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‘Was there ever a more perfect film for Glass’s lyrical manner? He refers to his own past, but the way in which the material is treated transforms it inevitably into that eternal present. Such a feeling of fragile beauty is a rare achievement.’ – Gramophone

‘Simple and complex by turn, Glass’s score adds dignity and depth to the movie, and to the tragedies and triumphs, big or small, of ordinary life.’
– Guardian

‘Underpinning the anguish at the heart of The Hours a beautiful score. Glass’s motifs capture the passage of time and the universality of human experience.’ – Classic FM’s Best Soundtracks

Nonesuch releases Philip Glass’s award-winning soundtrack to The Hours on vinyl for the first time to coincide with its 20th anniversary and Glass’ 85th birthday concert season. Originally released in December 2002, Glass’s score to the Academy Award-winning film was itself nominated for an Academy Award, as well as a Golden Globe and a Grammy, and went on to win a BAFTA and a Classical BRIT.

Directed by Stephen Daldry, The Hours is the story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Based on Michael Cunningham’s 1999 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, with a screenplay by David Hare, the film interweaves the stories of three women – a book editor in New York (Meryl Streep), a young mother in California (Julianne Moore), and the author Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman). Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.

Philip Glass’s score was conducted by Nick Ingman, with Michael Reisman on piano and the Lyric Quartet, and recorded at Abbey Road Studios and Air Studios, London. The score was a key element in this acclaimed triptych of dramatic tales. ‘The inter-cutting of personal stories over a wide span of time,’ said NPR, ‘is held together by a single music approach.’

In his original liner note, Michael Cunningham wrote, ‘Each novel I’ve written has developed a soundtrack of sorts; a body of music that subtly but palpably helped shape the book in question. The one constant since I started trying to write novels, however – my only ongoing act of listening fidelity – has been the work of Philip Glass. I love Glass’s music almost as much as I love Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. Glass, like Woolf, is more interested in that which continues than he is in that which begins, climaxes, and ends; he insists, as did Woolf, that beauty often resides more squarely in the present than it does in the present’s relationship to past or future. So, when I heard he’d agreed to contribute the music to the film version of The Hours, it seemed both inevitable and too good to be true. I’m not sure if I can offer any higher praise than this: When I saw the movie with the music added, I thought automatically of how I could use the soundtrack, when it came out, to help me finish my next book.’

“This is a movie about art and how art affects life," explains Philip Glass. “The story is very complicated and the music could take on a very important role in the film, as I saw it – to make it viewable, to make it comprehensible, so the stories of the three women in the film didn’t seem separate, that they were tied together. The music had to be the thread that tied the movie together. There’s no question that the emotional point of view is conveyed by the music. Music is the arrow you shoot in the air. Everything follows that.’

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1937, Philip Glass is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the Juilliard School. By 1974, Glass had created a large collection of music for The Philip Glass Ensemble. The period culminated in the landmark opera, Einstein on the Beach. Since Einstein, Glass’s repertoire has grown to include music for opera, dance, theater, orchestra, and film. His scores have received Academy Award nominations (including Kundun and The Hours, both released on Nonesuch, as well as Notes on a Scandal) and a Golden Globe (The Truman Show). Recent works include Glass’s memoir, Words Without Music, Glass’s first Piano Sonata, opera Circus Days and Nights, and Symphony No. 14. Glass received the Praemium Imperiale in 2012, the US National Medal of the Arts from President Barack Obama in 2016, and 41st Kennedy Center Honors in 2018.

Nonesuch’s relationship with Glass began in 1985, with the release of the score for Paul Schrader’s Mishima. In addition to The Hours (2002) and Kundun (1997), over the years other Glass works on Nonesuch have included Einstein on the Beach (1993), Music in Twelve Parts (1996), the soundtracks for Powaqqatsi (1988) and Koyaanisqatsi (1998), Glass Box (2008), and Kronos Quartet’s Performs Philip Glass (1995), amongst others.

Full Circle is the sixth album by long time Ghost Box roster member, The Advisory Circle. Self-avowed synaesthesiac, Cate Brooks conjures a very visual fantasy in four acts (the vinyl version across four sides of a luxurious gatefold double 10”). Her tracks evoke human dramas played out against the timeless backdrop of a utopian built environment, where leisure, luxury, elegance and romance are always in fashion.

Brooks' music is by turns ambient, dramatic, upbeat and melancholic. It's instrumental electronica of the very highest calibre, an expert and masterly manipulation of electronic equipment both old and new. Light touches of acoustic and electric instrumentation and flourishes of both tape and digital sound manipulation add colour throughout.

This long running solo project is saturated in 70s and 80s TV and library music influences, and in some ways Full Circle is a call back to the 2005 debut EP Mind How You Go. However, the music and production have evolved over the yers, into a distinctively rich and three dimensional soundworld. The album wears its influences and sonic components proudly, but feels contemporary, cool, and fresh. Brooks' music career predates and now transcends the world of hauntological electronica that it inspired.

Little Wings' album "Rosy's Own" is a limited release in collaboration with Perpetual Doom & Moone Records filmed and recorded on an undisclosed ranch in the mountains of Southern California. Kyle Field's intimate performance shone a light through the gray haze shrouding the skyline, with the only accompaniment being the sound of nature.

The long-awaited full-length from Tommy and The Ohs: Mariposa Gold. Ohs’ mastermind Thomas Oliverio has worked alongside some of the biggest names in music today—but with Mariposa Gold, he takes a sharp turn into the psychedelic reaches of American roots music and the avant-garde. The result is a wild trip through a lavish soundscape, a California of fantasy and heartbreak, where genres and traditions bleed together in “the big surreal.” Guided by Oliverio’s fine-tuned sense of production and melody, Mariposa Gold is lush with arrangements that strive toward new and surprising dimensions. These songs sway like hummable country weepers sent through the looking glass, joining sheer virtuosity, worthy of the best session players, to a distinct experimental sensibility shaped by bluegrass, country, and psychedelia.

Los Angeles-bred "SoCal Country" singer Sam Outlaw will release a pedal
steel-stamped, new wave-inspired record titled 'Popular Mechanics'
Solely writing seven of the album's 11 tracks, Outlaw fuses the sounds of his
favorite artists of the '80s - Kenny Loggins, Cyndi Lauper, Tom Petty - with stories
influenced by the great innovators of the 20th century and the engineers that
make up his own family tree. The ambitious direction of 'Popular Mechanics' may
seem like a sudden shift from Outlaw's country-leaning albums, 'Angeleno' (2015)
and 'Tenderheart' (2017), which garnered appearances on CBS Saturday
Morning's Anthony Mason, NPR, The New Yorker, Wall Street Journal and more,
but the gears actually started turning in early 2018 after Outlaw shelved some
new material he recorded in Southern California. Following his cross- country
move to Music City that same year, Outlaw found unexpected inspiration during a
visit from his father, a mechanical engineer, and it prompted him to shift his focus
to the technological side of music creation. The epiphany came when he
connected industrial machines with the role technology plays in recorded music.
Growing up on the hits of the '80s, an incredible time of transformation in music
history, he remembers everything came into focus for the album once he
envisioned the title, 'Popular Mechanics`

(Cargo Collective Title) RIYL: Barker, burger/ink, Andy Stott, Shackleton, Monolake, Jan Jelinek, Perila, Fax. 180gLP in 350gsm jacket + 190gsm inner + DL. CD in custom mini-gatefold paperboard jacket. T. Gowdy has kept up a productive albeit mostly virtual pace since the release of Therapy With Colour (his third full-length album and first for Constellation) which dropped just as things were locking down back in spring 2020: performances at numerous festivals including MUTEK Montréal, Node Festival and NEW NOW; audiovisual pieces exhibited at various European galleries and events; a track and video for Constellation’s Corona Borealis Longplay Singles Series; sound design for the documentary Atalaya by filmmaker Emma Roufs. Gowdy now returns with Miracles, his second full-length for Constellation, which draws on source materials originally performed in 2018 for an unreleased audio/visual project based around surveillance footage—a precursor to video1capped, monitor-based horizons that soon took on new meanings. Re-immersing himself in those recordings, Gowdy disassembles and deploys them as raw source material for new experiments with vactrols, noise gates and analog-to-digital triggering and aliasing, the original recordings juxtaposed anew amidst their successive textural and rhythmic treatments. Gowdy keeps this re-composition process stripped down, elemental and purposive, guided by an ascetic Aufhebung: synthesis as sublation—subjecting a temporal material/theme to analysis and transformation, reintegrating to form a whole that overcomes what it preserves without erasure, reshaping and intrinsically carrying its origins forward. Where Therapy With Colour was strictly and rigorously a set of stereo live performances, Miracles fuses iterative—though still spartan—layers of performance. “Therapy With Colour was about healing through self-hypnosis; Miracles is about forging a future with memory through subjection to trigger mechanisms” notes Gowdy. The result is a captivating collection of minimal IDM and oscillated electronics from the Montréal/Berlin producer, working primarily in a 120-140 BPM zone of tonal percussion and corrugated pulse. Gowdy’s sensibility and sound palette gets deeper and dirtier, summoning new pathways of alluvial flicker and abraded euphoria. As the album progresses, low-pass gate vactrols coalesce into a clear and vital theme, conveying immanence through woody timbres at times reminiscent of the Shinrin-yoku aesthetic (Japanese ‘forest bathing’), though always with a grainy transcendence rather than invoking any clean pure sheen. Gowdy consistently heats and heightens the presence of each component in the mix, balancing different elements in democratic compression/distortion, attaining an unornamental and earnest form of mantric-industrial majesty. Miracles is live, corporeal, activated electronic music of the highest caliber, deployed with monastic and meditative focus. Tracklist: 1 350J 2 Miracles 3 Déneigeuse 4 Transcend I 5 U4A 6 Vidisions 7 Clipse 8 Transcend II

This volume "Caribbean Rare Groove" is an invitation to discover music from the cultural mix of the islands and countries located on the Caribbean Sea. From Haiti to the Bahamas via the French West Indies, this journey explores the traditional rhythms of Soca, Calypso or Biguine that musicians such as Gordon Henderson, Max Cilla or the group Skah-Shah have skilfully blended with Soul, Funk or Disco influences, creating a unique groove with multiple facets. Have a good trip!

Third volume in our series of Afro-Latin sounds from the golden period of the seminal Discos Fuentes label in Colombia. An outstanding selection of 26 hard-to find-tracks, many reissued for the first time, covering a wide array of Afro-rooted genres, with an stronger focus on the music's folkloric origins than in previous volumes, comprising recordings by the likes of Michi Sarmiento, Wganda Kenya, The Latin Brothers, Los Corraleros De Majagual, Peregoyo_ It's been a few years, but Vampisoul is back with the next installment of Colombian tropical bangers from the deep vaults of Discos Fuentes. The term Afrosound denotes an always exciting, sometimes surprising soundtrack chronicling the embrace, development, dissemination, and commercialization of the country's rich Afro-Coastal musical heritage over more than four decades. It is the proud sound of African-rooted culture translated, transformed, and transmitted through the commercial enterprise of Discos Fuentes, and this third collection offers an even more diverse and chronologically wide-ranging array of tracks than the previous two volumes, with an even stronger focus on the music's folkloric origins. The unifying factor this time is the same: African roots or influences and the period of experimentation, self-expression, upheaval, rebellion, and rebirth in the industry, nurtured by the label and its stable of musicians, song-writers, producers, and engineers. Although this volume does not list Fruko Y Sus Tesos in the track-by-track credits, the presence of Julio Ernesto Estrada Rincón can be felt throughout, with the first half setting the stage for his artistic birth, schooling and eventual emergence at the label, and the second half featuring bands that he was an integral part of or had a hand in creating, producing, and composing for. And with that said, we dedicate this collection to Fruko: long may he reign as The King of Afrosound. This incredible stream of black gold adorned and enriched the public airways of Cali, Buenaventura, Cartagena, Baranquilla, to become a symbol of pride and part of Colombia's collective identity. It includes an extended booklet with notes by compiler Pablo Yglesias aka DJ Bongohead.

Taken from Skinshape’s ‘Arrogance Is The Death Of Men’ album. For fans of Khruangbin, El Michels Affair, Tame Impala and Bonobo. Gentle guitars underpin Dorey’s vocals on this laid back song that brings hope to us all. Slide guitar towards the track’s close and multi layered backing gives the track a Californian sunshine feel. Returning to the sounds of ‘I Didn’t Know’ and his ‘Filoxiny’ album ‘Another Day’ is already a fan’s favourite. The b-side is a flute driven dreamy affair with Dorey’s vocals once more punctuated by guitar and a subtle but catchy drum beat. This double header 7” closes the book on Skinshape’s ‘Arrogance Is The Death Of Men’ album preparing the world for album number seven later this year.

Berlin-based psychedelic sludge and dark postmetal heavy weights Shovel are gearing up for the
release of their self-titled, first full length album.
Ever since their first gig, Shovel create an immediate
connection with the vibrant scene of Berlin and,
following their first demo in 2019, they managed to
establish themselves within the heavy music
underground.
The four piece connect the immediacy of an intense
riffage, existential screams and the elusiveness of
experimental sounds and otherworldly atmospheres.
Emerging from the mud of sludge, doom and post
metal, their intense music travels through the
openness and freedom of psychedelic textures to
end up crawling in black metal claustrophobia and
despair with an unconventional and distinct sound.
Shovel’s album was recorded at Big Snuff Studio,
Berlin by producer and engineer Richard Behrens
(Kadavar, Samsara Blues Experiment, Elder). The
album was mastered in The Atomic Garden Studio
(Oakland, California, USA) by Grammy-nominated
producer Jack Shirley (Amenra, Deafheaven,
Oathbreaker).
For fans of EyeHateGod, Iron Monkey, Grief,
Unearthly Trance, Crowbar, Soilent Green, Cavity,
Buzzoven.
LP pressed on clear green coloured vinyl.

In 1992, The Wedding Present decided to release a limited edition single every month, each featuring an original track on the A side and a cover on the B side. The tracks were compiled as two LPs called Hit Parade 1 and Hit Parade 2 and re-released as a double CD in 2003 called The Hit Parade.

The plan to release 12 singles in a year was an attempt to match Elvis Presley's record of 12 top 40 singles in a year which he had achieved in 1957. The singles, each in an edition of 10,000, were deleted soon after release. They were critically acclaimed and each charted in the top 40


Pressed on black vinyl.

We have dug for you inside the Californian rock of 60s surf music to extract the pearls of the genre. Enjoy ! Originals Versions Remastered

Glenn Fallows and Mark Treffel released their first album, ‘The Globeflower Master Vol. 1’, on Mr Bongo in September 2021. With its lush, warm and timeless productions paying homage to classic 60s and 70s soundtrack composers, it was very well received and struck a chord with the scene’s connoisseurs. Louder Than War emphatically stated, "It’s impossible not to like The Globeflower Masters Vol. 1.”, with Gigwise echoing that praise “slickly compelling retro vibes”.

The Globeflower Master Vol. 2 is the slightly edgier and more grown-up sequel to Mark and Glenn's 2021 debut album. For this excursion, the Brighton-based duo wanted to lean a little further into their European film soundtrack influences, with particular inspiration mined from the works of Stefano Torossi, David Shire, and Roger Webb. This expansion of their sound builds upon the rich tapestry of cinematic funk à la David Axelrod, Serge Gainsbourg and Morricone that fashioned Vol. 1. Here the arrangements, melodies, and harmonies have been refined; only what is needed is left. Pulled into its vortex for the ride. This record doesn’t pull any punches.

The recordings are drenched in visual imagery; they stimulate the senses and invite the imagination to roam. Ethereal, hazy memories of lost summers are triggered; the beauty of listening to music when driving along a deserted road in the Italian countryside lined with cypress trees heading towards the sun, and beyond. As the musical journey progresses, we even take a voyage to another planet. Whether these memories are real or constructed recollections of scenes from film and television, the tracks evoke a feeling of nostalgia and comfort. Like all the best music, 'The Globeflower Masters Vol. 2' takes us out of ourselves even if it's only temporarily.

To consolidate the shape of the sound, drummers Timmy Rickard and Ollie Boorman (who also featured on Vol. 1) and John Maiden (Tricky collaborator) sprinkled their magic and forged their stamps onto the recordings. Collaborating with other talented musicians contributed to the picture Mark and Glenn wanted to paint. The ‘Globeflower Master Vol. 2’ is a fitting tribute to the music they love and care deeply about and a glorious addition to their musical world.

An’archives announce the release of Ricshari, the first LP from Japanese free improvising duo MAI MAO. Consisting of Shizuo Uchida of Hasegawa-Shizuo, Albedo Gravitas, Archeus, Kito Muzukumi Rouber, TERROR SHIT, UH, etc. on bass, and Kyosuke Terada, of HUH (who have their own release due on An’archives soon), TERROR SHIT, Bay City Rolaz, Praymate, The Obey Unit, etc. on guitar, they’ve previously released two wild cassettes, Curvature Improvement Plan (Haang Niap, 2020) and Folk Dope Rally (2021), both documenting one-take improvisations from live gigs. Ricshari was recorded by Nobuki Nishiyama in January 2021, and is proof, if any was needed, that this duo is one of the most fiercely unique, out -there units currently extant – in Japan, or anywhere, for that matter.

The music of MAI MAO seems to proceed by opposites and juxtaposition, shifting from frantic, hectic runs of splattering note spray to moments of granular stasis, where Uchida and Terada coax their instruments into and out of deep wells of silence, or rest, temporarily, in a lagoon of fermenting fuzz. Spiralling kinetics are largely the order of the day, though – the opener, “Chew a flying flash prayer”, skitters here and there, guitar and bass jumping over one another in games of leapfrog and Twis ter, finding new ways to perplex and puzzle the listener, and perhaps each other in the process, Uchida and Terada fully committed to the short -circuiting spirit of the moment.

The energy here is hyperactive, but it also speaks of a curious and committed attention to improvisatory responsiveness, one that’s just as likely to fork off into different directions in a split second – it’s real edge-of-the-seat stuff, as though the hands are moving too fast for the mind to follow. That’s all the better, then, to let the gush of genuinely free-thinking, devoted duo improvisation to fly at its most playful and intelligent. File next to the likes of Davey Williams & LaDonna Smith and their TransMuseq companions, or th e wickedly perplexing bass-synth/trombone duets of Dave Dove Paul Duo, and you’ve some idea of what’s going on here, provisionally at least, ‘cos this one’s an enthralling, yet welcoming, head-scratcher of the highest calibre.

DARK MEDITATION may hail from Seattle, but their sound is steeped in
traditions associated with other corners of the globe'England's workingclass cities, frosty Scandinavian towns, Southern California meccas of
the '80s
Or as the band puts it, DARK MEDITATION sounds like the bastard amalgamation
of Venom and Judas Priest fighting it out on the Sunset Strip while Danzig and
King Diamond cheer them on. While such reference points may suggest a nexus
of evil kitsch and arena-level theatrics, the band's debut album Polluted Temples
comes from a place of down- and- out urgency and punk ethics, adopting the
gloomy anthems and riff worship of heavy metal titans for their sonic exorcisms
rather than their rock n' roll panache. It's an album that basks in big hooks,
righteous guitar work, and an arena-level stomp without compromising any grit,
grime, or guts.
Tracks: Prelude / Babalon.Money.Magick / Haunt of Fear / Strange Caress (of the
night) / Masters Coil / Desolation Days / The Howling Wild / Drink of the Blade /
Nocturnal Forever / Polluted Temples

The Crystal Furs are a queer indie pop/rock band from Portland, OR. They write melodic, textured songs about anxiety, architecture, lesbians, and queer feels - loud music for quiet hearts. In Coastal Light is the band’s fifth album, following on from 2020 LP Beautiful and True, and hears them honing their blend of grungey riffs and 60s-girl-group vocals. As featured on: KEXP, WFMU, BBC Radio, Freeform Portland, KBOO Portland, Portland Radio Project, Chasing Infinity on WRUW, Get In Her Ears, Grrls Like Us “Had Portland’s (via Forth Worth) The Crystal Furs been around in the late 80s – early 90s there is a possibility they would have been signed to Sarah Records, home of OG jangle pop bands like The Field Mice and The Sea Urchins. Then again with their sunny, bright melodies, they might have found themselves riding the charts alongside The Bangles.” 50Thirdand3rd “It’s something of a well-worn expression, that adult life is about ‘finding oneself’, but it certainly seems for the Buchanans, and their band, that all of the changes in their life have enabled them to do just that. And what they’ve found are winning alt. indie-pop purveyors in the mould of Helen Love. Beautiful And True is an album whose title could not be clearer: it is what it says it is.” Get In Her Ears “Think of those jangly C86 tunes mixing genteel harmonies, spiraling keyboards, melodic guitar/ bass sounds and wistful vocals and you begin to get the drift here.” Into Creative “From the opening tones of the Farfisa organ on ‘Comeback Girls’ the lo-fi indie pop shines through, with jangly guitars, unassuming instrumental breaks and a naturalistic production that puts the Furs right there in the room with you.” Cambridge Music Review“Retro without being jaded, cute without being cliched what The Crystal Furs do so well – and demonstrate deeply on both tracks in this release – is as we’ve said pair light, sparkling and downright danceable melodies with dark-hearted lyrics emerging from shadowy inner worlds and harder lived experiences.” Popoptica 1. Winter Stars 2. Charlatan 3. Miss Hughes 4. California Misses You 5. Stay With Me 6. Mr Moses 7. Rose-Colored Glasses 8. We Never Sang 9. Please Fade Away10. Girl in the Background

Perpetual Doom is proud to present a special double-LP from Mountain Brews. Spearheaded by Jake Longstreth, Los Angeles-based painter and co-host of Apple Music’s Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig, Mountain Brews was founded around a vital American tradition: sippin’ cold ones to the “tasteful palette of seventies rock.” Full of warm melodies and guitars that evoke a Mojave glow, Mountain Brews occupy the sunny spot right between the studio-slick hits of early Eagles and the laidback jams of the Grateful Dead. And now that their four previous EPS are available in a single package, there’s nothing left to do but grab a seat, turn up the music, and crack one open.

Mountain Brews are pros at keeping things loose and light. Recorded by the same group of old pals that make up a LA based Grateful Dead cover band, Richard Pictures—including Longstreth, Aaron Olson, Ryan Adlaf, and John Nixon—these seventeen tracks celebrate the early seventies’ spirit of easy-going collaboration. You can hear it when a guitar slide greets the opening strum on the title track, an assuming ode to the pleasures of drinking and hiking: “As we get to the top of the mountain, there’s a view,” Longstreth sings. “Take a load off and crack a few mountain brews.” And while the song boasts virtuoso playing worthy of Desperado, the vibe is less barstool machismo than six-pack camaraderie.

It’s a self-aware R&R mindset that pulses through tracks like “You Eagled,” which ponders both a great golf score and the trials of becoming “classic,” and “It’s My Masterpiece,” with its tightly coiled licks and breezy nonchalance with regards to inevitable civilizational demise. Sure, the Brews know there’s a down for every up. “Raised in a Place” and “Big Bummer Hotel” acknowledge that even the chillest California cowboys get the middle-aged blues, resurrecting the heartland synthesizers of late eighties Don Henley and Bruce Hornsby to find a little meaning in the madness. And Ezra Koenig and Danielle Haim contribute vocals to help “The Worst Margarita of My Life” go down just a little easier.

These four EPs were recorded between 2019 and 2021 in various bedrooms and studios across California. “Uphill From Here” brings it all back around as guitarist Aaron “Bobby” Olson sings about meeting Jake on the trail once again: “And it’s all uphill from here,” he sings. “We may have to stop and down these beers.” But whether it’s uphill or down, Mountain Brews makes it clear—the journey is better with company.

Leaving Records presents Under the Lilac Sky, the debut LP by Arushi Jain, an India-born, US-residing composer, modular synthesist, vocalist, technologist, and engineer. At six songs spanning 48 minutes of ambient synth ragas intended to be heard during the sunset hours, Under the Lilac Sky invites the listener to transport themselves through intentional listening. Jain states, “You know that moment when the sun is bidding farewell to the sky, and the colors turn into beautiful hues of purple and pink and everything in between? That is the moment that this album will shine the most. The deeper you listen, the more shades you’ll see.”

Jain’s work focuses on reinterpreting traditional Indian classical music through the lens of electronic instrumentation. She re-contextualizes ancient sounds in a modern framework, carrying the torch of electronic luminaries such as Suzanne Ciani and Terry Riley while pursuing personal explorations of her musical heritage and upbringing. Under the Lilac Sky is a cinematic statement of intent, an album that reverently nods to Jain’s musical history while presenting a bold sonic point of view. Jain states, “This album is the coming together of two distinct cultures of Hindustani classical and modular synthesizers representing the two parts of me that evolved into one whole in between my time in India and California”

Voice is emphasized as an essential element of the album, not just for the lyrics or the melodies but also as a source of texture. It is most recognizable when Jain sings aalaaps or sargam of the different ragas the songs are composed in, however her voice is deeply embedded in other, sometimes quieter layers of the record. Jain, who spent her childhood studying indian classical as a vocalist says, “At any given point, there is at least one layer in the record that carries my voice. The human voice is powerful and unique to every individual. My voice is unique to me, so I decided it should be present at all times even if it’s unrecognizable.”

Another core theme of Under the Lilac Sky is the time of day, and the role it plays in influencing how one interacts with the music. “Intrinsic to Indian classical music is the concept of Time and Seasonality. For each raga, there is a specific time of the day when it is meant to be heard for it to shine in it’s authenticity. It harkens to the question of when the environment around you is most in tune with your own sound and breath, and how it supports you in realizing your vision of the moment. This album is meant to be an ode to those timely rituals, and is best heard while you take a moment to do what you love.”

Jain’s exploratory musical ethos finds a like-minded home within Leaving Records’ “All Genre” philosophy. Jain is acutely aware of her role as a composer and modular synthesist reinterpreting a historical art form. “For Indian classical music, this is atypical. The music I compose is inspired by a centuries old tradition, yet aestheticized in a novel way, using the tools and technical innovations of analog synth movements. My art is crafted using machines that I’ve slowly fallen in love with and made my own.”