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Brazilian soul, psych, bossa and jazz, reimagined from Berlin, via the Dead Sea, on Moriah Plaza’s dreamy first album for Batov Records.

Moriah Plaza co-founders Tamir Chen and Moosh Lahav first encountered and fell in love with the beautiful and hypnotic sounds of Brazilian bossa nova and samba as children in Tel Aviv in the nineties, via the many local bands and tribute groups that had sprung up since the first wave of bossa had hit swept across the world. Likewise
they developed a fascination with elevator muzak, film soundtracks, and even the hotel pianist performing day-by-day in the lobby of the Sheraton Moriah where Tamir’s mother worked, overlooking the Dead Sea.

Relocating years later to the vastly different environment of Berlin, capital of a country that enjoyed its own Brazilian moment, Tamir and Moosh’s shared passion for Brazilian music would encourage them to create their own songs inspired by the warm pulse of Brazil, albeit a world apart, through a vastly different lens.
Whilst the initial inspiration for Moriah Plaza can be traced back to Tel Aviv and the Dead Sea, the band itself was conceived by Tamir and Moosh in Solarium Studio, Berlin, from the broken fragments of their former shoegaze band, Soda Fabric, who had the honour of backing outsider legend Daniel Johnston. They would go on to write and record their debut album in close collaboration with two Brazilians and fellow Berlin residents,, poet and singer Cecília Erisman, and singer, songwriter, synth operator and Tropical Disco Club founder Flavia Annechini.

The album opens with “Desendereçada”. Dirty drum machine beats thud away under flutes and extraneous noises and a spoken word commentary. The oddness and allure of the intro is a perfect introduction to the world of Moriah Plaza.

The pace picks up on “Mais Amor”. A beautiful Brazilian soul jazz number with a sublime vocal from Flavia Annechini that will surely appeal to the global dancefloor jazz scene. “Te Peço” daws us in deeper with sweetest jazz vocal over an irresistible bassline and bossa drums that transforms halfway through into a modern soul rhythm crowned by flute and horns. A flute solo from Moosh Lahav leads us into the final uplifting refrain.

The Pharoah Sanders meets Ravi Shankar in Rio grooves of “Estelar”
have that fresh feeling that will certainly appeal to fans of modern favourites Rebecca Vasment and Ruby Rushton. Next up, the mysterious “Lagoon de Merim” is practically two songs in one, the first half an atmospheric string-topped number somewhere between Arthur Verocai and Cinematic Orchestra, before snappy drums beats and playful organ chords introduce a slow brassy samba that fills the whole sonic room.

“Teu Porto” is a must for all DJs, mixing calypso, highlife and house, lilting guitars and smooth vocals by Cecilia Erismann.. The deep samba house grooves of “Samba Moosh” close us out. The rich blend of sweet vocals, soaring flute and gritty synths carry us off into the sunset.
Moriah Plaza’s self-titled debut album is a major addition to the global soul and jazz scene. providing the perfect summer soundtrack for music lovers around the world.

Fredfades is finally ready with his second album as a solo artist. The producer and DJ and has remained active as a musician ever since his debut single in 2008. Since he released his debut solo album 'Warmth' six years ago he's ben diving into a bunch of different genres and cross-ing musical landscapes such as ambient, hip-hop and house, which has led to releases and productions across labels like his own Mutual Inten-tions imprint, as well as bigger labels like Stones Throw, Fresh Selects and Jakarta Records. This sonic voyage has resulted in ‘Caviar’ - an album that tells the story of a producer who's ready to let go of his youthful love and indulge himself to electronic music.

Fredfades name is more often seen on foreign club posters than back home in Norway. This has colored the musical expression of the Oslo-born multi-artist, and on ‘Caviar’ he is gathering inspiration from every corner of the world where he has traveled. You can clearly hear the inspi-rations from the sounds of Rome, Manchester, South-Africa, Detroit, New York, Berlin, Paris and the Balearic ocean, which are all well repre-sented throughout the album's eight tracks. If you close your eyes and put your ears close to the speakers you will hear loons, running water, African percussion instruments, roaring saxophones, bit-crushed samples, moaning women, TB 303’s, bottom-heavy basslines and recordings of whales communicating at the bottom of the ocean. Everything seamlessly put together for Fredfades’ own sonic world view. The album features a bunch of talented friends of Fred, such as Telephones or the vocalists MoRuf and Kristian Hamilton.

Despite being known as more of a progressive and edgy DJ that haunts down a lot of indie and private press electronic music, Fredfades has cultivated a more elegant and controversial output in his own music. His progressions often consist of dwelling jazz chords from electric pianos or mellow sub-filtered synth patches that creates space where he can unleash rowdy basslines, rhythm sections and leads just as confident and captivating as the man himself. On the jazzy ‘Tenerife 1994’ you can hear a tribute to one of Fred’s greatest heroes in music: Pharoah Sanders, while on ‘My Heart Is On The Edge’ and ‘Summer of Love’ the energy and euphoria is boiling over and directs your mind towards the summer raves which Fredfades is known to throw down in Oslo.

On the LP covers backside Fredfades is posing with a Korg Wavestation in front of the block where he grew up in the suburbs outside Oslo, while the front cover is showing an airbrushed illustration of Caviar from sturgeon - ‘From block to Beluga’. The black vinyl contains magic grooves created by an electronic musical convertite, with the power to transport the listener from a perpetual winter to the 90s warm dance floors and the 'Second Summer of Love’.

Angel Deradoorian and Kate NV are Decisive Pink - Ticket To Fame is their highly anticipated debut. After teasing the single 'Haffmilch Holiday' the duo amassed a rapturous response, with The Guardian calling it "a space-age-dancefloor swoon that brings to mind Kate Bush's Waking the Witch" and the New York Times highlighting the single as "substantive and thoroughly hypnotic". On their first LP they do not disappoint, calling on Kate NV's experimental pop leanings and Angel Deradoorian's taste for atmosphere and otherworldliness, Decisive Pink have created a playful and abstract album designed for escape and enchantment. Electronic pop at it's finest, the debut points to the fact that life is a puzzle, but you can still get a lot from living it. 'Destiny' is a smart take on the nature of belief, built on a question-and-answer format, where Angel plays a role as the seer, and Kate the enquirer. The poppy beat is reminiscent of Talking Heads' 'The Great Curve', from Remain in Light. There again, it could be a sinister take on Will Powers' 'Kissing with Confidence'. The synth squeaks, squelches and toots sound like the timid affirmation of the initiate. Ticket to Fame is also unashamedly romantic in atmosphere and tone. Romance is to be found in the simple pleasures, such as listening to a blackbird on the instrumental 'Rodeo', where warm synths, a melancholic guitar pattern and hissing rhythm combine with some vocal snippets to form a soothing contemplation. Then there is 'Ode to Boy'; a perfect pop track. The walking into the room of "more than just an ordinary boy" (doubtless "drunk with fire") allows a set of initially different, and shortened synth patterns to build to a glorious affirmation of the power of love. "Perfect pop music" Marc Riley, BBC6 Music And guess what? The vinyl comes in pink!

A recognize artist from the mouth to mouth is presenting this Ep on his own Label, Monotale Records, a part of Monotale's Instruments.

First track "Number 9" Begins with a barely intelligibly male vocal, that goes and comes in all kinds of glitchy processed ways, always surrounded by bass lines that comes from a non specific source or direction accompanied by pads who sustain the groove .
All of this mixed in a harsh rhythm that remains a classic techno house track.

Next track "If I was you..." is a lovely and capricious ambient passage with some blinks to pop songs inside, a very deep chords on synths that moves the track to another time/space.

The B sides opens with a energy, crazy, resonant and ever changing groove called "Creepy Little Heart", is a kind of track more close to breaks than techno and with some IDM remains of how is developed, cut it in the middle by a female vocal and morphing pads, it is the perfect balance between craziness and dance floor scenarios.

Second B side, "Manifest 9" closes the idea from the artist around the number 9. Is an unclassified style, maybe we can call it as a avant-garde propose, where there is no recognizable or obvious groove. The track is leading again by a male voice put it inside a glitch group of instruments and non standard mixing technics with thru all it is possible to hear a real manifest about music.

Fronted by former South London lovers rock vocal harmony group, Alpha (sisters Jackie & Jean Heron and Marlene Richardson), Take Three was the brain-child of writer/producer trio "S.H.E." - Steve Sinclair, Peter Hinds & Kevin Ellis.

Meeting each other at The Factory community centre in Paddington (now known as the Yaa Asantewa centre and in the last few years, The Yaa Centre) Steve & Kevin began a partnership writing and directing their own theatre productions as part of The Black Theatre Co-Op, which called the centre home at the time. When a song they had written together for one of their productions received praise and plaudits, the path toward writing and producing records began, bringing in more seasoned hand Peter Hinds - formerly a member of key brit funk groups Light of the World and Beggar & Co, and player with Incognito, Imagination & Loose Ends - to complete the circle.

Following on from Freestyle's reissue of the group's first single around this time last year, in the form of 1983's Tonight's the Night, we decided to drop another killer 12" from the Take Three vaults - this time it's their last single released as Take Three in 1985. Can't Get Enough (of Your Love) was originally licensed out to, and released by Andy Sojka's seminal Elite label. It features two super extended mixes - the A side's "Soul mix" showcases the girls's harmonies pinned down by a big & heavy synth bass groove before moving into boogie-dub territory, while the B side "Reggae mix" introduces an ofbeat skank heightening the vocal stylings' lovers-esque tendancies.

Like the winged half-man/half-bull that dominates its outrageous cover, Cleveland Eaton's Half And Half is a mutant bass-heavy monster that absolutely slays. Incredible jazz-funk from 1973, it's been largely overlooked for decades, and unfairly so. This is just sensational music - a crate digger's delight. It's super funky throughout, with lots of layers, jazz breaks for days, dripping with style and gritty class. This is the first reissue of what has been a hard to find record for many years; it's long overdue. Joyous music for mind, soul and body.

Cleveland Eaton was a revered bassist who played an active role in the backing of Count Basie, the Donald Byrd Quintet, The Ramsey Lewis Trio, Terry Callier and Minnie Riperton; amongst many, many others. Half And Half was the first album released under his own name, initially released as a private press record on his - awkwardly named - Cle An Thair Records. It was then picked up by Gamble & Huff for Gamble Records. Varied, string-adorned and with stupid funky grooves, it's just exceptionally good.

Whilst Half And Half is treasured for its famously brilliant interpretations of gold funk-soul standards, Eaton proves an imaginative composer in his own right. Indeed, the album opens with a striking original; the earthy, laconic jazz-guitar-funk fusion of "Keep It Funky". Cleveland and co. do exactly that. Up next is a properly moving cover of Aretha Franklin's eternal "Day Dreaming". The flute and guitar combo truly achieve celestial greatness here. "Here Comes Funky Lou" rides a bassline from the Gods and a driving soul-jazz groove allows the track to go off in all sorts of directions. Serene guitar soul of the breezy variety one moment, crazy hectic violin-driven wig outs the next, courtesy of Ed Green who played with Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane.

His blistering two track salvo of Stylistics covers to close out this A-Side of A-Sides will leave your jaw dropped, and they're likely the reason you're here for this. And why not? "Betcha By Golly Wow", which uses a bed of acidy synths and harmonica to create a unique atmosphere, is on some next level business. Melancholic, wistful, beautiful. "People Make the World Go Round" is so good, dripping in wonderful horns and ace percussive breaks, it could even be regarded as the definitive version. Seriously!

Opening Side B, War's gigantic "Slipping Into Darkness" is tightly tailored to Eaton's funky flute fusion arrangement whilst the insistent "Missing You" is a swaggering horn-heavy version of Luther Ingram's track from the Dilla/Ghostface-linked LP, I've Been Here All The Time. The creeping, screeching guitar-drenched original "John's Groove" features more fantastic horn lines and neck-snapping percussion whilst "The Love Gangster", written by Bill Wyman and Stephen Stills for his seminal Manassas LP, contains a heavy break with slick drums high in the mix and fuzzy guitars.

The album closes with two more Eaton originals. Written with Johnny Guitar Watson, "Lie" is one hell of a funky string and guitar-driven gem whilst the wild, celebratory "Ah Movin' On" cleverly quotes "Wade In The Water" (which he'd recorded with Ramsey Lewis in 1966) folding it into his new free-jazz composition. A message to his old boss, perhaps, as a sign-off?

We've worked on this reissue for 3.5 years, spending the whole time making it sound super sharp and looking as perfect as it possibly can. An absolute must-have for fans of soulful jazz-funk, Half And Half was mastered for vinyl by Simon Francis and cut by Pete Norman at Final Tweak. The bizarre artwork, mutant beast and all, was restored at Be With HQ over many painstaking months! Hopefully, this new edition, a real labour of love, should bring Cleveland Eaton into the homes and record boxes of many more people.

What a record! The outstanding Solar Plexus, the much-loved third album from Ian Carr and Nucleus, was first released on Vertigo in 1971. Inevitably, original copies are now very tricky to score and, like all the Nucleus records, it’s aged ridiculously well. This Be With re-issue, re-mastered from the original analogue tapes, shows off just why this deserves to be back in press.

Genius trumpeter and visionary composer Ian Carr was one of the most respected British musicians of his era. He was a true pioneer and saw the potential in fusing the worlds of jazz with rock, just as Miles Davis and The Tony Williams Lifetime did in the US. In late 1969, following the demise of the Rendell-Carr quintet, and tiring of British jazz, Carr assembled the legendary Nucleus. Regarding music as a continuous process, Nucleus refused to “recognise rigid boundaries” and worked on delivering what they saw as a “total musical experience”. We can get behind that.

Under bandleader Carr, Nucleus existed as a fluid line-up of inventive, skilled musicians. This constant evolution and revolution was all part of the continuous musical exploration and discovery that took jazz to new levels. And the music has kept relevant. To steal a line from a review of our re-issue of Roots, when it comes to anything Nucleus “it’s basically already hip-hop”.

We'll let Ian describe this one: "I wrote Solar Plexus' last year with the help of an Arts Council grant. It is based on two short themes which are stated at the beginning (Elements I & I1). The first theme is angular and has a slow, crab-like movement: the second theme is direct, simple and diatonic. CHANGING TIME and SPIRIT LEVEL explore the first theme and BEDROCK DEADLOCK and TORSO explore the second one. SNAKEHIPS DREAM tries to fuse both themes. (The title is a reference to the famous dancer 'Snakehips' Johnson)."

Solar Plexus features the same lineup as Elastic Rock and We'll Talk About It Later, but they're augmented by six guests, three of which play brass. Carr himself had almost full control of the writing and it does feel very different to the previous albums. It's more of a jazz record loosely based on a rock foundation rather than jazz fusion jamming.

The haunting synth-and-bass soundscape "Elements I and II" opens the album in dramatic, experimental fashion. It gives way to the bright, funky feel-good jazz of "Changing Times". An elegant onslaught of horns, courtesy of guests Kenny Wheeler and Harry Beckett, ride a solid groove for the duration. How the brass refrains have eluded samplers is beyond us. The melancholic "Bedrock Deadlock" features the brooding majesty of Jenkins' oboe and Clyne's mournful, skittering double bass. Wah wah guitar, drums and funky percussion then take over before the horns ride us out over frenetic beats. The dark, angular "Spirit Level" is a real highlight, by turns harmonic and beautiful then dissonant and wayward. Wonky jazz with no apparent structure or melodic bones. Regardless, it represents a great showcase for each virtuoso performer.

The breezy soul of "Torso" feels like a breath of fresh air, skipping along in the uptempo style with guitar, horns, drums and bass. A track which truly sounds scintillating, featuring sax solos, fantastic propulsive interplay from all the group around the halfway stage before Marshall gets his chance to really shine in closing out with a polyrhythmic drum solo. Final track "Snakehips' Dream" stretches cooly out over 15 minutes to round out a spellbinding album. An epic, suave groove, it's a relaxing piece with warm electric keys, laconic guitar and languorous horns. Truly sophisticated soulful jazz. An absolute masterclass. We could easily listen to this all day long.

This Be With edition of Solar Plexus has been re-mastered from the original Vertigo master tapes, Simon Francis’ mastering working together with Cicely Balston's cut at AIR Studios to weave their usual magic with these wonderful recordings. The stunning gatefold sleeve has been restored to complete this sensational package.

Like a winding system of trails and paths cutting through a digital forest-scape, M. Sage's Paradise Crick is shaped by time. Full of wonder and charm, designed patiently and from a rich, curious mulch of synthesized and acoustic sound, the versatile American artist and magic realist's new suite of music is an imaginary destination and a pastoral fantasy that envisions the natural and fabricated worlds as one. Matthew Sage is a musician, intermedia artist, recording engineer and producer, publisher, teacher, partner, and parent. Assembling a sprawling and idiosyncratic catalog of experimental studio music between Colorado and Chicago since the early 2010s, recent highlights include The Wind of Things (Geographic North, 2021), an ensemble-recorded expression of bow-splashed nostalgia, and the four seasonal albums of Fuubutsushi, the improvisatory ambient jazz quartet he formed with friends from afar in 2020. Sage renders projects with nuanced velocity and a completist sensibility _ when it's finished, it's done _ which is what makes Paradise Crick, his debut for RVNG Intl., a compelling outlier. Sage first staked his tent in Crick's conceptual campground five years ago from his home studio in Chicago (he's since returned to Colorado, home to the mountains and prairies often personified in his work). He had just read Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America, a kaleidoscopic reflection of pastoral America's shifting identity by way of magical fishing sojourns. Inspired by that feeling, of getting lost but finding oneself in through the outdoors, he amassed over seventy demos documenting a fictional soundtrack for camping. Pull up to this park, and the sign might read, "Welcome to Paradise Crick. Fire Danger Is Low." The sequence, pruned down to thirteen tracks, courses the dewy mornings, afternoon hikes, and firelit nights of a weekend expedition. While Sage is not a filmmaker, he views the method of making this album as a similar form of world-building via structure, narrative, formal elements, and editorial refinement. Contrasted with his collaborative craft, here he is a sole auteur reclined in total autonomy, able to improvise scenes and implement special effects at will. A parallel precedent for such unchecked imagination in the M. Sage canon is A Singular Continent, his 2014 album that tilted its compass to a faraway land. Where Continent built its world layering samples as composition, Paradise Crick deploys a balance of accessible song structures with experimental instrumentation and sound design. Speckled with harmonica, autoharp, chimes, penny whistle, voice, hand percussion, and other mysteries, Crick's texture is treated as a sensorial adventure; the swamps gurgle, the lakes glisten, and the valleys breathe in robust HD. The rhythms are loose and buoyant, bursting with a few `kick and snare' moments shaped by Sage's lifelong love for drumming and headphone prone electronic music. Crick bumps more than most anything he's done before; crackling static pulses and lush vibrations reveal an intrinsic groove, a hidden beat map. In the landscapes of Paradise Crick, science and magic co-exist, 5k boulders and midi frogs share the frame with real-life memories of Midwest camping trips and the desire to feel extra human in a digitized space. Sage strived for "nature in the holodeck" but couldn't help leaving fingerprints in the simulation, and it's these traces of spirit and character that give Paradise Crick its strange allure. The album's bubbling sense of play, melody, and timbre takes cues from left-field electronic lineage; synth pioneers like Tomita and Raymond Scott up through the more expressive pop tendencies of Woo, Stereolab and the Cocteau Twins, and into contemporary composers like Sam Prekop. The album's vocabulary is uncomplicated; the gestures are sweet and inviting, intended to lull the listener. As much as Sage continues to be an experimentalist by nature in his work, with Paradise Crick, he spins a narrative. Not necessarily a concept album, but rather an invitation to take off for a weekend. That's the modus operandi down here in the Crick, we stretch out. M. Sage's Paradise Crick will be released May 26, 2023 in LP, CD, and digital editions. A portion of the proceeds from this release will benefit Earthjustice, the premier nonprofit public interest environmental law organization.

As NuNorthern Soul eases into its second decade, the label welcomes back a familiar face: Benjamin J Smith, a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and pro-ducer whose emotive, colourful and atmospheric compositions are the very definition of ‘Balearic’.

Famously, it was Smith’s The Movedrill Projects album that kicked off the NuNorthern Soul story way back in 2012, and he’s periodically returned to the imprint on numerous occasions since. It’s fitting, then, that Smith is stepping up once more, with NuNorthern Soul found-er Phil Cooper selecting to showcase two overlooked gems from his bulging back catalogue.

Both tracks are taken from Smith’s digital-only album Mojave (Vintage Californian Dreams), a set of thor-oughly gorgeous, West Coast-inspired library music compositions smothered in sumptuous strings and in-formed by the artist’s love of jazz-funk, languid jazz-rock and the kind of luscious, sunset-ready soundscapes that defy neat categorization.

Opening proceedings, and sitting on side A of the vinyl release, is the breath-taking ‘Marina Del Rey’, where layered, reverb-laden harmonic vocalisations, twin-kling electric piano improvisations, lazy guitar licks, spacey synth flourishes and sultry strings slowly rise above a toasty bassline and gentle, Latin-tinged beats. Smith cannily adds layers of sound throughout while moving the musical story forwards, leading to a mem-orable, awe-inspiring conclusion.

In contrast, ‘Big Sur’ sees Smith take an imaginary road trip through the driest, dustiest parts of the Cali-fornian countryside. Psychedelic rock style organ mo-tifs, sustained Hammond B-3 chords and glistening West Coast rock guitar solos dance atop a rubbery bassline and intoxicated, loose-limbed drums, with Smith’s eyes-closed vocalisations – drenched in reverb and delay – adding extra layers of aural loveliness. Like ‘Marina Del Rey’, ‘Big Sur’ is a vivid, widescreen con-coction tailor-made for soundtracking films that have yet to be made.

Four Flies' new imprint Edizioni della Notte is back with a 12-inch maxi single of infectious remixes of Francesco Fisotti's boogie funk track "La Tartana" by eclectic Neapolitan DJ/producer Whodamanny.

The original track, which comes from the 2021 album Lido Sirena (named after a beach resort in the Salento area of Apulia, where Fisotti used to spend his summers as a child), blends funky disco, synths, drum-machine beats and improvisation into an exciting new sound that Fisotti calls "Adriatic funk".

Inspired by slow-tempo but irresistible Italo and cosmic disco tunes, in particular Tonino Balsamo's 1983 "Sta Guagliona Mo Ddà" (one of the rarest Neapolitan grooves ever, recently reissued by Periodica Records), Whodamanny's two remixes amplify the original's dancefloor potential by adding a nocturnal vibe and elements such as synths and electronic drums, as well as a short vocal line ("Don't stop till the music stops") to create a catchy call-and-response effect.

Whodamanny himself explains that he produced not one, but two remixes due to his love of extended dub versions. "It's sort of a professional quirk," - he says - "but you know, it's inevitable. You're sitting at the mixer, listening over and over to a track… Of course you'll find bits you can stretch out to create a fantastic flow! And my approach is always the approach of a DJ. I want whatever I produce to work well in my DJ sets, so these remixes too were bound to be club-oriented."

Drop a needle on Psyché's debut album and you'll see visions, or rather Mediterranean visions, be they of waves of heat shimmering above dunes of sand, or of women dancing around a bonfire on a rocky plain, or of bushy cliffs overlooking emerald-green and turquoise sea. The name Psyché is of course ancient Greek for 'soul' or 'mind', signifying the band's love of psychedelic funk, but also the wide range of Mediterranean influences – from Southern Europe to the Balkan Peninsula, and from Anatolia to the Maghreb – that provide an endless source of inspiration for their hypnotic sound and minimalist style.

Psyché members Marcello Giannini (Guru, Nu Genea, Slivovitz), Andrea De Fazio (Parbleu, Nu Genea, Funkin Machine) and Paolo Petrella (Nu Genea) have been active in the Naples music scene for almost two decades, most notably during the first wave of the new Neapolitan Power movement (Slivovitz, Revenaz Quartet). Over the years they have often crossed paths and collaborated on side projects in various genres (math-rock duo Arduo and, more recently, synth-pop duo Fratelli Malibu), before working together as the rhythm section of Nu Genea's live band. Following their first tour with Nu Genea in 2018, they started Psyché with the intent of exploring more minimalist styles and making music with just a few elements.

A unique combination of psychedelia, groove and improvisation, the music of Psyché goes back to the roots of our future; it evokes visions of a mythical past, blending centuries-old music traditions and mixing them with modern genres. Like a warm Mediterranean breeze, it travels across lands, seas and eras, distilling essential rhythms and cosmic pulsations.

The album's opener "Kuma" (titled after the first ancient Greek colony on the Italian mainland, now an archeological site near Naples) is like a vibrant, magical wave. With its deliberately simple harmony and sharp guitar riffs, it travels across the Mediterranean from Italy to North Africa, first lapping gently on Greek and Turkish shores – with some compositional elements reminiscent of Italian pop legend Lucio Battisti – and then speeding up and landing on the driving, syncopated rhythms of afrobeat. While listening to it your eyes fill with images of small white houses shining in the sun, of fig trees heavy with fruit, of spice bazaars and colourful medinas, and you can almost feel the desert wind blowing in your hair.

The journey continues with two examples of Psyché's bold and elegant approach to contemporary afrobeat and cumbia fusion: "Cumbia Mahàre" and "Amma". The former combines minimal synths and exhilarating rhythmic patterns of drums, percussion, guitar and bass, drawing us into the movements of an imaginary ritual dance (the term mahàre was used in Southern Italian dialects to indicate witches). Next is the cinematic and mysterious ambiance of "Angizia" (a snake goddess worshipped by the Marsi in ancient Italy), another fascinating mixture of different sonic traditions and cultures where hip-hop/funk drums are blended with Maghreb influences, Balkan echoes, and hypnotic, Theremin-like synths that have sort of a sci-fi movie quality to them.

The title track "Psyché", with its uptempo afro-rhythms, ethereal vocalizations and refined percussion, is almost a manifesto of the band's style and confirms the freshness of their minimalism, which is not afraid of taking in the sun of lands confined between the sea and the desert. The following "Manea" (named after the Roman-Etruscan goddess of the dead) is an afro-funk number with smooth and introspective dreamy jazz touches, and with an arrangement dominated by a guitar that, dripping notes like drops of water, creates a delicate, cinematic sound. Next, we come to "Hekate" (the Greek goddess of magic, witchcraft and crossroads), a track that fuses psychedelia, spacious Latin guitars and a fast, tight groove. The album comes to a close with the exquisite melodic ballad "Kelebek", which seamlessly combines hip-hop drums and dreamy guitars, and whose warm, flowing sonorities and evocative atmospheres conjure the image of a butterfly (which is what kelebek means, in Turkish) floating over the Mediterranean and, from there, the world.

It’s always a joy to release music from friends, and ZamZam 91 is our first collab with a dear one, Jim Coles AKA Om Unit. It’s impossible to frame the breadth and depth of such a storied career in bass music in just a couple lines- so suffice to say that releases over decades on a who’s-who of seminal labels including Exit, Fabric, Planet Mu and of course his own Cosmic Bridge have cemented his rep as an absolute force in production and DJing across any number of genres and sub genres.

Coles’ roots in Bristol and deep love of dub and reggae - made beautifully explicit on his recent Acid Dub Studies LPs - come through strong on both sides. “The Canopy (Armageddon Style)” opens with ravey, arpeggiated synths worthy of Vangelis, punctuated by a brooding piano chord, building steadily into a dark and utterly apocalyptic steppers guaranteed to storm & batter down Babylon walls inside and out.

“Mystic 808” is a deep meditation, a slow stepper that ices down the furious energy of the A side and drops the tempo to suit. Recalling the heady days of original late 90s/early 2000s UK Dub - as well as early dub techno - stabs and melody caress, restrained percussion swims and multiplies in reverb and echo, orbits locked to the gravitational force of the massive and truly timeless bassline. Proper sound system material that will satisfy the heart and soul long after the dance is done.

Vinyl release compiling both Nukuluk EPs on one LP. Curating their own unique sound and captivating crowds with their refreshing approach to hip-hop, electronica and indie, Nukuluk return with their new EP ‘SUPERGLUE’ on 21 April. The writing and recording process has never been executed in a conventional style for the group, a series of laptops and bedrooms manifesting the groups’ studio, aspiring to a fundamentally collaborative process as they piece their separate parts together in ever surprising ways. Respective members lead through a variety of formats, bringing a demo, a motif or concept in what can be a deeply stimulating process, ensuring the sound is ever-evolving. The EP acted as an educational vehicle that held the group together as they learned how to overcome certain challenges, and hold it together as one, hence the title SUPERGLUE. It presents a fractured journey and chaotic growth of five individuals trying to create the new together; honest vulnerable expression married with complex soundscapes, pulling from whatever genre feels natural and trying new combinations of internal collaborations in the group. The release spans genres from hip-hop to alternative rock, ambient to metal, dance music to r’n’b in what the band note as: “a kaleidoscope of sonics, songs, beats, noises and stories lurching between vulnerability and bravado, as a body of work growing in all directions at the same time.” Their latest single ‘I Just Wanna Luv U’, the follow up to the high octane ‘Covered In Gold’, marks a charged change of pace; an introspective, meditative trip-hop piece, with creeping synths, electronic drums and gruff vocals transitioning into acoustic guitars, live drums and rap verses. It tells the story of wrestling with childhood trauma, isolation and self-acceptance. Vocalist/producer Syd Nuku explores an eerie modern condition before conversing with an inner child’s trauma and memory - “be slow kid, go and take a place below the ceiling where it won’t fall”. The accompanying video was co-directed by Luke Kulukundis (Syd Nuku) and Iso Attrill, and takes reference from the likes of Michel Gondry, Charlie Kaufman and David Lynch. Nukuluk are Monika, Syd, Mateo, Louis and olivia. Entirely self made the collective successfully blend genres and styles to reach new spaces through a broad range of influences (including JPEGMAFIA, Jockstrap, SOPHIE, Wu-Lu and Yves Tumor as well as esteemed groups like Massive Attack, Portishead and Gorillaz). Formed in the midst of lockdown, the collective played their first show in July 2021 before releasing their debut EP DISASTER POP to critical acclaim in November, which subsequently led to multiple festival appearances and a 3-night sold out residency at Bermondsey Social Club in 2022. Their release campaign was littered with videos and creative visuals that were constructed by the collective and its extended family of artists - this multifaceted creative output of the group making them a unique prospect; directing and producing their own videos, exploring many avenues of creation and trying to exist in a unique contemporary DIY space. With nods across the spectrum of the music media – including The Quietus, CLASH, NME, Ransom Note, DIY, DORK, So Young and many more – Nukuluk are steadily carving out their own space in the British leftfield.

Alison Goldfrapp has set a towering bar for British synth-pop in the 21st century and she’s only just getting started. The magnetic London-born singer, songwriter and producer’s seven albums with Goldfrapp were fuelled by an unfailing modernity and a sixth sense for sounds that were more timeless than any trend. With the release of her debut solo album The Love Invention—an electrifying dance-pop suite—her multi-faceted musicianship reaches a new peak.

The Love Invention marks Alison’s reawakening as a dancefloor priestess, in an intoxicating showcase of the disco and house influences that have always been at the heart of her musical DNA. “So Hard So Hot” bottles the ephemeral joy of a dancefloor with its anthemic house beat, disco handclaps, and an exquisitely alluring vocal from Alison. The sense of uninhibited liberation courses through album highlights like “In Electric Blue,” a yearning synth-pop confection with a chorus as blissful as love’s first butterflies. On “Never Stop,” she is flooded with the rush of an all-encompassing love over a buoyant, rubberised beat; the sublime synth-pop of “Fever” is an ode to the intoxicating majesty of the dancefloor, with a chorus that explodes as if setting off a glitter cannon.

Alison Goldfrapp has set a towering bar for British synth-pop in the 21st century and she’s only just getting started. The magnetic London-born singer, songwriter and producer’s seven albums with Goldfrapp were fuelled by an unfailing modernity and a sixth sense for sounds that were more timeless than any trend. With the release of her debut solo album The Love Invention—an electrifying dance-pop suite—her multi-faceted musicianship reaches a new peak.

The Love Invention marks Alison’s reawakening as a dancefloor priestess, in an intoxicating showcase of the disco and house influences that have always been at the heart of her musical DNA. “So Hard So Hot” bottles the ephemeral joy of a dancefloor with its anthemic house beat, disco handclaps, and an exquisitely alluring vocal from Alison. The sense of uninhibited liberation courses through album highlights like “In Electric Blue,” a yearning synth-pop confection with a chorus as blissful as love’s first butterflies. On “Never Stop,” she is flooded with the rush of an all-encompassing love over a buoyant, rubberised beat; the sublime synth-pop of “Fever” is an ode to the intoxicating majesty of the dancefloor, with a chorus that explodes as if setting off a glitter cannon.

We're thrilled to release two exciting electro tracks by Art P, as well as the classic minimal synthwave tune 'Der böse Osten' by related band project Die Synthetische Republik on this limited split 12".

The single kicks off with 'Genscher Pull and Push', an incredible and previously unreleased electro/wave/proto-techno tune from the P.A.P. archives, recorded in October 1982 with a political background. The song was only available on a demo cassette for a radio show and had been forgotten since then. Genscher was a long-time Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs and Vice Chancellor of Germany, who played a key role in a coalition change in September/October 1982, leading his party, the FDP, to leave the Helmut Schmidt cabinet with the SPD and continue with the opposition, the CDU/CSU. As a result, the German lyrics of the song shout 'bitte geh nach links / bitte geh nach rechts' ('please go to the left' - meaning the left-leaning SPD, and 'please go to the right' - meaning the right-leaning CDU), and so on.

Unfortunately, this track was never released, as the topic of the coalition change quickly became uninteresting and outdated. If it had been issued on vinyl in late 1982, it would probably be considered one of the first proto-techno tracks ever. With its driving and heavily-punching 808 rhythms, and the bending synth bass leads played on the Jupiter 4 synthesizer, it gives you a groove that owes as much to Kraftwerk's 'Computerwelt' album as it may rhythmically pre-date the sound of Detroit's Juan Atkins. The energetic German vocals are giving the track a unique Neue Deutsche Welle touch. They are heavily left/right panned to fit the political topic.

Next up on the Art P side is a remix of 'Polaroid', originally found on the No Message LP that we re-released last year. The track was recorded in 1985, and at that time, the duo of Frank Grotelüschen and Jens-Markus Wegener had become bored with the sound of the Roland 808 drum machine, so they made the track with a DrumTraks by Sequential Circuits. However, for this remix, DJ Scientist, the curator of this 12", wanted to recreate the typical electro-funk sound of the era and added 808 bass drums and claps. The track was also shortened to a more DJ-friendly arrangement. The result is a dancefloor delight for all lovers of classic electro and SVC-350 vocoder sounds!

Die Synthetische Republik was a project by Wegener of Art P and Olav Neander. The track 'Der böse Osten' can originally be found on the cassette album 'Faktor D', recorded in just two weeks on a Tascam Portastudio 245. The original recording sessions were pure fun but also rushed. Hence, none of the tracks was perfectly mixed. With digital technologies, we remastered 'Der böse Osten' to achieve the best possible result and are pleased to release this serious synth wave gem on a loud 12" for the first time as an exclusive extended mix.

The split 12" is released in a picture sleeve with a unique artwork on each side. It is limited to 500 copies.

Voice Magnetic by Hainbach is the enigmatic Berlin based artist’s sonic diary of 2022. On his sixth release on Seil Records, Stefan Goetsch collages the sounds he made and the ones that surrounded him over the course of twelve months into a powerfully intimate ambient experience.

In his studio or on travels — Hainbach always is working on new material and allows the locations he records his tracks in to find their way into the music. Consequently, on many tracks you can can hear the outside bleeding in — seagulls and waves on "Izmir", the voices of his children while record the piano or the sirens of Neukölln’s police cars in background.

The connecting threads between these pieces are magnetic tape and the human voice — hiss and breath. The result are 15 immersive ambient pieces that make up Voice Magnetic. Often short like the moments that spark them. Fading and intricate, honest and pure.

Based out of Berlin, Germany, electro-acoustic music composer and performer Hainbach creates shifting audio landscapes, using esoteric synthesizers, nuclear test equipment, magnetic tape and a collection of idiophones. Hainbach has become known for his immersive live shows and an unique sound that is both abstract yet very much a corporal experience. Otherworldly and intimate, raw and heartfelt. On his wildly popular YouTube channel, Hainbach shares his love for experimental music techniques and his passion for forgotten machines with a wide audience. Inspiring over one hundred thousand each week to explore synthesis, electronics - and to leave beaten paths.

repressed !

A lot can happen in 15 years. Few things manage to thrive for a decade and a half, especially in music. But a scrappy, left of center, Bay Area house music label, Dirtybird, has managed to do just that. Claude VonStroke, Dirtybird’s founder, is marking this 15-year milestone the only way he knows how… working. This year, VonStroke will throw two dozen-plus parties, three festivals (including the famous Dirtybird Campout), host his traveling Dirtybird BBQ series in major cities across the US, publish a coffee table book, release a seasonal clothing line, stage art shows, produce a fly on the wall docu series...and kick it all off by releasing a new album, out February 21st.

What began as a free party, turned basement record label, has morphed into a truly thriving community whose familial, fun and welcoming vibe has won over hearts and minds across the world. And while Dirtybird has grown and evolved, VonStroke’s core focus on music remains unwavering. The new album ‘Freaks & Beaks’ is a celebration of quirky innovation and a relentless pursuit of something new and fresh, while hearkening back to the freewheeling spirit that inspired the launch of his label. This is a project that draws upon the inspirations of family, old friends, new fans and proper dancefloors.

Claude will let his flock wet their beaks while they wait in anticipation of the new album with two new singles demonstrating the breadth of the dance music landscape explored on the record. Youngblood touches on the deeper sides of Claude VonStroke, a throwback to the label’s early days, featuring local LA music house talent Wyatt Marshall, while All My People in the House is a dancefloor heater that is sure to unite new and old Dirtybird fans together.

Today, Claude also delivers fans part one of an intimate video series, shot by his sister Emily (an accomplished filmmaker), documenting the creation of ‘Freaks and Beaks’, celebrating this historic milestone and taking a deeper dive into the day to day life of Claude VonStroke on the road.

‘Freaks and Beaks’ is the fourth artist album and sixth full-length project from Claude VonStroke. He approached the album with a new process, including committing to daily creative time, experimenting with a lot of new hardware and having fun creating a huge amount of sketches. He made music on many levels of gear all the way from complex modular synths to simple drum apps on his iPad. Keeping it all DIY, he sampled his own voice and his two children on several tracks as well. He allowed himself to breathe while creating over 130 ideas, which were whittled down to the finished 11 album tracks.

Freaks & Beaks nods at the inspirations that underpin VonStroke’s world, inside jokes between him and Justin Martin (FlubbleBuddy), unused experimental live sessions (Session A), playful noodling on synths (Alpine Arpline), obscure French producers (Frankie Goes To Bollywood), championing new talent (Youngblood), irreverent self-aware humor (Birthday Messages) and genre inspirations that range from ghetto tech and drum n bass to hip-hop and breaks. This is VonStroke’s love letter to the vibrancy and genre diversity that have made Dirtybird such a singular label.

»Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempo often varying between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time (4/4) and often characterized by a repetitive four on the floor beat.«

Well, that's what Wikipedia says about »techno« - but can Laura BCR's music simply be called »techno«? We say it's much more than that. The French DJ and On Board Music label founder who took her name from the much-loved and now closed, Berlin record store, Bass Cadet Records, started to produce her very own music in 2020. Music which could easily fit in her transportive, deep techno and dubby ambient DJ sets. Sets that have brought her to some of Europe’s finest venues.

After her releases on SoHaSo, Semantica, Paloma, RDV Music, Technologia Organica or Sublunar we're happy to present to you her latest work for Live At Robert Johnson: »Human Behavior«.

The four tracks all share a deepness which is typical for a lot of her productions so far. This is repetitive music, yes - but also very atmospheric music. Whether it's the helicopter sound in first track »Farewell« which Laura put on top of layers of whirring synths sounds or the swelling and decaying sounds of »Long Wait«. Sounds which swallow you deep into their core and make you forget about the here and now. Yes, Laura's music is hypnotizing - and it has a certain psychedelic quality attached to it as well. This aspect of her music can be heard quite good in »Post Dynamic« with its electronic blowing wind sounds galore. Or in »Human Behavior«, the title track of Laura BCR's LARJ debut. Yet Laura never forgets the importance (and the power) of the bass drum and its four on the floor beat.

A beat that is the heartbeat of techno. And a beat that defines Laura BCR as well.

Now all hail the bass drum and all hail Laura BCR!

I was dancing when I was out, I was dancing when I was in. Is it strange to dance so late? Is it strange to dance so soon? Cosmic dancers always ball. Dancing with themselves, dancing space away. Right into the smallest hole a human brain can create: the inner cosmos, a psychedelic region, where time gets space and space turns to haze.

Berlin based producer TM Solver is such a kind of cosmic dancer. He has danced late. And so soon. Since 2008 he released yearly one, sometimes two albums via the German Berlin School dedicated label Syngate and its experimental subdivision Luna. Intensely meandering synthesizer journey music, that is pirouetting on inner universes, genuinely crafted in the tradition of Berlin School and Krautrock. You can catch the unearthly nuances of Can and the spaciously swinging psychedelic corners of Amon Dül, Embryo, Tangerine Dream, or Klaus Schulze. As TM Solver has been a lover of analog synthesizers for almost 30 years, all pulsates on analogue sound orbs under the zigzagging guidance of machines like Moog Prodegy, Korg MS20 and GRP A4, as well as state-of-the-art systems as ASM Hydrasynth and Korg Wavestate. When he got in touch with the Berlin club scene and all its propelling grooves in 2006, a new rhythmic universe joined his vast musical space of sound latitudes. “Tinkering around with sound structures is my thing. Leading the listener into a combination of music and sound spaces.“ he reveals on his emotive musical art. How affecting it works, is now displayed with four epic compositions for R.i.O., Berlin Wedding’s label of novel ways for caved rhythmic patterns. Grooving between 90 to 240 BPM, they offer a vast variety of emotional landscapes, slowing down, rolling up, drifting into genuinely layered tonality magic. Headspace music for vigilant wanderers. Utterly psychedelic and yet so clear. His R.i.O. debut “Subtraktiv Additiv“ comes with five additional remixes, fashioned by R.i.O. conspirator Benedikt Frey, Amsterdam based DJ and producer Mayo, “Die Orakel” magician O-Wells from Frankfurt, Siamese Twin Records co-runner Sunju Hargun, and the versatile club and beyond production duo Red Axes. They all respect TM Solver’s analogue zones and pitch them into the 115 to 130 BPM districts, while transcending his absorbing synth compositions into the world of nervous acid-laden ambient, slow-mo techno, industrial bass, post-trance, and all that hallucinogenic echo house. Nine subtle energy vibrations, epic and full of countless facets, shaped to turn on, tune in, and drop out.

With Cruisin', their second album for Telephone Explosion, Toronto's Bernice distils their playful sense of composition resulting in the most affecting collection of their young career. Across fifteen tracks, a special kind of contemporary, jazz-inflected pop unfolds, miraculous for being both fun and musically adventurous, all in the name of emotional resonance. Each groove in the bassbin is matched by a little scratch at the listener's heartstrings. The album was recorded at home with Phil Melanson (Sam Gendel, Andy Shauf) and Thom Gill (Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Joseph Shabason), led by songwriter and vocalist Robin Dann (Martha Wainwright) and producer Matthew Pencer, with additional contributions from longtime members Dan Fortin and Felicity Williams (Bahamas) being captured remotely.

Throughout their eleven years as a group, working at the intersections of several scenes and spotlights (many of which begin and end at Toronto's beloved Tranzac Club), Bernice have developed an idiosyncratic musical language that feels immediately inviting and wonderfully refreshing. The group's two previous releases, Eau De Bonjourno (2021) and Puff: In The Air Without A Shape (2018) received generous nods from both Stereogum and Pitchfork, who described the music as "unusually mesmerizing". With the songcraft a little more crystalline and the vulnerability notched up, Cruisin' feels like the right record to open Bernice up to a much wider audience.

Development of the album began in Spring, 2021 during a writing retreat at the family farm in Bond Head, Ontario. Members of the band luxuriated in slow time, tinkering with lyrics and melodies, sharing meals, knitting. From this communal gathering, the concept of 'dedication' emerged as a guiding theme. Specifically, developing songs in an almost epistolary form; as love letters or check-ins for friends, community members, pets and other more elusive acquaintances (a longtime working title for the project was 'Songs For People').

Lead single 'Underneath My Toe', one of the first pieces developed under this theme, finds the group at their most graceful and direct. Beginning with songwriter/vocalist Robin Dann singing simply 'Hi / I miss you all the time', the composition proceeds to shift subtly between soft jazz balladry and low-bit funk, revelling in the intimate beauty of a long-time-no-see letter to a dear old friend.

Though being a band that so deeply values the art of fartin' around, Bernice couldn't settle on such a straightforward approach. During the creative process, a clarifying question arose: 'Can you cruise to it?'. This somewhat ambiguous aesthetic criteria became a guiding light for the album. 'Sure, it's a beautiful song about building trust with a new nonagenarian friend... but can you cruise to it?'.

Case in point, both follow up singles, 'No Effort To Exist' and 'Second Judy', fall into a more nebulous, bewildering category of song. Undoubtedly affecting, emotionally charged, existentially searching, yet also undeniably juicy. Drum patterns skitter into place while synth tones shift on a dime to meet thematic twists. There's errant whistling and curious overdubs. Then in come elegant backing vocals, elevating the narrative while an unlikely, left-field groove is established. Miraculously, the listener is not just moved, but Cruisin'.

Therein lies the marvel of Bernice: they remind us that the rec room funk of Mario Kart 64 need not exist in mutual exclusivity to a rich tapestry of human emotions. Even as we live through this most cursed timeline, we can look into the heart of things, dwell on the challenges we're called to witness, and find a little levity to carry us through; grab a lil' mushroom and cruise the existential soup.

The duo WILDES from the south of Germany, consisting of Jana Pantha and Jenny Tulipa, presents a musical mix of electro-synth-pop, post-punk and dark disco influences. After the release of their first EP “RAWWR” in 2021, their debut album entitled “KLISCHEE” will be released on 3 February 2023. Released via the Kommando 84 label, the album features 11 songs and a musical re-interpretation of German-language Neue Deutsche Welle sounds. The songs combine spoken word passages in which the singers combine a certain irony with word-playful rhymes. In addition to world-political, social issues, the songs revolve around the complexity of the new romance in love - between cosmos and stereo. The strong and experimentally avant-garde lyrics accompany the danceable pulse of the drum computer, melodic synth waves and the shimmering solos of the lead guitar.

The album “Klischee” begins with an electro-pop track that combines consistent grooves with atmo- spheric sound arrangements and a lead guitar that accompanies our journey to the moon. With the chorus’ high-pitched words, „Konsum - leg mich auf den Moon“ (“Consumption - put me on the Moon”), WILDES dryly yet humorously allude to a society that couldn’t fly “higher”.

The following cheeky song Leger in Schwarz combines impeccable post punk with influences from the NNDW scene. A short love story led by the electronic beat of the synthesizer makes the hearts of the night beat faster. With casual reduction, a guitar riff leads through the song. The guitar solo finally rounds off the plea about the longing for a good flirt.

Italo disco shimmers and pulsates on the driving song Capri. With lyrics like “Pack the boats - Vai a bordo”, Capri is a homage to the tried and tested Italo feeling with a cappucino on the terrazza, or indeed on the yacht with a view of the rocky walls of the island. An electric charge of sequencers and synth tracks acts here as a lightness of being in contrast to the porosity of the rock.

An electrifying electric guitar solo kicks off the fourth track with a mysterious invitation to Steig ein translated, get in. Hypnotised by the lights of the road, dazzled in the side mirror, a clearly repeating rhythm leads into the chorus and through the coming verses. English spoken-word lyrics add to the stoicism of the German language. The song’s great power ends with the line Lost in the dark, holding open the finale of the “Night Drive” encounter.

Digital and stereo on all channels, the distinctly tight and robust rhythm sounds in the song Apparat. A clear and simple synth melody is heard as a contrast and the electric bass gives the balance of the machine at points. Hiddenly, WILDES points here to the superior power that can control human action beyond all limits. A piece as a laudation to all the science fiction novels that play with the switching of the individual parts.

Side One of the vinyl is finalised by a song called La Grande Bellezza that motivates to dance and sing along. The punky pop craft lives through the recurring beat of the rhythm guitar. Here the focus is on the woman in all her facets. The great beauty, una donna, who can do everything as well as wanting everything and nothing...a strong woman who, however, also staggers and wants to jump off the cliff. Clearly and distinctly, the musical accompaniment of the drum machine and the accompanying synth melody reflect hidden parallel worlds and the ambiguity of character - of life? We get a desire for more and turn the round record.

The B side starts with a powerful guitar riff, complemented by a catchy and strong bassline that runs through the song. In this work, WILDES provocatively describes the West’s lust for the much-cov- eted Schwarzes Gold black gold. The song is reminiscent of the works of the band D.A.F. and thus ties in with the electronic punk sound spate.

The driving guitar riff joins in with the reduced synth bass sequence - the electro-pop song with the title Hitze (Heat) came onto the digital music market as the first single from the LP in the summer of 2022. Pulsatingly, the drum computer lets the beats vibrate to the rhythm of heated air. The duo po- etically describes heat with supercooled voices, a clarity in the sky that makes everything flow, that makes the breath dry. The work ends with a melodic synth solo.

Ich lad dich ein, I invite you - we have all said or heard this sentence before. A chance meeting of two people later leads to the altar in love. A far-reaching question that more or less arises in many love relationships at some point “Do you dare?” positions itself in lyrical contrast to the simple ques- tion in the refrain “Do you need sugar?”. WILDES plays with laconic poetry and, full of irony, makes the listeners think about living together. Krautrock contours are skilfully used in this piece. Reduced to the essentials, the chorus immediately sticks in the ear. A cheerful mix of steel drums and infec- tious solo.

Toccami - touch me! We sit on padded leather chairs - “you’re a rocket! Peng Puff Peng” - this song by the band WILDES joins experimental art-punk-pop, electronically with flowing synth waves we take off immediately. Melodically sung, lyrical layers of lyrics dance loosely light and gracefully in the ears of the viewer. The rhythmic beat visualises the feeling of floating in a spaceship. It’s love in the universe - “I love you, my darling” sounds tipsy in the beat-heavy disco refrain.

Hypnotically, WILDES launches into the final song of the entire LP. The title Zone takes us on a journey through time. Inspired by the film Stalker, we find ourselves in a science fiction setting that couldn’t be more present in today’s European events. The musicality of the electric guitar riffs ac- companied by simple new wave drums drives the listener into unknown realms.

Repetition and electronic synth sounds play a compositional role alongside rocking guitar riffs like their forerunners in the NDW scene. Lyrically, each song varies between pop-romantic and politically critical passages. Listeners start pondering about hedonistic life and its consequences. Sometimes it feels like listening to a Tarantino soundtrack in German, other times it feels like listening to an 80s track by a James Bond. Science fiction fantasies and reality add up in dadaistic theatricality to spir- ited synthpunk of the New German Wave from the South. Discoid beats and driving drums in digital are included.

For polymath artist Wesley Joseph, writing a song is like shooting a film - he sees in terms of scenes and colors, lighting the proper mood, drawing the right emotional arc. Music and filmmaking are Joseph’s two great loves. Film came first—he started making DIY videos at age 12 to entertain himself and his friends growing up in a small town in the UK. “There wasn’t really much happening,” he remembers, “and from a young age it created this mindset that doing everything myself was the only way to do it.”

But when he moved to London to study as a filmmaker, he discovered something in the freedom and independence of city life that demanded to be captured in song, and found a crew of collaborators—including A.K. Paul, Dave Okumu, Joy Orbison, Leon Vynehall, Lexxx, Loyle Carner and his childhood friend Jorja Smith—to help him do it. The result was his breakthrough single ‘Ghostin’’ and the 2021 debut ULTRAMARINE - released on his own imprint EEVILTWINN - a deeply textured collection of avant-R&B and soulful future-pop that stretched from psychedelic ballads to hard hip-hop bars (often in the span of a single track) and crystallized the mood of a young cohort trying to find love and live their dreams while the world is falling apart. Whilst his collaboration with Loyle Carner on single ‘Blood On My Nikes’ lead to him featuring on the artist’s critically acclaimed - and #3 charting album - earlier this year.

Now the nascent auteur returns with his Secretly Canadian debut GLOW, eight more songs of love, loss, anxiety, and joy about coming of age at a time of unprecedented change. Showcasing his range across songwriting, performing, and production—not to mention his flawless transitions between singing and rapping, between character studies and raw emotional honesty—it’s a stunningly beautiful work that makes it clear Joseph’s on the path to becoming a world-changing talent.

GLOW opens with the title track’s warm analog synths and cascading vocals that channel the harmonious Northern soul Joseph’s dad raised him on, a shimmering bed of clouds for the project’s opening credits. But like any good director, he quickly deepens the mood, drawing together disparate influences and emotions to build a unique sonic world spilling over with synchronicities and juxtapositions. “MONSOON” conjures nocturnal hedonism at the same time as it contemplates grief.

As on previous projects, Joseph is providing his own visual accompaniments for GLOW, creative directing its artwork and adding to his growing filmography as a director—he’s repped by the renowned production company Stink—with its first video. “COLD SUMMER” finds Joseph singing from a supervillain’s perspective over woozy film-score strings, and the concept bleeds over into its video accompaniment, a cryptic post-post-Tarantino film shot in Kazakhstan.

“I've never really seen them separately,” Joseph says of music and film. “They kind of just constantly drift into each other. And when they come together, it's like it was meant to be in my head the whole time.
It’s usually hyperbole to call an artist as young and new as Joseph “visionary,” but it’s undeniable that he has a vision, one that transcends old ideas of genre and medium, one that seems to get bigger and richer every time he steps into a studio or behind a camera. GLOW is one of the deepest and most satisfyingly cinematic listening experiences of the year—and Wesley Joseph is just getting started.

Since its beginnings, Hypnótica Colectiva has always shown a special interest in the music recorded and released in the city of Detroit.

A place with which we have both a blood and spiritual bond because of what occurred there socially and artistically during the 20th century.

This love led us to become ambassadors of what was happening there on a musical level, holding cultural events to screen documentaries translated into Spanish, as well as a number of themed sets at our events, dedicated motor city sections in our record shop or recently lectures on the history of the city and its music at the Museum of Illustration and Contemporary Art of Valencia (Muvim).

The time has now come to bring all this history, this musical influence, to the editorial section of our label HC records.

Detroit Legacy was born from the idea of capturing these influences on vinyl. Seeking artists from all over the world who share this passion that inspires them to create their music, what we can define as the universal Neo-Detroit.

For this first edition or first volume, the collective has enlisted in its ranks creators affiliated to the label who have shown us in their careers, this influence and this feeling.

Paul Cignol opens the record with Distance. From Dublin he offers us a track of warm sequences inspired by Deep Techno, with deep pads responding to organ keys and a subtle touch of 303.

Mallorcan LLuis Barcelo Sureda is responsible for the second track Funk Station. With a Techno Soul character that we might hear from Detroitish labels like Acacia or producers like Blake Baxter.

A real eminence in Techno is the Catalan Don Alex Martín, who already released in the mid-90s on Monssieur Garnier's label (France Communications). The Barcelona native brings his wealth of experience and wisdom through Megatech, which transports us to the spectrum of Derrick May’s Transmat who, in his day, was nicknamed "The Innovator". This track provides agile sequences of complex syncopated rhythms, combining with a dreamy Michigan style synth.

The anthem of the album comes from Ghent. The sublime Belgian creator, Mariska Neerman, once again makes our hairs stand on end and our hearts melt with a heavenly composition entitled Stellium.

No one interprets Neo-Detroit quite like Mariska, whom we baptise as a sovereign heiress of the genre in the world. If we have to think of an influence for this piece, we go straight to the genius of Detroit, the one and only Jeff Mills, in his most symphonic and harmonic facet of tracks released on his label Axis Records such as "The March", A Universal Voice That Speaks To All That Will Listen or A New Found Sense Of Being.

Some of these songs have been re-interpreted by world class philharmonic orchestras such as the Montpellier Philharmonic Orchestra at the 2005 Blue Potential (Pont Du Garde). Mariska's score in this song fuses organ keys with harmonic layers and violin - favourite instruments of the Detroitian extraterrestrial - with a harmonic result of strength and hope. An authentic anthem of classic emotional Techno.

Old School electro takes centre stage with the Master from Terrassa Ivan Arnau a.k.a. Dark Vektor. In the influence of Juan Atkins (the creator) as Cybotron or Model 500 and later creators who developed this sound like Aux 88. Metaverso Frik is a great recital of a urban poetry created and interpreted by Ivan, to completely devastating effect.

Croatian Bojan Jascur a.k.a. N-TER, closes the vinyl with We Will Emerge, in a exercise of vindication, a common weapon in the context of Detroit music. Raging, trippy electro in the purest style of Cosmic Force or Dynarec.

This first tribute to 8 Mile doesn't end with the vinyl, as 2 digital bonus tracks are included in the release.

We return to Barcelona with Pastin Futon in another sequence of consecutive oscillated rhythms oscillated much like Kevin Saunderson (The Elevator) in his day and the Techno Groove that we know today.

The most robotic touch of the release is the closer with this synthetic jigsaw puzzle of a track with echoes of the 1967 Detroit Riot, the Detroit Rebellion. Again produced by another Barcelona native, The Bandit (Dj Spy / Util Records). The sequences are very reminiscent of Arpanet and Drexciya.

The idea for the cover comes from Motor City itself by Jon Yowell, first cousin of HC records founder and head of HC records David Verdeguer.

Born, raised and a lifelong resident of Detroit, Jon is an enormously talented musician capable of writing lyrics, performing them on the mic and manipulating a number of stringed instruments as well as the drums, where he is a true master.

The cover is a tribute to the formative backgrounds of many of the city's musicians in every sonic trend. Wayne State University in the capital of Michigan.

Founded in 1868, it has offered didactic teaching to many of the city's musicians.

Not all of Detroit's creators went to university, and even less so when talking about Techno, many artists are self-taught or learned in a non-academic way, but it seems to us a good base to begin to highlight the origins of the city's music in a historic building, where those who have the opportunity to learn about music have been and continue to be educated.

The adapted designs are the work of our image manager Dani Requeni.

Mastering by Steve Voidloss at Black Monolith Studios in London (UK).

Edition OF 500 copies, Comes with insert and download code.

An album that sounds like The Menahan Street Band playing in a tropical jungle, at dawn, right at the point when the first rays of sunlight penetrate the dark depths of the forest. During the 2022 summer of natural disasters, under an unprecedented heatwave, and haunted by news reports of ancient relics, sunken ships, and hunger stones resurfacing as rivers dried-up all-over Europe, Amsterdam based multi-instrumentalist producer Alex Figueira started to hear uncanny metallic vibrations And eerie melodies of untraceable origins, day and night. He recalls nightmares of winged creatures inside timeless structures of Escherian architectures playing cosmic instruments amidst tropical storms
and acid rains. As the visions came more often, his wife reported that he babbled during his sleep about South American demon Yurupari. Soon, Alex found himself in a sleepless state and decided to cleanse the studio, with hallowed rites and
the intense burning of Palo Santo. After almost burning the studio down, he turned to his neighbourhood’s most experienced psychic, seeking answers. He was told there were “cosmic entities” trying to manifest a message “too complex for us to understand in this dimension” and the only way he could find peace was to deliver those messages in a decipherable form. It was then he decided to transmute his hallucinations into music, an all-or-nothing cathartic solution.

Alex entered a feverish dream, fuelled by the kaleidoscopic motion of the cosmos, ancient meteor showers, and visions of forgotten interstellar South American gods. He remembers very little of the work, but the outcome is this record. Entirely composed, recorded, produced, and mixed in a frenetic nine-day studio stint.

How the experts describe it:

”Just when outernational vinyl vampires thought they had it all sewn up, the metronomic makeshift
magician known as Alex Figueira unravels the entire fabric of your record collection to expose a gaping
hole where PUNKUMBIA and Transplant-Tropicalia should be. Reducing an expansive palette of
influences to a recipe that tastes wildly exotic but comfortably over-familiar, Alex’s roles as both
scavenger and chef, bookend a whole ensemble of other highly adept musical personalities in between.
Discover this record NOW, or wait until all your friends (or enemies) recommend it to you later.”
Andy Votel (Finders Keepers)

“Incendiary, lysergic takes on South American and Caribbean music from one of the scene's truly
authentic and eccentric producers. You can always count on Venezuelan-born, Amsterdam-based,
multi-instrumentalist, music-fanatic Alex Figueira to surprise and innovate, whilst consistently keeping it
true and real. The former Fumaça Preta drummer & front-man's debut solo album does not disappoint!”
Miles Cleret (Soundway)

“The one man band Alex Figueira comes through with some major flavors on this one. Cumbia beats and
psychedelic elements with that Latin touch of soul & Funk!”
Kenny Dope (Masters at Work)

“I really respect Alex Figueira’s DIY ethos. From running his own little funky recordstore to running his
own label and making his own music by playing every instrument himself. I was already a fan of the song
“Aprende” which he released on 7 inch and with“Mentallogenic” he takes it a step further in that same
vibe. From songs like “La Culebra” making use of a vocoder in his typical latin sound to songs like
“Serious” playing with rhythmic changes and topping it off with some synth flavors. A lovely and fun
album”.
Antal (Rush Hour).

Following up his score for the japanese Netflix Anime series “Carole & Tuesday”, Mocky returns to album mode with his new orchestral opus “Overtones For The Omniverse”. Just days before the first Covid lockdowns, Mocky brought a 16 person orchestra comprising of his usual who’s who of underground talent into LA’s Barefoot Studios (and into the same room where Stevie Wonder recorded “Songs in the Key of Life”) to record a pile of scores he had come up with during his previous year’s sabbatical in Portugal. The result is a stunning orchestral album recorded in 36 hours in one or two takes straight off the written page. Shunning the “possible perfection” of today's recording techniques, Mocky looked back as a way to find an alternate future.

According to Mocky:
“We had to do it quick with no rehearsal to capture that big open sound of people working together in a room - in all its imperfect glory. In the imperfections you find the humanity. And in today’s tech driven spaces you have to fight to preserve a space for humanity. I felt a deep desire to create a sonic trajectory path for us to follow as we ascend and evolve our understanding of love and what it means to be human. This is the inspiration for „Overtones for the Omniverse“”.

The album runs the gamut from Steve Reich infused minimalism overlaid with Dorothy Ashby style harp runs (“Overtures”) to atonal analogue synth sounds over Martin Denny style percussion (“Bora!”). There's a classic Mocky crooning number that gives a Jim Henson-esque take on the state of “Humans” and the album as a whole captures Mocky's skill of bringing together the joyful energy of a unique cast of LA collaborators.

Featuring:
Randal Fisher / Flute, Vicky Farewell / Piano, Vocals, Harry Foster / Bass, Vibraphone, Tubular Bells, Vocals Joey Dosik / Organ and Glockenspiel, Vocals, Guilermo E. Brown aka Pw / Percussion, Vocals, Jhan Lee Aponte (TossTones) / Percussion, Vocals, Timpani, Paul Cartwright / Violin, Molly Rogers / Viola, Gabe Noel / Cello, Contrabass, Liza Wallace / Harp, Coco O. / Vocals, Mocky / Compositions, Drums, Vocals, Roland Sh-1000

O for the O Choir :
Nia Andrews, Leslie Feist, Moses Sumney, Durand Bernarr, Eddie Chacon

Recorded at Barefoot Studios, Los Angeles March 6 + 7, 2020.
All songs written by Dominic “Mocky” Salole and published by Heavy Sheet Music/Warner Chappell except "Wishful Thinking" written by Dominic “Mocky” Salole and Matt Corby and "Bora!" written by Dominic “Mocky” Salole, Guillermo Brown, Aponte Poro.

Produced by Mocky, Justin Stanley and Renaud Letang. Mixed by Renaud Letang at Ferber Studios Paris
Mastered by Emilie Daelemans. Cover artwork by Rand Sevilla. Photo by Vice Cooler.

ABOUT MOCKY
Performer, producer, songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist, Dominic "Mocky" Salole came to prominence in the Berlin electronic scene of the mid 2000s, releasing three acclaimed solo albums, co-writing and producing classics like Jamie Lidell's "Multiply" and Feist's "The Reminder" and making waves on stage with close collaborators (and fellow Canadians) Peaches, Feist and Chilly Gonzales.
In 2009, his music took a jazz-inflected turn to the acoustic with the release of "Saskamodie" and in 2011, after work in Big Sur on Feist's "Metals", Mocky relocated to Los Angeles, where he quickly established himself as a co-writer with uncommon credentials and eccentric working methods collaborating with L.A.’s brightest breakthrough artists like Kelela, Joey Dosik, Vulfpeck or Moses Sumney.

Whilst in L.A. songs he has written have been sung by Mary J. Blige, Jill Scott and many more and he has collaborated with artists as diverse as Mali’s Bassekou Kouyate and the GZA. His monthly rooftops gigs at the ACE Hotel breathed new life into the LA live scene and Mocky channeled those new creative energies into his fifth full length album "Key Change" and four digital mixtapes/EPs "The Moxtapes" Vol. I-IV.

After co-producing and co-writing Feist's "Pleasure", Kelela's "Take Me Apart" and Joey Dosik's "Inside Voice", in 2018 Mocky released two albums: "Music Save Me (One More Time)" - a collection of the best of Japan-only/unreleased gems and favorites from his so far digital only "Moxtapes" series and "A Day At United", an instrumental jazz album, recorded in a single day in the legendary LA recording studio United Recording.

In 2019 Mocky delved into soundtrack work by collaborating with legendary Anime director Shinichiro Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop) on the first two seasons of the breakthrough show “Carole and Tuesday” (Netflix) for which he won Best Score at the Anime Awards 2020.

BLUE & BONE VINYL

Eric D. Johnson rarely lingers at one location too long. As a kid growing up in the Midwest, Johnson's family moved around a lot, but it wasn't until he became a touring musician years later that motion became a central part of his identity. That transient lifestyle stoked an enduring reverence for the world he watched pass by through a van window. A sense of place is a unifying theme he's revisited with Fruit Bats throughout its many lives. From the project's origins in the late '90s as a vehicle for Johnson's lo-fi tinkering to the more sonically ambitious work of recent years, Fruit Bats has often showcased love songs where people and locations meld into one. It's a loose song structure that navigates what he calls "the geography of the heart." "The songs exist in a world that you can sort of travel from one to another," says Johnson. "There are roads and rivers between these songs." Those pathways extend straight through the newest Fruit Bats album, aptly titled A River Running to Your Heart . Self-produced by Johnson_a first for Fruit Bats_with Jeremy Harris at Panoramic House just north of San Francisco, it's Fruit Bats' tenth full-length release and one that finds the project in the middle of a creative resurgence. After two decades of making music, hard-earned emotional maturity has seeped into Johnson's songs, resulting in a more complex sound that's connected with audiences like no other previous version of Fruit Bats. A River Running to Your Heart represents the fullest realization of that creative vision to date. It's a sonically diverse effort that largely explores the importance of what it means to be home, both physically and spiritually. And while that might seem like a peculiar focus for an artist who's constantly in motion, for Fruit Bats, home can take many forms_from the obvious to the obscure. Lead single "Rushin' River Valley" is a self-propelled love song written about Johnson's wife that clings to the borrowed imagery of the place where she grew up in northern California. Then, there's the gentle and unfussy acoustic ballad "We Used to Live Here," which looks back to a time of youthful promise and cheap rent. But the wistful "It All Comes Back" is perhaps the most stunning and surprising track on the album, Johnson's production skills on full display. Built upon intricate layers of synths, keyboards, and guitars, it's a pitch-perfect blend of tone and lyricism that taps into our shared apprehensions and hopes for a post-pandemic life. "We lost some time / But we can make it back / Let's take it easy on ourselves, okay?" sings a world-weary but ultimately reassuring Johnson in the song's opening lines. It's the kind of performance that makes you hope Fruit Bats stays in this one place, at least for a little while longer.

Eric D. Johnson rarely lingers at one location too long. As a kid growing up in the Midwest, Johnson's family moved around a lot, but it wasn't until he became a touring musician years later that motion became a central part of his identity. That transient lifestyle stoked an enduring reverence for the world he watched pass by through a van window. A sense of place is a unifying theme he's revisited with Fruit Bats throughout its many lives. From the project's origins in the late '90s as a vehicle for Johnson's lo-fi tinkering to the more sonically ambitious work of recent years, Fruit Bats has often showcased love songs where people and locations meld into one. It's a loose song structure that navigates what he calls "the geography of the heart." "The songs exist in a world that you can sort of travel from one to another," says Johnson. "There are roads and rivers between these songs." Those pathways extend straight through the newest Fruit Bats album, aptly titled A River Running to Your Heart . Self-produced by Johnson_a first for Fruit Bats_with Jeremy Harris at Panoramic House just north of San Francisco, it's Fruit Bats' tenth full-length release and one that finds the project in the middle of a creative resurgence. After two decades of making music, hard-earned emotional maturity has seeped into Johnson's songs, resulting in a more complex sound that's connected with audiences like no other previous version of Fruit Bats. A River Running to Your Heart represents the fullest realization of that creative vision to date. It's a sonically diverse effort that largely explores the importance of what it means to be home, both physically and spiritually. And while that might seem like a peculiar focus for an artist who's constantly in motion, for Fruit Bats, home can take many forms_from the obvious to the obscure. Lead single "Rushin' River Valley" is a self-propelled love song written about Johnson's wife that clings to the borrowed imagery of the place where she grew up in northern California. Then, there's the gentle and unfussy acoustic ballad "We Used to Live Here," which looks back to a time of youthful promise and cheap rent. But the wistful "It All Comes Back" is perhaps the most stunning and surprising track on the album, Johnson's production skills on full display. Built upon intricate layers of synths, keyboards, and guitars, it's a pitch-perfect blend of tone and lyricism that taps into our shared apprehensions and hopes for a post-pandemic life. "We lost some time / But we can make it back / Let's take it easy on ourselves, okay?" sings a world-weary but ultimately reassuring Johnson in the song's opening lines. It's the kind of performance that makes you hope Fruit Bats stays in this one place, at least for a little while longer.

Recorded in a little bedroom studio out in Durham, North Carolina, Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn's debut LP as Sylvan Esso arrived in 2014 at the juncture of pop and experimental. Even now, years later, the LP remains an urgent and fitting introduction to a push-and-pull that would go on to inform the duo's sound - a thoughtful headiness that also wants you to get out on the dance floor. A blend of analog and digital, Meath and Sanborn were two unexpected puzzle pieces fitting together with singular ease, producing a ten-track LP that was both minimalist and shimmering, with dark undulations rippling beneath the synthy-surface and crystalline quality of Meath's voice. Before all of the international touring and festival headlining and critical acclaim, Sylvan Esso was just a shot-in-the dark of musical chemistry gone right. The original album bio for the self-titled presciently sets the stage for the thesis that has gone on to guide Meath and Sanborn's writing since then: "a collection of vivid addictions concerning suffering and love, darkness and deliverance" arriving as "a necessary pop balm, an album stuffed with songs that don't suffer the longstanding complications of that term." And so, even as the band continues to evolve and becomes amorphous, there's still that argument about what pop can be at its core. This is just the beginning of that conversation captured on tape.

She’s out of this world…

Maltese musician & producer Joon’s galactic debut arrives on our shores fully formed a decade after she first set sail. 12 cuts of uniquely addictive Synthesized Pop twist & turn on the rocky waters of life.

Her story begins after a life-changing car crash on the streets of Malta many moons ago. She was lucky to walk away in one piece. “That car crash was a wake-up call,” she says. “It made me realize how precious life is & I started living the life I felt was worth living.” Inspired to finally pursue her love of music full time, she began collecting instruments. Starting with a Stylophone& a vintage rhythm box, she started documenting ideas. Returning home to Malta after a few years in London, she only met one other woman making electronic music on the island. Driven by the desire to make music possible & accessible for the next generation, Joon co-founded the Malta Sound Women’s Network.

Ten years later, she sends us messages in a bottle from across the Mediterranean Sea. Armed with a Moog & her ethereal voice, she transmits hope & joy from a bedroom somewhere between Sicily & North Africa. Her music is right at home alongside outsider pioneers like Fever Ray, Grimes, Laurie Anderson & Molly Nilsson. Dream Again glides across heavy rhythms & eclectic electro. Telling stories of alienation with a throbbing heartbeat & space-age melodies, she lets us into her ultra-vivid world where anything is possible. Produced by Johnny Jewel, the album shines bright like comet orbiting the label’s dark sky, a much-needed vision of light on the horizon.

“Even if I’m sad or heartbroken, I remain optimistic. I want to grow old with no regrets.”

It’s time to Dream Again…

Born in Milan to a Cameroonese father and a Polish/Lithuanian mother, Nathan Dawidowicz moved at the age of 6 to Jerusalem. He was spending his childhood in a Jewish ultra-orthodox environment playing the piano and dreaming of being a Fashion designer and musician. After waking up from the reality he was raised in, he moved to Venice and started to explore the "outside world" of the mental barriers of religion. Music and fashion were his medicine, and he quickly became addicted to musical textures and vinyl. His love for music brought him quickly to Berlin, where he currently lives and loves.

Sanctuary Of Ideas is a very personal and optimistic journey by Nathan Dawidowicz. His first solo album is a spiritual path, as cosmic and adventurous as Nathan`s trajectory, with beautiful twists and psychedelic twirls into Dawidowicz personal rabbit hole. A record full of memories and positive affirmations, filled with Jazzy yet psychedelic Cosmic and Krautrock elements. A fusion of inspiration - and a perfect reflection of Dawidowicz heritage.

Idea`s Eve is a stargate to our ancestral power. The source of our inspiration is connected to our past - to the spirits of our ancient memories. Dawidowicz leaves a lot of space to breathe in this magical opener. Enchanting melodies and bubbling sounds surround the listener while his voice keeps repeating a mantra of an ancient love spell. A track where you feel your DNA spiraling up the ladder of evolution. Yet so natural and healing.

Full Moon Dance is the spiritual continuation of the first track. A swirl of magical melodies, yet jazzy but truly cosmic walking up the ladder to another dimension, where warm moon rays and fluffy clouds surround love. The synth lines represent the playful and smooth moon rays reflected on a rhythmical heart-beating ground where tears can be joyfully spent to honor the emotions we usually oppress.

To close the EP, Nathan Dawidowicz worked a half a year to finalize the last track in full detail. 23 Minutes and 18 Seconds long is the Capricorn Rising Over Jerusalemite Temple. This story is where the listener is brought to a higher level of consciousness. Against the rules of our consumerist world, Nathan Dawidowicz focuses on a dramaturgy full of patience for our own lifetime. Acidic lines come and go, powerful synth solos trigger unknown brain parts, and an epic melody accompanies the listener and lets dark emotions melt in a brass-filled part where a voice tells us that time is on our side. The song ends with an epic twist and promises a new start, where our most lovely memories stay in a vortex of light. Beam me up Nathan.

After the experience of Camizole, Dominique Grimaud began a new (and different) adventure in 1979 with Monique Alba. Alongside Gilbert Artman (Urban Sax), Guigou Chenevier (Etron Fou Leloublan), Jean-Pierre Grasset (Verto) and Cyril Lefebvre (Maajun), Vidéo-Aventures is composed of instrumentals capable of reconciliating Captain Beefheart, Henry Cow, Suicide and... John Barry. All with the backing of Rock In Opposition, which enabled this Musiques pour garçons et filles to become known worldwide.

“Let us enter your hearts”: is the request made by Vidéo-Aventures, and how can we refuse? Especially as Musiques pour garçons et filles, recorded by Dominique Grimaud and Monique Alba fifty years ago along with handpicked colleagues, is as fresh as ever.

1979: having improvised a huge amount (and how!) with Camizole, Grimaud tried his hand at composition and studio recording with Alba. Their first instrument was the AKS synthetiser, with which the duo recorded the instrumental tracks that were then offered to their comrades Guigou Chenevier (Etron Fou Leloublan), Gilbert Artman (Lard Free, Urban Sax), Jean-Pierre Grasset (Verto) and Cyril Lefebvre (Maajun).

At the end of the year, they all came into the studio for a week to record the eight tracks of this mini- album that Chris Cutler would issue a few months later on his label, Recommended. In France it was the beginning of the agitation around Rock In Opposition, to such a point that Musiques pour Garçons et Filles would rise to second place in the NME independent Charts. And this is hardly surprising...

For these instrumental miniatures (here with the bonus of rare archives, some of which are previously unpublished) are uncontrollable: electronics augmented by lap-steel guitar (“Tina”), cunning pop (“Zazou sur la piste”), mechanic sound (“Une vie modern”), street piano (« French Kiss »), disturbing atmospheres (“La ballade des cardiaques”) or something like a TV theme tune capable of adjusting all the colours (“Telstar”)... With such promising ingredients, why stop Vidéo-Aventures from entering?

Red Vinyl

ASSASSINS did what many bands do: they grabbed a moment out of the air and slammed it onto tape machines and hard drives with relentlessness, cunning, and an attitude.
It was in Chicago, mid 2000’s, and though there was energy in the music scene, it wasn’t coalescing into anything you could use as a heading in the musical encyclopedia. Drag City, Thrill Jockey, Bloodshot, Tortoise, Andrew Bird, 90 Day Men – amazing labels and bands, but discrete and siloed and separated by boundaries that weren’t very real.
In the midst of that complicated morass, ASSASSINS generated a collection of songs that became the album YOU WILL CHANGED US. And it did.
There was confidence built into the fabric of the project: 5 members, 2 singers, massive synced video walls and samples streaming from laptops swirling in three dimensions around the stage. They could go from subtle atmospheric moments to a gargantuan wall of sound instantly. It was hard to do- months in cold practice rooms troubleshooting sections of songs or reworking synthesizer patches put the band through a self-imposed boot camp. And it brought them together as a sort of hive-mind focused on one thing: that these songs could connect. They could cut through the noise and share a state of mind with other human beings.
And it worked. Those early shows were mind bending. It was fun, loud, drunken, and rewarding- that time together, before the record deal, before the tragic let down of being traded and gobbled up by the major label system. The years after that got more difficult, more complicated, more human.
Leading us here: the musical journey of the Assassins has ended. With the up-coming release of their second and final album THE YEAR THAT NEVER CAME, we finally get to hear, and feel, the final statements of their inspiring chemistry.
In July of 2021, founding member, songwriter and singer Joe Cassidy unexpectedly passed away. THE YEAR THAT NEVER CAME is the culmination and end point of a collaboration that started in the early 2000’s with a chance meeting and excited conversation with Aaron Miller at a gig in Chicago. Quickly joined by David Golitko on keyboards, Merritt Lear on vocals and guitar, and Alex Kemp on bass.
It was Miller who saw Joe Cassidy’s song writing in a new context. Cassidy had been known for his beautiful, post- pop inflected BUTTERFLY CHILD, a thoughtful, regal project where Joe’s emotions could soar. Miller saw a different context for that voice- not dreamy, but immediate, not just hopeful, but demanding. He took Joe’s open hand and suggested that it could be a fist, raised in the air, with a crowd of other people doing the same.
At the time of his death legendary composer and songwriter Jimmy Webb (who wrote such hits as ‘Wichita Lineman and MacArthur Park) said Joe ‘was a creative and generous producer but, more importantly, he was a creative and generous friend.’
With the release of THE YEAR THAT NEVER CAME, this band, this relentless creative force, has to finally relent. No one in the band could see a future ASSASSINS that doesn’t include Cassidy. So in one last act of will, for the love of their friend, they did the rigorous work of finishing the songs that they had started together for the second album.
Assassin’s obsession with the notion of time, from YOU WILL CHANGED US to THE YEAR THAT NEVER CAME, flows from the most natural question we all have to ask ourselves: what do I do now? Because: how we react today to life’s unpredictability - that is the tomorrow we build for ourselves.

Very few electronic music artists can boast of spanning a wide musical spectrum as the UK producer Calum Lee aka Paleman / Fresnel Lens.Always emphasizing the percussive side (advantage of being a jazz drummer), and always with an innovative spirit, the releases of this authenticsound designer oscillate between the most abstract / experimental electronica and minimalist club focused techno, from atmospheric andintrospective works to the sickest dubstep / bass music.

As at 30D we declare ourselves absolute fans of Calum's music, we had a clear obligation to ask him to join our catalogue, specifically for the EyesHave It sub-label (we had especial interest in his interpretation of broken, dark and industrial techno). His answer was direct and unmistakable:"I've sent you a lot of pieces that fit with your label vision and the imagery that we love.. I've been studying existentialism a lot recently, so thesetunes are a reflection of my headspace at the moment!".

A true declaration of intent!And here it is, five perfect examples of obsessive tribal madness, overexciting synthetic broken beats and a lot of rawness. A pure musical gem.

Sintering or frittage is the process of compacting and forming a solid mass of material by heat or pressure without melting it to the point of liquefaction. The material produced by sintering is called sinter. The word sinter comes from the Middle High German sinter, a cognate of English cinder.

Born in the mid-60s, German musician and sound designer Uwe Zahn came on the scene of electronic music with his debut full-length album for DIN, titled “Atol Scrap.” In the very same year of 2000, the influential City Centre Offices label has signed Arovane for his majestic “Tides,” which has withstood the test of time for over two decades now. Back then, electronic music was split between the dance floors and the bedroom listening, with the latter carrying the now-famous acronym for Intelligent Dance Music. And Zahn’s compositions were indeed just that – more than a gimmicky, knob-twisting, stuttering randomization of experimental rhythms and tone, Arovane’s music evoked real emotion which has assembled his followers from around the globe. But his arrival on the scene was more than a predictable trajectory. Zahn’s sound began to take shape in the late 80s when the cut-up hip-hop beats were layered with synthesizer pads and looped samples. This experimentation progressed into what the 90s coined as breakbeat and glitch.

As the 2000s rolled over, and the monumental imprints, such as Skam and Warp, honed their staple repertoire defining the future of electronic music, City Centre Offices had a staple of their own. Often referenced alongside Boards of Canada and Autechre, Arovane’s sound quickly gained a discerning audience, tuning into his melancholic melodies, advanced textures, and complex polyrhythms. The pinnacle of his production was released in 2004, when suddenly, on “Lilies,” Zahn signed off with the final track, which he has titled “Good Bye Forever.” And then there was silence. For nearly nine years, the scene and yours truly mourned the loss of Arovane, assuming that he’s given up. That is until, in 2013, Zahn came out with a brand new album, “Ve Palor,” on the surviving post-IDM imprint, n5MD.

While on hiatus, Uwe spent his time researching, reconnecting, and reflecting on all he’s built. The sound experiments went on, and so did the music scene, morphing, dissolving, re-shaping itself into a new form for new followers. During that time, Zahn spent some time with sound design, creating patches for Access Virus TI, as well as sample packs for various sound developers. After “Ve Palor,” Zahn began collaborating with various musicians from around the world, exploring, directing, and fusing their distinguished sound with his own. On his subsequent releases, he shared credits with ambient artists Porya Hatami, Hior Chronik, Darren McClure, and even yours truly. During our collaboration, Zahn often described the process of building a new vocabulary for our very own defined language, with which my piano spoke through sound.

With nearly two dozen studio releases under his belt, numerous EPs and singles, and just as many appearances on various compilations, Zahn continues to split his time between his fascination with sound design, sonic programming, and musical composition, which sees the light via his ongoing projects, releases, and contributions towards audio plug-ins, software synths, and sound sets for advanced hardware. It’s effortless to slot Zahn’s sound between the genres, scenes, and names, but very difficult to peel apart, define, and then express the essence using words. However, what is simple and essential for the ones who understand, is recognizing, admiring, and subsequently falling in love with all that is encompassing of Arovane. (by Mike Lazarev)

Elias Devoldere is the drummer in bands such as Nordmann, Hypochristmutreefuzz, Suwi, Robbing Millions, and John Ghost. Following an ep, Kaiku, released last summer, Bloomed > Exploded is his debut full length as a solo artist. Besides writing and singing, he composed, played, recorded, and produced the bulk of the ten songs himself. 'Everything blooms', he explains the title of his first album. 'Until it explodes, and something else is able to grow from it'. In this case, what came full cycle is an intimate coming-of-age album of intangible atmospherics, crisp melodies, and understated rhythmical patterns.

BLOOMED >

'As a kid, I just wanted to play football, you know?', says Elias. 'But when I was eight years old, my parents made me choose between drawing school and music school'. And thus began a dedication to rhythm for Elias. At 18, he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in his hometown of Ghent, opting for a jazz education. 'Not because I aspired to become a master 'jazz drummer', but to learn music, to become a good musician'. It was at the academy that, after an impromptu jam session, Nordmann first came together. The exhilarating instrumental quartet went on to win second place at the prestigious Humo's Rock Rally in 2014, and released three albums to critical acclaim, with a new one in the works.

Devoldere, in the meantime, had completed his degree with a craving - ironically - for music. 'I was in over my head with jazz for such a long time, and went on an epic discovering spree. Moses Sumney, James Blake, Kendrick Lamar, Connan Mockasin... Lots of stuff I had missed over the years. In a way, I reconnected with the kind of music I was into before jazz dominated my life. Pink Floyd was my first love, for instance, and later Radiohead proved to be a game changer. Diving back into those kind of sounds, I was feeling the urge to follow my old dreams, of being a solo artist - or something more than 'just' a drummer, anyway. So I bought a guitar, an interface for my laptop, and started writing'.

EXPLODED

When he released his 5 track ep Kaiku in the summer of 2021, it summarised a lot of firsts for Elias. First time writing lyrics, first time as a lead vocalist, first time recording his own songs all by himself. The songs had been around for a while, but taking those leaps took a long time. 'Making the ep helped me to find my voice, in every way possible'. Still, in the aftermath of the pandemic, the songs on Bloomed > Exploded sprouted in a time of upheaval. 'Musically the album is quite serene, gentle even. But the themes speak of internal unrest and uncertainty. There are a lot of questions on the album, as it turned out. Duality, as the title suggests, coming from the struggle between a wish to turn everything upside down and a search for peace. Honestly: the prospect of my 30th birthday was messing with my head too'.

Recording during a period of solitude in France, Elias initially relied heavily on synthesizers and drum machines. 'Explode / Boalis was one of the first songs I wrote for this album, and pivotal for its atmosphere, based mostly on electronic elements. Later, I did use 'real' drums on most of the other songs, though, and contributions from other musicians, but the overall mood is very cohesive'. 'Pure', that's how Bruno Ellingham, the UK engineer who mixed the album, described it. Much to the delight of Elias, who reached out to Ellingham because of his previous work with bands such as Massive Attack and Portishead. 'Hearing the end result, I thought he really captured the essence of the original demo's. For me, that adds to this album being a sincere reflection of my true self. 'Take a dive/ Into the place where it's more quiet', as I sing in the last song, that kind of sums it up for me'.

You reach a point in life where the question of how to stay at the top of your game looms; the only real solution being, you change the game. Our Love, the new album from Caribou, is the sound of Dan Snaith doing just that. Our Love is due October 6th on City Slang and is the sixth studio album from Caribou. The album features collaborations with Jessy Lanza and Owen Pallett. It was mixed by David Wrench and features artwork by Jason Evans/ Matthew Cooper.

Our Love is formed around a mixture of digital pop production, hip hop inspired beats, muted house basslines and a love of shuffling garage that can be traced all the way back to the time of Start Breaking My Heart which are, of course, all filtered through Dan's own unique perspective. The warm analogue sounds of classic soul should not be overlooked either, for they weave themselves most intensely into the records DNA. In fact, Our Love is probably Caribou's most soulful record to date, chock-full of heartfelt lyrics and organic nature which cuts through bubbling synths and blissful euphoria of their synthetic constructions. It's not all downbeat of course, whilst some thoughts linger on mortality, loss and letting go, there is always an element of celebration.

Having followed up his Polaris Prize winning 2007 record Andorra with the universally adored Swim in 2010 (selling nearly 175, 000 copies worldwide and being named 'Album of the Year' by Rough Trade, Mixmag and Resident Advisor whilst also hitting The Guardian, Pitchfork, Spin and Mojo's Top 20), Dan has spent the intervening four years not only touring the world, bringing not only the sounds of Caribou to the stage but proving his immeasurable worth as a DJ with epic 7.5 hour long sets. In 2012 Caribou were personally invited to join Radiohead on the road whilst Dan released his first album under the guise of his dance floor loving pseudonym, Daphni, to widespread critical acclaim. Following the shape shifting sounds of JIAOLONG and the brightly textured, fluid constructions of Swim - both inward looking records in their own way - Dan withdrew to the basement once more to work on Caribou's next opus. Only he didn't: Our Love isn't the sound of isolated creation but the sound of Dan at his most connected - with love for his listeners, his collaborators and those closest to him.

"Dans cent ans" is not a record: it’s a talisman.
Flavien Berger doesn’t make music, he makes time machines.
In 2015, he released his first album, Leviathan, which he’d imagined like a moment suspended into the bowels of present time.
In 2018, Contre-Temps, his critically acclaimed second album, was narrated like a flashback.
Dans Cent Ans (“In 100 Years”) ends this trilogy and launches into the future with the grace of a poisonous serpent.
Flavien had just finished producing Pomme’s last album and was simultaneously scoring Céline Devaux’s feature film Tout le monde aime Jeanne, when he recorded this album, during six months of isolation.
In the garret of a Belgian house in construction, these 12 tracks were born, close to the sky, both direct and mysterious.
Because Flavien Berger knows how to make machines sound sensual (a key example is the pop song “D’ici là”) and dares to interweave electronics, chanson and art music, organic instruments and synthetic choirs, without ever falling into parodic territory.
Because his voice, more precise, unreverbed, and close-mic’d than ever, sings to our ears – using multisyllabic rhymes (“Trop ivres pour te plaire / Tropiques du cancer”) and surrealist imagery (“la neige restera rose” – “the snow will remain pink”) – stories that feel unknown yet obvious.
And like both previous albums ended with a long eponymous track like a breath of air, “Leviathan” and “Contre-temps”, so does “Dans Cent Ans”, a 15-minute long saga where vocals, wind instruments and machines converse, as if Debussy, Etienne Daho and a Sufi Dervish met in a dream.
After listening to this album, the vertigo of love and the collision of times are one and the same.
In one hundred years, music will survive us all, and its dangerous beauty will awaken other lives. In the meantime, Flavien Berger keeps stunning ours.

Sacramento, CA duo Blank Gloss’s third album, Cornered, is an exquisite statement of pop ambient starkness, an album that oscillates between lush beauty and spare melancholy. It follows from their 2021 debut for Kompakt, Melt, an album that saw Morgan Fox (piano, synths) and Patrick Hills (guitar) aligned, loosely, with the cosmic pastorale of the ‘ambient Americana’ movement. Cornered feels like a significant step forward, though – by peeling back the layers of their music, they’ve revealed both its restful core and its solemn gravitas. It is unendingly lovely, but with something disquieting at its centre.

Cornered was recorded quickly, over two days in December 2020. There’s nothing rushed or haphazard about the album, though; everything has its place, with each sonic element contributing profoundly to these nine miniature dioramas. It signals change, quietly but perceptibly, through the way the duo sculpts their material, building out of loose improvisations that morphed into songs. While there was no plan in mind when Blank Gloss settled into the studio, Fox recalls that “right away we realised that things were sounding and feeling a bit different than any of the sessions we had previously.”

That difference can be heard in the increased amount of space Blank Gloss gift to their sound sources. Some of the most moving moments on Cornered come when Fox and Hills strip everything back – see, for example, “Crossing”, which sets pensive piano across a shyly humming drone and quiet arcs of guitar, recalling the driftworks of Roger Eno. Curiously, the album’s distinctive shape and mood develops, at least in part, from a change in instrumentation, with Hills using a MIDI pick-up on his guitar. “This resulted in making things happen a lot quicker,” Fox says. “It also helped create what I think is a bit more sombre, dark feeling to some of the songs.”

Elsewhere, on songs like “Salt”, the piano tussles with flecks of guitar, single tones sent out to mingle with the stars, like Morricone at 16 RPM, while Cornered’s centrepiece, the eleven-minute “No Appetite”, lets long arcs of electronic texture breathe and sigh, tangling together in a cat’s cradle of bliss. Throughout, it feels as though the music is blossoming as you hear it, like watching time-lapse footage of flora in bloom. But perhaps the most seductive thing about Cornered is the sense you get, listening, that the music was something unexpected, a visitation. “It almost felt like we weren’t dictating where the music went and how it sounded,” Fox agrees. “We were just there in a room together in December and these sounds were happening, and we were lucky enough to be recording the process.”

Cornered, das dritte Album des kalifornischen Duos Blank Gloss aus Sacramento, ist ein exquisites Statement von pop ambienter Krassheit, ein Album, das zwischen üppiger Schönheit und sparsamer Melancholie oszilliert. Es folgt ihrem 2021er Debüt für Kompakt, Melt, einem Album, auf dem sich Morgan Fox (Klavier, Synthesizer) und Patrick Hills (Gitarre) locker an der kosmischen Pastorale der „Ambient Americana“-Bewegung ausrichteten. Cornered fühlt sich jedoch wie ein bedeutender Schritt nach vorne an – indem sie die Schichten ihrer Musik abschälen, haben sie sowohl ihren ruhigen Kern als auch ihre feierliche Schwere offenbart. Es ist unendlich schön, aber mit etwas Beunruhigendem in seiner Mitte.

Cornered wurde relativ schnell aufgenommen, über zwei Tage im Dezember 2020. Es klingt jedoch nichts überstürzt oder willkürlich an diesem Album; alles hat seinen Platz, wobei jedes Klangelement einen wesentlichen Beitrag zu diesen neun Miniaturdioramen leistet. Es signalisiert Veränderung, leise, aber wahrnehmbar, durch die Art und Weise, wie das Duo sein Material formt und aus losen Improvisationen aufbaut, die sich in Songs verwandeln. Als Blank Gloss sich im Studio niederließen, gab es zwar keinen Plan, aber Fox erinnert sich: „Uns war sofort klar, dass sich die Dinge etwas anders anhörten und anfühlten als bei allen vorherigen Sessions.“

Dieser Unterschied ist in der größeren Menge an Raum zu hören, die Blank Gloss ihren Klangquellen bietet. Einige der bewegendsten Momente auf Cornered kommen, wenn Fox und Hills alles zurücknehmen – siehe zum Beispiel „Crossing“, wo ein nachdenkliches Klavier über einen schüchtern summenden Drone und leise Gitarrenloops setzt und an die Driftworks von Roger Eno erinnert. Seltsamerweise entwickelt sich die unverwechselbare Form und Stimmung des Albums zumindest teilweise aus einer Änderung der Instrumentierung, bei der Hills einen MIDI-Tonabnehmer an seiner Gitarre verwendet. „Dies führte dazu, dass die Dinge viel schneller abliefen“, sagt Fox. „Es hat auch dazu beigetragen, einigen der Songs ein etwas düstereres, dunkleres Gefühl zu verleihen.“ An anderer Stelle, bei Songs wie „Salt“, spielt das Klavier mit Gitarrenfetzen, einzelne Töne werden ausgesandt, um sich mit den Sternen zu vermischen, wie Morricone bei 16 U/min, während Cornereds Herzstück, das elfminütige „No Appetite“, lange Bögen schlägt, elektronische Texturen atmet und seufzt, um sich in einem Katzenkörbchen der Glückseligkeit zu verheddern. Während des Hörens fühlt es sich an, als ob die Musik blüht, als würde man sich Zeitrafferaufnahmen von blühenden Pflanzen ansehen. Aber das Verführerischste an Cornered ist vielleicht das Gefühl, das man beim Zuhören bekommt, dass die Musik etwas Unerwartetes war, eine Heimsuchung. „Es fühlte sich fast so an, als hätten WIR nicht diktiert, wohin die Musik geht und wie sie klingt“, stimmt Fox zu. „Wir waren just im Dezember zusammen in einem Raum, als diese Geräusche passierten, und wir hatten das Glück, dass die Aufnahme mitlief.”

Death and Vanilla return with 'Flicker', presenting their unique pop music that defies categorisation. Housed in a beautifully austere post-ironic de-constructed sleeve; 'Flicker' is a modern reflection on these difficult times. World crises notwithstanding, they return reborn, re-arranged and revitalised after assimilating dub reggae, the motorik spirals of Can, the modal meander of Philip Glass and The Cure's dreamier pop sounds; plus the twice removed symphonic ambience of Spiritualized and Talking Heads under heavy manners from Brian Eno. By osmosis their period of transition since 2019's much darker 'Are You A Dreamer?' has hatched new eclectic electronica anthems riddled with melody lines, and layered for lush love. - Forming in Malmö, Sweden, Death And Vanilla gravitated towards vintage musical equipment; from vibraphone, organ and mellotron, to tremolo guitar and Moog synthesisers. Soaking up soundtracks from the 60s and 70s, listening to library music, kosmiche, French Ye-ye pop and 60s psych, Marleen Nilsson, Anders Hansson and Magnus Bodin were fashioned by the city's austere industrial past and flat pack present, and all in the shadow of the Orsesund Bridge that links their dreamworld to mainland Europe and a darker reality. Death And Vanilla at once sound like everything is possible; but nothing else at all. There is a flicker of hope for everyone. - "Deploying vintage instruments in their quest for melancholic utopia." Electronic Sound * "Baroque pop through a dreampop filter." The Guardian Ltd Indie Retail Only Yellow Vinyl LP including DLC!