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Newly awarded Dub Artist of the Year 2020 by the specialized website Reggae.fr, Manudigital presents the second volume of his famous "Digital Kingston Session" on vinyl, three years after the release of volume 1 in 2018! These videos filmed in the streets of Kingston, in which the producer invites Jamaican singers from the golden age of digital Reggae to perform their classics in one take on riddims that he plays with the legendary Casio MT40 or "Sleng Teng Keyboard ”, have become a real institution! With more than 100,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, Manudigital continues to bring together an ever larger and more international audience.

In this volume 2 of the “Digital Kingston Session”, Manudigital gather a five-star cast with the legendary Capleton, the essential Junior Cat and more underground but no less talented artists such as Devon Morgan, Peter Metro, Jigsy King or Bunny General. As on the first volume, two bonus sessions recorded outside Jamaica complete the tracklisting: one in Brooklyn with Red Fox, the most New Yorker of Jamaican deejays, and the other in Paris with the spectacular English MC Deemas J, who has been accompanying Manudigital on stage since 2018.

A second volume of the "Digital Kingston Session" on vinyl which should delight the public, while waiting to get back to live music and sound systems!

Alan Vega’s name is synonymous with unfettered, tireless creativity. Beginning in the late 1950s, when he was a fine art student at Brooklyn College, through his years playing in Suicide, and all the way up until his death in 2016, Vega was constantly creating. That

process naturally led to a wealth of material that didn’t see the light of day immediately when it was recorded, which came to be known as the Vega Vault. Mutator is the first in a series of archival releases from the Vault that will come out on Sacred Bones Records.

Mutator was recorded alongside Vega’s longtime collaborator Liz Lamere at his NYC studio from 1995-1996, and it serves as a document of a particularly fertile time in his creative life. He had 11 full-length solo albums come out during the ’80s, ’90s and ’00s - plus numerous collaborations, and Suicide records A Way of Life and Why Be Blue. Mutator wasn’t shelved intentionally, but Vega’s back-to-thegrindstone M.O. meant that he had moved on to making his next record before this one was finished. Lamere and Vega’s friend and confidante Jared Artaud (The Vacant Lots) rediscovered the raw, unmixed recordings from the Mutator sessions in the Vault in 2019. Soon after, they mixed and produced them into the visionary album that was lurking within those tapes.

“Our primary purpose for going into the studio was to experiment with sound, not to ‘make records,’” Lamere recalls. “I was playing the machines with Alan manipulating sounds. I played riffs while Alan morphed the sounds being channeled through the machines.”

At the time of the Mutator sessions, Vega was massively inspired by what was happening in the streets of New York - not only the hip hop scenes that were exploding throughout the outer boroughs, but also the literal sounds of the streets, the traffic noise and industrial ambience of city living. That influence trickled into the sounds he and Lamere captured in those sessions. That sensibility, paired with Vega’s unmistakable voice and force of personality, is what made it the great album it is now. The final piece was the production job, completed by Lamere and Artaud 25 years after the songs were first captured.

Alan Vega’s name is synonymous with unfettered, tireless creativity. Beginning in the late 1950s, when he was a fine art student at Brooklyn College, through his years playing in Suicide, and all the way up until his death in 2016, Vega was constantly creating. That

process naturally led to a wealth of material that didn’t see the light of day immediately when it was recorded, which came to be known as the Vega Vault. Mutator is the first in a series of archival releases from the Vault that will come out on Sacred Bones Records.

Mutator was recorded alongside Vega’s longtime collaborator Liz Lamere at his NYC studio from 1995-1996, and it serves as a document of a particularly fertile time in his creative life. He had 11 full-length solo albums come out during the ’80s, ’90s and ’00s - plus numerous collaborations, and Suicide records A Way of Life and Why Be Blue. Mutator wasn’t shelved intentionally, but Vega’s back-to-thegrindstone M.O. meant that he had moved on to making his next record before this one was finished. Lamere and Vega’s friend and confidante Jared Artaud (The Vacant Lots) rediscovered the raw, unmixed recordings from the Mutator sessions in the Vault in 2019. Soon after, they mixed and produced them into the visionary album that was lurking within those tapes.

“Our primary purpose for going into the studio was to experiment with sound, not to ‘make records,’” Lamere recalls. “I was playing the machines with Alan manipulating sounds. I played riffs while Alan morphed the sounds being channeled through the machines.”

At the time of the Mutator sessions, Vega was massively inspired by what was happening in the streets of New York - not only the hip hop scenes that were exploding throughout the outer boroughs, but also the literal sounds of the streets, the traffic noise and industrial ambience of city living. That influence trickled into the sounds he and Lamere captured in those sessions. That sensibility, paired with Vega’s unmistakable voice and force of personality, is what made it the great album it is now. The final piece was the production job, completed by Lamere and Artaud 25 years after the songs were first captured.

The iconic album series Back to Mine returns once again in 2019 with the first DJ imx compilation from world dominating indie-dance band Jungle, showcasing their personal tastes for the after-hours. The series was renowned for its eclectic selection and selectors which includes some of the biggest names in electronic and pop music, from the likes of Faithless to Pet Shop Boys, Groove Armada to New Order.

Building on Back to Mine’s heritage for quality this edition comes with limited edition heavyweight vinyl and extra thick cardboard sleeves with full coloured bespoke artwork, commissioned from illustrator Rich Fairhead, depicting the artist’s influences alongside personal sleeve notes from Jungle.

The collection includes an exclusive track from Jungle themselves and takes the listener on an eclectic musical journey. From 90s disco by Merle to more recent house tracks by Manuel Darquart and Drumtalk. Bristol DJ Admin provides the percussion heavy ‘Space Cadet’ and the irrepressible Mocky supplies good vibes on ‘How It Goes’. There’s sophisticated pop from The Marias and Sam Evian and there’s some spotlight for modern jazz with tracks by Kamaal Williams, Mansur Brown and BadBadNotGood featuring Kaytranada. There’s also room for some gospel influenced soul by The Flying Stars of Brooklyn NY, lo-fi dream pop from Paul Cherry before ending with the always impressive HNNY.

To coincide with the series release, Jungle will embark on an extensive Back to Mine global DJ tour.

Definite reissue of this No Wave classic, originally issued in 1979. Previous reissues of the Contortions and James White albums on Infinite Zero have been deleted for the better part of a decade. These are all officially sanctioned by the originating label, Ze Records; packaged in fold out digipaks, with deluxe 20 page booklets. The 21st century has produced a new generation of young contenders of all kinds, who have, within months, spread a new string of names across the planet such as The Rapture, Playgroup, LCD Sound system, Liars, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Radio 4 and the likes, just to name a few. Once again the heat was initiated in NYC, even though its Lower East Side epicenter 'cleaned up' by Giuliani and Bloomberg, has moved a few blocks east and across the river to Brooklyn and Williamsburg. It might be wise to remind the younger ones among us that the origins of this new musical cycle is for the most part rooted in the No Wave movement of which James Siegfried aka James White, aka James Chance is undoubtedly one of its most prominent figures. New York City was hands down the artistic telluric center of the second half of the 20th century, especially from the 70's, on. Rising from the ashes of the Velvet Underground, a slew of local bands redefined the aesthetics of rock'n'roll which the merchants of the temple hastened to rename under various designations, such as punk, new wave, no wave, jazz-funk or even disco and disco-punk without forgetting to mention the original Electro designation pioneered by the band Suicide. One of the indispensable and emblematic figures of the mid-'70s is of course James Chance.

LTD. BLUE SEAFOAM WAVE VINYL

Holy Hive ist ein Folk-Soul-Trio aus Brooklyn, bestehend aus Folksänger/Gitarrist Paul Spring, dem begehrten Soul-Schlagzeuger Homer Steinweiss und dem Bassisten Joe Harrison. Die Band hat sich durch fast schon legendäre Konzerte und ihre EP "Harping" einen Namen gemacht. Als Holy Hive erforschen sie die Beziehung zwischen den lyrischen Traditionen des Folk mit dem Rhythmus und der Ästhetik des Soul. Das Debütalbum "Float Back To You", aufgenommen in Queens im Studio Diamond Mine (von dem Steinweiss Mitbesitzer ist), besteht aus 10 eigenen Songs, einem Cover von "Be Thou By My Side" (ursprünglich von der britischen Gruppe Honeybus aus den Sechzigern) und einer Adaption des irischen Folksongs "Red Is The Rose". Steinweiss hat das Album produziert, als Gäste treten die Harfenistin Mary Lattimore, Leon Michels (El Michels Affair) am Saxofon und Keyboard, Shannon Wise (The Shacks) als Backgroundsängerin, Dave Guy (The Roots) an der Trompete, Nick Movshon am Bass und Paul Springs Ehefrau Sophia Heymans am Klavier auf. Homer Steinweiss arbeitet seit zwanzig Jahren als professioneller Schlagzeuger und hat in dieser Zeit den Beat zu Hits von Amy Winehouse, Bruno Mars, den Jonas Brothers, St. Vincent und Charles Bradley beigesteuert - um nur einige zu nennen. Als Gründungsmitglied von Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings ist er mit der legendären Gruppe durch die ganze Welt getourt, bis er sich für eine Karriere im Studio entschieden hat. Paul Spring hat als Solokünstler sieben Alben mit eigenen Songs veröffentlicht, darunter, "Home of Song", eine von Kritikern sehr gelobte Platte mit Kinderliedern. Der Multiinstrumentalist Joe Harrison hat unter anderem mit Frank Dukes und Charles Bradley gespielt. Die symbiotische Beziehung zwischen Steinweiss und Spring ist wie die eines Spechts, der auf dem Rücken eines Nashorns sitzt. Springs zarter Gesang und seine flatternde Gitarre schweben in perfekter Harmonie über Homers bulligem Schlagzeug. Holy Hive sind eine vielschichtige Band: Manches an ihnen erschließt sich sofort, anderes erst später. Wie der Titelsong des Albums, der sich zuerst wie ein wunderschöner klassischer Liebessong anhört und sich dann als die Gefühle einer Frau entpuppt, die sich auf ihre Katze freut. Dafür steht Holy Hive: Die Musik geht verführerisch einfach ins Ohr und entfaltet sich dann sehr langsam - bis sie ganz aufblüht.

Reconnected is compiled from Harold Lucious’ addictive 1990 release Connections, a visionary mix of soulful house, New Jack Swing and RnB, an American predecessor of street soul.

Deeply connected to music from an early age, Harold started his music career in the early 70s at the age of 16. He sang in his first group, The Final Seconds, who pressed a 7” single in New York City in 1973. The group would go on to record a full album called Neo Cosmic Blues, but never had the chance to press it. They would continue to perform and write together throughout the 70’s and searched in vain for a label to work with.

During that time, Harold landed a guest spot on the legendary Brother Ahh record Move Ever Onward, set up by his manager who was Brother Ahh’s sibling. Harold is listed as having played koto, but really he provided background vocals. Throughout the 80’s, Harold worked at WBI radio programming talk shows. On air, he would act out modified scripts to Richard Wright novels like “The Outsider”.

Connections was his effort to finally release a record after years of recording and playing music. Experimenting with dance music he came up with an album that was inspired by his love of house music and RnB. He sold the record out of his backpack, ending up with boxes of copies that were eventually destroyed when he had to move from his long-time apartment in Brooklyn. Few of the original LP remain, and it has become almost impossible to find.

Reconnected is a remastered redux with four songs taken from the original LP, and pressed onto a loud 45rpm 12” for maximum dance-floor potential. Mixed Signals is honoured to introduce Harold’s music to a contemporary audience around the world.

When it comes to underground New York Disco, Donna McGhee's highly sought-after 1978 LP, "Make It Last Forever," ranks among the best in the genre, thanks to Donna’s singing and the production skills of legendary producers Greg Carmichael and Patrick Adams.

Featuring five songs penned by the producing pair, it's got their quintessential Disco sound of the late 70s topped by Donna McGhee's superb vocals. These have also blessed recordings by The Fatback Band, Phreek, Bumblebee Unlimited and The Universal Robot Band around the same time.

The album has been an elusive affair since it first came out in 1978 and this is one the first times in decades it is widely available in its original form with newly remastered audio. Donna McGhee has been one of the key female singers of the New York disco scene, gracing several cult albums with her superb singing. The Brooklyn native began her career singing Gospel in her grandmother's choir from an early age, honing her skills and making a name for herself locally as a talented singer.
Her first break in the industry came when she was spotted by bass player Johnny Flippin, who invited her to join his band.
The group was none other than The Fatback Band led by drummer Bill Curtis. This was 1975 and the album was "Raising Hell."

McGhee's vocals can be heard throughout the album including the dancefloor classic "(Are You Ready) Do The Bus Stop" and after this initial collaboration, she stayed with the group for a another few years recording “Night Fever” in 1976 and touring with them all around the country. Following an encounter with producer Greg Carmichael, Donna McGhee jumped ship and started working with the prolific producer and his partner Patrick Adams.
A string of collaborations followed with singles and albums that have become the stuff of legend over the years: Donna can indeed be heard singing with Bumblebee Unlimited, Universal robot Band and on Phreek's classic self-titled album from 1978, singing on the track "May My Love Be With You."
In 1978, After Greg Carmichael set up his own label, Red Greg Records, he and Adams decided to get McGhee in the recording studio and produce her first solo album. With the pair playing most of the instruments, they got five tracks out of the session. The result, "Make It Last Forever" is an all-time Adams/Carmichael classic: funky disco arrangements with a touch of synths over a pulsating groove magnified by McGhee's superb sexy singing.

All five tracks have become classics in their own right.

Kalita Records are proud and honoured to announce the first
ever and official reissue of Kallaloo's sought-after 1982
disco single 'Star Child', accompanied by interview-based
liner notes. Originally released on Jeffrey Turpin's
Trinidadian record label IDA, 'Star Child' has since become
highly sought-after by both DJs and collectors alike as an
invisible, yet astonishing piece of Caribbean disco. Unable
at the time to gain the traction and success that it deserved,
we hope that this re-release provides an opportunity to bring
such a great record to a much wider audience.
Kallaloo consisted of various Trinidadian musicians including
Keith Alexander and Peter Wayne Barkley. Keith had been
well-respected as a member of the Trinidadian group Impact, and
was later to become an in-demand producer and composer under
the name of Keith Diamond, responsible for various hits by Billy
Ocean, Donna Summer, Starpoint and Melba Moore. In contrast,
Peter was a well-known recording session drummer, but after
'Star Child's' release he moved to North Carolina to pursue other
interests and 'was never heard from again'.
'Star Child' was recorded at Right Track Recording, in mid-town
Manhattan, New York. As Jeffrey recalls, the atmosphere in the
studio was 'great', with 'everyone upbeat, the cream of the crop
just looking for that break... everyone was talented and just
wanted the chance to express their own ideas'. Five hundred
copies of the record were released on IDA with a white label
design, and they were sold both in Brooklyn, New York and Port
of Spain, Trinidad. It was also released on a red label, however
this was not to Jeffrey's knowledge at the time.
Jeffrey explains that the reason why the record didn't fare well at
the time was because of the difficulty in getting the song played
on the radio. As he recalls, radio stations were much more likely
to play 'radio versions' of songs which lasted for a couple of
minutes, rather than five or seven minute 'extended' versions
such as 'Star Child', which were more suitable to a club
environment. In addition, as Jeffrey explains, radio airplay is a
'political business', and also within a short while band members
such as Keith got their own breaks, and the Kallaloo era was over
as quickly as it had started.

The Rapture's Luke Jenner ventures firmly into the dance floor, this time in full force, on Glittering Jewel, the Brooklyn-based producer's debut EP under his Meditation Tunnel guise. Following his initial outing, La La La, on Life and Death's vinyl-only sub-label, Blitz Series, Glittering Jewel sees Jenner step up with three outsider cuts, dripping in personalit Cloaked subtly into the backdrop, Jenner's unmistakable croon features throughout the disk - a highlight across the board. While dilapidated drum machines, crunched beyond recognition, propel the record into techno territory, Glimmering Jewel retains the artist's bespoke youthful sense of blue-eyed naiveté. Red Axes come through with an unclassifiable, stripped-down reinterpretation of Fire Fly, the perfect pair to deconstruct and re-contextualize the original material. Carefully pressed on high-quality, transparent vinyl, LAD039 stands as a testament to the label's shifting auditory ethos. Artwork by Michela Picchi.

In early 2017, Public Release dropped a four-tracker by Brooklyn's Earth Boys, a duo comprisedof Julian Duron and Michael Sherburn, and now it's being followed by a collection of remixes by some formidable names from around the world.
Where the EP of originals fell squarely in the category of vibey, shuffling, laid-back house
grooves, Trail Remix is decidedly made for the after-midnight parts of club sets. The 12-inch begins with a T&P - that's Beats in Space's Tim Sweeney and Phillip Lauer's version of 'Trail Mix'. Acid-flecked and hard-edged, and tongue-in-cheek at heart yet seriously functional, it's the original red-lined and shot down the highway at ninety miles an hour. (Worth noting that this is
the transatlantic unit's first remix to be released.) After that is Earth Boys' own redo of 'Highway
1' a juiced-up re-imagining of the first version, filled out with chunkier kicks and fatter synth washes that completely envelope any sense of direction. The flip leans towards the ethereal, stretchy, abstract, though it, too, is tracky and driven. The B1 slot goes to Canadian wunderkind Khotin, of 1080p and Normals Welcome, who blows some stardust into the tune, enveloping it in a blanket of sharp drums and icy pads. NYC mainstay Mike Simonetti, formerly of Trouble Man and Italians Do It Better, currently of 2MR, caps the record with his beefy overhaul of 'Trail Mix' a compression of industrial percussion, tribal rhythms and sub-bass undulations.

Eric Maltz is a producer from New York City and now resides in Berlin, Germany.He is a former employee of Halcyon records from its' OG glory days in it's first location in Red Hook/Carrol Gardens areas of Brooklyn."Eric Provided a sofa to me often through-ought my 20's and vice-versa, we both cared about music above all else- we lived and breathed music- and we helped each other survive when we were penniless - if one was up, so was the other...Eric and I were roommates, friends, we looked out for each other in a rough city with tough rules. Every time one of us got a job at a restaurant or record shop, within weeks we would have the other working there too. We did that for a decade. We slang records for years at Halcyon- a shop on Smith Street which had a portrait of Stevie Wonder painted on the front facade- and we threw parties all around Brooklyn back then too.. Every shitty bar that would have us lol. We were a dope team. He's the only person who has ever touched the third rail on a subway and survived too! True story. So you know I couldn't wait to release his Debut LP. Proud of this guy" - Levon Vincent

Underground Jazz, Street Funk & The Roots Of Rap 1968-79. Soul Jazz Records' new release 'Soul of a Nation: Afro-Centric Visions in the Age of Black Power' is released in conjunction with a major worldwide art exhibition, Soul of A Nation: Art in the The Age of Black Power which takes place at the Tate Modern, London, UK (July-Oct 2017) and The Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA.

The album shows how the ideals of the civil rights movement, black power and black nationalism influenced the evolvement of radical African-American music in the United States of America in the intensely political and revolutionary period at the end of the 1960s following the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and the rise of the Black Panther party.

Featuring groundbreaking artists such as Gil Scott-Heron, Roy Ayers, Don Cherry, Oneness of Juju, Sarah Webster Fabio, Horace Tapscott, Phil Ranelin and many others, Soul of A Nation shows how political themes led to the rise of 'conscious' black music as new afro-centric styles combined the musical radicalism and spirituality of John Coltrane and radical avant-garde jazz music alongside the intense funk and soul of James Brown and Aretha Franklin and the urban poetry and proto-rap of the streets.

The Soul of a Nation exhibition draws on the links between Black art forms - art, music, poetry - and how they came together during the civil rights and black power era as part of the wider black arts movement across the United States.

Iconic African-Amercian revolutionary figures such as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Angela Davis, John Coltrane, Muhammad Ali all appear in the radical artworks of Barkley L. Hendricks, Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis, Lorraine O'Grady and Betye Saar.
A selection of original radical jazz record sleeves artworks which appear in Soul Jazz Records' earlier groundbreaking Freedom, Rhythm and Sound - Revolutionary Jazz Original Cover Art book will also be on show at the Tate, London throughout the exhibition. The Freedom, Rhythm and Sound book is also newly back-in-print in conjunction with this major exhibition and the release of the Soul of a Nation album.

Stuart Baker (founder of Soul Jazz Records) will appear on the panel of Jazz for Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power discussion at the gallery as part of the show. Soul of a Nation comes with extensive sleeve-notes and exclusive photography in a large 36-page outsize booklet and slipcase. Double gatefold vinyl album edition comes with full colour inners + bonus download code and includes full sleeve-notes/photography.

Thrice is nice for Dimitri the Brooklynite-By-Way-Of-Paris, who comes correct with his 3rd 3-packer of disco edit deelite for RNT! Filling up the A-side is KETTLE AMERICA, a cheeky bit of south-of-the border uptempo disco funk. I KNEAD YOU is a stomping and sermonizing version of a cherished classic, completely redone with a chorus of handclaps and gospel piano, and the record finishes with WITHOUT ROB for some re-touched dancefloor doo-wop gold!

Eleven Pond formed in 1986, released one epic postpunk/synth pop/darkwave LP titled 'Bas Relief' then records songs for a second LP titled 'Assemblage' and the experimental noise project 'Space Trio'. The band breaks up shortly after due to differences in taste, all the 16 track master tapes are shelved. 22 years later the song Watching Trees is rediscovered in Brooklyn NY and club DJ's in the minimal synth scene play Watching Trees. Dark Entries Records reissues 'Bas Relief', the original hand silkscreened vinyl LP becomes a $900 collectors item, invitations for the band to play shows appear on Facebook ... in 2010 Jeff Gallea reforms Eleven Pond and starts recording and performing. They release a cover of the Seasons Are Sitting on Chairs' from Arvid Tuba and a few great songs like Just Be Happy'. As we love the insane modernity of these two songs we decided to release them on Prego and asked Dmitry Distant to remix this happiness anthem. All songs are remastered for vinyl by Isolator, housed in a jacket designed by Anda Masq & Rodeo Basilic.