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This is music by four strong individual players with room for eruptive solo-parts, but always held together by intense communication and beautiful interwoven melodies. The quartet's second album A History of Nothing (Trost records/TR170) got a huge number of excited reviews: A superb quartet outing. The music is all improvised, but it's firmly rooted in jazz, with superb interaction between all of the players, both on ripping, high-velocity blowouts and more delicate forays. (Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader) Freedom is clearly a responsibility as well as a joy, and it's emphasized here by the group's shared commitment: each musician is constantly working in two directions, stretching further and creating cohesion. The music is improvised with such an ear to complementary detail that it's literally being collectively composed. (Stuart Broomer, Free Jazz Collective) Together, this quartet is dynamite. It's exciting to hear a European musician along with three Americans, and notice that they communicate so well. (Jan Granlie, Salt Peanuts) Recorded by Klaus Hedegaard Nielsen at Jazzhouse, Copenhagen, March 2nd, 2017 Mixed by Joaquim Monte and Rodrigo Amado, CD Master by Simon Wadsworth / LP Master by Martin Siewert

A modern and powerful interpretation of traditional Italian Pizzica.
The Pugliese group Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino is known for its powerful
rhythms, vocal harmonies and constant groove. Canzoniere has a knack for
bringing together all their references, ancient and contemporary, into a coherent narrative, both hybrid and fluid.
Their new album Meridiana (Italian for “sundial”) contains twelve tracks like
the twelve hours of the sundial and tells the story of each of the seven band
members’ relationship with time. It is co-produced by guitarist Justin Adams,
long-time collaborator of Robert Plant, and producer of some of Tinariwen and
Rachid Taha’s cult albums.
The production and instrumentation, combining synth, electric bass and loops
with traditional folk instruments, give a modern and powerful reading to this
age-old music.

Ubiquity Records presents a limited repressing of "Awakeining" by the legendary Pharaohs which is highly sought after and has been out of print for several years. Awakening was originally released in 1971 and re-issued by Luv n’Haight in 1996 and quickly became a must-have for collectors of spiritual, deep, Afro-centric Jazz. "The legend of The Pharaohs starts at Crane Junior College on the West side of Chicago. Under the tutelage of James Mack a student band is formed- The Jazzmen- which in 1962 wins the best band category at Chicago's annual Harvest Moon Festival which translated into the early members finding success at Chess Records as studio musicians. After a while these musicians moved over to the South Side to the fledgling Affro Arts Theater where they joined the Artistic Heritage Ensemble, under the leadership of Phil Cohran and where they eventually merged after Cohran left to teach at Malcolm X Junior College. It was this version of the band: Louis Satterfield, Charles Handy, “Big” Willie Woods (Trombone), Oye Bisi (African drums), Shango Njoko Adefumi (African Drums), Black Herman Waterford (Quinto drum, alto sax), Don Myrick (saxes), Yehudah Ben Israel (guitar, vocals), Alious Watkins (trap drums, tuba), Derf Reklaw Raheem (percussion, flute), Aaron Dodd (Tuba); that in 197I recorded “The Awakening”. By 1972 when “In The Basement” was recorded the unit had expanded to include Derrick Morris (trap drums), Warren Bingham (guitar), Rahm Lee (trumpet) and Sue Conway (Vocal).

It may be his fifth album, but Saturday Night, Sunday Morning marks the start of chapter two for Jake Bugg. Arguably his most complete and coherent record to date, Saturday Night, Sunday Morning manages to combine a love of ABBA, the Beach Boys, Supertramp and the Bee Gees, with a contemporary pop sound: one that’s already spawned his most ubiquitous song in years via euphoric lead single, All I Need. “I knew what I was looking for this time around,” the 27-year-old says, firmly. “And I feel like I accomplished it.” It’s almost 10 years since a two-fingered Bugg burst onto the scene with his eponymous debut, one that topped the UK album charts and saw the then 18-year-old from Nottingham fêted as the next Bob Dylan. A Rick Rubin-produced follow up, Shangri La, quickly followed. But progress stalled with Bugg’s third, largely self-produced, record, On My One, in 2016. “I was having a hard time on that third record,” Bugg admits, five years removed. “The support from the industry wasn’t what it was. All those people telling you how great you are weren’t there anymore. It does feel like the rug’s been swept from under your feet.” What that record provided, however – along with its comparatively stripped-back follow up, Hearts That Strain (2017) – was a much-needed course corrector: one that set Bugg on the upward trajectory he finds himself on today. “When I came to terms with that was when I left the ego at the door,” he says. “It didn’t work out. But it led here. And this is probably my strongest record." It’s testament to Bugg’s rediscovered confidence that Saturday Night, Sunday Morning – a nod to the debut novel by Nottingham author Alan Sillitoe – sees him working with some of his highest profile collaborators to date, most notably American songwriters Andrew Watt and Ali Tamposi, best known for their work with pop heavyweights Post Malone, Dua Lipa, Miley Cyrus, Camila Cabello. “I was looking for how I can incorporate my sound for a more modern era. And I kind of struck gold working with Andrew Watt and Ali Tamposi,” Bugg says. Convening in LA, the first track the trio wrote together is the jealousy-inflected About Last Night, a song about the “insecurities you go through as a young person in a relationship with someone.” “It’s got such dark undertones, which I love,” Bugg says, of a song that showcases a newly discovered, Beach Boys-esque falsetto. “But it’s also very, very pop. That’s what I’ve always loved. With ABBA, with Supertramp. I love pop music. But when you can get it to be dark, I love it even more.” It’s a trick the trio repeated again on Scene, Bugg’s personal favourite from the album and a song that best encapsulates the combination of old and new: Watt’s George Harrison-esquire guitar brushing up against contemporary melodic choices by Tamposi. “I love writing with her,” Bugg says of the Havana hitmaker. “She brought that women’s perspective. And I knew that I’d got that balance of what I wanted. That old school chorus with contemporary verses. That to me was my favourite song when I wrote it, and it still is.” Perhaps the biggest example of Bugg’s newfound ego-less approach to writing, however, came in the shape of Downtown, a song that grew from an idea by Jamie Hartman (Celeste, Lewis Capaldi, Rag'n'Bone Man), and sees Bugg deploy the higher range of his voice to ethereal, ’60s Bee Gees effect. “Usually, the initial spark of an idea comes from me. And when it doesn't, it sometimes loses my attention,” Bugg admits. On Downtown, however, he relished his role as arranger: “Because there were a lot of moving parts and chords, it was almost like a puzzle,” he says. “I’d never approached a song like that before. “What I’ve been enjoying on this record is the collaborative process,” he continues. Working with people, writing with people. Because I’ve realised all I really want to achieve is to be the best writer I can possibly be. And I think by working with other people, it allows you to learn a lot as well.” It’s a theory Bugg has put to the test during lockdown, when he was approached by his manager about writing the soundtrack to an upcoming documentary, The Happiest Man In The World, about Brazilian footballer Ronaldinho. “It’s kind of a completely different experimental outlet,” Bugg explains of his first ever score. “I approach my own work quite professionally. But with this I can just switch off and go into a different world. And it’s been brilliant – I’ve had to learn different styles of guitar: bossa nova, samba. It’s a bit Vangelis, who’s probably my favourite artist – which may surprise people.” Possibly. But you get the impression that surprising is what Bugg likes to do. “I don’t like to be stuck doing the same thing,” he admits. “And that’s what this record Saturday Night, Sunday Morning was. I wanted to push myself. I’m always learning new influences. I’m careful not to get stuck on the same thing. “It’s not going to be right every time. It’s not going to be good every time,” he continues. “But if that’s the process it takes to get to this record, where people are loving the songs again, then that’s the journey we have to take.” For Jake Bugg, chapter two starts now. New album ‘Saturday Night, Sunday Morning’ is out August 20th on RCA Records

“an aggressively modern merger of Rush’s arena art rock, U.K. prog
classicism especially Pink Floyd and King Crimson and the post-grunge
vengeance of Tool” Rolling Stone
Having recently announced that Snapper Music will be representing Porcupine
Tree’s Transmission label worldwide, new CD and LP reissues of the band’s extensive catalogue will roll out throughout 2021.
Originally released in 2007, ‘Fear Of A Blank Planet’ was Porcupine Tree’s ninth
studio album. It was the band’s biggest selling album at the time, was their first
album to break into the Billboard top 100 in the USA as well as charting across
Europe, earned the band a Grammy nomination and has been featured in Rolling Stone Magazine’s Greatest Prog Albums Of All Time.
‘Fear Of A Blank Planet’ was an ambitious 50-minute piece of music made of
6 tracks that flow together to create a cohesive whole, the British art-rockers
Porcupine Tree created a concept album based on the Bret Easton Ellis novel
‘Lunar Park’, with lyrics that addressed how the adolescent protagonist battled
his bipolar and attention-deficit disorders with a regimen of prescription drugs
and Internet overstimulation.
The music used sprawling vocal melodies, atmospheric guitars and drums that
tumbled through chaotic passages to echo the main character’s manic-depressive states. ‘Fear Of A Blank Planet’ features guest appearances from Robert
Fripp (King Crimson) & Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson.
Porcupine Tree released their last album, ‘The Incident’, in 2009, marking another step forward in the incredible journey of the band that began as a solo
studio project created by Steven Wilson in the late eighties to a multi grammy
nominated act and one of the world’s most revered live bands, selling out arenas across the globe and wowing fans with their incredible performances.
This new Transmission version of ‘Fear Of A Blank Planet’ will be released as a
2LP gatefold 140gm edition.
“a dramatic, wide-screen, expertly executed, genuinely thrilling rock record” Q
Magazine

Susanna is now releasing a live album of covers with a unique history. Recorded in Oslo and Asker (Norway) in 2019 and 2020
right before the pandemic hit, Live by Susanna and David Wallumrød is a collaboration by the Norwegian and her cousin David, also a prolific musician, whose seeds were unknowingly sown over 20 years ago.“We played a lot together in our childhood and youth, being cousins, growing up in the same small town Kongsberg,” says Susanna. After being highly active musicians for many years, they decided to do a concert together in 2017, at a tiny cocktail-bar concert series in Oslo. It was so much fun they decided to do some more shows. They did, and out of this came Live. The songs on Live are the same covers Susanna and David played together 20 years ago, with a few new additions. They are instantly recognisable classics by Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris and Tom
Waits, played in the way Susanna and David know best - voice and keys. Pure, simple, and stunning. David Wallumrød is one of Norway’s most used piano/keyboard-players, he has participated on over 150 albums and been a regular member in the bands of artists like Knut Reiersrud, Odd Nordstoga, Jonas Alaska, Band of Gold and Torun Eriksen. He has his own band called Spirit in the Dark. Susanna is the woman behind Susanna and the Magical Orchestra, a creator of bold, original and enrapturing music, capable of
building worlds to lose yourself in and collaborator with artists such as Jenny Hval and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. Alongside this Susanna has also long been an interpreter of other people’s works, from AC/DC to Dolly Parton, Joy Division to Henry Purcell. Susanna has an ability to transform these works into music that sits comfortably next to her own work while never losing what made the original - and the original composer of the song - so special.

Multinational industrial black metal rising force Decoherence join Sentient Ruin again to bring you "System I", a 12" vinyl, digital and cassette tape full-length album/compilation of all the band's recent digital only singles and EPs, remastered to their final and ultimate form along with a glorious and previously unreleased cover rendition of Killing Joke's classic cut "The Wait". While these tracks were previously already digitally (self)released, don't be fooled or misled to think you're hearing any "b-sides" or otherwise "left over" material, rather, consider "System I" not only the righteous third official full-length album from the band, but also by far Decoherence's most visionary, cohesive, and imposing songs to date. Awe-inducing and ghastly in its enveloping immensity, the tracks on "System I" see the enigmatic multinational black metal band morph into their most defiant and commanding form yet, as they construct an impenetrable mechanized swarm of liquefying industrial hallucinations and swirling dissonance that eradicates the listener from their corporeal and terrestrial self to cast them at the edge of a light-devouring void. Stylistically "System I" sees Decoherence's sound still thrive and evolve within the familiar synthetic black metal deconstructionist framework of progenitors like Blut Aus Nord and Darkspace, but as the Killing Joke cover included unmistakably hints at, these tracks also reveal a marked shift for the band toward a more unintelligible, unpredictable, and ominous immateriality, as elements incorporated from post-punk and experimental industrial assume stronger delineations adding ulterior dimensions and identities to the band's already alien and otherworldly sound.

"The title 'The Big Picture' is about seeing things from a positiveperspective, the album wants to be an optimistic pill although a bigreflection of what I have been, what I lived and what I have become atthis very moment. I feel in an age where I feel fine looking at the pastas much as looking forward to the future." -AFFKT Inspiration strikes in a myriad of waves. AFFKT's new album bringstogether all the best feelings and elements of the Spanish producer'screativity into one cohesive release. New concepts and styles that deliver the energy needed to be released after a forced pause. Sonically speaking 'The Big Picture' is probably his most expansiveand multifaceted electronic-driven album to date. AFFKT's carefullyconstructed retro-futuristic electronica definitely suggests the quaintand unique forms of body music bringing ties with rock, pop andcertainly more organic sounds. The musician is creating a new path, anew future by travelling to the past. This new LP is redefining its ownnew genre somewhere between techno, indie dance, industrial andnew wave inspirations.

Today, beloved DJ, producer and songwriter Lauren Flax announces her forthcoming EP, Out Of Reality out August 6 via 2MR. Much of Out Of Reality’s cohesion comes from Flax’s expansive production, using simple elements to craft intricate backdrops for the questions posed by her songs. On the EP’s titular track, Alejandra Deheza (School of Seven Bells)’s crystalline vocals are woven against a delicate tapestry of arpeggiated keys, sparse percussion and haunting cello. Watch “Out of Reality” here.

Detachment isn’t always detrimental; sometimes you have to step outside to get a better view. Lauren Flax knows this - as a DJ, producer and songwriter, her discography is notoriously genre-defiant, consisting of an impressive array of solo tracks, collaborations, and remixes. The most recent of these – her mesmerizing take on Pale Blue’s “Breathe” - saw her experimenting with a new style of writing. “I wanted to explore that sound more,” Flax explains, “more of a synth exploration, textures with less beats.” The pared-down songwriting approach lent itself to thematic considerations as well: she’d been thinking about the repetitive nature of the life cycle - the Indian concept of Samsara - and felt a general disappointment at humanity’s lack of progress. On her new EP Out Of Reality, she washes that disappointment in lush sonic hues, stepping outside the quotidien for a new perspective.

Though its themes span beyond the scope of our current socio-political moment, Out Of Reality feels, right now, like an especially tantalizing proposition. Pandemic-driven escapism has bred a new crop of otherworldly music designed to transport the listener somewhere better. But Flax isn’t interested in escapism for its own sake - there’s still work to be done here on Earth, after all. Instead, through a combination of live instrumentation and ethereal synths, Out Of Reality grants us a respite from the real so we can return to it with a clear head.

After enduring a year like 2020, no one could have possibly expected Al Jourgensen to stay silent on the maelstrom of the past 12 months. As the mastermind behind pioneering industrial outfit Ministry, Jourgensen has spent the last four decades using music as a megaphone to rally listeners to the fight for equal rights, restoring American liberties, exposing exploitation and putting crooked politicians in their rightful place—set to a background of aggressive riffs, searing vocals and manipulated sounds to drive it home.
As Jourgensen watched the chaos that befell the world during the height of a global pandemic and the tensions rising from one of the most important elections in American history, he seized on the opportunity to write, spending quarantine holed up in his self-built home studio—Scheisse Dog Studio— along with engineer Michael Rozon and girlfriend Liz Walton to create Ministry’s latest masterpiece, Moral Hygiene (out October 1 on Nuclear Blast Records). Anchored by last year’s leadoff track “Alert Level”—which asks listeners to internalize the question “How concerned are you?”—the 10 songs on this upcoming 15th studio album cover the breadth of the current dilemmas facing humanity, while ruminating on the sizable impact of COVID-19, the inevitable effects of climate change, consequences of misinformed conspiracies and the stakes in the fight for racial equality. And most importantly doing so with the lens of what we as a society are going to do about it all.
Moral Hygiene comes on the heels of Ministry’s acclaimed 2018 album AmeriKKKant (hailed by Loudwire as Jourgensen’s own “state of the union” address) that was written as a reaction to Donald J. Trump being elected president—though Jourgensen says this new album is more informational and reflective in tone. “With AmeriKKKant I was in shock that Trump won. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I had to do something. Because I believe if you are a musician or an artist you should be expressing what’s going on around you through your art. It’s going to happen whether you do it consciously or unconsciously. Moral Hygiene however has progressed even further into a cautionary tale of what will happen if we don’t act. There’s less rage, but there’s more reflection and I bring in some guests to help cement that narrative.”
In addition to recruiting long-time cohort Jello Biafra (Jourgensen’s partner in the side project Lard) for the quirky earworm “Sabotage Is Sex,” other guest appearances include guitarist Billy Morrison (Billy Idol/Royal Machines) on a rendition of The Stooges hit “Search & Destroy.”
Another standout track is “Believe Me,” featuring a throwback vocal style from Jourgensen that harkens back to his singing on Twitch and cult classic “(Every Day Is) Halloween.” The song came out of a jam session with Morrison, Cesar Soto and sampling from Liz Walton, and reminded Jourgensen of his formative days at Chicago Trax Studios where communal ideas were constantly informing early Ministry records. “’Believe Me’ had such an old school vibe I wanted to bring back old school vocals. …It’s funny how things come back to you,” says Jourgensen, also reflecting on Ministry turning 40 in 2021.

With the release of Moral Hygiene, Jourgensen is more positive than before. “This may sound crazy but I’m more hopeful about 2021 than I have been in two decades at least,” he says. “Because I do see things changing; people are starting to see through all the bullshit and want to get back to actual decorum in society. We could just treat each other nicely and be treated nicely in return. I never thought Ministry would be in the position of preaching traditional values, but this is the rebellion now.”

"Red Rocks 2020 covers an amazing range of music from Rateliff’s celebrated career, music that had never been performed together live before the ill-fated tour including several jewels from And It’s Still Alright, and Rateliff solo albums, In Memory of Loss, Falling Faster Than You Can Run and the Shroud EP, along with “Still Out There Running,” a haunting and urgent track from 2018’s much loved Night Sweats LP, Tearing at the Seams.
The stellar cast of musicians includes Rateliff (guitar) with fellow Night Sweats Joseph Pope III (bass), Mark Shusterman (keys), Patrick Meese (drums, keys, guitar) and Luke Mossman (guitar), along with James Barone (drums, guitar), Joy Adams (cello), Rachel Sliker (viola), Adrienne Short (violin), and Chris Jusell (violin).
In addition, close friend Kevin Morby joins Rateliff and the band here for an amazing version of Leonard Cohen’s “There Is A War”."

Available on CD and 180gram heavyweight gatefold LP.
Noura Mint Seymali hails from a Moorish musical dynasty in Mauritania, born into a prominent family of griot and choosing from an early age to embrace the artform that is its lifeblood. Yet traditional pedigree has proven but a stepping-stone for the work Noura and her band have embarked upon in recent years, simultaneously popularizing and reimagining Moorish music on the global stage, taking her family's legacy to new heights as arguably Mauritania's most widely exported musical act of all time.
Arbina is Noura Mint Seymali's second international release. Delving deeper into the wellspring of Moorish roots, as is after all the tried and true way of the griot, the album strengthens her core sound, applying a cohesive aesthetic approach to the reinterpretation of Moorish tradition in contemporary context. The band is heard here in full relief, soaring vocals and guitar at the forefront, the mesmerizing sparkle of the ardine, elemental bass lines and propulsive rhythms swirling together to conjure a 360 degree vibe. Arbina refines a sound that the band has gradually intensified over years of touring, aiming to posit a new genre from Mauritania, distinct unto itself, music of the "Azawan."

Supported by guitarist, husband and fellow griot, Jeiche Ould Chighaly, Seymali's tempestuous voice is answered with electrified counterpoint, his quarter-tone rich guitar phraseology flashing out lightning bolt ideas. Heir to the same music culture as Noura, Jeiche intimates the tidinit's (Moorish lute) leading role under the wedding khaima with the gusto of a rock guitar hero. Bassist Ousmane Touré, who has innovated a singular style of Moorish low-end groove over the course of many years, can be heard on this album with greater force and vigor than ever before. Drummer/producer Matthew Tinari drives the ensemble forward with the agility and precision need to make the beats cut.
Many of the songs on Arbina call out to the divine, asking for grace and protection. "Arbina" is a name for God. The album carries a message about reaching beyond oneself to an infinite spiritual source, while learning to take the finite human actions to necessary to affect reality on earth. The concept of sëbeu, or that which a human can do to take positive action on their destiny, is animated throughout.

Lyrically, the Moorish griot tradition is complex and associative. Poetry is held in a continuum between author and audience in which a singer may draw on disparate sources, selecting individual lines here or there for musicality to form a lyrical patchwork expressing larger ideas via association. A griot may relate her own thoughts and poetry, sing poetry written for and about her by a third party, and transmit lines from one party addressing another in the course of a single song. With this ever-fluid narrative voice, stories are told.

In celebration of the 20th anniversary of the release legendary singer/ guitarist Thalia Zedek's Been Here and Gone, Thrill Jockey is proud to present the album unlike it has ever been heard before: on vinyl, re-mastered by Sarah Register. Thalia Zedek has been one of the most enduring rock musicians of the past four decades. From her auspicious beginnings in bands Uzi, Live Skull, and Dangerous Birds to her wider recognition in Come, Zedek established herself as a singular voice accruing accolades from critics and contemporaries including J. Mascis, Kurt Cobain, and Bob Mould. Been Here and Gone, her debut solo release originally released on Matador in 2001 on CD, marked a turning point in Zedek's music. As Come was coming to a close, Zedek began exploring writing and performing as a solo artist, eventually backed by violist David Curry, pianist Mel Lederman (both of which went on to perform with Zedek for two decades), as well as former Come bandmates Chris Brokaw and Daniel Coughlin. The idiosyncrasies of her voice were laid bare for the first time, revealing an even greater depth to her unique songwriting. The more spacious and rich arrangements sprawl and whisper with powerful vulnerability. "There was definitely something magical about the making of Been Here and Gone," says Zedek. "I'm not sure if it was because it was made at a studio called Higher Power in a recently desanctified church in Stuyvesant, NY, or if it was because it was the end of a century, not to mention a millennium, the end of a decade of being in Come, the longest running band I'd had up to that point, and the end of 5 years of unhappy breakups and tumultuous relationships in my personal life." The eleven tracks that comprise Been Here and Gone embody that tension of uncertainty with a hopeful edge of renewal. Zedek's indelible resilience lifts even the somberest laments into triumphs. Even on the album's three cover tunes, including a haunting rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Dance Me to the End of Love," Zedek's voice and guitar color every note with raw emotion, making each passing gesture personal. Been Here and Gone channels the thunder and roar of Zedek's past into a fragile magnificence.

180g vinyl 2LP set in deluxe gatefold sleeve with iconic pictures by jazz
photographer Francis Wolff. Originally released as The Jazz Messengers at
the Caf Bohemia Vol.1 (Blue Note BLP 1507 and BLP 1508.
One of the definitive bands of the hard bop genre, The Jazz Messengers’ soulful and hard driving sound set the benchmark of excellence in jazz. The present
set, recorded live at the celebrated Caf Bohemia in New York, was one of the
best from their early years.
This music originally appeared divided into two 12” volumes, whose contents
are included in their entireties on this 2-LP set.
“There’s excellent, cohesive trumpet by Kenny Dorham and piano by Horace
Silver that leaps into the emotions. Doug Watkins is equal to the never-coasting
rhythmic demands of Silver and the omni-cooking Art Blakey.”

Fake It Till We Die is the eleventh studio album by Dutch singer Anouk. It was released only seven months after its predecessor Queen for a Day. Although Anouk is primarily known for her rock songs, this album features mostly soul and funk oriented tracks. The preceding singles “Down Daddy Down” and “Burn” are a great example of Anouk’s expansion to these genres. Other strong tracks on the album are “I Just Met a Man”, “Blue Motel”, “Waste Your Water” and much more. Fake It Till We Die is quite a cohesive and very well done soul record, perfectly showcasing Anouk’s incredible voice.

The album is available on coloured vinyl for the first time. This edition includes a printed innersleeve with song lyrics and is available as a limited edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on pink vinyl.

The album is described this way by producer Ripley Johnson: "The band was aiming to capture a timeless, natural sound, not quite of the present, past, or future, but phasing in between the consciousness of now and the stoned dream-state of the eternal. Sort of a back porch jam just as the shrooms are starting to kick in. Handmade and human, but also cosmic and transcendental. The goal is to let the music speak for itself and hopefully find a weird and wonderful audience somewhere out there."That description feels right for an album which seems perfect for those soft ephemeral moments, and that softly wraps you in the feeling of walking at twilight. Mellow but upbeat the album it's easy to imagine the leaves changing colors. It's psych rock, and dificult to describe without getting poetic; dreamy and insular, it's easy to get lost in this album. Produced and recorded by Ripley Johnson (Moon Duo, Wooden Shjips), and mixed by Chris Cohen (Captured Tracks, Deerhoof), the album finds its niche in the hazy sonic landscape of private press country and psych records, and alongside artists like Relatively Clean Rivers, Jim Sullivan, Kenny Knight, and countless other explorers of the pastoral underground. New project produced by Ripley Johnson of Wooden Shjips and Moon Duo fame, fans of either are sure to love this one

Director David Lynch once said "I long for a kind of quiet where I can just drift and dream. I always say getting inspiration is like fishing. If you're quiet and sitting there and you have the right bait, you're going to catch a fish eventually. Ideas are sort of like that. You never know when they're going to hit you." Inspired by this quote in both name and spirit, Hollie Kenniff's The Quiet Drift is an ambient gallery of cloudlike synths, seraphic strings, echoing guitars, and other celestial textures guided to cohesion by Hollie's own wordless singing. Though the album certainly creates (and originates from) the kind of space where Lynch's proverbial "fish" can be caught, The Quiet Drift is a fitting title for Hollie's own history, both recent and distant. During the course of the album's creation, Hollie and her family moved cross-country from an island in Washington state, to an island in Maine before ultimately relocating to Canada. "As a child I visited Ontario year-round," she explains in her own words. She continues "More than any other landscape, I think the lake, rivers, and woods there left the most enduring impression on me. The landscape and pace of life of these places will always stay with me." But the reverberant spaces Hollie crafts need no physical headquarters. Instead of conjuring views of nature at the ground level, her sound more readily evokes a top-down perspective, with the distinct features of the land shrinking underfoot as the listener becomes untethered from geography altogether. The Quiet Drift belongs more to the liminal spaces between life and afterlife, memory and fantasy, landscape and dreamscape, than any mappable locale. Describing her formative years, Hollie says "As a dual US/Canadian citizen who spent my childhood in a rural town-- one that I haven't returned to in many years - I have a sense of not entirely belonging anywhere. When I was a teenager my close friends were male musicians, so I was also an outsider to the degree that they were wild and anarchic in a way that I wasn't. I was a quiet book reader and avid music listener who enjoyed being around a creative group. I was also a radio DJ for alternative and punk music throughout high school." In this light, The Quiet Drift attests that creativity is placeless, and calls into question the stereotype of artists as scene-centric city dwellers. Having come of age in the absence of metropolitan sensory overload, Hollie learned to spot the muse in nature, and within herself, instead of the echo chamber of a frenzied peer group. On The Quiet Drift Hollie Kenniff wholly escapes from such pop-culture feedback loops into transcendent, shimmering realms, and she brings the listener along with her. In this age in which we have all been called to reevaluate our relationship to indoor spaces, and seek refuge in the great outdoors, The Quiet Drift provides an apt soundtrack for such rebalancing.

Jazz Montez is a music collective from Frankfurt, Germany dedicated to spreading the gospel of jazz throughout the universe. To them, jazz does not describe a particular style of music but an attitude, mindset and an approach to art and life that can manifest itself in a variety of ways. For their first vinyl release, they invited seven of the most talented and ambitious young groups from all over Germany to Frankfurt to record a track in the renowned studio Lotte Lindenberg. Despite the band's various influences, ranging from classic jazz, afrobeat and funk to hip hop, electronic music and rock, "Jazz Montez Presents Vol. I", mixed in its entirety by Drum&Bass legend Kabuki, works as a cohesive album. Pressed on high quality 180g vinyl, the record comes packaged in a beautiful and eco-friendly bagasse gatefold cover, designed by artist Clara Sipf. It features a 20 page booklet that includes a comic on the making of the album, texts by and information on the participating musicians, an interview with the sound engineers and an essay on the contemporary relevance of jazz. May this record inspire us to go through life guided by a spirit of open-mindedness and collaboration so that we may create a better, healthier and more beautiful world.

More excellence from the Basin Rock label following albums from Nadia Reid, Julie Byrne, Aoife Nessa Frances, Jim Ghedi, Alex Maas..
With a special knack for balancing bright pop melodies with a drifting sense of melancholy, LA based Johanna Samuels new album Excelsior! is a tender, honest document of the importance of companionship above all else. Named after Dylan’s “Visions of Johanna”, Samuels grew up on the classic songwriters of yesteryear (George Harrison, Tom Petty, Neil Young) and after a healthy dose of Elliott Smith and Jon Brion, has spent the best part of the last decade honing her craft.

her band and producer Sam Evian but it's songs are full of West Coast sunshine. It's Evian's first full album production at his own Flying Cloud Studios. Recorded mostly to tape, the album is as a gorgeous combination of vintage instrumentation, strong melodic hooks, killer harmonies and Samuels’ elegant voice.
Samuels seeks those answers through companionship, exploring the depths of her relationships and then calling upon a handful of womxn to provide the album’s backing vocals - a task she’d always performed herself until now. As such, Excelsior! makes a space for the voices of Courtney Marie Andrews, Hannah Cohen, Lomelda’s Hannah Read, A.O. Gerber, Louise Florence and Olivia Kaplan.
The album takes its name from the signature that Samuels’ grandpa would use before he sadly passed away last December. “He was a very important person to me and he helped raise me,” Johanna explains. “He signed all of his letters and emails ‘Excelsior!’, including the exclamation point. It means ‘ever upward’ and that’s what I wish for everyone: to grow from listening with more empathy and from hearing each other out. I hope this record makes people want to be gentler with each other and themselves.”

“Montreal’s genre-defying post-rock combo BIG|BRAVE could very well be the most noteworthy recent heavy curiosity to come out of the city in recent years.” - NOISEY

“…combines elements of Björk, Neurosis and Sunn O))) into a cohesive whole; but this whole is an ever evolving and challenging sonic mass.
- THE QUIETUS

Minimalism and instinct, structure/freedom and meticulous timing form the cornerstones of their precise, rhythmical sound.
Lyrically, the album explores the weight of race and gender, endurance and navigating other people’s behaviours, observation and protest. The band further comment “this album involves what it means navigating the outside world in a racialized body and what it does to the psyche as a whole while finding individual worth within this reality.”
This time featuring the core trio Robin Wattie, Mathieu Ball and Tasy Hudson, for their most collaborative record they’ve made so far. The band elaborate “having cut our teeth in very different musical backgrounds respectively, our intuitions vary, which has an interesting effect on our individual approaches and ears.”
For this record, BIG | BRAVE once again made the trek down to Rhode Island to record with Seth Manchester at Machines with Magnets. They remark “we fully trust his instinct as an engineer and his creative output, getting to experiment with textures, concepts, layers, and with pretty much every single recorded sound, the process of making records with Seth is an absolute journey and pleasure.”
With the initial seeds planted in 2012, with no other goal than simply experimenting with the instruments in their possession, Robin Wattie and Mathieu Ball started writing subtle ambient/minimalistic folk songs together. When long time friend Louis Alexandre Beauregard joined on drums, the goal still remained to play as tranquil as possible. After an incident where Wattie’s acoustic guitar broke, and having borrowed a friend’s electric as a replacement, larger amps that Ball had in storage from previous bands started to get incorporated to the outfit. Now with amplitude as a compositional tool, BB never lost interest in the power of minimalism and fragility. It became clear that loud volume would become just as effective as the lowest possible ones and the juxtaposition of both would become something BB still uses as their main MO to this day.
After self-releasing Feral Verdure in 2014, the band had the opportunity to open for Thee Silver Mt Zion in Montreal QC. After which, Efrim Manuel Menuck found something meaningful in the members and the band and invited them to open on future shows with Mt Zion and with Godspeed! You Black Emperor.
In 2015, the band entered the studio with Menuck and recorded “Au De La”. With no home for the record, they decided to take a chance in writing to Southern Lord. As luck would have it, Greg Anderson happened upon their email among hundreds and responded. Since then, the band has had a home with Southern Lord Records. (Along with Au De La, Southern Lord has released Ardor in 2017, A Gaze Among Them in 2019 and VITAL in 2021).
After Beauregard’s departure in 2018, the band traveled down to Rhode Island with Loel Campbell on drums to make a first record with Seth Manchester at Machines with Magnets. After the album’s release, with Campbell unable to tour, Tasy Hudson joined the ranks and the band spent most of the year touring their 2019 album “A Gaze Among Them”.
In 2020, the core trio of Ball, Wattie and Hudson once again made the trek down to Machines with Magnets to record their 5th LP “VITAL”.
Since their inception, the band has had many honours and privileges of touring a number of times in North America and Europe with bands such as Sunn O))), MY DISCO, The Body, Thou, Primitive Man and Thee Silver Mt Zion.