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Bobbi Lu is the moniker of Lucy Ryan, born and raised in Oxfordshire in the UK, now living in Bruges after following love a few years ago. As a DIY bedroom producer, she’s released a handful of singles and is now ready with a debut album – ‘Arrow, Four’ – that will be out on 25 October. Drawing inspiration from acts like Radiohead, FKA Twigs, Jockstrap and Saya Grey, Bobbi Lu intertwines piano melodies with deep crunchy bass, electronica and samples, coming together in a dystopian and mysterious sound. As Ryan started gigging, she quickly attracted attention and went from supporting acts like The Haunted Youth and Sylvie Kreusch to playing her own headline shows and amazing festivals like The Great Escape (UK).

‘Arrow, Four’ is a collection of ten songs, written over the course of a few years, the process of each one completely different. “I guess the individual tracks have their own story, but in my head each story is just a symptom of a bigger theme, mostly inspired by the book Future Shock by Alvin Toffler. In it he talks about people’s ability to adapt having essentially a limit, and with growth accelerating could we be overloaded and experience a 'future shock'. And maybe that’s already happening, most notably in the form of mental health struggles.” “It made me think of how progression creates new challenges, an arrow going one way is pulled back by another in the opposite direction. I feel like it’s a topic more relevant than ever, especially with AI most recently. I think I use this topic to fuel my lyrics mainly as a way of forgiving myself and others, in those moments where we struggle and make mistakes, that we're all just doing our best in trying to keep up with a rapidly changing environment.” This is also reflected in the artwork by Maarten Derous. “It ties everything together. He came to me after listening to it and said something that came out for him was fragility, which at the time I completely did not think of. But he nailed it. It’s like, yes do it, be fragile and take it easy, it’s a pretty good answer to stuff being pulled in all directions.”

Limited LEMON Vinyl Edition

Autumn Lady’ was the name of a project started in 1973 but was waylaid and forgotten about and was later replaced by the 1974 album ‘As I See it Now’. This album represents the songs that were intended to become that album - some became singles (‘Bitter Bad’ and the Goffin & King classic ‘Will you love me Tomorrow?’)…but most remained unheard • Limited pressing LP of 700, pressed on deep red vinyl • CD version gives the customer a wider range of material considered for this album in 1973 across 2 discs, crammed with rare tracks. Including the controversial 27-minute version of ‘Hearing The News’ • Packaged in deluxe card gatefold sleeve with colour booklet and liner notes by Melanie’s manager and UK music journalist Dave Thompson

“Friends, they are my ticket out of this place I am in… feels like nothing more than a dirt bike vacation stop between Phoenix and San Diego.” Dirt Bike Vacation—for Worried Songs Records—explores the sonic world of the late amateur guitar player, Charles ‘Poppy Bob’ Walker, through a captivating set of instrumental songs made in the mid-1980s. Recorded on a single-track, Marantz field recorder, the project is a transportive document of Walker’s days spent as a meatpacking employee in Yuma, Arizona and the dailiness of that existence: driving to work, sitting in his backyard, walking around drunkenly, unwinding on the couch with a friend. These sketches, showing an experimental tendency, are surprisingly ahead of their time; some exhibit ad hoc tape delay (“Granite Bluffs,” “Goodbye YMCA”), while others make use of primitive overdubbing (“Continuation to Moon Doctor”). Not dissimilar to works such as Bruce Langhorne’s The Hired Hand soundtrack, Walker’s guitar playing is melodic, texturally rich and beautifully sober. On a musical tour from Nashville to Los Angeles, musician-archivist, Cameron Knowler, uncovered these songs from a series of dusty cassette tapes housed at a branch of the Yuma County Library. Originally tipped off by cryptic metadata entries found through an online finding aid, Knowler requested a sound sample and was immediately drawn in by their eerie, yet hopeful nature: “I didn’t care what they sounded like at first, but once I heard just a few seconds, I had to find out everything I could about Charles, who he was, and if he was still alive.” As it turns out, the two had miraculously crossed paths over 20 years prior when Cameron was a young boy accompanying his mother, a gem trader, on a biyearly sojourn to Quartzsite, a town 80 miles north of Yuma: “Charles, sitting down and smoking in a recliner, withdrawn, held what I now understand to be a mid-1990s Martin D-28 guitar. Unlike other old-timers, his instrument was sharply tuned and had a nice sound, even to my young and uncalibrated ears. Though his left hand showed signs of highly developed arthritis, his musical ideas were animated by a palpably deep understanding of fretboard anatomy, arrangement and harmony.” Sorting through the index cards associated with these tapes, Knowler was able to gain a detailed sense of most recording’s provenance, whereabouts and time: Walker’s Datsun pickup truck chugging along boiling hot Interstate 80, the Marine Corps Air Station parking lot, the Eastern Wetlands on the banks of the Colorado River, a fishing trip to Martinez Lake. Trying to reduce the amount of his own subjectivities coloring the work, Cameron constructed titles and track sequences by borrowing information gleaned from Charles’ handwritten notes: “I tried to organize everything by time of day, giving the listener the sense of how a Yuma day might sound and feel like, and each song title—even the record itself—is borrowed from his own words.” This proved no small task, as many notecards had to be deciphered and then coupled with their native tapes which needed extensive restoration treatments. The result is a project very much out of the blue, and one that is intensely personal to Knowler, having grown up in the same town under similar circumstances. “It feels like a part of my own journey as a guitarist reckoning with the defining marks of a gothic border town,” he remarks. “At the time I would’ve met Walker, I didn’t have much outside influence, but he has been in there all the while.” In their current form, the tracks combine to create a sonic journey that boldly contributes to the traditions of acoustic guitar soli, archival digs and field recordings all the same; most importantly, it is a creative document which shows a day-in-the-life of a man grappling with the human experience under a ubiquitous Yuma sun.

It has been three and a half long years since Parisian four piece Alvilda released the Negatif 7” on Alien Snatch. They have been playing gigs but there has been no sign of recorded material. Now they finally return with their debut album for Static Shock Records and without doubt it’s a stonewall classic. Every minute, every inch and every song is lean, locked in and upbeat with a tight and bright production. If you love 60’s girl pop but with a late 70’s power pop edge or Indie pop that has been raised on a diet of tuneful punk rock, then Alvilda will be your new favourite band, just like Dolly Mixture were, just like Chin Chin were and just like Les Calamités were. The album is just under 30 minutes and it never lets up with quality and tunes that get stuck in your head. Not being able to speak a word of French is not a hindrance, as all the songs are instant and catchy. Alvilda are here to stay, and it's time already.

For the Northern Soul collector few places rival Detroit as a source for quality, rare records. But Philadelphia comes pretty close and it is the city of brotherly love that produced America's number one independent record label... the mighty Cameo-Parkway. Here, for the first time, we present the very best that that iconic company has to offer.From the Wheel to Wigan, to the Weekender and beyond, the sound of Cameo-Parkway has packed the dance floors across the UK for over 50 years. From the opening bars of Dee Dee Sharp's driving cover of Mel Tormé's Comin' Home Baby' it's easy to see why the label is so highly prized by collectors and dancers alike and why this unique vinyl tribute will touch the hearts of the faithful! All of the classics are here: Chubby Checker, Christine Cooper, Bobby Paris, Yvonne Baker, Bunny Sigler, Jerry Jackson etc etc. The difficulty has been in deciding what to leave out, not what to include, maybe a second volume later in the year One thing is for certain, 1.2 million YouTube viewers just love Cameo-Parkway!

Kylie invites fans to return to the dancefloor with a collection celebrating all things ‘DISCO’.

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

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

Repress!

With Robyn, South London's cktrl shares his most ambitious work yet, collaborating with the likes of Duval Timothy, Coby Sey (Micachu, Tirzah, Dean Blunt) and Purple Ferdinand to create a vital exploration of contemporary-classical from the black perspective; out via Errol and Alex Rita's Touching Bass. Spurred on by the overpowering feelings of heartbreak, Robyn impressively creates emotive and heartfelt clarinet and saxophone-led soundscapes about the all-consuming power of love. On the project, cktrl says: "'Robyn' at its core is heartbreak and is just really sentimental. It's a journey of losing a love but it ends with optimism as you find strength to love again." Born and bred in Lewisham, cktrl aka Bradley Miller is an integral part of London's pioneering musical underground. One of the only remaining original DJs on NTS, cktrl has previously worked with and played alongside the likes of Sampha, Sango, Kelela and Dean Blunt. Throughout his career to date, cktrl has also been recognised and heralded by fashion and film VIPs including Virgil Abloh, Bianca Saunders, Tremaine Emory, Nicholas Daley and Jenn Nkiru who recently secured him a cameo in Beyonce's heralded 'Black Is King'. With a shared ethos of elevating and amplifying leftfield black music, he partners with London based label, Touching Bass, themselves a key cog within the city's bubbling musical underbelly.

From London to Ibiza via Berlin, inspired by Chigago and Detroit, Ceri finds her truth in proper house music. ‘Can’t Pay My Bills’ EP provides a message of hope during uncertain times. Acknowledged as a “rising selector” by Crack Magazine, producer, label boss and record digger Ceri steps into 2024 with a brand-new EP ‘Can’t Pay My Bills” via her imprint “Find Your Own Records”.

“The title track is inspired by the current economic situation in the world, and also features a positive message that reflects the values and true origins of house music, reinforcing the belief that we can overcome our circumstances and improve our situation” - Ceri


The new four track EP drips with Chicago, New York and Detroit jackin’ house with garage influence, and a sprinkle of ripping UK breakbeat for good measure. The people’s producer D'Julz steps up, on remix duties, contributing not one but two remixes to the label’s ongoing message of artist authenticity and collaboration. The remixes will be vinyl only, and the originals will see a digital release later in the year.

“I have collected D'Julz music for many years, his label started around the same time I started DJing, and it was and still is, one of the few labels that I buy on sight. I know it will always be quality. Something I aspire to do with my label too.”– Ceri

As an artist led label 'Find Your Own Records’ has become a home for genuine house legends Mr G, Fred P, Alex Arnout, and has rightly gained support from Mixmag, Resident Advisor, BBC Radio 1, BB6Music and BBC1Xtra.

Support for the label so far comes from the likes of:

Midland, Ben UFO, Move D, K-HAND, Fumiya Tanaka, Fred P, Paranoid London, Steve O'Sullivan, Tristan Da Cunha, Ryan Elliot, Lakuti, DJ Deep, Kerri Chandler, Chloe Caillet, Fred P, Jeremy Underground, Cici, D’Julz, Chez Damier and more…


As a DJ Ceri has performed marathon sets at Fabric, Corsica Studios, Pikes Ibiza, Thisishaven, and recently made her debut at the legendary Panorama Bar/Berghain. Confidently sharing the booth with club favourites Ryan Elliot, Jeremy Underground, Paranoid London and Objekt it’s certain the next year of live shows will be ones to remember for the UK artist. Inspiring far beyond the dancefloor, Ceri also regularly steps up as a masterclass host / panelist on creativity, mental health, meditation and wellness with renowned platforms Beatport, ADE, RedBull, Point Blank and Native Instruments, earning her a distinctive reputation as a multifaceted artist and
thought leader.

Ceri – ‘Can’t Pay My Bils’ EP is out on Find Your Own Records. Vinyl end of Feb tbc. The remixes re vinyl only. And the originals will be released digitally in the summer.

RIYL: Don Cherry, Alice Coltrane, Remi Álvarez, Juma Sultan's Aboriginal Music Society, Horace Tapscott. Atrás del Cosmos were a central force in Mexico City's creative arts community, and often considered the first free jazz group in the country. Founded by a trio composed of pianist Ana Ruiz, percussionist Evry Mann, and saxophonist Henry West, the ensemble was prolific in mentoring a generation of improvisers, cultivating an expanded additive roster, and organizing workshops in downtown Mexico City including inviting Don Cherry to play and instruct on his "organic music" approach in 1977. Between 1977 and 1983, the group lived and rehearsed in a residential space behind the Cosmos theater, hence their celestial-tinged name. But despite their central importance to the local scene, Atrás was rarely recorded and had a scant international presence, leaving behind just a single cassette before their disbandment. Now issued on LP for the first time, the aforementioned tape Cold Drinks, Hot Dreams is a red-hot recording documenting the core group plus double-bassist Claudio Enriquez performing live in 1980, a delirious improvisation with high peaks and low valleys, sucking in an amalgam of influences including New York loft style, Mexican folk music, and the surrealism of Alejandro Jodorowsky into its heady gravitational pull. Ruiz's playing style is virtuosic and expressive, pulling off monumental chords and using the piano's whole register, recalling Cecil Taylor's percussive approach, Matthew Shipp's emotive voicing, and Duke Ellington's mystifying arabesques. Evry Mann dabbles in polyrhythms in tracks like the solo marimba meditation "Clapping Music II," and Henry West wails heavy in the show-stopping cut "M.D." Now finally available after forty years, the music of Atrás del Cosmos will be sure to stun spiritual jazz veterans and newcomers alike3

The French group consolidates its soul, rock and Americana roots in a liberating and timeless second album.

In 2021, Lowland Brothers, the first self-titled album from the group led by Nico Duportal (vocals, guitars, lyrics), Hugo Deviers (percussion, guitar, lyrics) and Max Genouel (bass, keyboards) built an unprecedented transatlantic bridge between soul, rock and the woody sounds of Americana. " We have some

African-American, but our desire is to transport this baggage and take it elsewhere,” specifies the group from the West and North of France.

Der hebräische Surf-Grunger kehrt zurück! End of Teenage Charlie fängt Megiras Berliner Jahre mit den BetShe'an Valley Hillbillies ein, kurz vor seinem Tod. Eine Zeitreise, ein fünf Lieder langes Gitarren-Krimi-Album, das Dick Dale ebenso viel wie David Lynch verdankt. Diese erweiterte Ausgabe zum 10-jährigen Jubiläum enthält auch das 11-Song-Demo, auf dem Megiras vertraute Themen wie Drive-Inn Melancholie, Stranddecken-Bongos und dem Treiben in der Wüste in seinem Schlafzimmer erforscht werden. Lass ihn in dein Ohr flüstern.

Der hebräische Surf-Grunger kehrt zurück! End of Teenage Charlie fängt Megiras Berliner Jahre mit den BetShe'an Valley Hillbillies ein, kurz vor seinem Tod. Eine Zeitreise, ein fünf Lieder langes Gitarren-Krimi-Album, das Dick Dale ebenso viel wie David Lynch verdankt. Diese erweiterte Ausgabe zum 10-jährigen Jubiläum enthält auch das 11-Song-Demo, auf dem Megiras vertraute Themen wie Drive-Inn Melancholie, Stranddecken-Bongos und dem Treiben in der Wüste in seinem Schlafzimmer erforscht werden. Lass ihn in dein Ohr flüstern.

In 2021, Will Marsh ditched his music career, packed his bags and headed to New Orleans to pursue an MFA. Pandemic brain had firmly set in, so while Marsh dove into his work with Habitat for Humanity, he also found himself dazed and confused amidst such a turbulent time. Music wasn't at the forefront of his mind_ but it chased him. Let's rewind a bit. Will Marsh started Gold Connections at the College of William and Mary, where longtime friend Will Toledo (Car Seat Headrest) produced and recorded Marsh's debut self-titled EP, released via Fat Possum in 2017. Two EPs followed on EggHunt, 2018's Popular Fiction and 2019's Like A Shadow. This leads us to Fortune, the band's brand new LP, out worldwide on October 25 via New Orleans indie Well Kept Secret. It's a record that sounds like "a conversation between old Virginia and the buzzy psychedelic world of post-COVID New Orleans," according to Marsh. The eleven tracks on Fortune deftly navigate a geographical and spiritual journey: remorse, intoxication, anger, mystery, destruction, and regeneration, delivered with the same approach that NPR hailed as "undeniably catchy" and Sterogum claimed was "an animal of it's own."

Rediscovered and compiled for release shortly before her death in November 2023, Further Selections from the Electric Harpsichord presents a never-before-heard recording of composer and artist Catherine Christer Hennix's early magnum opus. Originally debuted in 1976 at the festival Brouwer's Lattice at Stockholm's Moderna Museet, The Electric Harpsichord has steadily mystified fans and students of Western minimalist music for its implacable, transformative qualities, and the long-held, relative obscurity of its creator. Like the work of Hennix's close friend La Monte Young, the piece is set in just intonation and focuses on the transcendental potentials of precise tuning, inspired by their studies with Pandit Pran Nath. Composed of bursts of oscillating, synthetic tones using a carefully retuned synthesizer and a tape-based system for feedback delay, the sounds swirl, twinkle, and appear to bend time, space, and perception. Additional, sustained chords on the sheng, most likely played by her Deontic Miracle bandmate Hans Isgren, are present at the opening of the piece and reemerge towards the end of the recording. The release of Further Selections constitutes the most comprehensive original recording of this foundational work to date. Originally billed as The Well-Tuned Organ during its debut in Sweden, The Electric Harpsichord has developed a legendary reputation, predicated on a twenty-six minute fragment salvaged and circulated by Hennix's friend Henry Flynt. Promoting its importance on multiple occasions, Flynt aired the work on WBAI radio, organized a pair of tape concerts at New York alternative arts spaces in 1970s, and later penned a 1998 essay which served as the liner notes to its eventual CD release in 2010. For him, this work not only represented a sterling milestone in minimal sonic aesthetics, but also spawned a new genre that he dubbed "hallucinogenic/ecstatic sound environments (HESE)," which in turn inspired his own drone-like compositions. Gradually, interest in the recording led to a spate of archival projects, public performances, and new compositions by Hennix in the 2010s, in turn drawing into focus her multifarious practice, which includes serious contributions towards mathematics, poetry, sculpture, Noh drama, philosophy, and light art. Since 2018, Blank Forms has spearheaded a comprehensive publication effort in support of her work, including the writing collection Poësy Matters and Other Matters (2018); archival recordings like Selected Early Keyboard Works (2018) and The Deontic Miracle's Selections from 100 Models of Hegikan Roku (2019); and recent compositions such as Blues Alif Lam Mim (2021) and Solo for Tamburium (2023).

In 2007 an Italian film festival invites Mouse on Mars to score a film of their choice. The organizers claim to be able to clear the rights for any movie the band chooses. Werner Herzog’s fictional documentary Fata Morgana, which merges footage of several desert explorations by Herzog and his team into one continuous association, has long been a band’s favorite. The film comes with a soundtrack by Mozart, Leonard Cohen, Third Ear Band and field recordings. Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner are sent a DVD to Düsseldorf and start working. The idea is to score the film in real time so instrumentation has to be readily at hand: guitar, percussion, electronics, mouth harp, pedals, software, tapes, samplers. Once the arrangement for the three-part film is sorted Mouse on Mars bring their score to stage. Herzog Sessions is performed twice: first when the band still thought the rights had been cleared, and a second time at London’s Southbank Center knowing that Herzog would have never approved a new score.

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Mouse On Mars – London Queen Elizabeth Hall soundtracking Werner Herzog.
By Mike Diver, 24.04.2009

Filmed in 1971, Fata Morgana is perhaps not one of Herzog’s best-known works (think Grizzly Man, Rescue Dawn, et cetera…), but then Mouse on Mars have never been ones to embrace the mainstream, quietly letting their modern, experimental take on krautrock do the talking over the years, thus producing some quietly brilliant electronica that far outweighs their modest profile.

The film itself is not altogether dissimilar to the wonderful, Phillip Glass-scored Koyaanisqatsi, with sweeping landscape shots and no obvious plot or narrative, though Fata is concentrated purely in one place – in and around the Sahara Desert, switching from images of barren wasteland to desert tribes and dead, skeletal cattle.

The obvious thing to do when soundtracking such powerful imagery is to vie for dreamy electronic soundscapes which can be sustained for a long period, and whilst this ambient shoegaze approach was present and correct (also carefully constructed and highly effective), Mouse on Mars added a human element to the performance, incorporating a live dimension by using and looping guitars, harmonicas, processed vocals and even a live horn player (quite possibly a flugelhorn. Look it up if you don’t believe me) for the final section of the film.

Some of the most interesting points arose when the duo suddenly switched from solemn, ambient tones to glitchy, bouncing electro (reminiscent of their more upbeat work) whilst on the same film shot – causing the audience mood to flick from tripped-out bliss to attentive semi-wired, utterly subverting any idea of a narrative the film may have possessed. Clever stuff.

Ranging from sinister to surreal to humorous, all the moods portrayed in Fata Morgana were successfully matched by Mouse on Mars’ live rescore – no mean feat. The duo also went above and beyond the call of duty with their own soundtrack, adding a fascinating personal signature to an already unique film.

The four-track EP Reinos Elementales opens with El Descenso de Inanna, an electrifying track characterized by dark atmospheres and a compelling rhythm that transports the listener on a journey as energetic as it is introspective.

Uroboros, the second track on the EP but the first to be composed, was born from the artists first jam session. A rhythmic journey characterized by the cyclical alternation of dub sounds and organic elements, conveying a warm and vibrant sensation thats hard to resist.

Malachite is another gem for the dance floor, where the elements
intertwine fluidly between an urgent rhythm and a liberating atmosphere.

Finally, Stato Liminare is the last track composed by the duo a perfect
B2 that adds a touch of surprise to the EP with its fractured and deep
rhythm. The composers recite a mantra in their native language, creating a magical and hypnotic vocal line that offers a sense of suspension between the tangible and the ethereal.

Golden-era of kinked, acid-hued, analogue, harmonic song writing sits at the heart of The Eggmen Whoooooo!’s first, mind-bending, full-length album. Two-decades of meandering musicality fans the embers of cult Welsh legends, El Goodo, glowing beneath Benedict Frye’s latest bakeries of sound.

Whisking effervescence and colour into the flat glass of soda of mundane middle age, the
former El Goodo pace-setter has gathered a band of five other, talented souls and asks the jittery cut of sparking psych to lead the charge as the band’s debut album, ‘Fuzzy Eggs, Please’ is announced for release on Fri 25 October 2024.

Almost a full two decades since El Goodo rose to an elevated position amongst discerning
music-lovers as consorts to, support act beneath and studio collaborators with Super Furry
Animals, and a full four years since the final act of the departed band (their last, acclaimed
studio album, Zombie) a tapestry of distinctly and brilliantly odd songs scrambles from the
heart of the Welsh hills. Transplanted into the chest cavity of a new, stage-ready six-headed creature, what awakes is a new beast of valve amp and feedback-fuelled splendour.

All ten songs, recorded in mountainous seclusion in Carmarthenshire with producer,
Thighpaulsandra (Spiritualized, Tim Burgess), have clustered in strange harmony on The
Eggmen Whoooooo!’s very first, perfectly imperfect album.

Formed in a lightning strike of inspiration by prolific, remote South Wales-based keeper of
various musical flames, Benedict E Frye, The Eggmen Whoooooo! finds members of
kindred, Welsh musical spirits, El Goodo, Los Blancos and Trecco Beis, joining hands and
overloading studio plug sockets in a display of unchallenged creative hubris. With nobody to please but themselves, the six-piece’s indulgence in sounds straddles sun-licked Californian harmonies and the torn-sneakered snottiness of New York punk making for thrilling sonic schizophrenia with only their own record collections occasionally poached.

"?Released in the spring of 1989, Gang Starr’s debut album, No More Mr. Nice Guy, arrived right at the crucial intersection of the old school and golden age of New York rap. You cannot begin to discuss New York rap lineage without drawing a line through the first decade of Gang Starr. Should history be corrected to appropriately acknowledge Gang Starr’s influence and brilliance, it will need an origin story. No More Mr. Nice Guy is that saga. It’s a hard ridge in a changing landscape, the sound of everything shifting, the kernel of greatness germinating. It is Guru and Preemo. Preemo and Guru. An essential title not just for what it would lead to, but because of what it is."

Love Is A Flame In The Dark is the debut album by experimental songwriter Karl D’Silva. A raw labour of love, a towering spire of twisted steel, tenderness and becoming, it’s a body of songs that belies the virtuoso talents of an artist whose reputation has been built on collaborating with various avant garde underground luminaries. Self-recorded at home in Rotherham and pulsing with the conviction of a true believer, these songs burst out of their self-consciousness to meet life head on, bristling with energy, 10 glimpses of the human spirit in the darkness.
Recorded throughout 2021 - 2023 and mixed in Leeds with engineer Ross Halden, D’Silva has constructed a Pop language for himself. Mutated songs that owe a small debt to the post-Industrial music of Cabaret Voltaire, Nine Inch Nails and Coil, they’re nonetheless powered by a vigorous tenderness, earnestness and D’Silva’s knack for melody. Each song is meticulously sound-designed, using synthesised sounds created from scratch married with D’Silva’s virtuoso playing on saxophone and guitar. The songs on Love Is A Flame In The Dark are unabashed, earnest love letters to living, requiems for a world fading away and small gestures of solidarity in the face of entropy.
Until now, D’Silva’s fingerprints could be found on live dates with Thurston Moore, Oren Ambarchi, Hardcore pioneers Siege and Rian Treanor as well as recordings by previous groups Trumpets Of Death and Drunk In Hell. Primarily associated with the alto saxophone in his improvisation work, Love Is A Flame In The Dark features a dizzying array of instrumentation, all played by D’Silva. D’Silva’s current membership of the group Vanishing may be a good touchstone for the dense, sonically thrilling world-building on the album but the most
striking instrument, perhaps, is D’Silva’s voice. With a soulful, rasping timbre resulting from prolonged intubation as a new-born, his vocal is both fearless and tender. On the soaring, electronic body mover Wild Kiss, thundering percussion is in service to Karl’s voice full of desire, arching up into a flayed falsetto. It’s a trick repeated on Flowers Start To Cry, where it’s deployed against the backdrop of layers of ripping alto and thudding drum programming that recall Nine Inch Nails’ visceral production, if they were covering a Prince hit. These songs capture the essence of 2024’s Karl D’Silva music; pure physicality
breaking down to reveal a shining, compassionate vulnerability.
The full breadth of Karl D’Silva’s instrumental prowess is in evidence from the off. On The Outside imagines blooming out of personal apocalypse with a soundscape of synth, saxophone worthy of any late 60s Free Jazz blower and crushing sound design. Entropy is planet-sized synth pop, Nowhere Left To Run uses midi-string orchestration to tell a story of light emerging from the dark. It’s a theme picked up
throughout the album: The Butcher is a political parable, the narrator holding power to account with grotesque, brutal imagery. It’s on a track
like Real Life that the true message emerges, however. D’Silva is peering through the layers of artifice, struggle and the fog of daily
living to find a life full of energy, connection and light. Each song here is a route into this light, out of the darkness.

THE DYNAMICS • DRAG’N'FLY
by VINCENT HELLO.

Jamaica, 1960s. Ska artists, rock steady and reggae take back some soul songs of the United States, thus giving their versions that will in turn become future classics. The hits of the moment are also seasoned with Jamaican sauce, no matter where it comes from Original, pop, country, jazz... The rhythms of the island permanently transform the tracks of origin. In 2024, with their third album called Dragn'fly and decorated with a beautiful dragonfly (a "dragonfly" so in the language of King Tubby) the Dynamics honour Jamaican tradition and dynamite 10 versions of hits from yesterday and today. The Dragonfly spread his wings reggae, soul, funk to land in all headsets at the heart of good stereos and on spicy dancefloors. Because this dragonfly is a true superfly that speaks to the heart... and legs.

After two albums whose success led them to walk the globe of Glastonbury in Tokyo, honoured by the large elders (the first part of Lee Perry here, a regular dj support of Don Letts over there) the Dynamics are alive so their 'soul reggae vocal sound system” in front of audiences specializing in Jamaican or to those who are who were lucky enough to meet them by chance in Chemical Brothers... or Lady Gaga.

The Dynamics have forgotten the weight of ancestors to make their own recipe. They proclaim it, they are Sound System! The voices of Mounam, Steve Levi and Mr Day are in the front row, so making lovers, preachers, crooners and crooners to Turns of Duty, while Fab Master Flab all in one of the roots and futuristic echos. But if the mind is a sound system, the dynamics sounds also as a group through instruments live performances that plunge the tracks into a fervor unique. And then there are the hits, so, from all times and of all styles.
The low rider becomes toaster and leaves the road a American carried by these vocal harmonies Sky to take the exit Kingston. On the roadside, the joker delivers his lovers soft rock after a small detour to Muscle Shoal, The time to borrow a guitar from Duane Allman. In the south again, Mounam “Mrs Dynamics” meets the spirit of «Mr Dynamite» and tells him his radical, soul version. “ man’s world...” inna digital style! The spiritual anthem “you got to have freedom” by Master Pharoah Sanders becomes a universal skank, pop and dub who sends resounding high its universal message Dance! The dynamics are mutating the classic of ESG into a small, minimal pop bomb that is not without resemblance to the Neptunes of Mr Pharell Williams. On the edge of the track, Peter Gabriel sees his “Sledgehammer” groover as he does could imagine it and dissolve into sublime soul scrolls. Later, “After laughter...” soul classic celebrated and sampled Born into a rock steady air promised also to eternity. JJ Cale’s "cocaine," leaves its on the dancefloor for a reggae disco version, necessarily! And then, we must conclude. So it’s time to send an original title. It will be "Rubba Sub", to the aromas of sleng teng, which proves that far from the hits, the Dynamics deploys same layouts to deliver fresh and authentic sounds. And when the dub echoes evaporated, that the riddims have been silent, only remains an album majestic, in turn a future classic, full of unique Dynamics sound that mixes with instinct the echoes of yesterday to its own voices today.