Lucy Kruger ist eine Singer-/Songwriterin aus Kapstadt, Südafrika, die kürzlich nach Berlin gezogen ist. Ihre Performance konzentriert sich auf das Pure, Nackte eines Songs, langsamer psychedelischer Folk, der sowohl intim als auch ambient ist. Drones gepaart mit Traumlandschaften lassen die Geschichten treiben und abtauchen, einschlafen und aufwachen. Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys' erste LP »Summer's Not That Simple« wurde in Zusammenarbeit mit dem südafrikanischen Indie-Label Permanent Records veröffentlicht. Das Album enthält ein Meer von Gitarren im Gespräch mit fast geflüsterten Gedanken.
Nun wird sie ihr zweites Album »Sleeping Tapes For Some Girls« bei Unique Records veröffentlichen. Das neue Album ist ein leiser Begleiter für unruhige Abende. Das Album wurde aufgenommen, kurz bevor Lucy im Mai letzten Jahres von Kapstadt nach Berlin gezogen ist. Während dieser Zeit hatte sie leise ein weiches Netz von Liedern gesponnen und wollte deren Gefühl vor dem Umzug einfangen. Die Aufnahmen wurden für einen ganz bestimmten Zuhörer gemacht. In den Jahren davor ist Lucy zu Bett gegangen und hat sich dabei mit Geschichten und Klängen anderer Songwriter umgeben, die zu engen Begleitern geworden sind, die sie herausforderten, förderten und schließlich beschenkten. Sie wollte denen, die es brauchen könnten, dasselbe geben. Die Arrangements sind minimal und lassen Platz für Lucys Stimme und Gitarre, die überall präsent sind - reflektieren, widerstehen und versuchen, mit widersprüchlichen Gedanken zu argumentieren.
Lucy Kruger ist eine Singer-/Songwriterin aus Kapstadt, Südafrika, die kürzlich nach Berlin gezogen ist. Ihre Performance konzentriert sich auf das Pure, Nackte eines Songs, langsamer psychedelischer Folk, der sowohl intim als auch ambient ist. Drones gepaart mit Traumlandschaften lassen die Geschichten treiben und abtauchen, einschlafen und aufwachen. Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys' erste LP »Summer's Not That Simple« wurde in Zusammenarbeit mit dem südafrikanischen Indie-Label Permanent Records veröffentlicht. Das Album enthält ein Meer von Gitarren im Gespräch mit fast geflüsterten Gedanken.
Nun wird sie ihr zweites Album »Sleeping Tapes For Some Girls« bei Unique Records veröffentlichen. Das neue Album ist ein leiser Begleiter für unruhige Abende. Das Album wurde aufgenommen, kurz bevor Lucy im Mai letzten Jahres von Kapstadt nach Berlin gezogen ist. Während dieser Zeit hatte sie leise ein weiches Netz von Liedern gesponnen und wollte deren Gefühl vor dem Umzug einfangen. Die Aufnahmen wurden für einen ganz bestimmten Zuhörer gemacht. In den Jahren davor ist Lucy zu Bett gegangen und hat sich dabei mit Geschichten und Klängen anderer Songwriter umgeben, die zu engen Begleitern geworden sind, die sie herausforderten, förderten und schließlich beschenkten. Sie wollte denen, die es brauchen könnten, dasselbe geben. Die Arrangements sind minimal und lassen Platz für Lucys Stimme und Gitarre, die überall präsent sind - reflektieren, widerstehen und versuchen, mit widersprüchlichen Gedanken zu argumentieren.
DINGGGDONGGGDINGGGzzzzzzz!!!!!!! In the newest record by the iconoclastic Brooklyn-born composer Charlemagne Palestine (b. 1947), find two mesmerizing works for carillon, the keyboard-controlled bell tower derived in the 16th century. On side A, a new piece recorded at the artist's studio in Belgium_a high-ceiling, stuffed-animal-packed paradise he calls Charleworld_among friends and "divinities," his name for the thousands of plush toys he's amassed since the '60s. On the flip side, Blank Forms Editions' very first and long out-of-print release appears on vinyl for the first time: a cathartic street recording of the minimalist composer's 2018 musical eulogy for his late friend Tony Conrad, performed on the bells of St. Thomas Episcopal Church where the two first met. Two mesmerizing "klanggdedangggebannggg" sessions in the Quasimodo of 53rd Street's unmistakable improvisatory style. Perhaps more than any of his contemporaries in the bustling, cross-disciplinary downtown New York arts scene of the '60s and '70s, Charlemagne Palestine has embodied the notion of the artist as playful polymath, testing and transcending nearly every creative form imaginable in his more than six-decade career. Originally trained in Jewish sacred singing to be a cantor, he began his artistic life as a musician, studying piano and accordion, accompanying figures like Tiny Tim and Allen Ginsburg on percussion, using early synthesizers as an assistant to Alwin Nikolais, and eventually landing a long-running gig as the carillonneur at Midtown's St. Thomas Episocal. This libertine spirit of experimentation soon led to adventures in other aesthetic arenas: making kinetic light sculptures with Len Lye, devising choreographed performances with Simone Forti, and producing over a dozen visceral videotapes with the Castelli Gallery. In the '70s, he was particularly prominent on the burgeoning loft movement, becoming well-known for his sparse, intense, and exacting long-form piano concerts, that seemed to bend the very nature of time and space. Beginning in the '80s, he spent decades in self-imposed exile from the new music scene, absconding to a palace in Europe and privately honing his hermetic sonic and visual practice, until his resurgence among record fanatics in the mid-'90s.
Das experimentelle elektronische Hiphop-Duo H31R (sprich: air) - bestehend aus der Produzentin/ Komponistin JWords aus New Jersey und der Rapperin/ Sängerin maassai aus Brooklyn - kündigt seine neueste Veröffentlichung, „HeadSpace“, auf dem Ninja Tune-Sublabel Big Dada an. Das Album folgt auf ihr außergewöhnliches Debütalbum, „ve-loc-i-ty“, aus dem Jahr 2020, das sofort die Aufmerksamkeit von Pitchfork, The Wire, Brooklyn Vegan, Okayplayer, Cabbages, Bandcamp und anderen auf sich zog.
„HeadSpace“ markiert eine neue Phase des Erwachsenwerdens für das Duo; es findet sich mit einem neuen Verständnis dessen ab, was es ist, und erkundet, wie es mit der Welt interagieren möchte. Wie sein Vorgänger manövriert auch „HeadSpace“ mit rasender Geschwindigkeit durch seine 14 Tracks. „Glitch In Time“ gibt den Ton für das Album an, mit düsteren Bässen, groovigen Drums und schrägen Melodien, die sich durch das ganze Album ziehen. Es enthält Momente der Introspektion und Selbstreflexion, in Songs wie „Static“ und „Reflection“, während das erbauliche Diptychon „Rotation“ - ein oszillierender Track, der die Essenz von Licht und Dunkelheit einfängt - und „All Over The Place“, das die Dualität transzendiert und sich zu einem multidimensionalen Selbst ausweitet. Auch „Backwards“, das trotz seines Namens ein treibendes Stück ist, in dem es darum geht, sich von Dingen zu lösen, die einen zurückhalten, und „Train Of Thought“, das die Mechanismen des Denkens untersucht und zunächst konkreter beginnt, bevor es gegen Ende des Songs allmählich abstrakter wird.
„HeadSpace“ enthält außerdem Beiträge des aufstrebenden Rappers und Produzenten Semiratruth aus Chicago zu dem motivierenden „Glass Ceiling“ und eine verspielte Strophe des für den GRAMMY nominierten Produzenten und Rappers Quelle Chris aus Detroit zu „Down Down BB“.
South London soul artist Andrew Ashong returns with his first full release since 2014 - an expansive six-track collaboration with Kaidi Tatham, the unrivaled underground virtuoso described as the UK's Herbie Hancock. 'Sankofa Season' takes both artists to new heights as they seamlessly complement each other's musical language, giving voice to productions that criss-cross genre and time to move into their own distinct lane. Expect deep jazz funk, hazy contemporary soul, jazzy broken beat, breezy latin soul, organic deep house and much more.
2023 Repress
Reiko Kudo first debuted on the Tokyo underground music scene in 1980 with NOISE, a duo which apart from herself under her then maiden name Reiko Omura on voice, guitar and trumpet featured Tori Kudo on organ. Their only album TENNO (1980 on Engel) is probably one of the most outstanding and uncompromising records of all time.
Like other pioneering female producers from Japan such as NON (of NON BAND), PHEW and HACO, who had all begun their startling careers in the early days of the japanese Punk era, Reiko Kudo can surely be regarded as one of the most unique, uncategorisable and daring voices in the entire field of electronic and experimental music ever.
RICE FIELD SLOWLY RIPING IN THE NIGHT was REIKO KUDO's second album under her own name. It features TORI KUDO (MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ) and SAYA and TAKASHI UENO (TENNISCOATS) on various instruments. The recordings took place in 2000 at Reiko' s and Tori's house in the rural surroundings of Shikoku island.
All recorded music on this album sounds like it originates in a parallel dimension where time and key signatures simply don't exist, Some might describe this as outsider music, but this doesn't really begin to do justice to the quality of the tracks, there is nothing accidental or forced here, this is simply music created in a very different way. Yet again REIKO KUDO had conceived of something utterly beautiful.
"After producing the album "Souvenir de mauve" with Maher Shalal Hash Baz which we released on our label Majikick, the idea came to us, to release Reiko Kudo's work. For Reiko's work, we brought our recording equipment from Tokyo to Shikoku and recorded the entire album at her house.
The piano was positioned in a room with a high ceiling. We would set up our small recording equipment in the room and started to record. The basic tracks were recorded without any rehearsal and just a few overdubs were added on top of it. To have a distant sound on the recording, Tori played trumpet in the next room. The choir was standing outside the house, singing "Enya-totto, enya-totto" through the open window. It was early spring, I remember that it was still a bit cold and the members of the choir were freezing outside.
Reiko plays only at certain times of the day, so that we were able to complete only two or three recordings a day. Therefore we had plenty of free time. We went to a hot spring, to a cafe, or we tried pottery on a spinning wheel at Tori's workshop. It was a very rewarding time.
When this album was finished, we brought it to her to listen to. She said happily "I think this is the best work I have ever done." We felt that all our efforts were richly rewarded. Secretly, we thought the same, so we are delighted that this album will be re-issued." - Saya and Ueno (Tenniscoats), Tokyo 2018
Originally released on Majikick Records, Japan, 2000 Restauration and mastering by Detlef Funder at Paraschall Mastering, Düsseldorf. Vinylcut at Calyx, Berlin Translation by Miki Yui and Claus Laufenburg. Many thanks to Reiko Kudo, Tori Kudo, Saya and Takashi Ueno, Satoru Higashiseto.
His much-anticipated second album, Steady Away, moves inward and takes on a more self- reflective quality, whilst retaining glimmers of soaring figures and pastoral imagery.
Brain's distinctive warm vocal and finger- picked guitar style are sustained alongside expansive strings and delicate piano arrangements, taking shape through evolving and introspective impressions on tenderness, loss, pain and awe in nature.
The album was recorded at The Nave, an old refurbished church which is now a studio. Glancing off The Nave's eaved ceilings with natural reverb, Steady Away's 11 tracks, recorded by Tom Orrell, capture the intimacy of Chris' songwriting.
Musicians appearing with Chris on the album are, on piano - Simeon Walker, violin - Mary-Jane Walker and on double bass - Alice Phelps.
Steady Away further embeds Chris Brain within the contemporary folk scene, whilst gesturing towards the folk tradition. His commitment to folk is only deepened by the two folk clubs and folk festival in Leeds that Chris founded and runs, attracting a wide range of audiences and musicians alike.
Rogér Fakhr is a musician from Lebanon. He recorded these songs in the late 1970s in Beirut (and some during a brief exile in Paris). Some were circulated on hand copied cassettes among friends, others like "Had To Come Back Wet" were never released. His music effortlessly combines folk with touches of jazz and soul. He wrote, composed and arranged all songs. While working on his own music he also played for Ziad Rahbani, Fairouz and other musicians.
When we first heard Roger's music we were blown away! The music was a mixture of folk with touches of other genres. Maybe one could also refer to it as "singer-songwriter", since all of the songs were Roger's own compositions. Songs of unique beauty both musically as well as lyrically. At the same time they gave me the feeling of them being somehow time and space isolated capsules. Nothing really revealed, where they could've been recorded and without knowing it was Beirut, my first guess maybe would have rather been California, sometime in the 1970s. The immersive effect of his compositions and voice are just incredible. I was stunned and proposed Roger to work on a re-release, which he politely declined, saying he had no interest in this music being reissued.
The vinyl version comes with a 8 page booklet and a DL code. CD digipak version comes with a 16 page booklet.
Social Resilience’ is the first release on !mage Recordings. A brand new label from the UK with 4 fresh tracks from techno producer ‘Other’.
The idea comes from looking at the state of society at this current time and how everyone is dealing with social pressures. The tracks have a more tribal, hypnotic vibe to them, taking you away from all the madness going on around us. The more you move into the jungle, the more you get away from the stresses of life..
I was always someone that loved getting lost in the music on the dance floor… The darker the better… Sweat dripping off the ceiling, smoke blurring your vision, no lights apart from one strobe occasionally flashing in the dance….This is not a photo opportunity so just let the music take you away to areas of your mind you don’t usually visit..
This Vinyl Release is limited to 200 only so grab a copy before they’re all gone!
Chet Baker stands alone among modern Jazzmen in having achieved major success both as a player and as a singer. On three numbers featured here; Do It The Hard Way, Dancing On The Ceiling and It Could Happen To You, Chet introduces his own version of Scat-singing following in the tradition of Louis Armstrong. The numbers selected for this LP are standards of the sort that lend themselves particularly well to what might as well be called the "swinging romantic" approach. Most of them manage to fall into that rare and attractive category of songs that everybody knows and loves but have not, as yet, been done to death by over-frequent performance.
- 180 GRAM AUDIOPHILE VINYL
- INCLUDING INSERT
- 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
- FIRST PRESSING OF 1.500 INDIVIDUALLY NUMBERED COPIES ON FLAMING (ORANGE & YELLOW MIXED)
COLOURED VINYL
They've never been praised for the great albums they produced, but Adorable released one of the stronger albums during the year 1993. Stuck in the moment between the end of the shoegaze hysteria and the Britpop era their debut album Against Perfection appeared. The heavy instrumentation and impressive voice of lead singer Pete Fijalkowski can definitely be linked to the perfection they're searching for in their music. The bittersweet Sunshine Smile' shows their crossover between shoegaze and Britpop, while the secret choruses from the guitar hooks creates the thrill of the unknown on Glorious'. The pre-Adorable tune Homeboy' is a track that follows the quiet-loud music line and it got some distortion and big bass sounds.
Adorable released only two studio albums before disbanding as a music group. It was an impressive 5-year period in which they combined the dreamy world of the shoegaze with the pop, but never got the recognition they deserved.
Against Perfection is available as a first pressing of 1.500 individually numbered copies on flaming vinyl.
Drawing inspiration from sixties psychedelia, specifically the Tropicalia movement, Melotone are a band more interested in texture and ambience than ego. The EP continues the band's exploration of Brazilian soundscapes - the native country of singer Alec Madeley - whilst reconciling their humble beginnings in the Black Country, where the band grew up and met each other. Lyrically and musically, the EP faces questions of identity and of being in the unknown, but creating purpose in this space. It represents Melotone's journey across the music of their homelands as they mould a sound entirely recognisable as their own.
Sometimes drifting into the realms of folk, jazz, and soul, Melotone channel instrumental pioneers Khurangbin and Kikagaku Moyu with vocals that resemble the arresting style of singers Jeff Buckley and Brittany Howard, and at times the spirit of Portuguese-English singing Caetano Veloso.
Read any article or comment thread about the Seattle noise-rock outfit GREAT FALLS and you're likely to see descriptors like cathartic, heavy, crushing, and unhinged. Maybe even psychotic. And sure, those are all apt: For over a decade, vocalist/guitarist Demian Johnston and bassist Shane Mehling (who also played together in the early-2000s noisecore band PLAYING ENEMY and the experimental duo HEMINGWAY) have honed their sludgy, overwhelmingly intense brand of heaviness, punctuated by delectably discordant riffs, terrifyingly low, thwacking bass lines, and mesmerizingly tight percussion. In the live setting, too, they’re notorious for a stage presence that is so aggressively confrontational and menacing that Mehling once broke his own arm mid-set.
But the most striking aspect of GREAT FALLS, setting them apart from the murky sea of sludge metal and AmRep-inspired noise-rock bands, is their ability to paint a deeply, utterly human story through an all-out assault on the senses: an art the band has perfected on their fourth full-length album OBJECTS WITHOUT PAIN, out September 15 via NEUROT RECORDINGS.
The album is not only their NEUROT debut, but also the first LP featuring drummer Nickolis Parks (GAYTHEIST, BASTARD FEAST), who joined the band prior to the release of their exhilarating, cacophonous 2023 EP,FUNNY WHAT SURVIVES.
OBJECTS WITHOUT PAIN takes us on a bleak, purgative journey through a separation–a snapshot of the turmoil and indecision that occurs after the initial realization of someone's misery, and before the ultimate decision to end a decades-long partnership. From the foreboding intro riffs of “DRAGGED HOME ALIVE” to the end of the 13-minute closer “THROWN AGAINST THE WAVES,” its eight tracks explore the thoughts that come up when a person is staring down the barrel of blowing up their life: How did this happen? Is it too late for a new life? Will the kid be OK? What will make me happier: familiar torment or unknown freedom?
The Nag's Head was a warts-and-all vessel for the sonic meanderings of Brighton artist Stephen Maskell - taking in richly textural techno, corrupted pop and ASMR drone sculptures. His four releases on Kit Records documented the ecstatic mundanity of life in broken Britain, compositions welded together with snippets of pirate radio, ear-tickling art installations, altercations in terrible pubs, and other end-of-pier hallucinations.
Honky Tonk Cheeseballs is perhaps Maskell's final release, and represents the culmination of his digital dream diary approach. Gone is the Nag's Head moniker (pub burnt down in a possible insurance job?). In the embers we find Basil Neptune: a kind of sentient Airbnb profile, seeking out the smelliest, strangest sonic vestiges of Albion. Expect richly harmonic ambience, ghostly spoken word, and a few trademark booty shakers. All shot through the lens of... Scooby Doo? Zoinks.
The Madlib Invazion Music Library Series Entry #3: Drummer and Producer J-Zone offers his take on The Ultimate Beats, Breaks and Funk. This is the next up in a series of music library releases, with future volumes produced by DJ Muggs, Karriem Riggins and more. The Madlib Invazion Music Library Series was created by Madlib and Egon to give their creative friends a chance to stretch out and indulge in whatever type of music they wanted. This music was created for easy, one-stop clearance in film and television synchronization usage and for sampling. You can also enjoy these albums in the way that many do with the best of the best vintage library catalogs – listen, ponder, repeat.
The anticipation is there in Elizabeth Stokes’ solo guitar riff under the opening lines of “I’m Not Getting Excited”: a frenetic, driving force daring a packed Auckland Town Hall to do exactly the opposite of what the track title suggests.
As the opener of The Beths’ Auckland, New Zealand, 2020 expands to include the full band, the crowd screeches and bellows. It’s a collective exhalation, in one of the few countries where live music is still possible.
The album title, and film of the same name, deliberately include the date and location, lead guitarist Jonathan Pearce says. “That’s the sensational part of what we actually did.” In a mid-pandemic world, playing to a heaving, enraptured home crowd feels miraculous.
In March 2020, everything seemed on track for another huge year for The Beths. Home after an 18-month northern hemisphere tour, they had just finished recording sophomore album Jump Rope Gazers and were primed for more extensive touring. But within days, New Zealand’s lockdown split the band between three separate houses. All touring was cancelled.
“It was existentially bad,” Stokes says. As well as worrying about economic survival, they lost something crucial to the band’s identity: live performance. “It's a huge part of how we see ourselves... What does it mean, if we can't play live?”
The band found an outlet through live-streaming, returning to the do-it-yourself mentality of their early days to connect with a global audience. The album and film have their genesis in that urge to share the now-rare experience of a live show, as widely as possible.
The fuzzy-round-the-edges live-streams pointed the way aesthetically. Native birds, wonkily crafted by the band from tissue paper and wire, festoon the venue’s cavernous ceiling while house plants soften and disguise the imposing pipes of an organ. The presence of the film crew isn’t disguised: much of the camerawork is handheld; full of fast zooms and pans.
With much of the material still fresh, the band was less focused on re-invention than playing “a good, fast rock show”, Pearce says. The tempo is up on crowd favourites “Whatever” and “Future Me Hates Me” (released as a live single on its third anniversary) as both band and audience feed off the mutual energy in the room.
Certain songs have taken on special resonance post-Covid. Pearce has found “Out Of Sight”, a tender rumination on long-distance relationships, hits particularly hard with live audiences.
Album closer “River Run” visibly brings Stokes to tears as a mix of achievement and relief kicks in. “You can finally relax at that point … You play the last note, breathe out a sigh and look up - and you’re in a giant room full of people happy and smiling.”
"When the call came from WDR Rockpalast, we were thrilled - And the joy
grew from day to day," says Peter Bursch, head of the German Krautrock
legend Broselmaschine, founded in 1968 by "Germany's most famous
guitar teacher".Back in 1968, the Heinrich-Robert coalmine in Hamm was
still in its full bloom
Coal had been mined there since 1901, the year in which the Heinrich and Robert
shafts - as they are called in miners' jargon - were "abgeteuft", followed by the
Franz shaft in 1923. On November 10, 1997, the colliery closed its doors forever.
In the colliery's former wage hall, where the miners used to receive their
envelopes with their weekly wages, Broselmaschine rolled out carpets, plugged in
cables and set up their instruments on April 20, 2021. The high-ceilinged rooms
not only provided a matchless scenery, but also the basis for a unique ambient
sound. The perfect setting for Broselmaschine. But Corona had almost
completely paralyzed public life at this point; the pandemic was taking its toll on
the entire cultural scene. Spectators were not allowed to the events. The artists
and bands gave concerts anyway, sometimes from their flats, rehearsal rooms or
in small, empty clubs, and then came to the fans' homes via live stream. This also
applied for the WDR's Rockpalast with its "Offstage" series. The makers of
Rockpalast organized concerts with performances by artists in special places
that were deserted during the lockdown. That had its own charm and was
something very special.
This was also the case with Broselmaschine. The band played almost exclusively
songs from their latest studio album "Elegy" from 2019, as well as the title track
of the previous album "Indian Camel" and as a finale the Marc Bolan cover of
"Children Of The Revolution". Broselmaschine put on a great performance, no one
missed the audience that was not physically present. But it was there, this
audience. And it was in the hearts of the musicians. You can feel this with every
note this outstanding band was playing. Never were Broselmaschine more
musically valuable than on that special occasion.But judge for yourself.
Unique Rockpalast concert OFFSTAGE from the Corona era, recorded on April 20,
2021 at Heinrich-Robert colliery in Hamm, Germany - also available on vinyl
