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Grey Marbled Vinyl

Minimal Synthwave recordings with german vocals by Danilo Roost aka Second Planet (En Suite Cabinet).

In the late '70s Wild Fire was one of the more popular groups in Trinidad. Formed by Oliver “Stompy” Chapman back in 1962 the group was originally named the Sparks. By the disco era Wild Fire were the house band at night clubs like Disco Tracks and the Upper Level. The group was very influenced by disco, especially the famous British group, Hot Chocolate known for the classic disco hit ”You Sexy Thing.” Hot Chocolate’s chief songwriter, Tony Wilson was originally a Trinidadian native and also great friends with Oliver Chapman. The opening track on this compilation is "Try Making Love", a floor-filling track written by Tony Wilson in 1977 and recorded at Coral Sound Studio in Port of Spain. It was there that Oliver Chapman laid down the unforgettable bass line, solidifying its status as a surefire hit. The infectious tune held steady at the number one slot for six weeks in Trinidad and eventually climbed to the top of the charts in Barbados. Recorded at KH Studios, “Living On A String” with its unique disco synth sound by keyboard player Calvin Duncan was about the hard living of one trying to survive as a musician and hoping to one day partake in the material strappings of fame. “The Rebels” was more about the political struggle for the young in the country at the time. There was a lot of corruption in the government and a lot of young people out of work. The song called to stand up and rebel against the regime. And years later in 1990 it did happen when the Muslim group Jamaat al Muslimeen stormed the Red House (Trinidad’s Parliament House) and took cabinet members hostage. Wild Fire would go on to tour the Caribbean extensively including stops in Barbados, Antigua, St. Thomas and Guadeloupe. The group had a massive local hit with their track “Say A Little Prayer.” The group would disband in 1985 and Oliver Chapman would move to America. Wild Fire - Dance Hits is a collection of Wild Fire's more dance friendly material.

Brit Taylor’s highly anticipated sophomore album, Kentucky Blue, is a drive down the famed Country Music Highway – Route 23 -- back to her Appalachian roots. Grammy-winner Sturgill Simpson and renowned engineer and producer David Ferguson caught wind of the Kentucky gem after her self-reflective debut album, Real Me, garnered praise from Rolling Stone, American Songwriter and NPR’s World Café. The two legends didn’t hesitate to jump in and get their hands dirty, producing the next musical chapter of Brit’s life story. The album is to be released on Brit’s own Cut A Shine Records in collaboration with Thirty Tigers. Having the courage to find her “real me” set Brit free. Kentucky Blue is a musical celebration of her healing and rebirth. It exudes confidence with a touch of attitude that replaces the melancholy, contemplative sound of Real Me. It is a progression of her life and her music and an introduction to the stand-your-ground and know-your-worth Brit of today. It is a shift back to her East Kentucky influences where the cry of the fiddle, the moan of the steel guitar, the twangy banjo and the atmospheric string section are like a journey floating through space and time. Brit continues to unabashedly write and sing about what she lives and what she knows and sees. It’s genuine. It’s who she is. Kentucky Blue is Brit’s personal invitation to you to join her at her cabin in the woods for a bourbon, a swing on the porch and a story-telling song.

Kreggo showing the full width of his capabilities, delivering the perfect fit for Milano based Nottetempo.

2 LPs-set (3 sides)
Recorded in Paris, November 22 and December 17, 1958.
Original issues: LP Fontana 680.202 ML & EP Fontana 460.642 MR.


”I’ve never played for such an audience” declared Art Blakey in tears. lt was November 22nd, 1958, and he’d just come offstage after one of the “Jazz Wednesdays” concerts at the Paris Olympia. For a first appearance by the “Jazz Messengers”, they’d made quite an impression. Not content with pulling a huge crowd off the Boulevard des Capucines (the demand was so great that a second concert had to be staged on December 17th), they’d converted everybody to the “Hard Bop” religion in two sets where, united in a kind of exultant communion, jazzmen, jazzophiles and curious bystanders alike had been crushed together in high spirits, paying no attention to the presence of Brigitte Bardot escorted by Sacha Distel. That night Blues March had almost replaced the Marseillaise anthem (and Moanin’ the Oignons). Yet none of the Messengers had ever been to Paris. They’d get to that later, and then some, but for the moment they were perfect strangers. Not only strangers to the public, but unknown even to a sizeable group of jazz fans : the next issue of “Jazz Hot” magazine (most of it devoted to them) arrived like an invasion by the carabimeri… the blaze lit at the Olympia had gone out, of course, and Blakey had moved into the “Club St. Germain” to light others; there, each of his gigs could have been a remake of the famous cabin scene in the Marx Brothers’ “A Night At The Opera”…

Among the Messengers’ “greatest hits”, only Moanin’ came close to Blues March. Constructed in the manner of a gospel, with the piano in the role of the preacher, and the orchestra that of the congregation, punctuating the sermon with shouts of approval, the theme was by pianist Bobby Timmons, whose fiery spirit can be explained by his educayion: “… the fact I played rhythm ‘n’ blues had a great influence on my style, and for me, it’s the foundation of jazz.” Moanin’ had sent the Olympia fans Into transports of delight, and even excited the curiosity of Hugues Panassié, who chanced to be passing by (“Bop”, in any form, being hardly his cup of tea) : he was prompted to go backstage and ask what it was he’d heard… Decidedly, in 1958, the Jazz Messengers were miracle-workers!

On Seeds, Georgia Muldrow takes a step back and leaves the beatmaking to Otis Jackson Jr., aka Madlib. As producers, Muldrow and Jackson are not worlds apart, so the switch requires no adjustment on the part of the listener. That said, this is one dense and tight set, barely over half-an-hour in length, and it's definitely in contention for Muldrow's most focused, funkiest, and (somewhat ironically) personal release to date. Throughout the record, the emphasis remains heavily fixated on her family as a unit of salvation and purpose. The most direct track of the lot is "Husfriend," where she honors her relationship with Dudley Perkins (a/k/a Declaime, who appears on “The Few”). Muldrow can't quite divorce the planetary and personal issues, heard vividly on "Best Love," which sounds just like a simple, sweet, straight-ahead love song until she starts asking her other half for money to build water wells on three continents ("We can make a difference if we try now"). Overall, Seeds is another left-field deviation in Muldrow's career: it's one of her most captivating and immediate front-to-back statements of purpose as a singer, but it's also the first album where she's handed over all the production duties to somebody else. In celebration of this album’s decenary run, Someothaship Connect is pleased to reintroduce an anniversary edition repress of this captivating release in partnership with Fat Beats. "Seeds strikes the perfect balance, as Madlib's thickly layered funk and soul samples and cabinet rocking beats pair with Muldrow's gloriously off-kilter vocals and free-form song structures to make this her most satisfying release to date." – Exclaim!

Berlin-based producer Rampue has not released an album in 14 (in words: fourteen) years. Between 2008 and 2020 he toured the world and worked mainly on his live sets in the meantime. So now only a worldwide pandemic had the power to prevent the traveling musician from continuing this hustle and bustle and eventually share a new record with the public. Corona was what brought this standstill and the otherwise well- traveled individual experiences cabin-fever during lockdown. Hence, the new Rampue album "Tragweite" came into existence in February 2021, which portrays the artist's desire for experimentation.
Inspired by a modular synthesizer (Buchla), Rampue has seemingly put himself into a kind of trance, in which he lets the machines work and combines randomly created sounds with airy structures such as low drums or simple grooves. Rampue accomplished to break free by using random sounds as a new impulse and a way out of a creative crisis, which stemmed both from the enforced home isolation and from the self-perceived paralysis. The result is literally unique, as many of the sound products cannot be reconstructed and are preserved in album form for the general public.
Listening to "Tragweite" one gets the impression that the dialectical relationship between chaos and order, further supported by its production, is the defining theme of the album. After an initially perceived chaos, a delicate order, which is determined by structuring drum patterns and basslines, takes over throughout the course of the album.
Later, it frays and loses itself again in sounds and tones created mechanically However, it never seems arbitrary, but willful and skillfully staged. For instance, "Furo?" begins with apparent arrhythmia. The combination of bass and subtle percussion, however, gives this arrhythmia a shape, guiding the track which gradually becomes more and more driving without losing its original playfulness.
Although one might be inclined to think of genres such as Downtempo or Ambient at the beginning in the further course of the album results in such a diverse sound and rhythmic landscape that one willingly questions one's own perception of music while listening and finally throws every type of categorization overboard joyfully. The listening experience is too intoxicating and enlightening to stick to simple genre boundaries. The musical spectrum ranges from straight arrangements that live entirely without a drum foundation ("Fu?r Dich") to almost meditative sound collages ("Regengesicht") to the four-to-the-floor banger "Kembang" which adds a grimmer note with a certain industrial appeal to the overall rather melancholic-progressive curation. "Direct Faden" on the other hand, surprises with its simple guitar-based foundation on which the omnipresent synth snippets and pads are allowed to let off steam towards the end of the record. The track that most closely combines the progressive production style with a danceable club atmosphere is probably "Phobia". Wafting, partly breaking away synthesizer sounds rise higher and higher, while the driving mixture of bass and drums consistently march forward.
Rampue breaks with his old, musical habits as "Tragweite" creates the impression of improvisation and jam character without getting lost. Rampue takes his listeners on a journey that is stirring and moving, sometimes demanding or even a bit disturbing, yet always one thing: incredibly exciting.

"Hushman is the new project from renowned folk musician, singer &
songwriter Ewan MacPherson
Originally hailing from Liverpool, with family ties to Scotland, Ireland and Wales,
Ewan moved to Edinburgh in 1999 where he is now a recognised figure on the
vibrant Scottish music scene, performing and writing with Scottish Indie folk band
Salt House & Scottish Acid folk legends, Shooglenifty, amongst others. Likened to
Ben Howard, John Martyn and Nick Drake, the music and songs Hushman is
producing are painted and sculpted to the backdrop of the Scottish Highlands,
the walls of the shed they have been recorded in are thin; black grouse, torrential
rain and gales subtly underpin Hushman's music through the cabin walls.
Hushman features Hannah Read on backing vocals, Lauren MacColl (Rant, Heal &
Harrow) on strings, Ben Nichols (Seth Lakeman, Nadine Shah) on Bass and
James Mackintosh (Shooglenifty, Capercaille) on percussion."

"Hushman is the new project from renowned folk musician, singer &
songwriter Ewan MacPherson
Originally hailing from Liverpool, with family ties to Scotland, Ireland and Wales,
Ewan moved to Edinburgh in 1999 where he is now a recognised figure on the
vibrant Scottish music scene, performing and writing with Scottish Indie folk band
Salt House & Scottish Acid folk legends, Shooglenifty, amongst others. Likened to
Ben Howard, John Martyn and Nick Drake, the music and songs Hushman is
producing are painted and sculpted to the backdrop of the Scottish Highlands,
the walls of the shed they have been recorded in are thin; black grouse, torrential
rain and gales subtly underpin Hushman's music through the cabin walls.
Hushman features Hannah Read on backing vocals, Lauren MacColl (Rant, Heal &
Harrow) on strings, Ben Nichols (Seth Lakeman, Nadine Shah) on Bass and
James Mackintosh (Shooglenifty, Capercaille) on percussion."

On the album Opening, Tord Gustavsen reveals a fresh angle to his
particularly unique trio investigations into Scandinavian folk hymns,
gospel, chorale and jazz, as he introduces a different voice on bass
With a new fellow- traveller on board and its recording premiere in Lugano's
Auditorio Stelio Molo, the trio discovers inspired new ways to interact with each
other, using innovative approaches to sound and technique in the process. Made
up in equal parts of intricately textured improvisations and understated melodic
hooks, the group's conversations bring an enticing unfamiliarity to the language
the Norwegian pianist has developed over almost two decades of collaboration
with ECM.
Tord Gustavsen: piano, electronics
Steinar Raknes: double bass, electronics
Jarle Vespestad: drums
Press:
"Vibrates between the introspective and the dramatic in rich and singular ways.
Scene-setting opener 'The Circle' sees Gustavsen exploring a modal melodic line
of beguiling simplicity, with the trio's sotto voce approach creating an atmosphere
of hushed intimacy." - **** Jazzwise (Editor's Choice)
"The focus of Opening remains the playing from Gustavsen and the rich
accompaniment from his fellow musicians, creating an atmosphere perfect for a
walk by a cabin at dawn, with the sun peeking in through the trees." - Pitchfork
"Norwegian piano star Tord Gustavsen's long-honed recipe of low-key folk songs,
gospel, classical music and jazz gets a graceful makeover on Opening - with new
bassist Steinar Raknes, a player of uncannily responsive precision alongside
regular percussionist Jarle Vespestad, while subtle electronics sometimes create
ghostly horn-player effects." - The Guardian
"For Gustavsen, pieces such as Floytelat and Vaer Sterk, Min Sjel are routes into
the sort of cerebral mysteries that the former church pianist has made his own.
The first is a funereal theme where the notes he sprinkles like raindrops build into
a fatalistic flood. The second, from the Norwegian Hymnal, is played with an
innocent simplicity. Both are equally powerful...Remarkable music, Norwegian
blues." - The Times
"Quietly beguiling release...With lesser artists the uniformity of mood and
reluctance to turn up the volume would pall. But there's an artistry to Gustavsen's
compositions, a skill in their execution, and a warmth to their spirit that keeps the
listener engaged." - LondonJazz News

Clear Vinyl

Downwards’ deep bonds with NYC catalyse the debut LP by Jim Siegel’s Vivid Oblivion, a reveberating post-industrial salvo produced by adopted Brooklynite Karl O’Connor (Regis), and co-mixed by Anthony Child (Surgeon) and Simon Shreeve, who also mastered it. It’s a super deep, highly atmospheric beast somewhere between Valentina Magaletti’s most expressive percussion work, Bark Psychosis, and classic, moody 4AD, which is coincidentally referenced via the artwork, made by Chris Bigg - legendary graphic designer and longtime assistant to Vaughan Oliver.

Invoking the density, vertiginous scale, and dark grimy nooks of NYC, ‘The Graphic Cabinet’ was realised by Jim Siegel - hardcore legend and occasional/regular drummer with everyone from Raspberry Bulbs to Damo Suzuki and Boredoms, made in close collaboration with Karl O’Connor aka Regis during 2021.

Stemming from intently deep listening sessions immersed in LPs by Viennese aktionist Hermann Nitsch and the myriad eras of Killing Joke, while also absorbing the atmospheres of classic Tarkovsky flicks, the album began life as gonzo field recordings of Siegel smashing the f*ck out of his drum kit, zither, scrap metal and gongs in an array of abandoned warehouse spaces. The recordings formed the basis of Karl’s compound productions, which add depth charge bass and sonorous metallic atmospheres to the mix, along with birdsong and gibbon hoots, plus guitar textures by Nick Forté (Raspberry Bulbs, Rorschach) for a dread-lusting jag deep in the belly of the Big Apple.

With a palpable tang of rust and blood in the air and grime under the fingernails, the seven tracks evoke a resoundingly brutalist portrait of space and place. Siegel’s nervy percussive discipline is framed in alternating barometric and light settings from cut to cut, variously snaking from the poltergeist clang and haunted resonance of ‘Converging and Dissolving’ to slamming motorik thrum in ‘Oblivion’ via imaginative descent into cyberpunk simulacra of the city as jungle-at-night in ‘Remnant Corridor’, replete with animalistic atmospheres that recall Organum.

While the raw attack and devilish swerve of the rhythms are utterly fundamental to the record, Karl’s atmospheric content and the animist mixing magick of Anthony Child and Simon Shreeve most potently give flesh to its bones. Patently evident on the stepping pulse and searching zither that keens into detuned orchestration on ‘Immediate Possession’, the zoned-out klang of ‘Stand Aside’ or in the flooded warehouse chaos of ‘Test For Traps’. The attention to spatial, textural and proprioceptive detail is tightened throughout, peaking with ‘Bargemaster’, a dense slab of tension that sounds like Jon Mueller’s Silo recordings fed through The Caretaker’s fogged machinery.

It’s one of the most impressive records on Downwards for a long while, bound to gnaw and spark the nerves of experimental rock and post-industrial’s greats, anything from The New Blockaders to Faust, Flying Saucer Attack and into iconic Blackest Ever Black releases in the modern era.

The renowned trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O’Rourke and Oren Ambarchi return to Black Truffle with their 11th release, “Caught in the dilemma of being made to choose” This makes the modesty which should never been closed off itself Continue to ask itself: “Ready or not?” Demonstrating once again their commitment to continual experimentation in instrumentation and approach, the record begins with a long-distance collaboration made in response to a commission from New York’s Issue Project Room in 2021 during widespread lockdowns and travel limitations. A unique piece in the trio’s extensive body of work, this side-long epic finds Haino performing on metal percussion, O’Rourke on electronics and Ambarchi on gongs and bells. Initially dominated by rapid patterns on resonant, high-pitched tuned percussion, the piece sets Haino’s dynamic and dramatic performance against a calm backdrop of cycling electronics, thrumming gong strikes and hanging bell tones. The performance develops a heightened, intensely concentrated atmosphere reminiscent of Haino’s classic Tenshi No Ginjinka or his Nijiumu project; when Haino moves to clashing hand cymbals in its second half, the piece’s ritualistic energy suggests aspects of the music of Tibetan Buddhism.

The remainder of the double LP documents the trio live at Tokyo’s SuperDeluxe (the location of all but their very first recording) in a wide-ranging set recorded in December 2017. The concert opens, in another first for the trio, with Haino on drums, O’Rourke on Hammond organ and Ambarchi on his signature Leslie cabinet guitar tones. Haino’s explosively untutored approach to the drumkit will be familiar to some listeners from the radical duo iteration of Fushitsusha heard on Origin’s Hesitation. Setting flurries of rapid activity against moments of silence, his drumming here at times suggests Milford Graves in its tumbling toms and thudding kick-drum propulsion. Accompanied by O’Rourke’s organ and Ambarchi’s guitar, which in their shared use of long tones and shifting modulation speeds almost blend into a single voice, the opening sections of this performance are some of the most magical music the trio has committed to tape thus far.

After an interlude of spoken vocals in both Japanese and English, Haino makes a dramatic entrance on guitar. Against O’Rourke and Ambarchi’s increasingly intense electronic backdrop, Haino unleashes a stunning passage of slowly moving chromatic melodies and sudden shrieking explosions bathed in distortion and reverb. By the time we reach the third side, the guitar/bass/drums power trio is established and lurches into a passage of massive, lumbering rock that threatens to fall apart at every beat, O’Rourke’s strummed chordal work on six string bass creating a harmonic density equivalent to a second guitar. An abrupt edit throws the listener in media res into a frantic locked groove grounded by fuzzed out bass patterns and caveman drums. As Haino moves through a variety of approaches, from massive edifices of stuttering fuzz to ominous swarms of feedback, the trio eventually stumble into a kind of Harmolodic military tattoo, Haino’s guitar weaving and slashing across the rhythm section’s irregular accents. Moving through an epic opening duet for O’Rourke on Hammond and Haino’s wailing guitar, the fourth side eventually ramps up into a frenetic finale of mad bass riffing, crackling snare hits and guitar squall.“Caught in the dilemma of being made to choose” This makes the modesty which should never been closed off itself Continue to ask itself: “Ready or not?” is a testament to the continuing power and invention of this trio, who continue to seek out new terrain after over a decade working together. 2LP set presented in a lavish gatefold sleeve on heavy stock along with inner sleeves containing live pics by Tsuyoshi Kamaike. Photography by Jim O’Rourke, design by Lasse Marhaug and translation by Alan Cummings.

Drift, their fifth studio album sees PIANOS BECOME THE TEETH taking
another sonic step forward to craft a musical statement that truly
transcends genres
For the recording of Drift, the band took it back to basics, starting at a familyowned cabin in the woods of Virginia, that they transformed into an analog
recording studio. The band lived together, recorded together and ate dinners
together where they would listen to the day's recordings, talk about them and pull
them apart and reworking them, creating what may be their finest album to date.
Per front man Kyle Durfey, "Something that we really took away from this
experience was just the connection we had together. We produced the record
ourselves with our longtime friend/ collaborator/ engineer Kevin Bernsten who
recorded our first two records." The recordings that the band created using
innovative recording techniques, recording 100% analog are sonically transportive
and certain to mystify and inspire generations of recording artists. All the echoes
were made with old echoplexes and tape delay, which made for a really organic
record. With Bersten's help the band was able to take some of the weirder and
more ambitious ideas they had and turned them into reality making this a
fantastic album for immersive headphone listening.

Wonky noir specialist, Kercha, is back with five spun-out cuts, merging dubstep, jazz, garage, techno and a whole lot of weird.

‘Disarray’ is as discombobulating as its title suggests, a slinky beat hidden among umpteen odds and ends from Kercha’s cabinet of curiosities. A subby wiggle here, a far-off siren there, the warm tinkling of a Fender Rhodes, and was that someone falling down the stairs? Our only constant allies are a vaguely disturbing vocal and a bass clarinet that’s definitely up to no good.

‘Witness’ employs a similar palette but switches tactics, stripping back to the basics as faint whispers and the ever-growing presence of a whirring alarm suggest something dangerous might be lurking around the corner.

‘Conjugate’ is more direct, the percussion elevated from its usual backseat as thudding kicks and taught snares make their presence felt among the digi-dub wobbles — a theme repeated on digital bonus track ‘New World’, though there, jagged mid-bass lines provide an extra dollop of screwface-inciting muck.

And bringing this leg of DNO’s journey to a close is ‘Long Way’, which rumbles along like a lonely night train, its chugging bassline matched with eerie engine whistles, the rhythmic clink of a cowbell and, somewhere deep in the mix, the familiar clickety-clack of tracks.

Weaving together disparate worlds like some interdimensional architect, Kercha simultaneously places us among the inebriated haze and freewheeling expression of a basement jazz club, and the 10-tonne rhythms that have fuelled DNO’s parent party The Mine for the past decade, and will continue to do so into the future.

Rhythms of postmodern realism at the very bottom of the DNO.

brand new full length album release from acclaimed rapper Open Mike Eagle

Distilling Sounds From The Now 70 Years Old Archive Of The Darmstadt Summer Courses For New Music, The Berlin Based Electronic Artist Hanno Leichtmann Presents A Stunning New Album Which Is Remix, Collage And Homage At The Same Time. Mastered And Cut By Rashad Becker At D&m.

On His Latest Work "nouvelle Aventure", Berlin's Hanno Leichtmann (who Besides His Solo Works Also Plays With Jan Jelinek And Andrew Pekler In Groupshow And Recently Released His 2nd Album With Valerio Tricoli On Entr'acte) Presentshis Very Individual Approach To The Task Of Remixing And Reworking The Imd Archive. As In His Previous Installations (e.g. "skin, Wood, Traps" For Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt, Celebrating The 100th Birthday Of The Drumset), The Electronic Artist Distills His Sound Material Exclusively From A Thematically Fixed Archive, In This Case: Concert Recordings, Lectures And Discussions Fromthe Now 70 Years Old Archive Of The Famous Darmstadt Summer Courses For New Music (stockhausen, Nono, Ligeti, Xenakis Et.al.). Originally A 6-channel Installation As Part Of "historage" At Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt, The Composition Is Here Presented As A 46 Minutes Stereo Mix. Leichtmann Sent Thesubjectively-chosen Sounds Through His Unique Machinery Of Voltage-controlled (micro-) Loopers, Re-recorded Them And Then In A Last Step Pieced Them Together In His Studio, Primarily Applying The Traditional Parameters Of Early Electronic (tape) Music (amplitude, Pitch / Speed, Playback Direction, Series / Cuts, But Most Of All: Repetition. The Result Is A Stunning Albumwhich Is Remix, Collage And Homage At The Same Time - And A Highly Psychedelic Affair, As Mirrored By The Amazing Artwork By Caro Mikalef (cabina).

In 2020, a year shaped by stringent COVID-19 restrictions, many of us paused for thought about our collective futures. For First Light Records, this reflection, plus the support of Sound and Music's Composer-Curator programme, led to the development of Unbuilt Sound, a new series of commissions centred around acoustic ecology; the relationship between listener and environment. The first iteration of the Unbuilt Sound series sees Flora Yin-Wong retreat to an isolated cabin outside Machynlleth, North Wales, to collect the field recordings that provide the basis for her folklore-inspired album, The Sacrifice.

A collage of twisted field recordings, rich waves of synth, and whispered vocals, The Sacrifice oscillates between gentle familiarity and dreamlike distortions, inspiring a folkloric sense of place that extends across time. Softly dissonant drones envelop the sounds of rocks underfoot and rippling pools, a continuous call and response between artist and landscape. These themes are perhaps best captured on 'Willow Bends', which features spoken word written and performed by Berlin's Rachel Lyn. "Ride," she says, "these ancient and contemporary currents, carrying their secrets from up-stream. Wanderwaves, when pebbles skip across the ripples, I reflect upon it, this water mirror..."

For "Spectres", a 6-track split release, Buttechno teams up with DJ SPEEDSICK, a Chicago-based artist, famous for his raw and uncompromising approach to sound. Together they explore sonic and textural possibilities of the extreme forms of dancefloor music employing distinct ways of sound manipulation. Buttechno's side features highly saturated textures being torn out, dissected and sewed back together with a wicked use of spectral processing. On the other side, Dj Speedsick, known for reamping his material with guitar amplifiers and cabinets, puts out tracks that bear unique sonic qualities and transform the usual sense of space and distance. The underwordly sounds and high-speed beats presented on this split go beyond the common bounds of dancefloor music, exposing the spectres that dwell between the genres.

“V I N C E N T” is FKJ’s second album and signals a new dawn, not just as a go-to producer and remixer for artists like PinkPantheress and Moses Sumney but as an artist in his own right, continuously selling out headline tours across the globe with his acclaimed ‘one-man-band’ live shows, and having a billion plus streams across all platforms for his music.

The concept for “V I N C E N T” came about during a solo trip to Los Angeles before 2020. “I just stayed in this house totally on my own, turned my phone off and had some time away from everything to figure out what I wanted to do.” He realised he wanted to tap into the freedom of being a teenager: “back then, I was making music strictly for playfulness, without overthinking it,” he says. “V I N C E N T’s” opening and closing songs underline the sentiment of the new album: the future-jazz of ‘Way Out’ (a playful mini soundtrack in one; a dainty piano motif underscored by a skittering trap beat and serene strings) and the lullaby-styled “Stay A Child”. “I wanted to get back some of that lost innocence of making music purely for pleasure,” he says.

Back in his home studio in the Philippines, with no wifi and an impending global lockdown, FKJ was quite literally cut off from the world, able to explore music’s endless possibilities. “Sometimes I would get into it for the whole night and go to bed when the sun came up.” Out of this freedom comes an expressionistic, touching album that’s impossible to pin down. There’s no more hiding behind a branch of leaves, as he did on the cover of his 2017 debut: “V I N C E N T” marks FKJ out as a crucial new voice. He’s redefining chillout music with his bursts of late-night jazz sax and piano, coupled with his wood-cabin whispery vocals, recalling Bon Iver’s early work, and those Santana-styled guitar flourishes.

Much of “V I N C E N T” is wilfully romantic, sometimes super sexy, and often with its head in the clouds, as on tracks like “Us”, a dreamy ode to his wife June, or “IHM”, which has a 90s hip-hop flavour slowed right down to lights-out tempo. Not entirely a solo record, ((( O )))) appears on ‘Brass Necklace’ – which has the soft power of The Internet and Stevie Wonder’s keys. It’s no wonder that lead single ‘A Moment of Mystery’, featuring Toro Y Moi, has a spacey vibe: while recording in San Francisco together, FKJ, Toro and his keyboard player Tony took some of what Tony called “holy water” – “we shared this bottle and took a bit of a trip,” laughs FKJ. The result is a gentle electronic ode to long-term love that could rival Tame Impala for melodic progginess.

Little Dragon’s Yukimi Nagano vocal, meanwhile, laces its way through the stunning “Can’t Stop”, and there is a call back to FKJ’s dancier beginnings with “Let’s Live”, a galvanising techno-pop number that blends piano, handclaps and soulful vocals to dazzling effect. Each of FKJ’s songs glistens, lambently, with a myriad of ideas but it never sounds overblown or too dizzying.

“V I N C E N T” is a marvel – and testament to the magic that can happen when you dig deep. “This was a challenging record,” he says. “I’m a perfectionist and it’s hard to shake that off. But once I did, and I let the music take over, I felt totally free.”

Minru is the project of Caroline Blomqvist, a Swedish musician based in Berlin. Woven from light and shadow, the interplay of her folk and indie-rock blend appears from a personal space of finding life after death. On her debut LP »Liminality« she paints melody in soft tones, whispering secrets to navigate feelings of loss.

Built around winding layers of acoustic guitar, piano, and strings, Minru is a surprisingly uplifting and stirring testament to Blomqvist’s own suffering from the passing of someone close to her. Returning to Berlin from Sweden feelings of grief, confusion, and pain travelled with her, and these emotions prompted the journey both of and within the album, heard as a dreamlike actualisation of wandering lost between them. "I read that Carl Jung used the word "»Liminality«” to describe the psychological process of transitioning. I instantly felt seen; it reflected my own experience and the feelings I carried whilst making the album – a sense of the old certainties being gone, but the new not being quite there yet,” she says.

Defined as "the threshold separating one space from another" »Liminality« moves between feeling the ground beneath your feet fall away, fighting through the darkness and the doubt, and the emerging shades of hope and light as you painstakingly make peace with mortality and find yourself as a person again. "I am happy to have encapsulated this moment of time in sound," Blomqvist says, "it will always be there as a memory."

Flourishing from a preferred position of solitude, »Liminality« sees Blomqvist’s vision radiate with intensity from her home-based studio in Neukölln - a small, 2-room apartment with squeaky old wooden floors. Capturing the intimacy of the space, she recorded vocals and synth on gear partly borrowed from friends (to swiftly reunite it with its owners), and the songs flow with a stream of consciousness as feelings become entwined with melody. Time-restraint drew the process to a natural close, preventing Blomqvist from losing herself to experimentation. “Maybe I would have been stuck in »Liminality«, trying out sounds forever,” she suggests of the way ‘Into the well’s instrumental swims into a warm stream of synth pads. "It’s the cosiest moment on the album,” she says, “Cosy is a feeling I always strive for in life."

Finished and self-produced at a Berlin-Lichtenberg recording studio alongside musical friends (Povel Widestrand, Tobias Blessing, Sunniva Lilian Shaw Of-Tordarroch, Marlene Becher and Liv Solveig Wagner), the result is beautifully detailed and rich like the folk of her Swedish roots. First picking up a guitar as a kid and becoming obsessed with it, she would skip school to spend extra hours mastering the instrument, grappling to perfect the ‘Stairway to Heaven’ intro. “As a child I was fascinated by my dad’s acoustic guitars around the house and would hit the strings to make them sound,” she recalls. After attending music high school in Gothenburg and playing in bands during her teens, Blomqvist later moved to Germany. As well as enjoying walks at Tempelhofer Feld and coffee at Leuchtstoff café, she performed with Tuvaband, Adna, and Tara Nome Doyle and played in Berlin venues Loophole and Schokoladen, where music became her world. With the passing of time she felt a growing urge to find an outlet for her own songs; Minru was the answer along with her first »Yearnings« EP.

Now writing whenever she returns to Sweden, within the calm and stillness of her family’s mountainside cabin, her skilfully constructed arrangements summon the comforting atmosphere of home. “I hope listeners will feel inspired to slow down a bit, create, draw, cook something. Just be in the moment that is now.” »Liminality« is the kind of record that rewards attention. Give this album your time, it will give you its soul.