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2024 Repress

It’s been a long wait, pressings difficulties have got in the way, but here finally, slightly out of sequence, is the next release on SuperRhythm Trax.

Luca Lozano’s returns for his third EP on the label and turns in something truly special.

Packed full of bleeps, bass and breaks, with heavy nods here and there to Sheffield, plus the extra treat of ‘Summer Of Love’ with its dubwise swing and bonus DJ Steve remix for the real Break heads.

Following on the somnambulant heels of When I See The Sun, our massive, near-complete Codeine overview, comes What About The Lonely?, an eight-track LP recorded at the group's live zenith. Captured direct from the mixing board at a stop on Codeine's November 1993 swing through the Midwest, opening for Mazzy Star, this document finds Stephen Immerwahr, John Engle, and Doug Scharin running through their hits at Chicago's notorious Lounge Ax for a crowd of chatty "120 Minutes" fans. Gastr Del Sol's David Grubbs adds his guitar to two songs, slinking on and off the 24-inch stage with little fanfare, but leaving his signature indelibly on the performance.

The Invisible Road: Original Recordings, 1985–1990 compiles an unheard, previously unreleased body of recordings by Sussan Deyhim and Richard Horowitz, dissidents from diametric backgrounds who met during the heady days of Downtown New York in the 1980s. This collection reveals the creative and life partners’ radical shared vision of avant-garde pop in all of its boundary pushing freedom, combining Deyhim’s singular approach to vocalization, Horowitz’s invention of new musical languages, and touchstones of traditional music from around the world, creating a new music that ultimately retains a voice entirely its own. Despite their difference in backgrounds and respective journeys, at the time of their meeting in the early 1980s in New York City, Sussan Deyhim and Richard Horowitz were both products of the search for freedom and understanding (and resultant awakenings) that swept the globe and helped culturally define the late 1960s and 70s. Deyhim, born and raised in Tehran, spent her teens dancing with Iran’s Pars National Ballet company, performing weekly on Iranian national television, and travelling her home country studying with master folk musicians and dancers, before relocating to Belgium and joining Maurice Béjart’s prestigious Béjart Ballet of the 20th Century. Horowitz, born and raised in Buffalo, New York, had spent much of the decade before abroad, first departing for Paris under the shadows of the Vietnam War, where he studied piano, Eastern philosophy, and became entrenched the city’s free jazz scene, playing with the likes of Steve Lacy, Anthony Braxton, and Alan Silva, before embarking south to Morocco where his friendship with Paul Bowles helped cultivate a deep passion for the country’s musical traditions and a shift in his musical practice.



The pair met by chance sometime in 1981 at Noise New York, a small studio on West 34th Street founded by the musician and recording engineer, Frank Eaton, as a utopian creative laboratory that beckoned artists and bands like Arthur Russell, Christian Marclay, Liquid Liquid and Butthole Surfers into its orbit. Both artists had recently relocated to the city, Horowitz having recently released his debut album, Oblique Sequences (Solo Nai Improvisations), on the legendary Paris based imprint Shandar, and fallen in with members of New York avant-garde like La Monte Young, Jon Hassell, David Byrne, and Brian Eno, and Deyhim having begun to more actively incorporate singing into her practice, notably recording a vocal score for choreography she was doing at La MaMa Experimental Theatre.



Initially bonding over a cassette tape of field recordings made by Paul Bowles that had been given to mutual friend and writer Brian Cullman (seeking answers for Ornette Coleman’s question “what is the sound of sound”), their earliest collaboration was documented on Horowitz’s 1981 album, Eros In Arabia, with Deyhim contributing vocals to the track “Queen Of Saba.” Over the coming years, their deep connection would routinely gravitate them into the studio, culminating in the body of recordings that would appear on their 1986 album for Crammed Discs, Desert Equations: Azax Attra. Unknown to nearly all but the artists, laying in wait over the decades on numerous multi-track and stereo reels, DAT tapes, and reference cassettes, were a vast array of recordings made by Deyhim and Horowitz bookending Desert Equations. The 13 pieces represented on The Invisible Road: Original Recordings, 1985–1990 were recorded largely between Noise New York and Daylight Studio in Brussels, during a period that Deyhim describes the partnership between herself and Horowitz’s as seeking a music “free of any specific cultural reference, with a personal musical signature,” blossoming into a body of sonority that embraced the energy of contemporary boundary pushing pop and the avant garde, filtered through their mutual love and study of various musical traditions from across the globe and deep engagement with the ideas and tactics of experimental music.



Undeniably rooted in Horowitz’s study of the North Africa ney and the music of the Berber and Gnawa cultures during his time in Morocco, Deyhim’s deep engagement with the folk traditions of Iran, and the couple’s immersion in the interconnected Downtown underground music scenes, each piece on The Invisible Road offers its own vision creative and cultural hybridity. Deyhim sings in both English and Farsi, as well as a composite tongue that she developed by drawing upon numerous indigenous vocal techniques from around the world, intuitively responding to Horowitz’s simultaneous sound syntax forming and combining a wide range synthetic and acoustic instrumentation, and experimental tape techniques, within a visionary series of free-standing expressions.

Sweet Music Volume II is the long awaited follow up compilation from one of Nigeria’s most adored 80's artists, Dizzy K. Falola. Featuring the most sought after tracks from his last three albums this double LP has both the dance floor feet movers he was known for and some more experimental African pieces but it's all glazed with that 80's Nigerian boogie sound we've come to love. With restoration by Colin Young, and Vinyl Mastering by Frank Merritt at The Carvery the pressing is a beauty. Only pressed in a small quantities. This is one you don't want to miss!

Ben Klock & Fadi Mohem announce debut collaborative album featuring Coby Sey and Flowdan on new label LAYER

Ben Klock and Fadi Mohem present their first collaborative album on their new label LAYER. The ten-track full length project titled Layer One follows the hypnotic EP Klockworks 34 that set the stage in 2022. In a bold departure from the techno roots that have defined and nurtured their careers, Klock and Mohem are now pushing genre boundaries, exploring IDM, ambient and experimental electronic music while still retaining the brilliance that characterised their earlier work.

The conceptual direction of Layer One delves into a post-human world, where humans are close to extinction on Earth, leaving only imprints, traces, and relics behind—digital fossils and machine-generated images capturing fleeting moments of non-human photography, as Artificial Intelligence remains in a world that quietly thrives without us. We do not perceive this as a bleak apocalyptic dystopia, but more a sober and serene reflection of a world that continues to exist and flourish, indifferent to the absence of humanity. Despite this unremitting setting, through this journey we find survivors who signal a remembrance of the human sensibilities.

Elevating this project are two very human and dynamic collaborations featuring the charismatic Coby Sey and the legendary grime MC Flowdan. Sey, a prominent figure in the British music scene known for his work with artists like Tirzah and Mica Levi, injects his music with a mesmerizing emotional depth. Opening the album with the powerful track ‘Ultimately,’ Sey offers spoken-word musings on creativity and life over experimental landscapes meticulously crafted by Klock and Mohem. Nostalgia permeates this opening track, and track 7 ‘Clean Slate’ reinforces this sentiment with Sey’s stream-of-consciousness wordplay.

Flowdan, the gritty MC whose verses have become anthems of the UK grime movement, made headlines in 2023 with two songs that reached the top 20 of the UK singles chart. In 2024, he was awarded his first Grammy for the Skrillex and Fred Again collaboration Rumble, becoming the first grime artist to win in any category. On track ‘Our Sector,’ Flowdan unleashes his raw energy and dynamic flow, adding a thrilling vocal dimension to the album’s narrative. The fluid delivery of his lyrics and rhythmic timing are enhanced by the staccato beats and abstract synths. These collaborations are not mere features; they are pivotal moments that crystallize the album’s vision—an experimental re-imagining of electronic music’s possibilities.

Immediately offering an impressive entry to Klock and Mohem’s changing sonic universe ‘Escape Velocity’ shows the collaboration at its strongest. Deftly juggling between ambient chords and more densely intricate rhythmic moments. These tightly layered textures and intense clashing moments are continued through most of the album. On other tracks the duo are just as innovative ‘Rest Assured’ rips open the sound palette Klock and Mohem are known for, synths dart around flickering through into unexpected areas. Penultimate track ‘The Machine’ feels like the internal innards of a PC or synthesizer brought to life. Electricity flows through the track like an auditory exploration of the digital world's hidden mechanical and electrical processes. In contrast, final track ‘Melatonin’ does exactly what the name suggests; its soothing melodic ambience cradles the listener as the album draws to a close.

Alongside the album’s release, the duo will release two singles. This album represents the work of two artists at the peak of their creative powers, inviting listeners to step outside the familiar and explore a different musical perspective.

"For the first time, A Rush of Blood to the Head by Coldplay will be manufactured on EcoRecord. EcoRecord sounds and looks as great as a traditional vinyl record, but it’s been manufactured using 100% recyclable PET, instead of PVC. EcoRecords are also produced using injection moulding technology, with energy savings of up to 85% compared to the traditional vinyl process.
A Rush of Blood to the Head includes the singles In My Place, Clocks, The Scientist and God Put a Smile Upon Your Face. Produced by Coldplay and Ken Nelson, the album earned the band three Grammy Awards, including Best Alternative Album and Record of the Year (for Clocks)."

UEVPD - Usage/Efficiency/Variance/Platform/Domain - is the solo project of Dominic Goodman, a former member of Mosquitoes and currently one half of Komare.

The self-titled UEVPD debut LP, released on 22nd November via World of Echo, consists of eight sequentially numbered electro-acoustic tracks made over approximately five years, living recordings that have morphed in shape over time, each systematically stripped back to their elemental form before being deemed complete. From the outset, Goodman purposefully deployed a relatively limited array of equipment and adopted a determinedly minimalist approach to composition, a practice in restraint that privileges detail and nuance. Field recordings, made using a combination of dynamic, condenser, contact and electret microphones, geophones and hydrophones, were allied to a basic modular/analogue synth setup, allowing for little in the way of excess or indulgence.

The results are markedly defiant, displaying an expert exercise in control and restraint that lets in little light but plays a great service to space and time. This is patient, claustrophobic sound design that bears out the value in attentive listening, a meditation on the acceptance of passing time, change, growth, death and regeneration. As such, listeners might connect associative lines with the likes of Pan Sonic and Mika Vianio’s solo work, Emptyset and Civilistjavel (who’s Tomas Bodén shows up on mastering duties here), though this remains distinctively Goodman’s vision, a continuation of his interests shown in Mosquitoes and Komare that further pushes out into the murky unknown.

Before we pack away the poppers for another year, let Red Laser take you for one last spin on the waltzers.
Tried and tested at our recent road block parties in Manchester, these edits shine a light on four primo-grade Italo face melters. Fervently excavated by Bosco over countless visits to Bel Paese and streamlined for the hydrofoil, with some extra added calories for the club.

Opener 'Destiny' tweaks and shudders under analogue arpeggios, dazzling Strat chops and cosmic bass interplay before dropping into a simply glorious female vocal that, thankfully, gets plenty of airtime before Bosco calls close. A track so close to perfection we had to make it longer.
'Flavio', up next - and half sung in Italian so we only know a bit of what she's on about - is another supreme slice of Italo disco from the upper echelons that Bosco snaffled between glugs of Barolo and a face full of worm cheese. Sure to instigate group hugs, 4AM declarations of love, tears of happiness and huge pelvic thrusts dependant on environment and inebriation.

The tingles continue on side B with another supernova burning bright across the stars. 'Newsin' introduces itself with a joyous marriage of marimba and synth before yet another vocal proves Italians really do, do it better when it comes to writing some of the catchiest hooks and choruses in the universe.
'Lace', featuring the record's only male vocal appearance, has a romantic, proto-goth-new-wave vibe; like if Robert Smith and Richard Butler had a chem-sex love child after a wild night in Baia Degli Angeli.

Not sure who the woman in lace is, but we'd defo like to see her down The White Hotel one night...

Reissue of the debut full-length album by the leader of the Ukrainian band Edenian, Max Molodtsov, offers a 50-minutes long journey to the world of gloomy and hasteless, but atmospheric doom-death, where brutal elements are contrasted by melancholic interludes.The lyrics of the "Of Ruins..." album are based on the classical English poetry from the 19th century and the original author's verses. Mixed and mastered at Slow Burn Studio (When Nothing Remains, Crypt Of Silence).

"‘One of the most exciting composers alive.’ – Daily Telegraph

Nonesuch will release the original score for Ken Burns’s new two-part documentary, LEONARDO da VINCI, with new compositions by Caroline Shaw; the documentary airs on November 18 and 19 on PBS. The album features performances by the composer’s longtime collaborators Attacca Quartet, Sō Percussion, and Roomful of Teeth as well as John Patitucci. Shaw wrote and recorded new music for LEONARDO da VINCI, marking the first time a Ken Burns film has featured an entirely original score.

In celebration of LEONARDO da VINCI, New York City’s historic venue The Town Hall presents an evening of performances from Shaw’s score by Attacca Quartet, Sō Percussion, and Roomful of Teeth on October 29. The filmmakers will also preview excerpts from the four-hour film..

LEONARDO da VINCI is directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon. The film, which explores the life and work of the fifteenth century polymath Leonardo da Vinci, is Burns’s first non-American subject. It also marks a significant change in the team’s filmmaking style, which includes using split screens with images, video, and sound from different periods to further contextualize Leonardo’s art and scientific explorations. LEONARDO da VINCI looks at how the artist influenced and inspired future generations, and it finds in his soaring imagination and profound intellect the foundation for a conversation we are still having today: what is our relationship with nature and what does it mean to be human?

“No single person can speak to our collective effort to understand the world and ourselves,” said Ken Burns. “But Leonardo had a unique genius for inquiry, aided by his extraordinary skills as an artist and scientist, that helps us better understand the natural world that we are part of and to appreciate more fully what it means to be alive and human.”

“To help give depth and dimension to Leonardo’s inner life, and to carry our viewers on his personal journey, we enlisted the composer Caroline Shaw,” McMahon says in the album’s liner note. “Caroline’s existing body of music—joyful, daring, at times transcendent, and wholly unique—seemed to speak directly to Leonardo, a seeking soul who, 500 years after his death, can come across as strikingly modern. A fully original score, we believed, would add crucial connective tissue to areas where the record of Leonardo’s life is thin and it’s possible to briefly lose his trail. The music Caroline created is dynamic, enthralling and filled with wonder.

“This soundtrack is a testament to the inspired efforts of Jennifer Dunnington, who marshaled it into being, the brilliant musicians and vocalists who, with the help of Alex Venguer, Neal Shaw, Colton Dodd and Tim Marchiafava, made it soar, and most of all Caroline Shaw, who might be Leonardo’s soulmate from across time,” he continues. “With her help, the Leonardo who emerges is no wizard shrouded in mystery, but a prideful, obsessive, at times lonely or flustered, occasionally ecstatic, and, in the end, content man who is in ways both modern and thoroughly of his time.”

“As we set out to explore Leonardo’s life, we realized that while he was very much a man of his time, he was also interested in something more universal,” said Sarah Burns. “Leonardo was uniquely focused on finding connections throughout nature, something that strikes us as very modern today, but which of course has a long history.”

Caroline Shaw is a musician who moves among roles, genres, and mediums, trying to imagine a world of sound that has never been heard before but has always existed. She is the recipient of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Music, several Grammy awards, an honorary doctorate from Yale, and a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. She has worked with a range of artists including Rosalía, Renée Fleming, and Yo-Yo Ma, and she has contributed music to films and TV series including Fleishman Is in Trouble, Bombshell, Yellowjackets, Maid, Dark, and Beyoncé’s Homecoming. In addition to three albums with Sō Percussion, Narrow Sea, Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part, and Rectangles and Circumstance, Nonesuch has released her two Grammy-winning albums Orange and Evergreen, both of which feature Attacca Quartet. “Two-Step” and “Ghost,” Shaw’s songs with Ringdown, her duo with Danni Lee Parpan, are available now on Nonesuch. Caroline Shaw is Wigmore Hall’s 2024-25 Composer in Residence."

Brilliant Hard En Geslepen is a one-off project by hip-hop group Osdorp Posse and metal band Nembrionic.

The groups sometimes played together during live performances in the past, but this usually degenerated into complete chaos. After recording two songs as an experiment, the idea arose to record a complete album. The result is a unique combination of metal and Dutch hiphop. Brilliant Hard En Geslepen is now available on vinyl for the first time!

Brilliant Hard En Geslepen is a one-off project by hip-hop group Osdorp Posse and metal band Nembrionic.

The groups sometimes played together during live performances in the past, but this usually degenerated into complete chaos. After recording two songs as an experiment, the idea arose to record a complete album. The result is a unique combination of metal and Dutch hiphop. Brilliant Hard En Geslepen is now available on vinyl for the first time!

It's only been 41 years since their inception but Donald D and Brother B, collectively known as The B Boys, have finally put together their debut album: We Get Down! The result is old school like it never left; pure emceeing with rock hard beats.

If you're having a backyard BBQ or just cruising around and you want some nostalgic Hiphop, The B Boys have exactly what you need!

LP im Klappcover mit bedruckter Innenhülle. Nach zwei Jahren ist Coyote Butterfly das erste Album mit neuen Songs von Simon Joyner, dem Singer-Songwriter aus Omaha, NE. Zwei Jahre, nachdem sein Sohn Owen im August 2022 an einer Überdosis gestorben war. Das bekenntnissreiche Album ist zunächst eine Hommage an Owen, aber was Joyner hier ebenso großzügig wie berührend teilt, ist ein intimer Einblick in den Versuch, Unfassbares zu begreifen. "Wie geht es jetzt weiter?" Diese Frage hat Simon Joyner auf nahezu all seinen Alben als Ausgangspunkt seiner Songs versucht zu beantworten. Er schrieb über das menschliche Dilemma im Allgemeinen. Um schwierige Wahrheiten zu erzählen nutze er die Fiktion seiner Charaktere, die sich durch persönliche Krisen in einer unzureichenden amerikanischen Gesellschaft kämpfen. Etwas durchgängig düsteres lag über den Erzählungen, die im Wesen allerdings nie nihilistisch waren. Das Brüchige, das auch Stilmittel seiner Musik, vor allem seiner Stimme ist, war etwas, das es anzunehmen und auszuhalten galt. Um die Eingangsfrage zu beantworten, um im Leben zu Bestehen, um zu überleben, müssen wir wissen, wo wir stehen. Auf seinem neuen Album Coyote Butterfly fehlt erstmals dieser fiktive Charakter. Es ist sicher sein persönlichtes Werk. Dennoch bietet es einen universellen Aspekt und die Antwort auf Frage, wie es weiter geht, ist diesmal die Platte und der Prozess des Songwritings und der Aufnahmen selbst. Coyote Butterfly wurzelt im Schmerz des Vaters Simon Joyner über den Tod des Sohnes, der sich überraschend kurz nach Veröffentlichung seines 2022er Albums "Songs From A Stolen Guitar" ereignete. Zwei Jahre hat es gedauert, bis sich seine Trauer zu Liedern formen konnte. Joyner fand so ein Ventil für seinen Schmerz und einen Kanal, um die unzähligen Emotionen zu verarbeiten, die seine Erfahrung umkreisen. Umgeben von einer Reihe enger Freunde, darunter David Nance, James Schroeder, Kevin Donahue, Ben Brodin und Michael Krassner, ist das Album sparsam, aber nicht karg. Eingerahmt wird es von zwei field recording-artigen Instrumentals. Dazwischen setzt sich Joyner in acht Songs mit Trauer, Angst, Scham und Liebe auseinander, legt die Kämpfe derjenigen offen, die im Kielwasser einer persönlichen Katastrophe zurück bleiben. Mit einem Album von solcher Intimität erinnert uns Joyner daran, wie wichtig es ist, Kunst zu nutzen, um das zutiefst Persönliche, auch vermeintlich Unfassbare in Schönheit umzuwandeln. Der Hörer ist eingeladen, sich mit ihm in solch eine Situation zu denken und das eigene Herz zu öffnen. Coyote Butterfly ist eine ehrliche, somit wunderschöne Beschwörung der Trauer eines Vaters, aber auch ein universelles Zeugnis für die Liebe und für das Leben, das nach einem Verlust weitergeht.

Black vinyl 180g made only in 100 numbered copies.

This record is different. It is different from what might be expected of Jan Emil Mlynarski by those who know him, from sold-out shows and platinum albums of his bands – Jazz Band Młynarski – Masecki and Warsaw Dance Combo, as an old-timer, curator and reenactor of pre-World War II Warsaw's plush dancehalls and backyards folklore. Quite likely they may not recognize him until the last song, when he removes his shaman mask and bows down: Yeah, that's really me, folks, your good ol' Jan Emil, the entertainer. They might not have even known that he ever played drums because in his flagship bands, clad in a white tux in the former or in a Peaky Blinder hat in the latter, he sings and plays mandolin banjo. In fact, Młynarski has been a drummer for a lot longer than a singer. He stands clear of the jazz mainstream but is active on the progressive scene. A record he contributed to, trumpeter Tomasz Dąbrowski's 2022 release The Individual Beings, was recognized by Downbeat magazine as "excellent" and awarded the highest rating of five stars.

However, this is the first instrumental record to bear his name. As an album by a drummer, it stands out from other records, especially as it features drums as the principal content rather than the performance by a band with a drummer as the leader. It's all about drums, there is neither an articulate melody – because the melodies that are there are only micro-linesencased in ostinato modules – nor is harmony as an intentional chord progression – because whatever harmony-wise there is, is rather a product of the counterpoint of overlapping voices. All sounds other than the drums make only a riverbed through which runs a raging stream of rhythms. And indeed, this record took off just with this stream. At first all the drums were recorded live onto an analog tape, all at once, without overdubs or editing. After that, synthesizer riffs were added, and the record was ultimately assembled on tape without the use of computers or complex postproduction, which sets it apart from most releases today.

Młynarski the drummer acknowledges that he follows the trail beaten by Art Blakey, Max Roach, Roy Haynes, and Billy Higgins, but he walks it in his own strides. He treats the jazz drumming with specific reversed engineering by decompiling the jazz drum kit originally compiled by the pioneer jazz drummers from an array of instruments that had made their way from a jungle to New Orleans, first to Congo Square and then to street brass bands.

This takes him back to the jungle, his drums don't sound like jazz drums, the snare is rare, and the hi-hat and ride aren't there at all. Instead, there are drums and bells from Nigeria, Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Côte d'Ivoire. He doesn't sound like a jazz drummer either, but like a gang of drummers, each playing their own rhythm, and it's hard to believe that all this is the work of one man.

Not only his drumware comes from the jungle, but also the software – his approach to rhythm and time. Its essence is polyrhythm and ostinato. The polyrhythmic matters were unveiled to Młynarski and Piotr Zabrodzki, his creative partner in many projects and co-composer/producer of this album, by the legendary eccentric veteran-drummer Władysław Jagiełło, who introduced them, aged thirteen, to his concept and practice of "17 Latino rhythms at once". Ostinato, an obstinate repetition of a phrase or rhythm, "arrests" time, turning its linear course into cyclical in-place rotations. This is specific not only to African music but also to cultural music of other regions and differs from Western artistic music in that it does not "run" to fulfil an aesthetic intention but "stays" to provide the framework for recurrent routines of communal proceedings.

So, this record is different. And, if you are different too, this is the record for you.

»Nuts of Ay«, the thirteenth album by the Berlin-based electronic pop duo Tarwater (Ronald Lippok and Bernd Jestram), is their first in a decade, since 2014’s »Adrift«. Beautifully poised and smartly dressed, it's an album that draws Tarwater’s various pasts into a high-definition present, while bringing the duo, yet again, into productive dialogue with all kinds of fellow travellers.

Tarwater’s music has always been marked by a hypnotic pop-ness, but that’s particularly evident on »Nuts of Ay«, where a song like »Hideous Kiss« weaves together jangling guitar, pastoral flute, and flittering electronics into a gem-like construction. While the lyrics of »Hideous Kiss« are written by the duo, »Nuts of Ay« also continues a longstanding Tarwater tradition of recasting the words of others in their own mould. This time, their remit is broad: poetry from Derek Jarman (»All Nuns«) and Millner Place (»Trapdoor Spider«); lyrics from Jean Kenbrovin (»I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles«), the late Shane MacGowan (»USA«) and, again, John Lennon (»Everybody Had a Hard Year«).

This cast of found and borrowed lyricists also finds collaborative echo in the guest musicians dotted throughout »Nuts of Ay«. Schneider TM turns up on the lovely, Felt-like »Spirit of Flux«, where guitars channel the tangled reveries of Vini Reilly and Maurice Deebank into lush pop. Carsten Nicolai joins, as Alva Noto, dappling »On Waves and Years« with intimate glitching textures; he also provides the album cover art. Elsewhere, Masha Qrella appears on »Down Comes the Goose«, and actor Lars Rudolph pitches in for »USA«.

It may have been ten years since the album's predecessor, but Lippok and Jestram have kept active with other projects. They’ve collaborated with Masha Qrella, Immersion, and Iggy Pop; worked on radio plays with Kai Grehn, some based on the writing of Nick Cave (»The Sick Bag Song«, featuring Tilda Swinton, Paula Beer and Alexander Fehling) and William S. Burroughs (»The Cat Inside«); and made music for several radio-tatorts (radio plays based on »Tatort«, a long-running German police TV series) by playwright Tom Peuckert.

Both voracious and committed in their creative energies, Jestram and Lippok report back from these experiments with »Nuts of Ay«, one of their most compelling, deeply lustrous, dreamlike albums yet. They say there was no concept for the album, which is surprising, perhaps, given its holistic mood, explaining it »grew together like a coral reef in the studio over a period of several years«. There’s something to be said for letting an album gather and mutate naturally, without an overarching framework in place, and »Nuts of Ay« certainly feels like an unforced collection of material that nonetheless inhabits a similar space, one where guitars twist like driftwood next to amorphous, aqueous electronics, Lippok’s droll yet completely convincing vocal delivery riding songs that pulse and plume with curious, unpredictable rhythms.

But you can also hear elements – submerged but still present – of other music that’s inspired the duo: they’ve drawn some connections for us with psychedelic folk, Bowie in Berlin, Burial, and the film music of Popol Vuh and Krzysztof Komeda. This music shares a strong sense of place – whether in the world, or the mind – and the twelve songs on »Nuts of Ay« have such similar presence; a shared mood, a shared world, a shared sense of the possibilities of what electronic pop music could, and should, be. A bold and brave pop experiment.

Artwork by Carsten Nicolai
Mastering by Bo Kondren, Calyx Berlin

»Trapdoor Spider«, »On Waves and Years« & »Breaking Day«: lyrics by Milner Place
»All Nuns«: lyrics by Derek Jarman
»USA«: lyrics by Shane MacGowan
»Down Comes the Goose«: lyrics from a traditional song
»Forever Blowing Bubbles«: lyrics by Jaan Kenbrovin
»Everybody Had a Hard Year«: lyrics by John Lennon

"Exhibit B: The Human Condition". It's really, really sick. It's really different from the last one and it's really different from the two before. But it's 100 percent EXODUS. Out of the last three, this one is faster, but it's also a little more melodic, and it's also a little bit more old school. Some of Rob's vocal patterns are just so old school; it's killer. The production is a little more, let's say, less sterile. Not less sterile, but less digital perfection, more organic. It's really, really lively. There is by far more melody on it as well. Thematically, it's a little different. The last one centered a lot on religion and this one is, as the title says, about the human condition; cruelty, ignorance, and inhumanity and brutality. Just the things that man has shown to be so adept at doing.” "Our goal in EXODUS is just basically to defy time, to defy age, to have every album just get more furious and more angry and more intense. A lot of people will ask me things like, 'EXODUS is achieving a lot of popularity again, do you think it's due to thrash metal coming back?`and I say, 'No. I think thrash metal's coming back because of EXODUS.'" The goal now, he says, is to remain "the most dangerous animal in the jungle." "We wanted to portray the violence of man at its finest, so we started with our own version of the Leonardo da Vinci sketch of Vitruvian Man, but done the ‘EXODUS’ way! I was pointed in the direction of Colin Larks of Rainsong Design for the cover and he killed it! To me, the artwork represents man and his affinity for bloodshed, ignorance, and all-around ability to be led like sheep to the slaughter. The image fits the songs on this record perfectly. The whole layout is going to be as sick as the record itself!" GARY HOLT, Exodus

"Exhibit B: The Human Condition". It's really, really sick. It's really different from the last one and it's really different from the two before. But it's 100 percent EXODUS. Out of the last three, this one is faster, but it's also a little more melodic, and it's also a little bit more old school. Some of Rob's vocal patterns are just so old school; it's killer. The production is a little more, let's say, less sterile. Not less sterile, but less digital perfection, more organic. It's really, really lively. There is by far more melody on it as well. Thematically, it's a little different. The last one centered a lot on religion and this one is, as the title says, about the human condition; cruelty, ignorance, and inhumanity and brutality. Just the things that man has shown to be so adept at doing.” "Our goal in EXODUS is just basically to defy time, to defy age, to have every album just get more furious and more angry and more intense. A lot of people will ask me things like, 'EXODUS is achieving a lot of popularity again, do you think it's due to thrash metal coming back?`and I say, 'No. I think thrash metal's coming back because of EXODUS.'" The goal now, he says, is to remain "the most dangerous animal in the jungle." "We wanted to portray the violence of man at its finest, so we started with our own version of the Leonardo da Vinci sketch of Vitruvian Man, but done the ‘EXODUS’ way! I was pointed in the direction of Colin Larks of Rainsong Design for the cover and he killed it! To me, the artwork represents man and his affinity for bloodshed, ignorance, and all-around ability to be led like sheep to the slaughter. The image fits the songs on this record perfectly. The whole layout is going to be as sick as the record itself!" GARY HOLT, Exodus

Opeth are one of the biggest acts in the Prog Metal genre with numerous top 10 albums worldwide, ”The Last Will and Testament” is their new album set for release November 22. Guest vocals by Joey Tempest (Europe), and guest flute by Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull). “A restless musical journey in a way mirroring my own relationship with music as a consumer of it," narrates band leader Mikael Åkerfeldt. "I pick up something here, dismiss something there. I worship and I hate music at the same time. This ambivalence leads me down some type of creative path of my own and then, all of a sudden, a collection of songs has been written. Best case scenario, these songs are good enough to impress the band. Good enough for the ”powers that be” in terms of the industry. Good enough for ”you”?! I love this record. I have to say it (write it). Maybe I’m proud even? There are some familiar ingredients in there I suppose. Most of our music has sprung from the same source, so I guess it’s not much of a shocker if it’s going to sound like ”us”. I’m a bit in awe of what we did with ”The Last Will and Testament”. It feels like a dream. There is some ”coherence" and ” songwriting skills” I hope, but what do I know? I tend to favour the ”strange” over the ”obvious”, but I feel like I’m in the minority, and that’s fine. So…fair warning! Don’t expect an instant rush (as per usual), but if you do ”get it” (have you got it yet?) right away, that’s ok too!"

In 2006, Danger Mouse is King Midas of the music world. He has an uncanny knack for creating jagged, dense, frenzied beats and odd, eerie, vivid soundscapes that never compromise the music's natural flow. Meanwhile, rapper and singer Cee-Lo, a veteran of Atlanta's Dirty South scene, has never been one to be constrained by hip-hop conventions, and is a willing partner in adventure. The result is an intrepid psychedelic blend of pop, hip-hop, soul, and rock that consistently challenges and delights. It's no wonder that "Crazy," with its modest riff, irresistible hook, and disarming opening line ("I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind") became a worldwide Internet sensation a full six months before the official release of St. Elsewhere. But that relatively simple soul-pop gem is the tamest track on this wide-ranging, often dark and introspective collaboration. (In fact, the duo considers Gnarls Barkley to be a wholly new creation, as opposed to a collaboration of existing artists.) "Everybody is somebody, but nobody wants to be themselves," Cee-Lo croons on "Who Cares?" He and Danger Mouse try very hard not to be their old selves as they creatively and confidently break down boundaries, but the brilliant cores of their musical personae--Cee-Lo's eccentric spiritual soul man and Danger's bold sonic explorer--remain. --Marc Greilsamer