On his debut album kotokid walks you through meandering scenes of jazz fusion and hip-hop infused sonic cinema. While bass guitar is his bread and butter, the Amsterdam-based musician is a multi-instrumentalist in the truest sense of the word. Throughout this album he effortlessly blends together enchanting harmonies, expansive synth-scapes, intimate piano melodies, stanky bass grooves. With ‘ignite’ and ‘early spring’ he captures the emotions of rebirth, renewal, and hope. Energizing the spirit with ‘Fl00t’, ‘floating’ and ‘Titan’ he invites a sense of action, urgency and eventual triumph. Victory’s abound. Sonic meditations in their own right, ‘soil’ and ‘kotokin’ blend cinematic stylized melodies together eliciting introspection and clarity. And whether it's joy, nostalgia, discomfort, pain, grief, longing or happy remembrance - ‘family & death’ - conjures the plethora of these experiences in a life giving dance between piano and cello.
Yes' 90125 was a departure from their progressive style but it introduced the band to a new generation of fans, reaching No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and No. 16 on the U.K. albums chart. The 1983 album remains their best-selling album with more than 3 million copies sold in the U.S. "Cinema" earned the group a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, while "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" was the band's first and only single to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Named for its Atco catalog number, 90125, the album — the band's 11th studio effort — it was born out of the band's self-reinvention. Begun as Cinema, a new band by Chris Squire and Alan White, the project grew to include the slick production of Trevor Horn, the new blood (and distinctly '80s guitar sound) of Trevor Rabin, and eventually the trademark vocals of returning founder Jon Anderson. His late entry insured that Rabin and Horn had a heavy influence on the sound. The album also marked the return of prodigal keyboardist Tony Kaye, whose crisp synth work on "Changes" marked the band's definitive break with its art rock roots.
"Owner Of A Lonely Heart" was a huge crossover hit, and its orchestral break has been relentlessly sampled by rappers ever since. The vocal harmonies of "Leave It" and the beautifully sprawling "Hearts" are additional high points,
90125 is a significant and well-regarded album in the Yes discography.
Analogue Productions is proud to offer the definitive reissue deluxe 180-gram 45 RPM 2LP of 90125. For Yes fans, this is a can't-miss addition to your album collection.
The Prodigy Carlos Nilmmns Is Back on Skylax With Once Again a Splendid 12 Inch! His Style Is a Mixture of Refinement and the Most Beautiful Things That House Music Has Ever Produced, Moodymann, Theo Parrish in the Lead but Not Only That, We Must Also Add the Masters Lalo Schifrin, Donald Byrd and Even Henry Mancini. This Ep Starts With a Bang With the Sublime "Nes", Three Letters Which Alone Sum Up the Small Miracle of Bringing Together Both the Ghosts of Detroit and the Most Beautiful Cinematic Music Directly Inherited From the Glorious 70s. "Believe" Plows the Same Furrow With a More Mental Universe and to Conclude "Parisian Nights" (Jazz Version) Which We Swear Would Not Have Been Missing on an Impulse Album. Side B Opens With "Celebration" Which Sounds More Club Tool for Once With Obviously This Je Ne Sais Quoi That Is Far Superior to All Current House Productions. and This Ends With the Club Version of "Parisian Nights", a Real Volute of Sound. His Style Reminds Us Very Strangely and Quite Paradoxically of the Illustrious Terre Thaemlitz Aka Dj Sprinkles. Music for the Soul and the Body....
Released only eight months after his exhilarating debut, Bruce Springsteen's The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle contains rousing dispatches from the boardwalk, the street, the beach, and the bedroom. It explodes with energy, dares to dream, teases with humour, crackles with tragedy, clings to hope, and overflows with discovery, youthfulness, and personality. It features an unforgettable cast of characters — corner boys, teenage hustlers, doomed lovers, jazz men, junk men, factory girls, fortune tellers, alley cats, pimps, escorts, and more — illuminated by vivid colour, breathtaking detail, and poetic action.
Musically, the heartfelt 1973 record is inhabited by sympathetic vignettes and cinematic arrangements steeped in rock 'n' roll, soul, jazz, and R&B. It finds the New Jersey native looking beyond the parameters of his preceding record and seeking to move on from environments he knows well (and chronicles here) by rushing headlong toward unknown territories, adventures, and people. Underpinned by the singer-guitarist's ambitious poetic enterprise and will to succeed, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle is the album on which Springsteen becomes the Boss.
Mastered on Mobile Fidelity's renowned mastering system, pressed at RTI on MoFi SuperVinyl, and strictly limited to 7,500 numbered copies, Mobile Fidelity's UltraDisc One-Step 180g 33RPM LP set is the definitive-sounding version of Springsteen's sophomore record. Benefitting from SuperVinyl’s nearly non-existent noise floor, superb groove definition, and dead-quiet surfaces, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle plays with a clarity, energy, presence, and openness that complement the expressiveness, dynamics, and scope of the seven restless songs that comprise a work Rolling Stone ranked the 345th Greatest Album of All Time.
Beyond the audiophile sonics that practically place you behind the console at 914 Sound Studios — listen to the separation between the instruments, natural decay of the notes, interplay within the widescreen soundstaging, and nothing-to-lose youthfulness of Springsteen’s voice — this reissue takes seriously this record’s influential merit by presenting it in packaging that underlines its status. Tucked in a beautiful slipcase, the LP is housed in a special foil-stamped jacket with faithful-to-the-original graphics. This reissue is made for listeners who prize sound quality and who want to engage themselves in everything involved with the invigorating set that busted Springsteen loose from the club circuit and landed him on the radio
Determined to liberate anyone within earshot and unafraid to come on strong, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle serves as the debut of the E Street Band — not only heard but seen for the first time by most of the public courtesy of the back-cover photograph. This is where saxophonist Clarence Clemons, organist-accordionist Danny Federici, and pianist David Sancious step out of the shadows — and drummer Vini Lopez and bassist Garry Tallent again stoke a fiery rhythmic engine that helps drive the untamed, reimagined big-band swing of “Kitty’s Back,” breathless R&B thrust of “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight),” and carefree dance steps of the funky “The E Street Shuffle.”
Of course, the main attraction remains a then-24-year-old visionary on the precipice of becoming a sensation and turning a then-bloated rock scene on its head. Recorded over three months while Springsteen and company were busy touring his debut LP, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle reflects the high-octane approach the vocalist embraced onstage and drifts away from the label-dictated acoustic-based frameworks of his debut. The set also witnesses Springsteen deepening his observational skills, with narratives such as the romantically tinged “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” and redemptive epic “Incident on 57th Street” mirroring changes taking place in the singer’s own life, small towns, and America at large.
A thrilling collision of memories, reflections, and composites — Sandy, Rosalita, and the latter’s parents are all based on actual people Springsteen knew, as is the community depicted in the opening track — the aptly titled The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle resonates decades on due to its truths, authenticity, and spirit. Those characteristics — as well as the fact that many of its lengthy songs come on as the equivalent of sweaty, feverish soul revue that won’t stop until you’ve been exhausted — also explain how this now-iconic album triumphed over the reservations of industry “experts” that both demanded Springsteen re-record it and instructed deejays not to play it.
Yet there’d be no stopping a record that saw the past, present, and future, a band whose will would not be denied, and a phenomenon who was born to run. A never-ending invitation to act real cool and stay up all night, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle always feels alright.
‘EVERYTHING IS HERE’ is a journey through space and time, inspired by the more rarefied aspects of prog rock and the wistful side of psychedelia.
Fusing these influences with the accessibility of French electronic and the groove of R&B and disco, this album depicts the sweet dizziness of contemplation. Nostalgic, yet determined and modern in it’s genre blending, the first album of Kartell truly reveals what’s been underlining in his previous EP.
Taking influences in the space and dream pop aesthetic, the musical approach of the album embraces the 60’s and 70’s fascination for outer space, exotic locations, technologies and science fiction which was on the edge of becoming reality.
Nebulous textures and otherworldly sounds characteristic of space rock are infused throughout the record, while keeping a focus on making catchy songs, leaning on a minor-key groove and a pop yearning. It’s also a challenge and an artistic proposition to gather a wide range of genres to tell a story. Densely produced and cinematic, the album draws a truly living landscape where live bass, drums and guitars hold the line, evolving around hazy effects and synthesizer layers.
The Gothenburg, Sweden based psychedelic rock combo Hollow Ship returns with Animated Music, a new EP and the follow-up to their acclaimed 2020 debut LP Future Remains which was praised by ex Prog Magazine, Shindig! and Raven Sings the Blues. With the band’s unique rhythm-driven blend of psychedelic rock and prog, with traces of jazz and hard rock as well as a myriad of other influences, at he forefront Animated Music pushes the band further into the instrumental realm than before. A cinematic journey over the space of 20 minutes, the music was originally written as an aural companion to the band’s Space Motion show visuals before being reworked into the shape of the Animated Music EP. With the band’s upcoming second full-length due in the winter, Animated Music showcases the band’s instrumental storytelling at great effect, further establishing the band at the orefront of the Swedish psychedelic scene alongside luminaries such as Dungen and Goat. Animated Music is due out on May 31 via Swedish indie label PNKSLM Recordings (7ebra, Chemtrails, ShitKid etc) on limited edition splatter vinyl (limited to 500 units worldwide) and digitally.
Plainly the most radical album of their career to date, Nell’ Ora Blu stands out from the sterile desert of rock ’n’ roll in 2024 like a gore-drenched beacon. What this scintillating detour tells us about the future of Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats remains a mystery, but after enjoying such rich and fruitful artistic indulgence, Starrs’ notoriety as one of heavy music’s most distinctive voices can only increase. An eccentric tour-de-force, Nell’ Ora Blu is the band’s magnum opus. You will have nightmares. Trust no one. Watch your back. Let the blood flow…
Sixth studio album from this globally recognised cult institution. Nell’ ora blu is an epic tribute to Italian crime cinema from the late 60s/early 70s. It features exclusive guest appearances from top stars of the Giallo & Poliziotteschi genres, including Franco Nero and Edwige Fenech.
Plainly the most radical album of their career to date, Nell’ Ora Blu stands out from the sterile desert of rock ’n’ roll in 2024 like a gore-drenched beacon. What this scintillating detour tells us about the future of Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats remains a mystery, but after enjoying such rich and fruitful artistic indulgence, Starrs’ notoriety as one of heavy music’s most distinctive voices can only increase. An eccentric tour-de-force, Nell’ Ora Blu is the band’s magnum opus. You will have nightmares. Trust no one. Watch your back. Let the blood flow…
Sixth studio album from this globally recognised cult institution. Nell’ ora blu is an epic tribute to Italian crime cinema from the late 60s/early 70s. It features exclusive guest appearances from top stars of the Giallo & Poliziotteschi genres, including Franco Nero and Edwige Fenech.
Fusing raw industrial power, dark elegance and hedonistic, body-moving intensity, Saint Agnes have created a sound made for sweat-soaked goth club dancefloors. Inspired by the intensity of Nine Inch Nails, the genre-bending chaos of Poppy and the euphoric, cinematic story telling of Lorde; this is music for the club, the stage and the void inside.
DJ and producer David Holmes is welcomed to the Late Night Tales fraternity with an evocative collection of personal songs and music, peppered with exclusive new material and rare gems. By now, I think we all know David Holmes, right There's acid house Holmes, with bone-rattling Chicago jams and Detroit destroyers, break-digger Holmes responsible for the grittily shaking 'Let's Get Killed' and seminal Essential Mix compilation (which brought Sixto Rodriguez to people's attention, and then there's soundtrack Holmes. His most enduring and vital source of musical inspiration - cinema - plugged into David's rst solo record 'This Film's Crap, Let's Slash the Seats' and inspired 2000's 'Bow Down to the Exit Sign', created as the soundtrack to a not-yet-made movie. Ofcial soundtracks have been bountiful, including scores for Soderbergh's Out Of Sight and Ocean's trilogy, '71, Hunger and Good Vibrations. In a series of personal songs sung by himself, David's last solo album 'The Holy Pictures' explored inuences of La Düsseldorf, The Jesus and Mary Chain and early Brian Eno. His Unloved collaboration with Keefus Ciancia and Jade Vincent then took us on a musical journey full of raw 60s pop-noir, psychedelia and French Ye Ye with a contemporary twist. Somehow he's also found time to produce records by Primal Scream and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Unsurprisingly, for someone au fait with matters cinematic, this Late Night Tales conjures up its own mindmovies. It's not only packed with the judiciously selected nuggets for which his mixes are noted but also stuffed with original material, including collaborations with BP Fallon and Jon Hopkins and an amazing new reading of 10cc's 'I'm Not In Love' by Holmes-produced Song Sung. In fact, there's a Celtic thread running through the whole journey with Stephen Rea's reading of an extract from Seamus Heaney's AENEID BOOK VI - Elsewhere Anchises. Among the other gems included here are David Crosby's lush 'Orleans', Buddy Holly's celestial 'Love Is Strange' and the Children Of Sunshine's 'It's A Long Way To Heaven'. David Holmes loves music. It's a way of expressing the sometimes inexpressible or the inconsolable, a questing desire to nd out just what is over the next hill. It's no surprise to learn he's a keen walker. Always on the move, headphones on, lost in some reverie or piece of music, the soundtrack to his life, the stuff that feeds his imagination. I walk a lot. It's amazing for listening to music: your phone or your emails aren't going and you're just in the forest listening to music. It's so intimate. Anyway, I was listening to the KLF's Chill Out album, which still sounds amazing, but it triggered an idea with concrete sounds through travelling and movement. And one of the things I was trying to do was to use this idea not just break up the moods but also as a metaphor for moving through life and arriving in different destinations or arriving at different stages in different parts of your life. Memory, Love, Living, Family, Friendship, Healing, Death and The Afterworld are some of the themes I wanted to explore within this record. Although these strong themes and tracks are personal to me, I also wanted it to be a great listen that was unpredictable yet had a seamless ow - a journey that was personal to me yet to the listener a great compilation of music that they may or may not have heard before. I hope I've succeeded in the later.' David Holmes 2016
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
The Finnish composer, producer, and pianist Otto Taimela is ticking at 6000+ monthly listeners on Spotify with streams in the 100s of thousands. His discography covers everything from avant-garde piano to breakbeat, ambient-dub techno back to cinematic contemporary classical music, with releases on labels such as Cold Blow, Ultraääni, Cudighi Records, Reflections by Anjunadeep and Finite Source. Otto has performed in festivals such as Ilmiö and Solstice. Kimmeltie LP, the 2020 predecessor to Inner Beauty has become a rare collector's item.
His rendition of Clouds together with Olli Aarni received praise from Gigi Masin himself, commenting "Maybe the BEST cover ever".
On the 24th of May Otto was the "selector of the week" on the largest radio station in Finland, YleX, playing a track from Inner Beauty.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Xciot EP is the first release by Pyramid Of Nahash (Pyramid Of Knowledge and Nahash), who in this project for Asphalt Records, tag team to merge breakbeat science and bass experiments with classic analogue Trance and early Ambient-Techno melodies. The result is a cinematic, sci-fi safari through outer space in a futuristic hardcore vessel.
Remixing duties have been handed to a second collaborative effort: RVSHES (Logos and DB1), who in their Recombination Mix, carve, bend and reshape the original material into a rugged, angular, yet melancholic techno artefact.
Following his debut EP ‘En clair-obscur’ and a series of singles earlier this year cementing his place as a rising name in the world of cinematic soul & funk, Hamburg’s finest cinematic soul artist ‘The Offline’ announces his debut album 'La couleur de la mer'.
Reminiscent of film scores from the 60s and 70s, The Offline worked with co-producer Tim Liztenberger to channel the influence of film composers such as Francois de Roubaix and Brian Bennet, creating his own soundtrack on ‘La couleur de la mer’. Inducing images of manorial, fog-swept villas at the sea's edge, silhouetted sailing boats and cigar-chomping villains attempting to thwart the mission of an imaginary hero, the record is a masterfully composed sonic journey. Experimenting with themes and atypical song structures, the music moves from dramatic cues to fragile romanticism. It incorporates psychedelic spaciness, retro soul and hip-hop sensibilities informed by The Offline’s extensive record collection and crate-digger status.
“Ever since I was a child, I was fascinated by the soundtracks from the 60s and 70s, and I always wanted to make an album in the film score direction. I wrote about 30 demos, kicked half of it and stuck to the ones that felt right in the dramaturgical structure of the ‘movie'. Interestingly the main theme was set early on while writing the album, which made the writing process much easier.”
Aptly named, ‘Thème de la couleur de la mer’ opens proceedings, establishing the core motifs of the record. Haunting flutes and xylophones lead the way into Khruangbin-esque guitar lines, which sit against a hip-hop canvas that returns on boom-bap head boppers like ‘Quelque chose reste’. Retro soul revival takes precedence on deep cuts like ‘Un bout de chemin’, with wah-gated guitars interacting with emotive cello lines and symphonic string & horn sections.
The Offline came to life when composer and photographer Felix Müller travelled the Atlantic coastline in the south of France with his analogue camera, capturing beach life on film. After coming back to Hamburg, he started writing songs as the sonic counterpart to the analogue visuals. His Debut EP ‘En Clair-Obscur’ includes five tracks that capture the essence of his journey and the feeling of a cool summer soundtrack.
out of Stock
Last delivered 11 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
2024 reissue of Thomas Bückers debut album as Bersarin Quartett, originally released in 2008 on Lidar.
With some albums, you realize within a few seconds that here you have come across something really special. It is music that touches you straight away. Music that is important, that has a story to tell – and that manages to do so without even a single line of lyrics.
Wonderful orchestral pieces full of longing and melancholy. It is that certain kind of melancholy that seizes you when you are moved while following the final credits of an emotionally touching movie, remembering special moments that have faded in the course of many years and linger hazily in your memory, when you are somewhat wistfully contemplating old, worn photographs from days passed by … not a feeling of failure or hopelessness, but a bittersweet reflection.
Orchestral cinemascope sounds provide the emotionally moving fundament, wrap the tracks up in a warm coating. Graceful strings pile up, creating big moments and repeatedly ending inmelodies that are simply heart-rending, cinematic and tragic. But the Bersarin Quartett does not merely rely on these ingredients. The songs are also repeatedly interspersed with suspenseful and surprising elements, be it frail electronica, hypnotic soundscapes, drums or reverbed guitars. Rarely has amelange sounded as convincing and natural as this, and rarely has it sounded so well produced.
Thomas himself calls his music “imaginary fictional filmscores“. And it is hardly possible to come up with a more apt term. 10 tracks for 10 movies that have yet to be shot. Music that radiates such an enormous and authentic passion in every single minute, that one can’t help but completely abandon oneself to it. And honestly: Can there be anything more wonderful that can be achieved through music?
out of Stock
Last delivered 6 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
“Depas strikes a fine balance between raw energy and subtle melodic hooks.” (DMY) “Throughout the pounding track Midnight Ride, the Italian beat smith expertly blends lush synths with intricate rhythmic components and gritty bass.” (EDM com)
“Depas' approach to techno is a veritable melting pot of influences, blending sounds from the 80s and 90s with contemporary symphonic and cinematic elements.” (Magnetic Mag)
Following his recent ‘Rave The Planet’ EP at the end of February, Milanese hard techno producer Maike Depas is back with a brand-new release on well-renowned label The Innovation Studio. His newest EP is named ‘The Age Of Chaos’ and features a five-track banger arsenal – including a special remix by Italo-American producer Matasism, which was also included in his recent BPtich Control mixtape.
“This EP is the result my own experience throughout an inner dystopic reality, where energy-ridden sounds and epics all collide into a very personal version of the hard techno legacy I’m devoted to.”
‘No Redemption’ is a proper big-room belter, with explosive drop divided by a big break and a statuesque vocal that feels like a claim: “Techno is my only drug”. Same goes for ‘Tesseract’ and it’s rave-like atmosphere and hypnotic hook. ‘Dystopia’ is pure groove and makes the listener dive into a distorted and futuristic metaverse, while ‘Cyber Attack’ and its remix include synthetic vocals tha aim to symbolize an artificial imposition: man against machine, fiction against reality.
‘The Age Of Chaos’ will be available from April 19th via The Innovation Studio.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
"Who am I to myself? Just one of my impressions" by F. Pessoa
The new album of the Polski Piach trio is titled Anomalia (Anomaly), and is the band's third album.
They play:
Piotr Mełech - bass clarinet
Piotr Domagalski - bassetl
Patryk Zakrocki - acoustic guitar, general vision and care of the band.
After Południe and Północ (South / Noon and North/Midnight - thematically referring to the time of day and night as well as geographical directions), the band recorded a fully acoustic album, raw but brighter than Północ. The songs contain the title anomalies and are narrative, even cinematic. They flow. The music of Polski Piach is a journey, both through the listener's imagination and musical styles.
The album was recorded live in Piotr Zabrodzki's analog studio. The music was recorded on tape and mixed in analogue way.
The cover was designed by Paweł Ryżko using drawings by Patryk Zakrocki.
Since 2011, the Berlin born and raised producer and DJ Mørbeck has been delivering numerous acclaimed Techno releases via Vault Series and his own Code Is Law imprint as well as making his mark on the global club scene as a DJ. Fast forward to 2023 and we see Mørbeck inaugurate his house guise, Midnight In A Toyshop, aimed to showcase his passion for House productions in a lighter shade, whilst still retaining his signature rawness.
Setting the tone to open the EP is ‘100’s & 1000’s’, laying down warbling pad sequences and crunchy saturated drums in combination with a bouncy bass line and hypnotic vocal hooks throughout. The aptly titled ‘90’s Memento’ follows, encapsulating a classic House sound with bright, mesmeric chords, rumbling subs, processed vocal lines and a bumpy drum machine workout.
On the flip-side title-track ‘Dreams For Sale’ shifts focus to Trance tinged staccato melodies, cinematic atmospherics, acid licks and a heavily swung rhythm before ‘Every Night’ rounds out the EP on a classic Deep House tip via ethereal pads, robust percussion, circling synth lines and a vacillating low-end drive.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Belgian industrial, post-rock collective THOT have announced their forthcoming fourth full-length album, `Delta', set for release in May 2024. A band existing in constant flux, THOT seem to thrive in the tumult of modern life and `Delta', their first long form release since 2017's breathtaking `FLEUVE', is an even more ambitious musical melting pot of the people, places, spaces and times that have helped define the band to date. Written, arranged, recorded and documented between late 2019 and 2023 by Fray alongside THOT collaborators Lukas Melville, Gil Chevingné, Stéphane Fedele, Anaïs Elba, Michael Thiel and Juliette Mauduit; `Delta' is as much a product of the band's past as it is their present, also featuring a true collaboration with the women of `Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares', an iconic Bulgarian traditional polyphonic choir previously sampled by THOT as well as the voice of award-winning Czech singer-songwriter Lenka Dusilová, who Fray met by chance through friends on the road. The album is a shifting collage of people, places, past and present, all stirred by THOT's renowned grasp of cinematic, post-rock dynamics and cold-wave electronic orchestration. Boundary-breaking by nature, THOT delivered a powerful, post-rock document of hope and perseverance against all odds.
Belgian industrial, post-rock collective THOT have announced their forthcoming fourth full-length album, `Delta', set for release in May 2024. A band existing in constant flux, THOT seem to thrive in the tumult of modern life and `Delta', their first long form release since 2017's breathtaking `FLEUVE', is an even more ambitious musical melting pot of the people, places, spaces and times that have helped define the band to date. Written, arranged, recorded and documented between late 2019 and 2023 by Fray alongside THOT collaborators Lukas Melville, Gil Chevingné, Stéphane Fedele, Anaïs Elba, Michael Thiel and Juliette Mauduit; `Delta' is as much a product of the band's past as it is their present, also featuring a true collaboration with the women of `Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares', an iconic Bulgarian traditional polyphonic choir previously sampled by THOT as well as the voice of award-winning Czech singer-songwriter Lenka Dusilová, who Fray met by chance through friends on the road. The album is a shifting collage of people, places, past and present, all stirred by THOT's renowned grasp of cinematic, post-rock dynamics and cold-wave electronic orchestration. Boundary-breaking by nature, THOT delivered a powerful, post-rock document of hope and perseverance against all odds.
SIHR: sonic manifesto by a post-anything quartet feat. multi-instrumentalists from the Mediterranean inland Sea. New folklore for a devastated planet, including Frédéric D. Oberland (Oiseaux-Tempête), Grégory Dargent (H), Tony Elieh (Karkhana) & Wassim Halal (Polyphème).
After a few concerts/screenings improvised as a duo in Cairo and Beirut, as well as for the Rencontres d’Arles, the Lille photography center and the Belgian magazine Halogénure, Dargent and Oberland have teamed up with mavericks Elieh and Halal for a puzzling cross-border manifesto. The first sonic moves of this eclectic quartet, made in a bunker studio somewhere between Paris and Berlin, urgently took the form of a quest, that of a neo-folklore for troubled times, a music seeping with many kinds of atavism and experimenting in all directions. A fertile no-man’s-land where trance and contem- plation, jazz and electronica, acoustics and electricity would merge in a stimulating mystical magma.
From the possible emergence of a Babelian language to the shared desire to rediscover music as a ceremonial act, this encounter took place over three days of improvised sound bacchanalia, the phases of which were all recorded by Benoit Bel (Zombie Zombie, Thurston Moore Group, Oi- seaux-Tempête). A hallucinated and generous testimony, SIHR is a synergy of many different worlds and many different possibilities, the sonic vision of a present conjugated in a hybrid tense and exalted by too many tangos danced on the glowing ashes of our days.
Multi-instrumentalist & photographer, Frédéric D. Oberland has been leading the Oiseaux-Tempête collective for over ten years, lying somewhere between avant-rock and free jazz, repetitive music and electronics. Founding member of the bands FOUDRE! and Le Réveil des Tropiques, he’s also perfor- ming solo and composing soundtracks for cinema and installation art. Since 2018, Oberland co-cu- rates the NAHAL Recordings imprint alongside producer Mondkopf.
Electric guitarist, oud player, composer and photographer, Grégory Dargent cultivates his musical schizophrenia and identity through improvised music, trance music, jazz, hijacked maqam, repeti- tive music, pop, electro-acoustic installations and French chanson. From L’Hijâz’Car to Babx, from Berber singer Houria Aïchi to Rachid Taha, from Trio H to Sirventés enragés, from music for images to contemporary choreography, from the most acoustic of ouds to the most nuclear of guitars, he conducts, accompanies, composes, deciphers, questions, delves, makes mistakes, bounces back, ar- ranges, orchestrates and tirelessly shares his creative passions.
Tony Elieh is one of the pioneers of experimental music in Lebanon. A founding member of the first post-rock group of post-war Lebanon, The Scrambled Eggs, he has since developed his unique elec- tric bass skills in various groups and styles of music including collaborating with in groups such as Karkhana, Calamita and Wormholes Electric. Relocated in Berlin in recent years, he has performed a solo set of heavily processed bass generated sounds.
Is Wassim Halal only a darbuka player? Maybe !? But what about his music, compositions, ideas. You can find him with Polyphème playing and co-composing popular-contemporary music with Gamelan Puspawarna, or next to the french bagpiper Erwan Keravec, with the Bey.Ler.Bey trio (w/ Laurent Clouet & Florian Demonsant) working on an improvised-balkan-already-improvised-music, with per- formers and drawers Benjamin Efrati and Diego Verastegui, with Gregory Dargent and Anil Eraslan in H, creating a new pedal generating »Random taksim«, composing his own »Poème Symphonique pour 100 youyou« or composing pieces for ensembles.
Transcendental outernational funk and psychedelic jazz from mystery L.A.- based collective Sun Atlas
Little is known about Sun Atlas. The group members are hidden behind masks and costumes to keep their identities secret and to put the focus entirely on the music and oneness. A sense of community and universal spirit as an alternative to idolization and individualism is heavily reflected in their eclectic musical style.
The sound of Sun Atlas is mystical and cosmopolitan, combining afrobeat, cinematic soul, spiritual & ethio jazz with space sounds, hiphop-breaks and a garage funk vibe.
Their cryptic first 45 single "The Mystic Parade" b/w "Grand Theft" sold out immediately after release and has often been mistaken for either "lost" hiphop samples, 70s habibi funk or another project in disguise from the inner circles of the Mocambo, Big Crown or Daptonefamilies (which it is not).
Return To The Spirit picks up where Sun Atlas' first single leftoff, with everyone wondering where the journey might lead. With the door to a colourful universe opened, the full-length format gives time & space for further exploration.
The ltd.first vinyl edition comes in black vinyl in a deluxe handmade tip-on sleeve.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Temples of Jura is proud to present ‘The Great Beyond’, the ninth studio album from Ilija Rudman. The concept of the album is the afterlife with words from Nikola Tesla, Slavoj Zizek, Jim Morrison, JF Kennedy, Charles De Gaulle, WH Auden, Azar Nafisi and Eleanor Roosevelt woven together to tell the story of ‘The Great Beyond’ and what may lie ahead for us all. The voice itself was created by Ai (let’s call him ERIC) and is set beautifully to music that has a timeless cinematic quality. Ilija only uses pure Analogue equipment in the creation of his music, resulting in a rich tapestry of basses, drums, chords and lead sounds. He’s been a prolific producer for over 20 years now with a discography that runs deep with more than 100 Vinyl EP releases and 8 studio albums, but we feel he’s reached the pinnacle with this concept album. We’ll leave the final word to ERIC “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.”
out of Stock
Last delivered 20 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
The Selenites Band returns with a Live album ahead of their 3 Studio album, due for release in late 2024. 8 tracks of psychedelic jazz influenced by Ethio-groove, Swinging Addis and pentatonic grooves, recorded in analog on tape recorders during two concerts between 2021 and 2023.
These recordings are an opportunity to discover 5 previously unreleased tracks, as well as live versions from the previous album "Behind The Mask". The Selenites Band are first and foremost a live band, and we've seen them at the New Morning, in Paris, in Belgium, as well as opening for the prestigious group GONG, on their only date in France, and at many other festivals. The Selenites Band's lively style takes us into a world of traditional music, Shamarnic grooves, spicy jazz and bewitching rhythms. A melodic universe, a music of heady modal trance, a cinematic space of energetic jazz punk! . All compositions are by Antoine "Obi Riddim" Laloux, with the exception of two tracks by Seyoum Gèbrèyès and Tlahoun Gèssèssè.
All sleeves are hand-silk-screened and numbered / limited edition
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
A collection of mind blowing songs from Hindi films 1958-1984. 12 musical gems from the Bollywood vaults with a wide variety of styles thrown in the mix, from the classic to the rare, a must! An astonishing overview of the magnificent musical talents populating Bollywood films. With a predilection for movies with a strong musical backbone where songs and musical numbers play a pivotal role, the Hindi cinema boom gave birth to a strong and creative music industry where composers, musicians, musical directors, conductors, producers, singing actors, and playback singers (singers who provide vocals for the musical parts of roles played by actors or actresses) found a perfect place to develop their careers. A sample of those incredible talents is included in this compilation, the ideal point to start digging deeper into the lush garden of musical delights that is Bollywood
On "Intertextural", Manuel Tur delves into more cinematic ambient and trip-hop realms, reminiscent of short interludes from 1990s classic electronica albums. 12 tracks of shifting beat structures, meandering loops and interlocking dubs, oscillating between sample-based and digital textures, form an atmospherically dense tapestry already familiar from Tur's productions for the dance floor.
Originally recorded in the midst of the Covid 19 pandemic and self-released as a digital-only album, "Intertextural" is now available for the first time in a physical format, specially remastered and cut to 180g vinyl.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
GER Jim Jarmusch und Carter Logan (Gründungsmitglieder von SQÜRL) kehren mit einer klanglichen Erkundung des filmischen Werks des dadaistischen Pioniers Man Ray zurück, einem fesselnden Projekt, das Musik und Film miteinander verschmilzt. In den vergangenen acht Jahren haben SQÜRL das Publikum mit ihrer Live-Vertonung von Man Rays Kurzfilmen in ausverkauften Konzerten an renommierten Orten wie dem Centre Pompidou in Paris, der Queen Elizabeth Hall in London und dem Art Institute of Chicago verzaubert. Der Höhepunkt ihrer Bemühungen fand im Frühjahr 2023 statt, zum 100. Jahrestag von Man Rays erstem Ausflug ins Filmemachen, als der neu restaurierte Film "Die Rückkehr zur Vernunft" bei den Filmfestspielen von Cannes seine Premiere feierte. Der von Womanray (Marieke Tricoire) und Cinenovo (Julie Viez) produzierte Film ist eine Anthologie mit vier Stummfilm-Kurzfilmen von Man Ray - Étoile de mer (1928), Emak bakia (1926), Le Retour á la Raison (1923) und Les Mysteres du Château de Dé. (1929) - jeweils gepaart mit einer Originalpartitur von SQÜRL. Jarmusch und Logan, zwei multidisziplinäre Künstler, die für ihre Experimentierfreudigkeit bekannt sind, wollten mit diesen Partituren einen ekstatischen Zustand schaffen, einen Raum zwischen Bewusstsein und Unterbewusstsein, Realität und Surrealem. Das daraus resultierende Album "Music for Man Ray", das aus einer Live-Aufnahme im Centre Pompidou in Paris im Februar 2023 hervorging, enthält verzerrte Gitarren, hypnotische Rückkopplungen, Loops und affektierte Synthesizer Logan: "Es ist eine Reise, auf die wir das Publikum mitnehmen wollen, indem wir Themen in diesen Filmen beleuchten. Sie sind eigenständig, aber es gibt auch wiederkehrende Anklänge im gesamten Programm." Jim Jarmusch fügt hinzu: "Wir sind sehr stolz darauf, die Begleitband von Man Ray zu sein." Nun erblicken sowohl der Film als auch die daraus resultierende Musik in Form von "Music for Man Ray" das Licht der Welt - beide stehen als Zeugnis für die kreative Synergie zwischen Man Rays bahnbrechendem Kino und der innovativen musikalischen Interpretation durch SQÜRL.
[ENG] Clear Vinyl. Jim Jarmusch and Carter Logan (founding members of SQÜRL) return with a sonic exploration of the cinematic works of Dadaist pioneer Man Ray, a captivating project that melds music and film. Over the past eight years, SQÜRL have been enchanting audiences with their live scores to Man Ray's short films across sold-out shows in prestigious venues like the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, and the Art Institute of Chicago. The culmination of their endeavor took place in the spring of 2023, on the 100th anniversary of Man Ray's inaugural foray into filmmaking, when the newly restored Return to Reason premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Produced by Womanray (Marieke Tricoire) and Cinenovo (Julie Viez), Return to Reason unfolds as an anthology featuring four silent short films by Man Ray _ Étoile de mer (1928), Emak bakia (1926), Le Retour á la Raison (1923), and Les Mysteres du Château de Dé. (1929) _ each paired with an original score by SQÜRL. Jarmusch and Logan, two multi-disciplinary artists known for their experimental prowess, approached these scores as a way to create an ecstatic state, a space between consciousness and unconsciousness, reality, and the surreal. The resulting album, Music for Man Ray, born out of a live recording at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in February of 2023, features distorted guitars, hypnotic feedback, loops and affected synthesizers. In the words of Logan, "It's a journey we want to take the audience on, illuminating themes throughout these films. They are discrete, but there are also recurring echoes throughout the whole program." Jim Jarmusch adds, "We feel very proud to be Man Ray's backup band." Now both the film Return to Reason and the resulting music in the form of Music for Man Ray are seeing the light of day _ both stand as a testament to the creative synergy between Man Ray's groundbreaking cinema and the innovative musical interpretation by SQÜRL.
Fabulous Soundtracks, the fourth studio album by reclusive Los Angeles musician Jack Name, is an homage to the IRL world and its twisted and varied romance with the worlds of our minds, in a wild collection of "soundtracks'', each a sonic re-construction dedicated to a distinct scene. Both musically and lyrically, this is Name's most adventurous and genre-defying album. Elements of acid, dance, folk, micro-tonal weirdness, horror, sensuality, impressionism, and bursts of rock fuse with Name's most direct yet ethereal lyric writing to date.
Each song with artful intention confuses dream-like experiences and common everyday situations, and vice-versa, sometimes inflicting a frightening energy into the banal, or this in reverse. Offering a "fabulous soundtrack" as the title implies, to dreamlike cinematic scenography including but not limited to; walking alone through a park at night, a woman tiptoeing through a garden, a person wrestling with time and change, lust, grieving a pet, driving alone in the rain, laying in bed with a lover, a bare tree standing in a field, looking through pieces of glass, and inviting the devil into the home (as one does).
Adrian Younge Presents: Twelve Reasons To Die II inhabits the grimy streets of mid-1970s, NYC. Younge's cinematic, psychedelic soul returns to set the stage for a clash between crime syndicates and the vengeful spirit of Tony Starks (Ghostface Killah). This gripping sequel features special guest appearances from Wu Tang alumni Rza and Raekwon, who personifies the criminal mastermind, Lester Kane. A Wu-Tang saga unfolds in this thrilling sequel to the acclaimed original. Recorded and mixed by Adrian Younge at Linear Labs, the preeminent analog studio of Los Angeles, CA.
Adrian Younge Presents: Souls Of Mischief - There Is Only Now b/w All You Got Is Your Word. Adrian Younge Presents: There Is Only Now is the sixth album from legendary hip-hop group Souls of Mischief produced in its entirety by Adrian Younge. Inspired by a near fatal incident involving group members A-Plus, Opio, Tajai, and Phesto, the album is a cinematic 90s crime tale of love, loss, and revenge. Set in 1994, the album serves as a bookend to two decades of music since the release of SOM's seminal debut album, `93 Til Infinity. Recorded and mixed by Adrian Younge at Linear Labs, the preeminent analog studio of Los Angeles, CA.
Drawing from her compositions for Helena Wittmann's film DRIFT (2017), Nika Son creates a sonic journey across the Atlantic Ocean. Following a weekend at the North Sea, one of Wittmann's two protagonists embarks on a journey across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, during which unpredictable waves and deep sleep foster a transformative experience. Capturing the essence of this cinematic encounter through sound, Nika Son's compositions allow the water itself to become a storyteller, immersing listeners in the resonating body of the boat and plunging them into the profound depth of the ever-shifting ocean. Whether illuminated by daylight or veiled by night, the nature of this material world emerges through an exploration of the ocean as a distinct and tangible space, inviting contemplation of its transformative power. The line between reality and imagination blurs, and the waves echo the emotions of the voyage.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Lloyd Banks is gearing up for the release of The Course Of The Inevitable, his first studio album in over a decade. Having previously set the stage with a few cinematic teaser trailers and the album cover, Banks has now come forward to confirm the official release date for the upcoming project, as well as the tracklist and guest appearances to be expected.
For the most part, Banks will be flying solo on COTI, with only five of the eighteen tracks including featured artists. On that front, we're looking at appearances from Roc Marci, Benny The Butcher, Styles P, Sy Ari Da Kid, and Vado. Other than that, however, the stage is largely set for the Punchline King, who will likely have much to say on his fourth studio album.
Every moment of Skudd offers a place to explore. For his second release on Omen Wapta, Delft-based sound artist, Floid, fuses soundscapes and rhythms in seven tracks that swap peaks and troughs for narrative arcs. Cinematic, immersive, dense and danceable, the new EP, delivers sonic pieces that hypnotically swell and engage brain and body dance. Drop into a snake pit with cavernous moments and unexpected ornaments that rattle and slice. Affected pan flutes, meshed with shamanic vocals and organic percussion conjure a nocturnal fever dream in the jungle. Tempo tricks make high bpms feel stretched. With Skudd, the only thing guiding you through the soundscapes is a certain groove in the constant kicks, rhythms and basslines. Everywhere else it takes your mind is up to you.
out of Stock
Last delivered 20 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Mary Lattimore and Walt McClements are two of contemporary music"s most renowned innovators. Each has managed to expand the perception of their instrument"s capabilities. Lattimore inventive harp processing and looping has brought the instrument to a new audience. Her prolific run of celestial solo albums and evocative film scores have redefined the instrument in the modern consciousness. Her genre-agnostic collaborations include work with Kurt Vile, Steve Gunn, Jeff Zeigler, Meg Baird, and Thurston Moore. McClements, who tours as a member of Weyes Blood, is an acclaimed composer in his own right, sculpting glacial atmospherics from the accordion. The Los Angeles based duo became quick friends on overlapping tours, sharing both a drive to push the sonic possibilities of their instruments and roots in North Carolina. Mary Lattimore and Walt McClements debut collaboration Rain on the Road blossomed out of that time spent on the road together, capturing the liminal existence of touring life in deeply cinematic compositions. Recorded in the cozy setting of McClements" apartment during a rainy December in LA, Rain on the Road unfurls as a series of sonic vignettes, rolling landscapes hewn from longform improvisations for harp and accordion. Embellished with additional instrumentation such as the shimmering constellations of hand bells on "Stolen Bells" that glisten like lights on wet pavement, or the stately piano figures on "The Top of Thomas Street"; their pastoral pieces manage to paint vivid images.
Mary Lattimore and Walt McClements are two of contemporary music"s most renowned innovators. Each has managed to expand the perception of their instrument"s capabilities. Lattimore inventive harp processing and looping has brought the instrument to a new audience. Her prolific run of celestial solo albums and evocative film scores have redefined the instrument in the modern consciousness. Her genre-agnostic collaborations include work with Kurt Vile, Steve Gunn, Jeff Zeigler, Meg Baird, and Thurston Moore. McClements, who tours as a member of Weyes Blood, is an acclaimed composer in his own right, sculpting glacial atmospherics from the accordion. The Los Angeles based duo became quick friends on overlapping tours, sharing both a drive to push the sonic possibilities of their instruments and roots in North Carolina. Mary Lattimore and Walt McClements debut collaboration Rain on the Road blossomed out of that time spent on the road together, capturing the liminal existence of touring life in deeply cinematic compositions. Recorded in the cozy setting of McClements" apartment during a rainy December in LA, Rain on the Road unfurls as a series of sonic vignettes, rolling landscapes hewn from longform improvisations for harp and accordion. Embellished with additional instrumentation such as the shimmering constellations of hand bells on "Stolen Bells" that glisten like lights on wet pavement, or the stately piano figures on "The Top of Thomas Street"; their pastoral pieces manage to paint vivid images.
"Post-Apocalypto' finds Tenacious D thrust into a world of complete and utter destruction following the drop of an atomic bomb. Surviving the attack in classic cinematic fashion (a good old imperishable 1950s refrigerator), the duo quickly learns that new forms of evil have spawned from the blast. One thing becomes apparent for humanity to prevail, Tenacious D must save the world". Standard Black LP vinyl re-issue catalogue campaign. Spring UK tour dates. Promo & marketing activity around the catalogue & live dates.
Das dritte Album der britischen Jazz-Formation Emperor's New Clothes wurde 1996 von Trevor Jackson produziert, aber von Acid Jazz Records abgelehnt. Es blieb jahrezehntelang ungehört und erscheint jetzt, nach der Einigung alle Parteien, erstmals als Tonträger. SURREAL ESTATE, ein herrlich verdrehter Mix aus Jazz, Post-Rock, Dub, No Wave, Noise und abstrakten Beats, gespielt von einer fünfköpfigen Live-Band, klingt heute ebenso seltsam relevant, wie es 1996 seiner Zeit weit voraus war. Streng limitierte 180g Vinyl-Auflage im Gatefold, deren Gewinne an die Organisation mind.org.uk gespendet werden.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Originally released on tape by SicSic in 2014, Aprilnacht commemorates a decade of music from Brannten Schnüre and marked the spring in a tetralogy of albums about the four seasons when it came out. Back then the Würzburg-based project consisted solely of Christian Schoppik, who later welcomed Katie Rich to take over the vocals. He used to perform as Agnes Beil, but dropped the name when, while making this album realized his music was becoming "much gentler and more fragile". Aprilnacht already captured the particular musical ideas that Schoppik would thoroughly keep exploring, delving deeper and deeper into the use and manipulation of samplers from sources so diverging as to wander between the five continents to post-war German family television and cult cinema. Heir of the ritualistic intensity of Coil, of the intricate sampler assemblies of Ghédalia Tazartès', and of the dusty, dismal old ballads from around the world, Brannten Schnüre manages to make these paths cross in a territory that is as inherent as it is uncanny; sieged by the past and intimate as a hearth. An organic approach to folk, ambient, and sound collage, where ethereal yet thoroughly textured pieces coalesce in enthralling, delicate, and innermost musical rituals.
The album cover paintings reveal the temper: dreary old towns where shadows come to dim the slow passage of crepuscular colors, a soft area of reanimation where wind and light come close and foresee the night of spring. Aprilnacht was inspired by the stories of German philosopher and writer Friedrich Alfred Schmid Noerr, whose work exhaustively examines the conflict between paganism and Christianity, safeguarding myth in a way that Schoppik describes as boldly modern, humorous and unpredictable in its variations of the Germanic folklore motifs. "I wanted to do the same with the music," he states, and the music here could as well be suitable for a night when household deities welcome wandering will-o'-the-wisps, water nymphs, and gyrovagues to discuss Perchta's leadership of The Wild Hunt, but this album is not a folk tale, it's not an elegy to worlds already gone, hidden in years; it's an intersection of routes that open mysteriously before our ears like a congregation of vapors. Aprilnacht is a gathering of voices; "There are too many children, and none of them keeps quiet," reads the last verse of «Requiem für eine Ringelnatter.»
Sensuality drips over the music to celebrate both the voluptuousness and tragic quality of nature; "It's raining on me, urine from your flowers," Schoppik sings in «Urin deiner Blüten» and later on, faced with a snake's erotic features, as if he wanted to be embraced by it: "Your quick, sharp tongue and your warm venom; that's what the pond is missing." Orality is where this profusion of contents thrives. When the voices get closer and condense, the words reveal the saliva employed to pronounce them; we feel the mouth and the tongue, but when breath envelops them in sorrow and softens their edges, they sound distant, diffused in the atmosphere, letting go of the body that held them. These two vocal facets oscillate permanently and interact naturally with the fertile assembly of samplers and instruments that develop throughout the album, which condense and disperse impersonating each other, interweaving to search for a specific syntax. Tangled whisperings of enigmatic phrases, timid voices that stick out to check the scene but hide away quickly, shivering trance chants and monastic ambiances, distant screams and clamors in between chaos and warfare swirl until bursting into subtle songs where even Mother Mary comes forth softly. Soothed by foggy atmospheres and crackling punctuations, these voices shape a vulnerable crowd, an occasion of fragility. Along this swarm of songs thrown into thin air, accordions sound like heavy-breathing lungs; clarinets sigh like curtains shaking; violin solos wander around like bees; Gjallarhorns cries distend like fleeing cattle; glockenspiels evoke remote music boxes and inherited toys; backward emanations emerge like slender waves retreating. On the banks of stretching loops and ember textures is where the songs slowly nest, collecting the words to find their tone.
A poem by Jorge Teillier says, "To talk with the dead you have to choose words that they recognize as easily as their hands recognized the fur of their dogs in the dark. To talk with the dead you have to know how to wait: they are fearful like the first steps of a child. But if we are patient one day they will answer us with a flame that suddenly revives in the fireplace." This may be Brannten Schnüre's main purpose: To find the voice to speak to those of whom we were a vision. Not in mourning, but acknowledging the obscure and volatile nature of spring's regenerative force, searching for the treasure of balance, as evidenced in the lyrics of «Requiem für ein Schwalbennest,» "Its nest was destroyed so many times before it was finished, and despite that, the shallow builds as if it is infatuated." The same idea is here in the words of Schmid Noerr, who made poetry an act of resistance to the horror of Nazism; "Since having seen the ability of a brilliant spirit to die, with a calm mouth that everyone saw, health is true again and we affirm it, even if rivers of blood flow." And as we call for the dusk's kindness, waiting to return home and eat with our kin by the stove, our ears become used to the games of the night. We feel like we're rowing on wetlands, while the "moon musick" keeps us vigilant against the slightest movement of water or sweet moan because eeriness here is imperative for survival. Do not succumb to the insipid howl of death, for nothing may last but mutability. You see, the rock has moved a little during the night; the rest is just wind fleeing from the void.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
The publication of "Jet Sounds" in October 2000 and its subsequent release on the international market represented the turning point from the initial productions carried forward by Schema and the new course taken by the label reaching sales of 40,000 copies and still counting. It's the year 2000 and the avant-garde of the new jazz pop Italian scene is called "Jet Sounds". The debut album by Nicola Conte features nearly 20 musicians and moreover the visionary, sophisticated appeal of Nicola with a sound that has already become T . He tells a cinematic story as the images become a soundtrack for the music: Scene 1: A young woman is walking on the sea shore. She's alone, only white sand and crystal blue water by her side. It's late in the afternoon and the sun is glancing over her shoulders while a soft bossa nova fills the air. Scene 2: He's drivin' fast, there's little time left and a man to chase. Like busy spiders working a web, the beat of the big band pulses a 5/4 jazz theme. Scene 3: It's night; the park; shadows following, shadows hiding mystery? Undefined eastern/oriental sounds adrift on a pulsing psychedelic beat. What's the next move...?
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
HYPERWIDE LUSTRE is Orchestroll’s debut record, a mini-LP released on Montreal’s GARMO – a highly curious and deeply devolved collection of music produced and performed for a run of live club sets by the duo.
Jester-like, this is music that laughs at you: because it’s funny, because it’s not; because you did too much, because you did too little. Because you’re too loud; too quiet. Wrapped in the exquisite production chops of Richard-Robitaille and Osborne-Lanthier, Hyperwide Lustre is quasi-sarcastic and fully irreverent, a shimmering hybrid of spectral dance music and avant classical; psychedelic, cinematic, fluid, and yet bejeweled with a crushing opulence. Lovelorn synths and haunted, clattering, percussion rolls through these halls. Will you follow them to their source? Or turn away?
Like a slow labyrinthine descent into ever-less-familiar passages, Orchestroll have crafted an album that feels genuinely puzzling and new. A warm welcome into a strange world. Two puppetmasters who lost control of their puppets long ago. The keyboard whispers, but the mouse decides the tale.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Time for one of Freerange's longest standing regular producers to return to the label for his first EP in three years. The Stepping Tones EP is absolutely classic Shur-I-Kan from start to finish with two original tracks plus a remix from the very excellent Berlin newcomers Kim Brown.
The title track opens with a big, bold, bouncing bassline and driving groove but as we hear the arrangement unfold the layers of keys build and drop bringing the trademark Shur-I-Kan musicality and energy to the track. In our opinion this is one of his strongest tracks yet and we're pretty sure this will be a firm favorite this summer, set to be heard everywhere from Croatian boat parties to Dalston basements and beyond.
Up next we have Kim Brown with their remix of Stepping Tones and what a job! The Berlin duo have made a big impact the last couple of years with their incredibly deep and beautiful Spring Theory and People's Republic releases on Just Another Beat. Completely sublime downbeat deep house is the key here, owing as much to ambient and orchestral music as to the rough and raw lo-slung club beats we're hearing from labels such as Dial and Smallville. Their remix brings rugged drums, dubby keys and lush strings to the fore with the addition of a twisted, filtering vocal enhancing the warm glowing sunrise vibe which emanates from this track.
Conundrum closes the EP with another deep, jazzy and cinematic Shur-I-Kan masterpiece and once again he layers up the textures and harmonic elements slowly and expertly, introducing the little hooks over time until before you know it you're bathed in a warm shower of lushness with tingles running down your spine.
Limted version on 2LP transparent violet vinyl in gatefold sleeve, 300 copies! ‘Lefto presents Jazz Cats' is back with volume 3 and still doing what it does best: putting you in the front row of what the thriving Belgian jazz scene currently has to offer and revealing a melting pot of the musical talent.
'Lefto presents Jazz Cats' is back with volume 3 and still doing what it does best: putting you in the front row of what the thriving Belgian jazz scene currently has to offer and revealing a melting pot of the musical talent coming out one of the smallest countries in Europe. Never change a winning team they say, so we're happy to have Belgian DJ and eclectic connoisseur Lefto on board again.
Although you expect thecompilation to be talking jazz, volume 3 explores a broader array of styles, genres, and sounds than ever before, arriving at a point where the 'young cats' of today don't bother no more. It may focus on the Belgian scene, but let's face it, seeing the influences, this one could be compiled from all over the world. From the empowering and bittersweet voices of Oriana Ikomo and Adja, over the more acoustic-electronic productions of Moodprint, Ciao Kennedy, Kassius and echofarmer. It's even expanding the Jazz Cats universe to dub and bass-heavy tracks with Kin Gajo and Le Ministère, Ethio-jazz from Azmari, while sending you back to earth with bodies' swirling sax and drums. That saxophone still rings in your ears when you end up in the orbit of the march-like drums of Bodem, Orson Claeys' piano testing your ability to follow him, slamming the breaks to go smooth cruisin' with HONEY (Morricone meets Khruangbin, anyone?), to crashing in a raging tempo on that last track of Bruno x Soet x Moene. And there you are, back with us.
2018's 'Lefto presents Jazz Cats' included tracks from some of Belgium's biggest hitters, including Black Flower, STUFF. De Beren Gieren and Glass Museum who have all gone on to receive global acclaim. The album was given the accolade of 'Album of the Week' on Worldwide FM and also received further radio support from Jazz FM in addition to numerous glowing reviews. The 2022 follow-up 'Jazz Cats volume 2' paved the way for a new generation inspired by its peers, entering another era of very talented individuals and collectives. Maybe even more so than 4 years before. It uncovered a beautiful balance of more established but also obscure musicians and artists. Opening up to electronics and dance, enter bands like ECHT!, Stellar Legions and TUKAN. Thrilling innovative soundscape grooves and jazz fusion with Bandler Ching and L?p?GangGang, not to forget about the weaving musical odyssey that is M.CHUZI. In addition, there's the balanced unease of One Frame Movement, the laidback 'acoustic electronica' of Boombox Experiments, the classic funky jazz stylings of Cargo Mas and cinematic The Brums, all of these have set volume 2 on the map as an essential release for any jazzhead with a passion for new sounds.
Tastemaker, selector, curator, DJ and producer, these words often get mentioned when Lefto's name pops up in discussions. And rightly so. If you've ever had the pleasure to listen to one of his incredible Boiler Room sets or one of his many radio shows, you'll know why. Famed for his gloriously eclectic taste on the decks, he switches effortlessly between hip hop, funk, breaks, neck-snapping beats, future bass, South-American influences, bruk riddims, some wild African rhythms and of course, jazz.
Growing up as a child, his father would have the sounds of jazz flowing through the speakers. Which led him to bars around town to hear the latest jazz ensembles. Falling in love with the genre, he would later refine his knack for record digging and fine ear for music working at Belgium's legendary Music Mania record store in his hometown Brussels. Which makes that Lefto is consistently a couple steps ahead. He doesn't wait for the next thing to land in his lap, but actively seeking it out.
Lefto on Jazz Cats volume 3:
"Another release in less than two years! I am very impressed by the amount of creative "jazz" talent we've managed to compile over the last couple of years. Thanks to the internet, young musicians find inspiration from around the globe and incorporate diverse influences into their work. Given the history and heritage of jazz in this country, it has managed to create a healthy jazz scene supported by festivals, venues, press, and labels. Therefore, I am very proud to present to you the thirdinstallment of Jazz Cats. This compilation is dedicated to the young and hardworking musicians who are the present and the future of Belgium's jazz scene."
The opening line of Emily Dickinson’s short poem ‘‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers’ inspired the central image of Emily Barker’s new single ‘Feathered Thing’, written while she navigated cumulative grief.
When Barker was first introduced to producer Luke Potashnick (Gabrielle Aplin, Jack Savoretti, Katie Melua) in May 2022, she brought with her a full album’s worth of songs. But after visiting Potashnick’s storied studio, The Wool Hall and hearing his ambitious production ideas, she was inspired to write one more song.
“I also needed to process some heavy news” she comments. Barker and her husband Lukas Drinkwater had been trying to start a family. Following a couple of failed IVF cycles (and other “starts that we’d lost”), they investigated adoption and had decided to relocate to Australia to be closer to Barker’s family.
“It felt like we couldn’t work out what we wanted, but we finally reached a point where we both felt at peace with not having kids,” Barker recalls. “It had been an incredibly intense time, coinciding with a house move and the pandemic.”
And then Barker found she was pregnant. “We’d done all these things to try to make it happen, and then it happened naturally (and against all biological odds). Having previously navigated losses throughout our pregnancy journey, we now had to get our heads around what having this new person in our lives might look like - emotionally and practically.”
Soon after work began on the album, Barker had a miscarriage.
“Songwriting has always been a way of processing throughout my life.” Barker reveals how the new song came quickly as she sat at her piano at home. She shared an early version with Potashnick and remembers him politely asking, “Do you mind telling me what this is about?”
“I think I’d left it too abstract, initially,” she reflects. “It was difficult to open up about the miscarriage, but Luke was very supportive and encouraged me to dig a little deeper without necessarily being specific. I revisited the lyrics, and the result is much stronger.”
“I went to the burnt-out woods/ A tourist with some damaged goods/ Remembered how the trees withstood fires before…”
“The opening line is a metaphor for knowing that I’ll get through this,” Barker clarifies. “It’s about recovery and hope, allowing yourself both the space to grieve and permission to move on”. But Barker’s optimism is never misplaced – she knows the imprint of imagined futures and lost children are carried in hearts and minds forever:
“It’s so hard to let go, wanted to know wanted to know you …”
“I think that it's important to share and normalise these stories, which are all too common, yet not openly spoken about. People hide their pain and don’t want to burden friends and family. I think behind all this anguish, there’s a deep, often untold story.”
Now that Barker is settled back in Western Australia, she’s embracing being an auntie. “I’ve got three younger siblings over here who I’m close to, and they all have kids,” she enthuses. “I look after my brother's kids, aged two and five, one morning a week.”
Recorded - along with the entirety of the new album - at The Wool Hall, ‘Feathered Thing’ begins gently, with oscillating piano and distant drums, until the arrangement gradually transforms into an instrumental dervish of vibrant strings, bass drones and cymbal crashes. Throughout, Barker’s vocals float tantalisingly like a slipstreaming feather.
Watch the video, filmed at The Wool Hall here. The Wool Hall is a studio in Beckington, Somerset, set up by Tears for Fears in the 1980s and used by artists including The Smiths, Pretenders, Joni Mitchell and many more.
Emily Barker is an award-winning singer-songwriter, best known as the writer and performer of the theme to the hugely successful BBC crime drama ‘Wallander’ starring Kenneth Branagh.
Her last album, 2020's ‘A Dark Murmuration of Words’, was produced by Greg Freeman and recorded at StudiOwz, a converted chapel in the Welsh countryside. Lyrically probing, by turns both dark and optimistic, Barker searches for meaning through the deafening clamour of fake news and algorithmically filtered conversation, delivering a timely exploration of the grand themes of our age. It garnered widespread acclaim, with Uncut calling it “…a kind of Australian equivalent of PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake”.
Barker has released music and toured as a solo artist as well as with various bands and collaborations, most notably her long association with Frank Turner, and has written for TV and film, including composing the soundtrack for Jake Gavin’s lauded debut feature ‘Hector’ starring Peter Mullan and Keith Allen.
‘Fragile as Humans’ is scheduled for release on May 3rd 2024 through Everyone Sang/Kartel Music Group. The album will also feature earlier singles: the vast, cinematic ‘Wild to be Sharing This Moment’ and the meditative, crestfallen ‘Loneliness’.
Swedish jazz phenomon Nils Berg Cinemasocpe is back with their sixth album. The music on this album is based on field recordings of musicians, singers and sounds from the streets and countryside of Punjab, India. Nils Berg Cinemacope is a group of highly acclaimed Swedish jazz musicians that has toured all continents and collaborated with musicians and dancers in Italy, Cuba, Japan and more
Longtime music activists Rawmance and Asymmetrical from Rome have joined forces to create new music under the name 'La Nuit Je Mens'. Their debut work, titled 'Les Nuits Magnétiques', features two
of their songs on a hand-stamped 7" vinyl. Utilizing a bass guitar, analog synthesizers and vintage drum machines, their music is infused with French vocals, lending it a cinematic touch and a sense of depth.
While strongly inspired by the sound of the 80s, this record establishes its own unique identity, offering something new and refreshing.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Steph Richards has already made quite a name for herself in the worlds of avant garde music and creative jazz - She has recorded for Relative Pitch and Northern Spy, worked with Laurie Anderson, Anthony Braxton and Ravi Coltrane and studied with Wadada Leo Smith - As co-producer of the FONT Music Festival, Richards worked for years alongside fellow trumpeter Dave Douglas. Her records have been praised for displaying her evident virtuosity and inventiveness, the New York Times calling Richards "boldly inventive." NPR's Nate Chinen says Richards is "ingenious" and Downbeat insisted that she is "the latest figure of note" in jazz while All About Jazz cuts to the chase, saying simply, that Richards "kicks ass." It's an impressive history and litany of praise for a young trumpeter, but with her latest full-length for Northern Spy, Power Vibe, Richards pushes even further, marrying avant garde and cinematic moods with a kind of infectious and patently pleasing tunefulness that is certain to expand her dedicated audience even further. The addition of "sensory electronics" -- subtle but compelling textures and tactile rhythms which are physically triggered by drum-mounted sensors -- compels fascination here, interweaving a kind of aural hyper-lucidity throughout the record. Though boldly original, this music strides surefootedly alongside the work of contemporaries like Nicole Mitchell and Rob Mazurek and the late jaimie branch
John Cassavetes’ directorial debut Shadows was a largely improvised film set in the bohemian jazz scene of 1950s New York; often referred to as the first truly independent film of American cinema, it featured a brief disjointed soundtrack improvised by Charles Mingus and his saxophonist Shafi Hadi, with various percussionists slotting in, including Phineas Newborn Jr. Gloriously messy, reportedly unfinished and referred to with scorn by Mingus, the Shadows soundtrack sketches ultimately yielded the great ‘Nostalgia In Times Square’ ‘Alice’s Wonderland’ and ‘Self-Portrait In Three Colours,’ all included here – astounding!
There was a long time I considered Raymond Richards the ultimate secret weapon. There were sounds he could make that other people just couldn’t. Pure, whole, yet complex sounds. The pedal steel is an extremely niche instrument outside of its Country confines, but its sheer and transcendent depth has never failed to floor me. Raymond’s ear for implementing the steel into literally 'anything' has always been uncanny. After decades of being savvy to his work ethic, multi-faceted studio skills and overall sense of musical honesty, it became a priority for me to channel some of this into narratives through the ESP Institute and get his stories told. Without further recounting the history and trajectory of our musical relationship (see the press release for 2020’s critically-acclaimed album 'The Lost Art Of Wandering'), I can whole-heartedly confirm this sophomore release, 'Sand Paintings', opens an even wider door into Raymond’s visceral, contemplative world. The cast of players has elaborated to include Calexico’s John Convertino on drums and percussion, a bevy of eccentric stringed instruments and even a hint of brass to collectively stratify context for the pedal steel. Through diversifying the timbral palette, we invite an increased soundstage acuity but also reveal untapped wells of emotion for the listener, perhaps even testing cultural literacies. One foot remains in our established ambient realm, while the other steps toward grand cinematic gestures, and despite the dense, insurmountable emotion in these songs, there is a stoic singularity, like a lonesome cowboy pulling up his boot straps to endure another day. 'Badwater Basin' opens with courage, an enormous chord evoking Raymond’s image of “hard dawn”, but in navigating through the dramatic depictions of 'Monument Valley', 'Saguaro' and 'Deer On Hwy 80', we grapple with a cloaked vulnerability—weathered by the elements, beaten down and alone, yet still madly in love with the world. —Lovefingers
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Radio Slave's 'Venti' is released on Rekids on May 17th and is a twelve-track celebration of Matt Edward's most prominent alias' history. Starting life as a series of singles that began in 2023, 'Venti' sees Edwards explore lower tempos, House, Disco, and the Pop reinterpretations that birthed the moniker back in 2001.
From Venti’s opening track onwards, a glistening piece of piano-led house that's become an anthem at Sean Johnston and the late Andrew Weatherall's lauded ALFOS parties, it is clear that Edwards is keen to celebrate the past but through the lens of now. A Radio Slave favourite, 'Wait A Minute', is updated to include a powerful vocal from Nez. Kylie's 'Can't Get You Out of My Head' - a track that kicked Radio Slave into the modern dance music consciousness is reinvented as an Italo-inspired cover featuring Michael Love Michael delivering glorious vocals. 'Wild Life' and 'Wake Up', another two tracks that, as singles, dominated house and disco sets of the great and good in 2023, feel simultaneously fresh while paying homage to the origins of House - message-heavy vocals and all. A cover of Audion's 'Mouth to Mouth' and Edwards' tribute to Terry Hall, the Fun Boy Three reimagining 'The Lunatics' are keen displays of Radio Slave's knack for taking on beloved tracks and making them his own. The lasers-set-to-stun cut-and-paste nu-disco of Radio Slave’s 'Jaws' is a muscular and timely reminder that the punch of a track lies in its feel rather than tempo, while Edward's command of dub aesthetics and unmatched ability to stretch grooves into a tension-filled journey shines through on 'New Balance' and the epic closer, 'Thirty-Six'. Never one to entirely give into the throes of the 4:4, the cinematic electro of 'Stranger In The Night' and Balearic Cagedbaby collab 'Amnesia' round out 'Venti' as the whole Radio Slave experience - as intense as it is subtle.
One of the most prolific and critically lauded electronic music artists of the past two and half decades, Matt Edwards was born in Catford, London, in the early 1970s. When acid house hit the city, Edwards was deep in the scene, and he's remained there since. Residencies at the groundbreaking Ministry of Sound and an 'unofficial' residency that has seen him become one of Panorama Bar's most booked DJs during his 15-year stint living in Berlin have provided the grounding for an enviable tour diary that continues today.
His Rekids imprint, a label that has platformed some of dance music's biggest names, has been regarded as a high benchmark for two decades with Matt as sole A&R. Collaborations with legendary artists such as DJ Hell and Robert Hood, releases for Running Back, R&S, Innervisions, Figure and more, and a remixography that simply couldn't be repeated in modern music show just how important Radio Slave is.
out of Stock
Last delivered 4 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
New Heaven, INTER ARMA’s latest album, is a compelling testament to perseverance, top to bottom. Its thicket of ever-dense layers of doom, death, and black metal occasionally let bits of light slip in, fleeting reminders to keep going amid the tumult. New Heaven marks a sharp turn for the band, showcasing some of the most extreme and angular songwriting INTER ARMA has ever laid bare. Known for their cinematic take on sludgy, extremely cavernous, and borderline psychedelic Metal, the Richmond band broadens their dynamics by seesawing between piledriving momentum and swirling oblivion. New Heaven crushers and conquers, and illustrates what INTER ARMA can truly be. Take the title track, with its hair-raising lead riff stemming from drummer/songwriter TJ Childers’ challenge to himself to write a nonsensically dissonant part that he ended up loving. The song spirals upward into a punishing Death-Metal march, Meanwhile, vocalist Mike Paparo’s stentorian bellows the bludgeon, above an impossibly complicated web of riffs and rhythms. From the get go, New Heaven and the opening title track eschews any restraint - INTER ARMA is completely unchained. Paparo’s keen and empathetic lyrics about innocent victims of war, addiction, and social apathy affirm that feeling, as a survivor grimaces at the carnage behind him and presses ahead best he can. “You stared into the brutish jaws of strife’s heartless device,” he growls into a chthonic blitz during “The Children the Bombs Overlooked,” a late-album powerhouse. “And you turned your back to hell.” That forward march out of madness is New Heaven in an armor-plated nutshell. Though this is indeed another INTER ARMA triumph, it is not a triumphant album, meant to offer some glib or naïve assurance that everything will be fine. What evidence is there for that, really, either on a record where friends are forced into submission, addiction, suicide, or retreat to a world where suffering remains the lingua franca? No, INTER ARMA and New Heaven are too realistic and experienced for that. This is, instead, a record about enduring brambles and curses and lasting long enough to make something profound, honest, and even affirming about it all every now and again—exactly as INTER ARMA has on New Heaven. FFO: Amenra, Neurosis, Full of Hell, Cult of Luna, Yob, Primitive Man, Thou, Ulcerate, Mastodon, The Body, Panopticon
Francis Lai is France's best-selling international film composer, with hits such as "Love Story", "Bilitis" and "Un Homme et une Femme".
International hits in the USA, Germany, the UK and South America, as well as in Korea and Japan, where the Francis Lai Orchestra recorded the tribute album "13 Jours au Japon" just a few months ago, during a tour that took them to Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and elsewhere.
A limited-edition Vinyl featuring the composer's cult tracks, including the 100 million-stream digital hit "La Leçon Particulière", "Concerto Pour la Fin d'Amour", five songs and, for the first time, his unpublished posthumous work "The Final Dot".
"13 Jours au Japon" (13 Days in Japan) is the ultimate vinyl tribute, featuring 25 musicians and singers covering the multi-award-winning works of the man nicknamed in the USA: "the artistocrat of melody"!
Ever since their auspicious beginnings, more than a decade ago, Laughing Bastards have giddily delighted in impurity. Initially a reeds-guitar-bass trio modeled after the classic Jimmy Giuffre 3, the band has remained truthful to its original spirit. Saxophone player Michel Mast and guitarist Jan-Sebastiaan Degeyter have remained its core, but the band went through several permutations, first welcoming Eline Duerinck (cello) and Marcos Della Rocha (for Unanimal in 2019) and solidifying its present-day line-up with bassist Cyrille Obermüller.
Bastards. It's kind of a rude word to throw around carelessly, but there has always been that element of being irregular, being too stubborn to comply with what is expected, that has set them apart. This is nowhere more evident than in the material contributed by Degeyter, who wrote more than half of the album's compositions. A talented illustrator and designer (he created a few of their striking album covers) as well as a versatile guitarist, Degeyter always manages to add a strong visual component to his material. In combination with his knack for pulling exotic influences into the band's overall sound, it leads to a playful, cinematic eccentricity.
"Tigraman" and "Black Spoon" are examples of this. Both are infused with an Ethiopian-tinged sound, but while the first one develops the catchy throbbing of a trance-like soul/rock tune, the second exudes the lush cadence of Golden Age Ethio jazz, the kind that gets under your skin with those sensual, irrepressible rhythms. They are a nice match with the increasing drama of the Slavic-tinged "Red Lemon", the slow, dreamy flow of the Jamaican dance hall-inspired "Sand", a strong feature for Duerinck, and "Dosi", that shows Obermüller's knack for propulsive melody.
The synesthete in Degeyter gets free reign in "Calliope", chamber jazz in which sweeping sax and cello are kept grounded by guitar, bass and drums. Mast's odd meter-song "Fetish" is another showcase for the band's effortless dancing and some gorgeous tenor schmooze. Della Rocha's "Turquoise" starts off in brooding, contemplative way and keeps simmering on a low, glowing fire. To top it off, there are a few covers that remind you of the band's origins. A new take on Giuffre's rootsy "The Train and the River" stresses their loose flexibility with an Americana style somewhat reminiscent of Charlie Haden, while Carla Bley's evergreen "Vashkar" gets a carefully constructed makeover to close out the album with grace.
On their latest album, Laughing Bastards prove they are a quintessential Belgian band - soaking up sounds and influences from all over the place while maintaining a tight unity - with an international appeal. Combining jazz and chamber music with ideas from pop music and multi-colored strains does not only give their music an iridescent edge, but also keeps the interplay fresh and inspired, something to return to while waiting to see them live on stage.
The music from LES TONTONS FLINGUEURS (aka Crooks in Clover aka Monsieur Gangster) is as instantaneously recognizable as the James Bond theme thanks to a short and recurring melodic motif that can still stick in the heads of 21th century kids. Monothematism is a word used by musicologists to refer to the use of stylistic variations based on a single musical theme as can be heard in the Tontons : on the banjo, during the nose punch sequences, played jazz, blues, gloria or Hully Gally style. Though the Tontons music may on first listen sound nothing different than a straightforward yet catchy soundtrack, it turns out to be a real exercise in style. When reading Michel Magne's autobiography " L'amour de vivre " it clearly appears that mixing folk music and sound experiments was a mindful artistic choice. In the movie, Antoine Delafoy (Claude Rich) who is engaged to Patricia (the Mexican's daughter) is merely a Michel Magne caricature. He embodies a contemporary music composer in search of the " absolute anti-chord " by using a water tap. " We don't really know what it is but it's amusing ". In reality and despite his classical musical education, Michel Magne has indeed had a venture into avant-garde music, going as far as organizing an infrasounds concert at the Salle Gaveau venue (Paris) on July 15th, 1954. Infrasonic frequencies which quickly made the audience run for the toilets. On December 3rd,² 1956 his low-frequency sounds contributed to an " empirique " show at the Théâtre des Trois Baudets (Paris) with Alexandro Jodorowsky, Jean Michel Rankovitch and Tinguely. At the same time he wrote music on words by Françoise Sagan for Mouloudji. Again with this desire to cross the boundaries of musical genres. He recorded in 1959 an album of " musiques tachistes " from which a show with dances was staged by Michel Descombey. His taste for provocation and avant-garde did not prevent Michel Magne from composing and arranging popular music. He hence wrote the music for six Georges Lautner movies including the famous Tontons Flingueurs in 1963.Being part of the avant-garde long-haired world what could Michel Magne think of Michel Audiard ? A most kind character who had nevertheless been burned by supporters of the " nouvelle vague " including journalist Henry Chapier who described Les Tontons Flingueurs as being " chansonnier " cinema (in Combat 1963), meant for disenchanted quinquagenarians. Audiard had responded to Truffaut, another of his dispisers : " Dad's movies filled theaters, son's movies empty them. We should have been warned : with its seaside sounding name the Nouvelle Vague (new wave) drove millions of viewers out on the countryside ". In between melodic effectiveness and daring arrangements and tonality, Michel Magne's work is worth being listened to with fresh ears, cleared of clichés !
The collaborative project from Vincent Lemieux and Guillaume Coutu-Dumont, Flabbergast, returns this March with a new EP, entitled ‘Default Mode Network’ and coming via Swiss imprint Adam’s Bite.
Vincent Lemieux is a staple of the Montreal, Canada underground and a widely beloved DJ for his impeccable technique and selections, he’s also offered up productions on the Studio Club and DISDAT labels and a collaborative EP alongside Ohm Hourani for Jigit and co-founding the Musique Risquée alongside Akufen, Deadbeat and Stephen Beaupré.
Guillaume Coutu-Dumont, a fellow Montrealer has long been a prized producer for his unique spin on micro house and
deep house music with his music finding a home on the likes of Mule Musiq, Meander and Dokutoku among others. In 2015 the two joined forces for their Flabbergast debut on Circus Company, have gone on to release with Yoyaku and Copier/Coller, and here makes a triumphant return for Switzerland’s Adam’s Bite with four fresh original cuts.
Opening the EP is the playful ‘Peppermint Poddle’, fuelled by oscillating synth tones, twitchy percussion and saturated bass alongside a spoken word vocal. ‘Manger Du Bon Manger’ then
shifts focus to cinematic organ lines, jazzy drums and a snaking bass groove throughout.
‘Mou D’état’ kicks off the B-side and sees the duo dive deeper via ethereal atmospherics, their signature wonky, mind bending synths and an amalgamation of processed vocal murmurs. Lastly
‘Dans L’oeil’ sees César Merveille join the party, the trio working collectively to create a unique slice of percussion fueled microhouse with intricately intertwined organic percussion, dubby
synth flutters, cinematic pads and pulsating subs.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Das Ambient Jazz Ensemble liefert mit "Suite Shop Reworks" elektronische Upbeat-Dancefloor-Versionen seines gleichnamigen Albums aus 2014. Mastermind des AJE ist der Filmkomponist und Musikproduzent Colin Baldry, ihm zur Seite stehen Topmusiker wie Neil Cowley (Adele, Brand New Heavies), Finn Peters (Chick Corea) oder Nichol Thomson (Jamie Cullum). Gemastert wurde das Album von Guy Davie (Jon Hopkins, FKA Twigs, Jamie T) am Mischpult von Fela Kuti in Lagos, Nigeria.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Synthesizers, Tape Recorders and Analog Machines come together into an enchanting atmospheric album reminis-cent of Eno´s, Jarre´s or Vangelis´ space-romantic compositions.
Resonance is the artistic alias of Javier Pérez Rodríguez, a Canary Islands based producer who began his musical activity in the late nineties, blending cinematic experimental music with dancefloor sounds. After releasing several club-focused releases in recent times, he now presents this new departure - a synth based album for a soundtrack to a non-existent film featuring dreamlike compositions, filled with long, immersive passages that effortlessly blend ele-ments of electronic, ambient, and progressive rock music.
'Valediction' is an ambient ode, an emotional missive departing from a personal and intimate space and expands it to the universe - the cosmos expressed through a lens of ideas and concepts that contrast with its compositional com-plexity. Through this work, the author bids farewell to a stage of his life whilst presenting a new born optimistic and mature vision of parting, naturally transitioning to another phase without collision - a romantic and optimistic escape towards the reality of a recent sensitive time, which may not have been better, but perhaps it was.
'Valediction' is Resonance's spontaneous yet conscious escape to the most endearing realms of his own inner uni-verse, subsequently projecting it outward, in a sharing statement to whoever is willing to listen.
All songs by Javier Pérez Rodríguez
Mastered by Resonance, supervised by Eddy Méndez
Artwork by Aristides Garcia
Released by Keroxen records, 2024
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
The latest suite by composer (and Stars Of The Lid co-founder) Adam Wiltzie took shape following a move north from Brussels into the Flemish countryside, although it was initially inspired by a recurring dream wherein “if someone listened to the music I created, then they would die.”
The album uniquely evokes and evades the allure of oblivion, keening between beauty and ruin, forever unresolved. Wiltzie cites the barbiturate of the title as both muse and sacred escape: “When you are sitting face forward on the daily emotional meat grinder of life, I always wished I could have some, so I could just fall asleep automatically and the feeling would not be there anymore.”
Recorded at Wilzie’s home studio, with strings added in Budapest at the old Hungarian National radio facility (Magyar Radio), the tracks feel simultaneously intimate and infinite, unfolding vistas glimpsed in an inner space.
Robert Hampson of English drone rock icons Loop mixed the album, further lending the music a sense of cinematic expanse and oblique hypnosis.
These are fugue states as much as fugues in a literal classical music sense—smeared epiphanies of uncertain memory and spatial dislocation, coaxed from the unconscious and set aloft.
out of Stock
Last delivered 8 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
In the ever-evolving landscape of the underground music scene, few bands have made an impact quite like Selofan, an immensely talented duo of Joanna Pavlidou and Dimitris Pavlidis, has carved a niche for themselves within the international pantheon of darkwave, post-punk, and '80s synthpop, blending these influences to create a sound uniquely their own. Their journey, marked by a commitment to artistic integrity and evolution, has taken them from the cozy confines of local venues to the grand stages of international festivals, earning them a dedicated following and critical acclaim along the way. Their sixth album, Partners in Hell, released in October 2020, navigated the band through unprecedented times, testing their adaptability and resilience. Despite the hurdles to performing live and the global pandemic's challenges, Selofan emerged stronger, embarking on international tours with a newfound appreciation and connection with their global audience, during this period of introspection and isolation, Joanna Pavlidou embarked on a new venture, GIOVANNA, released under Selofan’s house label, Fabrika Records. GIOVANNA, which places Pavlidou at the helm of vocal and lyrical composition, represents a full on foray into synth-pop. showcasing a different facet of her artistic identity, with lyrics entirely in Greek. In 2023, Selofan hit the circuit hard, lighting up revered festivals with their presence. They stood shoulder to shoulder with heavy hitters like Molchat Doma and Lebanon Hanover at Grey Scale and performed with with the likes of The Sisters of Mercy, VNV Nation, and She Past Away at the Death Disco fest in their hometown of Athens. With each album they have released Selofan made significant strides in their evolution, deepening their engagement with their art. And their forthcoming seventh full length studio release, Animal Mentality, is poised to be their most compelling work yet. Animal Mentality unfolds as a labyrinthine journey through the elemental aspects of human emotion and experience, set against the backdrop of Selofan's signature darkwave sound. Each track on the album delves into different facets of the human condition, from the depths of desire to the pangs of isolation, encapsulating the duo's profound understanding of the intricate spectrum of human emotion and subjective experiences. The album kicks off with "Sticky Fingers," a track that melds cinematic scope with a haunting storyline, reminiscent of Jean-Michel Jarre's icy synths and a lyrical nod to Joy Division. This opening salvo revisits the tragic allure of classic car accident songs, weaving a tale of joy turned to sorrow amidst the snowy Alps. "Love's Secret Game" delves into the depths of forbidden desire, with vocals that echo the melancholy timbre of Xmal Deutschland, Lebanon Hanover, and Nico. It's a tale of passion and ephemeral connection, promising an enduring presence despite the inevitable fracture of time and distance. In "Lucille," sung by Dimitris Pavlidis, the plot is ensnared in the machinations of a tempestuous affair, with gothic undertones evoking the dramatic soundscapes of Ultravox and Clan of Xymox. The lyrics are steeped in danger and desire - a dance with the shadows. "Sacrifice Me" plunges into the abyss of despair, driven by a Bauhaus-esque bassline. It's a plea for release from the chains of alienation, a yearning for a final gesture of solace in the face of overwhelming darkness. "Bluebirds" offers a poignant reflection on solitude, with the fleeting imagery of bluebirds symbolizing the elusive quest for happiness. The song serves as a meditation on the internal struggle to maintain hope in a world shaded by sorrow. The narrative shifts with "Glassplitter," where German lyrics paint a portrait of deceptive allure and toxic entanglement. We are confronted with irresistible danger, masked by a veneer of beauty. "Ignoranz" continues the exploration in German, pondering the universality of misunderstanding. It's a reflection on the subjective nature of truth and the shared human experience of ignorance. "Behind My Eyelids" closes the odyssey, a contemplation on melancholy and metamorphosis. The phoenix rises from the ashes of betrayal to the brighter realm of renewal - a beautiful homage to the resilience of the human spirit amidst the often harrowing cycles of life. More than just an album, Animal Mentality is a milestone in Selofan's career, marking a decade of musical innovation and growth. It's a testament to their enduring spirit and a bold step into new realms of artistic expression. As Selofan continues to evolve, they remain at the forefront of their genre, pushing boundaries and exploring the depths of the human psyche through their haunting melodies and poignant lyrics.
Since they shook up the scene with their 'Space Mambo' ten years ago The Limboos haven't stopped touring and reinventing themselves. However, it is in their fourth album, 'Off The Loop', where they inaugurate a new cycle that confirms the restlessness and nonconformity of the band in the search for their own sound. How to define 'Off the Loop'? The nine songs and 35 minutes of music included here reflect this broad perspective: lysergic passages, baroque pop, and beautifully crafted psychedelia intertwine with cinematic atmospheres, fuzz guitars, galactic keyboards and unique arrangements. In short, The Limboos' sound has reached a place you never suspected. It's time for you to discover it
For The Bacon Brothers, music is all about exploration. The siblings have spent the better part of three decades creating their own mix of folk, rock, soul, and country music. They call that diverse sound "forosoco," and it's taken them around the world, from headlining gigs in Japan to American performances at iconic venues like Carnegie Hall, the Grand Ole Opry and Gruene Hall.
The exploration continues with the band's twelfth release,'The Ballad Of The Brothers'. It's a record that highlights not only the similarities between Kevin Bacon (known worldwide as an A-list Hollywood actor) and Michael Bacon (celebrated as an Emmy-winning composer), but the differences, too. The two siblings may be bound together by blood and a mutual love of American roots music, but they've grown into sharp songwriters and cinematic storytellers with their own distinct approaches.
Ballad of the Brothers by The Bacon Brothers, released 19 April 2024, includes the following tracks: "Put Your Hand Up", "Old Bronco", "We Belong", "Ballad Of The Brothers (The Willie Door)" and more.
This version of Ballad of the Brothers comes as a 1xLP.
FIRST 100 ORDERS COME WITH A DOUGLAS DARE OMNI CONDOM, ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS**First Pressing on Limited Translucent Red Vinyl**British artist Douglas Dare announces the release of his fourth album Omni. Seen by Douglas himself as a bold rebirth and embrace of the electronic, Omni is all at once a throbbing, avant-garde, queer, dark and cinematic record imbued with a love of rave culture and sense of fearless storytelling that’s deeply evocative. Omni will be released on May 10 via Erased Tapes. To mark the announcement, Douglas today shares the first taster of the record with ‘Mouth To Mouth’, a pulsing, synth-laden track that begs to be played loud. ‘Mouth To Mouth’ sees a collaboration with label mate Daniel Brandt who appears on production duties, with beats supplied by Rival Consoles. Speaking on the track, Douglas says, “life, death, fate and orgies; this is the heartfelt club track I always wanted to write.” Since 2013, Douglas has blurred classical, chamber-pop, folk and avant-garde to dazzling effect, with a startling voice that can stop you in your tracks. It’s why he’s played with luminaries like Nils Frahm, Perfume Genius and Ólafur Arnalds, and was selected by David Lynch and The Cure’s Robert Smith for their respective cultural festivals in Manchester (MIF) and London (Meltdown). But Douglas’s fourth album, Omni, is a fresh awakening. Encouraged by Erased Tapes founder Robert Raths, he decided to step away from acoustic instruments, especially the piano he grew up playing, and swapped them for synths and drum machines. His new music has much in common with Arca and the late SOPHIE, two artists for whom self-expression meant liberation. “I got to hang out in the studio with her,” says Douglas of the latter musician, “the way she made music made a big impression on me.” And yet Omni is steeped in the kind of deft storytelling, sweeping strings, elegant contrasts and fairytale atmosphere that marks Douglas out as a crucial and singular voice. It’s not often you hear a strutting electro banger that could have been straight out of 90s Soho, with vocal loops inspired by US experimentalist Meredith Monk. For Douglas, Omni is about reconciling all those different sides of himself – the songwriter, the raver, the lover, the observer. It’s a hugely queer record: seductive, sexy, lusty, untethered from the genre binary. “It’s even got sailors on it!” laughs Douglas. “You don’t get more queer than that.
Growing up on the outskirts of Manchester, Daniella Lubasu feels that the city's strong indie rock legacy has had an "inevitable" impact on her Equally significant was the music of her Congolese heritage - with its upbeat rhythms, driving bass and intricate electric guitar riffs a constant presence in her childhood. It's in this intersection between the genres where Daniella grounds her sonic identity as DellaXOZ - one which has already garnered extensive love from Clara Amfo at Radio 1, early nods from The Guardian, The Line Of Best Fit, Clash and many more, and support slots with the likes of Beabadoobee, Spill Tab, Wallice, Two Door Cinema Club and Connie Constance. At age 13, armed with a cheap mic and free software from the internet, Daniella wrote and produced her first song, using music as an emotional outlet throughout her teenage years. The potential for music to shape mood is a recurring trait of Daniella's idols too. The clever wordplay and bravado of Nicki Minaj have emboldened her to channel her own "irreverent villain energy", the untethered chaos of La Tigre and Bikini Kill directly influenced her single 'AHH!!', and she is in awe of pop stars like Lana Del Rey and Lorde's ability to seamlessly shift emotions en masse. DellaXOZ is Daniella's real-time chronicle of expression and introspection, manifested via her own brand of glitchy, alt-pop-fecked indie rock. With her formative teenage years navigated during a global pandemic, it's little wonder that Daniella sets classic coming-of-age concerns to the backdrop of wider social issues and commentary. Her current ethos as DellaXOZ is to capture "the fleeting emotions and multi-dimensionality of the teenage experience", and she rejects the narrative of apathy and distraction misassigned to her generation, explaining "I think it's necessary to know what's going on in the world to not become distanced or ignorant. Current world issues like hate crimes, bans on safe abortion and poor gun control are things that I feel personally provoked to shed light on, and have already written some rage- y unreleased songs about." Currently studying for her A-levels, her lessons too expand the narratives within her songwriting. Drama classes led her to include references to Greek mythology in her tracks, where sociology galvanised her to pen her own "riot girl feminist song". It's exactly this kind of boldness and conviction to play with sounds and ideas that mark DellaXOZ as a key young creator in the next chapter of Manchester's musical tradition.
ARCHIELONG LP album consists of 8 intensely rolled tracks dating between 2012-2020. The release unfolds on 4 discs of 180gr, with gatefold covers, coated in Sani Stranskiʼs artwork.
Throughout ARCHIELONG LP, we are absorbed by what typically characterizes his narrative: a peculiar style of story in constant development. Structure and flow are a hallmark feature of his selections, adding one more trippy, eerie minimal style on top of the other, creating a rich and quirky haunted sphere.
A – The opening track, I HEAR VOICES THROUGH THE PIPE sets the scene for whatʼs to come, stirring the imagination with its dreamy, cinematic, organic sounds in disguise. The track provides a guidebook to distilling story, emotion and image into sonic form.
B – EXCESS ALL AREAS – hypnotizes the dancers with endless, reverberating grooves and a punchy 4/4 beat, introducing the audience to his gloomy world of emotions.
C – LA MANIA – lights up some dark pitched atmosphere around you and makes you feel like you are on the mythical La Mania club dancefloor in complete harmony, surrounded by strange and beautiful trippers. The song is like a painting, with frames that evoke flashbacks.
D – NEW LIFE – is a perfect minimalist setup of a percussion loop, throbbing chords and a sinewy walking bass, and itʼs almost intimidatingly heady. Its militant kick and incessant hi-hats propel the beat – definitely a dancefloor highlight.
E – MELODROM – percolates with Latin percussion and shuffling snares, which commingle with an array of voices and whispers that come from every corner of the song. From toolish to melodic, itʼs the diversity that creates the magic.
F – SING AND RUN – is one of those tracks that gives you nostalgia and reminds us of early mornings at the end of the party when the sun would be coming in through the windows and the dancefloor was in total harmony. Could easily cast a spell with the right audience.
G –RUMBLING DREAM – is a ritualistic-sounding slice, crossing towards the kind of slow-burning, atmospheric cuts that doubtless inspire his intricate studio productions. The vocals are unusually illustrative and make a lasting impression.
H – KLAUS DID IT – is an intriguing interplay between dark functionality and high velocity grooves — the type of deep, trippy, IDM-tipped tunes. Its warped tones are forming dank, lurching rhythms that trap you like a spiderweb, venturing into a bizarre, rewarding territory. The conclusion? You can spend a decade honing a very particular personal vision and not run short of inspiration. Mihigh is a world-builder: everything he does is about further extending and reinforcing that world.
ARCHIELONG LP is capturing the beauty at the intersection of experiment and perpetual learning
out of Stock
Last delivered 70 days ago available to reorder, subject to availability
In 2023, Irène Drésel, an electro artist between Vitalic and Solomun, became the first woman in history to win the César (French Cinéma Award) for " Best Original Score ". Her colourful techno music is as sensual as it is upfront inspired by a rich, magnetic, sonic and visual universe. After two consecutive EPs, "Rita" (2017) and "Icône" (2018), her debut album "Hyper Cristal" was released in Spring 2019. It was followed by a second album, "Kinky Dogma" in 2021, which Libération (French National Newspaper) describes as "an accomplished work of techno, ambitious but not pretentious, since it never loses sight of its author"s objective: to provoke irresistible joy in the listener". And now is the time for "Rose Fluo", her brand new album!
out of Stock
Last delivered 16 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
ARCHIELONG LP album consists of 8 intensely rolled tracks dating between 2012-2020. The release unfolds on 4 discs of 180gr, with gatefold covers, coated in Sani Stranskiʼs artwork.
Throughout ARCHIELONG LP, we are absorbed by what typically characterizes his narrative: a peculiar style of story in constant development. Structure and flow are a hallmark feature of his selections, adding one more trippy, eerie minimal style on top of the other, creating a rich and quirky haunted sphere
A – The opening track, I HEAR VOICES THROUGH THE PIPE sets the scene for whatʼs to come, stirring the imagination with its dreamy, cinematic, organic sounds in disguise. The track provides a guidebook to distilling story, emotion
and image into sonic form.
B – EXCESS ALL AREAS – hypnotizes the dancers with endless, reverberating grooves and a punchy 4/4 beat, introducing the audience to his gloomy world of emotions.
C – LA MANIA – lights up some dark pitched atmosphere around you and makes you feel like you are on the mythical La Mania club dancefloor in complete harmony, surrounded by strange and beautiful trippers. The song is like a painting, with frames that evoke flashbacks.
D – NEW LIFE – is a perfect minimalist setup of a percussion loop, throbbing chords and a sinewy walking bass, and itʼs almost intimidatingly heady. Its militant kick and incessant hi-hats propel the beat – definitely a dancefloor highlight.
out of Stock
Last delivered 70 days ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Die Musik von Quadro Nuevo strahlt die Lust am abenteuerreichen Leben aus. Jede Melodie erzählt davon, jede Reise prägt die extravagante Musizierkunst des Ensembles. Die 16 Tracks des neuen Albums sind gefärbt von der Fröhlichkeit und Freundlichkeit ihrer Begegnungen in Brasilien. Da ist der Titel des Albums Programm!
Ruutu Poiss with his second album “II” after his 2021’s debut full length “Palav Aed“, a welcome return to Wake Dream. Recorded in a concentrated period of time during the dark winter days of late 2022 and early 2023, “II” now finds it’s way to the public’s ears in the brighter days of the year.
An album as conceptual as it is emotional, with feelings of transformation and dreaming, hope and arrival, and an aesthetic that is both cinematic and hypnagogic, nostalgic and futuristic, it turns contradictions into harmonies, brings together the dark and the light, spinning and whirling freely around a steady core.
Recorded mainly with one synth and a collection of old drumcomputers, Ruutu Poiss once again shows his futuristic sonic virtuosity within the boundaries of a compact studio setup.
“Great Doubt” is the third full length LP by Danish composer Astrid Sonne. Throughout her acclaimed discography, Astrid Sonne has been carefully crafting different moods through electronic and acoustic instrumental endeavours. On “Great Doubt” this skill is refined, now with the distinct addition of the composer's own vocal in front. The tone of each track is unmistakably Sonne’s, structured around contrasts through an impeccable sense of timing. Lyrics on the album are sparse, merely highlighting different scenes or emotional states of being, leaving the music to fill in the blanks. Yet they also form a pattern of ambiguity, consolidated through the album title, searching for answers through looking at how and what you are asking, questions for the world, questions of love. The viola, a trusted companion since Astrid Sonne’s youth, appears effortlessly throughout the album, fully integrated into the sonic universe; through a pizzicato driven arrangement in the poignant track “Almost” or along with booms and claps in mutated cinematic stabs during “Give my all”, paraphrasing Mariah Carey's 1997 ballad. Yet the string section also gives way to explorations of woodwinds, counterbalancing the bowed movements with digital brass and airy flutes. Finally, beats and detuned piano are fresh additions to the soundscape, cementing how Sonne’s practice is always evolving into new territories. In fall 2022, Astrid Sonne relocated from Copenhagen with its peers of artists such as ML Buch, Erika de Casier and Smerz, to live in London, where musicians of the South-East London scene like Coby Sey, Lolina, Still House Plants and Mica Levi provide a new inspirational framework. “Great Doubt” bears witness to both of those geographical locations, yet finds itself in its own unique space, in many ways due to the presence of Sonne's voice throughout. A voice that has always been present in her work, but never fully explored as a solo instrument before now. Astrid Sonne elaborates on the wish to work more in depth with the voice: “I come from a tradition of choir singing where I’ve used my voice as a way of creating unity with other voices. I’ve disciplined my voice in a certain way and this album is an exploration of me trying to find my own voice as an instrument, as a communicator, as a new way of being honest.” Questions take up a central role throughout the album. The doubt is both a blessing and a curse, always lying in-between, acting as both what holds back and drives forward. A metamorphosis not going anywhere. The great doubt takes place in a space of courage, chances, love, loss, gifts and surprises. Genre: Electronic / Experimental
out of Stock
Last delivered 12 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
With time, we come to understand the way the joy of connection is mirrored by the void of loss, how the constancy of love is matched only by the impermanence of life, the simple idea that we could not create light if we did not risk the dark - we'd never need to. So it is with METZ, a band once known for blowing out eardrums with songs of joyous rage who have, over their past few records, begun exploring ways to turn abrasiveness into atmospherics, the evolution of their sound not only a reflection of the maturing of the band themselves but also of a changed world that demands nuance and compassion to comprehend and to survive. It was a journey already underway on 2020's Atlas Vending, but one that reaches new heights on Up On Gravity Hill, where the Canadian trio creates a kaleidoscopic sonic world as tender as it is dark, aided once again by engineer Seth Manchester (Mdou Moctar, Lingua Ignota, Battles, The Body). Deep, detailed, and unyieldingly personal, it is not only METZ's most powerful record to date but also their most beautiful. Still three punks from Ontario at heart, guitarist and vocalist Alex Edkins, drummer Hayden Menzies, and bassist Chris Slorach waste no time as opener "No Reservation/Love Comes Crashing" sweeps in like a wave, sonically and thematically setting the scene for the record to come. A dynamic song about feeling suspended in stasis, layers of dissonance melt into a restlessly heady outro marked by escalating crescendos of shimmering noise that reach for the stars - and is that a violin quivering brightly beneath those elegant swells of guitar, those charging drum fills, those intricate bass lines? It is indeed, courtesy of composer Owen Pallett; his presence an immediate indicator that METZ are thinking more cinematically than ever before. The change is partially inspired by Edkins' work as a scorer for film and television and his pop-leaning solo project, Weird Nightmare, where, he says, he learned to write more intuitively, letting his emotions lead the way. But make no mistake: Up On Gravity Hill is a total band effort, the work of three musicians who have been playing together for over a decade, with all the trust that entails. For those who believe in the power of the rock band to exemplify the highest resonance of human connection, there is much on Up On Gravity Hill to lift the spirit, a puzzle worth repeated listening to unlock or just to get lost in again and again. Rather than the music being flattened into a single plane, the band explores "the space above the cymbals," resulting in some of the most spacious, sympathetic, and accessible songs - could we call them pop? - of their career. If this seems contradictory, well, METZ has always been something of a contradiction. "We've never been heavy enough for metal or hardcore purists, but we're way too heavy for indie rock. We just don't have a lane - and that's okay. We exist outside the lines of delineation. I think this record is even more like that," says Edkins.
OVERVIEW: Explore the enchanting worlds of orcs, hobbits and elves with the unique soundtrack to "The Hobbit", performed by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. Immerse yourself in this vinyl, capturing the musical magic that accompanies the epic adventures of Bilbo the Hobbit. Each note resonates like an enchantment, evoking the emotions and images of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantastic world. A musical work of art not to be missed, offering total immersion in the captivating world of The Hobbit. It's an invitation to experience the timeless magic of the music from this cinematic masterpiece
Here at Four Flies, we kind of feel we need a bigger word than 'proud', this time, to present, in collaboration with Beat Records, the first-ever release of the original soundtrack written in 1976 by Guido & Maurizio De Angelis for the legendary Squadra Antifurto, the second chapter of the comedy-infused crime saga directed by Bruno Corbucci and starring Tomas Milian as the iconic Italian Police Marshal Nico Giraldi.
The excitement in this case is nothing short of gigantic, difficult to rein in for those who, like ourselves, grew up adoring the character played by Milian as one of our cult heroes, and dreaming that the soundtracks of the first three films in the saga – the only ones composed by the De Angelis brothers – would one day be released.
Since the launch of our label, Squadra Antifurto has been at the top of the list of film scores we most wanted to release. Until a few months ago, this dream of ours seemed destined to remain just that, so strong was the conviction in all of us that the master tapes were definitively lost, that they had forever vanished into thin air. That's why their recovery, made possible by Maurizio De Angelis himself and the persistence of our friends at Beat Records, is an extraordinary feat.
Nearly 50 years after it was first heard in cinemas, the soundtrack penned by the De Angelis brothers is resurrected in its entirety and can finally shine its incredible power all over us.
Beautifully seeping through this score – like many others composed by the golden duo in the 1970s – are elements from the Italian, and especially Roman, folk tradition, for instance in the warm, heartfelt ballad sung by Alberto Griso, "E nun ce voio sta," which first plays in the opening credit sequence and is then reprised in various forms throughout the film, culminating with the soul-stirring orchestral version that closes the album's tracklist.
But as in any Italian crime film worthy of that name, a different soundscapetakes centre stage: it's the music that accompanies the countless scenes of tension, action, and pursuit that punctuate the film, and which has made us fall madly in love with this score.
The main theme is a prog-funk joyride, drawing inspiration from the traditional tarantella but elevated to irresistible energy thanks to a rock orchestration featuring psychedelic flutes, wild percussion, distorted electric guitars, piano chords, and various feedback and delay effects.
The resulting groove is just mind-blowing, and we almost can't believe it's finally available on a record, completely remastered for vinyl.
We really couldn't be prouder, and dedicate this release to all passionate fans of Italian crime films, the De Angelis brothers, and Tomas Milian aka Nico Giraldi.
Available starting April 12th on standard black vinyl and limited coloured vinyl (transparent amber, limited to 300 copies).
New album from one of the best rock acts from Denmark. Cinematic sound, evoking the Nordic prairie images, while crossing the ocean to Americana and folk rock styles. The band has played gigs opening
for international big names such as The Eagles, Rival Sons, lackberry Smoke, and Rick Springfield
Over the course of five albums, Manchester based trumpeter, composer, arranger and band-leader Matthew Halsall has carved out a niche for himself on the UK music scene as one of it's brightest talents. His languid, soulful music has won friends from Jamie Cullum and Gilles Peterson to Jazz FM and Mojo as well as an ever-growing international following. His new album Into Forever, puts the spotlight on Halsall the composer, arranger and producer. Halsall draws on a diverse range of influences from Alice Coltrane, Dorothy Ashby, Phil Cohran and Leon Thomas to the more contemporary sounds of The Cinematic Orchestra, Max Richter and Nils Frahm to deliver his most complete recording to date. Into Forever features renowned Manchester based soul poet Josephine Oniyama and rising star vocalist Bryony Jarman-Pinto (Werkha) as well as regular collaborators, flautist Lisa Mallett, harpist Rachael Gladwin, koto player Keiko Kitamura, pianist Taz Modi, bassist Gavin Barras and drummer Luke Flowers (The Cinematic Orchestra) and two percussionists Sam Bell and Chris Cruiks. The result is arguably Halsall's finest record, asublime melding of stripped back soulful funk and deep, minimalist, spiritual jazz, that will take you on a journey deep into forever!
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Proudly presenting a new series of Mr Bongo reissues exploring the incredible back catalogue of Sonny Lester’s iconic Groove Merchant record label. First up, the spellbinding funk-fuelled, soul jazz album ‘Simba’, by guitar maestro O'Donel Levy.
Baltimore-born, Levy was already well regarded as one of the best up-and-coming jazz guitarists at the time of Simba’s release. Having toured with George Benson and Jimmy McGriff, as well as featuring on McGriff’s Black Pearl album on Blue Note, he went on to sign with Sonny Lester’s Groove Merchant. Produced by Lester himself and recorded over two back-to-back days of sessions in 1973, Simba features a who's who of ‘70s session players. The album features the legendary studio drummer Steve Gadd, Cecil Bridgewater on Flugelhorn, bass by Tony Levin and arrangements by Manny Albam.
A masterclass in tight yet effortlessly funk-driven rhythms, the tracks showcase these musicians at their zenith. Album opener 'Bad, Bad, Simba' wouldn’t have been out of place on a Lalo Schifrin ‘70s car chase soundtrack. Levy's playing is brilliant, bright and slick, with an infectiously exuberant energy that is complimented perfectly by Gadd's supreme drumming. ‘Playhouse' serves up another vibrant offering, Wah Wah guitars, horns and flutes duelling it out in a fast-paced fashion.
The cinematic thread continues throughout, yet with the tempo taken down a notch. 'Sierra Lonely' and ‘Sad, Sad, Simba’ head into lush ballad territory, with superb arrangements by Albam and beautiful playing by Collins and Bridgewater on Flugelhorn. Here Levy shines without taking any limelight, as the players synergize to a relaxed perfection. ‘Nigerian Knights’ closes the album flawlessly, showcasing once more Levy’s understated yet magnetic flow on the guitar.
Every track on ‘Simba’ is a winner. As with CTI Recordings of the same era, the feel and textures of Sonny Lester's productions have that pre-emptive, hip-hop aesthetic, which later producers would rework and reimagine. This album is expertly balanced, deftly arranged and magically executed, ebbing and flowing with a cool buoyancy that just grooves and grooves.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Since their debut album in 2005, Finnish post-rock cinematic epics, Oddarrang, have been captivating audiences with their unique blend of atmospheric, melodically infused, and harmonically rich music, woven around an uncommon combination of guitars, cello, and trombone. The term "odd arrangement," from which Oddarrang takes its name, perfectly describes their effortless merging of atmospheric charm with post-rock influences, tasteful synth production, and resonant brass. In 2024, Oddarrang is set to release their fifth and self-confessed final album, an album that many consider their magnum opus.
This highly anticipated release blends all the elements from their previous works, resulting in a highly compelling musical masterpiece. The anticipation for this album is at its peak, representing the culmination of their artistic growth over the years. As a collective group, Oddarrang is a melting pot of diverse musicians, each contributing their distinct style to the musical canvas. Their evocative compositions possess a cinematic quality, conjuring a plethora of emotions and vivid imagery in the minds of their listeners. This forthcoming album stands as a true testament to Oddarrang's unwavering dedication and artistic evolution. It is a reflection of their authentic connection to the music they create, inviting audiences to embark on a transformative and emotionally charged musical journey.
"Oddarrang" includes the following tracks: "Lull", "Mishkan", "White Wall pt. 2" and more and comes on orange vinyl.
Having built a loyal local Antwerp following off of the success of their 2019 debut self released album, ‘Forgotten Kingdom’, and growing reputation for electrifying stage performances, Kolonel Djafaar achieved worldwide recognition in 2021 for the ‘Cold Heat’ EP on Batov Records, attracting praise from Music Is My Sanctuary (“triumphant), and support from Gideon Coe on BBC 6 Radio Music, and DJs across Worldwide FM, Soho Radio, Le Mellotron, and KEXP.
The group overcame busy schedules and frequent quarantine periods to hit the studio in February 2022 to lay down four tracks. However, the creative itch persisted, leading to an intense writing session in August, deep in the heart of a tranquil forest. From noon until midnight, the band immersed themselves in the creative process, embracing the freedom to make noise without restraint.
Fueled by hearty breakfasts, unwavering focus, and the ambient clucking of chickens roaming the studio, Kolonel Djafaar crafted the majority of ‘Getaway’. This period marked a pivotal shift as a number of new band members joined just in time for the August sessions.
Membership changes, including Emiel Lauryssen joining on trumpet, alongside guitarist Philip Matthhijnssens, the band's palette has broadened and new sounds are able to break through. From psychedelic rock and soul influence of the Daptone Records’ affiliated Budos Band, surf rock (“Urban Dweller”), Morricone Spaghetti Western guitar, and Afro Cuban (“Kelmendi”), alongside the brassy Afrobeat and Ethio jazz vibes the group have been known for.
The broader dynamics of ‘Getaway’, and the band’s more cinematic and experimental approach, is particularly apparent on "Siren’s Glitch" and "Phil’s First Tear". The latter, first conceived by drummer Anton Van Hove, features the lead guitar doubling up with the bass guitar for added impact. Whilst the origins of "Convoi Exceptionnel", a brass & synths stomper of a march, trace back to a jam session during the band's Hungarian tour, another vital period of prolonged time together, capturing the organic essence of their experiences on the road.
Each track on ‘Getaway’ holds a unique connection to at least one band member, and all benefit from a collaborative approach to songwriting. "Sparking Clover'', an Ethio-inspired psych & soul groover penned by tenor saxophonist Doyin Smith, carries a poignant undertone inspired by personal loss, while psych rock leaning tracks like "Apologies in Advance" showcase the band's evolution and increasing professionalism in crafting a distinct sonic experience.
The curious cover art depicts a lone individual heading down an empty city street towards a large mysterious glowing object, evoking the common emptiness and struggle of urban life, and the search for meaning or just something better. The band envision the object to represent this album, offering a beacon to like-minded listeners. Kolonel Djafaar invite music enthusiasts on an immersive journey, to ‘Getaway’ from the daily grind of life, on an album reflecting diverse influences and marking a new chapter in their musical exploration.
If 2022’s The Children Of Scorpio was the debut album that turned people onto the world of Project Gemini aka Paul Osborne, Colours & Light is the body of work that will be buried deep into their hearts. It is a majestic album, bringing together the worlds of folk rock, psych soundtracks and hazy cinematic funk.
A growing confidence and ease emanate from the writing and production of this sophomore LP, bolstered by the reception to his standout debut. “It’s a more layered and diverse record” Paul mentions, “with a more outward-looking, global sound, born out of the records I was listening to and the musicians I was lucky enough to collaborate with”. It feels relaxed yet self-assured, with a kaleidoscope of sounds that twist together in a mesmerising fashion.
The theme of the album developed naturally through the lyrics Paul began writing. A creative process both plagued and fed by insomnia, nourished by relationships, entwined in emotions, nights out, nights in and the after-effects on the human condition. Relatable themes yet seen through the prism of a soundscape that takes in many a different culture and scene. From acid folk to psych-funk, Francophile elements to Anatolian and Eastern inspirations, all interlocking and rotating as one.
Drawing inspiration from those he admires, Colours & Light radiates with collaborations. The title track, which tips its hat to a live 1973 TV version of Pentangle’s ‘Wedding Dress’, features the folk rock, guitar brilliance of Jack Sharp from Wolf People/Large Plants.
Elsewhere, two tracks are blessed by the sultry, smokey French vocals of Gloria’s Wendy Martinez, ‘Extra Nuit’ and ‘Entre chien et loup’. The former echoes Paul's love of classic French psych-pop from the late ’60s and early ’70s and artists such as Laurance Vanay, Calcium, Leonie, and Serge Gainsbourg. Martinez's sublime vocal work nestles perfectly within Paul's psych-folk-funk productions, as her Gloria partner, Alexis Morel (aka Kid Victrola) sprinkles a dose of entrancing guitar line magic on proceedings.
The list of collaborations extends further with Raz and Markey Funk, drummer Tony Coote and percussionist Paul Elliott all featuring. Regular collaborator and underground icon Barrie Cadogan (Little Barrie) returns along with Bert Page from The Cromagnon Band, who between them provide a hit of whacked-out, fuzzed-up country guitar and Moog madness respectively on ‘Lost In The Woods (Bacchanal)’.
Rounding off the record Paul’s daughter, Olivia Osborne, supplies the keyboard intro on the penultimate track ‘Twilight’. Dorian Conway from The Soundcarriers (whose bandmate Paul Isherwood returns on mixing duties) then layers echoing heavy flute parts to magically capture the psychedelic sunrise images brought to mind.
Balancing light and shade on this record, there is beauty and tension all wrapped up in Paul’s vivid and visceral, storytelling gift.
If 2022’s The Children Of Scorpio was the debut album that turned people onto the world of Project Gemini aka Paul Osborne, Colours & Light is the body of work that will be buried deep into their hearts. It is a majestic album, bringing together the worlds of folk rock, psych soundtracks and hazy cinematic funk.
A growing confidence and ease emanate from the writing and production of this sophomore LP, bolstered by the reception to his standout debut. “It’s a more layered and diverse record” Paul mentions, “with a more outward-looking, global sound, born out of the records I was listening to and the musicians I was lucky enough to collaborate with”. It feels relaxed yet self-assured, with a kaleidoscope of sounds that twist together in a mesmerising fashion.
The theme of the album developed naturally through the lyrics Paul began writing. A creative process both plagued and fed by insomnia, nourished by relationships, entwined in emotions, nights out, nights in and the after-effects on the human condition. Relatable themes yet seen through the prism of a soundscape that takes in many a different culture and scene. From acid folk to psych-funk, Francophile elements to Anatolian and Eastern inspirations, all interlocking and rotating as one.
Drawing inspiration from those he admires, Colours & Light radiates with collaborations. The title track, which tips its hat to a live 1973 TV version of Pentangle’s ‘Wedding Dress’, features the folk rock, guitar brilliance of Jack Sharp from Wolf People/Large Plants.
Elsewhere, two tracks are blessed by the sultry, smokey French vocals of Gloria’s Wendy Martinez, ‘Extra Nuit’ and ‘Entre chien et loup’. The former echoes Paul's love of classic French psych-pop from the late ’60s and early ’70s and artists such as Laurance Vanay, Calcium, Leonie, and Serge Gainsbourg. Martinez's sublime vocal work nestles perfectly within Paul's psych-folk-funk productions, as her Gloria partner, Alexis Morel (aka Kid Victrola) sprinkles a dose of entrancing guitar line magic on proceedings.
The list of collaborations extends further with Raz and Markey Funk, drummer Tony Coote and percussionist Paul Elliott all featuring. Regular collaborator and underground icon Barrie Cadogan (Little Barrie) returns along with Bert Page from The Cromagnon Band, who between them provide a hit of whacked-out, fuzzed-up country guitar and Moog madness respectively on ‘Lost In The Woods (Bacchanal)’.
Rounding off the record Paul’s daughter, Olivia Osborne, supplies the keyboard intro on the penultimate track ‘Twilight’. Dorian Conway from The Soundcarriers (whose bandmate Paul Isherwood returns on mixing duties) then layers echoing heavy flute parts to magically capture the psychedelic sunrise images brought to mind.
Balancing light and shade on this record, there is beauty and tension all wrapped up in Paul’s vivid and visceral, storytelling gift.
Transparent Yellow w/ Black Splatter Vinyl. Since founding Swedish synthpop duo KITE in 2008, singer Nicklas Stenemo and keyboardist Christian Hutchinson Berg's brooding fusion of cinematic electronics and anthemic pop has steadily elevated into a spectacle of passion, atmosphere, and communion. Their debut double-A vinyl single for Dais Records, Don't take the light away / Remember me captures KITE at their most urgent, thrilling and apocalyptic."Don't take the light away" is a song about "the war between energies," with singer Stenemo's wounded croon leading a rising tide of stabbing strings, pulsing percussion, and looming bass orchestrated by keyboardist Hutchinson Berg, surging to a mass-chanted chorus both desperate and triumphant ("dance, let them dance into me / people versus people can't see / hands should be holding hands"). "Remember me" was written following the band's 2017 US tour, capturing the intense feelings of burnout and exhaustion. "Remember me, Won't you remember me, Promise you'll remember me."Words only tell half of the story; smoke spills across the stage, and the melodies become a battle cry. Our worst fears eventually boil over, turning into hope and resilience. Like the best of KITE's music, "Don't take the light away" and "Remember me" fuse theater and catharsis into anthems of universal yearning, born of "the struggle to keep a flickering candle lit in a very dark space."
Northwest & Nebulous is Liverpool-based musician Luce Mawdsley’s sixth studio release, a lush and accomplished instrumental album suffused with radiant and fluid possibilities, where expansively cinematic instrumentals conjure queer cowboy landscapes via the Northern English coastline. The album is a world-building piece of work, pulling from folk, Americana and soundtrack influences, fusing their romantic and exploratory energies to signal the beginning of a new journey for composer, with an open invitation for listeners to come along for the ride. The album was recorded and mixed by Luce Mawdsley in the Grade II listed Scandinavian Church in Liverpool, with a core chamber trio of Luce on guitar, organ and percussion, Nicholas Branton on clarinets, and Rachel Nicholas on viola. A self-taught musician, Mawdsley has released a host of both solo and collaborative albums (Mésange, Cavalier Song), and in 2023 started Pure O records, an independent record label dedicated to the nurture of queer and curious music based in the Northwest of England. “Wordlessly fashions heady, droney atmospheres that could soundtrack a film where a man walks through a monochrome desert” - The Quietus “The spindly guitars and knotty progressions of ‘Insect Fire Dance’ and ‘Heathen’ explore an unprissy English prog with soil under its fingernails” - 8/10 UNCUT "A triumph of imagination – a wide-eyed stare at the skies, in love with sound and possibility." - **** The Skinny “It’s not a stretch to suggest that no one is making music like Mawdsley. While the Liverpool visionary’s 2020 release, Vulgar Displays of Affection (Maple Death Records), was something likened to splintered bones passing through a meat grinder, Mawdsley’s Luke Two is far removed, solidifying the notions of an artist leaping from one sound world” - Sun 13 “Hallucinatory echoes of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s dream-realism symbolic El Topo share room with otherworldly portals and the all-too real depressive, bleak traps of a run-down, unloved English seaside town.” Monolith Cocktail
The new record from San Francisco based band Monophonics entitled "In Your Brain" sits on the fuzzy psych side of soul and funk. Paying homage to innovators such as Sly Stone, Norman Whitfield and Funkedelic's George Clinton, the 6 piece outfit displays their ability to put a moody stamp on each composition. Touching on everything from cinematic soul, heavy funk, 60's rock and spaghetti western laced with yellow sunshine acid, the album is sure to leave you tuned in and turned on!
Ryan Kaiser has already made a name for himself creating daydreamy, sun-blasted, Polaroid-pop as Yot Club. With his second full-length, Rufus, Kaiser is expanding his sonic palette and challenging his own established modes of music making by letting collaborators in. The record includes co-writes with the likes of Tommy English (Carly Rae Jepsen, Kacey Musgraves), and singer Charli Adams, with Patrick Wimberly (formerly one-half of Chairlift) on mixing duties, and the result is a collection of songs that sounds bolder and brighter. From the shimmering surf-pop of opener “Stuntman,” to the minor chord angst and quiet-loud-quiet pulse of “New Day,” to The Strokesian swoon of album closer “Lazy Eyes,” Kaiser lo-fi hooks have a new cinematic scope. It continues Kaiser’s coming of age — looking back, picking it all apart, trying to work it all out, and constantly pushing forward.
Loup Vert is the first jazz album of French pianist Julien Grassen Barbe, joined for the occasion by double bassist Sébastien Bacquias and drummer Fabien Duscombs. Conceived and composed in the Pyrenees mountains, recorded around Paris, it is an album of twelve tracks that came as a response to the proposal of Julien Galner (producer, founder of HIDD label). Loup Vert is the name of a fetish, a creature that breathes inspiration. Informed by many influences, from Frédéric Chopin to Morton Feldman, from Erik Satie to Herbie Hancock, through Keith Jarrett, Madlib and Naftule Brandwein, Julien Grassen Barbe's music opens a space dedicated to improvisation, melody, and the exploration of textures. Trained in classical music, graduate of the conservatory of the Hautes-Pyrénées region, where he is originally from, Julien Grassen Barbe is a songwriter and a musician, but also an ethnomusicologist, specialist in Jewish music, and a published author. A trip to New-York, land of Thelonious Monk, had a deep impact on him. He used it as a time for jam sessions, lessons with some of his favorite musicians, Aaron Parks, Aaron Goldberg, Barry Harris. Between 2014 and 2016, he explored pop, invited by Chateau-Marmont and Exotica to collaborate on two records as a keyboardist. It is on this occasion that he got closer to Julien Galner, producer, founder of the HIDD record label who asked him to record a jazz record. They entered the studio to record Loup Vert, a project that is a cross between impressionism, cinema, be-bop, mathematics and improvised music. Most of the pieces were written by Julien Grassen Barbe, mixing acoustic and electric/electronic worlds.
US-based producer MACK LOENZ makes his Lone Romantic debut with the beautifully anthemic ‘Dance With Me’. Centred around its captivating vocal, ‘Dance With Me’ layers its sounds throughout. Pulsing bass, half-time kicks and rasping snares, are adorned with powerful synth chords, chops, and aquatic flourishes. The track builds, yet never peaks, always maintaining its sense of stripped elegance and mystery throughout.
Maceo Plex, fresh from the release of his critically acclaimed new album ‘’93’, makes a swift return to the label to lend his signature touch to ‘Dance With Me’. Initially drawn to the beauty of the original, the Lone Romantic boss now deftly reimagines the track, slowing the tempo, amplifying the vocal and adding a cinematic propulsion to synths that results in a spine-tingling rework.
‘Dance With Me’ (incl. Maceo Plex Remix) by Mack Loenz is available on Lone Romantic from 21st March 2024.
out of Stock
Last delivered 4 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Polycarp boss Simon Ferdinand delivers the cinematic electronica ‘Six Months’ EP in 2024, recorded across this time period and influenced by travels to Sicily, Baltimore and Zanzibar.
Hamburg, Germany’s Polycarp is the brainchild of Simon Ferdinand and has been active as a platform for the music of Simon under his own name, Basch and their music together as Bonn, as well as further notable artists such as Tilman and Johannes Albert. Here, Ferdinand returns to the imprint with another solo sonic adventure, traversing through a range of emotions and influences with elements of glitch, ambient, electro, breaks, EBM and more instilled within the project.
‘Broken’ leads the release and sets the tone through an amalgamation of hazy, glitched out jazz loops obscured and processed throughout. Title-track ‘Six Months’ then shifts towards a more ethereal deep house aesthetic with cossetting textures, stuttering synth
chords, elongated bass drones and jazzy organic drums. ‘In The Lab’ follows next and sees Basch join forces with Simon to create a haunting slice of broken beat deepness fuelled by murky low-end pulsations, saturated drums and gritty stab sequences.
First up on the flip-side is ‘The Beginning’, shifting gears towards classic electro tropes with boomy 808’s, unfurling arpeggios and twitchy resonant synth bleeps before ‘Santa Maria’ rounds out the release with a contemporary electronica feel, fusing fluttering square wave bass lines, crisp amen breaks and intricately intertwined textural elements.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Stolen Goods Records announce Pergola's cinematic techno 'Zed' EP, featuring a remix from indie-dance legend CURSES.
Exploring hypnotic, emotionally charged melodies and vast techno breakdowns, the title track opens up the EP with a strong sense of mystery. Suspenseful strings build in anticipation as the bassline filters in intensity, this deep space offenng is the perfect example of a tune fit for the club as well as headphone-listening.
'Freak' is a beautifully intense piece featuring soft synths marked by subtle scratches, a feel-good vocal and the catchy strum of a quitar. '"Zed' is then given the CURSES treatment, the Optimo Music, Bordello a Parigi and Correspondant artist amplifies its retro feel resulting in nine minutes of pure dark disco hedonism. Closing out the release is an ambient collaboration between Pergola and Luigi Sambuy, 'Tunnel' is an ode to the early days of IDM through to the '70s.
*"Zed' marks the third release on Lele Sacchi & Asian Fake's Stolen Goods Records and follows up their widely acclaimed 'Volume 0' compilation as well as the recent collaborative EP between Black Loops & Innocent Soul. Since its launch last summer, the label has seen the support of artists like Dixon, Sasha, DJ Seinfeld and DJ Sneak and has garnered plays on prestigious stations like NTS and BBC Radio 1. The imprint continues its strong start to the year with three new tracks from the hyper-talented Pergola: a newcomer to the scene whos aready listed on labels such as Multinotes, Sementa ano Adriatiques Siamese, the latter which saw/ him reach number one on Beatport's Electronica chart.
out of Stock
Last delivered 9 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
SOYUZ (СОЮЗ) stole our hearts back in 2022 when we released their album Force Of The Wind to critical acclaim. Here we proudly present the predecessor to that LP, the band’s sophomore long player from 2019 that was previously only available digitally. It captures a pivotal evolving period in the band's career, the recordings giving a snapshot of what would become their sound on Force Of The Wind, yet with echoes of avant-psychedelic-pop footprints from yester years.
Produced at a time when band leader Alex Chumak had moved from Minsk to Kyiv, torn between the need to try something new and the homesickness it brought about. Travelling back to Minsk almost weekly, Alex joined fellow band members Mikita Arlou and Stanislav Murashko to lay down II at Studio 42. The album captures these transient feelings, contextualised through the broad scope of influences the band were nourished by. From MPB to Ethio-Jazz and the Italian library soundtracks of Piero Piccioni and Piero Umiliani, the album shines with touches of joy from across the globe.
The opening track 'Verocai' is a tribute to the Brazilian maestro and 'Mirouze', whilst being named after a French favourite of the band, Jean-Pierre Mirouze, pays clear homage to Milton Nascimento and Lô Borges. A ghostly sample and invisible connection to music made miles away in a different era that has influenced and become part of the band’s lives. This is further reinforced in the album's enchanting closer, the aptly titled 'Nascimento', another nod to the great Brazilian musician and singer.
The beginnings of the cinematic, soul-laden jazz SOYUZ are now known for, are on display across the likes of ‘Lyric’ and 'Motive I'. The latter an orchestrated jazz instrumental with sensuous string sections, all of which were recorded on the warmth of a Studer reel-to-reel and waltzing Rhodes keys.
SOYUZ’s wide-ranging palate is further demonstrated in tracks like ‘Business Partners’ with its Krauty, kosmische, new wave production featuring Inturist, and the oh-too-short Anatolian-influenced interlude 'Corrida'. Elsewhere, 'Tezeta' and ‘ES-2 Jazz’ hint at the psychedelic haze of soul-funk, with the former featuring verses from Serbian rapper Petar Martic.
For this new physical and digital release, the whole album was mixed from scratch by Ryan Power before Joker worked his magic on the remaster. More excellence is to come from SOYUZ, but in the meantime, we are thrilled to present this essential recording from the band’s foundational years, mixed to a level that does it the justice it deserves.
out of Stock
Last delivered 22 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
MIZU’s Forest Scenes is an experimental project at its core - an exploration of the vast possibilities of the cello (as a melodic instrument, as a seed for digital manipulation, as a percussive and resonant body) within a forest of electronically synthesized sounds, found samples, and vocals. Conceived and composed primarily over the course of two inspired weeks in Summer 2022 during a visit to São Paulo, Brazil (following the completion of MIZU’s debut Distant Intervals), Forest Scenes is a journey within oneself as much as a journey into the unknowns of various woodlands and uncharted, yet-to-be-explored territories. The title, while referencing Robert Schumann's hidden gem of a piano work Waldszenen, makes no overt musical odes to its Romantic predecessor; rather, it creates an entirely new narrative and language of its own. Cinematic in composition and production, the album relishes in darkness and mystery as much as the excitements and joys of pure exploration.
The vinyl is pressed as a colour in colour, pink & red disc.
With two critically acclaimed albums and a swathe of award-winning production turns under their belt, Ana Frango Elétrico present their most confident and accomplished work to date: Me Chama De Gato Que Eu Sou Sua / Call Me They That I’m Yours. Gesturing to a tradition of Brazilian boogie music, but bouncing with modern pop ebullience, the album sees the Rio artist evolve from a captivating upstart into a surefooted scene leader in full stride.
At just 25, the prolific artist and producer has already garnered worldwide admirers. Ana’s sophomore Little Electric Chicken Heart was nominated at the 2020 Latin Grammys. Since then, standalone singles have received the WME ‘Best Music Producer’ Award, recognising Ana’s deep passion for music production – a passion which has led to collaborations with nascent Brazilian stars Dora Morelenbaum, Illy and Sophia Chablau. Most recently, Ana was hailed for their co-production of Bala Desejo’s 2022 Latin Grammy-winning album Sim Sim Sim.
The new album finds Ana at their most assured and full voiced. Album opener “Electric Fish”, with funky bass and shimmering backing vocals, sets a buoyant tone. “Boy of Stranger Things” is its bombastic counterpart. It’s the grooviest Ana has ever sounded. And the most brazen. Lyrically, where Ana was once oblique on personal matters, they are now forthright – lucidly exploring their gender identity, citing accessible cultural references, and often singing in English.
“I started this album in 2021 with the intention of showing, in means of sound, understandings and feelings about queer love, subjectively exposing myself,” the non-binary artist states – before qualifying that though “feeling was its driving force, the album is really about musical production.”
“There’s so many references to different decades,” Ana explains. “Seventies drums with eighties processing … Going back, getting beyond … Testing the limits of organic sounds”. Characteristically playful, on Me Chama, Ana takes vivid and rewarding detours through funk-inflected R&B (“Dela”) and art pop (“Dr. Sabe Tudo”). “Nuvem Vermelha” is a cinematic chanson with lush strings that recalls Arthur Verocai. Then, “Coisa Maluca” loafs with the indie insouciance of Canadian slacker Mac Demarco. Later, “Let's Go Before Again”, is a full-on drum machine workout evocative of Stereolab.
“Even if people don't find my own references here, they'll find theirs,” observes Ana. “Maybe that’s this record’s biggest goal.”
Finnish Recue debuts on Analogical Force with 'Paramnesia EP', where Riku Annala explores the murkier side of electronic soundscapes with distorted and gritty undertones. With impeccable production, Recue guides us through this expedition in his highly distinctive style that blurs boundaries between bass music, idm and reflective electro-nix. 'Paramnesia EP' takes you on a cinematic journey through post apocalyptic soundscapes full of deep bass, textures and nuances. Some of Paramnesia's tracks have accompanied Recue in his live sets, acting as a counterbalance for the most nolanesque moments, when the music starts driving the listener forward in full speed. Some have started as reworks of other material, gradually morphing into something completely different, leaving only a memory of something that never came to be. The release is the result of a dialogue and curation together with AF, and the end result is something that sits comfortably in the sound that is Recue and undertone that's Analogical Force. You know what to do!
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Queeste emerges with the nocturnal sounds of Haron's Wandelaar, an album exploring his long-term interest in music's talent for inducing and affecting dreams, successfully turning listening into an act of transport, leaving you in the midst of falling asleep, at a junction of dislocation, hazily arriving in a liminal world. In Wandelaar we hear Haron's playful reaction against the confines of dance music, gathering energy from his estrangement from the scene and using it as a means to reorder and interrogate sound. The modest piano takes centre stage, allowing each solo note to becoming fertile and full, suspended and considered, guided by the principles of minimal composers such as John Cage and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Haron delicately translates sparse chords into a cinematic narrative of ascension, conjuring up a 'moony landscape,' grey and desolate from afar, intricately detailed on approach. Haron's Wandelaar is available 6 July 2018 on LP. The vinyl release includes an art print by Fallon Does, who is also responsible for the graphic design of Wandelaar. All tracks written and produced by Haron Aumaj, mastered by Wouter for Brandenburg Mastering. Words by Jo Kali.
Early support by Ben UFO, Call Super, Beatrice Dillon, Kara-Lis Coverdale, Matt Werth (RVNG), Blowing Up The Workshop, Oceanic, Khotin.
Japanese alt-rock band BO NINGEN are delighted to announce they will be releasing an alternative soundtrack album to cult director Alejandro Jodorowsky's seminal film 'The Holy Mountain', set for release on 15th March 2024 via Alcopop! Records on double CD and a limited box set of triple vinyl, each in their own unique colour In partnership with Deeper Into Movies, the band will also be hosting a very special live performance of their alternative soundtrack at EartH, Hackney on 1st March 2024 --a 700 capacity tiered seated venue with original Art Deco features and state of the art L-ISA sound system, to provide the best possible experience of this must-see-and-hear event.
Commenting on the release, Kohhei Matsuda (guitar/synth) and Monchan Monna (drums) said: "We wanted to make something more than 'a band jamming to the film' live score. To do so, we tried to decipher the secret of Jodorowsky's alchemy to reach our own Holy Mountain, reflecting the underlying structure of the film-- which is delusional at sight, yet mystically logical throughout--in each stage of the music. It was quite an experience to work on the piece that way, diving deep into the director's vision where the border between the reality, delusion, the film, and real life blurs. Trying not to drown in it all, we had to find our own path back to our own version of reality. This is an aural representation of our own version of the film. We hope each of you find your own way to your own version of The Holy Mountain through reliving this mind-altering journey with us."
The band originally performed their alternative soundtrack to the film 'Holy Mountain' in July 2019 for 2 sold out nights at the Rio Cinema in Dalston, where it was nominated for 'Best Event Cinema Campaign Of The Year 2019'. During the brief latter periods of the pandemic when the band were allowed to travel internationally between London and Japan, BO NINGEN at last managed to reconvene as a unit in London to finally commit the soundtrack to record.
Los Angeles duo crushed announce their signing to Ghostly International and the first vinyl pressing of their 2023 debut EP, extra life. A love letter to `90s radio, the first collaboration from musicians Bre Morell and Shaun Durkan finds them tuning a shared taste for maximalist dream pop. Open-hearted hooks and melodic riffs move through a haze of breakbeats, spliced sound design, and distortion. Faithful yet fluid in its channeling of golden age alt-rock, Britpop, trip-hop, and electronica, there's a refreshing freedom to the sound, which quickly resonated with fans and critics upon initial release. Pitchfork called it "effortless, widescreen dream pop that's serene without being sentimental," and NPR cited its "deep sense of place and time." The music also struck Ghostly, and the first measure for crushed and their new label home is to give extra life a wider physical release paired with remixes from band favorites Real Lies and DJ Python. The story of crushed is written across midnight transmissions. In the early 2010s, Morell, who fronts the band Temple of Angels (Run For Cover Records), hosted a graveyard shift college radio show and used to play music from Durkan's former band Weekend (Slumberland Records). In 2020, Durkan, having focused on production work (Tamaryn, Young Prisms) following Weekend's run as a formidable shoegaze act, hosted a late-night program on a community radio station in San Francisco. Driving one day, he heard Temple of Angels by chance and was immediately drawn to Morell's voice. He added a song that night to his on-air tracklist. Morell saw it and reached out to thank him and point to that connection made a decade earlier. The exchange sparked a long-distance project. First, they filled an audible moodboard with `90s classics from the likes of Natalie Imbruglia, Sneaker Pimps, and The Sundays. Songs that transported them back to places of comfort and discovery; Morell's memories of a metallic, lavender boombox that dispatched past sounds from a world beyond her Houston suburbia, and Durkan, in his mom's car on the way to band practice. These touchpoints provided a palette for crushed to experiment without expectations, purely for the fun of it. A creative intimacy emerged; stepping outside the reverb walls of her full band, Morell embraced more clarity and a range of emotions in her vocals, while Durkan looked inward as a producer, collaging fragments from their everyday lives: voice memos, piano recordings, even the panting of Morell's late dog on "milksugar." The wistful ballad embodies extra life's feeling as a whole. "I am home again," sings Morell; her refrain cycles above a drum machine beat as Durkan colors their universe with star-lit strums, synth swells, and the crackle of fireworks in the distance. Elsewhere, the duo's uptempo mode is equally effective, like the super-charged duet "coil" or the propulsive opener "waterlily," which sets a cinematic tone for the set. Bold, bright, and replayable, extra life presents crushed as a project of immense promise, two artists unlocking something special within themselves, a space to hold both melancholy and bliss. Durkan adds, "To me, extra life is true and pure - in a way I haven't felt about music in a really really long time."
Dire Straits never made a big to-do about its final run. In classic understated British fashion, the band simply let its music speak for itself. And how. Originally released in September 1991, On Every Street became the group's swan song – a lasting testament to the influence, musicianship, and integrity of an ensemble whose merit has never been tainted by cash-grab reunions or farewell treks. It remains an essential part of the Dire Straits catalog and a blueprint of the distinctive U.K. roots rock the collective played for its 15-year career.
Sourced from the original master tapes, housed in gatefold packaging, and pressed at RTI, Mobile Fidelity's 180g 45RPM 2LP set of On Every Street presents the album like it has always been meant to be experienced: in reference-grade audiophile sound. Recorded at AIR Studios in London and produced by Dire Straits leader Mark Knopfler, it features all of the band's sonic hallmarks – wide instrumental separation, visceral textures, seemingly limitless air, broad soundstages, atmospherics that you can almost reach out and feel. Each element is made more vibrant, physical, and lifelike on this collectible reissue, which marks the first time this 60-minute work has been available at 45RPM speed.
Afforded generous groove space and black backgrounds, the songs from On Every Street burst with nuanced details and vibrant colors. Dire Straits' playing appears to float, their intricate performances organized amid hypnotic, fluid, three-dimensional arrangements. Mobile Fidelity's definitive-sounding set also brings into transparent view Knopfler's finely sculpted guitar lines, expressive tones, and laid-back vocals – as well as the balanced accompaniment from his band mates. Here's a record on which you can hear the full blossom and decay of individual notes, and imagine the size and shape of the studio. It is in every regard a demonstration disc. And it happens to be filled with timeless fare.
Remarkably, On Every Street almost never came to light. Dire Straits initially dissolved in September 1988 after touring behind its blockbuster Brothers in Arms and suffering the departure of two members. At the time, Knopfler professed his desire to work on solo material; bassist John Illsley also explored side projects. But Knopfler's decision in 1989 to form the country-leaning Notting Hillbillies reignited a spark to reconvene his primary band and craft a fresh batch of songs. Six years removed from Brothers in Arms, Knopfler, Illsley, keyboardist Alan Clark, and keyboardist Guy Fletcher teamed with A-list session pros – steel guitarist Paul Franklin, percussionist Danny Cummings, saxophonist Chris White, guitarist Phil Palmer included – to create what still stands as an unforgettable farewell.
The platinum record brings the band full circle in that it returns Dire Straits to a quartet formation; finds the group refreshingly out of step with the era's prevailing trends; and sees Knopfler and Co. knocking out song after song with the deceptive ease of a punter tossing back a pint at a pub. That subtle cool, clever poise, and innate control – signature traits that no other band ever matched – dominate On Every Street. Knopfler's clean, virtuosic six-string escapades unfurl with dizzying melodicism and economical efficiency. Led by his winding fills and focused solos, Dire Straits traverse a hybrid landscape of rock, jazz, country, boogie, blues, and pop strains with near-faultless prowess.
More than any other entry in the group's oeuvre, On Every Street welcomes quick detours down back alleys and into the depths of human souls. What makes it more brilliant is its staunch refusal to cater to commercial expectations or take advantage of prior successes; every passage feels true, every measure echoed in the service of song. It's evident in the humorous satire of "Heavy Fuel," closeted desperation of the witty "Calling Elvis," and shake-and-bake bounce of "The Bug." It pours from the album's darker corners, as on the high-and-lonesome melancholy of the title track and bruised emotionalism of "When It Comes to You."
Hinting at the open-minded approaches and boundless curiosity he'd embrace as a solo artist, Knopfler doesn't limit himself when it comes to style or subject matter. Look no further than "You and Your Friend," a shuffle whose all-inclusive lyrics encourage an array of interpretative meanings. Another of the album's deep cuts, "Iron Hand," comes on as one of the band's most memorable moments – the narrative addressing the abuses of power at the 1984 Battle of Orgreave during the U.K. miners' strike. Given cinematic heft by the expert production, the true-fiction account puts into perspective the richness, poetry, and depth of On Every Street.
"Every victory has a taste that's bittersweet," sings Knopfler on the title track. At least that bittersweetness seldom sounded so damn good on record.
Over atmospheric instrumentation expanded by cinematic structure and pacing, Pearlty presents Knifeplay somewhere between dream-pop influenced shoegaze and lofty slowcore, never fully committing to one or the other in its insistence on creating an immersive, organic world. Originally released in 2019, Knifeplay’s vivid debut Pearlty documents songwriter Tj Strohmer’s expressions of early adulthood in what he describes as “the journey from innocence to experience.” Written during a time of immense inspiration, Strohmer was able to peel himself away from detached nihilism, uncovering the physicality and therapeutic powers of songwriting. Newly emboldened by this discovery and the talented community surrounding him, Strohmer channeled this revelation into his work, taking Knifeplay from a bedroom experiment that merely wrote songs to a more substantial project with a purpose. Pearlty’s various climactic passages, like those heard on the impressionist album opener “Tears”, envelop listeners in textured walls of distorted guitar and noisy breakdowns, a distinct hallmark of shoegaze – but Knifeplay’s compositions go far beyond such conventions. Also featured are downtempo compositions – such as the tribute track “Angel” – that call on a range of influences, from grunge to lofi pop, all the way back to slowcore. Layers of Strohmer’s falsetto lilt adorn the songs with another dimension of sentimentality, while rounding out the sonic vastness of the group’s emotionally enrapturing style, lending impressive depth to the band’s debut full-length.
Devon Welsh roars back with a powerful new album. Recorded at Welsh’ home in rural Wisconsin, Come With Me If You Want To Live has all the immediacy of his past work, chock-full of grand slam choruses, and slam dunk singing. The production is tight, spare and cinematic, in the classic pop (or Majical Cloudz) mold. “I wanna grow and I will change,” Welsh sings. Here’s proof. It’s his sharpest solo statement to date, his first album since 2019’s True Love, and his first widely distributed solo LP.
Ultra rare modern soul/rare groove scorcher "It'll All Come Around" on the A side with funky cinematic soul from Love Unlimited Orchestra on the B. Only 250 copies made.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Introducing, the experimental violinist and performer Vanessa Bedoret.
The London-based French musician today announces that she’ll be joining, Scenic Route, a label renowned for selecting and nourishing rising stars for the release of her debut album, Eyes, due out on 8th of March 2024. Launching with a taste of what’s to come, today she also shares single “1/2”, a textural track that tells of the dichotomy between those who are selfless and those who are self-centred, and their need to merge as one. This duality is reflected in the industrial metallic echoes under Vanessa’s soaring vocals and the piercing strings of her chosen instrument, the violin.
Treating songwriting as an instinctive process, Bedoret transforms her deeply personal experiences into pure emotion. Not following any set narrative, Eyes takes the listener on a journey via their own experiences, prompting introspection through Bedoret’s hypnotic melodies.
Through the album, she awakens the audience's imagination, to open up their emotional response. On “Ballad”, a vague, loving lyrical letter to someone close, Bedoret’s heartbreakingly soft lament is barely audible over the dramatic atonal strings. She flips her narrative again in the titular track, “Eyes”, so the listener empathises through her isolated violin, and takes on her anguish, not needing to understand the full story.
Bedoret began her classical training at age 6 and on completion at 18 she embraced the thrill of playing guitar in punk bands, and like many at the turn of adulthood, was quickly captured by the allure of the dancefloor. Her far-reaching taste doesn’t stop there, she also counts black metal to opera and from eurodance to IDM as inspiration. Her deep understanding of musical form elevates her experimentation to a truly unique sonic experience, one that never strays too far from her original love of classical music.
With only a string of releases under her belt via independent labels like Laura Lies In and Archaic Vaults, her refined skillset has meant she’s been in high demand for both solo shows and collaborations. These accolades include playing violin with New York avant garde collective Standing On The Corner at The Serpentine, as well as a part of Kahil El’Zabar conducts MOKI at the ICA, and Linder: Another Music in a Different Arcadia at the Design Museum alongside artist Linder Sterling, Naima Cherry, Maxwell Sterling, Kenichi Iwasa & Ella Frears.
For her solo performances, she’s shared stages with Standing on the Corner, Ekaterina Bazhenova-Yamasaki, Philomème Pirecki, John T. Gast and Nexcyia to name a few. She’s also performed as a duo alongside musician Severin Black in support of their collaborative EP release, First Passage / Excommunicated.
Through the lens of a life lived to it’s fullest and one that does not shy from experiencing the rawest of emotions, it’s clear that Bedoret has a nack for translating personal observations into cinematic crescendoes. The field recordings throughout only heighten this feeling adding both a grounding and other worldy sensibility. Lyrically, she allows you to peek into her private world and for a fleeting moment letting you lock eyes with hers, asking what do you see?
This debut is a glowing experimental work that purrs with a distinctive narrative. Vanessa Bedoret is a promising new act, ready to take 2024 by storm.
Over the past decade Rising Sun has firmly established himself as a purveyor of the finest deep, dubby and cinematic leaning house and techno, consistently delivering a sound that is distinctly his through labels such as Fauxpas, Freund Der Familie and his own numerous imprints Reality Used To Be A Friend Of Mine, Kristofferson Kristofferson and Beautiful Things Don't Ask For Attention under a variant of guises such as The Ambientist, Rising Sun Project, Rising Sun Psyche, Rising Sun Melancholia and simply Rising Sun under which he returns here for Echocord. As one has come to expect from a Rising Sun release ‘The Eternal’ has a firm foundation in emotive melodies and atmospherics across six alternate versions. ‘Eternal 1’ leads with muted drums, fluttering stabs and a preaching spoken word vocal. ‘Eternal 2’ edges into darked realms, merging expansive dub echoes with swelling subs and tension building strings before ‘Eternal 3’ dives head first into ethereal hypnotism via unfurling textures, soft stab sequences and a rounded kick. ‘Eternal 4’ opens the B-side with a subtly unfolding construction as vocals, chords and swinging drums run in unison. ‘Eternal 5’ then strips things back to a gritty statured feel with boomy percussion, enchanting strings and nuanced stabs before ‘Eternal 6’ rounds out the release laying down murky, multilayered pads, widely dispersing reverberations and bubbling delays throughout.
out of Stock
Last delivered 7 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Over atmospheric instrumentation expanded by cinematic structure and pacing, Pearlty presents Knifeplay somewhere between dream-pop influenced shoegaze and lofty slowcore, never fully committing to one or the other in its insistence on creating an immersive, organic world. Originally released in 2019, Knifeplay’s vivid debut Pearlty documents songwriter Tj Strohmer’s expressions of early adulthood in what he describes as “the journey from innocence to experience.” Written during a time of immense inspiration, Strohmer was able to peel himself away from detached nihilism, uncovering the physicality and therapeutic powers of songwriting. Newly emboldened by this discovery and the talented community surrounding him, Strohmer channeled this revelation into his work, taking Knifeplay from a bedroom experiment that merely wrote songs to a more substantial project with a purpose. Pearlty’s various climactic passages, like those heard on the impressionist album opener “Tears”, envelop listeners in textured walls of distorted guitar and noisy breakdowns, a distinct hallmark of shoegaze – but Knifeplay’s compositions go far beyond such conventions. Also featured are downtempo compositions – such as the tribute track “Angel” – that call on a range of influences, from grunge to lofi pop, all the way back to slowcore. Layers of Strohmer’s falsetto lilt adorn the songs with another dimension of sentimentality, while rounding out the sonic vastness of the group’s emotionally enrapturing style, lending impressive depth to the band’s debut full-length.
"Pearlty" by Knifeplay includes the following tracks: "Feel U", "Mirage", "Held My Hand", "Lemonhead" and more.
The track 'Abyadh Aswad' is a manifestation of Ali's self-described Middle Eastern beats with Southeast Asian twists, specifically influenced by Indonesia. It offers tropical cruising vibes and tranquil melodies, incorporating Arabic lyrics and repetitive desert-like riffs. Floating melodies and background vocals inject a psychedelic element into the track. The lyrics themselves translate to 'Black and white in one vision.'
On the B-side, there is an instrumental track titled 'White Stallion.' It's a simply cinematic funk track with psychedelic elements and hypnotic repetitive riffs. This track aims to capture the adventurous landscape of Indonesia through music, offering a flat, chill, and contemplative vibe that would suit a cinematic soundtrack.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
After their highly praised debut record "I" - called "a sparkling electro-jazz and cinematographic hybridization game" and "refreshingly futuristic big band music" - the french quintet returns with the new full length called "II". Notilus is back, more raw and free than ever, taking a journey through both evening shadows and luminous mornings, through long expanses of suspended time as well as hypnotic swathes of dancing vibes. It crosses vast tundras, ascends snowy mountain ranges, reaches swampy troubled waters bathed in eerie light, at the crossroad between Jazz, Techno, Ambient music and self-reflexion.
The Notilus Orchestration:
Philippe Rieger : machines
Mathieu Goust : drums & percussions
Guillaume Nuss : trombone & effets
Christophe Rieger : saxophone & effets
Paul Barbieri : cornet, synthétiseurs
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Wewantsounds continue its extensive Meiko Kaji reissue program in partnership with Teichiku Records and Meiko Kaji herself, with the release of "Gincho Wataridori," her debut album from 1972. This is the first time the album is reissued since release and it comes with its original Japanese artwork and newly remastered audio. Famous for her 70s exploitation movies ("Lady Snowblood", the "Female Prisoner Scorpion" and "Stray Cat Rock" series) and revered by Quentin Tarantino, Meiko Kaji also released a string of great albums on Teichiku mixing Japanese Pop and cinematic grooves. This reissue comes with deluxe Gatefold sleeve LP, OBI strip and a 2-p insert featuring new liner notes by Hashim Kotaro Bharoocha.
out of Stock
Last delivered 16 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Jacob Lusk, Ryan Hope & Ari Balouzian; an acclaimed gospel singer and choir director, an established film director and a classically trained musician and soundtrack artist. This is the trio that fate brought together and now make up Gabriels.
Their debut EP ‘Love & Hate In A Different Time’ comprises five songs that sound instantly of another era without faltering into throwback territory. True masters of story-telling, their timeless take on vintage soul, new R&B and just a hint of ultra-contemporary altpop have seen them become firm favourites of Gilles Peterson, Off White’s Virgil Abloh, Benji B, Annie Mac, Elton John... the list goes on.
The lead track and new single, ‘Love & Hate In A Different Time’, showcases their sound perfectly. A soul-stirring song with elements of funk and that joyous gospel influence too. Jacob has one of those terrifically cavernous deliveries and understands the power of when to adopt restraint and when to let rip. It’s raw, show-stopping and combines to form a magical few minutes of cinematic sound, unlike anything else out there today.
In the song’s long-form video, directed by band member and British born musician Ryan Hope (himself a celebrated music video director), we’re taken through a history of the dancefloor in archive footage, culminating in Jacob singing Billie Holliday’s Strange Fruit to a rapt audience during a Black Lives Matter protest in LA last year. It’s an engrossing, moving watch and an evocative listen.
out of Stock
Last delivered 14 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Produced by Henry Jenkins (Surprised Chef), cinematic funk combo The Diasonics are back with a limited edition 45 feat. an explosive version of soul stormer "Beggin'. Limited to 500 copies worldwide.
Produced and mixed by Henry Jenkins (Surprised Chef), Russian cinematic funk combo The Diasonics unleash a limited edition 45 featuring an explosive version of soul classic "Beggin'. Composed by Bob Gaudio and Peggy Farina and initially brought to success by the Four Seasons of Frankie Valli in 1967, "Beggin" became a classic of the Northern soul scene in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. With a tight rhythm section, a super funky bassline and heavy wah-wah guitars The Diasonics version is an instant floorfiller. On the flip side the brand new track "Take One", an irresistible hammond-funk mover, full of heavy breaks and eastern spices.
Active since 2019 The Diasonics are five young and seriously talented Muscovite musicians: Anton Moskvin (drums), Maxim Brusov (bass guitar), Anton Katyrin (percussions), Daniil Lutsenko (electric guitar) and Kamil Gzizov (keyboards). In just a few years the band has amassed a cult following, releasing collectable and in-demand 45s on labels such as Funk Night Records and Mocambo Records. In 2021 they released their debut album "Origin of Forms" on Record Kicks produced by Henry Jenkins, producer amongst the others of the Australian cult instrumental band Surprise Chef. Thanks to the Diasonics's unique style that blends infectious Funk Instrumentals, East European flavours, abstract hip-hop and psychedelia, the album rapidly went sold out on vinyl and it's heavily praised on the international cinematic-funk scene.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Back in print on vinyl! Deerhoof debuts their new guitarist John Dieterich and achieves widespread critical acclaim for the first time. 2002's Reveille is a defiant expression of artistic rebirth, spilling over with madcap exuberance, apocalyptic imagery, newfound technical confidence belying their no-budget DIY recording methods, and jarring stylistic about-faces in which no two songs sound alike. The contrast of Satomi's ever-catchy, ever-charming melodiousness with John and Greg's noisy, cinematic bombast still has the power to thrill and tickle and upset, more than 20 years after its initial release. Includes reimagined cover art with the faint morning glow the band had always envisioned, pressed on clear sun-colored vinyl. Complete lyrics included for the first time, written by Satomi on the center labels.
The Trip is the first solo album by N'Zeng, better known as Sébastien Blanchon. It has to be said that he hid behind his (hollow) nose to sniff out the right projects (ex Le Peuple de l'Herbe, member of Entourloop). His nose is hollow, but not for the trumpet, and yet it's with this instrument that he started out. And he reinvents it, giving it a subtle place on this musical road trip we call The Trip.
A journey open to all, with no tolls and no filters, apart from the cinematic filter of this lover of original soundtracks and trip hop. Beautiful images flash before our eyes, and in our ears, the smooth voice of Charlotte Savary (Wax Tailor). An album, a very good trip for lovers of Portishead, Gorillaz, and well-felt scratches in the form of controlled skids.
He's making a name for himself as N'Zeng, with his smooth arrangements.
N'Zeng's father played trumpet with his grandfather in the Feurs brass band in the Loire department. When he arrived in Saint Etienne, young Sébastien started out with a cornet à pistons at the Conservatoire. His teacher at the time, Marcel Heyte, had won a prize in Paris at the same time as a certain Maurice André.
His father took lessons in orchestral conducting, accompanying the offspring's budding musical career, which included a course at the Festival de Cuivre in Monastier-sur-Gazeille, where he met the soloists of the Radio France orchestra. A new awareness, a new confidence: off to Lyon, not for a soccer derby, but to "beef up his game". In 1997, he was awarded a gold medal for trumpet by a unanimous jury at the Conservatoire National de Lyon.
Lyon, capital of the Gauls, was the starting point for N'Zeng, who went on to become a member of the group Le Peuple de l'Herbe. 15 years later, with several successful records to his credit, a concert in 2003 at the Transmusicales with Beth Gibbons (Portishead), and a Victoire de la Musique award, it was time for N'Zeng to move on to other things.
Arrival in the City of Light, the place where dreams come true. Nzeng's dreams are not only sonic, but also visual, for Sébastien is not only a friendly presence and a talented musician, but also a cinephile. His knowledge of music theory, acquired during his years at the conservatory, enables him to tackle music for pictures.
He created a soundtrack for the cult film Alien - The 8th Passenger, and worked with musician Rone (collaborating with Baxter Dury) and his bandmates from Le Peuple de l'Herbe, composing 2 tracks for the soundtrack of Virginie Despentes's hard-hitting film "Baise-moi". On the album "Hollywood Hustlers", with the group "Mustang Force", he pays tribute to the soundtracks of Lalo Shiffrin, Ennio Morricone... The album is also well received by the critics. He conducts the arrangements and orchestrations for the Degiheuga Orchestra, and composes the original music for the Hôtel Bellevue dance show, another success!
2019 sees the birth of "The Trip" project. On this record, no masks, but a female voice, that of Charlotte Savary (Wax Taylor), laid on a carpet of strings. With this musical voyage, trip hop takes pride of place, with a balance between the body of the instruments and the mechanics of beatmaking.
There's no getting off track on this well-balanced record, with its silky orchestrations. N'Zeng accompanies us elegantly, with his trusty trumpet as GPS, here used subtly. The album cover is a photograph taken by Sébastien Blanchon's mother, in 1973, a year when Saint Etienne was about to become French champion for the 7th time.
Kapitän Platte will release the debut album from Belgium based band CHATTE ROYAL in March 2024. The four-piece group has already released two EPs in 2020 and 2022 and will present eight new songs on the first full-length, Diego Di Vito who is responsible for most of the songwriting on the album is also well known as the guitar player in cinematic-post-rock band We Stood Like Kings. CHATTE ROYAL is like the music of a film whose image we would have removed. Obsessions that result in powerful riffs accompanied by an impactful rhythm. This quartet travels through music oscillating between atmospheric and aggressive math-rock and melodic post-rock with a punk attitude. In a completely uninhibited style and imbued with virtuosity and energy on stage.
Recommended If You Like: OOIOO, Blonde Redhead, Guerilla Toss, Rolling Stones, Liars, Marnie Stern, Yoko Ono, Battles. Clear Sun Vinyl. Reissue of Deerhoof’s 2002 album Reveille. First Deerhoof album with guitarist John Dieterich. Back in print on vinyl! Deerhoof debuts their new guitarist John Dieterich and achieves widespread critical acclaim for the first time. 2002’s Reveille is a defiant expression of artistic rebirth, spilling over with madcap exuberance, apocalyptic imagery, newfound technical confidence belying their no-budget DIY recording methods, and jarring stylistic about-faces in which no two songs sound alike. The contrast of Satomi’s ever-catchy, ever-charming melodiousness with John and Greg’s noisy, cinematic bombast still has the power to thrill and tickle and upset, more than 20 years after its initial release. Includes reimagined cover art with the faint morning glow the band had always envisioned, pressed on clear sun-colored vinyl. Complete lyrics included for the first time, written by Satomi on the center labels.
Étrange Hiver (Strange Winter) is UK songwriter, Tom McRae's 9th studio album. An exquisite collection of original duets with renowned French artists, such as Keren Ann, Chien Noir, Alex Beaupain, Clou and more. McRae decided to collaborate on these 11 new songs with various artists as a way of acknowledging his deep love of French music, and deepen his relationship with mainland Europe, following Britain’s disastrous decision to leave the EU. Tom’s debut album went Gold in France in 2001, selling over 60,000 copies, and he has divided his time between Paris and Wiltshire since 2021. Says Tom: “I grew up being intrigued by classic French songs. Before streaming services made all music readily available, only the huge crossover pop songs made it across the channel, but while my friends were listening to Vanessa Paradis, I was listening to Serge Gainsbourg. It seemed exotic, adventurous, and to be from another planet, let alone a country only 21 miles away from my own.” During Covid, McRae released a single with his Belgian friend, Wannes Cappelle, a reworking of one of Tom’s songs in English and West Vlaams, as well as an album of duets with a Welsh artist, Lowri Evans. Both projects sparking his interest in collaboration with other artists. “It’s not been a great time to be British since 2016”, says McRae. “We’ve become politically, economically and culturally isolated since Brexit - and I want to show that I feel more of a European than simply just an English person.” “But mostly this album, Étrange Hiver, is about beautiful songs, some in English, some in French. Sung as duets with friends (some established artists, as well as some new or undiscovered voices) and creating 11 little emotional moments in a crazy world. Some cinematic, some more intimate and personal, all of the songs addressing the important things in life: love, loss, political populism, impending climate collapse… written at a time when it feels as if the world may never escape from this long, strange winter.“ Artists duetting on this album with Tom include: Keren Ann, Chien Noir, Clou, Alex Beaupain, Rose, Naya, Vanille, Helena Noguerra, Alma Forrer, Aïtone, Julien Brocal, and now more are lining up to sing with Tom on a volume 2
Italian hard techno DJ-producer MAIKE DEPAS announces EP "Rave the Planet" (out 29 February) ahead of MAIKE DEPAS 2.0 audio-visual makeover
"Depas strikes a fine balance between raw energy and subtle melodic hooks." (DMY)
"Throughout the pounding track Midnight Ride, the Italian beatsmith expertly blends lush synths with intricate rhythmic components and gritty bass." (EDM com)
"Depas' approach to techno is a veritable melting pot of influences, blending sounds from the 80s and 90s with contemporary symphonic and cinematic elements." (Magnetic Mag)
Upon the return from the dark and dreamy regions of his previous EP "Euphoria", Milanese hard techno DJ-producer MAIKE DEPAS (Michelangelo De Pasquale) announces new EP "Rave the Planet", out 29 February via The Innovation Studio, ahead of MAIKE DEPAS 2.0 audio-visual makeover. Sending tremors through the electronic underground scene, Depas joins Kobosil and In Verruf in carrying the torch of uncompromising Berlin techno while keeping his feet firmly planted in the melodic 1990s trance of Push, Jam & Spoon, and Cygnus X.
Introducing his new heavy-duty fusion of face-melting techno and trance carrying "Go Hard or Go Home" warning sign, Depas makes the crowd grind their teeth with a behemoth of an opener "Heartbreaker" only to fill the dancefloor with dread on the shiver-inducing "Vortex", a power move designed to set the scene for the title track"s fervent rave sermon delivered in a cyborg voice by Depas, followed by the erotic undertones of throbbing closer "Float Together" including the blistering remix by the Italian DJ Amstra.
"Rave the planet / Stay together / In techno we trust / Rave the planet" - MAIKE DEPAS, Rave the Planet
At its core, "Rave the Planet" is Depas" personal paean to the true spirit of the original rave culture as represented by Lukas Havlik"s (Ludenworks) Luis Royo-esque artwork of a pulsating cybernetic planet of complex, interconnected nerve fibres wrapped around the Depas globe logo. “As a raver, you feel this sense of unity with community and it"s similar to a religion we"ve had for thousands and thousands of years,” Depas compares. “We are the planet, we are the culture, so both are the reflection of ourselves in the wider world.” For Depas, the concept of solidarity runs deep within techno culture. Coming right from the heart, Depas is driven by the opportunity to bring people together for one thing and one thing only: “Just for the love of techno and to celebrate the music in a club.”
"As a raver, you feel this sense of unity with a community similar to a religion we"ve had for thousands and thousands of years." - MAIKE DEPAS
"Rave the Planet" is released in conjunction with MAIKE DEPAS 2.0, a tectonic audio-visual shift that entails a wide array of digital content as varied as DJ sets live streamed from Berlin"s Teufelsberg and other dystopian locations around Europe as well as enhanced PR-photos featuring cyberpunk-inspired outfits designed by Demobaza, a cyberpunk-inspired casual couture brand best known for their sustainable Dune X Demobaza collection. Over the course of upcoming metamorphosis from a flesh-and-blood individual into a mysterious CGI character, Depas is another step closer to revolutionising the dance music scene through the metaverse.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
The cinematic opening track Inthenever starts off as a film >> somewhere on a desolate coast, where everything has already ceased. This is going to be an album with a story and depth, a fearless tour of the barren shores of our days // or is it possibly just a mirage conclusion of their razor-sharp sound brutalism? Tittingur's third album, Epiphany, is here, pounding with waves they had not done before.
It seems as though this dyad has disposed of all the genre confines that had locked them in, and have grasped the sound of new subject matters, for which the moniker of experimental techno is finally too narrow. With utter urgency and candid to their emblematic, thunderous sound, Dominik's and Matus's deafening mallets collide in beats which are now, more than ever, drenched in a mass of palpable gloom and anguish. As though we could touch the rising levels of the oceans, and smell the melting of the glaciers themselves.
In one way or another, the music of Tittingur has always been about nature, its fierce essence, and its stark contrast with the post-era that we have found ourselves living in. However, whereas before, it was the sound of old, weather-stained concrete, and the pounding of abandoned, overgrown buildings, now it is, unavoidably, their most direct and honest return to nature landscapes, and to human, age-old traditions, referenced in the Slovak folk motives, recordings and found sounds.
On Epiphany, Tittingur's sound becomes yet more abstract, in a sound world that is ambiguous but also unified, and works on its own. The duality of nature and technology, of inland human folklore and the trenches of deepest oceans, invite us to come closer and observe the volatile obliteration taking place. Can we even attempt to re-assess our position with nature, or is this whole experiment doomed to fail?
Unsurprisingly, in the echoes, all the ingredients of the classic Tittingur sound are still present, distilled into new forms >> the ever-present over-saturation, the exaggerated, maximalist approach and megalomania >> the sound of impending climate change, doom, and near-apocalyptic visions, the scent of borovička mixed with the wild North Sea, the agony of contemporary urban life, and the adventure of wilderness: ferocious synths, monumental beats, aggressive basslines and crumbling noise-scapes built of a found-sound, music concréte-like, collagist approach.
At moments, it seems the means have changed. Just until you realise that the sentences of this story are spoken in a new language. If you dive deep enough, and listen to the essence that the music of Tittingur articulates, it's surprisingly easy to understand >> although the notions and emotions are difficult to put into words. The profound narrative of Epiphany is that of an endless inner struggle of society, anxiety, crises, and ambiguously easy // difficult solutions in the post-modern global chaos. It is the calm before a storm. It is the storm. Is it the calm. It is all of it, in itself. credits
Blending sounds of early 70s Funk & Soul, Latin-Jazz, and Afrobeat, Mestizo Beat kicks the year off with a heavy dose of new material. First up is “She’s A Rose b/w Lotsapapa,” their next 45, offering two sides of masterful instrumental soul music written & produced by The Magaña Brothers out of their hillside studio, Spc 166 in Topanga, CA. Side A’s “She’s A Rose” takes us back to the golden years of the Blaxploitation film genre and the soundtracks we have grown to love. This song was inspired by the compositional and orchestral arrangements from the greats, such as Curtis Mayfield’s “Superbad,” Johnnie Pate’s “Shaft in Africa,” and Bobby Womack’s “Across 110 Street.” Featuring Tim Felten of Surefire Soul Ensemble on keys, with horns written and arranged by Jesse Audelo, Mestizo Beat takes the listener on an evolving journey, exploring the mood and cinematic elements of flute, saxophone, and wha’d-out guitar, topped off with a funky drum and percussion break. On the flip, “Lotsapapa” rounds out the B-Side, blending the musical styles of Latin and Nigerian disco-funk into a track that’s perfect for the dancefloor and those late nights out. Written about Bernard “Lotsapapa” Crowe, a notorious drug dealer who survived an attempted murder by Charles Manson, this side is sure to get the body moving with the afro-disco rhythms and chant vocals, dubbed out around a tightly arranged horn section written and arranged by Jesse Audelo and Jason Cressey. “Lotsapapa” features guests Steve Haney from Jungle Fire on Percussion and Cressey of the True Loves on trombone.
With each side highlighting the various talents of the ensemble, Mestizo Beat always stays true to their sound and recording techniques. Both tracks are mixed by Sergio Rios at Killion Sound and are featured on the forthcoming LP, Jaraguá, coming mid-2024.
Elvis Presley was not only the first but also the greatest star of the rock’n’roll era. His energetic, genre-blurring recordings have retained their appeal for more than half a century, and will do so forever. Elvis has often been criticised for the movies he made, particularly later in his Hollywood career where they became formulaic, and he was often typecast in romantic musical dramas. However, the quality of his music is not in question, and after his 1956 cinematic debut featuring the title song Love Me Tender, Loving You followed in 1957. The latter film featured some great rock’n’roll songs, but most notably the sentimental love song Have I Told You Lately That I Love You? Almost seven decades later, the music of his early years, some of the greatest rock’n’roll love songs ever produced, still stands as his monument.
Best known for his work for legendary Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul (he even designed the enigmatic “bang” in 2021’s labyrinthine ‘Memoria’), Japan’s Koichi Shimizu has been honing a unique musical language since the early ‘90s, where some of his earliest material can be found on a split LP with Yoshiteru Himuro via once-iconic imprint Worm Interface (itself home to music from Autechre side-line Gescom). ‘Imprint’, was initially released quietly back in 2021 and has been remastered for this new edition, removing one track and bumping it up with four more, making it all available on vinyl for the first time.
The album offers a perfect overview of Shimizu’s broad palette, ranging from fine-wrought keys to electronic brutalism and guttural rhythmic pulses, plotted with an underlying narrative cadence that evinces his ability to heighten the impact of moving image, whilst also colouring the imagination with ephemeral sound imagery. His tekkerz are in bracing, anticipatory effect on a retooled, expanded version of his music from ‘Memoria’ within the convulsive, swarming silhouette of ‘Imprint’, and ‘The Path’ finds his aural accompaniment to ‘Uncle Boonmee...’ given room to breathe and develop into an unexpected, OOBE-like experience. In ‘Moth’ he magnifies and anthropomorphises a winged insect with finely chiselled technical nous, and his exquisite arrangement to ‘Faded Sign’ is somehow comparable to the ephemeral emotional register of cinematic collaborations between Ryuichi Sakamoto and Carsten Nicolai.
Montenegrin born in Istanbul, precocious pianist growing up in an embassy, brilliant musician. Prolific composer speaking eight languages, he arranged music for jazz, pop music, adopting multiple identities.
For one label, he is Andy Loore; for another, Emiliano Orti. For others, he is called Alan Blackwell or Johnny Montevideo, but behind all these aliases, there is only one man: Janko Nilovic.
Exploring the shelves of musical production, venturing into the less-illuminated corners of library music, Janko Nilovic's name lights up dozens of shelves on which his soundtracks, his records for Editions Neuilly or Sforzando, but above all his twenty albums for Editions Montparnasse, are stored. A considerable and imposing work, rich in orchestrations of keyboards, strings and brass instruments, themes, atmospheres and melodies. A repertoire in which the cinema, television and advertising have come to find their delight ...
Subjected to the sharp blades of samplers, reduced to a few effective seconds, joined with rhythmic beats, some of his tracks have infiltrated hip hop for a long time , leading the most curious to go back to the source to get the complete albums from which the precious loops had been taken.
Almost unknown to the general public, Janko Nilovic is a master for the initiated, whether they are at his side in the studio or comfortably seated in their armchair savouring the final result on their turntable. His discretion combined with his long years of silence on the record could lead one to believe that he had cleverly arranged his disappearance from the radar to make Janko Nilovic a mystery that has never been completely solved.
Until this message from The Soul Surfers.
A few miles away, in their studio fired up by analog funk, the Muscovites had been put back on the Nilovic track by multi-instrumentalist Shawn Lee. A few passionate discussions later, and the desire for a joint album was already lighting up the amps, making the bass strings shiver and the drum skins tighten.
Initiated by the coming and going of scores, the collaboration finally continued in studio for a real exchange, instantly bouncing off proposals, developing ideas in a live group dynamic that distance would have made impossible.
To feel the vibrations accumulated for decades at the CBE studio (like Chatelain Bisson Estardy), a mythical place founded in 1966, in which many albums, especially library, were immortalized. A place where consoles, equipment and instruments were kept as they were, accumulating in their wiring, meters and speakers, endless hours of experimentation and recording.
A place that Janko knew well and where an old acquaintance was waiting for him. A Hammond organ with a Leslie booth whose keys he had already flattered in the past and behind which an improvisation and a single take were enough to complete the eponymous title.
Together, Janko Nilovic and The Soul Surfers have built Maze Of Sounds, a musical labyrinth paved by the master's keyboards where the soul-funk groove of the fiery Russians is the listener's thread, his point of reference in this maze of atmospheres and emotions, at once cinematic, nostalgic, dancing, dreamlike and contemplative.
An album where, however, nothing is compartmentalized. Where, blown by the whirlwind strung by a violin quintet, the barriers move preparing the entrance of a Slavic choir, letting a screaming guitar come and go alongside the crystalline liveliness of the Fender Rhodes, organize some rhythmic aerations at the disposal of the samplers.
A fusion between the cleverly blackened scores, between the science of precisely written arrangements and the soul-funk feel of The Soul Surfers. An album such as Janko Nilovic has been dreaming of making for years.
out of Stock
Last delivered 21 days ago available to reorder, subject to availability
THEOPHONOS (ex-Serpent Column) and Profound Lore Records present “Ashes in the Huron River” to be released on LP/CD/Digital Feb 09, 2024. The new LP is named in honor of the local woods and riverlands that continue to inspire the studio project. This record is an account of a life spent in the rotten heartlands of neoliberal capitalism and a tribute to the vibrant underground music cultures that thrived before the second half of the last decade.
Expanding on the directness of “Nightmare Visions”, “Ashes” is grander in scope, and is internally regarded as a more focused analogue to 2019’s “Mirror in Darkness”. Hafsteinn Viðar Ársælsson’s dark and intricate illustrations once again accompany the music with striking depictions of abandoned landscapes, arranged to evoke a sense of catastrophe and unwilling transformation.
Primary musical influences include Death Grips’ “Jenny Death” (which the record homages in its gradient-like structure, its centerpiece “Still You Haunt Me” even acting as a reimagined “On GP”), the downtuned hyperaggressions of Morbid Angel’s “Gateways to Annihilation”, and the cinematic, raw intimacies of Pelican’s “The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw.”
THEOPHONOS (ex-Serpent Column) and Profound Lore Records present “Ashes in the Huron River” to be released on LP/CD/Digital Feb 09, 2024. The new LP is named in honor of the local woods and riverlands that continue to inspire the studio project. This record is an account of a life spent in the rotten heartlands of neoliberal capitalism and a tribute to the vibrant underground music cultures that thrived before the second half of the last decade.
Expanding on the directness of “Nightmare Visions”, “Ashes” is grander in scope, and is internally regarded as a more focused analogue to 2019’s “Mirror in Darkness”. Hafsteinn Viðar Ársælsson’s dark and intricate illustrations once again accompany the music with striking depictions of abandoned landscapes, arranged to evoke a sense of catastrophe and unwilling transformation.
Primary musical influences include Death Grips’ “Jenny Death” (which the record homages in its gradient-like structure, its centerpiece “Still You Haunt Me” even acting as a reimagined “On GP”), the downtuned hyperaggressions of Morbid Angel’s “Gateways to Annihilation”, and the cinematic, raw intimacies of Pelican’s “The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw.”
Reggae and Jamaican music have long embraced a symbiotic relationship with the movies. Rooting back to the island's golden era, countless arrangements have either been direct covers, or inspired by, the musicality and mood found in both cinema and television. These reinterpretations would become part of the backbone of the instrumental sound that accompanied the Jamaican record industry's acceleration from the mid-60s and beyond. Talented young musicians, rising from Alpha Boys School and the early studios of Coxsone, Duke Reid and others, found a showcase for their unique playing style on hundreds of different recordings, while appealing to the country's own love affair with Westerns, James Bond canon, and other rebellious themes and motifs that were projected from Hollywood during this time.
In this same tradition, in a new interval, arrives the debut release of Anant Pradhan and Larry McDonald, the latter a master percussionist with direct participation in some of Jamaica's earliest recordings. McDonald, although often uncredited, was a legitimate influence in helping to bridge the Afro-Caribbean sound from calypso into ska and later reggae with his iconic style on hand drums and percussion. A kindred spirit of McDonald, despite 50 years separating them, Anant Pradhan is a bonafide member of the next generation. Although this is his first "solo" record, the talented saxophonist has already played on dozens of incredible sessions for the likes of Victor Axelrod, The Inversions, Andy Bassford, Channel Tubes, Ralph Weeks and Combo Lulo. As an official member of the current touring group of the legendary Skatalites, Pradhan has honed his musicianship under some of the greats of reggae music. His particular soulful, instrumental arrangements are an homage to that influential era of Jamaican music. Pradhan and his band's performance retain the skill and innovation of the old vanguard, and like the generations before, capture a magic that may only be possible when cinema goes reggae.
A cult favorite from A Nightmare Before Christmas, Danny Elfman's "Sally's Song" was immortalized in Tim Burton's 1993 classic stop-motion film. It's immediately recognizable in all its haunting charm, and now, Pradhan and McDonald have managed to transform it into an irrefutable reggae classic, reinvented with its melancholic lead sax and bombastic percussion. The prolific Henry Mancini is already entrenched in the Jamaican canon, yet nobody has knowingly attempted to recreate one of his most magical numbers, "Meglio Stasera" aka "It Had Better Be Tonight," that of the riveting one-take scene in 1963's The Pink Panther. The galloping percussion of the original is transposed through a cloud of smoke, slow and low in a roots style at the hands of McDonald. Pradhan's sax leads the way over the locked-in rhythm section, both deep and cheeky all at once. These first two productions of Anant Pradhan and Larry McDonald are a deserving entry into the canon of reggae covers, and are equally adept to be heard on the screen and or at the dance alike.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
From out of nowhere - if nowhere is the febrile, warped and twilit imagination of Julia McFarlane - comes Whoopee, the second album by J.McFarlane’s Reality Guest. Whoopee is an esoteric, kaleidoscopic movie in music form directed by Julia McFarlane and co-conspirator Thomas Kernot. Full of life, breakbeats and smokey vignettes on the fragile nature of interpersonal relationships, Whoopee is a stylistic evolution from everything McFarlane has done before. Surreal, beautiful in parts and replete with the aching wisdom McFarlane’s songwriting has always promised, this Reality Guest pulls back the curtain on a whole scene of naked truth. Recorded in Melbourne in bursts since the release of 2019’s Ta Da, Whoopee features a new sound palette and band member in Kernot. The duo dive deep into electronic pop tropes, mining digital synths, samples, breakbeats and deep bass grooves, largely dispensing with live instrumentation. If Ta Da took twists and turns with your expectations, offering a Dada-ist, monochromatic take on pop music, Whoopee is McFarlane’s subterranean love-sick pinks, reds, greens, purples and blues. Becoming something of a tradition, the album starts with an instrumental intro pilfered from a 90s’ spy film or cinema intro music, puffing up the listener for the heart-squeezing bathos of Full Stops. Over a bleary backdrop of walking bass lines, jazz- inflected keys and smoked-out atmosphere, McFarlane’s poetry narrates the fragile state of a relationship: “You put a full stop where I thought there’d be a comma, I want the story to continue even with all the drama.” Over a palpable pain, the narrator is revelling in the drama of a relationship, addicted to tumult and heightened emotion. On Sensory, a space age bachelor lounge pad ballad, the converse state of the previous song is explored, here the narrator is battling the numbness of being out of the drama, stuck in a sensory-deprivation tank, anaesthesized and battling to emerge from the fog. Wrong Planet explores an otherworldly pop music, hewing a bright hook out of a sense of confusion. A bona-fide, sing-along chorus bursts out of the narrator musing on the absurdity of existing in this reality. It speaks of one of Julia McFarlane’s main talents, her knack of inspecting human relationships and states with a clear perspective, like an alien visiting Earth and realising everything we are is really, really strange. Whoopee is both more accessible than previous Reality Guest work and somehow more obfuscated. Where the production on Ta Da was dry, sharp and strange, this Reality Guest is blurred, almost smeared with the effluvium of 90s+00s culture and existence. Through it all, it’s hard to deny the undeniable pull of the songs. Precious Boy carries on the lounge theme with a whole sampler of cut up sounds fading in and out of the haze as McFarlane’s voice is right up to the speaker cooing and free- associating, maybe in love or maybe in confusion... maybe they’re the same thing? Sometimes the listener is invited to just bathe in the tone of the vocal, as on Apocalypse, where the texture and timbre of the vocal is luxurious, bathing in piano tinkles and double bass throb. On lead single Slinky, a cut up beat reminiscent of Washingtonian Go-Go drum patterns leads, the song slipping through your fingers, elusive and presenting sound as pure pleasure. Closer Caviar jumps back into the broken breakbeats of a surreal funk, fuelled by the sensory pleasure of the music, a hedonistic whirl in rapture, the narrator now living life to the fullest in all its giddy heights and deep troughs. This is the album’s main character fully-actualised and in the terrible, beautiful moment.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
The studies with Goffredo Petrassi and the association with Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza let the Avant-garde playing an important role in the career of Ennio Morricone,
who wrote many contemporary pieces for himself, but then the author composed soundtracks where dissonance played a major role.
For the Italian edition of the film SPACE: 1999 (1975), the cult British TV series, he composed a very neurotic Jazz with muted horns.
Also for the science-fiction film THE HUMANOID (1979) Ennio Morricone created hallucinating strings scores mixed with electronic effects. For SACCO E VANZETTI (1971)
an electronic score by Walter Bianchi evokes all the drama of the undeserved death sentence of the two protagonists.
Experimental music of great impact in the film and off the screen for famous thrillers such as THE DEATH DEALER (1974), SHORT NIGHT OF GLASS DOLLS (1971).
Avant-garde music has always been present in Elio Petri’s films set to music by Morricone such as PROPERTY IS NO LONGER A THEFT (1973).
Avant-garde music in the noir cinema of VIOLENT CITY (1970) and A PURE FORMAL- ITY (1994) and in auteur films such as GARDEN OF DELIGHTS (1967) and SARAH’S LAST MAN (1972).
Sdban Records continues its reissues of the legendary library series 'A Special Radio - TV Record' with Selection 23, releasing a variety of notable tracks from the 70s library label together on a physical compilation for the first time. With this release, the label continues the vinyl reissues of the Belgian imprint 'Selection Records,' featuring tracks originally released between 1976 and 1981.
Essentially, the tracks take you through a cinematic musical landscapewhere funk and soul merge with a hint of jazz, always evoking a sense of familiarity.
One name that immediately springs to mind is René Costy. From this virtuoso and insatiable artist, the compilation 'Expectancy' was previously released. With 'Strange Dream' and 'Crystal Waltz,' he shows once again that he was not only a versatile composer but also a curious jazz cat. With 'Space Shuttle Jazz', pianist and harmonica Jacques Siroul shows his fascination for synthesizers. Which, as a composer, earned him an unofficial title as an expert in music on demand. This, and much more, make Selection 23 a must-have for fans of previous compilations like Beat Action, Funky Chicken, and Funky Chimes!
When Mick Mars stepped back from touring with Motley Crue - the band he co-founded more than 40 years ago - following their massive summer 2022 Stadium Tour, it seemed like the end of an era.
It was really the beginning of a new one...
The legendary guitarist, whose riffs, solos and overall devastatingly heavy sound powered the L.A. icons through four decades of world-conquering, multi-platinum sonic mayhem is, as he demonstrates on his debut solo effort, still a serious force to be reckoned with. Only now, listeners are reckoning with more Mars than ever before. "When it comes to my playing, there's the Motley side and the Mars side," the guitarist says. "Either way, I always have a very clear vision of what I want to do."
On the aptly- titled 'The Other Side of Mars', fans get that vision in its full, multifarious glory. To be sure, there are plenty of characteristically riff- tastic, tough-as-nails hard-rock anthems (the rampaging "Loyal to the Lie," the deep-in- the-pocket groove-rocker "Ain't Going Back," the hooky and melodic "Right Side of Wrong") to be heard on the record. But 'The Other Side of Mars' also shows the 71- year- old guitarist heading into new and uncharted territory, tearing through caustic, modern metal ("Broken On the Inside"), conjuring gothic- tinged soundscapes ("Undone"), digging into anguished, slow- burning power balladry ("Killing Breed") and unspooling bluesy, cinematic instrumental workouts (the album- closing guitar showcase, "L.A. Noir"). The music throughout the 10- track collection, meanwhile, is otherwise studded with slide guitars, violins, violas, keyboards, glitchy freak-outs and all manner of sonic surprises
The UK avant-garde’s rising star, Bristol-based multi-instrumentalist Bingo Fury is announcing his debut album ‘Bats Feet For A Widow’ due out 16 February via tastemaking label state51. Filled with noir elegance, ‘Bats Feet For A Widow’ is an album that revels in extremity. The album was recorded in a local church in Bristol, taking inspiration from the musician’s complex relationship with his strong religious upbringing. The influence of the church building resonates throughout the album.
‘Bats Feet For A Widow’ is full of strange experiments, obscure references, offbeat one-liners, heart-breaking sentimentality and surging creativity. At the heart of it all is Bingo Fury’s crooning bass vocal, lending a vivid and slyly humorous voice to universal themes of love and pain.
Alongside the album announcement, Bingo Fury is releasing new single ‘Leather Sky’, a tender piano ballad charged with real emotion and a heartbreaking cornet refrain played by band member Harry Furniss. In this cinematic track full of paralysing despair, the musician sings: “You know I’m trying to give you everything / It all gets in the way.”
Bingo Fury on the single: “Leather Sky is a difficult song to describe succinctly. It’s about being separated from someone against both of your will. Somebody close to me became very unwell and communication became restricted, almost non-existent. The song took shape during that period. A few of the surreal lines ended up becoming reality.”
Although very much a solo songwriter, Bingo Fury’s compositional process relies on contributions from his entire band - bassist Megan Jenkins and drummer Henry Terrett have been playing together since their teens. In one of their various incarnations, they recruited local avant-jazz legend, cornet player Harry ‘Iceman’ Furniss, with guitarist and percussionist Rafi Cohen later completing the line-up.
The album announcement follows the release of the cacophonous single ‘Power Drill’, which garnered praise from The Line Of Best Fit and DIY. This comes after Bingo Fury’s debut EP, ‘Mercy’s Cut’, that came out last year to an abundance of critical acclaim from the likes of BBC 6 Music, The Quietus, Loud & Quiet, Clash, as well as earning himself a spot on the NME Top 100. Filled with rich, cinematic allure, the EP is both beautiful and unsettling and underlines Bingo Fury’s complete abundance of compositional ideas.
The UK avant-garde’s rising star, Bristol-based multi-instrumentalist Bingo Fury is announcing his debut album ‘Bats Feet For A Widow’ due out 16 February via tastemaking label state51. Filled with noir elegance, ‘Bats Feet For A Widow’ is an album that revels in extremity. The album was recorded in a local church in Bristol, taking inspiration from the musician’s complex relationship with his strong religious upbringing. The influence of the church building resonates throughout the album.
‘Bats Feet For A Widow’ is full of strange experiments, obscure references, offbeat one-liners, heart-breaking sentimentality and surging creativity. At the heart of it all is Bingo Fury’s crooning bass vocal, lending a vivid and slyly humorous voice to universal themes of love and pain.
Alongside the album announcement, Bingo Fury is releasing new single ‘Leather Sky’, a tender piano ballad charged with real emotion and a heartbreaking cornet refrain played by band member Harry Furniss. In this cinematic track full of paralysing despair, the musician sings: “You know I’m trying to give you everything / It all gets in the way.”
Bingo Fury on the single: “Leather Sky is a difficult song to describe succinctly. It’s about being separated from someone against both of your will. Somebody close to me became very unwell and communication became restricted, almost non-existent. The song took shape during that period. A few of the surreal lines ended up becoming reality.”
Although very much a solo songwriter, Bingo Fury’s compositional process relies on contributions from his entire band - bassist Megan Jenkins and drummer Henry Terrett have been playing together since their teens. In one of their various incarnations, they recruited local avant-jazz legend, cornet player Harry ‘Iceman’ Furniss, with guitarist and percussionist Rafi Cohen later completing the line-up.
The album announcement follows the release of the cacophonous single ‘Power Drill’, which garnered praise from The Line Of Best Fit and DIY. This comes after Bingo Fury’s debut EP, ‘Mercy’s Cut’, that came out last year to an abundance of critical acclaim from the likes of BBC 6 Music, The Quietus, Loud & Quiet, Clash, as well as earning himself a spot on the NME Top 100. Filled with rich, cinematic allure, the EP is both beautiful and unsettling and underlines Bingo Fury’s complete abundance of compositional ideas.
Frank Maston’s Tulips is a sample-ready film score to the best 70s movie never made. Originally a super-limited self-release on his Phonoscope label in late 2017, Tulips has already become incredibly sought-after. Be With were introduced to Maston by mutual friends Aquarium Drunkard and it didn’t take long before we decided this modern classic deserved a reissue.
Inspired by the deep-grooving soundtracks of Italian cinema - think Morricone, Umiliani and Alessandroni - Maston conceived the entire Tulips project as a continuation of these revered works. Frank designed the artwork and made two 16mm films to accompany the music: “It wasn’t just the LP… it was kind of a whole vibe I was trying to create. Not really trying to emulate the things that influenced me but more trying to make something that could sit alongside those records on a shelf. I’m still very proud of the project.”
There’s a distinct library music feel too, with wiry organ, spacey keyboards and loping 60s guitar hinting at KPM and DeWolfe. Like the best library music, Tulips creates a cinematic universe through sound alone, evoking moving images in the listener’s technicolour imagination. It turns out that was accidentally on purpose: “I was discovering a lot of library music for the first time… listening to a composer’s entire catalog or finding all this obscure stuff. I wasn’t entirely conscious of the influence until I started making this music and realized I was channeling the vibe. That’s when I began focusing more on weaving melodic themes throughout the record to make it function more like a soundtrack”.
Tulips was recorded between 2015 and 2017 in a small studio in a village called Zwaag in Holland, during downtime from Frank’s touring duties with Jacco Gardner’s band. “Tulips” comes from the title of the very first demo he made in Holland, it was the first thing that came to mind. Makes sense.
Recording in Europe with some very European influences in mind, Frank wanted to eschew any American influences. But we can still feel the studio wizardry of the likes of Brian Wilson and Harry Nilsson in there somewhere. A psychedelic bedroom-pop song-cycle, full of hypnotic hooks and dusty drums, Tulips manages to sound charmingly homemade yet wholly widescreen.
Dreamy opener “Swans” is an exquisite soul instrumental and recalls the soft-psych of Koushik, which Be With loves of course. Tropicalia influences abound in the cool and breezy “New Danger” and the KPM-references are loud and proud on the lush organ pop of “Old Habits”. Fast-paced “Chase Theme No. 1” manages to be both tense and laid back, decorated by acid-drenched spaghetti Western guitars. The glorious Gainsbourg-esque melancholia of “Infinite Bliss” is all gauzy flutes and happy-sad vocalizing and the title is almost perfect: it’s bliss, no question; *if only* it went on forever. Side A closes with “Evening”, a subtle bossa nova beat thing. Gorgeous.
Side B opens with the heat-shimmer guitars of “Rain Dance”, evoking an unreleased Byrds or Buffalo Springfield backing track. Yes, it’s that good. “Sure Thing” is music to accompany an elevator ride you never want to end, but in a good way! The ornate “Garçon Manqué” is as beautiful as the instrumentals on Pet Sounds (think “Let’s Go Away For A While”) and the wistful “Turning In” starts like a stroll in the park before Maston introduces a scorched-Earth guitar solo that would startle if it wasn’t so pitch-perfect. “Chase Theme No. 2” is a briefer, more keening counterpart to what we hear on side A. The head-nod bass-drums-keys funk of “Hues” rounds out this staggeringly assured set; still opening each phrase with a plaintive strum, but using vibrato and heavy reverb to accent the electric organ melody. Sublime.
All these top drawer musical references might sound like just more of the usual release notes hyperbole, but there’s a reason that this still-young LP already changes hands for big money. It really is that good. Of course that first pressing didn’t hang around for long and Frank’s regularly been asked about a re-press pretty much ever since.
Re-issuing Tulips on Be With made sense to Frank “because the record would fit in so well with the catalogue”. Having already delved into the archives of KPM and Themes, and beginning to do the same with Coloursound and Selected Sounds, the collaboration “just makes sense and seems inevitable”. We agree.
Frank wasn’t sure a record of instrumentals with obscure soundtrack references would be an easy sell when it was originally released, and was surprised when Tulips turned out to be exactly what some people wanted to hear. We reckon its timeless beauty ensures that it’ll *always* have an audience.
The record was originally cut to be played at 45rpm, a technical quirk that grants the home listener the opportunity to go deeper, for longer. Played at 33rpm, the more languid unfurling of the tracks proves just as wonderful a trip. As a psilocybin-soaked case study from Aquarium Drunkard back in January of 2019 describes, some of the songs sound as if they were intended to be heard that way. The slower speed allowing the listener to step inside and perhaps even “crack the code” of the music’s meaning.
Mastered for this vinyl reissue by Simon Francis and featuring alternative burnt orange artwork from Maston himself, this Be With pressing is limited to just 500 copies. Hypnagogic it may be, but please don’t sleep.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Conrad is back! 30 years after Flashback, the legendary game by Paul Cuisset, which made the license known around the world, is back with this new science fiction action-adventure game!
Flashback was ahead of its time and offered great innovations with great character animations. A true pioneer in 1992, the game has also reached legendary video game status thanks to its rich and endearing history. This now video game classic is regularly ranked among the 100 best games of all time!
It is now getting a facelift on the occasion of its 30th anniversary, and this brand new 2.5D version of Flashback 2… After his victory over the “Master Brain” in the first episode, Conrad and his allies are once again confronted with Morphs, which threaten all civilizations.
The completely new original soundtrack was produced by Raphael Gesqua, the most talented French composer of his generation. With around a hundred original soundtracks created for video games or cinema since the beginning of the 90s, Raphael reunites here with the one who got him started in the world of video games: Paul Cuisset, on Flashback: The Quest For Identity with the Commodore and Amiga versions.
Raphael offers us here a very rich soundtrack navigating between cinematic music, electronics and synthwave ambiances. A must have for all science fiction fans.
From Star Wars, Harry Potter, Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, Munich, Madagascar, Sherlock Holmes, come and rediscover these cinema masterpieces like you've never heard them before.
Bringing together the 15 musicians of the vibrant Curieux Orchester, this unique experience offers an immersion that is both intimate and dynamic through the major works of these two genius composers: John Williams and Hans Zimmer
On June 29th 2023, Jeremiah Chiu walked into the Vintage Synthesizer Museum (VSM) in Highland Park, Los Angeles, with no plan more specific than "let"s fire this stuff up and see what happens." Exploring the VSM"s vast collection of classic, rare and staple synthesizers, he would sequence, trigger, and layer the machines together with help from VSM founder/curator Lance Hill. The resulting album - In Electric Time - was recorded in just two days, and edited to completion in the two days following. It was captured fully analog by engineer Ben Lumsdaine, who contributes performances on a few tracks himself. Cooper Crain (of Bitchin Bajas) makes an appearance as well; but ultimately the collection is an intuitive expression of organic electronic conceptualized and created in-context by Chiu alone, as he calls on a lifetime of work in sound synthesis to pain a fulgent, refreshingly undercut sequence of cinematic sketches and in-process themes. In some ways, In Electric Time reflects the directness of Raymond Scott"s electronic studio recordings - with sharp cuts and room chatter - and, in others, it conjures the in-the moment- magic of Harmonia.
Car Therapy Sessions is an EP of new and re-imagined songs by Faye Webster recorded at Spacebomb Studios with a 24 piece orchestra. The orchestra was headed by Trey Pollard who was responsible for both conducting and arranging, and Drew Vandenburg produced and mixed the EP. Car Therapy Sessions will be available on vinyl in the fall and is available to pre-order on April 13th. "I have a vivid memory of walking around London in 2018 listening to a mix of Jonny, which I had just written. I remember thinking "I want to perform this song with an orchestra". I truly have had my heart set on it since then, always talking about it and figuring out how or when to make it happen," says Webster. On the EP, Webster reimagines three songs from her critically acclaimed 2021 release I Know I'm Funny haha and 2019's Atlanta Millionaires Club. The songs "Kind Of", "Sometimes" and "Cheers" take on a cinematic and glimmering new sheen. In addition to the title track -"Car Therapy" - she also shares a sprawling and emotional work - "Suite: Jonny" - which combines fan-favorites "Jonny" and "Jonny (Reprise)." The two songs originally appeared on the Atlanta Millionaire's Club tracklist, two different views on the same narrative. Here they're presented together. It's remarkable how beautifully Webster's work can take on this orchestral treatment. Like Cole Porter, or Judy Garland - her delicate and emotional delivery packs a gut punch when dramatized by the EP's robust arrangements.
With '100% Dope' we find Central Processing Unit bringing up their hundredth catalogue number, and you'd struggle to find a more fitting artist to ring in a century of releases for the label than Cygnus. The one born Phillip Washington has been with CPU since the very beginning, his 2012 LP 'Newmark Phase' representing the first record ever released on the imprint. That album's combination of textured techno and grizzly Drexciyan electro set the tone for CPU perfectly, and it's no surprise that Cygnus has returned to the Sheffield imprint several times down the years.
While '100% Dope' is an expert demonstration of what Cygnus and CPU do, this EP also shows just how much both artist and label have grown over the past nine years. At its heart '100% Dope' is a set of prime machine-funk from a master of the form, but these are also some of the most daring and innovative tracks that Cygnus has ever produced.
Take opening cut 'Bad RGB Controller'. In the undulating synth lines we have a ghost of grime as well as Drexciyan drive, and as such the track reminds one as much of Mr. Mitch or Last Japan as it does, say, Dopplereffekt. Furthermore, 'Bad RGB Controller' shifts gear around the halfway mark into a highwire electronica mode which has the wit and spark of prime Bogdan Raczynski. Entries like 'Float Back To The Surface' are similarly unpredictable. There's some lovely industrial techno bite to this one - the snare drum will echo in your head long after the party's died down - but Cygnus periodically pulls out the rug from underneath us with passages of impressionistic texture that almost border on sound art.
'Float Back To The Surface' is one of a trio of vocoder-led jams here. On 'Throwing Shade' we hear I-F and Egyptian Lover, with Cygnus' vocals clattering around like pronouncements from some funked-out robot overlord atop hissing-piston drums. Then there's the enticingly-titled 'CPU Records'. 'CPU Records' delivers all the crisp electro snap we've come to expect from a record emblazoned with that signature black-and-white artwork, yet this thing is also widescreen and cinematic in ways that demonstrate the maturation of the Cygnus sound. With a wicked vocoder vocal that celebrates the label's many achievements, 'CPU Records' is a victory lap tune if ever we've heard one.
Central Processing Unit keep it 100 on for this new EP. '100% Dope' by Cygnus is CPU's 100th catalogue number, and the Texan producer delivers on the promise of the record's title with a collection of brilliantly unique electro joints.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Musica Per Immagini is about to go beyond vinyl reissues of soundtracks and music libraries, with a brand new series of products.
From 2024 onwards, it will release a series of albums of contemporary and electronic music often "inspired by" different sources, both sonic, if not literary and cinematographic. A way to embrace the future without forgetting the past.
Heinrich Dressel's “Polarlys” is the first album of unreleased tracks published by Musica Per Immagini, or a soundtrack for a imaginary noir film set in the icy waters of northern Europe, inspired by the book “The Mystery of the Polarlys” by Georges Simenon. Drones and ethereal atmospheres are paired with a cinematic background in order to describe the frost of the northern seas and the restlessness of the journey: beyond the classic analog sounds, a specific use of additive and vector synthesis particularly in vogue during the Nineties and typical of vintage synthesizers.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
36 and Zake follow up the epic work of Stasis Sounds For Long Distance Space Travel Part 1 with another eighteen chapters "of aural anesthetics" which "continue their journey through the outer reaches of space in hypersleep." The album comes in different coloured versions and this yellow copy boasts the sort of grainy and immersive ambient that immediately takes you out into the farthest reaches of space. It's widescreen and cinematic and makes for the sort of journeying album that is perfect for zoning out of everyday life and enjoying some mindful moments to yourself.
out of Stock
Last delivered 19 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Zum ersten Mal auf Vinyl erhältlich, wird Brainfeeder am 9. Februar 2024 eine wunderbare Deluxe-Edition von Austin Peraltas Album aus dem Jahr 2011 veröffentlichen. „Endless Planets“ war und bleibt ein Meilenstein im Brainfeeder-Katalog und markierte den ersten Vorstoß des Labels in den Jazz. Es erschien ein paar Monate vor dem Debütalbum, „The Golden Age Of Apocalypse“, seines Freundes Thundercat, und vier Jahre vor Kamasi Washingtons „The Epic“. Austin Peralta, ein wahrhaftiges Ausnahmetalent am Klavier, verband mühelos neugierigen Futurismus mit unglaublicher Musikalität und einem gesunden Respekt vor dem Erbe des Jazz, und auf diese Weise ist es eine beispielhafte Brainfeeder-Platte.
Die Neuauflage enthält vier bisher unveröffentlichte Tracks, darunter eine Live-Version von „DMT Song“ aus Flying Lotus’ 2012er Album „Until The Quiet Comes“, die Austin Peralta mitgeschrieben hat. Aufgenommen in den legendären BBC Maida Vale Studios in London im Juli 2011, leitete Austin Peralta eine britische All-Star-Band bestehend aus Richard Spaven (Schlagzeug), Tom Mason (Bass), Jason Yarde (Altsaxophon), Heidi Vogel (Gesang) und Jason Swinscoe von The Cinematic Orchestra (Elektronik). Austin Peralta stammte aus L.A. und war der Sohn von JC Caldwell und Stacy Peralta. Er war ein Jazzmusiker. Nicht in dem Sinne, dass er oder ihm nahestehende Personen das Wort „Jazz“ in Bezug auf seine Musik in den Mund nehmen würden. Eher im Sinne von jahrelanger Übung und Hingabe an eine bestimmte Kunstform. Oder in dem Sinne, dass er unter anderem mit Chick Corea, Hank Jones und Ron Carter gespielt hat. In dem Sinne, dass er wirklich etwas drauf hatte. Dass er Klavier spielte und komponierte wie ein echter Veteran. Und das alles im Alter von nur 20 Jahren. Und das, bevor man sich mit seiner Arbeit als Session-Spieler für jeden und jede, von Erykah Badu bis Shafiq Husayn, oder die Zeit, als er in der legendären Big Band aus Los Angeles, Horace Tapscotts Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, mitspielte.
There is a parallel, submerged dimension in which musicians meet when they improvise. Sound microcosms emerge in those moments, and this is precisely the magic that BOTTAZZ! wanted to photograph in their first album: BOTTAZZ! VOL.1.
A "live" album, capable of transmitting spontaneity, sonic truths, empathy, feelings; ingredients that are difficult to transmit by recording the instruments individually or with other techniques.
Recorded in the historic "Auditorium 900" studios, a true time achine, as well as an institution for music in Naples.
Auditorium 900 took up the challenge in the figure of sound engineer Fabrizio Piccolo and from here the sound of BOTTAZZ was born!
A sound made up of lysergic Funk trips, 70's influences in all possible nuances: from progressive funk to Santana's Hispanic rock, up to touching its darkest and most hidden latitudes; audio waves
nfluenced by the soundtracks of the cinematography linked to those times, organs, synths, percussion and wah wah guitars, which generate a melting pot in which nothing is taken for granted.
BOTTAZZ! VOL.1 is a ship's diary, a journey into which each sailor has inserted its own emotions accumulated over the years, thus giving us a sincere and genuine record. Happy navigation.
out of Stock
Last delivered 7 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Currently celebrating ten years of releasing music on vinyl & cassette and following hype for recent releases from Moscow (via Tallinn)’s Galun (glagol album) and Osaka's Kiji Suedo (Hosek EP & Riot album), Edinburgh's Hobbes Music label continues to mine a leftfield seam with this brand new album from singer/songwriter George Demure (Tirk, Output) aka DJ/producer George T (Greco Roman, Optimo), better known as George Thomson to his mum. And it’s another absolute peach if you have a taste for post-club sounds of a more leftfield persuasion.
This is the follow-up to his 'The Record Store' EP which came out via George's own All Noise imprint in 2021. He has also released the Roll On, King's Cross single via Hobbes Music under his George T moniker last November (plus various bits for the Paradise Palms and Ramrock labels in the interim).
“It all began with the Record Store EP in 2021,” explains George. “Limit my options. No samples, one drum machine, two analog synths (mono and poly), computer simply to record. I was so happy with the results I began with what you hear today. Same drums, same machines (or lack thereof) maybe some real percussion and melodica but hey, I only answer to me.”
Imagine, if you will, Scott Walker jamming with Kruder & Dorfmeister in a very small studio…
Bonus Album ‘Dandy In Dub’ features dubs, instrumentals and bonus tracks, with yet more regular flashes of pure brilliance. Be sure to check out opener 'After' and closer 'Blue Lou', which sound like George might well have sound-tracked some French 80s flick of the 'cinema du look' period (Betty Blue, Diva et al) in another life. Plus ‘Mr Minilogue’ with its clarinet-like synth.... Does it really get any better than this?!!
Sleeve art by the amazingly talented Bernie Reid, another local legend.
Feedback/Reviews to date:
'He's so talented!' JD TWITCH (Optimo)
'Love the LP. Sounds really together, production is awesome. I love the aesthetic. Vocal tracks sit nicely with instrumentals. Vocals sound light-hearted' THE MAGHREBAN
"On a bobbled and float-y, light sunbeam dappled vapor of deep house, garage, electro, kosmische, leftfield pop electronica, dub and new wave (both the German and UK’s), the Edinburgh DJ/producer and singer-songwriter George Thomson continues the good work he laid down on the last EP... It’s a most lovely, swimmingly blend of motivations, feels and deep grooves that effortlessly comes together in a generous offering of electronic music: the very epitome of the Hobbes label’s remit in delivering leftfield unique visions of now techno, house and club sounds." MONOLITH COCKTAIL
‘I love the album’ LEO MAS
‘Lovely stuff’ S/A/M (Music For Dreams/DK, Cafe Del Mar, Pikes, Playasol Radio and many more, Ibiza)
Plus play/s from Andy Wilson on ‘Balearia’ Ibiza Sonica Radio
+ DJ Dribbler (Pikes, Ibiza // Paradise Lost, Red Light Radio, Pure)
Roberto Agosta, or just Agosta as he likes to be called, is a Sicilian DJ and producer from Catania active all along the eastern coast of Sicily, a place that proved to be a soulful place and a training ground for a long career, making him an excellent music selector and a reference point in the spread of alternative music.
A soundtrack music enthusiast since he was a child, now a vinyl "serial gathere", Agosta has always put his vast knowledge at the service of a very personal sound that sums many different music styles and contaminations, simple and profound but straightforward and direct at the same time.
Agosta’s eponymous album, released on LP, CD and digital formats, was conceived during the Covid-19 lockdown, thanks to the precious collaboration of friend DJ and producer Massimo Napoli aka Galathea, with whom Roberto has already started another project called AN-AN that will produce a new record for Space Echo at the end of 2022.
This record highlights a typical chill-out aesthetic, thanks to its trip-hop and ambient rhythms and atmospheres, while a deeper exploration reveals the psychedelic essence of the entire work, a daring and exciting journey in the most primitive Sicily, and the energy that sustains all of its ten tracks.
Much of their author and his lifestyle - mainly based on meditation, the search for spiritual elevation, the relationship with nature and the regaining of contact with those particular places and with the people who live there - is revealed by those tracks that constitute a soundtrack for this spiritual but also extremely physical journey.
The song titles are, in fact, intrinsically linked to Roberto’s real life: the Gorna and Ilice mountains at the foot of Etna, the Carricante vineyard and its excellent wine, Unna, Three Chestnuts, Varanni, Don Alfio, Lady G. Each of them represents a pleasant and dreamlike narration and the escape from the complex dynamics of a city like Catania, among echoes of the most dreamy Pink Floyd, the softer side of ’70s krautrock, but also the Massive Attack and Tricky’s Bristol scene.
There’s also an excellent choice of synthesizers and overdubbed guitars, thanks to the talent of the multifaceted musician and producer Salvo Bruno Dub, and of Manuela Amalfitano, Loredana Poidomani and Deran Obika’s voices.
Agosta is an introspective, deep work with a cinematic vocation, perfectly rooted in the territory where it took shape, among sunny landscapes, lush with vegetation but also deserted and arid lands. From Sicily to the cosmos... enjoy!
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Der zweifach Grammy-nominierte sowie gefeierte Komponist und Perkussionist Manu Delago kollaboriert für sein neues außergewöhnliches Album "Snow from Yesterday" (One Little Independent Records) mit dem Vokalensemble Mad About Lemon. Das neue Album ist dynamisch, facettenreich und kraftvoll. Manu Delagos Handpan-Virtuosität ist die rhythmische Lebenskraft von Snow From Yesterday und erzeugt gefühlvolle Klänge, über die sich der verwobene Gesang von Mad About Lemon ausbreiten kann. Es werden Gletschergebirge, Flüsse bis hin zu kleinste Wassertropfen besungen und über Reisen und Stationen des Lebens erzählt, die uns mit Orten und Menschen verbinden und nachhaltig verändern können. "Viele meiner letzten Projekte waren sehr abenteuerlich, konzeptionell und umweltorientiert. Mit "Snow from Yesterday" wollte ich die Musik wieder in den Vordergrund stellen und eine berührende Klangwelt erschaffen, die mir dank der Magie der drei Sängerinnen Anna, Mimi und Heidi wirklich gelungen ist." Der Tiroler Musiker arbeitet regelmäßig mit verschiedenen artists wie Björk, Anoushka Shankar, The Cinematic Orchestra und Olafur Arnalds zusammen und ist als Solist ua mit dem London Symphony Orchestra und dem Metropole Orkest aufgetreten. Snow From Yesterday reist über endlose ozeanische Weiten und Jahrtausende hinweg und erzählt Geschichten, die uns Menschen als Teil eines größeren Ganzen zu sehen. Schließlich münden alle Flüsse ins Meer.
Der zweifach Grammy-nominierte sowie gefeierte Komponist und Perkussionist Manu Delago kollaboriert für sein neues außergewöhnliches Album "Snow from Yesterday" (One Little Independent Records) mit dem Vokalensemble Mad About Lemon. Das neue Album ist dynamisch, facettenreich und kraftvoll. Manu Delagos Handpan-Virtuosität ist die rhythmische Lebenskraft von Snow From Yesterday und erzeugt gefühlvolle Klänge, über die sich der verwobene Gesang von Mad About Lemon ausbreiten kann. Es werden Gletschergebirge, Flüsse bis hin zu kleinste Wassertropfen besungen und über Reisen und Stationen des Lebens erzählt, die uns mit Orten und Menschen verbinden und nachhaltig verändern können. "Viele meiner letzten Projekte waren sehr abenteuerlich, konzeptionell und umweltorientiert. Mit "Snow from Yesterday" wollte ich die Musik wieder in den Vordergrund stellen und eine berührende Klangwelt erschaffen, die mir dank der Magie der drei Sängerinnen Anna, Mimi und Heidi wirklich gelungen ist." Der Tiroler Musiker arbeitet regelmäßig mit verschiedenen artists wie Björk, Anoushka Shankar, The Cinematic Orchestra und Olafur Arnalds zusammen und ist als Solist ua mit dem London Symphony Orchestra und dem Metropole Orkest aufgetreten. Snow From Yesterday reist über endlose ozeanische Weiten und Jahrtausende hinweg und erzählt Geschichten, die uns Menschen als Teil eines größeren Ganzen zu sehen. Schließlich münden alle Flüsse ins Meer.
A white convertible drives off into the sunset to the sound of Save you ft. Surahn and its funky, dance-inducing mantra, the first single to herald this road trip to the edge of space. Whether on cathartic beaches (Breath) or a desolate landscape: First Wave, Shades of Black, Who am I, Stars or Ghosts and its conquering lasers, Peter's music transports us into a cinematic world
(Night Road), where the synth-pop of M83 would have fused with the pop-rock of Supertramp and Fleetwood Mac (Burning House ft. Goldilox). A radiant production, wrapped in folk strumming, orchestrated by strings and keyboards with multicoloured diodes. A record that draws on the roots of timeless songwriting, enhanced by a modern, demanding electronic sound. The voice of Surahn (Empire of the Sun) returns to close the album with Open Your Mind and its flower power adlib: the closing credits of this first opus.
Zodiak Commune Records residents Paul Renard and Dima Gastroler release their first Acid split EP vinyl on Acid Sessions vol. 1.
Paul Renard delivers a deep and atmospheric acid track with C3SS3X. With Hyperfuse 3.16, Renard has delivered an Acid techno track for the dance floor.
Dima Gastroler's tracks Accelarating Curve and Helix Shaped have a forward movement and a dynamic atmosphere that makes you feel like the main character of futuristic cinema.
out of Stock
Last delivered 18 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Five long years following the release of their critically acclaimed second album Wake, Oslo's post-metal collective Leonov are ready to rain down some new hauntingly beautiful post-metal anthems. The album sees Leonov blending razor-sharp, cold progressiveness with heartfelt warm passages, giving their song an eerie and cinematic, almost otherworldly feel to it. It is the sound of a world collapsing.
Life is what happens between curtain rise and curtain fall. And when you’re in the middle of your performance, it can be tough to un-blur, categorize, and interpret the details buried within the perpetual collapsing rubble of past, present, and future. On January 26th, Chayse Porter will release his third studio album, Endless / Boundless via Earth Libraries, nine new musical excavations and epiphanies the Birmingham-based songwriter dug up from life’s bedrock and polished to a shine in his basement lair. How to describe Porter’s solo work...mischievous pop? Cotton candy spun with barbed wire? Beatle-esque, Burt Bacarach-inspired soft rock left to freeze in the warped confines of a funhouse mirror? Whatever your preferred descriptor, Endless / Boundless is a fresher, more direct record than the high-concept psyche excavations of Chay’s Palace, his 2022 sophomore album. Lyrically, Endless ruminates on unrequited love, toxic American exceptionalism, and, in one of the record’s lighter moments, unexpected kindness from strangers. There’s jubilant dream pop (opening stunner “Bleeding Hearts”), shoegaze with threats of violence (“Lead Pipe Cinch”), and a cinematic instrumental centerpiece best enjoyed with eyes closed (“Copter”). With the record on the way and a live band assembled and ready to go, Porter has left listeners a trail of breadcrumbs in anticipation.
Ultravillage is a collective and burgeoning community of new age music devotees, private press fanatics and underground ambient, minimal and progressive electronic aficionados. T
Mark Griffey, the man behind Ultravillage, has recently made the venture into releasing albums, with the intention of reissuing forgotten personal masterpieces of 1980s and 90s private press synth culture on new label Mid-Air Museum. MM’s first vinyl record release is a collaboration with Scottish reissue label chOOn!!.
Together, they present Accidental Music 1987-1991 by Charles Esposito, a career retrospective of the experimental composer from Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The cinematic and the sacred swirl around on Accidental Music, which gives new life to intriguing self-released tapes that Esposito put out in the 1980s and 90s. Heard by few on its original release, the music featured on this compilation ranges from Palace of Lights percussive sonics to an almost minimal techno palette, a meeting of pop and twisted electronics with the hypnotic immediacy of ancient ritual.
Accidental Music 1987-1991 develops a series of resonant harmonic spaces, by adding layers of instruments and played objects. Rather than work as acoustic maps of specific locations, these pieces eddy and gather into positive physical presences. But Esposito’s real strength lies in creating depth of field. The foreground might be dominated by glassy chimes or resonant prayer bowl-like timbres, but beyond it a series of sonic veils seems to recede towards murky imperceptibility. There’s also a kind of surreal decorum at play, passages that sound like an immaculately laid dinner table being shaken by an earth tremor while the tinkling complaints of the silver, glass and muffling linen are scrupulously recorded.
Available for the first time on vinyl, Accidental Music 1987-1991 by Charles Esposito is an exploration into
many inner worlds and dreamscapes, an analogue mirage of avant-garde gems. Produced in cooperation with the artist for Mid-Air Museum and chOOn!!.
Mastered for vinyl and digital and featuring liner notes from Mark Griffey.
Ethyos 440’s Electrifying Fusion Blends Genres in New EP «Aquila Rift“.
Prepare to embark on a musical journey like no other as Ethyos 440 introduces their exciting and awaited 2nd EP «Aquila Rift,» set to release on Stone Pixels on the 3rd of October. Blending elements of electronic music, trough Dj Laxxiste A. ́s radical and incisive approach to production with L’Eclair’s love for cinematic soundscapes and ethereal melodies, Ethyos 440 has created a captivating fusion that questions the boundaries of the electronic scene, seamlessly merging the worlds of house music and rock’n’roll.
The EP opens with the pulsating energy of the first single due on September 6th «Escape from 440» before entering the dystopian dub trip of «Fattuale». The Madchester trance-hit that is “Tobisha“ follows and takes you directly to the Paradise Anthem outro of EP closer «Mos Eisley».
Ethyos 440 has crafted a collection of bangers that will ignite any club settings. «Aquila Rift» is not just for the dance floor. It is a psychedelic expedition for expert listeners, with layers of complexity that reveal themselves with each listen. The multidimensional sonic experience crafted by the band’s use of heavy cross-fading breakbeats, never-ending fat bass lines mixed with crunchy wah-wah’s and sci-fi like synthesizers aims to transport their audience into the depths of their own mind.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Silver with White and Black Marbled. Cold Wave. Nantes, France. Simmering on the edge of an explosion, the songs injects dark and grave moods into an antsy and frenetic weave of relentless buzzing, trembling bass blows, hard stomping drum beats, spiralling synths, and ominously abrasive guitar riffs laced with echoing piercing strains, amid a haunting vocal interplay, layering harrowing baritone broods with dire seething cries to decry, through a resentful sea of anger and judgment, death to another. Cinematic visuals directed by Rom Snare star Yoram Varganyi as a lost soul looking for trouble or, perhaps, friendship with co-stars Dolorès and Alain Mt, on his last night out, whilst an unexpected ending leaves the viewer heartbroken and breathless. A busy urban backdrop sets the stage for an emotional experience where evocative acting and an on-point black leather-clad exterior sync perfectly with the brazen vibes of the soundtrack.
FOLLOWING THEIR RECENT REUNION, THE DELGADOS REISSUE THEIR FOURTH STUDIO ALBUM HATE ON COLOURED VINYL AND CD TO MARK ITS 21st ANNIVERSARY
Ushering in a new era of emotionally vulnerable and cinematic songwriting for celebrated Glasgow group The Delgados, 2002’s Hate is the group’s most ambitious recorded statement to date. Recorded amidst a backdrop of personal change and international crisis, Hate’s internal alchemy transmogrifies darkness into light. It’s an enclosed universe full of tragedy and magic, a swirling galaxy of lush orchestration, misanthropy dealt with kindness and black humour. Above all it showed a band coming to terms with their fragility with a new power and grace.
In Hate, the band’s ambition saw them striving to reflect the breadth of human experience, both the joy and tragedy of living in tumultuous times. Initially commissioned by The Barbican in London to compose music for a film about artist Joe Coleman, the instrumental music that instigated Hate was laden with darkness from the outset. The Delgados’ worldview has always been informed by nuance, an oblique but incisive lyrical perspective but on Hate a new rawness is woven throughout the songs. Coleman’s original subject matter - portraits of troubled historical figures like Ed Gein, Mary Bell and Jayne Mansfield - influenced the tonality of the music but the songs were written against a backdrop of international tumult and personal life changes for the band members. Beginning writing sessions following a family bereavement in drummer Paul Savage’s family, Hate was then recorded while both Alun Woodward and co-singer/guitarist Emma Pollock were expecting new additions to their young families, the latter with drummer Paul Savage. In the background to the recording process were the attacks on the World Trade Center of September 2001 and their aftermath. In this context, it’s remarkable that an album was made at all, let alone one so grand and compassionate. It’s a masterclass in restraint and imagination.
Hate sounds like the world in all its ugly glory. Recorded in Glasgow and New York with Tony Doogan, Dave Fridmann and the band as producers and using over 20 additional musicians, Hate grabs the baton from the group’s breakthrough critical and commercial success The Great Eastern. Bolder, broader and more all-encompassing than anything the band had previously attempted, the album’s palette is furnished by a string section, brass and reed instrumentation, a choir and electronic elements augmenting the core group of Emma Pollock, Alun Woodward, Paul Savage and Stewart Henderson. Far from being over the top, the group’s skill is in attention to detail, in honing and refining each arrangement, allowing each element its space.
It’s a fine balancing act that pays massive dividends. Woodward’s new lyrical vulnerability is spotlighted on tracks like The Drowning Years, which throws elegiac string arrangements against the narrative of characters living in darkness, punctuated by couplets that bring a real-life documentary feel to the narrative. All Rise brings a black comedy to the idea of a confessional before a transcendent, choir-led refrain brings ecstatic resolution to Woodward’s vocal in its highest register. On the single All You Need Is Hate, Woodward’s trick of subverting the Beatles standard showcases the dark humour at the centre of Hate. Here The Delgados’ perversity is in full flow, nurturing a glowing light from darkness, the resolving melody and Fridmann production recalling contemporaries The Flaming Lips (whose Michael Ivins assisted in mixing) or Mercury Rev. The perversity is the surging serotonin induced by the group while singing the lines “Hate is everywhere, inside your mother’s heart and you will find it there. You ask me what you need? Hate is all you need.”
It’s a dark magic that pervades Hate, indeed it’s almost the driving force throughout the album. Flipping minor to major and back again, Favours is fuelled by fear and violence before blasting into the heavens with the gauche line “and you’re feeling fine,” operating in stark contrast to the verses’ tone. Album opener The Light Before We Land finds Emma Pollock in the aftermath of recent family trauma. Her vocal is effortless; a study in steady restraint against the massive, Fridmann-patented drum sound powering Savage’s playing and Henderson’s instantly recognisable melodic basslines. Coming In from the Cold is Pollock in full flight, lifted to the heavens by wide-screen, instrumental texture. Her presence on Hate highlights her knack for lyrical impressionism, the timbre of her voice lending itself to drama while always retaining a mystique. Never Look At The Sun, inspired by the Coleman painting The Big Bang Theory (itself an explosives-themed study), revels in paranoia, her performance ringing out in the eye of the storm conjured by the swirling arrangements. It reaches the peak of a redemptive arc while seemingly parodying the very idea of redemption.
Hate was the sound of The Delgados completely fulfilling their potential, a fully realised vision buoyed by the weight of coming through a darkness into light. For its 21st anniversary, the album is being reissued on the band’s own Chemikal Underground on coloured vinyl and CD. Hate is all you need
- iam8bit Edition - 2xLP on Ice Crown Blue Vinyl - Featuring Music from World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Music Composed by Russell Brower, Derek Duke, Glenn Stafford, Jason Hayes, and Neal Acree - Album Design by Ryan Brinkerhoff // Wrath of the Lich King was more than just World of Warcraft's second expansion. For the game's millions of players, its release was a watershed moment in the MMORPG's then-young history, a defining time that rocketed the game into a new stratosphere of popularity and prestige. Northrend may be cold, but we here at iam8bit are feeling the warm and fuzzy embrace of nostalgia, thinking back on fond memories of countless icy raid nights. To commemorate this feeling, we collaborated with the folks at Blizzard Entertainment to create a 2xLP worthy of the Frozen Throne! Inside, you'll find select tracks from Russell Brower, Derek Duke, Glenn Stafford, Jason Hayes, and Neal Acree unforgettable soundtrack, presented across two records and packaged in album design from seasoned talent Ryan Brinkerhoff. This iam8bit version comes on lovely Crown Blue vinyl. Whether you're rolling need or greed, we know you're gonna want this one. Don't miss out on this celebration of one of the greatest expansions of all time!
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Early Life Forms is a new quartet fronted by Belgian guitarist and sound wizard Vitja Pauwels, and on the 26th January, they are set to release their self-titled debut album via W.E.R.F. Records; a stunning, one-off live show recorded with American guitarist Marc Ribot (Robert Plant, Tom Waits, Wilson Pickett, Marianne Faithfull, The Black Keys, John Zorn).
Having already earned his spurs as a sideman with artists including Naïma Joris, Bombataz and Lara Rosseel, rising Belgian star Pauwels released his debut album 'Day at Half Speed' in 2019, which explored the possibilities of acoustic guitar and live electronics. This experiment became a new artistic path for Pauwels and showcased his musical versatility, with second album 'Drift By, Sink In', released to critical acclaim in 2022.
The same year, Pauwels was invited as special guest by the BRAND! Festival, Mechelen, to showcase new material and he came up with the idea of putting together his 'dream' live band which included his hero Marc Ribot, one of world's most accomplished and acclaimed guitar players. Reaching out to him via videos and early demos for this new recording project, Ribot liked what he heard and agreed to perform with Pauwels and his new project Early Life Forms in what would be the band's first ever live show.
Joined by Frederik Leroux (baritone guitar), Laurens Dierickx (Hammond organ) and Casper Van De Velde (drums), during the lead up to the festival, Pauwels wrote a number of songs he felt would work for the live show, with the only agreement being that there would be no rehearsals ahead of the performance, only a brief soundcheck beforehand with Ribot. The music was stripped down to its essentials - compelling melodies, themes, and clear forms but with the possibility to change direction at any given moment. "The music was played and heard for the first time, and it felt like a birth of something that needed to be alive. We felt connected in the right state of mind - relaxed and focused - and it all happened in a rush of shared energy. No ego's or fear, only connection and the music", states Pauwels.
Drawing on latin, jazz, cuban, and rock with a touch of exoticism and cinematic explorations, 'Early Life Forms' cites Ry Cooder, Henry Mancini, Los Lobos, Ennio Morricone and of course Ribot, as heavy influences. There is something existential, primary, something epic and at the same time youthfully uncomplicated, which is strongly associated with the music. From the mischievous and imaginative 'My Little Renaissance' to the adventurous and hypnotic 'Latin Dancer', 'Early Life Forms' is overflowing with sharp twists and turns, with Ribot's heavily rhythmic, distorted guitar amplifying the cinematic feel to the sound. The on-stage relationship between each member of the band and Ribot is childishly uncomplicated, something primary but always epic. The music is left to the moment and the magic of their first encounter with their hero Ribot. "Marc's commitment in the music was better than I could have hoped for. What he played was with 200% intention, putting the rest of us in a state of hyperfocus. Given the fact that it was a one-time thing and a recording, we took risks without 'overplaying' or overthinking it. Right before the gig, we felt an urge to play, Marc said, "Let's rock!!" and we hit the stage", says Pauwels.
Contradictory accounts of Miles Davis’ creation of the soundtrack to Louis Malle’s film noir Ascenseur pour l'Échafaud have all become part of its legend. Rarely has a soundtrack been so decisive. Nearly seventy years on, beyond the myth, this taut, feverish recording, imbued with extreme dramatic tension, remains one of the Miles’ finest records. The basic outline remains: Jean-Paul Rappeneau suggested to Malle asking Miles Davis to create the film's soundtrack who agreed to record the music after attending a private screening. Davis was performing at the Club Saint-Germain in Paris in November 1957 and on December 4, he brought his four sidemen to the recording studio without having had them prepare anything. Davis only gave the musicians a few rudimentary harmonic sequences he had assembled in his hotel room, and, once the plot was explained, the band improvised without any precomposed theme, while edited loops of the musically relevant film sequences were projected in the background. Bassist Pierre Michelot recalled in 1988 that “Miles just asked us to play two chords, D minor and C7, 4 bars of each, ad lib.” Typically, Miles planned very little but know exactly what he wanted. François Leterrier, the film’s Second Assistant Director picks up the story: “The session started at around ten o’clock and went on until dawn. The screen in the auditorium was showing the scenes for which Miles had devised some harmonies, and they were edited into a loop. And that’s what makes this music unique: it was entirely improvised in conditions that went back to the days of silent films, while watching frames shot in black and white by cinematographer Henri Decaë: tracking shots of Jeanne Moreau wandering down the Champs-Elysées at night, passing in front of lit window displays or going into bars, while looking for her lover/murderer alias Maurice Ronet … All of us there in the dark auditorium were aware that something extraordinary was taking place, something that had definitely never happened before. … In the small hours we all met up again at the Pied de Cochon in Les Halles, and Louis was looking at Miles with the disbelieving eyes of a child … as if he couldn’t believe the gift he’d just received. Even in his wildest dreams he had probably never imagined what his film would be like once it had been as if illuminated by the trumpet of Miles, incisive or wrapped softly in cotton.” The music was released on 10” by Fontana and received the Grand Prix from France’s Académie Charles Cros. It was released in the USA on Columbia as the A-side of the 12” LP Jazz Track, which received a 1960 Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Performance, Solo or Small Group. This beautiful re-issue of the original recording is pressed on 180g vinyl at GZ, and packaged in a deluxe gatefold tip-on jacket with Boris Vian’s original liner notes and Jean-Pierre Leloir’s iconic studio photo of Miles and Jeanne Moreau, and an essay on the circumstances that led to this out-of-the ordinary music by Franck Bergerot.
After her stunning collaborations with Vincent Royer (for Mode Records), Jim O"Rourke and Christoph Heemann (both for Oren Ambarchi"s Black Truffle Records) Brunhild Ferrari returns to the scene with this new solo album. Extérieur-jour is comprised of two previously unreleased compositions, one being the title track the album is named after and the other "Le Piano Englouti (version original)." Extérieur-jour translates to "Outside Day," and indicates an instruction for a film scene, a piece of cinéma pour l"oreille, a movie for the ears. It was recorded at Luc Ferrari"s Atelier Post Billig in January and February 2014. "Le Piano Englouti" ("The Sunken Piano"), another electroacoustic composition which was realized over a period of fourteen years between 1996 and 2010, also brings forth cinematic elements with sound sources recorded in places as diverse as a Greek island by the noisy Agean Sea, a Pachinko place and a quiet island in Japan. It comes across as a meditation on the loss and reappearance of memory and silence. The graphics for the album sleeve were created by the late Wolfgang Meyer Tormin, artist and composer and also father of Brunhild Ferrari. The album was mastered for vinyl from the original source by Jim O"Rourke.
Two sublime unreleased scores from Basil Kirchin. Need we say more.
So here we are. The next Trunk / Kirchin assignment. Basically some more unreleased music from the unpredictable and slightly chaotic Kirchin Tape Archive.
Very Limited Black Vinyl.
These tapes were labelled up as follows:
Assignment K (with lots of pencil scribbles everywhere). The Strange Affair (with lots of pen scribbles everywhere).
As usual with Basil tapes / things there is little else to go on, no tracklist, no list of musicians, no singer names, no dates or anything. I have actually tried to establish the name of the singer on the song from Side One (we have called it “Love Is To Walk Away “ as it is unnamed) but having played it to a handful of knowledgeable collectors and enthusiasts who I would count as experts in this field, no one has a clue who it might be. If you think you know please get in touch. We know who it isn’t.
We can tell you that Assignment K dates from 1968, was a film about a toy maker who has a double life as an international spy. It was directed by Val Guest, who’d just finished trying to rescue the cinematic hotchpotch that was Casino Royale - he had been brought in by the Bond producers after Peter Sellers had walked off the movie. We imagine Assignment K may have been a slightly less stressful few months of shooting. As for the Kirchin score that we have here, we can tell you very little indeed, apart from the fact that the bass player was Ron Prentice (an ex blacksmith turned musician and craftsman) who worked on several Bond scores, but we know little else. And we only know this because it says so in the academic tome “Jazz On The Screen” by David Meeker.
The Strange Affair is also from 1968, and was not only controversial but also a reasonably unsuccessful movie. Directed by David Greene who also directed, amongst other films, I Start Counting and the quite brilliant Sebastian. In this rather grubby flick a policeman called Peter Strange (played by Michael York) falls for an underage girl (played by Susan George), finds himself compromised by a pair of pornographers and gets lured into an errand for a smack gang. We can tell you little else because I have no more information about it all.
But we do know that this music has all the classic Kirchin mid-period sonic hallmarks that have always set him apart.
RIYL Zero 7/ Plaid / Hot Chip / Weather Report / Isolee / Baby Fox
Old friends Julian Bates and Alex Gray —working together as Mighty Truth for the first time since 1995’s From The City To The Sea — filled a car with old analogue synths, kids’ noise toys, and collected field recordings took a road trip down to hole up in an old water mill in southwest England’s bird-twittery, bee-loud Quantock hills.
Things got cinematic: unequal measures of early Weather Report, Wim Wenders, and Serge Gainsbourg kept them wonderfully lost in their imagined world. Back in London with guest singers Allonymous (Paris via Chicago) and Wayne Paul (London), they completed the album and decided to just call it Mighty Truth. With an aim to present the live show at moonlight pop-up cinema venues, Mighty Truth are here for the next chapter in their epic saga.
Back then….
Old friends Julian Bates and Alex Gray first met through their shared obsession with classic cars (both owned old SAAB 96s). At the time, Julian’s band Nightrains was signed to ACE Records in the UK whilst Alex worked first as a session keyboardist for the likes of Edwyn Collins, Billy Mackenzie, and Busta “Cherry” Jones, and later as a mixer and remixer working with S’express producer Pascal Gabriel, Malcolm McLaren, and soul DJ legend Dr Bob Jones.
Working together in the studio for the first time producing Vanessa Freeman (4 hero), Alex and Julian decided to embark on a drop-tempo jazz trip project they named Mighty Truth. Dr Bob heard that first self-released vocal track “Rebirth” and started dropping it on Kiss FM (UK). After guest DJ slots on Coldcut’s Kiss show, Alex and Julian signed to Tongue and Groove records.
The album From the City to the Sea produced a number of singles and both “Rebirth” and “Is it a Wizard or a Blizzard” were licensed to many compilations both in the UK and internationally (eg. Dope on Plastic, Mole Listening Pearls, Eight Ball).
The Sound of Sinners is a NYC boutique record label focused on vinyl and digital releases by Indie, ambient, avant-garde and electronic artists.
Following 5 BBC Folk Awards nominations and a designation by the Guardian as Folk Album of the Year in 2019, it is fair to say that Lisa O’Neill is one of the most evocative songwriters in contemporary Irish music today. Fresh off 2018’s collection Heard a Long Song Gone for the River Lea imprint, The Wren EP in 2019 and an adaptation of Bob Dylan’s "All the Tired Horses" for the final scene of epic TV drama Peaky Blinders, O’Neill now returns with her latest album, and first for the Rough Trade label, the beautiful, resonant All Of This Is Chance.
A raconteur in the truest sense of the word, every story starts somewhere and O’Neill starts this extraordinary collection here on earth, on Irish soil, hands in the land. The album is full of both orchestral masterpieces like the ambitious and cinematic "Old Note" and the title track of “All of This Is Chance”, inspired by the great Monaghan writer Patrick Kavanagh's prescient meditation on The Great Hunger, as well as stirring meditations on nature, birds, berries, bees, and blood that ring out over a clacking banjo, dusting and devastating all those in its wake.
All Of This Is Chance takes Lisa’s inimitable voice to greater heights, or depths, depending on which way you look at it.
out of Stock
Last delivered 2 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Jakarta Records is proud to present “Les Grandes Vacances” courtesy of Beirut’s Cosmic Analog Ensemble, aka multi-instrumental phenom Charif Megarbane. The LP is an expansive musical odyssey, one that paints a melodic tapestry woven from an eclectic panorama of sonic tools. Funky beats, dreamy melodies + cinematic flair combine to create an experience that transcends time. From vibrant funky energy to introspective moods and library-inspired tunes, “Les Grandes Vacances” captures the essence of past and present, inviting you to indulge in the perfect balance of “groove-stalgia.” Out January 19, 2024.
Cosmic Analog Ensemble (1.6k Spotify Monthly Listeners – SML), the prolific one-man band helmed by Charif Megarbane (61.5k SML), the staggeringly prolific producer, instrumentalist, and all-around musical mastermind, returns to his “Ensemble” with LP “Les Grandes Vacances.” Megarbane's artistry has garnered widespread recognition, with notable placements in Spotify Editorial Playlists like "Global Groove" (679k) and "Folk Fabrique" (162k), along with coverage from esteemed platforms / publications such as BBC Radio, Bandcamp, The Vinyl Factory, Time Magazine, and Esquire, among others. Building on the success of his debut solo release “Marzipan” in 2023 via Habibi Funk, “Les Grandes Vacances” is a sonic journey that captures the full scope of Megarbane’s sonic habitus. As a composer and producer, Megarbane touts hugely versatile, sometimes volatile musicianship — his 100+ catalogue of projects (including legendary groups like the Cosmic Analog Ensemble, Free Association Syndicate, Monumental Detail, etc.) features a huge domain of sonic direction. Now, Jakarta Records presents a new expansion in the Megarbane sonic universe.
In the enchanting sonic world of “Les Grandes Vacances,” Cosmic Analog Ensemble expertly combines diverse musical elements to craft an immersive experience. From vibrant funky energy to introspective moments and library-inspired compositions, the album's sonic palette is rich and varied. The meticulously designed artwork by Simone Cihlar (known for collabs with Anderson Paak., Tom Misch, Ivan Ave, Tapioca and others) complements the album's thematic depth, enhancing the visual and auditory journey for listeners.
First single is the thrilling sonic escapade, “La Ligne Claire,” set to release on November 10th in conjunction with LP pre-order. The track immerses listeners in vintage spy movie ambiance, featuring groovy drums, warm keys, thematic guitars, and strings that create an unforgettable car chase scene. As part of the rollout schedule, this single offers a glimpse into the album's captivating fusion of nostalgia and innovation, promising a musical adventure that lingers and resonates in your ears. Second single, the lush and groovy “Le Dictionnaire des Sentiments,” follows in the sonic footsteps of Serge Gainsbourg (complete with beautifully poignant French lyricism), out December 8th to round out the year. The track jerks the listener towards a more meditative state and expanding, cinematic sound.
Kicking of 2024 will be the absolute funkified single 3 “Maritime Jazz,” out January 5th. The track transports you to a groovy marina where the movement of the sea and boats sways you along a Madlib / Yesterdays New Quintet-esque groove.
Reflecting on his creative process, Megarbane cites a stream of consciousness approach to the Cosmic Analog Ensemble: “It’s a very spontaneous, playful, and diary-like approach and workflow…I trust my instinct because instinct is based on experience.”
LA-based composer/arranger E. Lundquist (aka Eric Borders) returns with ‘Art Between Minds’. Having cut his teeth in the LA hip-hop and beats scene and explored realms of cosmic-funk under previous monikers, E. Lundquist’s music displays a rich tapestry of influences including the cinematic & experimental jazz-infused library music that influenced his previous LP ‘Multiple Images’. Now he is back with another ample helping of his hallucinogenic sonics, utilizing a bevy of vintage gear to replicate that warm glow of ’70s jazz-funk. From the Fender Rhodes MKI to the ARP Odyssey, to the Mellotron, the keys and synths he employs on these tracks display a genuine appreciation for the groove-driven music of The ‘Me” Decade.
The album plays like the score to a cult classic B-movie. The sun-drenched haze of “Soliloquy” could easily be what you hear during the calm before the storm in a Blaxploitation flick and the laidback crawl of “Euphoria” seems ripped right out of a fuzzy ‘70s blue movie. But there is a certain sophistication here, like the way the horn section, slinky guitar, and trippy synths combine on “Escape” to sound like liquid one moment and like a summer breeze the next.
While E. Lundquist’s artistry will eventually take him to new plateaus of sound, where he is right now is undoubtedly a high watermark in his career. He has become a torchbearer for jazz-funk in a new jazz revolution, updating the sub-genre with his delicate balance of digital and analog elements that will easily appeal to fans of Kamaal Williams, Surprise Chef, BADBADNOTGOOD, Khurangbin, Robohands and similar.
With her cinematic debut in 1952, Brigitte Bardot's musical career would begin a decade later after signing to the Phillips Record Label in 1962. Bardot released her debut album the following year and featured four singles: 'Les Amis De La Musique', 'El Cuchipe', the critically acclaimed 'La Madrague' and 'L'Appareil À Sous', penned by Serge Gainsbourg, its style was suited to the 'Twist' dance craze gaining popularity amongst her teen audience. Gainsbourg would feature regularly throughout her artistic career. Impressively, Bardot sings on the album in three languages: French, Spanish ('El Cuchipe'), and English ('Everybody Loves My Baby'). Her musical ventures were playful, fun and uniquely B.B.
Goldene Deluxe Edition zum 10-jährigen Jubiläum des Debütalbums von Princess Chelsea. 180g goldfarbenes Vinyl in einer gestanzten Gatefold-Hülle mit Goldfolienrücken, Songtexten und einem Poster im DIN-A1 Format. Lil' Golden Book ist das Debütalbum der neuseeländischen Künstlerin Princess Chelsea. Es wurde ursprünglich am 2. Mai 2011 über Lil' Chief Records veröffentlicht. Das Album wurde von Jonathan Bree und Chelsea Nikkel produziert und erzählt die Geschichte des Aufwachsens als Teenager und junger Erwachsener in Neuseeland. Nikkel gab an, dass die Produktion des Albums fast drei Jahre dauerte. The Sunday Star Times beschreibt es treffend als "when cute meets creepy". "Princess Chelsea veröffentlicht anno 2011 mit gerade mal 19 Jahren ihr Langspiel-Debüt "Lil' Golden Book". Darauf regiert kurioser Pop. Mit dem Video zu "The Cigarette Duet" landet sie völlig überraschend einen Youtube-Hit. Der Track handelt von den unterschiedlichen Haltungen zweier Partner zum Thema Abhängigkeit. Die eingängigen Melodien, die sie in vielfältige Arrangements bettet, ordnen viele dem Baroque-Pop bei. Vor allem Klavier und die feengleiche, spröde Stimme der Dame dominieren die Songs, die oft zwischen Sadcore und Ambientpop oszillieren. Darin finden immer wieder entrückte Synthieflächen und vereinzelt elektrische Schnipsel Einzug. Zusammen mit orchestralen Parts ergibt dieser schrille Cocktail einen cinematischen Sound, der in drei Jahren Heimarbeit entstanden ist." - LAUT.de
Known for weaving together complex rhymes with style, Elzhi has been rapping circles around the competition for more than two decades. After years as a member of iconic group Slum Village, Elzhi’s impressive solo career has included projects produced by acclaimed artists like Black Milk, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Khrysis, and Will Sessions. Now, the Detroit emcee is linking with California beat maestro Oh No for the new collaborative album Heavy Vibrato. A multitalented underground hip-hop luminary, Oh No has built a formidable resume behind the boards, crafting tracks for Mos Def, Freddie Gibbs, MF DOOM, Action Bronson, Talib Kweli, Ab-Soul, Danny Brown, and more. Heavy Vibrato is a thrilling showcase for Elzhi’s lyrical wizardry and cinematic storytelling, as Oh No breathes new life into a compelling tapestry of jazz samples, producing the entire collection. “The only thing you need to absorb this experience is an open mind,” says Elzhi. With guest appearances by Blu and Guilty Simpson, Heavy Vibrato taps into an undeniable frequency.