for rocking parties globally, whilst his solo catalogue spans tons of EPs and releases for labels such as 2000 Black, Eglo and Theo Parrish's Sound Signature.

On 'An Insight To All Minds', Kaidi says it's "not about a destination, but a process. It's about how you drive, not where you're going. Nothing in this world can torment you as much as your own thoughts… We are all going through it. We can all feel what the next person is feeling, believe it or not. It's learning how to tap into it".

The album is comprised of an assortment of Kaidi's unique flavours - uptempo jazz-funk bruk, laced with rhodes, flutes, live bass and delicious percussion. Using that blueprint he moves effortlessly through latin and samba, half-step, deep afro house and a sprinkle of curveballs, all presented in Kaidi's inimitable way.

'Intergalactic Relations' brings with it some 110bpm synthed-out spacey electro-breaks, 'Could It Be' sets off sounding like a Morricone film score, whilst 'Rodney' is some serious heads-down business; stark and punchy off-kilter broken beat and vocal stabs. There are a few guests too - 'Chungo' sees the return of Uhmeer (who previously appeared on 'Cupid' on the album 'It's A World Before You'); here the young Philly MC deftly rides a 9/4 time signature beat. Meanwhile 'Stro Kyat' invites in another supreme talent, Stro Elliot (The Roots), who provides a suitably crisp & crunchy riddim to accompany Kaidi's key play over a mind-bending 5/4 time signature.

With this new album, Kaidi Tatham adds further to his already impressive catalogue, a body of work that falls within the cracks of jazz and dance music, exemplifying modern British black brilliance once again; uncompromising, innovative, groundbreaking, intricately sophisticated and deeply funky. His fanbase expands on every release and it's no surprise that that fanbase includes peers such as Madlib ("ahead of his time"), Gilles Peterson ("a key part of an entire movement"), K15 ("a limitless source of inspiration"), Alexander Nut ("a true virtuoso") and Kyle Hall.

Rarefied's Newest Sonic Assault Finds Label Mates Sibla And Zygos In Some Chthonic Dwelling Performing Occult Rites For Sub Bass Dominance. Three Prime Cuts Of Out-there Dubstep For Fans Of Moldy, Decrepit Basements, Decaying Houses In The Middle Of Woods, And Fog Drenched Nights.

the Path' Heaves Underneath Pneumatic Infrabass Pressure And A Din Of Percussion That Sounds Like A Warehouse Falling Apart. It Lurches Forward On Broken Ankles, Scanning With Cataract Eyes, For Its Next Victim.

The Aptly Named haunted' Is Built From The Ground Up On Evp Recordings, Static Hiss, And Disintegrating Tape Reels. A Lone Scream Echoes Towards Infinity Until The Mid-way Point Where Black Stars Crack The Void.

The Circle Is Complete With sigil'. Hewn Together With Horror Flick Soundtracks, Whispered Voices And A Feral Half-step Foundation. It Seems Zygos And Sibla's Golem Has Breathed Life For The First Time.

For Fans Of... Ralfi Pagan, Kent Gomez, Joe Bataan, Boogaloo Assassins. Pressed on limited edition clear with black swirl vinyl (indies only). Second Dewey Kenmore 45 to be released under Cosa Records. Produced by Joey Reina. Features West Coast legends, The Boogaloo Assassins. Crack open the fire hydrants and break out the popsicles, as Dewey Kenmore hits us with another bonafide block-party staple! "It's Never Too Late" is the highly anticipated sophomore 7" single, a sun-drenched, Latin-soul sure shot that is arriving just in time to burn off that winter gloom. Also joining Dewey & co. this time around are the West Coast legends, The Boogaloo Assassins, on background vocal duties, adding a little sweetness under Dewey's raw vocal stylings.

Your summer anthem has arrived!

Blue and green split vinyl with black splatter. Thotcrime, the intercontinental commotion causers seem to have stuck the landing with their intensely non-conventional cybergrind style. Solid instrumentals, chiptunes, synths, and some absolutely furious vocals all come together create something beautiful under the blipping, glitching anger that's itching to scream out under the very chantable melody.

ohn Fahey’s Takoma label is best known for pushing the envelope when it comes to acoustic guitar playing, but in 1967 it released a record that has become one of the true cult classics of the ‘60s free jazz movement. Charles Martin Simon was an aspiring writer whose artist wife died in 1965. When he tried to pick up the torch and become an artist using her art supplies, he was, in his words, “reduced to nothing,” and thus created an alter ego or “psyche fragmentation,” Charlie Nothing. Under that moniker he became most famous for creating “dingulators,” working guitar sculptures made from parts of American cars; in 1967, though, he recorded The Psychedelic Saxophone of Charlie Nothing/In Eternity with Brother Frederic, an album consisting of two separate saxophone improvisations accompanied only with gong, tabla, and ukelele. Its cover adorned by Nothing’s own hand-drawn art, this record has since become not only something of a “secret handshake” among free jazz fans, but also a classic of outsider art, fitting right next to your Moondog records if not in sound than in spirit. For its first ever reissue in any format, we’ve gone back to the original tapes to present an all-analog release of The Psychedelic Saxophone of Charlie Nothing/In Eternity with Brother Frederic on black vinyl with the original art intact, offering an unfiltered experience of this man’s cracked genius. A memorable look ‘n’ listen to say the least.

*REMASTERED ROUGH TRADE DEBUT LP LIMITED TO JUST 500 COPIES WITH EMBOSSED OUTER SLEEVE AND ORIGINAL INNER SLEEVE ON BLACK VINYL*

Dream POP, they called it. Given AR Kane’s Alex Ayuli once worked for advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, it’s no surprise that he and collaborator Rudy Tambala invented their own genre before critics could stick their oar in. It was a canny move, but more importantly, it was accurate: the music of AR Kane was made for dreamers, by dreamers, and its languor and longing made it particularly bewitching listening; their music is often smeared and blurry, happily lost in its own indefinable pleasures. “We wanted dream pop,” Tambala says, “that feeling of a dream where the rules are different. Dream logic.”
-UNCUT REISSUE OF THE MONTH

"A.R. Kane carved out a unique musical path, welding elements of pop, psych, dub, electronica, funk, noise, jazz, ambient and more in a way that had never been done before. Or since. Their debut in particular is a work of unbridled brilliance."
*Electronic Sound*

‘Sixty Nine’ the group’s debut LP that emerged in 1988 had critics and listeners struggling to fit language around A.R. Kane’s sound. As a title it was telling - the year of ‘Bitches Brew’, the year of ‘In A Silent Way’, the erotic möbius between two lovers - and as originally coined by the band themselves,
‘dream pop’ (before it became a free-floating signifier of vague import) was entirely apposite for the music A.R. Kane were making. Crafted in a dark small basement studio in which Tambala recalls the duo had “complete freedom - We wanted to go as far out as we could, and in doing so we discovered the point where it stops being music”. There was an irresistibly dreamy, somnambulant, sensual and almost surreal flow to ‘sixty nine’s sound, but also real darkness/dankness, the ruptures of the primordial and the reverberations of the subconscious, within the grooves of remarkable songs like ‘Dizzy’ and ‘Crazy Blue’. Alex’s plangent vocals floated and surged amidst exquisite peals of refracted feedback but crucially there was BASS here, lugubrious and funky and full of dread, sonic pleasure and sonic disturbance crushed together to make music with a center so deep it felt subcutaneous, music constructed from both the accidental and the deliberate, generous enough to dance with both serendipity and chaos. ‘sixty nine’ remains - especially in this remastered iteration - ravishing, revolutionary – Neil Kulkarni


"A.R. Kane made some of the most exciting, forward-thinking, and science fictional music of their era".
*Reissue Of The Week In The Quietus*

(Clear with black, white & yellow splatter limited to 500 copies) SKA DREAM is a complete re-recording of Jeff Rosenstock's critically-acclaimed 2020 record NO DREAM however this time around all the songs are ska songs you're welcome. The very good idea to make this record came together when, like many other bands throughout this pandemic that refused to participate in super spreading events, we were trying to find a fun way to make some music together to share with people. Otherwise we were just spending our evenings texting the group chat in dread about the collapsing world around us. Not the most fun band activity. As with most things ska in my life, what started out as a fun goof with friends eventually morphed into "Hey, what if we tried to make it good though?" All of us have a pretty deep history playing and touring the country in punk/ska bands. We all understand the stigma that comes along with ska, we've all dealt with the pitfalls of it, and we've all kept on truckin' regardless. If you are one of those people who loves music as long as it isn't ska, that's cool, we see you. This record isn't for you and you don't have to listen to it. Byeeee. Okay, everyone else, we see you too, we love you and check it out, SKA DREAM is real. This record includes contributions from Jer Hunter (JER, Skatune Network, We Are The Union), Rick Johnson (Mustard Plug), Laura Stevenson, Ara Babajian (The Slackers, Leftover Crack), Boboso, Sean Bonnette (AJJ), George Clarke (Deafheaven), David Combs (Bad Moves), Chris Farren, Augusta Koch (Gladie, Cayetana), Angelo Moore (Fishbone), Franz Nicolay, nonregla, Elise Okusami (Oceanator), Mike Park (Bruce Lee Band, Skankin Pickle, Asian Man Records), PUP, Anika Pyle (Katie Ellen, Chumped) & Shannon Toombes.

Artwork by Taychin Dunnvatanachit.

Siamese Twins embarks on its 10th release milestone with the acclaimed Thai performance artist Tul Waitoonkiat. In หนึ่งคำถาม (One Question), Waitoonkiat's poetry is conjoined into a versatile sonic meeting of minds, created in collaboration with producers Black Merlin, Sapphire Slows, and Sleep D. Aligning seamlessly with Siamese Twins' trademark ethos of cultural reflection and interdisciplinary exploration.

Waitoonkiat, known for his socio-political work "2553," which reflects on the 2010 military crackdown in Thailand, has presented his novel "Silence is Violence" through multidisciplinary art exhibitions across Bangkok. One of these collaborations with Siamese Twins’ Khun Fluff in 2022 established a profound connection and laid this release's foundational recording layer. The recorded poem explores existential themes, pondering the endless cycle of questioning and the dichotomy between silence and imagination, darkness and light, with its contemplative imagination setting the stage.

The A-side unveils George Thompson's universe, known in the terrestrial realm as Black Merlin, with two noirish cinematic explorations that compose Waitoonkiat’s trademark expressive and enigmatic voice into the release's fabric. Showcasing Thompson’s ability to create hypnotic, depth-charged soundscapes that captivatingly feed into a broader story rather than claiming center stage.

The B-side begins with a delicate approach to sound design, crafted through the Buchla synthesizer by Japanese modular artist Sapphire Slows. The charm of this version lies within the sustained notes that gently inhale and exhale between enigmatic vocoder effects and layers of beauty, nature, and technology.

B2 closes with a seven-and-a-half-minute peak timer revolving around a pulsating bassline and driving force of drum energy. One craving for packed warehouses and bush raves by the Australian wizards of OZ and Butter Sessions label owners, Sleep D, aka Corey Kikos and Maryos Syawish.

THE 1968 ALBUM ON WHICH JOHNNY CASH BECAME A LEGEND: AT FOLSOM PRISON AMONG THE MOST IMPORTANT AND POTENT STATEMENTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY


Johnny Cash already knew his way around Folsom Prison when he and his band stepped inside the institution’s forbidding walls on the morning of January 13, 1968 to record At Folsom Prison. He’d played there two years prior. But this time was different.

Cash took the stage that day for two shows amid a darkening sociopolitical atmosphere and a raging war in Vietnam, as well as the knowledge his career and health hung on by a thread. The Arkansas native shared many of the long odds and abject failures of the inmates for which he performed. The songs he chose, and the conviction with which he delivered them, say as much. The point at which Cash transformed from a country star into a legendary artist, and a bold statement about the American prison state and its commitment to rehabilitation, the triple-platinum At Folsom Prison remains one the most important, potent, and fabled records of the 20th century.

You can hear it echo off the walls of the room; pulse through the itchiness of the Tennessee Three’s acoustic-based boom-chick rhythms; crackle in the announcements conveyed over the intercom; ring in the comedy of the off-cuff remarks and pair of novelty tunes; sense it in palpable energy that wells up within Cash and his audience. And you can experience it like never before via Cash’s knockout singing. The bedrock foundation of all his music, the singer’s baritone resonates with profound degrees of depth, pliability, and passion that underscore how much this appearance meant to him — and the extent he was living the narratives.

Indeed, every song on At Folsom Prison serves a purpose and speaks to the conditions — mental, emotional, physical, geographical, legal, social — the inmates confronted on a daily basis. Beginning with the explicit messages of the opening “Folsom Prison Blues,” Cash makes it clear he understands and shares many of their plights. Not for nothing did the myth of Cash having done hard time persist for decades once this record hit the streets. That’s how real it is, and how dedicated Cash remains to conveying every note with the same truth he invests in the impromptu comments he makes between and amid songs.

Listen to the sorrow, regret, pity, and loneliness of Merle Travis’ “Dark as the Dungeon,” Cash pulling syllables til they threaten to break and inhabiting the mood of bleak phrases such as “pleasures are few” and “the sun never shines.” Witness the isolation, dejection, and sadness punctuating the walking-blues “I Still Miss Someone,” matched in gravity by a solemn reading of “The Long Black Veil” — a traditional dirge that involves murder, cheating, and deception. Cash cuts even deeper on a heartbreaking solo rendition of “Send a Picture of Mother” and plainspoken version of Harlan Howard’s “The Wall,” detailing a suicide disguised as jailbreak through cliched-jaw deliveries that softly curse the impossible situation.

In chronicling temptations, mistakes, mortality, punishment, and life “inside” — for better or worse, the stories of the disenfranchised, forgotten, written-off, and unrepentant — At Folsom Prison also has a blast playing the outlaw role. Cash captures wild-eyed craziness and out-of-control mayhem on a revved-up take of “Cocaine Blues,” taking extra satisfaction in its dastardly tales by way of voice that shifts into character for the sheriff and judge. The gallows humor and racing drama of “25 Minutes to Go”; quicksilver accents and resigned acceptance of “I Got Stripes”; train-whistle blare and twangy locomotion of “Folsom Prison Blues” — all fight the law only to see the law win.

Cash remains deeply committed at every moment, and inseparably connected with the tortured souls removed from the goings-on of the outside world. No wonder all but two songs here stem from the day’s first performance that saw Cash, Luther Perkins, Marshall Grant, and company give everything. As does the Man in Black’s soon-to-be-wife, June Carter. The couple’s fiery duet on “Jackson” scorches; their combination of surrender and fortitude “Give My Love to Rose” puts us in the dying protagonist’s shoes.

And with the closing “Greystone Chapel,” famously penned by convict Glen Sherley, who watched it all happen under the watchful eye of guards, Cash separates the corporeal from the spiritual, relaying lessons about salvation and survival. Heady themes to which he’d return for the remainder of his illustrious career.

1STEP Process 180g 45rpm Double LP Pressed on VR900-Supreme Vinyl!
Mastered from the Analogue Mix-Down Tapes of the Original Digital Recording by Bernie Grundman!
Ultra-Luxe "Monster Pack" Jacket with a Deluxe 16-Page Booklet & Striking Outer Slipcase!

New lacquers cut after each run of 500 pressings!

Strictly Limited to 5,000 Numbered Pressings!

Impex 1STEP #5 celebrates Patricia Barber's 1999 "return" to The Green Mill, Chicago's fabled jazz club. Conceived as a "companion" to her Grammy-winning studio album Modern Cool, Companion finds Barber and her touring band in inspired form, playfully and energetically performing hits and deep tracks from her celebrated oeuvre.

The dynamic interaction between the artist and her reverent audience adds a palpable sense of space and community. At the same time, the fans' hushed attention creates a studio-like sense of precision and detail. The snap and crackle of Barber, her grand piano, and her onstage partners practically leaps off the groove into your listening room!

Companion's fan-favorite reputation is enhanced immeasurably by Jim Anderson's jaw-dropping, lifelike recording. Eschewing the crystalline sterility of digital recordings of the time, Anderson's sound is always warm, natural, and lacking unforced "hype."

Like Anderson, Impex aims to present great recordings that are as natural as possible. And we couldn't wait to put our favorite Patricia Barber release, using Jim's analog mix-down master tapes, on 180 grams of VR900 Super Vinyl. The deep, inky black backgrounds and absence of surface noise will pull listeners right into those three evenings in 1999, capturing a seminal modern jazz artist at a creative and professional peak and reveling in a perfectly rendered and joyous audio time capsule.

Finally, our deluxe Impex Treatment packages the whole party with a lovely outer slipcase, a booklet containing a new note from Patricia, and a dazzling array of photographs from the evenings by frequent Barber collaborator Valerie Booth, exclusive to our 1STEP. Heavy paper stock with spot gloss coating and a faithfully recreated exterior design will satisfy original fans and aesthetes throughout the music-loving world.

Luxury Apartments have spent long enough pondering in the orb of creative frustration as art charged city dwellers and have alchemised a jagged piece of guitar work that calls on the past for a quick catch up before cracking on with their day as a witty, energised and wiry punk band. Formed before your favourite East London neighbourhood became full of high rises, cockapoos and pubs with Madri & Beavertown on Draft, there’s a whole swath of words you could use to describe Luxury Apartments, but doing so might draw too many parallels to estate agent listings wo we’re gonna let their track record and new LP do the talking… LA played with the likes of TOY, TELEGRAM, Deep Tan, Es, The Chisel and Rifle before even having an LP. Mixing dry humour with a belting live show served them well while the guys were woodshedding and earnt them early fans such as Graham Coxon and Jamie Reynolds, who I can only gather shed a single tear of seeing where they came from with all the chaotic guitar-busting, skin-splitting, bottle-smashing madness of an early LA show. But we’re here talking about NOW and NOW is the time to get your pre-order for their first LP, a half hour of power smashing the atoms of 80s c86 indie on lead track ‘Energy’, 77 punk on ‘Wire’ and new garage rock explosions on ‘Taliban’ which morph in to a piece of black wax that’s 100% guaranteed to get the disenfranchised wiggling, the fed-up hurling half bricks through foxtons windows and the punk lifers flipping off yet another boss before carving out another fork in their paths of resistance.

Bill MacKay and Drag City are delirious with pride to announce the discovery of a new territory: Locust Land, a record which seeks to reflect the nerve-shredding consciousness run amok in our world today - and somehow allay it with sound. Bill"s music is a visceral crackling where it meets the air, and Locust Land can"t help but reflect its era more than any other in his discography. It"s been five years since the release of Fountain Fire - but in the interim, Bill has barely stopped moving, collaborating with artists across the spectrum, including cellist Katinka Kleijn, banjo player Nathan Bowles and keyboardist Cooper Crain. He"s also contributed to recordings by Steve Gunn, Ryley Walker, Bill Callahan & Bonnie Prince Billy (Blind Date Party), and Black Duck (on their self-titled record featuring Douglas McCombs and Charles Rumback). Forget five years - how"d he even get Locust Land squeezed out of his temporal lobes? Bill"s sense of music as art is constantly modulating - lifting off from where it is found and naturally migrating to some other place. Sometimes, that"s elsewhere - others, it"s simply to be found deeper inside the starting point. And so, the action of moving on informs the landscape of Locust Land. This manifests in several different ways. A restless energy and urgency is repeatedly felt - in the driving momentum of "Keeping in Time," "Glow Drift," and "When I Was Here" - while a dogged persistence radiates from the tone colors and percussion of "Oh, Pearl." Mating a dirge-like desolation with sparkling guitars, "Radiator" adds darkness and depth. The sense of searching, displacement and longing in vocal tracks "Keeping in Time," "Half of You," and "When I Was Here" speak literally to the tumult of current vibrations. Within the arrangements, there"s also departure from previous norms - in addition to the brilliant guitar work for which he is known, Bill plays a variety of keyboards, from piano to organ to synth, extending his music with the available voicings, while enriching the sound field without abandoning his signature brevity. For fans of his singing, and following in the recent tradition of Fountain Fire as well as his collaboration with Nathan Bowles, Keys, Locust Land expresses with an increased vocal presence - and heightened engagement, with Bill"s words and melodies drawing us closer. Also different: on his previous solo recordings, Bill played every sound. Here, he has invited other illustrious Chicagoans to join him: Sam Wagster (The Father Costume, Mute Duo) plays bass on three songs, two of which feature the percussion playing of Mikel Patrick Avery (Natural Information Society, Jeff Parker, etc.). Additionally, Janet Beveridge Bean (Eleventh Dream Day, Freakwater) adds otherworldly vocal textures to the elegiac "Neil"s Field." Whether played alone or with companions, this music projects the strength of a universal collective. Even with a piece that might earlier have passed for blissful pastorale, Bill displays some declamatory motives. The reverie which opens the album, "Phantasmic Fairy," embodies both transcendent and desperate moods, with Bill"s ineffable slide guitar playing afloat, with organs and synths, in a dream state suffused with a sense of foreboding - a requiem, perhaps for the days of unencumbered bandwidth? On the other side of the album, the strength to continue to hope appears in the lifting melodicism/exoticism of the album-closing title track, leaving the listener with the sense of having achieved a hard-won space - a place of personal contemplation and dissent, one that everyone on the planet deserves to visit every single day on earth. With cover art also by Bill MacKay (the third of his albums on Drag City to feature his work), Locust Land stands as a thoroughly personal statement from Bill to everyone everywhere.

Bill MacKay and Drag City are delirious with pride to announce the discovery of a new territory: Locust Land, a record which seeks to reflect the nerve-shredding consciousness run amok in our world today - and somehow allay it with sound. Bill"s music is a visceral crackling where it meets the air, and Locust Land can"t help but reflect its era more than any other in his discography. It"s been five years since the release of Fountain Fire - but in the interim, Bill has barely stopped moving, collaborating with artists across the spectrum, including cellist Katinka Kleijn, banjo player Nathan Bowles and keyboardist Cooper Crain. He"s also contributed to recordings by Steve Gunn, Ryley Walker, Bill Callahan & Bonnie Prince Billy (Blind Date Party), and Black Duck (on their self-titled record featuring Douglas McCombs and Charles Rumback). Forget five years - how"d he even get Locust Land squeezed out of his temporal lobes? Bill"s sense of music as art is constantly modulating - lifting off from where it is found and naturally migrating to some other place. Sometimes, that"s elsewhere - others, it"s simply to be found deeper inside the starting point. And so, the action of moving on informs the landscape of Locust Land. This manifests in several different ways. A restless energy and urgency is repeatedly felt - in the driving momentum of "Keeping in Time," "Glow Drift," and "When I Was Here" - while a dogged persistence radiates from the tone colors and percussion of "Oh, Pearl." Mating a dirge-like desolation with sparkling guitars, "Radiator" adds darkness and depth. The sense of searching, displacement and longing in vocal tracks "Keeping in Time," "Half of You," and "When I Was Here" speak literally to the tumult of current vibrations. Within the arrangements, there"s also departure from previous norms - in addition to the brilliant guitar work for which he is known, Bill plays a variety of keyboards, from piano to organ to synth, extending his music with the available voicings, while enriching the sound field without abandoning his signature brevity. For fans of his singing, and following in the recent tradition of Fountain Fire as well as his collaboration with Nathan Bowles, Keys, Locust Land expresses with an increased vocal presence - and heightened engagement, with Bill"s words and melodies drawing us closer. Also different: on his previous solo recordings, Bill played every sound. Here, he has invited other illustrious Chicagoans to join him: Sam Wagster (The Father Costume, Mute Duo) plays bass on three songs, two of which feature the percussion playing of Mikel Patrick Avery (Natural Information Society, Jeff Parker, etc.). Additionally, Janet Beveridge Bean (Eleventh Dream Day, Freakwater) adds otherworldly vocal textures to the elegiac "Neil"s Field." Whether played alone or with companions, this music projects the strength of a universal collective. Even with a piece that might earlier have passed for blissful pastorale, Bill displays some declamatory motives. The reverie which opens the album, "Phantasmic Fairy," embodies both transcendent and desperate moods, with Bill"s ineffable slide guitar playing afloat, with organs and synths, in a dream state suffused with a sense of foreboding - a requiem, perhaps for the days of unencumbered bandwidth? On the other side of the album, the strength to continue to hope appears in the lifting melodicism/exoticism of the album-closing title track, leaving the listener with the sense of having achieved a hard-won space - a place of personal contemplation and dissent, one that everyone on the planet deserves to visit every single day on earth. With cover art also by Bill MacKay (the third of his albums on Drag City to feature his work), Locust Land stands as a thoroughly personal statement from Bill to everyone everywhere.

Limited edition Cream and Black swirl PICTURE DISC is for Indie stores only.

Vanishing Twin is songwriter, singer and multi-instrumentalist Cathy Lucas, drummer Valentina Magaletti, bassist Susumu Mukai, synth/guitar player Phil MFU and visual artist/film maker Elliott Arndt on flute and percussion; and on this album they have made their first artistic statement for the ages.

Some of its great power comes from liberation. The album was produced by Lucas in a number of non-standard, non-studio settings. 'KRK (At Home In Strange Places)' summons up the spirit of Sun Ra's Lanquidity and Broadcast And The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio was simply recorded on an iPhone during a live set which crackled with psychic connectivity on the Croatian island of Krk.
The magical Morricone-esque lounge of 'You Are Not an Island', the blissed-out Jean-Claude Vannier style arrangement of 'Invisible World' and burbling sci fi funk ode to a 1972 cult French animation, 'Plane`te Sauvage', were all recorded in nighttime sessions in an abandoned mill in Sudbury. The only two outsiders to work on the recording were '6th member' and engineer Syd Kemp and trusted friend Malcolm Catto, band leader of the spiritual jazz/future funk outfit The Heliocentrics, who mixed seven of the tracks (with Lucas taking care of the other three).

Vanishing Twin formed in 2015 - their first LP, Choose Your Own Adventure, which came out on Soundway in 2016; followed by the darker, more abstract, mostly instrumental Dream By Numbers EP in 2017. The band explored their more experimental tendencies on the Magic And Machines tape released by Blank Editions in 2018, an improvised session recorded in the dead of night, offering a glimpse into their practice of deep listening, near band telepathy, and ritually improvised sound making. These sessions formed the basis of The Age Of Immunology.

It's the year 2003. the world is bad and it would only be your fault if it stays that way. but the ärzte are doing what they've never done before: a double album. Everything has to be included! Punk, jazz, rumba, hard rock ... so many ideas, so many songs ... Even "Als ich den Punk erfand..." (When I invented punk ...) clarifies some aspects of human cultural history that have been clearly neglected up to now. The light-heartedly silly "Jag Älskar Sverige!" is a crowd favorite, "Geisterhaus" plays in the league of the great goth rock anthems, "Deine Schuld" provides the soundtrack to the clenched-fists-in-the-air resistance that is as permanently valid as it is double-edged, while "Die klügsten Männer der Welt" is more of a subtle dialectical critique. "Nothing in the World" is the official heartache cracker. There's also the bundle of pitch-black, cynical "Der Tag" with the blazingly amorous "Die Nacht" and two of the most good-humored zombie homage rock smashers of all time. And the absolutely compelling "Unrockbar" is instantly one of the signature hits of the best band in the world.

Ivy Falls, the alias of singer-songwriter Fien Deman, will release her first full album in the spring of 2024. 'Sense & Nonsense' sounds mature, with a clear vision and direction. Fien wrote the album after a breakup and leaving her home; she witnessed cracks appearing in her life and found herself in a whirlpool of insecurities. Writing turned out to be the way to reorient herself and discover what she could fill her empty 'house' with. Everything changed: a new life, a new place, new people, and a new view of herself as a musician and writer. Bram Vanparys, aka The Bony King of Nowhere, makes his debutas a producer on Ivy Falls' first release. This unreleased duo impresses with 'the best coda for the confusing time that your twenties can be.'

Sometimes hitting a wall is inevitable. This occurred, partly even literally, in 2020: a broken nose, a painful breakup, and a series of chaotic events shook Fien's foundations. Losing her job, ending her relationship, leaving her home, and returning to her parental home, she hit rock bottom and started her quest to rebuild everything from scratch. After the tumult, Fien decided to shed the oppressive norms and ideas learned as a child and wholeheartedly pursue her own choices and projects.

In the years that followed, each aspect of her life gradually fell into its right place. This extended to her musical identity, themes, and sound. Acquiring some guitars and an upright piano, she endeavored to master them as a self-taught artist. Devoting ample time to her self-made home studio, she returned to the essence, distancing herself from the polished pop sound of her initial work and reconnecting with her first musical love - the singer-songwriters who had colored her teenage years. This rediscovered inspiration marked the first time in her musical career that everything felt perfectly aligned.

The album's artistic approach aligns with a fresh, expansive outlook on life and the future. Fien aims to challenge rigid societal concepts, including the notion of 'golden years.' She questions what and when exactly should be considered the most significant, joyful, and vibrant moments of life. The album delves into topics like the perceived superiority of extroverts, narcotic materialism, and toxic positivity. It's not a lament but rather an ode to what truly matters-the essence, love, and beauty. Fien's perspective encourages finding your inner child and immersing yourself in timeless and profound feelings.

Musically, Fien discovered her perfect match in Bram Vanparys (The Bony King of Nowhere), her newfound love. She wrote the songs, and he took on the role of album producer and co-arranger. Together, they crafted a metaphorical space where every small musical idea has room to flourish, and each insight and effort carries significance. Influenced by indie folk luminaries such as Julia Jacklin, Amen Dunes, Feist, Sharon Van Etten, Sufjan Stevens, and Nick Drake, Ivy Falls has set a high standard for her sound.

The main constant? Fien's distinctive voice commands every song, now revealing greater depth and nuance than ever. In live performances, Ivy Falls is joined by a talented ensemble: Trui Amerlinck (Tsar B, Mayorga), Jasper Morel (Black Box Revelation), Simon Raman (Steiger), and Anton De Boes (Philemon).

In the past, Ivy Falls has launched two EPs, received airplay on Studio Brussels and Radio 1, and shared the stage as supportfor artists like Balthazar, Jessie Ware, Sigrid, and Mabel.

Brazilian producer and DJ Pedro Bertho, now based in France and an active member of Lyon's electronic music scene, releases his first EP on Cracki Records.

With "Mêlé", he attempts to translate what it feels like to be a black, Brazilian man living in France in the 21st century.

A complex patchwork of experiences, accents and heritages that he translates on this powerful record, mixing baile funk, house, electro or acid house, sprinkled with TR-808 and iPhone recordings.

The mix extends to the remixes, with Brazilian underground queen Badsista signing a hard-hitting version of "Jour 4", while Chilean Alejandro Paz tackles the bouncy "3333".

Three years on from the desolate beauty of their debut, Quindi Records is proud to present the second album from Dead Bandit. The ghosts of their past endeavours still haunt their guitars, but on Memory Thirteen the duo's delicately dishevelled Southern gothic feels tonally distinct from their prior outing.
Dead Bandit is Ellis Swan and James Schimpl - the former a noted solo singer-songwriter from Chicago with a penchant for eerie, witching hour murder ballads and the latter an accomplished Canadian multi-instrumentalist with a bias towards heartworn, roaming soundscapes. Their instrumental collaboration has an open, lyrical quality which says as much as any spoken line, and on this album they've especially embraced the power of contrast as we're guided between scenes, sometimes within the confines of one track.
'Peel Me An Orange' is especially instructive in this regard, beginning as a blown-out paean to sonic degradation and the acute sense of hopelessness it projects, only to yield to a lilting tape loop of twanging guitar before entirely widening out in an emphatic burst of post-rock optimism.
Post-rock isn't noted for its banal cheeriness as a genre, and Dead Bandit aren't about to lay down feel-good drive-time anthems, but the sense of pulling at extremes of energy and introspection show Swan and Schimpl to be testing the emotional limits of their weatherbeaten sound. The cautiously sentimental mood of 'Blowing Kisses' hints at the hard-won light which can be encountered while pointedly driving into darkness.
Sometimes noise is a subtle device - a looming bed of unease under the forthright pluck of Swan's distinct guitar tone or the cracking round the edges of a beaten up drum machine. On 'Memory Thirteen' the distortion on the bass becomes a central figure in its haggard waltz, while 'Staircase' and 'Perfume' leave the signal wet until the delay feedback becomes the body of the riff. Either way, the sound is never left untouched as Swan and Schimpl grow more comfortable in their exchange, blurring their respective sonic languages as they expand their shared vocabulary to create an album of depth, difference and devoted distortion.

This is the new 20th anniversary edition of one of Soul Jazz Records’ classic Studio One releases, now available as a one-off special blue vinyl very limited-edition pressing (2000 copies worldwide). 


Studio One Roots set the standard for Soul Jazz Records’ long-standing series of Studio One collections and features many of the classic artists from Clement 'Sir Coxsone’ Dodd’s mighty roster of reggae. This album includes Freddie McGregor, Willie Williams, Cornell Campbell, Alton Ellis, Devon Russell alongside some of the defining crack-session men groups of Jamaican reggae history – The Sound Dimension, Brentford All-Stars, The Skatalites, New Establishment and more. As ever the album is filled with a mixture of
seminal cuts and super-rarities from the vast vaults of 13 Brentford Road. 
Stand-out tracks include Alton Ellis’s Blackish White, a surreal and powerful Afro-centric dream, Count Ossie Nyabinghi and Rastafarian drummers genre-defying interpretation of Booker
T and The MGs ‘Meditation’, Willie Williams awe-inspiring versioning of the Skatalites seminal Rastafari anthem Addis Ababa and many, many more.
 This album has been fully digitally remastered, analog cut and packaged complete with the following: Original sleevenotes by Lloyd Bradley (author of When Reggae Was King),
compiled by Mark Ainley (Hones Jons), high-quality Soul Jazz mastering, wicked images of Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari on the cover, and a rare image of Clement Dodd and musicians inside the studio at Studio One on the full colour inner
sleeves.
 “The music of this compilation is of a rare, rare beauty and is essential to anyone's reggae collection” All Music

The vinyl edition of Klein's 2022 album: »STAR IN THE HOOD« plays like a cracked, tarnished mirror of contemporary numbing music, replacing long-form expression with tighter, more explosive and sometimes completely freeform transmissions that will wake you up from your overly comfortable environmental music slumber. Opening with cycling ghost drones, dialog and piano motifs that blur into heartfelt noise, »black star« is all loping, looping piano and chthonic vocals spiked with cheese-grater noise and chipmunked chirps. It’s Klein’s delirious vocal runs that push the album to the next level though; like her style-defining »Lagata« and the Hyperdub-released »Tommy,« she subverts the raw material that makes up R&B, turning memorable hooks into blurry impressions that will glue to your mind like a diva moment on a Suburban Bass cut.

She keels into longform on »schooled,« fogging organ drones into hazed clouds that gust into imposing shapes over a 10-minute duration, rekindling the dialog between contemporary noise and gospel music. Grandiose classical sounds receive a similar treatment on ‘Friend in the Mirror’, pulled into disorienting shapes that dispel any notions of class gatekeeping; in the final third, Klein’s voice interrupts the mood, before machine-gun percussion reminds us not to get too comfortable. If yr in search of beauty, »postcode wars« finds Klein fuzzing euphoric chords into an afterparty woosh of half-heard voices and dribbling synths. She simultaneously channels rapture and wrath, poignantly torching the contemporary societal skeleton without losing her near-at-hand community in the process.

Midway through the album there’s a thematic pivot signalled by the brief »shorty alert,« a trilling mass of carnivalesque vocal quirks that sound like spiders spitting DMT into yr eardrums. From here, things get darker and more unsettling: there’s doomed subterranean ambience on »signed and delivered«, Disney-esque piano motifs, blown-out lo-fi outsider rawk on »Swerve,« and speaker garbling free eccentric soul on »brand new day,« each struck through with that unmistakable high-vs-low culture posturing. It all brings us to the album’s unsettling one-two punch of ‘haha hehe business’, maybe the foamiest track we’ve heard from her this year, and the zonked »winter« - a piece that’s as crystal clear as Klein gets, an unprocessed heartstring-tugging vocal performance over acoustic guitar twangs.

Crypt of the Wizard is proud to present Peace Vaults - I & II on vinyl and digital formats. New blood from the Viennese gutters. Amidst the vile and hostile ravines of sooted stone and waste filled waters is a glade to be found. Peace Vaults erect four pillars of crude and stoic Black Metal, guided by luring vocals and synth melodies, which shimmer like ominously kaleidoscopic light through cracks in the walls of rat filled sewers. Hissing through cracked and blackened feedback Peace Vaults produce jangly off-kilter rhythms, awash with raw metal energy and diffuse post punk lethargy. Frantically pulling chaotic drum patterns and howling guitar leads into rhythmic structure until, wild, they pull themselves apart again. This compilation of the band's two demo tapes rightly now presented on vinyl marks the beginning of an ongoing union between Peace Vaults and Crypt of the Wizard with new material due in the not so distant future

Double Vinyl : full set of the finale concert of their 1985 'Kick Over Apartheid!' tour + BBC broadcast tracks from their 1986 concert at the Town And Country Club. 2 x 140 grs Black LP , 25 tracks. Printed inners. introduction by Redskins founding member Martin Hewes + liner notes.

SHORT INFOS
In the mid '80s, in the midst and direct aftermath of the era defining Miner's Strike, the Redskins, as political activists, delivered their electrifying and radical Socialist Workers Party missives and broadsides through the ministry of their music - a unique post-punk rock/soul hybrid that gained their lead singer, Chris Dean, the sobriquet 'Tamla Motormouth'.

The Redskins were taking a stand for the working man and by standing up, they stood out - and never so forcefully as in the live arena! With their stellar musicianship and crack brass section honed through a never ending whorl of 'fighting fund' benefit gigs, they were the furious flames that kept the anti-Thatcher fires of dissent burning throughout those challenging years marked by her seeming unassailability.

'These Furious Flames!' is a 25 track documentation of the energy, commitment and drive of the Redskins as that campaigning live act. Issued in 2xCD capacity wallet, double vinyl and digital editions, each format couples together a recording of the full set of the finale concert of their 1985 'Kick Over Apartheid!' tour - including guest appearances from Jerry Dammers and Billy Bragg - with the BBC broadcast tracks from their 1986 concert at the Town And Country Club.

The double CD edition comes with a 40 page booklet that compiles new and period quotes by band members Martin Hewes, Chris Dean, Paul Hookham and Kevin Robertson as well as thoughts by an array of associates and celebrity fans including poet Atilla The Stockbroker, Billy Bragg, Colin Revolting, their studio album producers Pat Foley & Chris Silagyi and DJ Gary Crowley. The booklet also contains gig reviews, photographs and a condensed digest of media quotes about the band.

The double vinyl LP format has printed inner bags replete with evocative archive photographs and a written introduction by Redskins founding member Martin Hewes, with whose co-operation and input this celebratory release has been curated.

Preston’s unholiest sons Evil Blizzard return with their most furious, compelling and diverse album to date, released on their own Crackedankles label, (which has recently branched out into releasing the likes of Hotwax, Thank, Bad Guys and TV Face.) Following the critical and commercial success of their last album ‘The Worst Show On Earth’ the band took a year off after that tour to recoup. And then got back together in March 2020, just in time for… another enforced year off. They did, however, release ‘The Very Best Of Evil Blizzard’ on vinyl, which was completely blank. And sold out in less than a day. The new album, their fifth, was written during and post lockdown and ‘reflects the claustrophobia, fear and paranoia of those days’ according to guitarist (not bassist!) Filthydirty. ‘The band has changed. One of our 4 bassists Kav left and we were joined by Fleshcrawl (aka Mr. Dibs, Hawkwind’s vocalist and bassist for over 12 years). Kav was inimitable as a musician, so it never crossed our minds to try and ‘replace’ him, so when Fleshcrawl scurried in he brought a whole new range of sounds and toys to the sandpit. Also, we’d run out of sonic space to play with, having just the basses, and everything had got a bit stale - so I switched to lead guitar which brought a whole new range of possibilities. 'The new album is much more representational of the band’s record collections: it retains the ‘Sabbath-meets PiL-meets Killing Joke’ sound found on the band’s earlier albums, but now encompasses dub, goth and electronica in its 8 tracks, with clear nods in the general direction of Sonic Youth, Jane’s Addiction, Leftfield and The Mission. As opposed to all previous albums which were recorded live in one or two takes, this album took over three months with the band meticulously de-structuring songs ‘that sounded too much like pop songs’ resulting in an album that is uncomfortable yet still accessible. Featuring cover art by the legendary Nick Blinko or Rudimentary Peni, the album is released in gatefold sleeve on black vinyl, compact disc and DL.

In the decade or so that hard-working New York quartet Sunwatchers have operated, the group has steadily & subtly refined their sound - a brain-blasting mixture of jazz, psychedelia, krautrock, punk, noise, & Saharan blues - into something that is avant-leaning enough to appeal to the discerning jazz & experimental music fan & weird & wooly enough to get the true heads' toes tapping. "Music Is Victory Over Time" is the band's 5th album, and fourth for Chicago-based Trouble In Mind Records, seeing the long-running lineup of Peter Kerlin (bass guitar), Jim McHugh (guitars), Jason Robira (drums), and Jeff Tobias (alto saxophone and keyboards) in prime form. Album opener "World People" is a classic Sunwatchers number whose title expresses their Anarcho-Internationalist ideology (and the atypically multi-culti make up of their crowds), with an underlying melodic resonance to New Orleans funeral marches à la Albert Ayler _ a triumphant call to arms to all peoples. Live fave "Too Gary"'s gang vocal shout punctuates a motorik rager named for a phrase often uttered by a badass eight year old skateboarder McHugh knew with a speech impediment (it means "that's too scary"). "T.A.S.C." (or "Theme For Anarchist Sports Center") is inspired by Sonny Sharrock's maligned 80's output & sounds exactly like a wrathful, mutant version of a prime-time athletic show theme, replete with the requisite "sitcom ending." The sun- scorched "Foams" - a longform piece intended to depict natural stuff like tides, nightfall, and time slowly passing, ancient, peaceful and slightly gross all at once - practically jumps out of the speakers, its palpable intensity crackling in your eardrums. The title of "Tumulus" might reference an ancient burial mound, but the music itself might be the group's most high-tech song to date, complimented by an arpeggiating sequencer, three different forms of tape delay and an electric saxophone; ecstatic, fiery & deeply spiritual. "There Goes Ol' Ooze" is a smoky creeper that lets Tobias & Kerlin take a walk for a while, with respectful nods to the Stones and Steve Reich. "Song For The Gone" closes out the album, showcasing a sincerely tender moment for the gang, as an expression of love and resolve for dear friends who had recently, tragically died. Its cascading, bluesy melody attuning itself to our own collective unconscious grief. Having the distinct pleasure of being the first band to record in John Dwyer 's new LA-based recording studio Discount Mirrors, "Music Is Victory Over Time" boasts a beefed up sound. The band worked closely with in-house engineer Eric Bauer - facilitator, troubleshooter, sonic obsessive, a legendary freak and a DIY lifer. The band also had full access to the studio's epic armory of gear: amps, axes (it's Dwyer's Eddie Harris model electric sax), synths, a bass guitar once belonging to Klaus Flouride of the Dead Kennedys. Crucial for the sounds and the vibe. The album art was created by Josh MacPhee, the activist artist, author, archivist and founding member of both the radical artist collective Just Seeds and Interference Archive, a public collection of materials from social movements based in Brooklyn. MacPhee's participation in the project works as a statement of Sunwatchers' progressive utopian intentionality, and organically underscores their involvement in revolutionary projects within and without of their hometown. Listening to "Music Is Victory Over Time", Sunwatcher's rebellious spirit & unbridled enthusiasm remain fully intact, but the secret sauce is their infectious irreverence in the face of the horrors of this world. Much of our best cultural commentary is Trojan-horsed to the general public via humor & satire & the band has a knack for lacing the ridiculous with the radical. It's good to have them back. "Music Is Victory Over Time" is released worldwide digitally via most DSPs, on CD, black vinyl & a limited "Sunflare" blue/red splatter vinyl while supplies last.