Buscar:border one

For those of you who"ve mislaid your history goggles, this archival release recalls an ancient time in the world of recorded music. Yes, back in the dinosaur days of the 1990s, a creature known as Aerial M walked the earth, before evolving into Papa M and PAJO and beyond and back. Even then, the music of M had a next-wave vibe, walking upright among the knuckle-draggers (and having drinks in the evening with others of its genetic detatchment). It was too much to last very long, of course - but some things end up lasting forever, don"t they? Fuck! So it is today that Drag City, an organization largely set up to bring you the best of all available M recordings, is proud to be there for the release of the only Aerial M session ever recorded for John Peel"s BBC Radio One show, as it was originally recorded on 3rd March 1998 and broadcast on 2nd April of the same year. The studio versions of these songs, which appear on Aerial M"s S/t album (DC114) and Papa M"s Hole of Burning Alms comp (DC231), were played by "M" himself (now revealed to be David Pajo!), which makes this album a rare alternative view of the canonical M, played by an actual Aerial M band who, all too briefly, embodied the sound for a year or so before Papa brought a brand new bag. This Session found them fortuitously roadburned from several weeks in the European Theatre. So much the better for our archival ears, as OG-M"s signature minimalist long-fuse sizzle is thrillingly intact here; in fact, even more so, as the tunes are jammed out past the studio versions" originally delineated borders, reaching rudely across the table in moments of liveness that the studio-bound project might have decided against when conferring only with the walls. For fans of their epic version of "Turn Turn Turn", this is more sweetmeats from that raucous old skull - but if you"ve not been down this road before, be prepared: the taste will set you slowly aflame. And then, before you know it, the band is dined and dashed - just like the band that Aerial M was, all too briefly amok on the earth that was too.

From two recording sessions between Decka and Roseen in the summer of 2021, the results fused into an EP on Freddy Ks label, KEY Vinyl. They also kicked off a new label with an album from that same material. Now, they've dropped a remix EP featuring interpretations by DisX3 (aka Alexander Kowalski), Border One, and Don Williams, along with a new track from Decka and Roseen. The EP covers a broad spectrum of sounds, reflecting the philosophy that everything is a like yet distinct. For more info, let the music do the talking!

Last Summer, Daniel Foggin, guitarist, writer and chief architect of Smote, uprooted himself from his usual home in Newcastle to live and work in a farmhouse in Kelso, near the Scottish border. “Through the summer when I was working up there, myself and Rob (Smote drummer) would finish work and go sit by a small river and have a couple of beers in the sun, and it was the best thing ever” he relates “So I guess the philosophy is that to some people it looks like any other stream, but to us it was supreme happiness.” Hence came the title of the fourth Smote album proper, one largely recorded in this same farmhouse – A Grand Stream. It’s an album that’s the truest incarnation thus far of his vision for this band – a full-scale psychic voyage into the ether and a drone-and-repetition-fuelled series of incantations that takes simple, primal ingredients and utilises them for the purposes of aural sorcery, summoning spectres and revelations aplenty in its wake. Whilst the folk-tinged, ceremonial ambience that Smote have made their trademark is present and correct here, utilising Swedish classic psych heaviness and Swans textures as fuel for the ominous rhythms of ‘Coming Out Of A Hedge Backwards’ and the uplifting cadences of opener ‘Sitting Stone Part 1’, Foggin and his cohorts also waste little time exploring new more eerie and ethereal textures and dimensions. The meditative ‘Chantry’ in particular sees them gravitate towards a headspace akin to the drone-based epiphanies of Kali Malone’s ‘Does Spring Hide Its Joy’ filtered through the transcendent amplifier worship of ‘Earth 2’. A Grand Steam takes this band – one who’ve always eschewed the cliches and stumbling blocks of all contemporary psych rock in favour of their own unique and wyrd vision – into a realm in which they transcend through willpower and skill alike into something preternaturally thrilling, mapping out their own crepuscular new territory Question is; dare you step over the threshold?

Extra Soul Perception proudly unveils a new collaboration between two of the most captivating artists from the future soul and R&B scene. "Undercover Lover" is the culmination of three years of an organic creative partnership between Jamma-Dee and Qendresa - one that has manifested itself just in time to soundtrack summer in LA and London; their respective homes.

Following Jamma-Dee's celebrated debut album, "Perceptions," and Qendresa's recent midnight soul bomb, "2 Much", "Undercover Lover" is a highly anticipated release that emerges as an effortlessly smooth summer anthem.

The genesis of "Undercover Lover" was Jamma-Dee's irresistibly heavy beat, which underpins an intricate mirage of interlocking rhythms and textures, with the eclecticism that has cemented the producer as a mainstay of the West Coast soul-funk scene. Qendresa's songwriting prowess shines through in seamless hooks and vocal melodies that flow effortlessly over the production with bold and uncompromising energy. Gary Gritness's live bassline, introduced during an impromptu studio session, injects a deep groove into the track.

At the engineering helm, K15's expertise further elevates the record with a resonating richness and vitality. An instrumental version on the B-side allows listeners to experience the production and bassline on a deeper level.

The resulting sound is a collaborative effort that transcends borders and genres, delivering a record that is as heartfelt as it is infectious.

"Undercover Lover" stands as a testament to the power of collaboration and creativity, embodyingExtra Soul Perception's mission to facilitate transformative musical exchanges between artists worldwide.

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About Extra Soul Perception:

Extra Soul Perception is an artist development program that operates as a label, music agency, event curator, and producer of international musical residencies. With a mission to facilitate artistic collaboration across borders, Extra Soul Perception has garnered acclaim for its innovative approach to fostering creativity and diversity within the music industry.

Pleasure Planet’s kaleidoscopic debut album has been a long time coming, but good things come to those who wait. Developed over years of late-night studio improvisations, ‘Pleasure Planet’ is an affectionate and colorful patchwork of the New York City-based trio’s knotted influences that’s suspended between the rave and the chill-out room, weaving glistening pads and chunky basslines into vocal earworms and warm, saturated rhythmic cycles. Bandmates Andrew Potter, Kim Ann Foxman and Brian Hersey enter into a lysergic dialog with their discrete personal musical histories, drawing inspiration from vintage EBM, ambient music and heady early ’90s West Coast rave sounds and launching these classic elements into a transcendent new sonic universe.

Celebrated DJ and producer Foxman was a lead singer of Hercules and Love Affair when she first ran into DC rave veteran Potter, and the two rapidly realized their musical interests overlapped. So when Potter was recording with his studiomate Hersey, a NYC underground club scene mainstay, and they needed to bring in a vocalist, the choice was simple. Working together was a refreshing, freeing experience for the three seasoned artists, and the more they experimented, the closer they became; Foxman ended up moving into the studio, and Pleasure Planet was manifested into existence. “We’re like family,” says Potter. “We’re always on the same page – we couldn’t make this music solo.”

For Foxman, the open-ended jam sessions provided her with a chance to try something new, a few steps from the dancefloor-forward DJ tracks she’s best known for producing. And as the trio pooled their adolescent rave memories, reflecting on them with more mature ears, they began to develop the signature sound that was first heard on the Throne Of Blood-released ‘Animals’ 12″. Pleasure Planet aren’t trying to re-capture the past, but suggest a poetic contemplation that layers their recollections and musical obsessions into a hypnotic sci-fi dream. Harnessing a self-described “Aladdin’s cave” of analog and digital gear that help galvanize the timeline, they bridge the gap between avant-pop and icy bleep techno, curving suggestive words through lattices of tightly-engineered electronics.

On ‘Endless’, Foxman’s voice is echoed into a glistening haze that hovers around ethereal pads and tense, electroid pulses. Slow-moving and evocative, it’s a track that capture the open endedness of post-rave euphoria, touching the afterparty but moving far beyond the material world. She’s more recognizable on ‘Alien’, the album’s most upfront track, singing in a glassy, upper-register coo over urgent bass bumps, taut guitars and florid electronic atmospheres. “Are you an alien, or are you an angel?” she asks, fractalizing the borders between genres. And the band’s sense of cosmic togetherness bubbles to the surface on ‘Saved by the Bells’, a meditative after-hours experiment that diminishes the pulsing beats for a moment to bring out a spectrum of interconnected, serpentine melodies.

Modular bleeps and echoing percussion anchor the swooning ‘Planet Love’, one of Pleasure Planet’s most recent compositions and one of the album’s most outwardly psychedelic cuts, while the urgent and anthemic ‘Go With Madness’ steps back towards the main stage, evaporating Foxman’s memorable calls into a thumping procession of analog drums and squelchy, acidic bass tweaks. But they save the best for last, tugging at the heartstrings with ‘Remember (In Dreams)’, a giddy spiral of blipping synth arpeggios and haunting, reverberated chorals. It’s the perfect way to conclude an album that cryptically gestures towards the vulnerability of friendship, celebrating the shared experiences that result in some of the most meaningful memories of all.

Critics have described Czech pianist Kristina Barta as "fiery, expressive, eloquent, and stubborn." This new album, "Endless Questions and Answers," features nine original compositions created for her new quartet, in collaboration with the world-renowned tenor saxophonist Jure Pukl. It signifies a fresh chapter in Barta's musical evolution.

For the fourth time now Jaqee introduces herself to the World with her impressive voice and her unique attitude. Born in Kampala, the Capital of Uganda, she began her vagabond like life the moment she was born. During her childhood, she travelled the rural areas of her home country with her parents. This is where she collected her first impressions of the life as a nomad. From birth on, wandering the earth became a part of her destiny. In the early nineties she undertook a huge step and immigrated to Sweden. The City of Gothenburg would become her adopted home from where she was able to access all the different destinies and directions, which were on offer to her. Through all the borders Jaqee crossed, music has always been her steady companion whereas it never was a stereotype thing that let her get down with any special genre, than more like a special feeling. “To do what I want in a particular moment is my motivation. I like to express myself in all kind of sounds.” So above all, she became a true nomad in the world of music. After several successful co-operations with numerous artists, in 2005 Jaqee made an impact with her debut album “Blaqalixious”, which was mainly a Soul and R&B album. “That was my direct contact to the music that a rural community in the Diaspora plays” she explains. But it did not end up there because a nomad like Jaqee does not settle anywhere. After further creative and fruitful collaborations, Jaqee released her second long player “Nouvelle d´ amour” in 2007. This time, the sound was more of a rocking, bluesy vibe. It seemed to be the total opposite to her debut album but for Jaqee it was only the next step on her path in the circle of life. “Everything is possible as long as it is real. I never wonder about things like genre as long as the vibe fits.” One step further on, she encountered the songs of Billie Holiday, which lead to the album “A letter to Billie” recorded together with Bohuslänbigband, a lovely homage to the great American Jazz Singer. Both of her first two albums each received a Swedish Grammy nomination and several appearances in the Swedish national television increased her standing as a passionate and soulful Singer. So Teka, producer and creator of many successful riddims for his co-found German label, Rootdown Records considered her to be part of his new project “Koala Desperados“, which link Caribbean vibes like Cumbia to Reggae, and while working on it a totally new idea was born. Jaqee and Teka decided to combine both their talents into one album. The results of which you can now hear on “Kokoo Girl” a refreshing mix of Old School Reggae sounds from the seventies combined with up-to-date Beats, electronic twists and turns and of course the amazing voice of Jaqee. For her, this means that she has achieved some of her ambitions. “I grew up with African Gospel, in sad and turbulent environment, so for me, this means I grasp and totally understand the reggae and its non ending struggle for the common man.” No sooner said than done and “Kokoo Girl” will become Jaqee’s fourth and newest release. All the paths she followed, countries she crossed and influences she absorbed are a part of this album. She sings with the freedom of spirit of the travelling people. The word “Kokoo” is the only memory that remains everlasting. It is just a word but its impact is so huge that Jaqee does not really like to explain it. “It implies irony and seriousness as well as sarcasm and fun.” It is more than a gimmick. “Kokoo” is a very special feeling and a clear view of the world from an artist who has seen more of it than all the people that have settled down.

Repress!

"Never sacrifice the art for anything and never leave home without your respect. Southwest representer Cash Lansky hails from the deserts of Tucson, Arizona about 45 minutes from the Southern border. His story is one of family, trials, growth, and being forced into a role all too many young boys face - being the Man of the House at a young age. Wise beyond his years, Cash grew up quick. This record is the heartfelt result of being able to reflect on that life and bring forth the lessons and stories that make great art.

A seasoned performer and respected member of the Arizona Hiphop scene and Southwest culture, Cash Lansky makes his indie label debut with Mello Music Group on this T-Wade and Mario Luciano produced album (Mario's credits include notable releases like Drake’s “8am in Charlotte”, Kendrick Lamar & Baby Keem’s “Savior” , J. Cole’s “Punchin’.the.clock”, Jack Harlow’s “Is That Ight?”, and H.E.R. & YG’s “Slide”). The new record is mixed by the legendary Willie Green. This is Rec-Center Rap straight from the heart of one the West's best."

2024 Repress

K S R is celebrating release Nr. 10 with pressing this limited 2x12" by Various Artists.
Designed artwork and printed sleeve.
Quality techno DJ tools.

The Slovenian label Cogo is back for another unmissable 4-tracker vinyl compilation with the heaviest hitters in the scene who represent the most artistically driven hypnotic techno to date. Jeroen Search, Border One, ORBE, and Tonske all lend a hand to provide an understated and deep vibe to this release full of music actively attempting to remove your mind to otherworldly places hitherto unknown.

Jeroen Search kicks off the release with ''Observer'' expertly drawing you in with a very simplified but polyrhythmic staccato synth and kick combination that slowly builds with modulating and swirling pads until it reaches a climax with a tightly regulated drum track and disorienting LFO sequenced synth patch.

Border One continues the theme of the release of minimalistic aesthetics with ''Contour'' featuring polyrhythmic ideas and evolving dissociative synths. The release culminates in a very simplified and restrained drum track that opens up the doors to a massive sonic environment where you're lost completely within the music, sitting somewhat awestruck by passing elements unfolding in front of your mind's eye.

Not to be outdone, ORBE takes a different tact with ''Wolheim'' by introducing the groove elements first and bringing in his deep understanding of setting the sonic stage with his signature atmospheres and scintillating synth hits. The track also echoes the thematic choices previously laid down by Border One and invites you into this strange alien world full of sonic curiosities and audio biology.
Tonske buttons up the release with ''Droid''. A track that has an overall sense of pulling the sonic environment toward you while you travel as a listener in your mind's eye. Outward synth blips are constantly coming from the outer periphery into view as if they are passing stars while traveling forward at a deliberate and determined pace.

2024 repress.

Everyone has their own imagination about outer space, and each one us gets to daydream about what exactly floats or exists there. ‘Fortune Goodies’ is Minami Deutsch’s long-awaited 3rd studio album and an encyclopaedia of Krautrock, as band leader Kyotaro Miula describes it. While not all the songs on the record function as straightforward Krautrock this time around, they still manage to capture the spirit and heart of the genre. After relocating from Tokyo to Berlin, Miula’s musical vocabulary has greatly expanded, thus resulting in this ultimate Japanese take on cosmic music in 2022.

Marking one year following Phase Fatale’s (aka Hayden Payne’s) last EP on his label BITE, ‘Love Is Destructive’ is a clear shift into true techno territories, integrated with his distinct curation of narrative and sonic framework, imprinted with a musical diet of sleek, synthesised storytelling.The 4-Track EP reflects the turbulent ebb-and-flow found with emotional conclusion - a genesis soundtracked by raw energy and driving undercurrents. The Berlin-based DJ, Producer and Label-owner’s propensity for creating a symbiotic harmony by blending seemingly divisive elements from his genre defying repertoire, demonstrates his masterful understanding and control of the listener’s borderless, auditory journey. Exemplified by his marathon closing sets at Berghain, as well as techno arenas such as Khidi in Tbilisi (both of which he is a resident), Phase Fatale’s recent DJ performances and production endeavours reflect his fresh approach to pure techno sensibilities. The title track sets the tone with imperative grooves, energetic vigour and intrepid attitude. Following a progression of techno propulsion in ‘Magma Driver’, infused metallic textures and trippy, headier elements add depth, whilst the body of work’s cutting edge sound design echoes spacey vivacity and purification in equal measures. Dichotomy comes forward with tracks ‘Ambivalence’ and ‘Introjection’, processed vocal samples with dub techno leanings and hints towards broken rhythms are sculpted by Payne’s focused approach, resonating a feeling of hopeful resolution akin to resurgence. These romantic sensibilities offset by cold mechanical nuances are reflected in the EP’s artwork, depicting roses against the backdrop of engine-like machinery. ‘Love Is Destructive’ is dedicated to Juan, Simone and Luis. Featuring artwork by Silent Editions.

Late Night Tales and Bonobo were pretty much made for each other, it just took them a while to both realise it. Stepping forward into the compilers spotlight for the 33rd edition is Simon Green - aka Bonobo - a musician, producer and DJ perfectly suited to soundtrack an evening spent reclining to some parallel beats. Six albums to the good (most recently 'The North Borders' released earlier in 2013), Green has been on a winning streak since 2010's breakthrough 'Black Sands', which has now sold in excess of 160,000 copies. His music has aided the sales of Citroen cars and Olay creams, as well as soothing the puzzlement of Lost. Wrapped in delicately programmed drums, Green's music is at once both sombre and reassuring. If what comes out the other end is the music of Bonobo, then this is the fuel that keeps the engine running: soul, jazz, classical, pop, funk, leftfield, rock. Pianos and brass are abundantly present. Our ivories are warmed and tickled by the classic, Bill Evans, and new school, with Matthew Bourne's mournfully beautiful 'Juliet' and Dustin O'Halloran's 'An Ending A Beginning'. The brass section comes courtesy of Menehan Street Band's jazzy 'The Traitor', 'Flipside' by the Hypnotic Brass Band. Exclusives include YouTube sensation 'One Thing' by Peter & Kerry . Not only that, but there's Bonobo's special LNT cover version, a brilliant reading of Donovan's 'Get Thy Bearings', As the light dims, the unsettling sounds of Lapalux or maybe even Shlomo pierce the misty evening air, before giving way to the ethereal splendour of Eddi Front's 'Gigantic' or even Nina's paean to an imagined rural idyll 'Baltimore'. Amble down to the riverside. It could be the Great Ouse, as willows weep into the water; it could even be in Brooklyn overlooking the Lower East Side, as the sun slides down the sides of the skyscrapers. Take a notepad for inspiration. Maybe even a hipflask for a slug of something warm. Sit down and reflect and let those beautiful pianos skim the water's surface. Sometimes, you think, life is good. You can't play a symphony alone, it takes an orchestra to play it: Simon Green is your conductor.

Andrea has his roots in the independent musical scene in the first decade of the 2000s. In addition to his compositional and live experience as the first Nadàr Solo drummer, he is one half of the Turin duo Anthony Laszlo with Anthony Sasso, ex guitarist and singer of Milena Lovesick. Andrea Laszlo De Simone made his debut in 2012 when he released his first homemade album, Ecce Homo. Recorded at home by makeshift means and accompanied by the following videos: Solo un uomo, 11:43, I nostri piccoli occhi, Perdutamente.

At the beginning of 2014, he met some experienced musicians from Turin’s underground scene that later, after a few months in a rehearsal room, became his band: Damir Nefat (guitar/backing vocals), Dani C (bass guitar/backing vocals), Filippo Cornaglia (drums/backing vocals), Zevi Bordovach (keyboards/backing vocals) and Anthony Sasso (keyboards/backing vocals/percussions).

Anticipated by the individual tracks Uomo Donna, Vieni a salvarmi and La guerra dei baci on June 9, 2017 - for 42Records - Uomo Donna came out. It’s Andrea Laszlo De Simone’s first real album, a well received work by both audience and critics. It also was pointed as one of the best albums of 2017 by several national music magazines.

Uomo Donna is a complex, articulate and vital album that lives in its own time - where past, present and future coexist. It’s a time in which a sonic world takes shape blending classic and modern, Italian songs with psychedelia, Battisti and Radiohead, Modugno and Verdena, the Beatles and Tame Impala, the magical flight of Claudio Rocchi and the earthly flight of IOSONOUNCANE.

The album was self-produced and then post-produced by Andrea in collaboration with Giuseppe Lo Bue, a sound engineer from Bologna. The recordings were made between October 2014 and the end of 2016 with experimental techniques straddling digital and analogic.

After playing in some important Italian festivals as Siren Festival and TOdays -- that earned him a special mention in the live scores by Rolling Stones -- on October 28, 2017 the first Uomo Donna album tour started in the clubs of the major Italian cities.

On November 30th 2017, Andrea Laszlo De Simone presented his video, Sogno l'amore, during the Torino Film Festival as a short film, shot in Sicily and directed by Francesca Noto and Andrea Laszlo De Simone.

On March 15th 2018 the music video of Gli uomini hanno fame was released, the most political song of the album, an overlook through ferocious human emotions, an eleven and fifty minutes trip within human nature portrayed even in its most ferocious instincts. The music video was directed by Andrea Laszlo De Simone and the mysterious duo Sans. The official cycle of Uomo Donna ends on 31 December 2018 with the music video of Sparite Tutti created by the creative collective Irene&Irene.

2019 was a year of new goals for Andrea, in fact, the album Uomo Donna leaves national borders and got a special mention on social media by the famous American band The Lumineers which included Andrea Laszlo De Simone and Uomo Donna among the most interesting discoveries of the international musical underground and inserts Solo un Uomo in the Spotify playlist “Inspirations”. A few days later, Solo un Uomo was broadcasted by KEXP Radio. On November 4th Andrea and his band were chosen to open for The Lumineers’ only Italian show at Alcatraz, in Milan.

On November 8th Andrea released a brand new work, digitally and on vinyl for 42Records, Immensità, a ‘suite’ of four singles: Immensità, Conchiglie, Mistero and La Nostra Fine. Turned into a medium-length film using Immensità as the soundtrack.

Immensità was presented with four special sold out concerts in Rome, Turin, Padua and Milan. For these shows Andrea Laszlo De Simone was accompanied on stage by a mixed orchestra composed of synths, electronics, choirs, strings and woodwinds. Classic and modern instruments that are intertwined in a nine elements formation: an immersive concert, a contemporary version of chamber music.

In March 2020 Immensità was released also in France, UK, Canada, Belgium and the United States with Ekleroshock/ Hamburger Records (Roster: Benjamin Clementine, Polo & Pan, Limousine and many others). The response of the transalpine press and media, sector and not, was unexpected: major French newspapers and magazines - from Le Monde to Liberation, Vanity Fair and Les Inrockuptibles - dedicated entire pages and rave reviews to Immensità and Andrea Laszlo De Simone. The track Immensità entered, after a few days, at the fourteenth rank of Spotify’s Top viral 50 playlist and broadcasted on France Inter and Radio Nova.

“Immensità” is a complex cross media work of music and images. A project divided into four chapters (the songs) for nine tracks (each chapter has a prologue or a conclusion). A true suite, using the classic term that best describes an instrumental composition in several stages, that can be enjoyed in its entirety only by listening to vinyl or digitally in the innovative single track format, without pauses: a single symphony of 25 minutes and 6 seconds.

In September 2020, Dal giorno in cui sei nato tu was released on all italian platforms, a song dedicated to Andrea’s children, a real love letter in the form of a small speech, where he tries to give them the three keys to approaching life: fantasy, music and irony. Martino, 8 years old, replies to his father’s love letter by making the video accompanying the song, created in Super 8. It's the story of the world through the eyes of the child. It is also an homage to the new little girl in family, Lucia.

The self-titled debut album by Last Plane Out (S-Rock/Border) will be released worldwide on vinyl - The band: Last Plane Out is a duo consisting of Nils Erikson (music) and Anders Lundquist (lyrics) They describe their style as progressive pop: songs for those looking for some musical and lyrical chewing resistance, yet appealing to the casual listener.

Nils Erikson, based in Malmoo, Sweden, is a Swedish singer, composer and multi- instrumentalist. He has released a number of solo albums, one of which was nominated for two Swedish Grammys (Newcomer of the Year and Male Artist of the Year). He has also released several instrumental works that have been streamed millions of times.
In addition to that, Nils is the co-keyboardist and co-lead singer of the progressive rock band Karmakanic, led by longtime Steve Hackett bassist Jonas Reingold. Anders Lundquist, based in Stockholm, Sweden, is a lyricist, composer and bassist/guitarist, as well as a renowned music journalist. As the bassist and one of the two main songwriters of Swedish hard rock progsters band Future Elephants?, he released three acclaimed albums between 2016 and 2023.

It could be argued that Brained and Cooloorta are the definitive NWW E.Ps. Both classic and timeless fan favourites appear for the first time together on one single album. Both E.Ps marked a distinctive change in the NWW sound. Brained from 1984 showcases NWW at their mid 80's finest. The relentless churning and uncompromising music of Brained by Falling Masonry is complimented by the eccentric mania of JG Thirlwell's vocals. A Short Dip in Glory Hole takes us into the murky depths of a David Lynch influenced nightmare, a lysergic unhinged movie for the ears, which greatly influenced the Peter Strickland film Berberian Sound Studio. Cooloorta Moon from 1989 takes us in a whimsical direction and further highlights the boundless originality of NWW. The evolution of NWW utilising more traditional instrumentation and bordering on the verge of song structures started coming to the fore on this E.P. In addition to all the original songs from the Cooloorta and Brained EPs, the 2010 track, Sarah's Beloved Aunt perfectly closes this collection. Lovingly remastered by Andrew Liles. Agian, this arrives in a beautiful die-cut sleeve with Babs Santini artwork.

SIHR: sonic manifesto by a post-anything quartet feat. multi-instrumentalists from the Mediterranean inland Sea. New folklore for a devastated planet, including Frédéric D. Oberland (Oiseaux-Tempête), Grégory Dargent (H), Tony Elieh (Karkhana) & Wassim Halal (Polyphème).

After a few concerts/screenings improvised as a duo in Cairo and Beirut, as well as for the Rencontres d’Arles, the Lille photography center and the Belgian magazine Halogénure, Dargent and Oberland have teamed up with mavericks Elieh and Halal for a puzzling cross-border manifesto. The first sonic moves of this eclectic quartet, made in a bunker studio somewhere between Paris and Berlin, urgently took the form of a quest, that of a neo-folklore for troubled times, a music seeping with many kinds of atavism and experimenting in all directions. A fertile no-man’s-land where trance and contem- plation, jazz and electronica, acoustics and electricity would merge in a stimulating mystical magma.

From the possible emergence of a Babelian language to the shared desire to rediscover music as a ceremonial act, this encounter took place over three days of improvised sound bacchanalia, the phases of which were all recorded by Benoit Bel (Zombie Zombie, Thurston Moore Group, Oi- seaux-Tempête). A hallucinated and generous testimony, SIHR is a synergy of many different worlds and many different possibilities, the sonic vision of a present conjugated in a hybrid tense and exalted by too many tangos danced on the glowing ashes of our days.

Multi-instrumentalist & photographer, Frédéric D. Oberland has been leading the Oiseaux-Tempête collective for over ten years, lying somewhere between avant-rock and free jazz, repetitive music and electronics. Founding member of the bands FOUDRE! and Le Réveil des Tropiques, he’s also perfor- ming solo and composing soundtracks for cinema and installation art. Since 2018, Oberland co-cu- rates the NAHAL Recordings imprint alongside producer Mondkopf.

Electric guitarist, oud player, composer and photographer, Grégory Dargent cultivates his musical schizophrenia and identity through improvised music, trance music, jazz, hijacked maqam, repeti- tive music, pop, electro-acoustic installations and French chanson. From L’Hijâz’Car to Babx, from Berber singer Houria Aïchi to Rachid Taha, from Trio H to Sirventés enragés, from music for images to contemporary choreography, from the most acoustic of ouds to the most nuclear of guitars, he conducts, accompanies, composes, deciphers, questions, delves, makes mistakes, bounces back, ar- ranges, orchestrates and tirelessly shares his creative passions.

Tony Elieh is one of the pioneers of experimental music in Lebanon. A founding member of the first post-rock group of post-war Lebanon, The Scrambled Eggs, he has since developed his unique elec- tric bass skills in various groups and styles of music including collaborating with in groups such as Karkhana, Calamita and Wormholes Electric. Relocated in Berlin in recent years, he has performed a solo set of heavily processed bass generated sounds.

Is Wassim Halal only a darbuka player? Maybe !? But what about his music, compositions, ideas. You can find him with Polyphème playing and co-composing popular-contemporary music with Gamelan Puspawarna, or next to the french bagpiper Erwan Keravec, with the Bey.Ler.Bey trio (w/ Laurent Clouet & Florian Demonsant) working on an improvised-balkan-already-improvised-music, with per- formers and drawers Benjamin Efrati and Diego Verastegui, with Gregory Dargent and Anil Eraslan in H, creating a new pedal generating »Random taksim«, composing his own »Poème Symphonique pour 100 youyou« or composing pieces for ensembles.

2024 Repress

Released on Cherry Red in 1981, Threat To Creation spotted the collaboration between two mystical entities: Creation Rebel and New Age Steppers. Forerunners of the british dub scene the two bands shared several members, a who’s who of the On U-Sound school and key figures of the Bristol and London scene. Adrian Sherwood is – obviously – the man behind the desk a craftsman on its own, a character with no borders and one of the most sought after producer of the time. The supergroup is ran by post-punk stalwarts Bruce Smith (The Pop Group) on drums and Keith Levene (PIL) on guitar. Ari Up of The Slits sits on piano and organ, while masters Crucial Tony is both on bass and guitars. Members of African Head Charge – bass player George Oban, Eskimo Fox and Style Scott on drums – are welcomed addition to the line-up. Threat To Creation is still recognizable as an album ahead of its time, a futuristic blend filling the gap between the Jamaican heritage, the so-called (post) industrial revolution and the studio witchery of the whitey man.

A leading Norwegian bassist for over 30 years, ECM legend Arild Andersen forges promising relation-ships with two rising stars - Daniel Sommer (drums) and Rob Luft (guitar) in an expansive, playful exploration of song and collective improvisation. As Time Passes " is set to release on April 26th on April Records. Led by Sommer, the release signifies the first chapter of the drummers much much-anticipated Nordic trilogy on April Records, aiming to capture and document Nordic improvisation and composition across three carefully curated ensembles. Bassist Arild Andersens storied career stretches back to the 1970"s as one of ECM s first recording artists, collaborating with household names of the genre including Jan Garbarek, Don Cherry, Bill Frisell, John Taylor, Sonny Rollins, Chick Corea, and the list goes on. Welcoming the opportunity to work with and nurture younger artists, the ensemble was born when Daniel Sommer selected Andersen for a project during his studies at the Danish National Academy of Music. Later, impressed by Luft s performances in Ireland and Norway, Andersen suggested expanding the pair into a trio. A transcendent musical voyage, As Time Passes " blurs the lines of conventional trio roles, and celebrates the evolution of jazz as a fluid, versatile form of expression. By providing each musician the freedom of becoming a key contributor in the melodic discourse, the trio channels the spirit of jazz veterans such as the Bill Evans Trio and free free-jazz ensemble Air, while echoing the sounds and innovations of pan pan-European contemporary jazz. Mixing pensive rubato ambience with energetic grooves, instrumental dexterity, a modern ECM ECM-esque sound and folk undertones, the record s compositional clarity combined with the spontaneity of a live performance flows across and between genres, borders and generations alike. Luft s intricately over-dubbed layers of acoustic guitars, vast reverbs, and contrapuntal melodies expand the sound of the three piece into an immersive world of textures. Rendered in the stark beauty of Andersen"s bass lines, the nuanced strokes of Sommer"s drums, and capped with the lush, expansive timbres of Luft"s guitar, "As Time Passes" is a testament to enduring and ever ever-evolving wonder of Jazz.

Hunting for rhythm, as if our lives depended on it, as if, without rhythm, we’d starve to death. Can body and soul live without rhythm? Seizing its different forms, dissecting it, ingesting it, digesting it, could very well be akin to the Rhythm Hunters’ creative process. What are the rhythmic principles that lead us to develop its polyphonic, groovy and trance-like aspects (Africa), or mathematically complex ones (India), or irregular pulsations that transcend asperities (Balkans), among others? To go on a rhythm hunt, why not explore all these places, appreciate the infinite diversity of rhythms and, back home, try to understand and experiment with enriching your own rhythmic vocabulary with the basic principles underlying each musical tradition. What can these principles contribute if you transcend borders and begin to adapt your musical knowledge and experience to the new ramifications of the rhythm you’ve just discovered? The music of The Rhythm Hunters is one of the answers.

A few years ago, the musicians in this band and I began a specific practice on unusual mixes of rhythmic ideas, inspired by traditions from various parts of the world, with the intention of integrating them until they became a personal vocabulary and means of expression. The result is on this album.

Stéphane Galland & The Rhythm Hunters by Stephane Galland & The Rhythm Hunters, released 26 April 2024, includes the following tracks: "Positivv ", "Artemis" and more.

This version of Stéphane Galland & The Rhythm Hunters comes as a 1xCD in a(n) O-Card packaging.

On the outskirts of Bratislava, in the pulsating shadows of a refinery's burning chimneys, on the plot of a family house, there stood a small shack. Initially, it housed trials in domestic mushroom growing. Later, after a makeshift acoustic touch-up - lining the walls with old cardboard egg cartons - it became a shelter for music. Sensitive, evocative, nostalgic, lo-fi music by a man named Cadillac Face.

Today we would probably use the term 'safe space', but back then it was (in Cadillac's words) kutica, a cubbyhole. He hid there from a world that ached. Here, Cadillac secretly smoked, sang, and composed. And tried not to go crazy from anxiety. He wrote music unlike anything during his time.

Here, he struggled. With sound (unable to adjust it to his liking), with instruments (which he couldn't bring himself to play), with the world (with which, understandably, he was at odds).

Cadillac Face was a man who didn't belong here.

He wrote and sang in English (in a post-socialist and early-capitalist Slovakia, when command of English was no matter of course); he also wrote in Slovak (blogs and diaries, which, due to a stream-of-consciousness and surrealist style, were as incomprehensible as they were immersive and intimate); gave advice to teenagers (to their quasi-banal questions on talking forums about relationships, life and adolescence, where they were often met with ridicule and mockery); he composed electronic and noise music (at a time when no one had a clue what the abbreviation DAW meant).

This Cadillac's compilation album is not aiming to compete with/replicate Noizy Days - a compilation of Cadillac's contributions to the project Noize Konspiracy. Underground compilations circulated through a local proto-social network. Borderline music without rules - open but often inaccessible. There, Cadillac contributed mostly with experimental-electronic compositions. Noizy Days was compiled by Ďuro Ďurček, one of the initiators of Noize Konspiracy. Both Ďuro and Cadillac have been dead for years.

Songs For The Trees is a selection from Cadillac's songwriting. The most intimate of his intimate recordings. Cadillac at his most fragile, brittle, and quiet. The most romantic, the most tormented, the most painful and direct of his songs I know.

Cadillac became an anthropomorphic grotesque tree. Neither broadleaf nor conifer. Or perhaps it's a candle slowly incinerating – bored, sad, playing the guitar. A tragicomedy. Sometimes it kindles what it doesn't mean to, and it can't put itself out. Or can it?

Daga Voladora's last album came out in 2016. To alleviate such a long wait, only a couple of celebrated singles. Now, finally, Cristina Plaza (identity gracefully hidden under the Daga Voladora name that was before Gran Aparato Eléctrico and also a quarter of Los Eterno and half of Clovis) releases an album and does it, for the first time, in vinyl format. "Los manantiales" is the title of the happy and long-awaited return of an artist that never completely left.

"Los manantiales" ("The Springs") refers to all those sources from which I drink to make my songs: Stereolab, Broadcast, Galaxie 500, Cate Le Bon... And also some of the flamenco language. Flamenco in my own way, of course," explains Plaza. "Los manantiales" will also bring echoes of acts that the artist has not practiced as much such as Esclarecidos, Vainica Doble, Ana D or Kikí d'Akí. Deep voices for songs with substance.

But there is also that other idea of the spring that gushes forth when it can no longer be contained. "It has taken me so many years to make this album because I had a prejudice related to the previous one "Primer segundo" in which there was a coherence. Not finding that concept or thinking that this or that wasn't Daga Voladora, I couldn't get into it. Until I decided that maybe I didn't have to impose such a rigid direction on myself..."

Sketched in a town bordering Ávila where Plaza decided to get lost in the summer of 2022 and then finished off in a basement in Madrid for several months, the nine songs of "Los manantiales" make up a short album, premeditatedly short ("I don't like the songs to be longer than 2:50") but, above all, varied. Because, as can be sensed in the song Quise ser ( "I wanted to be a fictional hero, an expressionist painter, a promising actress"), here are all the imagined Cristinas and their different lives ("The song Lejos de la multitud is that longing of mine to be a vagabond"), an unmistakable sign that, as the artist confesses, "I am my own spring". And all this joyful dispersion comes from the premise with which Plaza approached the album: "I said to myself: 'Let's play'. I set out to have a good time. Suddenly, I wanted to do a dub track and I came up with Fosforito or a rock song like Lou Reed in the 80s and there was 'Me vi penando'. I wanted a rock record, an experimental record, something like Broadcast, and a musical! I wanted to do a thousand things!"

The result is a playful album, very enjoyable; but above all elegant and extremely precise. In both form and substance. Thus, the melodies are so rounded at first listen; the music would work perfectly on its own, stripped of lyrics that respond to the maxim, so often ignored, that there is really only one way to say things. "I have tried to refine the texts a lot. There are some phrases taken from Steinbeck, other things that emerge in a somewhat magical way. There's also Gary Snyder, Kerouac and his Dharma Bums, echoes of California..."

It's an album made, as usual with her, in the most absolute solitude (except for the collaboration of Andrés Arregui on sax and the final mix by Fino Oyonarte). Bareback. "I recorded everything with my computer, with my instruments, my analog keyboards, my rhythm boxes, little noises I make around... I don't make demos. I just do it. In a rough way. What I do do is repeat. The good thing about this method is that many things happen spontaneously and that's where they stay".

An album that, for all of the above, responds to the best notion of caprice. A whimsical whim, signed and finished off by the splendid cover designed by Beatriz Lobo, which feartures a painting ('La chica del King Creole') by the legendary artist Javier de Juan.

In "Los manantiales" there are many possible worlds, as many dreamed ones. Of course, those of Daga Voladora (not in vain, the album opens with a song titled Cristinópolis), but also those of any curious and sensitive listener who, by the way, will find more than one musical wink along the way. You just have to be attentive.

TO THE LIMIT ist eine durchdachte Zusammenstellung von 51 Songs aus den Studioalben und Live-Aufnahmen, die die Eagles zwischen 1972 und 2020 veröffentlichten. Die bekanntesten Titel der Band sind hier vertreten, darunter die Nummer-1-Hits "New Kid In Town", "One Of These Nights", "Best Of My Love", "Hotel California" und "Heartache Tonight". Mit Songs wie "Desperado", "Victim Of Love" und "In The City" enthält das Set auch viele Fan-Favoriten. Außerhalb des Studios beleuchtet TO THE LIMIT das beeindruckende Tournee-Erbe der Eagles mit mehr als einem Dutzend elektrisierender Live-Tracks. Dazu gehören Ausschnitte aus Eagles Live (1980) - darunter der Top-40-Hit "Seven Bridges Road" - sowie Songs aus Hell Freezes Over (1994), The Millennium Concert (2000), Live At The Forum '76 (2017) und Live From The Forum MMXVIII (2020).

Yuval Havkin, also known as Rejoicer, is one of the foremost exponents of downtempo music, inspired by the fusion of jazz and hip-hop. His new album thus draws on his early influences while exploring the world of calm, melodic electronic music that borders on ambient.

This Is Reasonable has a chill-out feel to it, a record filled with melodies and atmospheres that, throughout its eleven tracks, conveys a sense of calm and floating, akin to ambient music. Stripped of the clichés of the genre, the album is built around subtle melodies and rich harmonies from keyboards and synths, which borrow as much from the spirit of jazz as from the inventions of electronica, whilst being supported by a gentle groove. This equilibrium is perfectly captured by Rejoicer's moniker, a term that evokes both the idleness of artificial paradises and a soft, caring form of spirituality.

Musical path
Yuval Havkin was born in Israel in 1985, and grew up in England before returning to his homeland. He began studying classical piano as a child, but was put off by such conservative teaching and turned to hip-hop and beatmaking in his teens. Throughout the 2000s, he learned his skills "on the job", working with musicians he met in Tel Aviv, a local scene that nurtured a sense of community and emulation. Back then, he was particularly impressed by the grooves and electronic inventions of Detroit producer Dabrye, who had a revelatory effect on him, before he discovered legendary musicians Madlib and Jay Dee aka J Dilla, who led him down the path of beatmaking.

Yuval Havkin's music career got off to a more serious start in the late 2000s with the creation of his own label, Raw Tapes, both based in Tel Aviv. Blending jazz, funk and hip hop, whilst still embracing pop influences, the label's productions showcased the richness of the new Israeli scene combining cool, elegance, playfulness, and a degree of research and inventiveness, thanks to the talent of artists and bands such as Duo Brothers, Maya Dunietz, iogi, Nitai Hershkovits, the Buttering Trio and Rejoicer, the artist's most personal project.

In 2018, Rejoicer's warm and engaging sounds caught the attention of the prestigious Los Angeles label Stones Throw, renowned for having signed his idols Madlib and J Dilla, not to mention Aloe Blacc and Peanut Butter Wolf (its founder). Two albums followed, Energy Dreams (2018) and Spiritual Sleaze (2020), both of which demonstrate his instrumental mastery, jazz culture and lush orchestrations. Both albums are on a par with more renown sampling prodigies of the beat scene, and gave him his first international recognition.

Now based between Los Angeles and Savyon, near Tel Aviv, this hyperactive and instinctive artist simultaneously pursues a career as a composer, musician and label owner, member of numerous bands and collective projects (Apifera, PlayDead, collaborations with Jimi Prasad and Avishai Cohen) while also offering his studios and production skills to other artists.

“Fela Kuti meets Aphex Twin”
This new Rejoicer album, which follows three earlier jazz-tinged records, marks a new and more personal musical direction for an artist who previously favored group work and collaborations. Following his meeting with Mathias Duchemin, founder of the Circus Company record label and a keen enthusiast of the new Israeli jazz scene, Yuval chose to delve into a more electronic and sequenced style of music, playing Prophet 6 and 8 synths, a Juno 60, a Minimoog and his Fender Rhodes keyboard, in contrast with the more organic sounds of his previous albums.

While a few tracks on this new album may sound like a laid-back version of some of the Warp label's early electronic classics by Aphex Twin or Boards of Canada, Yuval Havkin claims to have also been inspired by the great Fela Kuti, particularly in his search for harmonies between bass, keyboards and percussion, and by his elder trumpet-playing friend Avishai Cohen, a musician he particularly admires.

Beyond these various influences, This Is Reasonable is an album of compelling and bewitching melodies. The moods, peacefulness and sheer beauty of This Is Reasonable are, indeed, quite paradoxical, in stark contrast to the country's tragedies (the title explicitly refers to recent political disputes in Israel) and the war currently raging less than a hundred miles from his studio. A paradox fully embraced by the artist, who views his music as a response to the violence of our times.

Mesmerizing and exuberant Argentinian La Yegros, probably the most magnetic artist on the South American continent, is back with a new album!

The undisputed Queen of "Nu Cumbia" has not rested on her laurels. Surrounded by the same accomplices who have supported her for the last ten years, but eager to renew herself, she has set about recording her fourth album, which stands out from her discography. Although her personal folklore is still rooted in South American folklore, La Yegros is now absorbing contemporary, global music, while tackling intimate, often melancholy and even painful subjects, which she overcomes with the same resilience that drives her in concert. Nothing stands in the way of this Argentinian whirlwind, all the more fascinating for the fact that personal considerations are now surfacing beneath the veneer of the party atmosphere she sets alight.

La Yegros returned to the stage in 2022 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Viene de Mí, her single hit from the self-titled album, released in 2012 in Argentina and then worldwide in 2013, which catapulted her to international fame. We then discovered a singer who had grown up in the traditions of her country. Her parents come from Misiones, a province bordering Brazil and Paraguay, where balls are filled with the sounds of chamamé (a mix of polka and Guaraní music), Carnavalito (Andean folklore) and Colombian Cumbia. But she herself is a native of Buenos Aires, whose nights are enlivened by the bass of Dancehall and electronic music.

These influences have merged in two further successful albums, Magnetismo (2016) and Suelta (2019), followed by high voltage tours during which La Yegros has been able to display her generous nature, inexhaustible energy, exuberant personality and infectious enthusiasm.

To record her new album entitled 'HAZ', La Yegros has put her faith in the same team that has worked with her since Viene de Mí. On one hand, producer Gaby Kerpel (also known as King Coya), a pioneer of synthetic experimentation applied to traditional music, who has remained her faithful accomplice for over twenty years. On the other hand, composer Daniel Martín, who knows how to come up with melodies to dream about and hymns to sing along to. Inseparable and complementary, the trio continues to concoct this mesmerizing mixture where acoustic instruments meet samples and the rolling of machines. But the new productions don't rely on a tried and tested formula. Generally co-produced between France and Argentina, they break away from over-defined genres. La Yegros knits together new rhythms and incorporates sounds that are unheard of in her country, derived from the latest urban trends, as well as echoes of reggae and funk. As for the lyrics, signed alternately by the trio, they are embodied by La Yegros whose charismatic voice questions a period of her life tossed by waves of love and lovelessness, joy and sorrow, euphoria and anguish, indulgence and resentment.

The album is open to a wealth of musical styles. You'll hear funk guitar and Andean flutes, melancholy accordion and rolling drums, Tuareg blues enhanced by brass, house and electro Cumbia loops, and the bassoons of a chamber orchestra. The folklore 2.0 of La Yegros, nourished by its colorful inspiration, at times tender or exalted, has been imagined as a hymn to love and the contradictory feelings that come with it. As always, it has also been conceived with the stage in mind. Hatching in a storm of overturned emotions, the album is all the more explosive for the strength of the live show that accompanies it. In addition to the usual line-up of guitar, accordion and percussion, a musician handles synthesizers and machines to boost the electronic turboshaft. In any case, you can count on the singer to assert her increasingly clear-cut character with each new project. And, above all, she won't give up. L.a Yegros is back and her batteries are fully charged.

Berlin, 20 August 2023 – In a world where music serves as a gateway to explore the intricate dance between reality and imagination, Shkoon, the innovative germany-syrian musical group, presents their newest single, "Al-Furat." This release is a captivating addition to their upcoming album, a collection that masterfully blurs the lines between the tangible and the ethereal. Its the first single of their 10 Track Album being released on 16st of November followed by a big concert tour.
"Al-Furat" is not merely a song; it's a satirical exploration of life's complex game. With a wink to the audience, the song invites listeners to look beyond its surface and decipher the layers of meaning hidden within. At the heart of it, "Al-Furat" beckons the audience to find what resonates with them, to uncover the deeper messages that lie beneath the harmonies and rhythms.
A Harmonious Blend of Emotions
Crafted with a touch of irony, "Al-Furat" humorously contrasts the declarations of love for one's homeland with the journey of Ameen, the protagonist, as he navigates the game-like challenges to reach France. It's a juxtaposition of joy and sorrow, presented through cheerful melodies and thought-provoking lyrics. This blend of emotions adds depth to the song, making it not just a musical piece but a thought-provoking experience.

Blurring the Boundaries
Shkoon doesn't stop at melodies and lyrics; they expertly play with boundaries. The video showcases Thorben crossing borders with a French baguette, a clever visual metaphor that challenges stereotypes. The inclusion of French demonstrations further blurs the lines between art and reality. It's a deliberate move that asks the audience to question their perceptions and assumptions.

Art with a Message
As with their previous works, Shkoon's "Al-Furat" carries a hidden message—a critique and commentary on societal norms and expectations. It's a call to look beyond the surface, to recognize the dual nature of art as both entertainment and a mirror to society. Shkoon's ability to weave such messages into their work is a testament to their artistry and depth.

The Album
After Rima (2019) some singles, EP’s and their touching live album “FIRAQ” (2022) Shkoon is coming up with another concept album “Masrahiya” which is arabic and stands for theater play. Shkoon created a strong message again, with a diverse piece of art combined with an album concert tour.

This play 'Masrahiya' delves deep into the blurred boundaries between reality and fiction, where the lines of truth and imagination intertwine like a mesmerizing dance. As the three captivating chapters unfold, tragedy, politics, and irony are seamlessly woven together, creating a tapestry of emotions that leaves the audience spellbound.5

Miles Davis created just one studio album with his original sextet: Milestones. And he made every moment count. Pairing with Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones, Davis not only laid the groundwork for the modalism that immediately followed but tailored a genuine modern-jazz masterwork laden with performances among the most explosive of his distinguished career. Sandwiched between the more famous 'Round About Midnight and the epochal Kind of Blue, Milestones remains a seminal work of art.

Sourced from the original master tapes and pressed on dead-quiet SuperVinyl, Mobile Fidelity's numbered-edition 180g LP grants each musician their own space amid broad soundstages. Afforded the benefits of a nearly non-existent noise floor and supreme groove definition, this vinyl reissue doubles as a time machine back to the February-March 1958 recording sessions.

Colors, shapes, and dimensions appear in the manner that resembles what you'd glean from behind a studio control room's window. Davis' burnished trumpet is rendered in three-dimensional perspective and seemingly coaxes the band to play with unburdened zest. Coltrane's trademark saxophone teems with lifelike tonality and images with specificity; his solos work in tandem with and against the driving rhythms. Garland's swaggering piano lines? Visualize the keys as he hits full stride, the chords and fills slithering around skeletal frameworks.

Inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and selected as a "Core Collection" record by the Penguin Guide to Jazz, Milestones is as famous for its title track – widely considered ground zero for modalism and bolstered by Jones' hallmark "Philly Lick" rim shot – as the players that produced it. The launching pad for many of Davis' improvisational flights, the album teases the explorations Coltrane would soon chase. Davis' own solo work broaches territories that far exceed what he had done in his bop-rooted past. Every song is a highlight.

Take the bravado "Dr. Jackle," featuring a hot-foot pace and bebop strains, or "Sid's Ahead," which continues the album's blues theme while juggling edgy harmonics and inside-out structures. On "Billy Boy," distinguished with an arco bass solo from Chambers, Garland gets a turn in the spotlight and channels the openness practised by one of his heroes, Ahmad Jamal. Even more instructive is the band's reading of Dizzy Gillespie's "Two Bass Hit." Three years removed from the version Davis and company recorded for the trumpeter's Columbia debut, this interpretation demonstrates the extent to which the group had jelled in a relatively short amount of time.



Then there's "Straight, No Chaser," the definitive rendition of Thelonious Monk's signature piece. Coltrane's marbled playing pulls at the tune's borders, Adderley takes liberty with solos, and Davis dances around his mates, at one point quoting "When the Saints Go Marching In" while demonstrating his knowledge of tradition and casting an eye towards the future.

About that future. Garland already had one foot out the door during the Milestones sessions to the extent Davis spells him on "Sid's Ahead." Jones would stick around for a bit longer but soon plot his exit. History proves Davis navigated the changes with visionary aplomb. Yet the chemistry, excitement, and beauty the sextet achieves on Milestones cannot be overstated. This reissue helps put the album in proper perspective – and presents the music the fidelity it deserves.

For a few years Leo Robinson was the sort of hidden secret you sometimes come across in local music scenes. First in Manchester and now in Glasgow, he’d pop up regularly on DIY bills or as local support to a touring act, quietly blowing them off stage with his rich baritone vocal and homespun lo-fi tales of folklore and animism. With The Temple – his debut on PRAH Recordings – he looks set to cross over from being a cult concern.

“There's a spectrum within the album between fully mythologising or symbolising my lived experience, and just stating it in very matter of fact terms - that push and pull between the need to abstract and the need to break through the abstraction and have an honest moment with oneself” he explains. “This is one of the themes of the album as well as part of the process. The aim was to take all these anecdotal or symbolic elements and merge them into one narrative and one world, in a way that you can find your way through the record as if it were a landscape or language with its own logic.”

The record takes on a pastoral, slightly baroque nature that Robinson partly attributes to a friend screening a lot of ‘70s BBC material in his book shop that they used to hang out at. There are also elements of jazz, flickering to life in “The Spring”’s piano-led finale and coda.

Thematically, Robinson likens it to a Jungian ‘Hero's Journey’, his voice possessing a character who goes through several defined stages of consciousness. From conception and the beginning of an earthly life, the first half of the album recognises the development of the protagonist’s narrative and identity, before “The Pink Light”’s freeform departure from the hitherto more song-based suite devastatingly shatters this. The second half of the album then sees the protagonist witness “the uncontainable” water; learning that true divinity lies not in the individual self or lofty notions of gods and temples, but in the unremarkable nettles, insects and dogs on the roadside riverbank - referenced on tracks “The Cormorant” and “The Spring”.

Although now residing north of the border, The Temple was written while Robinson was finding his feet in Manchester, having moved there to go to art school as a teenager (as a visual artist, he has exhibited at the Tiwani Contemporary in London and Cardiff’s Chapter Arts Centre). As a result, many of the tracks bear out the shadows of his experiences in the northern city – at their most visible and explicit on the beautifully fragile storytelling of “The Pavement”. Written the day after the Manchester Arena Bombings, it recalls Robinson waking up to go to work on a hot summer’s day to discover that his street had been blocked off for terrorism investigations; it then progresses through the rest of his day, amidst the grimly surreal aftermath of the previous night.

Having written the chords, melodies and lyrics to the album, Robinson fleshed out the tunes by scoring out parts for the additional instrumentation, but it was only when a friend sent a demo to PRAH that he was able to fund its full recording. Guitars, vocals, piano and French Horn (the latter recorded by Lauren Reeve-Rawlings) were put down at Green Door Studios in Glasgow. Microphones were placed around the room and the sound of the musicians stepping on creaky floorboards and opening creaky doors were left audible to further the record’s live feel. The harpsichord heard on “The Serpent”, meanwhile, came from University of Glasgow lecturer David McGuinness. Strings were then recorded at PRAH Studios by Francesca Ter-Berg and Raven Bush, the Social Singing Choir adding their choral vocals to “Temple II”.

The result is an album that feels both luscious and yet intimately raw; as grand as Richard Dawson at his most panoramic but containing the rough edges and skeletal looseness of a Calvin Johnson work. At times Robinson lyrically moves towards the surreal, but ultimately this is a record grounded in reality; a true showcase of Robinson’s skill as a lyricist and songwriter.

In 2005, an 18-year-old Raphael Gimenes left the sunny shores of Brazil behind, embarking on a journey to a distant and wintry land. "Dinamarca," the Portuguese name for Denmark, became his new home, where he has lived for almost two decades. Today, he presents his third album, a deep exploration of his life in Scandinavia. Rather than being a nationalistic tribute, "DINAMARCA" tells chapters from Gimenes" life story as a Brazilian living in the northern corners of the world. It guides us through the enchanting nordic woods, the vast fields stretching to the horizon, and the timeless sea resting beneath an endless sky. The melodies of blackbirds, the dances of red deer, and the whispers of ancient oaks form the backdrop for his musical stories. Within his songs, we experience moments of deep solitude and boundless inspiration, moments where reflection and creative passion intertwine. Gimenes skillfully turns the power of love into harmonies, dedicating songs to both his companion and his closest friends. Beyond these experiences, he leads us on journeys to Denmark"s neighboring lands, Norway and Sweden, where revelations and encounters with the mystical found their way into the lyrical fabric of his songs. The album"s orchestration includes Gimenes" vocals and the resonant chords of his classical guitar. Accompanying him throughout the album are Jan Kadereit"s multilayered percussion, and Lucas Delacroix"s bass synth, who also plays the electric guitar at times. The music further unfolds with the nuances of a string quartet, and a brass quintet, both recorded in the tropical highlands of Minas Gerais. Other guest musicians feature on individual songs, such as pianist Sebastian Macchi, flautist Flavia Huarachi, cellist Lucas Almeida, and singers Gaby Echevarria, Cecilia Pahl, and Cris Ferro. Gimenes has garnered acclaim and accolades across continents. His debut release, "Raphael Gimenes & As Montanhas de Som," delved deep into the rhythms and traditions of Brazil. It rose to prominence as the top Brazilian release in 2016 in Holland and was hailed as a "conceptual masterpiece" in Japan. His second album, "A Tongue Full of Suns," co-produced with Faroese multi-artist Teitur, ventured into the English language, blending Gimenes" inspirations from the world of prog-rock. Danish rock legend TimChristensen praised it as "top-shelf neo-folk," while Brazilian website80minutos described it as "hypnotizing." The music within "DINAMARCA" delves deep into the soul of a man who embraced a new land with open arms, while staying true to his roots. It unites elements from both of Gimenes" prior works, embarking on a journey across new musical horizons. The result is music that transcends borders, weaving itself into an intricately beautiful tapestry - a soul that has learned to harmonize with two worlds.

The founders of Cukor Bila Smert’ (Ukrainian: Цукор– Біла Смерть, English: Sugar – White Death) band were Svitlana Okhrimenko (a.k.a. Svitlana Nianio), Oleksandr Kohanovs’kyi, and Tamila Mazur, who studied at the Reinhold Glier Kyiv Academy of Music in 1984-1988. In the summer of 1988, they got acquainted with Eugene Taran, a young guitarist and artist. He joined the band and also became the ideologist of Sugar – White Death. Moreover, Eugene coined the name for the band: the irony towards the Yellow Press. The musicians gathered at Kohanovs’kyi’s house, where they spent their free time not only playing music but also listening to and discussing new records and thinking about the conception of their new project.



For two years, the band recorded a few home-made albums, such as “Rhododendrons Coral Aspides” in 1988 (which is considered lost), where Kostyantyn Dovzhenko took part as a guitarist and sound engineer. He also replaced Taran during the recording session because Eugene was passing an exam at that time. The band also recorded another album – “Lilies and Amaralises,” in 1989, which is also considered lost. Eugene remembers that the band made a lot of recordings but did not pay so much attention to them. Sugar – White Death played live occasionally but spent more time creating their own sound, which was named by Oleksii Dekhtyar (a founder of “Ivanov Down”) as a “sugar calypso sound.” At that time, the music was mostly created by Oleksandr Kohanovs’kyi, and the lyrics were written by Svitlana Okhrimenko and Eugene Taran.



In February 1990, a quartet came to the Scientists House Studio in Kyiv, where they had one studio session only, recorded by Valerii Papchenko. Musicians played live for about one take. This session was represented on the “Mannered Music” compilation by several blocks – “Venus with Long Neck,” “The New Sissies,” and “Rhododendrons Coral Aspides,” which was shortened to “Rhododendrons” on the cassette (two songs from which – “Summer Will Not Come” and “The Great Hen-Yuan’ River,” dedicated to Grigorii Khoroshylov, the sinologist from Kyiv). The compilation cover design was created by Eugene Taran. Later, this tape got to Vlodek Nakonechnyj, the founder of Koka Records, a young Polish label, who released “Mannered Music” on cassettes and made efforts to invite Sugar – White Death to play several gigs in Poland.



In November 1990, Sugar – White Death played their last gig as a quartet in Kharkiv. They were invited by Sergii Myasoyedov, who curated the art association “Nova Scena” (The New Scene). The band played selected tracks from the albums “The New Sissies” and “The Shellfishes in Gold Wrappers” (the last one is also considered lost). Due to Sergii Myasoyedov's efforts, the performance was documented: he saved a lot of photos and fragments of soundboard recordings on reel-to-reel tape.



Later, Oleksandr Kohanovs’kyi and Tamila Mazur left Sugar – White Death: Oleksandr founded his own project Pan Kifared, and Tamila became a bass player of Shake Hi-Fi (whose co-founder was Eugene Taran). Sugar became a duo of Svitlana and Eugene. They started to focus on their next work: “Antinoy Is Leaving” in late 1990.



In 1992, they were also invited by Sergii Myasoyedov for a studio session in Kharkiv, where due to the efforts of Oleksandr Vakulenko, Sugar recorded the new album called “All Secrets Of A Poem”. Some tracks from the work (“Dead Ceremony,” “Vienna Is Sleeping,” and “Untitled”) were released on their next and last album, “Selo” (“The Village”). The rest compositions were published as a part of the compilation for the first time.



In the autumn of 1992, the musicians went to Poland, where Vlodek Nakonechnyj, who wanted Sugar to come to a “real” studio, organized their last recording session. Although the journey’s beginning was unsuccessful (Eugene’s guitar was taken away by a customs officer when crossing the border), the musicians worked fast during the session at the Arek Was studio at Marki on an 8-track reel-to-reel machine. Boleslav Blazhchyk took part as a cellist, playing the parts created by Svitlana. The album was completed in three days – the musicians spent two days recording and one-day mixing, mostly done by Eugene Taran. In 1993, this work was released as “Selo” (“The Village”) album on cassette tapes by Koka Records (remastered by Tadeusz Sudnik). Later, Sugar – White Death was disbanded.



Credits:



Cukor Bila Smert’: Svitlana Okhrimenko (lyrics, keyboards, piano, vocals), Eugene Taran (lyrics, keyboards, guitar), Oleksandr Kohanovs’kyi (piano, A1-B2), Tamila Mazur (cello, A1-B2), Boleslaw Blaszczyk (cello, C5-D6)

Cover photo by Vlad Urazovs’kiy

Photo archive courtesy: Vlad Urazovs’kiy, Vlodek Nakonechnyj (Koka Records),

Oleh Yuhrinov, Sergii Myasoyedov

Audio archive courtesy: Vlodek Nakonechnyj (Koka Records), Guido Erfen,

Sergii Myasoyedov

Liner notes: Vlad Yakovlev

Compiled by Dmytro Nikolaienko, Dmytro Prutkin and Sasha Tsapenko

© ? Shukai / Cukor Bila Smert’

2024

The Pheromoans are tenants of an unruly domain. Over the last 18 years the group have evolved from garage rock primitivists to auteurs of their own curious sound; a frothy brew of loose electronics, refractory rock and humdrum musing. Their songs are mutable, capricious, unreliable narrations, often withholding as much as they reveal. Russell Walker’s understated vocal has always been the band’s unifying focus, it is wry, unsparing and wilfully honest. Walker’s lyrics are an observational tour de force, sometimes droll, yet often tipping over into unlikely pathos. With previous releases on Upset The Rhythm, Convulsive and Alter, 2024 will witness The Pheromoans return with lucky album number 13, entitled ‘Wyrd Psearch’ (out March 1st on Upset The Rhythm).
‘Wyrd Psearch’ was recorded in Lewes throughout 2023. This was undertaken by founding member James Tranmer, his keen instinct for how the band should sound shaping many of the creative decisions. Joined by new guitarist Henry Holmes, the five piece doubled down on a decidedly breezy, melodic approach. Scott Reeve’s drumming is ever brisk, whilst Daniel Bolger explores AOR peripheries on keyboard and bass. “Wyrd Psearch finds us on relatively zestful form” affirms Walker “whether it be merrily recalling the Jason Williamson / Tim Lovejoy Covid summit, or mentally bathing in the pleasures of lunch hours spent strapped to a listening post in Borders.” With The Pheromoans there is always a familiarity at play, only broken and reassembled, like a bygone sitcom gone rogue in your memory. This contributes to the group’s peculiarly British outsider perspective, one that shouts from the sidelines, but never goes unnoticed.
Subjects covered lyrically on ‘Wyrd Psearch’ include “mid-life crises, male pattern baldness, and thwarted artistic and personal ambitions” according to Walker himself. “Nothing is off limits for scrutiny, even rural arts communities” he concludes. Lead single ‘Downtown’ swings with chiming guitars and finds Walker mid-breakdown trying to persuade a loved one to accompany him into the town centre to collect controlled medication and wind back the clock to happier times. “I want to keep you in cotton wool until pay day” he confides. ‘Cropped to Death’ and ‘Father Austin’ are ruminative and more relaxed in nature, whilst ‘Twibbon Wife’ is a more energetic effort, all jabbed synth chords, circuitous basslines and rampant drum fills. ‘Faith in the Future’ similarly bounds along with reverie.
Walker claims that the album’s title is an expression of his frustration at the ubiquity of people claiming things are eerie or weird / wyrd in the present cultural milieu. The artwork for the record is designed as an actual word search too, a knowing nod to how we all grapple for meaning amongst the absurdity of each day. Leaning into ‘weird’ as a coping mechanism is not on The Pheromoans’ agenda however. This album holds little sway with the supernatural, it’s not enough. The overriding impression given by ‘Wyrd Psearch’ is of a band renewed with ideas. There’s no trouble finding the right words, they’re hitting their mark, keeping up with the commentary. ‘Wyrd Psearch’ is a document of The Pheromoans mastering their unquiet moment.

Hollow Coves are a dynamic indie-folk duo of Matt Carins and Ryan Henderson, who are brimming with their passion for travel and observing different shades of the world. The group's tender melodies and poignant lyrics have resonated with fans around the world with the band amassing over half a billion global streams to date. Hollow Coves have received acclaim from the likes of Billboard, Clash, Sunday Times, Ones To Watch, Under the Radar, and more and continue to connect with the hearts and minds of listeners across borders and time zones.

On their sophomore album, the earthy acoustics and breezy rhythms provide a soundtrack to the feeling of change. The essence of shifting one’s perspective is a theme Hollow Coves meditate on as they go through their own musical evolution. They invited friend and acclaimed Aussie artist Matt Corby to help co-produce and bring their new songs to life.

Nothing To Lose by Hollow Coves, released 1 March 2024, includes the following tracks: "Milk and Honey", "Harder to Fake it", "Purple", "Be Alright" and more.

This version of Nothing To Lose comes as a 1xCD in a(n) Digipak packaging.

Since 2015, Berlin’s Cuntroaches have defiled countless venues across Europe and the UK, playing festivals and touring relentlessly. The trio’s influences range widely from metal to punk to hardcore to experimental noise. They aim to create a hybrid sonic experience within a dense wall of sound (often combined with some form of performative mischief - if they’re in the mood). Audiences have been subjected to spewing beer bra harnesses, diaper outfits, empty pet food containers or witnessed band members performing from inside of a trash bag. They’ve thrown a lot of trash on a lot of people. "Cuntroaches - a name inexplicably unused throughout the history of bands, orchestras... any grouping of people really...

As it is, the mantle’s (finally) been taken up by two women and a bloke making ferociously warped hardcore-flecked no wave. Mutating waves of feedback intoxicate and induce hangovers all at once, while David Hantelius gets a frankly obscene sound out of his bass - and the vocals - reverbed to an absurd degree - approach black metal levels of demonic witchery. As with New York’s no wave OGs, what it is definitely not is inept pissing around, ‘noise for noise’s sake’ - no matter how blown-out and violent Cuntroaches get, their interplay is lithe, their arrangements measured." - The Quietus “I want to make something clear: at this very moment, I think that Germany’s CUNTROACHES are the most important and life-affirming band on the planet. Period. The first demo blew me away, but this one... FUCK ME. Somehow they have become more in control and more chaotic at the same time, and the intensity borders on bleak / black metal darknes. I simply do not understand how this music exists, and how it can be so good... eternal hails.” - Maximum Rocknroll

For the last seven years, sound artist, technologist, and electronic musician Moisés Horta Valenzuela (aka Hexorcismos) has been studying artificial intelligence and generative art, wondering how these new technologies might be augmented into his musical process. Born in Tijuana and currently based in Berlin, Hexorcismos has long attempted to break down the permeable borders between musical styles and expressions, using the spaces in between to reinforce his politics and worldview. And on 'MUTALISMX - becoming sonic network', he expands his vision, inviting artists from across the globe to collaborate on work that questions the biases inherent in AI models, offering a collective alternative that could serve as a blueprint for further research.

The majority of AI art at this stage works with "big data", taking ideas from the cultural canon and muddying them with our contemporary reality. But if we accept that mass culture is always politically biased, always swaying towards historical prejudices, then there must be a counter-narrative. Hexorcismos began to develop a bottom-up approach, using "small data" to interrogate his idiosyncratic approach to art; he built a tool called SEMILLA.AI based on neural audio synthesis that could not only mimic his sonic fingerprint but transform it into another. So when he offered the synth to his network of collaborators, he gave them the option of either using only their data or sharing the signatures of each other artist involved in the project, blurring their identities into a mutual voice.

The result is a compilation that unspools with the coherence and fluidity of a single-artist album or adventurous DJ mix, genreless and boundless but unified by a singular message. Hunanese-American artist Kloxii Li for example takes rugged percussion and tense, industrial ambience, smudging her soundscape into a swirling gust of ghostly dissonance. Hexorcismos himself contributes two compositions: the lengthy, hypnotic 'Acaso de veras se vive con raíz en la Tierra', an AI-powered scramble of his pointed tribal guarachero experiments; and 'Interferencias', a collaboration with Mexican club veteran Bryan Dálvez, aka El Irreal Veintiuno that drives intense dancefloor rhythms into a dense haze of frozen drones and radio static. Elsewhere, Berlin-based Lebanese artist and writer Jessika Khazrik dissolves her voice into a mesh of obscured rhythms and dissociated whirrs, blending the organic with the artificial but retaining an overpowering sense of humanity.

Some artists were drawn to the nebulous aspects of the technology, searching for truth in a soup of different sounds, while others, such as KMRU, used Hexorcismos's synthesizer the examine their output. On 'hidden options', the Kenyan sound artist fed his immense catalog into the neural net, bringing out his mannerisms and tendencies in the process. Each track is singular but myriad, prompting both mutual respect and a sonic becoming, a feedback process between the artist and the tool, the individual and the collective. Data sets are made by people, and by engaging directly with musicians, Hexorcismos suggests a new way of utilizing a technology demonized and glorified without careful examination. Each artist owns their AI model, and alongside the album Hexorcismos will release SEMILLA.AI to the public (with custom-made models to start the process), allowing anyone to access this revolutionary technology.

Even the album's artwork reflects the political message, conceptualized by Chilean duo hypereikon, who used AI processes to develop a visual reflection of the technology and its possibilities. Operating outside of academia and capitalist enterprises, MUTUALISMX proposes an alternative future - one without borders that's not beholden to the Western canon, where independent labor can be prioritized and celebrated, and where creativity can truly flourish.

Danielle Boutet’s P »Pièces« is a mysterious artifact of Quebecois marginalia, self-released in 1985. Moving from languid ennui to high drama, »Pièces« is a dreamy gestalt, an album that borders Chanson, spoken-word, jazz noir, and minimalism, conjured from the chasm between acoustic and electronic realms. »Pièces« allows us a window into the highly intimate songcraft and compositional skill of an artist who longed to linger not in the public eye, but in relation with others and the world around her.

Born in Quebec City, Boutet studied music at the University of Montreal, where she focused on composition and percussion, before becoming involved in Montreal’s feminist and lesbian art scene. Primarily written, performed, and recorded by Boutet, with voice, guitar work, and technical assistance by Sylvie Gagnon, Pièces was created during a paradigm shift in home recording. Originally composed for the piano, Boutet and Gagnon utilized a consumer-friendly Tascam 4-track Portastudio and versatile Yamaha DX-7, alongside guitar, bass, marimba, and the human voice, to expand and contemporize the original composition’s scope.

Inspired by prog rock and British poet and musician Anne Clark, »Pièces« translates Boutet’s influence by moving between sunny, wistful fairytale and dark, wintry dirge. Filled with longing marimba, vertiginous, startling synth pads, and folk guitar, each track on Pièces offers a wholly unique proposition. Some are modal and rife with the ethereal psychological tension of a sci-fi soundtrack, while others are more like entering a smoke-laced lounge, the entertainer embodying seduction.

With the sprechgesang of artists like Serge Gainsbourg, there is an intense intimacy to Boutet’s delivery, sometimes as if she is performing for an audience of one. As one lyric goes, translated to English from French: “Like holograms/ Images from a world/ That inhales souls/ And exudes drama.” Another song contains an excerpt from The Tao of Physics: “The eastern sages specify clearly that they do not identify an ordinary void, but rather, a void having an infinite creative potential.”

To English-language audiences, the album’s title, »Pièces«, might seem to simply refer to the eleven different pieces. The title can also, of course, refer to parts of a larger whole, but Boutet is keen to point out that there is also another meaning: In French, a pièce is a room. On the cover of the original cassette, Boutet is seen sitting on a chair, alone in an empty apartment, a cable snaking at her feet. Listening to »Pièces« is like entering eleven different rooms: whether a study encased in shadow, a greenhouse left to wither in an eternal frost, or a divine nave.

Boutet sold a few dozen copies around Montreal, a scene mostly occupied by the new wave explosion de rigueur, but the inclusion of Pièces in the 1987 issue of Ladyslipper—the North Carolina-based mail order catalog that championed women musicians of all calibers and careers—led to more exposure throughout North America. “In the catalog,” Boutet says, “they included it in the New Age section, but I was, and still am, aware that this album is relatively unclassifiable.”

Boutet would release one more album, titled Musiques Urbaines, before getting pulled in the direction of interdisciplinary art and theory. “Although I never stopped making music, I lost all interest in public diffusion or performance,” Boutet says. Despite her departure from performance and publicly releasing music, she left behind a strange and enthralling document of Montreal’s 1980s feminist fringe, an aural document of the historic moment when self-recorded music and its practical potential became a prismatic reality.

Danielle Boutet’s Pièces arrives February 16, 2024 as part of uncommon¢ (“uncommon sense”), an open-ended, serialized endeavor from Freedom to Spend that provides new meaning for rarefied recordings from music’s outermost fringe.

lim. to 250 Copies ww!

"The world is rich, the world is colorful. So why not show it in all its complex diversity and contrasts? Why, when you go in one direction, do you have to follow it further and can't just go in all directions at once? These are all questions that Berlin-based Turkish singer Basak Yavuz may have asked herself when she began recording her new album "Raum 610."

Basak Yavuz doesn't take much time to get down to business. Right away in the opener "Promised Lands," different stylistic elements like jazz, rock, funk and hip-hop chase each other as if it were a matter of life and death. The message is unmistakable: this is about energy. The energy of the big city. Crowds on the sidewalk, congested streets, noise from construction sites, cyclists and drivers yelling at each other, barking dogs, screaming children, shattering glass, a new surprise around every corner. Basak Yavuz does not hide, but picks up the tempo of the Moloch and makes it her own pulse with all its fractures and border crossings. She is not afraid to overload her songs, but confidently juggles the explosiveness of creative oversaturation." (Wolf Kampmann)

These recordings of Gongs Orchestras were made during Funeral Ceremonies in two Kung villages and one Jaraï village in Ratanakiri province, Cambodia by Laurent Jeanneau (Kink Gong) in 2003 and 2004, at a times when jungle had not been replaced by rubber plantations. Focusing on funeral's ceremonies, those hypnotics pieces are intense and haunting harmonics sonic experiments.

"Adventure brought me to south-east Asia, not academic research. I was based on and off in Banlung, capital of Ratanakiri province between 2003 and 2006. Finding gongs orchestras became my obsession, I've witnessed different contexts in which gongs were being performed, but the most brainwashing ceremonies were the funerals, because they would never end, I remember leaving the 3 days funeral ceremony of a prominent Jaraï dead man in Tang ji village at the border with Vietnam and still hearing the gongs the entire next day going back home through the jungle". - Laurent Jeanneau (Kink Gong)

"Many of the ethnic minority groups, the Jarai, Kac_, Tampuan, Kavet, Kreung, Brao, Bunong, Mnong, Edé, and others, are hill-rice farmers who live in the uplands of the Annamite mountain chain. Collectively these groups have been known by many names, including a number of disparaging terms in local dialects, such as moï, kha, phnong, and others. The term Montagnard was applied to them by the French during the colonial period, and was used by the US military and in popular discourse in English during the United States-Vietnam War. In scholarly and popular literature during the mid-twentieth century these upland farmers were also called hill tribes. I have opted for the word highlanders as a relatively neutral term that avoids the semantic burdens associated with these other namings." - Jonathan Padwe, The book Disturbed forests fragmented memories.