Repress, note new price. Black vinyl issue of the long sold out RSD compilation. Housed in heavy duty slipcase box. FOR FANS OF… Daptone Records, Big Crown Records, 45s, Soul, Funk, R&B. This is the follow up to our first volume of Soul Slabs, which is a collection of tracks from our 7” release series. For many of them, it's the first time they'll be appearing on an LP. Soul Slabs Vol. 2 is a collection of A-sides from the 7” catalog of Loveland Ohio’s Colemine Records. Specializing in heavy soul, funk, and R&B, Colemine prides itself on authenticity and an old school production style, while still making songs that seem fresh and are moving the genre of soul forward. This 3LP collection of 27 tracks puts their diverse catalog on full display, many of these songs being presented for the first time on an LP. Featuring artists such as Durand Jones & The Indications, Kelly Finnigan, Ben Pirani, Jr. Thomas & The Volcanos, Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio, Monophonics, Ikebe Shakedown, The Dip, The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble, Soul Scratch, and more!
"To kick off the yearlong celebration and provide the perfect summer soundtrack, Capitol Records and UMe will release a newly remastered and expanded edition of The Beach Boys career-spanning greatest hits collection, Sounds Of Summer: The Very Best Of The Beach Boys, on June 17. Originally released in 2003, the album soared to no. 16 in the US and stayed on the chart for 104 weeks. Now certified 4x platinum for sales of nearly four and a half million albums, the collection has been updated in both number of songs and audio quality, expanding the original 30-track best of with 50 more of the band’s most beloved songs for a total of 80 tracks that span their earliest hits to deeper fan-favorite cuts and from their 1962 debut album, Surfin’ Safari through to 1989’s Still Cruisin’.
Assembled by Mark Linett and Alan Boyd, the team behind 2013's GRAMMY® Award-winning SMiLE Sessions and last year’s acclaimed boxed set, Feel Flows – The Sunflower and Surf's Up Sessions 1969-1971, Sounds Of Summer features nearly every US Top 40 hit of The Beach Boys’ incredible career, including “California Girls,” “I Get Around,” “Surfer Girl,” “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” “Fun, Fun, Fun,” “God Only Knows,” “Good Vibrations,” “Be True To Your School,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “Kokomo,” “Barbara Ann,” “Help Me, Rhonda,” “In My Room,” and many others. Fifty additional tracks showcase a broad mix of songs from across their wide-ranging catalog with some of the many highlights including “All Summer Long,” “Disney Girls,” “Forever,” “Feel Flows,” “Friends,” “Roll Plymouth Rock,” “Sail on Sailor,” “Surf’s Up,” and “Wind Chimes.”
The collection boasts 24 new mixes including two first-time stereo mixes, plus 22 new-and-improved stereo mixes, which in some cases feature the latest in digital stereo extraction technology, allowing for the team to separate the original mono backing tracks for the first time.
The expanded edition of Sounds Of Summer will be available in a variety of formats, including a 3CD softpack, and as a Super Deluxe Edition 6LP vinyl boxed set on 180-gram black vinyl in two options – a standard set or a numbered, limited edition version featuring a rainbow foil slipcase and four collectible lithographs. Both versions will feature color printed sleeves that replicate the original “Capitol Catalog” sleeves that highlight the entire Beach Boys discography, and all formats will include a booklet with new liner notes and updated photos. The original 30-track version will also be available in its newly remastered and upgraded form on single CD or double gatefold LP on standard weight vinyl or as a higher-end limited edition numbered version pressed on 180-gram vinyl with a tip-on jacket and a lithograph. "
Indie-pop singer-songwriter, composer and producer Australia’s Ben Lee releases his 14th solo studio album “I’m Fun!”. The new album features guests Zooey Deschanel, Christian Lee Hutson, Money Mark, Megan Washington, Georgia Maq, Eric D Johnson.
On the album, Ben Lee says “This album, this moment in my career, is all about balancing some hard-earned wisdom from a 30-year long career with the vigor and energy of youth. That’s why it was as important to me to collab with artists like Jon Brion and Money Mark who I’ve both known for over 2 decades, as much as people like Shamir and Georgia Maq who are young and lit up with creative adrenaline. I like being a generational bridge between freaky artists. They are my tribe!”
Even before the launch of his solo career, Ben attracted attention in his teens as a member of the Sydney band Noise Addict. Following the band’s demise in the mid-90s, he began issuing a string of acclaimed solo albums while taking part in several side projects, including The Bens (Ben Folds, Ben Kweller, Ben Lee).
In his 30-year music career, Ben Lee has been gloriously prolific and unpredictable. The 4x ARIA award winning artist boasts an enviable catalogue including ‘Grandpa Would’ 1995, ‘Something To Remember Me By’ [1997], ‘Breathing Tornados’[1998], 2x ARIA Platinum album ‘Awake In New Sleep’[2005], ‘Ripe’ [2007], ‘The Rebirth of Venus’[2009], ‘Deeper Into Dream’ [2011] which have collectively spawned a multitude of chart hits, including “Cigarettes Will Kill You”, “Gamble Everything For Love”, “We're All in This Together” and “Catch My Disease”
Driven by Max Cavalera's unrelenting energy, unmistakable growl, and instantly recognizable riffage, the earthy tones and motivational rhythmic bounce of Soulfly maintain a gritty spiritual heart while pushing the boundaries of what's possible in metal. Nowhere is that more apparent than on the four triumphant, redemptive, and crucial eclectic offerings presented in this brand new box set, celebrating the first six years of the band career.
Soulfly (1998) was a riotously heavy escalation of the innovation established on Max's final album with Sepultura, launching a brand-new era. Primitive (2000) and 3 (2002) stomp with tribal groove; Prophecy (2004) is as unsettling but evocative as the tombs of the martyrs across Europe. Max introduced metalheads to the berimbau. His music is brutal yet unapologetically transcendent punk-infused extremity. To commune with the burning muse of metal's shamanistic tribal leader is to envelop oneself inside a post-modern sonic sweat lodge. Brutal riffs, trippy esoteric ritual, unrelenting percussion, primal screams; no matter what Cavalera hammers out on his four-string guitar, it always sets souls free.
Second Sub Pop album by acclaimed UK act TV Priest finds them building on the
post-punk of their early material and maturing into a powerhouse of tense, politically
caustic, and thoughtful rock music.
Without a brutal evaluation of their own becoming, TV Priest might have never made
their second album. Heralded as the next big thing in post-punk, they were
established as a bolshy, sharp-witted outfit, the kind that starts movements with their
political ire. There was of course truth in that, but it was a suit that quickly felt heavy
on its wearer’s shoulders, leaving little room for true vulnerability. “A lot of it did feel
like I was being really careful and a bit at arm's length,” says vocalist Charlie
Drinkwater. “I think maybe I was not fully aware of the role I was taking. I had to take
a step back and realize that what we were presenting was quite far away from the
opinion of myself that I had. Now, I just want to be honest.”
Having made music together since their teenage years, the London four-piece piqued
press attention in late 2019 with their first gig as a newly solidified group, a raucous
outing in the warehouse district of Hackney Wick. Debut single ‘House of York’
followed with a blistering critique of monarchist patriotism, and they were signed to
Sub Pop for their debut album. When ‘Uppers’ arrived in the height of a global
pandemic, it reaped praise from critics and fans alike for its “dystopian doublespeak,”
but the band - Drinkwater, guitarist Alex Sprogis, producer, bass and keys player Nic
Bueth and drummer Ed Kelland - were at home like the rest of us, drinking cups of
tea and marking time via government-sanctioned daily exercise. As such, the
personal and professional landmark of its release felt “both colossal and minuscule”
dampened by the inability to share it live. “It was a real gratification and really
cathartic, but on the other hand, it was really strange, and not great for my mental
health,” admits Drinkwater. “I wasn’t prepared, and I hadn’t necessarily expected it to
reach as many people as it did.”
As such, ‘My Other People’ maintains a strong sense of earth-rooted emotion, taking
advantage of the opportunity to physically connect. Using ‘Saintless’ (the closing
song from ‘Uppers’) as something of a starting point, Drinkwater set about crafting
lyrics that allowed him to articulate a deeper sense of personal truth, using music as
a vessel to communicate with his bandmates about his depleting mental health.
“Speaking very candidly, it was written at a time and a place where I was not, I would
say, particularly well,” he says. “There was a lot of things that had happened to
myself and my family that were quite troubling moments. Despite that I do think the
record has our most hopeful moments too; a lot of me trying to set myself reminders
for living, just everyday sentiments to try and get myself out of the space I was in.”
“It was a bit of a moment for all of us where we realised that we can make something
that, to us at least, feels truly beautiful,” agrees Bueth. “Brutality and frustration are
only a part of that puzzle, and despite a lot of us feeling quite disconnected at the
time, overwhelmingly beautiful things were also still happening.”
This tension between existential fear born from the constant uncertainties of life, and
an affirmative, cathartic urge to seize the moment, is central to ‘My Other People’, a
record that heals by providing space for recognition, a ground zero in which you’re
welcome to stay awhile but which ultimately only leads up and out. For TV Priest, it is
a follow-up that feels truly, properly them; free of bravado, unnecessary bluster or
any audience pressure to commit solely to their original sound.
Focusing exclusively on 7"s, Ferry Lane Records launches its first release with the debut of Leona Jacewska AKA Charlie. Having garnered a following with her DJ and live performances, the record sees the Polish producer merging seamlessly Italo, synthpop and wave.
Limited to 200 copies, hand-stamped labels, download code include
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Soul Jazz Records follows up one its most popular Studio One releases with a brand new selection of rare and classic releases by women in reggae. Featuring legendary artists such as Marcia Griffiths, Rita Marley and Hortense Ellis (with a guest appearance by her brother Alton), alongside a host of rarities from lesser known names such as Nina Soul, Nana Mclean, Denise Darlington, Myrna Hague and also Doreen Schaeffer, a vocalist who was a founding member of The Skatalites.
There are notable covers (from Tyrone Davis’ soul classic Can I Change My Mind to the Band’s 60s psychedelic classic Turn Turn Turn in a rub-a-dub style!). Doreen Schaeffer reversions Alton Ellis’s seminal I’m Still in Love with You, Nina Soul reversions the slack rocksteady anthem Barb Wire. A number of these tracks are almost impossible to find and many have never been issued ever since their initial release.
The music on the album is of course 100% killer and features backing from all of the seminal groups at 13 Brentford Road including The Skatalites, Sound Dimension, Soul Brothers and the Brentford All Stars, and ranges from ska, rocksteady, roots, lovers and more from the 60s, 70s and 80s. All produced by Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd at Studio One Records, the number one sound in reggae music.
The album is released on Soul Jazz Records as a double-vinyl with gatefold sleeve, download code, the CD comes in slipcase and both come with extensive sleevenotes.
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"“The New Backwards” was conceived by Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson in 2007, revisiting stray tracks which hadn’t seemed to gel with the material he had chosen for the more somber “Ape of Naples” from 2005, COIL’s initial posthumous release, a sort of requiem and a kiss-goodbye to his then recently deceased partner John Balance.
Significantly different to its sister release, this album collects the brilliantly chaotic and outrageously rhythmic material from the original sessions for the album that was begun as early as 1993 and had originally been conceptualised as the follow-up to “Love’s Secret Domain”. These songs are as diverse and wild as the places they originated from, partly infamously spawned in Sharon Tate’s former home in the Hollywood Hills, the Nine Inch Nails home base in New Orleans and London’s Swanyard, remixed and restructured with the help of long-term friend Danny Hyde in Thailand, this collection has its own unique flow and an atmosphere not found on any other COIL release.
Both “AYOR” and “Backwards” had by the time the album was first released already become favourites in COIL’s manic live performances. Some of the other tracks had only leaked in demo versions and are here presented updated and polished as Christopherson and Hyde intended them to be heard. It is interesting to consider Balance’s vocal contributions, too. Whilst on the albums COIL did release at the time this material was first put aside (“Black Light District” and “ElpH”) his voice is all but absent, his vocal performances and his lyric writing here are arguably more closely indebted to the previous “Love’s Secret Domain” era, especially the epic “Copacaballa” is noteworthy in that respect.
The New Backwards” effectively became the final official COIL studio release of all new material whilst Peter was still alive and is here presented for the first time fully supervised by Danny Hyde, its co-creator.
The stunning cover uses a detail from artist Ian Johnstone’s “Cubic Raven” painting, licensed from the estate of IJ..
It is high time to rediscover this timeless album now!
Recorded at Swanyard, London and at Nothing Studios, New Orleans, 1996.
Thanks to everyone there, especially Trent Reznor who made it all possible.
Written & Produced by Coil & Danny Hyde.
Remixed by Peter Christopherson & Danny Hyde, Bangkok 2007.
For that session Coil were: Peter Christopherson, Jhonn Balance & Drew McDowall.
Mastered by Jessica Thompson.
Front artwork by Ian Johnstone.
Artwork licensed from The Estate of Ian Johnstone.
Layout Cold Graves and Oleg Galay."
"“The New Backwards” was conceived by Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson in 2007, revisiting stray tracks which hadn’t seemed to gel with the material he had chosen for the more somber “Ape of Naples” from 2005, COIL’s initial posthumous release, a sort of requiem and a kiss-goodbye to his then recently deceased partner John Balance.
Significantly different to its sister release, this album collects the brilliantly chaotic and outrageously rhythmic material from the original sessions for the album that was begun as early as 1993 and had originally been conceptualised as the follow-up to “Love’s Secret Domain”. These songs are as diverse and wild as the places they originated from, partly infamously spawned in Sharon Tate’s former home in the Hollywood Hills, the Nine Inch Nails home base in New Orleans and London’s Swanyard, remixed and restructured with the help of long-term friend Danny Hyde in Thailand, this collection has its own unique flow and an atmosphere not found on any other COIL release.
Both “AYOR” and “Backwards” had by the time the album was first released already become favourites in COIL’s manic live performances. Some of the other tracks had only leaked in demo versions and are here presented updated and polished as Christopherson and Hyde intended them to be heard. It is interesting to consider Balance’s vocal contributions, too. Whilst on the albums COIL did release at the time this material was first put aside (“Black Light District” and “ElpH”) his voice is all but absent, his vocal performances and his lyric writing here are arguably more closely indebted to the previous “Love’s Secret Domain” era, especially the epic “Copacaballa” is noteworthy in that respect.
The New Backwards” effectively became the final official COIL studio release of all new material whilst Peter was still alive and is here presented for the first time fully supervised by Danny Hyde, its co-creator.
The stunning cover uses a detail from artist Ian Johnstone’s “Cubic Raven” painting, licensed from the estate of IJ..
It is high time to rediscover this timeless album now!
Recorded at Swanyard, London and at Nothing Studios, New Orleans, 1996.
Thanks to everyone there, especially Trent Reznor who made it all possible.
Written & Produced by Coil & Danny Hyde.
Remixed by Peter Christopherson & Danny Hyde, Bangkok 2007.
For that session Coil were: Peter Christopherson, Jhonn Balance & Drew McDowall.
Mastered by Jessica Thompson.
Front artwork by Ian Johnstone.
Artwork licensed from The Estate of Ian Johnstone.
Layout Cold Graves and Oleg Galay."
Propulsive tabla percussion and meditative drones collide in deep instrumental conversation on Shruti Dances, the debut collaborative album between UK heavyweights Auntie Flo and Sarathy Korwar, forthcoming on the newly relaunched, Make Music imprint.
Across six exchanges of dynamic electronic production and richly layered Indian classical percussion, Shruti Dances discovers two architects of rhythm and movement on an explorative journey through South Asian tonality and diasporic identity.
One an elemental force on drums, the other on the decks, London-based, Indian-raised drummer/composer, Sarathy Korwar and Scottish-Goan producer/DJ, Auntie Flo first connected back in 2019, unaware both were navigating opposite ends of the beat equilibrium. Where Auntie Flo (aka Brian D’Souza) was new to Korwar’s reimagining of jazz, Indian classical music, electronics and spoken word, Korwar was already a big admirer of Auntie Flo’s intl-facing club output, having first discovered D’Souza’s Rainfall On Red Earth off his Soniferous Garden 12” and 2019 SAY award-winning (Scottish Album of The Year), Radio Highlife. Once properly acquainted, Korwar invited Auntie Flo to remix a track off his landmark 2019 album, More Arriving, described by The Guardian as “a stylistic leap from jazz to hip-hop to spoken word…a protest record encompassing the breadth of immigrant experiences”.
The seeds of an unlikely yet powerful musical bond had been sown and when mutual friend, co-founder of Mixcloud, and Make Music label organiser, Nikhil Shah, asked the duo to inaugurate the label’s new live/electronic direction (previously home to Leon Vynehall, U and George Fitzgerald), Korwar and D’Souza hit the studio. Expanding on early conversations around traditional Indian instrumentation, practicing meditation and improvisation, Shruti Dances (a riff on free dance movement, Ecstatic Dance) was born. Meaning 'that which is heard' in Sanskrit, shruti refers to a note in musical terms, but in this case also references the album’s most prominent influence and instrument, the shruti box.
“The shruti box formed the basis of the sound of the project. It’s a drone instrument, similar to a harmonium, and it makes an amazing sound. I’ve spent the last two years studying sound therapy, and immersing myself in ambient and drone through the Ambient Flo project, and am particularly interested in how they can induce meditative states of consciousness. I was really excited to hear what the Shruti box could do with this EP.” Auntie Flo
Across six tracks, (each named after 6 of the 7 main musical notes in the Indian solfege system), Shruti Dances draws on a celestial mix of traditional percussion and processed digital effects. On opening track Dha, Korwar’s sparse tabla rhythms hop across D’Souza’s scattered, arpeggiated synths, where as on Pa, a Balearic shuffle channels Moroccan Gnawa music and Senegalese sabar meets Mark Ernestus’s Ndagga Rhythm Force. Harmonic speed tabla and roaming drones provide a sense of the ethereal and fourth-worldly on Ma, a track that’s resplendent, curious atmosphere would fit snug into the deep listening-focused programming of Auntie Flo’s Ambient Flo online radio station, a curatorial platform and avenue exploring his interest/promotion of mental health, launched over the UK’s first lockdown. Ni sees Korwar pick up the sticks, thrashing toms in a spirited frenzy, whilst downtempo album closer Sa offers some room for reflection, its slow, swirling chords cloud our focus, leaving us with all but the distant sound of birdsong.
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For the 25th release in our Phonica White series, we are very excited to have three stunning tracks from Disco wizard Ron Basejam! When he’s not producing and performing with the legendary band Crazy P, Ron Basejam aka James Baron can be found putting out all kinds of dance floor power tools on labels such as Razor N Tape, Futureboogie and his own RBJ edits imprint, as well as delivering amazing remixes.
This release kicks off with ‘The Hurt Inside’, evoking late night Los Angeles highway cruises and the driving power of Knight Rider, it breaks down into a glorious euphoria for the breakdown before hitting Mach 10 again with the raw funk bassline and drums kicking back in. Over on the B-Side, proceedings begin with ‘Don’t Bus My Aux’ which finds Ron Basejam digging into a Deep House-in- fused world, drawing you in with Balearic pads before erupting with thunderous bass, vocal chops and chants that are expertly contrasted against soulful Rhodes-esque keys while the percussion grows into frenzy.
Rounding out the release, ‘Music People’ sets a call to the dance floor as its mantra, sitting some- where craftily between House and Techno with ease. The sung vocals flutter in the background with the marching drums and rumbling low end maintaining a cavernous groove. The track builds into an almost Boards of Canada-style warbling synth breakdown before sinking into the pounding percussion for the climax.
Artwork as always is supplied by the talented Pedro Carvalho de Almeida.
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Jasmyn is the new solo project created by Jasmyn Burke, former singer-songwriter and frontwoman of the critically acclaimed Canadian band, Weaves. Having two JUNO nominations for Alternative Album of the Year and two SOCAN Songwriting Prize nominations, Burke has established herself as one of Canada's most exciting and fresh voices. With this new project, she has decided to use her own name, Jasmyn, to mark the start of exploring her own unique sound as a solo artist. Collaborating remotely with Los Angeles-based producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten) on a body of work she had compiled over months of being in lockdown. Finally in the Spring of 2021, Jasmyn went to LA to record with Congleton, exploring themes of finding patterns in life and how to perhaps change them. On the general direction of her new album In the Wild, Jasmyn said, "This was written during the Fall of 2020; The world was feeling pretty heavy, and I felt myself wanting to write music that created a mood of happiness and space to grow. I feel like I have grown and changed as a person over the last few years and wanted to write songs that created a sense of confidence and well-being." With Weaves receiving worldwide support from the likes of Rolling Stone Magazine, NPR, Pitchfork, and more, Jasmyn is excited to share a new side of herself, perhaps her most honest and raw work to date.
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever return in 2022 with Endless Rooms, the Melbourne quintet's third album proper. Described by the band - comprised of Fran Keaney, Joe White, Marcel Tussie and brothers Tom Russo and Joe Russo - as them "Doing what we do best: chasing down songs in a room together", Endless Rooms stands as a testament to the collaborative spirit and live power of RBCF. While initial ideas were traded online during long spells spent separated by lockdowns, the album was truly born during small windows of freedom in which the band would decamp to a mud-brick house in the bush around 2hrs north of Melbourne built by the extended Russo family in the 1970s. There, its 12 tracks took shape, informed to such an extent by the acoustics and ambience of the rambling lakeside house that they decided to record the album there. The house also features on the album cover. For the first time, the band self-produced the record (alongside engineer, collaborator and old friend, Matt Duffy), creating their most naturalistic and expansive document yet. The result is a collection of songs permeated by the spirit of the place; punctuated by field recordings of rain, fire, birds, and wind. "It's almost an anti-concept album," say the band. "The 'endless rooms' of the title reflects our love of creating worlds in our songs. We treat each of them as a bare room to be built up with infinite possibilities."
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On his latest album, 'The Sun is Shining Down', Blues legend John Mayall
teams up with a stellar cast to deliver a funky soulful affair punctuated by
brass, violins, harmonica and electric ukulele
Special guests include, The Heartbreakers' Mike Campbell, fast rising roots rocker
Marcus King, Americana icon Buddy Miller, Scarlet Rivera of Bob Dylan's Rolling
Thunder Review, Chicago blues guitar mainstay Melvin Taylor and Hawaiian
ukulele star Jake Shimabukuro. Also on hand are Mayall's longtime dynamic
Chicago rhythm section of Greg Rzab on bass guitar and Jay Davenport on drums
with Austin's multi-talented and charismatic Carolyn Wonderland on guitar.
Recorded at Robby Krieger's (The Doors) Horse Latitudes studio with Grammy
nominated Producer Eric Corne, 'The Sun is Shining Down' is Mayall's 5th studio
album for Forty Below Records, a fruitful partnership that began with 2014's A
Special Life.
"I couldn't be happier with the new record," exclaims Mayall. "I can't wait to share
it with my fans. Each one of these special guests brings something unique to the
album and our team works so well together. I think you can hear that chemistry in
the music," raves Mayall.
The album explores a range of styles and eclectic instruments with guests
Scarlet Rivera's violin, Jake Shimabukaro's electric ukulele and Mike Campbell,
Marcus King, Buddy Miller and Melvin Taylor on guitars. As significant as each of
these guest turns is, however, they can't overshadow Mayall's own spirited vocals,
iconic harmonica and lyrical keyboard work.
Some musicians take a while to build an audience and connect with fans but for
the Los Angeles-based quartet Dirty Honey, success came right out of the gate.
Released in March 2019, the band's debut single, "When I'm Gone," became the
first song by an unsigned artist to reach No. 1 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock
chart. Their second single, "Rolling 7s," went into the Top 5 and was still headed
up when Covid changed everything. That same year, Dirty Honey opened for The
Who, Guns 'N Roses, Slash, and Alter Bridge and was the "do-not-miss-band" at
major rock festivals such as Welcome to Rockville, Rocklahoma, Louder Than
Life, Heavy MTL, and Epicenter. On its first U.S. headline tour in January and
February 2020, the band sold out every date.
A totally obscure release from Youngstown, Ohio's Tony Lavorgna and his late 70's early 1980's band: The St. Thomas Quartet. Like many private press album's it's an ad for their set list, recorded on the cusp of cassettes and definitely pre-cd so strictly vinyl it is. A mixed bag of tunes and influences but two of the tunes absolutely leap into your ears.
A Hammond led Soul Jazz version of Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon" at nearly ten minutes that seems to just get more drivingly funky and intense and David Thomas on the B3 is absolutely inspired on this monster of a track. It makes you wonder why on earth more Hammond players didn't make a feature of this tune?
The other inspired choice is War's "The World Is A Ghetto" which just has to be one of the funkiest versions of this much covered tune. Some soulful sax from leader Lavorgna signposts the way for the rest of the bands soulful and jazzy contributions with again Hammond man David Thomas underpinning with his funk drenched riffs.
Tony Lavorgna is a one off too, his life story is available in Comic Book form under the title "Bebopman" by American Splendor writer Harvey Pekar.
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New album by the Berlin-based musician, composer and producer MIDORI HIRANO aka MIMICOF, entirely recorded using the EMS SYNTHI100 at Electronic Studio Radio Belgrade during an artist residency: contemporary electronic music / ambient for the advanced listener.
Midori Hirano is a Japanese musician, composer and producer based in Berlin. She started learning the piano as a child and later studied classical piano at university. Therefore the music she releases under her own name is based on the use of piano, but yet experimental and an eclectic mixture of modern digital sounds with subtle electronic processing and field recordings. So far, Hirano released 7 solo albums under her civilian name on labels such as Sonic Pieces and DAUW.
Under the moniker MimiCof she explores the realm of more experimental music and detailed rhythmic patterns, combined with an idea of drawing melodic shapes and harmonies. As MimiCof she performed at prestigious festivals and events such as CTM, Heroines of Sound Festival, Boiler Room Berlin and L.E.V. Festival, and was selected by Frank Bretschneider for the first volume of the "Sichten" compilation series on his raster label.
Besides producing her own works, Hirano has composed music for dance performances, video installations and films which have been screened at Berlin International Film Festival, Krakow Film Festival, SXSW Film Festival and HongKong International Film Festival (among others) and remixed tracks by artists including Rival Consoles, Foam And Sand aka Robot Koch, Liars and Pascal Schumacher.
While the last MimiCof album "Moon Synch" (2017, Alien Transistor) was recorded on the Buchla analogue modular Synthesizer at EMS Elektronmusikstudion in Stockholm, her latest effort "Distant Symphony" (the 4th as MimiCof) was created on a different synthesizer: the EMS SYNTHI 100 Synthesizer at Radio Belgrade. All sounds from this instrument were recorded as single sound samples at first, then mixed and modified into three long pieces of music, so that the audience can experience the machine's uniqueness and versatility of sound. Hirano understands this work as a gesture of respect for the SYNTHI 100's character: though a vintage instrument, it has never lost the beauty of its modern sound.
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Alex the Fairy is an artist based in Berlin producing music with an emphasis on electronic and concrete methods. Alex the Fairy is also part of the 3Ddancer trio, a live act focusing on improvisation and expression using electronics.
Alex The Fairy writes: "I had sent The Tapeworm tracks before, but I was being difficult so was asked to send a new bunch, with a deadline. I sent the new bunch, a fairly odd collection expecting perhaps some of them to be combined with the older stuff but not seeing any coherence in them. I figured The Tapeworm would find at least something. To my surprise the suggestion that came back was exclusively the tracks I had sent the second time, and, re-listening through the tracks in this new order after returning from a Christmas dinner lying on the floor of my nephews bedroom gave them a completely new context. Despite them being quite varied in terms of age (one had been flung together a few days earlier on the train while another was approaching Schulreife) they seemed to meld together in such a way that I hardly recognised them…
Last year my grandmother died. My last grandparent. I had put off seeing her during corona, as I thought it best not to put her at risk and had almost left to visit her days before her death but had delayed my departure because of a medical appointment. My failure to her weighs heavy on my mind - fates grimacing grin: too little, too late. The approaching march of death, one generation closer was a confrontation I wasn't prepared for.
While clearing out her flat in the following weeks I had kept some of my grandfathers cassettes, live recordings of jazz greats, Pink Floyd, Sade and some classical among them, none originals, several presumably from the radio e.g. a church organ rendition of Bach. At the time I wasn't sure why I was hanging on to them, other than the urge to hoard, and that it felt wrong not at least to keep some. Half a year later, half way through mixing this cassette, suffering from my first bout of COVID, I had the insatiable urge to hook up the cassette player I had received from my grandfather after his death around nineteen years earlier and had been dragging along with me since. I stuck a cassette in only to immediately return to the safety of my covers. I began to work my way into what I had saved, hearing the fruits of my grandfathers labour decades before. It felt like quite an intimate interaction with someone I had long lost contact to/was long gone. Quite a wonderful thing, these time traveling cassettes.
I returned to the tracks to mix them shortly before my corona/cassette experience, with a new mixing console at hand. I had been looking for one for several years, but nothing had ever clicked, until I found this old broadcast desk 30 minutes from my place (it also coincided with a payment from a job the sum of which matched the price identically… fates return). Installing became a massive hassle and I doubted my decision continuously, but the further it was implemented the more it made sense. The first track I recorded with the mixer is on this cassette. Shortly before the mixing I was introduced to an Effektgerät by a friend, Rapha. Another good friend Art lent me their one, and I ended up using copious amounts of it throughout mixing, alongside my usual space creators. All the tracks on this release were mixed again on this mixer and are in a sense all a bit of a dub of the originals. I wouldn't have worked this way without the mixer, and the effect gave me a dimension I hadn't had before, so, from a technical perspective, the mixer and this effect define this release, giving it a coherence, at least for me. Emotionally of course the chaos and turbulence of the preceding year and my newfound appreciation for the medium give it a meaning I will struggle to formulate." – Alex The Fairy, Berlin, 9 May 2022
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First Word Records is extremely delighted to present 'Torn : Tonic' — the sophomore album from singer, performer, poet and producer, Allysha Joy.
Delivered unfiltered, straight from the soul, ´Torn : Tonic' pulls us into a 10 track journey that weaves through the multiplicity of letting go, standing tall, and creating space all at once. The album's expansive and vivid exploration of healing examines the power that comes with accepting the complexity of change. Allysha walks listeners through the remedy she finds in sound and emerges empowered to share this healing with others. Deeply moving and lyrically compelling, 'Torn : Tonic' hosts a stellar line-up of artists, creating a world of collective power, growth, and hope.
Allysha Joy is an integral member of the vibrant Melbourne soul & jazz scene, well known for both her solo work and as lead vocalist for 30/70. A uniquely-talented soul, her husky voice, and formidable Fender Rhodes prowess have garnered attentive audiences around the world.
Her 2018 debut album 'Acadie : Raw' was named 'Best Soul Album' at the Music Victoria Awards, featured in Bandcamp's 'Top Soul Albums' of the year and received a nomination for 'Best Jazz Album' at the Worldwide Awards. An incredibly prolific artist, Allysha has released on labels; Rhythm Section, Gondwana, Future Classic, Total Refreshment Centre and now another drop for First Word, after her acclaimed 2020 EP, 'Light It Again'.
Allysha's production on 'Torn : Tonic' effortlessly arches across a sonic palette, comprised of shuffling broken grooves and exquisite celestial melodies. There are healthy swathes of skippy neo-soul boom bap sensibilities, entwined with stark swing-laden electronic percussion, Detroit-esque sun-saturated synths, and Antipodean bruk backbeats. And whilst this project was produced entirely by Joy herself, she is far from alone, inviting in an array of female and non-binary artists to bless assorted tracks with their own unique gifts. Ego Ella May, BINA, Rara Zulu, Belle Bangard and Dancing Water all appear, expanding upon the formulaic roles of featured artists to share the creative space as equal collaborators.
'Torn : Tonic' exudes vibes, from the opening whiplash snare of 'Peace, to the rolling jazz-bruk of lead single 'Let It!', to the sweet soulful sonics of 'Still Dreaming', to the closing triumphant shout of "All Joy!!" on 'G.N.D.', this is a 40-minute opus that will definitely require repeat listening.
Allysha's poetic introspection reveals the album's intention to demand space, purpose, and pleasure. Her words are deliberate and direct to the alarm bells and messages her artistic vision carries. Fluid, cross-genre, and spirited with generational stories embodied, 'Torn : Tonic' sits at the intersection of a feminist manifesto of Joy's momentous leap as an artist, and her exploration of what it means to be human in today's capitalist-driven world.
In Allysha's words, 'Torn : Tonic' is exactly as the name describes. "It is looking directly into the shadow of pain and overcoming it with joy. No love songs! Just social, political, emotional anthems for change! It is the first record I have produced entirely on my own and it feels like that perseverance that I have consistently had to conjure up is embedded in this music, overcoming my own conditioning in a society and industry that constantly tells me I can't, so I must!"
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Wick Records is proud to present Michael Rault, the eponymous new album from one of the most talented songwriters in the game. A remarkable re-imagination of '70s pop perfection, the album began to take shape during a time of endings. Michael, on the cusp of turning 30 and freshly off the road promoting 2018's A New Day Tonight, had just ended a romantic relationship, and cut ties with his management and touring band. Returning home to Montreal where his van was already buried in six feet of snow, he hunkered down in his bedroom studio and began writing. Over the span of five months he penned most of the album. From the drug-fueled, dance floor slow-stepper, "Neither Love Nor Money", to the introspective "Inside Your Heart", to the tongue-in-cheek playfulness of "Champagne", the body of work he created in this epoch of uncertainty is proof of just how crucial that time of endings really was. Bruised but certainly not beaten, Michael delivers a lush, timeless collection of songs - continuing his increasingly profound exploration into the worlds of progressive pop, psych folk, yacht rock and beyond. Trust us...you're gonna love it!
Key Selling Points
• Sophomore album on Wick Records.
• Indie Only Blue Galaxy vinyl Covered by Paste, Pitchfork, Stereogum and many others.
• “Hook after hook after hook” - PASTE
Wick Records is proud to present Michael Rault, the eponymous new album from one of the most talented songwriters in the game. A remarkable re-imagination of '70s pop perfection, the album began to take shape during a time of endings. Michael, on the cusp of turning 30 and freshly off the road promoting 2018's A New Day Tonight, had just ended a romantic relationship, and cut ties with his management and touring band. Returning home to Montreal where his van was already buried in six feet of snow, he hunkered down in his bedroom studio and began writing. Over the span of five months he penned most of the album. From the drug-fueled, dance floor slow-stepper, "Neither Love Nor Money", to the introspective "Inside Your Heart", to the tongue-in-cheek playfulness of "Champagne", the body of work he created in this epoch of uncertainty is proof of just how crucial that time of endings really was. Bruised but certainly not beaten, Michael delivers a lush, timeless collection of songs - continuing his increasingly profound exploration into the worlds of progressive pop, psych folk, yacht rock and beyond. Trust us...you're gonna love it!
Key Selling Points
• Sophomore album on Wick Records.
• Indie Only Blue Galaxy vinyl Covered by Paste, Pitchfork, Stereogum and many others.
• “Hook after hook after hook” - PASTE
Dieser Teil der Magnetic Eye's Redux Series ist einem der Meilensteine der Grunge-Ära gewidmet: Eine Reihe von Künstlern aus dem Doom- und Stoner-Underground interpretieren Alice in Chains' Dirt neu, einen vertonten Alptraum über Drogenabhängigkeit und innere Finsternis.
Ähnlichkeiten zwischen Grunge und der Entwicklung des Stoner Sludge Metal lassen sich besonders deutlich auf diesen Meilenstein zurückführen, der den kulturellen Wandel vom geistlosen Hair Metal zu roherem, dreckigerem und authentischerem Stoff in den frühen 1990ern endgültig machte, woraus dann der vorherrschende Stil populärer harter Musik wurde.
Dirt Redux bietet den gesamten Albumklassiker von Anfang bis Ende in Form von Coverversionen und Überarbeitungen durch Szene-Schwergewichte und Aufsteiger wie Khemmis, Thou, -(16)-, Howling Giant, Forming The Void, The Otolith (ex-SubRosa) und weiteren.
Landscape Tantrums Lost for two decades, the recent rediscovery of Landscape Tantrums the first attempt at recording the music that would become The Mars Volta’s De-Loused In The Comatorium revealed an important and hitherto missing chapter in the group’s evolution. Selfrecorded by Omar (assisted by Jon DeBaun) at Burbank’s Mad Dog Studios within a head spinning four days, Landscape Tantrums captures De-Loused in somewhat embryonic form, though much of what would make The Mars Volta’s debut album such an electrifying, sublime experience was already in place: the fearless invention, the fusion of futurist rock elements and traditions from outside of the rock orthodoxy, the sense of virtuosity working in service of emotional effect. From a distance, The Mars Volta must have seemed as if they were on a high when they walked into the studio to record what they expected to be their debut album (“I didn’t think of it as demos or a dry run,” Omar says). The group had recently played the Coachella festival to rave reviews, a vindication of the quixotic risk Omar and Cedric had taken, quitting At The Drive In to lead such an uncompromising musical proposition.
Their debut EP, Tremulant, had similarly signalled their singular vision, and been rewarded with similarly positive feedback. But the truth was that The Mars Volta entered Mad Dog in tatters, scarcely believing anything other than failure lay within their reach. They’d recently lost their bassist, Eva Gardner, and parted ways with keyboard play Ikey Owens. Tensions were brewing with drummer Jon Theodore, too himself a replacement for founding drummer Blake Fleming Omar questioning Theodore’s commitment to the group. And sound manipulator Jeremy Michael Ward’s drug problem had gotten so far out of hand that he’d been sent to rehab, and wouldn’t return until two days into the Landscape Tantrums. The pressure upon Omar was intense, and it began to manifest in the form of physical and emotional breakdowns. His art was his life, but now he began to wonder if it was actually going to kill him. Under such heavy manners, miracles occurred at Mad Dog. Surely that’s the only way to describe the music contained on Landscape Tantrums, as Omar fashioned early versions of Inertiatic ESP, Drunkship Of Lanterns and Eriatarka that rivalled the Rick Rubin produced versions that ended up on De- Loused for intensity, precision and immediacy, as Cedric delivered a powerfully intimate reading of Televators, and as a bare bones version of the group sketched out the peaks of what would become their debut masterpiece in barely half a week, on a shoestring, and believing they wouldn’t last long enough to see it hit the shelves. Listening to Landscape Tantrums now, with the benefit of hindsight and the knowledge of what these songs will become, one notices Cedric has yet to fully find the voice that will lend The Mars Volta their devastating authority, that Eriatarka will evolve even further under Rick Rubin’s watch, and that the lyrics to De-Loused’s climactic chapter, Take The Veil Cerpin Taxt, have yet to be penned. But one also notices how lithe the group sound here, how hungry, and one appreciates the raw edge that Rubin would later polish to a venomous sharpness. More than mere historical curiosity, Landscape Tantrums is an essential text for the dedicated Mars Volta aficionado, and a breathtaking album in its own right.
[a] a1. Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of) [Unfinished Original Recordings Of De-Loused In The Comatorium]
To celebrate the 25th Anniversary on 25th March 2022, the diamond-certified GRAMMY®-nominated double-disc opus will be released as a 25th Anniversary Super Deluxe Box Set on June 10, 2022. The Life After Death 25th Anniversary Super Deluxe Boxed Set consists of 8-LPs and a commemorative booklet featuring rare photos from the album cover shoot, liner notes by Sheldon Pearce, and exclusive reflections from members of the team who worked on the original album release. In addition to the original album, it includes the Hypnotize 12”, Mo Money Mo Problems 12”, Sky’s The Limit 12”, and Nasty Boy 12”.
Life After Death features 112, Jay-Z, Lil’ Kim, Ma$e, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony and Too $hort, along with tracks like “Kick In The Door,” “What’s Beef,” “Notorious Thugs,” “Ten Crack Commandments” and “Sky’s The Limit,”. The album hit #1 on the Billboard 200 chart and the US Top R&B/Hip Hop chart. It went diamond in the U.S. alone, double platinum in Canada, and platinum in the UK. The album received a GRAMMY® nomination in the category of “Best Rap Album.” “Hypnotize” earned a GRAMMY® nomination for “Best Rap Solo Performance,” and “Mo Money Mo Problems” was nominated for “Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group.” Among dozens of lists and retrospectives, Rolling Stone touted Life After Death among its coveted “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” The RIAA has awarded the album a Diamond Certification for more than 5 million copies sold of the double-LP.
Fuchs is a band that never was. It vanished as quickly as it appeared in the picture, much like the animal that can be seen on this album and after whom it was named. In 2005, Kante singer and guitarist Peter Thiessen travelled to Weilheim to visit Markus and Micha Acher in their studio, where they were joined, among others, by Notwist-affiliated musicians like Cico Beck, Robert Klinger, Carl Oesterhelt and Stefan Schreiber. Spirits were high, but schedules were full: after a week of improvised sessions, everyone went their own way. The recordings gathered dust until Markus Acher found them again in 2021 while cleaning out his studio. After carefully re-evaluating the rough mixes, the musicians decided to finally release them. The resulting album comprises six tracks that musically draw on jazz, aesthetically lean on dub techniques and ideologically pick up on krautrock: there’s no solos to be heard on this record, just a few equally skilled and open-minded musicians listening to each other carefully, providing each other with space in which to unfold. »Fuchs« is a document of egos dissolving in a collective spirit.
Thiessen and the Acher brothers met in the 1990s and bonded not only over their shared background in hardcore music and the DIY ethos in which it was rooted, but also over their love for jazz. »If you look at those two things combined, you will eventually become convinced that you don’t have to be formally trained to make music that at least resembles jazz«, says Thiessen today. He invited Micha Acher to join his band Kante on flügelhorn in 2004 for a tour that saw the expanded group play unusual encores after the official concert was over. »Micha had taught us some dixie pieces, so night after night we would play a freestyle dixieland ska set in front of the remaining audience!« Naturally, the Acher brothers didn’t have to ask twice when they invited him for a visit in Weilheim to further explore their mutual interests in a studio setting. »I got on my way immediately and took two or three loose ideas, a tape echo and a guitar on whose headplate you could create fantastic sounds with me«, says Thiessen.
Between immersing themselves in books by the photographer Leonore Mau, cooking together and drinking the occasional fruit schnapps, the trio went into the studio. Says Thiessen, »Micha brought his flügelhorn and some wonderful ideas with him, Markus an Indian harmonium and a plan, Carl Oesterhelt came with a glockenspiel and a Chinese zither and a bunch of amazing jazz musicians joined in, too.« He considers the resulting recording sessions to be a kind of attempt at musically translating their conversations during those days. They discussed different approaches to jazz, whether sampling and musical miscitations can unlock ecstatic potentials and the possible parallels between syncretistic religions and pop music. »There’s traces of glossolalia, it's like a blurry séance«, adds Thiessen in regard to the sessions.
It is especially this spirit that managed to live on even though the recordings themselves were abandoned. »What we all liked most when listening back to the recordings is probably their marginal and fragmentary character, the empty spaces—the moments in which the virtuoso solo never comes, in which the centre remains empty.« The six pieces on »Fuchs« are chock-full of exactly these moments. When at one instant, the players seem to disperse and improvise freely, they always meet again on common ground a short time later, continuing on their way together. There are no conventions or even previous agreements that guide them, just a shared will to explore a vast range of curious sounds and unusual rhythms together as a truly unified constellation of very different musicians. Fuchs is a band that never was. Its ideas still reverberate vividly even 17 years later.
In Fango’s own words: Around 3 years ago I became a father and that changed my life. This record it’s my son’s world seen through my eyes: the innersleeve artwork was made by him and the eye on the label is mine. All the titles are also taken from Carlo’s own dictionary: “E Dee” is the first sound he used to make trying to communicate, it could mean many things. “Mamuke” was mum, “Babuke” was dad, “L” (reads el) was his step brother Gabriele and Cang his step sister Camilla.
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Go Sailor were a great, short-lived band from the mid-90s who represent
a key link in the US indie music chain
Featuring Rose Melberg (Tiger Trap, The Softies, Gaze, Brave Irene, Knife Pleats),
Linton (Henry's Dress, The Aislers Set) and Paul Curran (Take A Day fanzine,
Crimpshrine, Monsula), they released three great singles and a few compilation
tracks, and then went their separate ways. But what records they are! Basic and
lovely in their song- writing, they're perfect snapshots of where indie- pop was
during that last burst of pre- internet indie activity. Touching on time- honored
themes of friendship and love (lost and found), they resonate with honesty and
purity of intention. The trio reunited in the early 2010s to play to enraptured
crowds at the NYC and Athens Popfests, and their appearance at the Slumberland
20th Anniversary show was the stuff of legend. This album compiles all three of
their 7" singles (for Slumberland, Yoyo and Lookout!) and compilation tracks and
was first released on vinyl in 2011. Due to pressing plant issues it quickly went
out of print, so we are very happy to bring you this new edition, back on vinyl
where it belongs with a new insert featuring liner notes and lots of cool band
pictures and ephemera. Pressed on Watery Blue Color Vinyl.
Die internationale Pop-Rock-Band As It Is - Patty Walters, Ronald Ish und Alistair Testo - hat ihr brandneues Album „I WENT TO HELL AND BACK” angekündigt.
„I WENT TO HELL AND BACK“ ist in einem Zeitraum von zwei Jahren entstanden, in denen die Band ihre Lebensentscheidungen hinterfragten und mit einer Welt rangen, die sich in einem ständigen Drang chaotischer Ungewissheit befand- aber das vierte Album der Band könnte nicht aufgeregter klingen. Die vierzehn Tracks sind kraftvoll und jagen furchtlos dem Unerwarteten hinterher. Es ist der Sound einer Band, die immer noch sehr großen Spaß hat.
Walters hofft, dass sich „I WENT TO HELL AND BACK“ anfühlt wie „ein Wiedersehen mit einem alten Freund“.
Wir können über all die guten und schrecklichen Dinge sprechen, die passiert sind, und wie wir daran gewachsen sind.
Das Album ist ab dem 4. Februar als 1CD erhältlich und erscheint am 10. Juni als 1LP
Vinyl now gone back to June. RIYL: Slowdive, DIIV, Electric Youth, The Cure, My Bloody Valentine. Solo project of Los Angeles based Matthew Doty (ex-Saxon Shore). For Matthew Doty, Deserta has always been about exploring a sonic universe that allows him to express a kaleidoscope of emotions, without having to say much at all. Through a patchwork of reverb-tinged textures – drone guitars, lingering synths and driving percussion – the Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist weaves together stories of care, frustration and catharsis that ultimately stretch to a gentle resolve. On new album Every Moment, Everything You Need, Doty chronicles the kind of year we all fear, full of uncertainty, tension and sustained pressure, and transforms it into a celebration of perseverance. It’s an essential reminder that we have the power to shape the stories we tell. The pandemic meant that Doty had to give up his studio and downsize a lot of his gear and instead, carve out a space in his two-bedroom apartment to craft the next chapter of Deserta. Sharing the space with his wife and son, Doty and his partner are also essential healthcare workers, which meant the couple would often have to tag-team childcare, along with 13-hour shifts in PPE and people constantly calling with questions about the ever changing guidelines and protocols. Once the blueprint for Every Moment, Everything You Need was set, Doty reached out to a number of collaborators to stitch together his vision for the sonic landscape. James McAlister (Sufjan Stevens, The National, Taylor Swift) came onboard to perform and record drums, while Caroline Lufkin (Mice Parade) wrote and performed vocals on the ethereal “Where Did You Go.” Elsewhere, the LP was mixed by Dave Fridmann (Tame Impala, Mogwai, Interpol), with Beach House and Slowdive producer Chris Coady engineering and co-producing, making this the first time Fridmann and Coady had worked together on a project. While the vocals are more prominent than Deserta’s previous albums, it’s their amalgamation with the instrumental aspects that secures Every Moment, Everything You Need as Deserta’s most confident and assured release to date. An affecting emotional candor teamed with persistent riffs and tenacious rhythms sees Doty unafraid to dive deeper; an unrestrained approach that ushers in a lustrous purging of agitation and anxiety. Showcasing those dark, exhaustive thoughts through crucial swells and looped, electronic soundscapes, it’s an LP that’s infinitely layered, with something new to discover with each and every enchanting listen.
In Trux We Pux is an editorial project organized by the Porto based label and collective Favela Discos. Focusing on the city’s thriving experimental and improvised music scene, it sets out to portrait in a series of four volumes some of the characteristic sounds and collaborative practices that have been in development in Porto during the last few years.
In Trux We Pux 02 contains the first of Favela Discos’ collective pieces to be published, and it was chosen to represent a long series of site-specic pieces developed by the collective since its formation. Most of the time these pieces remain lost in time or in the label’s archives.
Desilusão Óptica is an audiovisual piece developed for the festival Serralves em Festa 2017 and was recorded between the concert and rehearsals. The piece is influenced by the book Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks, and tries to explore the notion of auditory hallucination, in this case based on the idea of a phantom sound unconnected to its object.
Starting quietly with a single flute note, Desilusão Óptica slowly grows fuller but more uncomfortable as the pitch rises gradually in a hypnotic effect. The sound we hear is a mix of the sound produced live, its manipulation and repetition, thus the piece exists between the time when it happens, its immediate repetition and ghosts of past sounds.
The flute, delayed and sampled, embodies both the sounds it produces and memories of past sounds, creating a confusion between objecto and sound. The sound is produced by an object but is at the same time separated from it, like in Mulholland Drive when we watch a singer emotionally dedicated to a performance and whose voice keeps on singing even when her body collapses.
Like in Dub Music, the musicians are divided into two groups: those who play, in this case divided by winds, percussion and electric guitars, and the dub master / sound manipulators who launch samples of previous recordings and manipulate the sound that is produced live, through loopers and delay pedals.
After a parentship hiatus, Richard Zepezauer´s n s y d e imprint is back to push new boundaries and save some souls.
N s y d e proudly presents a next release by Skymark. It's his second full EP on the Berlin based imprint.
His Easy Saturday Night EP includes two excellent deep house jams backed with remixes by Kevin Reynolds and Mike Huckaby. The latter was previously released as a single sided limited edition.Skymark brings a bright and sun tinged house anthem on the Instrumental version of Easy Saturday Night on the A1.
The remix is in our opinion amongst Mike Huckaby's best productions. It touches the classic soulfulness of Larry Heard-style piano chords and blissful vocals combined with clear hints of Basic Channel's eternal electrifying waves. It's a perfect testament to Mike's unparalleled knowledge and wide musical range, Not only those who knew him will feel his presence while listening to this beauty.
On Insomnia, Skymark goes even deeper into deep soul territories. Pure vibes. Reworked by Detroit DJ and producer Kevin Reynolds. Made his frst appearance on nsyde back in 2011 and here he twists the original into N s y d e was founded 2011 by Richard Zepezauer.
N S Y D E will continue to bring back the family by unifying diverse artists from all angles of the electronic music familytree. N S Y D E believes in the political power of art, it brings together people.
N S Y D E does not believe in the power of political marketing of art, it divides people from each other. House Nation still under one Groove.
Early DJ support by : Antal (Rushhour), XDB, Laurent Garnier, Steffi (Ostgut), Electric Indigo, Dan Curtin etc.
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Music became an escape for Greta during lockdown, and her new songs tell us about the feelings of love and longing that became an essential part of the pandemic for the German, Copenhagen based singer-songwriter. The songs follow last year’s successful debut album ‘Ardent Spring’ and together they make up her new album ‘Forever We’ll Be Dancing’, which will be released on February 4th 2022
Like so many of us, Greta spent most of last year trapped inside her apartment. While some have been making puzzles or knitting sweaters Greta has been writing songs about love, euphoria and longing; longing for the clubs of Berlin, longing for social contact and trying to find a way out of an emotional darkness.
During the Corona lockdown, Greta found herself in a romantic symbiosis with her husband and though the isolation brought them closer, it was also a challenging time where Greta’s husband struggled with depression.
»Music became my escape and if I needed to take a break and connect with myself, I could disappear into my computer and write a lot of songs. That was a good thing. Difficult, but good. It’s extremely hard to be close to someone who’s in pain when you have to carry them because they’re not able to carry themselves. In that sense, lockdown has been a good thing. My husband needed me and because of the lockdown I didn’t have to worry about missing out on anything. I feel that I’ve reached a deeper understanding of his feelings because we’ve had time to talk about them«, Greta says.
»Zwei Herzen«
The bubble of love and depression became a source of strength and personal growth, but it also caused Greta to miss the world outside and her family in the small German town Husum. Because of this, Greta wanted to fulfill a wish she had kept for a long time – she wanted to write songs in her native tongue, German. This is why multiple of her songs carry titles such as ‘Nicht Allein’, ‘Genug’ and ‘Drei’.
»I’ve been crazy homesick and that has definitely inspired the album. I have not written in German before, so for me this was a way of connecting with my roots. I can listen to German with Danish ears now, because I’ve lived here for so long now, and it allowed me to use the language differently and more rhythmically«.
40-plus years since its original release, the pop-punk-new wave inventions of Anthony
Moore’s ‘Flying Doesn’t Help’ are freshly remastered, blasting the sparkling, angular
sounds into today with perfect vitality.
After spending the early years of the 1970s making experimental music first as a solo
artist, then with Slapp Happy and Henry Cow, 1976’s ‘OUT’ sessions had reinvigorated
Anthony’s youthful love of the naive pop melodies of pop radio, the undeniable excitement
of songs. While ‘OUT’ ultimately went unreleased at the time, the iconoclasm clouding the
late ’70s air was addictive and transformative for Anthony. England seemed to be roiled
as violently as it had been in counter-cultural days a decade earlier; the UK pop charts
breathlessly reflected the changing spectrum with equal parts aging hippie and prog
delicacies alongside new ascendant sounds: rough-hewn pub and punk rock, plus dub
reggae and disco and ska and Stiff and Krautrock. This proved to be an ideal environment
for Anthony to make records by exploring, as he puts it, the “deep connection between
minimalism, repetition, working with tape and celluloid and forming the modules of a
three-minute pop song.”
Caught up in a no-holds-barred era, Anthony was more than happy to play the out-of-hishead madman, raving through outrageous exchanges with the press, while ‘Judy Get
Down’ received Single Of The Week honours from the NME (with review penned by Brian
Eno). Represented by Blackhill Enterprises, Anthony did production work throughout
1978-1979, on Kevin Ayers’ ‘Rainbow Takeaway’, Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s ‘Angel
Station’ and the first This Heat album, meanwhile cutting his own songs on a dead time
deal at Workhouse Studio with engineer / producer Laurie Latham. Through the wee
hours of countless nights, the two pieced together ‘Flying Doesn’t Help’, with a little help
from friends (an inspired bunch, including Bob Shilling, Charles Hayward, Chris Slade,
Robert Vogel, Festus, Matt Irving, Sam Harley, Bernie Clark, Edwin Cross and Martine
Moore on the telephone).
Building upon the axis of pop and experimental impulses that distinguished ‘OUT’, and
informed further by the raw sensibilities exploding everywhere, ‘Flying Doesn’t Help’
blasts out of the speakers with its own unique blend of sophistication and aggression,
Anthony’s keyboard flashes between arpeggiations and outright stabs among the noise of
slicing guitars, funk basslines and the reverbed blare of the drumkit. Opening with
Anthony’s greatest hit, ‘Judy Get Down’, and containing a noise-laden remake of the
Slapp Happy/Henry Cow number, ‘War’, among other delightful sweet-and-salty
confections, ‘Flying Doesn’t Help’ never stops moving, fuelled with raw outrage and dark
satirical intent, churning with the energy of next-gen types like Tubeway Army and DEVO,
while shimmering with the elegance of the still-challenging old guard types, like Cale and
Bowie.
Clearly, ‘Flying Doesn’t Help’ was steeped in the time, and the original release reflected a
deep mistrust of the corporation mindset. Information was a dubious concept, and
connections to any recognizable organization were seen as untrustworthy, so facts like
musician credits were left out of the package, and even Anthony’s name was altered (he
was credited as A. More on the album and Tony More on a single release). The label
name QUANGO was conceptual as well, standing for ‘Quasi Autonomous NonGovernmental Organization’; each record was sealed with red tape that the listener was
required to cut through in order to get to the music. Rather than recreate the conditions of
the original release of ‘Flying Doesn’t Help’, this reissue instead embraces the changed
environment of the current time and place: instead of no credits, now they are complete,
with Anthony’s full name restored and even the artwork subtly ‘relocated’ to reflect a new
set of relationships. All of which brings the forward-looking sounds of ‘Flying Doesn’t Help’
into the more independent-minded 21st Century syntax where it belongs.
Limited Edition 180g Vinyl LP! All-Analogue Mastering by Kevin Gray!
Pressed at RTI!
This mid-period masterwork from jazz piano's most uncommon voice finds Monk and his quartet (Charlie Rouse on tenor, Ben Riley on drums and Larry Gales on bass) exploring every texture, tone and melodic turn of seven expansive tracks. This group was subtle, mature and confident, easily supporting Monk's more idiosyncratic side-tracks (check out the solo on "Locomotive" or the restless exposition on "Japanese Folk Song") while allowing listeners freedom to move through or contemplate all the sublime subtexts Monk conjures from the endless well of his inspiration.
This emphasis on laid back and mature presentation aided the recording as well. These master tapes sound amazing and getting them to disc was a pure pleasure. Subtle changes in atmosphere, tone and melody fill the space between the speakers, a wide soundstage and expansive dynamics the gift of music indelibly played. This is one sonic powerhouse for the ages.
Available for the first time on 180-gram 2-LP with the full performances of the original tracks and including two bonus tracks, this new Impex release gets you closer to Monk's genius than ever before. Kevin Gray and Robert Pincus used analogue master tapes and minimal processing to great effect, while original session and jacket images were culled to create the deluxe gatefold jacket. Add in the sound-of-silence pressings from RTI and you have a can't miss jazz disc ready to delight and inspire every time it spins on your turntable. Impex has pulled out all the stops on this mesmerizing Monk classic. All you have to do is get one and enjoy before they're all gone.
The trio Susana Santos Silva / Torbjörn Zetterberg / Hampus Lindwall emerged in 2015 with their first album, which was received with critical acclaim. The unique conceptual approach to composition & improvisation rooted in both free jazz and contemporary classical music was described as “guaranteed a unique listening experience” (JazzIn), “It is art!” (Gapplegate Music Review) and “unique sound and style” (New York City Jazz Record). On their new album »Hi, who are you?«, they have taken the musical creation a step further by adding live electronics for real time sound treatment. Different techniques from experimental electronic music is juxtaposed with simple use of electric guitar effects to obtain tight and highly emotional sound.
Susana Santos Silva - trumpet Torbjörn Zetterberg - double bass, and electric noise on track 5 and 10 Hampus Lindwall - pipe organ and live electronics
Having initially met more than a decade ago at a local community radio station, sometimes doing guest slots on each other’s live, improvised noise shows, Cormac Culkeen and Dave Grenon knew they had a mutual interest in working with sonic textures. They listened to each other’s bands for a handful of years, and in 2017, “made good on a threat” that they’d been making for quite a long time: to start a band. At Cormac’s gentle but clear urging—declaring that they’d gone ahead and booked a space in which to record a video—the two wrote their first song, “Sebaldus,” an ambitious 12-minute trip, which also serves as the fireworks finale to their self-titled debut album. With surges of pathos that smooth out into something more soothing in turn, Cormac goes: “The hunter, you’ve seen him / The archer, his arrows are strong / And hunger, you’ve known her / I know the winter is long.” The track is as much about enduring a Canadian winter as it is about the eponymous 8th century hermit, shot through with sublimated desire. As Cormac put it, Joyful Joyful’s songs are “a little bit outside of time.” But while the lyrics beg close, oblique reading unto themselves, there’s also a distinct sense that they’re only one of many more ways that the duo shapes sound. Cormac, whose voice is like a sea with irregular tides, lights up about an idea in traditional sean-nós Irish music that songs already exist and are out there; it’s up to the singer to become the conduit. This belief in music as something to be channelled, and something more than sound, resonates with the singer’s fundamentalist religious past. To paraphrase: lots of group singing, harmonies, no instrumentation, totally unmediated, no priest, congregational—not choral, not a performance, not about talent, the spirit moves through people. “Of course that informs how I think about singing,” Cormac says. So, when they were exiled from the church because of their queerness, they took the music with them, dislocating it from its dogmatic bounds but not from its transcendent potential. This record might be thought of, then, as a kind of queering of sacred, devotional traditions—or at the very least, a space where all of these things can be held at once. Perhaps perceivable by some as contradictions, these intersecting influences create the conditions for an incredibly singular sound. Dave is steady and exploratory in his handling of this multiplicity, arranging sounds as they’re revealed, corralling them, coaxing them into form. “Because Dave is there,” Cormac says, “I get to sing three times higher, and three times lower, and faster, and backwards, and all of these sounds! That are there. They’re all there.” When asked about early musical memories, Cormac recalled an immediate fascination with harmony: from demanding that the first person they ever heard singing it explain what they were doing, to always (still, to this day) singing in harmony with their twin sister around the house, to being part of a children’s choir that sang soprano in Handel’s Messiah—not realizing until they entered the room with all the other ranges that their learned melody was but one part of the whole. Just as tellingly, Dave reflects on his early attraction to “abstraction and becoming abstract,” describing childhood afternoons messing with microphone and speaker feedback loops, producing long, enduring sounds with almost undetectable variations. In a way unique to the coalescing of these two listeners, notions of harmony are central to their output. Dave samples field recordings, old keyboards and synths, and vocal drones, running the live singing through four or five parallel effects chains, sampling and treating everything again in the moment. “Another way to put it is that Cormac’s voice comes into the board and then comes back out shifted, delayed, and shattered; Cormac and I hear it, live with it, and respond,” Dave says. This work is contingent not only on a deep intuition (neither of them read sheet music) of polyphony and due proportion (something St Thomas Aquinas famously listed as an attribute of beauty) but also on their connection to each other and ability to read subtle cues. Dave says they’d hold each other’s hands while performing if it was more convenient to do so, riffing on something else Cormac mentioned about traditional Irish singing: that someone would always hold the singer’s hand, for fear that without a tether to the ground they might find themselves utterly lost, unsure how to return. Joyful Joyful doesn’t shy away from offering such experiences of departure; they’re willing to unsettle their audiences because they themselves are unsettled. Their shared penchant for spooky, heavy music, and self-described “omnivorous” listening practices equip them with an array of sonic concepts that support this effort; Diamanda Galás, The Rankin Family, Pan Sonic, Pauline Oliveros, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Yma Sumac, and Catholic hymnody were just a few that came up. Observing their audience gives them insight about the effect of each song—something they considered while arranging the album. Its arc is marked by soft, sometimes sudden oscillations between cacophony and euphony, day and night (listen for insects), and from sexual, visceral entanglements to more ephemeral, celestial ones. Front to back, it arouses expansion, unraveling. Of lightning, Vicki Kirby writes: “quite curious initiation rites precede these electrical encounters. An intriguing communication, a sort of stuttering chatter between the ground and the sky, appears to anticipate the actual stroke.” By all accounts, something similar seems to happen at Joyful Joyful shows, between those on the stage and those off it, between what’s earthly and what’s beyond. “A lightning bolt is not a straightforward resolution of the buildup of a charge difference between the earth and a cloud … there is, as it were, some kind of nonlocal communication effected between the two,” writes Karen Barad, extrapolating on Kirby’s thought. Cormac acknowledges that while they and Dave play a role in this mysterious charge that comes about, they’re not solely responsible. However ineffable it may be, it’s undoubtedly a form of communion—and a sensuously shocking one at that
Canada’s sons of darkness present an enthralling three song release
entitled “Confluence”
Conceived in Covid isolation, Wake present their ever- expanding evolution and
their most ambitious music to date!
The Library Steps is a new pairing of an old rapper named Jesse
Dangerously and a young producer named Ambition
The duo is named in remembrance of the now demolished stone stairs of the
Halifax Memorial Library entrance, where among a loose and ragtag assortment
of the city's rappers they would gather across generations every Friday as the
doors locked, to freestyle, beatbox, and play tapes in a cipher called Public Rhyme
Distribution. Jesse and Ambition have been members of the Canada- wide
collective Backburner since 2001 and 2009 respectively, but only started making
songs as a rapper/producer duo in the spring of 2017. It took them more than a
decade of intention to pair off as a team. All of the beats and rhymes for Rap Dad,
Real Dad were created in the next few months as a time capsule of that season's
preoccupations. The beats are jazzy, soulful, and moody, with a prominent nod
factor, and the rhymes are confessional and witty, vulnerable and boastful,
intimate and intimidating. Under their fingernails, no microscope is needed to
detect the DNA of golden era rapper/producer teams like Pete Rock & CL Smooth,
Gang Starr, a gentler Beatnuts, or any group that was part of Native Tongues or
Hieroglyphics. Just as present are the influences of turn- of- the- century
underground boundary pushers like Sage Francis, Aesop Rock, MF DOOM, and
Buck 65, and for that matter, just about everyone who was on Roc-A-Fella at its
peak. Refracted here, those chosen ancestors and more recombinate into a hiphop that challenges, from unexpected angles, traditional modes and narratives of
masculinity. They are your rap dads, and they just may be your real dads, too.
Since his debut with the "Darling Darling Darling"track, immediately spotted by the media as well as by electronic music lovers, Louis Warynski has continued to evolve a world that belongs to him alone, over the last ten years and eight albums.Like Lewis Caroll's universe, Chapelier Fou's music is multiple, simple and complex, serious and light, classic and modern. Louis Warynski's work is woven on a classical basis, but it is constantly disrupted by subtle electronic arrangements and rhythms, thus taking the tracks outside of all convention.We find in Chapelier Fou the facetiousness of French composers such as Erik Satie, François de Roubaix or Robert Cohen Solal, not hesitating to blend pop and concrete music, but also this formidable capacity to make serious what is not serious, and vice versa of course. His music, very much at home on screen as well as on stage, has everything that makes up the trait of genius composers: accessible in appearance and adaptable in all forms. This is how Chapelier Fou has performed on stage as a soloist, juggling between violin, guitar, keyboards and pedals, in trio, quartet and even in orchestral formation with the Orchestre National of Metz. Often described as "electronic chamber music", it was expected that one day Chapelier Fou would offer us a version of his music without a single electronic or electrified part. It is now done with this Ensemb7e who performed on the stage of L'Arsenal de Metz, broadcasted by Arte Concert. Chapelier Fou Ensemb7e has received direct support from a wide audience, but also from venues programmers where the septet has been performing since June 2021. Ensemb7e stands for a mainly wooden septet: violin, viola, cello, piano, clarinet and drums accompany the multi-instrumentalist composer. It's hard to resist such musical enthusiasm! The magic happens immediately because the re-reading of these little jewels in pop format gives a touching and fulfilling dimension to Chapelier Fou's work: even more dreamy versions, sometimes more mischievous, but the richness of the classical instruments and the obvious pleasure of the musicians in interpreting them give a new life to all these titles that have filled us with wonder. It therefore seemed obvious to us after listening to his Ensemb7e concerts that there was more than a concert to be recorded, but a real album to offer. A studio album, but with the energy and vitality of a live one, produced with the care and generosity of Thomas Poli (who has collaborated with Dominique A, Yann Tiersen and many others).
