Suche:blue monday

For this uniquely personal retrospective spread over twelve vinyl discs, Sven Väth takes us back to the early days of his DJ career. On What I Used To Play we meet great pioneers of electronic music, gifted percussionists, obscure wave bands, and innovative producers of a bygone 'new electronic' era. Rough beats and irresistible grooves from the identification stage of house, techno, and acid remind us not just how far electronic music has evolved over the past four decades, but how great it was to dance to EBM, techno, and house for the very first time.

If there is one protagonist of the electronic music scene who has remained curious, innovative and at the very cutting edge of music for over four decades, it's Sven Väth. His multi-layered artist albums and Sound of the Season mix compilations have been defining the genre for over two decades, and even today, he is constantly on the lookout for the next top tune to add to the highlights of his next set. At least, that's the case when he's not producing them himself as an artist or remixer. "Actually, it's always been part of my DNA to think ahead," and nothing had been further from his mind than looking back at his past, but when in spring of 2020 the international DJ circuit had to be scaled down to virtually zero, the 'restless traveler' suddenly had time. Time to stop and reflect on "how it actually was back then, at the very beginning of my career..."

"It was a great trip and with every track, beautiful memories came flooding back".
In the London apartment, he had just moved into, Sven has set up a "little music room", where he cocooned himself for several days, "to look way back for the first time and review my musical journey through the eighties, so to speak."

The interim result was six thematically oriented playlists with a grand total of 120 tracks from 'early 80s' to 'Balearic late 80s', together with excursions into afrobeat, European new wave, and EBM sounds and a few epochal techno/house tracks from the USA in between. From these 'Best of Sven Väth's favorites', the project What I Used To Play crystallized. Sven remembers how the Cocoon team reacted to his proposal: "They found the idea of making a compilation out of it MEGA from the beginning and everyone said 'Sven, go for it', but then, of course, the work really started, namely, to clear the rights and to get clean sounding masters of the up to 40-year-old tracks. There was also disappointment, of course. We couldn't clear certain titles because the rights holders in the USA had fallen out with each other or simply disappeared from the scene. In short, it wasn't easy, but now I can safely say we got the most important tracks."

Finally, after two years of research, curation, design, and administrative fine-tuning, the "little retrospective" from 1981 to 1990 is available. The exquisitely packaged, and three-kilo heavy box set is not only physically impressive, WIUTP is also the definitive record of Sven Väth's musical development. On each of the twenty-four sides of vinyl, you can trace track by track, what influenced him during which phase, and how he took off as a DJ from his parents' Queen's Pub straight into the spotlight at Dorian Gray. There and at Vogue (later OMEN), Sven became the style-defining player in the DJ booth that he still is today.




1981 - 1990: Future Sounds of Now

In the early eighties, the crowd in clubs like Vogue and Dorian Gray danced to what nowadays we call 'dance classics' - mainly disco, funk, soul, and chart pop. It was up to a new generation of DJs, including Sven Väth, the youngest protagonist in the Rhine-Main area at the time, to create their own club-ready music mix. Good new tracks and potential floor-fillers were rarities that had to be sought out and found, in order to prove oneself worthy.
Without MP3s, internet streaming, or other digital download possibilities, music didn't just gravitate to the DJ, instead, it had to be tracked down. In well-stocked record stores in Frankfurt and Wiesbaden or even in Amsterdam, London, or New York, Sven and friends sourced the material for countless magical nights. On WIUTP we can follow Sven's very personal journey through this wild, innovative era in which synth-pop, funk, hip-hop, and disco were successively replaced as 'club music' by house, techno, acid, and breakbeat. By the end of the decade, it was clear to see that these once exotic 'fringe' phenomena would soon become 'mass' phenomena.



Early 80s

Dirty Talk by the Italian-American duo Klein & M.B.O. represents the most innovative phase of the Italo-disco genre in the early eighties like no other track. Mario Boncaldo (I) and Tony Carrasco relied entirely on the original synthetic drum and percussion sounds of the Roland TR-808, coupled with the raunchy vocals of Rossana Casale and guitar accents of Davide Piatto. Of course, other tracks from this period were also influential in style, most notably Unit by Logic System, which worked as the perfect soundtrack to the laser lighting system at the legendary Dorian Gray club. With stomping beats and robotic rap interludes, Bostich by Yello also belongs on Sven's eternal playlist - after all, it caught the attention of Afrikaa Bambaataa, who invited the Swiss duo to perform at the Roxy in New York in 1983.



EBM Wave - Mid 80s

From today's point of view, the almost ten-minute-long, downtempo track Giant by Matt Johnson's band project The The, would probably not be considered an obvious club classic. However, a closer (re)listen reveals the rhythmic intricacies of the percussion overdubs by JG Thirlwell (aka Foetus) on Johnson's composition, and it becomes clear why this exceptional piece of music is one of Sven's absolute favorites. Other classics from this phase include Kaw-Liga by the mysterious The Residents, the hypnotic-synthetic Our Darkness by Anne Clark (and David Harrow), and last but not least, the somber, monotonous anthem Where Are You? by 16Bit, one of Sven Väth's projects together with Michael Münzing, Luca Anzilotti from 1986.



US House - Late 80s

You certainly can't talk about Chicago house without mentioning Frankie Knuckles. The resident DJ at the Warehouse not only gave the name to an entire genre, but also produced epochal floor fillers on the Trax label like the timeless Your Love, sung (and moaned) by Jamie Principle. Acid house protagonists Phuture also hail from Chicago, and on We Are Phuture (also released on Trax) we hear the chirping acid sounds of the legendary Roland TB-303 in full effect. Another featured classic is No UFO's by Detroit's Model 500 aka Juan Atkins, who is rightly considered the 'Godfather of Techno' even if the genre-defining track from 1985 still breathes with the spirit of hip-hop and electro from the first breakdance era.





Afrobeat

Le Serpent, by Algerian-born Abdelmadjid Guemguem, is a track that sounds completely different from everything else on WIUTP. Made in 1978, it's a monumental, rousing groove created without bass or synths, just with five congas! Even though Guem sadly passed away in 2021, his immortal, acoustic beats are understood all over the world and will continue to enrich many thousands of DJ sets for years to come. Another classic that not only Sven appreciates beyond measure is Hugh Masekela's Don't Go Lose it, Baby. In addition to being one of the most important jazz pioneers, the trumpeter and freedom fighter from Johannesburg was very experimental, integrating electronic sounds into his music in later years, in a similar vein to Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock. Dutch jazz pianist Jasper van't Hof's afrobeat project Pili Pili has also aged well. The trance-like, almost sixteen-minute-long track of the same name, manages to fill a whole side on the seventh of twelve vinyl discs in the WIUTP box.



UK-US-Euro - Late 80s

Time for a change of scene, in the truest sense of the word, and from a musical perspective, this section is like landing on another planet. First up is Andrew Weatherall's classic remix of Primal Scream's Loaded, featuring the iconic Peter Fonda sample (lifted from the 1966 biker film Wild Angels) that came to personify the mood triggered by the British Second Summer of Love in the late eighties: "We wanna be free to do what we wanna do, and we wanna get loaded...". This period also saw the emergence of M/A/R/R/S whose only single, 1987's Pump Up The Volume, became a club classic with support from DJ legend CJ Mackintosh. In this most eclectic of sections, we also encounter New York house and reggae producer Bobby Konders and his seminal Nervous Acid.



Balearic - Late 80s

Those who know him, know that Sven had already lost his heart to the 'magic island' of Ibiza as a teenager, so with that in mind, the WIUTP project couldn't end without a Balearic chapter. Inspired by Manuel Göttsching's E2-E4, the immortal, eponymously titled Sueño Latino belongs in there without question. Equally popular on the island was, and still is Break 4 Love by Raze, which thinking about it, would also fit perfectly into the house chapter. Last, but not least, there's an overdue reunion with Sven Väth himself, in his role as frontman of the successful Frankfurt trio OFF. Together with Michael Münzing and Luca Anzilotti (later of Snap!) this 'Organization For Fun' created the off-the-wall club hit Electric Salsa in 1986 which incidentally turned into an international chart smash, putting Sven in the enviable position of having to decide between pop stardom and a DJ career. Well, we all know how that decision turned out and the rest, as they say, is history. A not insignificant part of his story is What I Used To Play. Enjoy!

Few acts have better captured angst and the agony of young love other than The Everly Brothers. As well as those inimitable harmonies, fantastic songs and Chet Atkins' superb production, the Everlys' success owed much to the fact that Don and Phil were barely out of their teens, and so filled every song with real feeling. Their first recordings led to a series of hits that would come to define the harmonious Rock & Roll of the period; Bye Bye Love, Wake Up Little Susie, All I Have To Do Is Dream, Claudette (penned by Roy Orbison), Bird Dog, Devoted To You, Let It Be Me, When Will I Be Loved, So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad), Walk Right Back, Ebony Eyes and Crying In The Rain. For their influence on The Beatles alone, the Everly Brothers are owed a huge debt of gratitude. The collection of songs found here span Country, Folk, Rock & Roll and Pop, and demonstrate just how influential Don and Phil were on popular music, beginning with those very first sessions in front of their parent's microphone.

Ready for a bit of new rocking punk with just a touch of garage psych thrown in for good measure? Well, if you are, then The Mundaynes debut album 'Love It' should do the trick. Recorded during Summer 2021 on the front line of Bexhill-On-Sea, 'Love It' is stuffed to bursting with 15 great new songs. During lockdown, Bevis Frond frontman Nick Saloman, having little else to do, found himself writing loads of songs. Some were used on the Fronds’ ‘Little Eden’ album, many were discarded, and some were kept with a view of doing something with them in the future. Nick felt that a batch of these songs were pretty good, but not really suitable for The Bevis Frond, maybe being a bit too punky. However, wanting to record these songs, he called up his mate Tony Page, the former lead singer with vintage punk bands The Ploy and Apocalypse, to see if he fancied doing some vocals. Tony was only to pleased to take part. Then Nick asked bandmate Paul Simmons if he’d do all the guitar parts. Paul agreed and the three of them went into Bexhills’ Graffite Studios and laid down the tracks. The results were so good that the trio decided to put them out as an album. The impromptu band needed a name, so they became The Mundaynes, thought up by Tony because it was a Monday! Bearing in mind that all three guys played in punk bands, Tony as mentioned above, Nick with The Von Trap Family & Room 13, Paul with The Cravats and Jello Biafra, and, of course his own band The Alchemysts, the pedigree here is pretty solid. So what do we have here then? I guess it’s a loud, angry, melodic, wry punk rock album full of great tunes. Hope you ‘love it’, and if you don’t, well, that’s life.

Including wanted vinyl tracks by New Order, Roni Size, Laurent Garnier, Buraka Som Sistema, Kid Cudi, Rudimental, Le Youth, Donna Summer and Major Lazer.

In January 2011 Sam Prekop, Archer Prewitt, John McEntire, and Eric Claridge reconvened at Chicago"s Soma Electronic Music Studios to record their latest release The Moonlight Butterfly. This thirty three minute mini-album finds the band deliverying much more long form and cinematic pieces. The new songs lean upon the band"s more experimental tendencies, taking time to stretch the forms and in someways the new material relates to the way the band re-interpretes some of their songs live. With the band making a shorter than usual record they were allowed to take more chances and ended up with a release that leans a bit more towards the instrumental. Rather than having the vocals be the sole focal point the shifts in emphasis to other instruments facilitated a more open approach. The song "Weekend" from Car Alarm was kind of an unwitting blueprint for some of the new material. Especially the new song "Inn Keeping" where a synthesizer pattern became the armature for the song, a constant to play with and against. "Inn Keeping" is also quite a breakthrough for the band, sounding unlike anything they have done before and breaking the 10 minute mark.

King Tubby and Producer Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee are intertwined in the birth of Dub Music. After discovering a mistake that made a ‘serious joke’ (more of which later...) they went on to release the first pressings of this new musical genre namely ‘Dub Music’. Tubby’s vast knowledge of electronics and Bunny’s vast catalogue of rhythms would lay the foundations of what today is taken as a standard... the Remix / Version cuts to an existing vocal tune.

Osbourne ‘King Tubby’ Ruddock was born in Kingston, Jamaica on 28th January 1941 and grew up in the High Holborn Street area of downtown Kingston. He studied electronics at Kingston’s National Technical College and also on two correspondence courses from the U.S.A... When he had qualified Tubby began repairing radios and other electrical appliances in a shack in the back yard of his mother’s home. His work in the early days included winding transformers and building amplifiers for Kingston’s Sound Systems. Tubby built his first Sound System in 1957 playing jazz and Rhythm & Blues at local weddings and birthday parties. His reputation as a man who knew and understood both electronics and music grew steadily and as the sixties drew to a close. Tubby purchased his own basic two track equipment. He installed this alongside his dub cutting machine, a homemade mixing console and his impressive collection of Jazz albums in the back bedroom of his home at 18 Dromilly Avenue which he christened his music room.

Tubby and Striker were at Treasure Isle Studio’s one day while Ruddy from Spanish Town was working with the engineer Byron Smith....

“Tubby and myself was talking when Ruddy was cutting some dub but Smithy (engineer) made a mistake through we were talking and forgot to put in the voice. It was two track recording in those days. Ruddy said ‘No Man! Make it stay! and so they cut the rhythm. When I went over to Ruddy’s that Saturday night a dance was in progress and when they played the vocal to the tune... then he said we’re going to play ‘Part Two’. They never called it ‘Version’..and then he played the rhythm track. The song was a catchy song and everybody started to sing along and the deejay started to toast so everything went down well. On Monday morning I went up and I said ‘Tubbs the mistake we made was a serious joke. It mash up Spanish Town! The people went wild. So you have to start to do that now ‘cause when the man put on the ‘Part Two’ everyone start singing this song. It played about twenty times. I said you try Tubbs!’...Well the next Saturday night now when Tubby strung up down the farm U Roy said he’s going to play ‘Part Two’ but Tubby did it different now. He started with the voice then dropped it out and let the rhythm run and then he brought in the voice in the middle and from there Tubby started to get really popular.’’
Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee

Dynamic Sounds upgraded to sixteen track recording in 1972 and Tubby purchased, again with the help of a deal brokered by Bunny Lee. The old four track equipment and the MCI console from their Studio B. The four tracks now gave him far wider scope to work with and he began to create a new musical form where the bass and drum parts were brought up while the faders allowed Tubby to ease the vocal and rhythm in and out of the mix. It was only a matter of time before Tubby’s dub plate experiments began to make it on to vinyl and the first ever long-playing King Tubby releases would feature a collection of his mixes to a selection of Strikers rhythms. So please sit back and enjoy this historic set of sounds, mixed by King Tubby and Mr Prince Phillip Smart and another set of scorcher Bunny Lee rhythms.

First Ever LIVE Release! “Even 33 plus years later, it hasn’t lost any of its charm, intensity, or unvarnished power.” – American Songwriter “Vocalist/rhythm guitarist Dan Baird and lead man Rick Richards let the slippery riffs fly.” – Vintage Guitar Magazine “You can really hear the bar-band roots of this band listening to this show . . . There’s a real magic to the chemistry they all had as a group.” – Ultimate Classic Rock “. . . the live album sounds wonderful and captures their exciting show nicely.” – Goldmine “. . . offers fans a chance to travel back through time and experience a singular night of all-out rock and roll as only the Georgia Satellites could provide. The title of the album is absolutely accurate.” – Exclusive Magazine “. . . captures the the sweaty excitement and spontaneity . . . of that special night 33 years ago.” – The Music Universe In 1988, the Georgia Satellites rolled into Cleveland, Ohio for a blistering Monday night at local watering hole Peabody’s, formerly the punk haven Pirates Cove. With Open All Night giving the band a second album to draw on, their salty, wide-open Chuck Berry riff’n’roll was full swagger – whether drawing on their reprise of the Swinging Blue Jeans’ “Hippy Hippy Shake” from the Tom Cruise film “Cocktail,”Joe South’s swerving “Games People Play,” George Jones’ “White Lightnin’”or Jerry Lee Lewis’ all-out “Whole Lotta Shakin’.” Just as importantly, gap-toothed guitarist/lead singer Dan Baird and combustive lead guitarist Rick Richards set the pummeling groove of drummer Mauro Magellan and bassist Rick Price ablaze. Delivering an 18-song masterclass in roots, rock and raunch, the Satellites not only incinerated “Battleship Chains,” “Railroad Steel” and “Can’t Stand The Pain,” they led the beyond SRO crowd through a shout-along of “Keep Your Hands To Yourself” threaded with a brazen stripper grind on the Rolling Stones’ “It’s Only Rock & Roll.” Fans of reverb, thrashing drums, the rush of rock & roll momentum and all manners of electric guitars giving it over to basic 3 chord rock & roll, Lightin’ in a Bottle retires the jersey. As the southern equivalent of the Replacements, the Ramones hillbilly (redneck) little brothers, no band delivered as much balls as the Satellites, who’ve never had an official live record. For a band who leaves it all onstage, that seems wrong. Leave it to Cleveland International to unearth this blistering recording, wipe off the sweat and somehow figure out how to get it all in one double disc package captured in the Rock & Roll Capital of the World. -Holly Gleason

First Ever LIVE Release! “Even 33 plus years later, it hasn’t lost any of its charm, intensity, or unvarnished power.” – American Songwriter “Vocalist/rhythm guitarist Dan Baird and lead man Rick Richards let the slippery riffs fly.” – Vintage Guitar Magazine “You can really hear the bar-band roots of this band listening to this show . . . There’s a real magic to the chemistry they all had as a group.” – Ultimate Classic Rock “. . . the live album sounds wonderful and captures their exciting show nicely.” – Goldmine “. . . offers fans a chance to travel back through time and experience a singular night of all-out rock and roll as only the Georgia Satellites could provide. The title of the album is absolutely accurate.” – Exclusive Magazine “. . . captures the the sweaty excitement and spontaneity . . . of that special night 33 years ago.” – The Music Universe In 1988, the Georgia Satellites rolled into Cleveland, Ohio for a blistering Monday night at local watering hole Peabody’s, formerly the punk haven Pirates Cove. With Open All Night giving the band a second album to draw on, their salty, wide-open Chuck Berry riff’n’roll was full swagger – whether drawing on their reprise of the Swinging Blue Jeans’ “Hippy Hippy Shake” from the Tom Cruise film “Cocktail,”Joe South’s swerving “Games People Play,” George Jones’ “White Lightnin’”or Jerry Lee Lewis’ all-out “Whole Lotta Shakin’.” Just as importantly, gap-toothed guitarist/lead singer Dan Baird and combustive lead guitarist Rick Richards set the pummeling groove of drummer Mauro Magellan and bassist Rick Price ablaze. Delivering an 18-song masterclass in roots, rock and raunch, the Satellites not only incinerated “Battleship Chains,” “Railroad Steel” and “Can’t Stand The Pain,” they led the beyond SRO crowd through a shout-along of “Keep Your Hands To Yourself” threaded with a brazen stripper grind on the Rolling Stones’ “It’s Only Rock & Roll.” Fans of reverb, thrashing drums, the rush of rock & roll momentum and all manners of electric guitars giving it over to basic 3 chord rock & roll, Lightin’ in a Bottle retires the jersey. As the southern equivalent of the Replacements, the Ramones hillbilly (redneck) little brothers, no band delivered as much balls as the Satellites, who’ve never had an official live record. For a band who leaves it all onstage, that seems wrong. Leave it to Cleveland International to unearth this blistering recording, wipe off the sweat and somehow figure out how to get it all in one double disc package captured in the Rock & Roll Capital of the World. -Holly Gleason

Jimi Tenor war schon immer so etwas wie ein Renaissance man. Bereits als er seine Heimat Finnland zu Beginn der 1990er Jahre verließ, um zunächst nach New York zu gehen und später quer durch Europa zu ziehen, entdeckte er schnell das, was er als sein Ikigai bezeichnet, seine große Freude im Leben: Musik in DIY-Manier aufzunehmen und zuhause mit einfachen Mitteln zu produzieren, spontan und intuitiv. Daran hat Tenor über die inzwischen mehr als 30 Jahre seiner musikalischen Karriere hinweg stets festgehalten, ganz egal ob auf Solopfaden seiner frühen elektronischen Alben in den 90er Jahren oder später in den unterschiedlichsten Besetzungen und Kollaboration (u.a. Tony Allen, Kabu Kabu oder Abdissa Assefa). "Multiversum" ist nun sein drittes Album beim Hamburger Label Bureau B. Die Zusammenarbeit zwischen Jimi Tenor und Bureau B begann mit der Veröffentlichung der Werkschau "NY, Hel, Barca" im Jahr 2020 und setzte sich im Frühjahr 2021 mit Herausgabe der Raritäten-Sammlung "Deep Sound Learning" fort. Während Tenor in den vergangenen 20 Jahren vor allem Jazz und Afrobeat Platten aufnahm, kehrte er auf der Bühne weiterhin oft zu seinen minimalistischen Wurzeln zurück. Begeistert von dieser Space Musik, die Jimi Tenor nur mit Synthesizer, Flöte und Saxophon ausgestattet während seiner Solo Auftritte erschafft, lud Bureau B ihn ein, endlich auch eine Platte mit diesem einfachen, aber erstaunlich wirkungsvollen Setup aufzunehmen…

Jimi Tenor war schon immer so etwas wie ein Renaissance man. Bereits als er seine Heimat Finnland zu Beginn der 1990er Jahre verließ, um zunächst nach New York zu gehen und später quer durch Europa zu ziehen, entdeckte er schnell das, was er als sein Ikigai bezeichnet, seine große Freude im Leben: Musik in DIY-Manier aufzunehmen und zuhause mit einfachen Mitteln zu produzieren, spontan und intuitiv. Daran hat Tenor über die inzwischen mehr als 30 Jahre seiner musikalischen Karriere hinweg stets festgehalten, ganz egal ob auf Solopfaden seiner frühen elektronischen Alben in den 90er Jahren oder später in den unterschiedlichsten Besetzungen und Kollaboration (u.a. Tony Allen, Kabu Kabu oder Abdissa Assefa). "Multiversum" ist nun sein drittes Album beim Hamburger Label Bureau B. Die Zusammenarbeit zwischen Jimi Tenor und Bureau B begann mit der Veröffentlichung der Werkschau "NY, Hel, Barca" im Jahr 2020 und setzte sich im Frühjahr 2021 mit Herausgabe der Raritäten-Sammlung "Deep Sound Learning" fort. Während Tenor in den vergangenen 20 Jahren vor allem Jazz und Afrobeat Platten aufnahm, kehrte er auf der Bühne weiterhin oft zu seinen minimalistischen Wurzeln zurück. Begeistert von dieser Space Musik, die Jimi Tenor nur mit Synthesizer, Flöte und Saxophon ausgestattet während seiner Solo Auftritte erschafft, lud Bureau B ihn ein, endlich auch eine Platte mit diesem einfachen, aber erstaunlich wirkungsvollen Setup aufzunehmen…

The Decades Collected compilations are part of the Collected compilation series, which is a collaboration between Universal Music and Music On Vinyl. The compilations bring together the biggest names of each decade, combined with forgotten hits and less discovered gems, giving the listener an experience of listening to their favourite tunes while uncovering new musical grounds at the same time.

Various Artists - Sixties Collected features Love “Alone Again Or”, Cher “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)”, The Who “Pinball Wizard”, Diana Ross & The Supremes “Love Child”, Steppenwolf “Magic Carpet Ride”, The Animals “House Of The Rising Sun”, The Beach Boys “Good Vibrations”, David Bowie “Love You Till Tuesday”, Bob Dylan “Subterranean Homesick Blues”, Tom Jones “It’s Not Unusual”, Nina Simone “I Put A Spell On You”, Rod Stewart “Handbags & Gladrags” a.o.

Various Artists - Sixties Collected is available on black vinyl and includes an insert.

Coleman Leslie McCann, known as Les McCann, is arguably the most soulful jazz pianist of the sixties. All you have to do to be convinced of this is to go and listen to him, all business ceasing, with Eddie Harris, in concert in Montreux, on June 21, 1969. This recording is a monument in the history of soul jazz.

But before this concert, the trio of Les McCann with Herbie Lewis and Ron Jefferson, imposed a new style characterized by joy and pleasure, to play, to groove, to listen. Impossible in a Les McCann concert not to participate in his joy, in his desire to share, impossible not to beat time.

Fans are invited to return to ‘Infinite Disco’, Kylie’s globally successful live spectacular broadcasted in 2020. Released alongside Kylie’s record-breaking album ‘DISCO’, the 50-minute special performance was met with widespread acclaim and deemed ‘a true joy’ by The i. The ‘Infinite Disco’ vinyl features tracks from DISCO, alongside much loved hits ‘In Your Eyes’, ‘Light Years’, ‘Slow’ (a mash up with Donna Summer’s iconic ‘Love To Love You Baby’) and ‘Say Something’, performed with the House Gospel Choir.

New West Records is proud to present the reissue of two classic Antone's Records blues titles.

These two titles have been remastered for vinyl. Each LP is displayed in a beautiful, one of a kind package (leather texture, die- cut, embossed logo) and pressed onto 180- gram vinyl that is manufactured in the USA. These limited edition pressings are now available on color vinyl for the first time. Pressed on Limited Edition 180 gram Purple Color Vinyl.

Rapper and producer duo ​Verbz & ​Mr Slipz announce their latest album ‘Radio Waves’ ​due out ​13th November 2020​. Released on the acclaimed Hip-Hop label ​High Focus Records​, the 22-track project sits perfectly between present-day greatness and unrivalled nostalgia welcoming us into their unique rap landscape. The cover, designed by ​Matt Littler​, captures the essence of the album perfectly.

Born and raised in Croydon, rapper ​Verbz has proven himself time after time with his innovative rhyming style and distinct flow. The creative partnership wouldn’t be complete without Brighton based producer Mr Slipz who marries ​Verbz’ form with his laid back jazzy sound as well as unmistakable attention to detail. The pair started making music together in 2017 when they released their debut collaboration ‘Lessons Of Adolescence’. This was followed by extensive tours and studio sessions where their musical alliance was cemented and their bond has been untouchable ever since.

Kicking off the album with humour and personality, '​2202 FM​’ is a full-bodied track which sees ​Verbz spit tales of admiration for his city whilst at the same time striving to escape. With London on the brain,

‘Summer In The Bits’ ​is an introspective analysis of a summer's day in the capital full of tense trials and tribulations. Moving throughout the album, ​‘Kno The Status’ welcomes three potent guest verses from Alex Holy​, ​Datkid & ​Upfront ​paired with an unrivaled ​arrangement and instrumentation magnifying Mr Slipz’ craft. Once again his incomparable production delivers on ​‘Weekend Blues’ ​which see’s ​Verbz regretfully address craving more from his weekend to then be greeted by numbness on a Monday morning. ​High Focus linchpin Fliptrix delivers some captivating combinations on ​‘My Wonders’ ​honing n on the current state of the world from his point of view. Up next is one of the lead singles

‘The Feeling’, which is a refreshing and rare representation of the classic Boom Bap sound. Before signing out, ​Verbz’ ​impressive storytelling shines through on ​‘In My Mind’ offering insight into his artistry as he allows access to his inner thoughts via vivid storytelling lyrics. Sandwiched amongst the project are evocative radio skits placed to perfection, offering angles of comedy including a mini-interview acting as the final pieces to the puzzle.

This record is the culmination of two years of hard work packed with skill and finesse, as we have all come to expect. With their unrivalled chemistry, the dynamic duo have proven themselves to be some the most exciting artists on the scene, and '​Radio Waves' is going to cement their position at the top of the ranks.

Durutti Column are still one of the most sought after band of the English post-punk. Since their first album 'The Return Of Durutti Column' (released on Factory in 1980), the guitarist, pianist and composer Vini Reilly has published a series of remarkable albums that filled the gap between new wave and ambient music. Reilly and Bruce Mitchell (who’s been working with such major artists like Simply Red and Rod Stewart) represented the future of the Manchester scene moving forward from the forerunners (Joy Division, A Certain Ratio, etc.) to the new musical heroes (Happy Monday, Stone Roses and the likes).

MATERIALI SONORI invited The Durutti Colurnnat for the first edition of the Greetings Festival in San Giovanni Valdarno in 1985, and build since then a steady relationship with the band. It was precisely Vini Reilly that started the record series 'Greetings' (dedicating to the Belpaese tracks like 'Florence Sunset", "San Giovanni Dawn", 'For Friends In Italy"). Subsequently MATERIALI SONORI dedicated the first cover of the magazine Sonora to Reilly and Mitchell (including a previously unreleased track on the magazine's compact disc)

'Dry' is conceived as a new journey among Vini inventions, through rarefied moods and subterranean streams of sound. The fifteen songs (lasting fifty-five minutes) have been recorded in Manchester in 1990, Vini sits in on guitar and piano, while Mitchell is on electronic and acoustic percussion, other instruments such as the clarinet (played by Zinnia Mitchell-Williams, Bruce's daughter), harmonica, viola and keyboards are also featured on the session. Here, once again, Durutti Column 's music could be defined as half-way between melancholy rock and 'progressive' New Age.

Limited edition purple double vinyl with rainbow laminate finish gatefold sleeve.

Kylie’s record-breaking fifteenth studio album ‘DISCO’ was released to widespread acclaim last year and was hailed as ‘an irresistible tonic to real life. Thank God for Kylie Minogue’ by Metro in a 5* review and ‘the ultimate rescue remedy’ by The Observer (4*). It featured lead singles ‘Say Something’, which received widespread praise - deemed ‘a galactic slice of pop music heaven’ by i-D - and ‘Magic’, which NME called ‘an exuberant, horn-fuelled romp.’

About ‘DISCO’

‘DISCO’ was released in November 2020 and entered the charts at Number 1 in the UK, making it Kylie’s eighth UK Number 1 album. It is a record-breaking release for the pop icon, making Kylie the first female solo artist to claim Number 1 albums in five consecutive decades (‘80s, ‘90s, ‘00s, ‘10s, and ‘20s). ‘DISCO’ received widespread critical acclaim, deemed ‘an irresistible tonic to real life. Thank God for Kylie Minogue’ by Metro in a 5* review, ‘the ultimate rescue remedy’ by The Observer (4*) and ‘an exquisitely produced, effervescent tribute to 70s and 80s disco music and dance as escapism’ by The i (4*).

For ‘DISCO’, Kylie worked with long-time collaborator Biff Standard plus Sky Adams (with whom she worked with on Golden), Teemu Brunila (David Guetta, Jason Derulo) and Maegan Cottone (Iggy Azalea, Demi Lovato), alongside others. The album was largely recorded in lockdown with each team member recording and working from a separate location, leading to Kylie having a vocal engineering credit on all but two of the sixteen tracks on the record.

John Prine’s Grammy Award-winning album, Fair & Square, is available on vinyl for the first time in over sixteen years. There are three special double LPs: standard black, opaque green and a limited amount of “Irish Edition”—green and orange vinyl with a matte jacket featuring embossed lettering.
Originally released in 2005, Fair & Square won Best Contemporary Folk Album at the 48th Grammy Awards and achieved the fastest rise to number one in the history of Americana radio. The record marked Prine’s first album in nine years, following 1995’s Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings. Rolling Stone declared Fair & Square “an excellent set of songs full of rootsy warmth and unpretentious wit,” while The Washington Post praised its relatability: “this low-key masterpiece arrives not just as a reminder of Prine’s cleverness and mischievous wit but also as a confirmation of his deeply human values. These are values rooted in the enduring mystery and majesty of everyday, ordinary lives.”
Prine is a four-time Grammy winner and Lifetime Achievement Award honoree, a seven-time Americana Music Award-winner, a PEN New England Lyrics Award recipient and member of both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Since his debut in 1971, Prine released over 18 albums and has had his songs recorded by Johnny Cash, Carly Simon, Bette Midler, Bonnie Raitt, Norah Jones, George Strait, Miranda Lambert, Zac Brown Band and many others, while drawing effusive praise from Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, Bonnie Raitt, Roger Waters, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen and more.