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Punch, gegründet 1969 in Long Island, war eine ambitionierte Hardrock-Band, die mit voller Wucht spielte. Die Band, bestehend aus Dave Stein (Gesang), Ray Kusnier (Gitarre), Tony Giustra (Bass) und Pete Tudda (Schlagzeug), hatte einen Sound, der von Kritikern als ,härter als Hardrock" und ,lauter als laut" beschrieben wurde. Die Musik von Punch hat eine unerbittliche Energie, die durch klagende Gitarrenriffs und einen Gesang, der sich erst schlängelt und dann knurrt, vorangetrieben wird. Während ihrer kurzen dreijährigen Karriere stand Punch mit Illinois Speed Press aus Chicago und Elephant's Memory aus New York auf der Bühne. Sie machten sich schnell einen Namen in der Clubszene von New York, am meisten begeistert war das Publikum aber in Montreal, wo ihre kraftvollen Auftritte echt gut ankamen. Die Band nutzte riesige Lautsprecherhörner, um die Wände zum Wackeln zu bringen, und füllte den Raum mit nur drei Instrumenten, eine Technik, die auch Led Zeppelin und Mountain nutzten. Obwohl Punch nur bis 1972 existierte, wird die Musik der Band mit der Zeit immer lauter und findet eine neue Generation von Fans. Ihr kompromissloser Ansatz hat auch heute noch die gleiche Kraft und erinnert uns daran, wie roher Hardrock klang, bevor Mitte der 1970er Jahre ein ausgefeilterer Sound die Oberhand gewann.

Kultiger Track: Explosive Afro-Funk-Version von ,I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor" von den Arctic Monkeys.

Die chinesisch-amerikanische Band Bear kehrt 2026 mit ihrem dritten Album ,Dim Sum & Then Some" zurück, das im Mai 2026 beim britischen Kultlabel Moshi Moshi erscheint. ,Dim Sum & Then Some entstand am Tag nach der Fertigstellung unseres Albums Wah!!! aus dem Jahr 2024. Wir hatten viel Freude und waren noch immer sehr inspiriert. Das Album beschäftigt sich mit Themen, die uns am Herzen liegen - Essen, kleine Freuden, unbeschwerter Spaß, China, Liebe, Hymnen und Märchen. Es ist eine Collage unseres Lebens, destilliert zu Positivität und Unbeschwertheit." Sie werden oft so beschrieben, als hätten The Flaming Lips, Dusty Springfield und The Beach Boys ein Kind mit Care Bear gezeugt. Das Album ist voller Humor, Groove, Skurrilität und Niedlichkeit, mit melodisch reichhaltiger Instrumentierung, einem Hauch von Psychedelia, einer Prise Funk und vielen Texten darüber, sich den Bauch mit Essen zu füllen.

Es war eine einfache Idee: ein Festival zu schaffen, das brillante Musik und Kunst aus aller Welt vereint, entstanden außerhalb des Mainstreams entstanden – Musik, die nicht im Radio gespielt wurde und in Plattenläden noch schwerer zu finden war... Das allererste WOMAD-Festival fand am Wochenende vom 16. bis 18. Juli 1982 in Somerset, Großbritannien, statt. Mit dem Traum, „Weltmusik nicht nur als Beigabe zu einem Rockfestival zu präsentieren, sondern zu beweisen, dass diese großartigen Künstler selbst Headliner sein können”.

An den drei Tagen fand im Showering Pavilion auf dem Festivalgelände eine „Abendkonzertreihe“ statt. Am Freitagabend traten Tian Jin (eine Gesangs- und Tanzgruppe aus China), Simple Minds und Peter Gabriel mit einem „speziellen Festival-Set mit Nicht-Album-Material“ auf.
Live at WOMAD 1982 ist eine Aufnahme dieses Freitagabendkonzerts. Bei dem Nicht-Album-Material handelt es sich um sieben der acht Songs, aus denen das Album Peter Gabriel 4 (Security) bestehen würde. Ein Album, das erst zwei Monate später veröffentlicht werden sollte.

Peter Gabriels Live at WOMAD 1982 versetzt uns nicht nur zurück in die Geburtsstunde eines Festivals, das mittlerweile mehr als 160 Ausgaben in 27 Ländern veranstaltet hat, sondern auch in die Premiere eines Albums mit Songs wie "The Rhythm of the Heat", "San Jacinto" und "Shock the Monkey", die zu zentralen Werken im Schaffen Gabriels geworden sind. „Live at WOMAD 1982“ ist mehr als nur ein Live-Album, es ist ein entscheidender Moment, der zum ersten Mal auf CD und LP erhältlich ist.

Synopsis: Kagome, a modern-day schoolgirl, is transported to feudal Japan and frees Inuyasha, a half-demon. Together, they seek the shattered shards of the Shikon Jewel, desired by demons. Along their journey, they face fierce enemies, forge deep friendships, and discover a growing love amidst their perilous quest. This album features the best openings and endings from Inuyasha. Performed by iconic J-pop artists, these songs blend emotion, nostalgia, and energy. A must-have compilation for fans of the anime.

RÏO is a sonic journey that begins in the waters of the Santa Rosa River (Argentina) and flows into Barcelona, uniting my roots with the pulse of the migrant experience.
This album is not just a collection of songs, but a tribute to the foundational memories of my childhood and an organic path where the past, present, and future flow within the same riverbed. It is an album that speaks of movement, of temperance, and of the need to affirm one’s own identity through change.

Primordial Mind forms the mysteries and intensity of inner life into eight mandalic instrumentals where Mas Aya and Khôra, artists who share 15 years of music making, orchestrate an inspired, prismatic palette of percussive and melodic sources. Each composition presented stages a vigorous meshwork of colours and textures, contrasting riveting polyrhythms with towering arrangements for flutes, synths, and processed acoustic instruments. Tendencies which the artists trace in their solo practices are amplified, blended, and refracted sublimely in unison, serving as energetic portals to the collective awareness.

Combining trans-ethnic scaling alongside a heady brew of rhythmic influences and advanced electronic processing, the recordings on this album operate with a tactility that vaults between free jazz, dub, raga, ambient, and ritual music. Assimilated powers of primal drum patterning and psychoactive, ceremonial melodies, invoke fourth world adjacencies with the work of Don Cherry, Jon Hassell, Popol Vuh et al. There is an alchemical, Buddhist/Taoist/Hindu inflection that guides the record’s narrative, formed through dialogue between the artists over lifelong shared interest in spiritual modalities generally and the tantric approaches of the global east in particular. The album title is derived from an unexcelled esoteric work known as the Kalachakra (Wheel of Time)Tantra and its associated commentary the Ornament of Stainless Light which detail forms of inner and outer transubstantiation within its complex cosmology and metaphysiology.

Mas Aya is the moniker of Brandon Miguel Valdivia, acclaimed Nicaraguan-Canadian composer, producer, and musician whose electronic and jazz inspired works creatively interlace Colombian, Cuban, and a wide array of traditional music. Khôra is the name of the occult entity that uses multi-instrumentalist, producer, and writer Matthew Ramolo to pronounce itself. Returning to Marionette following 2024's monumental Gestures of Perception, Primordial Mind reinforces the rigorous and magical approach to creation which defines Khôra’s two decades of sonic output. Brandon and Matthew met back in 2011 and the pair toured around eastern Europe with Toronto band Picastro in 2013, also performing as a duo with Brandon contributing drums to Khôra's opening sets. After a short spate composing and playing in the ensemble Bespoken together, they continued to discover shared inspiration in psych/art rock, jazz, experimental and electronic music, providing a fertile soil for friendship and collaboration resulting in their collaged, lo-fi album Tangled Roots in 2017. Mythic and talismanic, the duo's Marionette debut weaves a luminous tapestry of organic pulses, offering itself as a support for resonant meditation and a motor for lucid action and intuition.

Brandon Miguel Valdivia: Percussion, Flutes, Log Drum, Korg Lambda, Angklung, Tambor Alegre, Udu
Matthew Ramolo: Modular Synth, Archival Samples, Angklung, Guitar, Duduk, Bass, Percussion, Arrangements and Mix

Munich's machine enthusiasts 9ms return to Squama with their third album 'Lunch'.
More heterogenic than its predecessors, the album incorporates Dub-infused IDM, cinematic slow jams and off-kilter drum workouts giving the daring DJ plenty of material to treat dancefloors and listening rooms alike.
On their previous albums Pleats (2021) and II (2023) Florian König and Simon Popp mapped out the musical symbiosis between man and machine, using motion sensors to translate their bodies' movement while playing drums into sound. On Lunch the conceptual centerpiece is the pendulum. Neither man, nor machine, its steady movement is converted into analog voltage with what's called a gyroscope, allowing it to trigger and control any parameter in the duo's setup.
The album was conceived over the course of a year in weekly morning sessions that had to be wrapped up by lunch due to family obligations. The temporal limits, as paradoxically is often the case, turned out to be quite liberating and resulted in a more playful and fearless process.
"We worked pretty efficiently, but since there was no deadline for the album to be finished, the whole process felt very light". The duo also freed themselves from the limitations of having a recording setup that's reproducible for touring.
"We didn't think about the live aspect at all this time." So for every session they would choose from a wide array of instruments and machines, an abundance that has inspired the record's artwork, overflowing with words from the list of gear used on the record.
Sonically, 9ms keep on forging their own niche with thick, compressed drums set against wide stereo-processed soundscapes and a genuine curiosity that's pleasantly contagious.

Power began as a challenge.

Zachary Fairbrother began Countach to collect the unfinished scraps and fragments from his band GHÖSH, the digital hardcore duo that broke up in 2023. But when Feel The Four, the Philadelphia-based label run by Cristian Adams and Jarrett Dougherty (ex-Screaming Females), asked him for a proper 12”, he saw an opportunity to push the project in an ambitious new direction.

The result is Power - EP, which finds Fairbrother exploring the freedom of longer run-times and varied textures, all while maintaining the post-industrial vision of his previous work. Across 20 minutes, he runs through propulsive acid house, harsh electro, and ‘90s big beat, using 303s and 808s to build an upbeat but haunting record that’s as indebted to the forebearers of those genres as it is to the grim landscapes of Phillip K. Dick and Paul Verhoeven.

Repress

The Collaboration - Having toured together over the years, Lattimore and Barwick now join forces to co-write and record this full-length album. Their creative synergy brings together harp, voice, and analog synths in a deeply emotional, immersive sound journey. The album was recorded at the Philharmonie de Paris with co-producer Trevor Spencer (Fleet Foxes, Beach House). This album continues a unique series of collaborations between the label and the Musée de la Musique, featuring historical instruments in contemporary composition. Since 2017, InFiné and the Philharmonie de Paris have co-developed a series of albums designed to highlight the extraordinary instrument collection of the Musée de la Musique. Following the albums InBach by Arandel (2020) and Saturn 63 by Seb Martel (2022), this third release is a meeting of two iconic contemporary ambient voices: Mary Lattimore and Julianna Barwick. The project offers the artists full access to the museum’s playable instruments for recording, sound conservation, and creative reinterpretation.



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Tragic Magic brings together Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore, two of contemporary ambient, experimental and electronic music’s most celebrated composers, for a unique collaboration at the Philharmonie de Paris, with extraordinary access to the Musée de la Musique’s instrument collection, in partnership with the French label InFiné. The album features seven immersive, evocative compositions guided by the human spirit – intimate, grounded in friendship, both earthly and cosmic – and part of a greater continuum, reflecting the solace and transformative power of artistry across generations.

Co-produced by Trevor Spencer (Fleet Foxes, Beach House), Tragic Magic was created in just nine days, a testament to the “musical telepathy” that has developed between Barwick and Lattimore over years of touring and friendship. Arriving in Paris from Los Angeles shortly after the 2025 wildfires, their sessions combined improvisation with the emotions and experiences they carried, in a setting both inspiring and deeply supportive. Lattimore selected harps tracing the instrument’s evolution from 1728 to 1873, while Barwick chose several iconic analog synthesizers, including the Roland JUPITER and Sequential Circuits PROPHET-5. In freeform dialogue between voice and instrument, they create a meditation on tragedy, wonder, and the restorative power of shared experience.

The duo, often joined by Spencer, also explored the city, sharing meals and visiting museums and landmarks, each encounter leaving an impression on their next session. The experience allowed them to work intimately with rare instruments, blending their personal sensibilities with centuries of history, resulting in music that honors the past while remaining a deeply authentic expression of the present.
Throughout Tragic Magic, Barwick and Lattimore find something beyond themselves: a sense that while everything may not be okay, beauty persists. Their approach – transforming life into music, observing, feeling, and creating – continues a lineage of creative expression and visionary invention, embodied in the very instruments they employed for this project.

Mit seinem neuen Studioalbum „Cinematic“ widmet sich der Multi-Platin-Vokalist Josh Groban den großen Momenten der Filmgeschichte.
Die Auswahl reicht von Oscar-prämierten Klassikern wie „Can You Feel the Love Tonight“ (Der König der Löwen) und „Skyfall“ (James Bond) bis hin zu zeitlosen Standards wie „As Time Goes By“ (Casablanca) und „Moon River“ (Frühstück bei Tiffany).
Hochkarätige Kollaborationen: Ein besonderes Augenmerk liegt auf dem Duett „Unchained Melody“ mit Jennifer Hudson sowie einer persönlichen Interpretation von „Moon River“ zusammen mit seinem Bruder Jack Groban.
Orchestrale Inszenierung: Produziert von Greg Wells (u. a. The Greatest Showman), besticht das Album durch opulente orchestrale Arrangements, die in Los Angeles und London aufgenommen wurden.

Pioneering in the 80' and 90's and an absolute spearhead in the world of post-punk, cold and new wave, EBM, electro... a series of albums and compilations from the extensive Antler Records archives are now being released again.

The first compilations 'Early Years Vol. 1, Vol 2 and Vol 3” were received with great enthusiasm and flew out the door. Now there is Vol. 4 with again carefully chosen gems from the rich Antler archives with carefully selected recordings of influential bands such as Snowy Red, Poësie Noire, Sigmund und sein Freund and Vomito Negro, a.o.

Again a great compilation of the best what the Belgian synth-wave/EBM scene had to offer in the eighties of the 20th century.