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The very definition of ‘70s soulful jazz, Where I’m Coming From has all the hallmarks of Prestige Records at its finest, with an all-star cast of sidemen (The legendary Idris Muhammad! Hello to Madlib’s uncle, Jon Faddis! Greetings to the funky flute of Hubert Laws!) recorded at Van Gelder’s studio and packed with down and dirty grooves top to bottom. From the opening cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” through to the low-slung original headnodder “Where I’m Coming From,” with stops along the way for dips into the catalogs of Curtis Mayfield (“Give Me Your Love”), Marvin Gaye (“Trouble Man”) and the Four Tops (“Keeper Of The Castle”), Leon Spencer’s rippling organ lines sear this prime example of groove jazz. This 180-gram reissue of Where I’m Coming From! was cut from the original analog tapes by Kevin Gray and pressed at RTI, and comes packaged in a tip-on jacket.

»Outside of the world«, the second album by Japanese trio Usurabi, is a rare pleasure – a guitar pop album that’s deep with spirit, bristling with energy, melodically rich and precious: full of life. It’s even more thrilling than its predecessor, 2021’s Remains of the Light, also released by An’archives, its eight songs falling together just perfectly. If you’ve ever swooned to the sound of rattling, humming organs on countless ‘60s garage rock sides, the wistful beauty of David Roback and Kendra Smith’s music as Opal, the brittle immediacy of those 80s EPs from New Zealand acts like The Clean and The Chills, you’ll find plenty to love here.

The line-up’s still the same: the songs are written by Toshimitsu Akiko, previously a member of Doodles and Aminome; playing behind her is drummer Morohashi Shigeki and bass player Kawaguchi Masami, who’d previously played together in Kawaguchi’s legendary Broomdusters, where Kawaguchi really started to establish himself as one of Japan’s greatest rock guitarists. But Usurabi is very much Toshimitsu’s vehicle, a space for her to gift her gorgeous songs to the world, with Kawaguchi and Morohashi helping guide the songs into the light. Indeed, one thing that’s particularly noticeable about »Outside of the world« is the way all three musicians act in service to what the songs demand.

So »Meet again, outside of the worl«” opens the album with a beautiful 60s garage sway, all buzzing organs and Toshimitsu’s beautifully clear voice. »Even if it’s a lie« bristles with energy and tension, its driving rhythms recalling groups like The Feelies, but with Toshimitsu’s surf rock guitar riding the waves. »Pura« is pensive and melancholy, its graceful slow motion dissolving into a free-form section where Kawaguchi and Morohashi drill down into the earth, a fiercely responsive rhythm duo, while waves of coruscating noise guitar soar out into the ether; »Waves« is a stately closer, crushing guitars cossetting a slow, martial rhythm.

Recorded over 2021 and 2022, »Outside of the world« is a more than worthy follow-up to both »Remains of the Light «and the limited cassette, »Further closer«, released in 2022 on Kawaguchi’s Purifivia imprint. It has Usurabi stretching out, letting their songs breathe when they need, and tightening the screws on other songs so they become perfect pop statements. There’s plenty of joy and pleasure here, and a gentle but determined melancholy; inviting and beautifully sculpted, Outside of the world is a quiet masterpiece.

Edition of 400, comes in a 2 colors (gold & black) silkscreened on heavy jacket with obi (black or patterned light pink), with inserts and a postcard. Special A3 (fold out) full color & duotone insert by Andrew Chalk. Printed by Alan Sherry. Liner notes by Jon Dale.

Tre D'ambrocia - vibraphonist and first tenor with Ben Pirani & The Means Of Production- steps to the lead microphone to deliver this charming, funky, ultra smooth two stepper. Closer & Love Is Gonna Let You Down were recorded by Pirani's former iteration Benjamin but Here they are reimagined and rearranged at a late night cool down tempo. Backed by The Means Of Production Tre draws on his deep knowledge and musical experience, tapping into Jazz, Disco and even Musical Theater. on Closer D'ambrosia captures an innocent yet sophisticated mood, beckoning a love interest, gently, to come closer. Love Is Gonna Let You Down, a song of consolation pulses with a mighty heavy rhythm track while Tre's falsetto soars above. altogether a double sider for a night in or a night out

A bold, new creative direction Guy takes on his upcoming album Living Like There's No Tomorrow, But Killing Yourself In The Process out July 7th, a record inspired by what Guy calls "the push and pull between hedonism and the fog of the morning after, and the intensity with which you can feel both. I wouldn't feel the comedown if I didn't have the intense pleasure of the party; as a result, I wouldn't need to make a lot of the music I do." .

Dance music has always been grounded in a sense of place. Chicago, Detroit, London, Berlin—a zip code can tell you as much about the music as the year it was made.

But beyond the nuts and bolts of the here and now lies a netherzone where some of the best electronic music floats, impossible to pin down. Swayzak’s Snowboarding in Argentina is one such record.

The title hints at its uncanny placelessness. The music has nothing outwardly to do with Argentina, for one thing. The work of UK producers David Nicholas Brown and James S. Taylor, it was recorded in a number of locations—mostly bedrooms—around London. Yet there is little that is quintessentially British about the music.

Instead, Brown and Taylor drew much of their inspiration from, on the one hand, the luminous chords and silky heft of Detroit techno, and on the other, the staccato drums and clipped textures that were then beginning to bubble out of Berlin and Cologne.

That brings us to the question of time. For if Snowboarding in Argentina belongs to nowhere, it is equally a product of nowhen.

On a practical level, the music took shape in the mid to late 1990s, although it took nearly 10 years for it to come to fruition. Brown and Taylor began jamming on instruments, then machines, in the late 1980s. Then, after Brown suffered a serious car accident, the two musicians began working together more seriously. Trial and error yielded a promising single with a downtempo vibe that a hired-gun studio producer promptly ruined; Swayzak retreated to their bedrooms.

They learned about Chain Reaction from a radio show, found new ways to burrow into the circuitry of their machines, and by 1996 they had hit upon their sound. brought 10 copies of the first to Berlin’s Hard Wax, sold them directly to the shop for a fistful of Deutschmarks, and turned around and spent the money on records; that’s how DIY electronic music worked in those days.) The album itself appeared in 1998 on London’s Pagan label and quickly built a cult following. It was clear that the music was in conversation with its contemporaries: Heard from the right angle, it was possible to imagine it as a halfway point between the proto progressive house of Underworld and the monochromatic minimalism of Kompakt. But it also didn’t quite sound like anything else around; it was a dispatch from an unknown territory that needed no special understanding to decipher.

A quarter century later, Snowboarding in Argentina sounds simply eternal. Certain hallmarks of ’90s production are available—the music’s almost murky warmth is a reminder of what electronic music sounded like before software swallowed everything into its digital maw—but there’s nothing dated about it. The exploratory nature of these tracks, as the result of experimenting with their machines’ limitations, never eclipses their musical or emotional essence.

Long since been deemed a classic, Snowboarding in Argentina remains an underdog in the annals of electronic music. Its semi-obscurity was surely not helped by the decision to publish nine of its original 12 tracks on the CD, and seven on the vinyl, with only four appearing on both formats. Twenty-five years after its original release, Lapsus’ Perennial Series edition unites, for the first time, all the album’s tracks as a single triple-vinyl package, rounding out the 12 original songs with previously unreleased material. Working off the original DAT premasters, Swayzak have created new edits of all the tracks. The result might be considered the definitive edition of the album as it was meant to be, after a 25-year journey. It seems fitting that an album so timeless would continue morphing throughout its lifespan. For fans, it’s the chance to hear a beloved album as never before. And for newcomers, it’s the perfect introduction to a record that, in its own quiet way, reshaped the sound of electronic music, opening up new frontiers unbound by cartography or calendars.

The core of Snowboarding in Argentina appeared on a series of three two-track singles in 1997. (Taylor brought 10 copies of the first to Berlin’s Hard Wax, sold them directly to the shop for a fistful of Deutschmarks, and turned around and spent the money on records; that’s how DIY electronic music worked in those days.) The album itself appeared in 1998 on London’s Pagan label and quickly built a cult following. It was clear that the music was in conversation with its contemporaries: Heard from the right angle, it was possible to imagine it as a halfway point between the proto progressive house of Underworld and the monochromatic minimalism of Kompakt. But it also didn’t quite sound like anything else around; it was a dispatch from an unknown territory that needed no special understanding to decipher.

A quarter century later, Snowboarding in Argentina sounds simply eternal. Certain hallmarks of ’90s production are available—the music’s almost murky warmth is a reminder of what electronic music sounded like before software swallowed everything into its digital maw—but there’s nothing dated about it. The exploratory nature of these tracks, as the result of experimenting with their machines’ limitations, never eclipses their musical or emotional essence.

Long since been deemed a classic, Snowboarding in Argentina remains an underdog in the annals of electronic music. Its semi-obscurity was surely not helped by the decision to publishnine of its original 12 tracks on the CD, and seven on the vinyl, with only four appearing on both formats. Twenty-five years after its original release, Lapsus’ Perennial Series edition unites, for the first time, all the album’s tracks as a single triple-vinyl package, rounding out the 12 original songs with previously unreleased material. Working off the original DAT premasters, Swayzak have created new edits of all the tracks. The result might be considered the definitive edition of the album as it was meant to be, after a 25-year journey. It seems fitting that an album so timeless would continue morphing throughout its lifespan. For fans, it’s the chance to hear a beloved album as never before. And for newcomers, it’s the perfect introduction to a record that, in its own quiet way, reshaped the sound of electronic music, opening up new frontiers unbound by cartography or calendars.

No More Sound, Sad Park’s third full-length, begins with an ending. More specifically, with its own ending. Because the short, just-over-a-minute-long “No More Songs” is kind of a stripped-down reprise of the title track that closes this record. In one way, it means this album—the band’s first for Pure Noise—travels back in time over its 38 or so minutes, but in another it’s also traveling forwards. Because while “No More Sound” is a more fleshed-out version of “No More Songs”, it also contains melodic and lyrical throwbacks to the eleven songs that sit between them. Perhaps more importantly, as everything comes full circle on the record, it offers something that the opener doesn’t. Recorded across ten days at Balboa Studios in Los Angeles, No More Sound is, in fact, the sound of a band really coming into their own.

No More Sound, Sad Park’s third full-length, begins with an ending. More specifically, with its own ending. Because the short, just-over-a-minute-long “No More Songs” is kind of a stripped-down reprise of the title track that closes this record. In one way, it means this album—the band’s first for Pure Noise—travels back in time over its 38 or so minutes, but in another it’s also traveling forwards. Because while “No More Sound” is a more fleshed-out version of “No More Songs”, it also contains melodic and lyrical throwbacks to the eleven songs that sit between them. Perhaps more importantly, as everything comes full circle on the record, it offers something that the opener doesn’t. Recorded across ten days at Balboa Studios in Los Angeles, No More Sound is, in fact, the sound of a band really coming into their own.

Lost private press gem "The Swimmer" by Florida native Danny Morgan, is a cool and breezy, beguiling easy glide from 1987. It should've been huge. It still could be. It's a mellow marina masterpiece and quintessentially Balearic. Over the past few years, it's gathered a cult following yet the album from which it derives is virtually impossible to come by.

Finally available on a standalone, fully remastered 12", it's been backed by an instant classic "Seahawks Swimming Through Space Remix", courtesy of those beloved cats Jon Tye and Pete Fowler.

These won't be around for long, limited to just 500 copies for the world, so don't drown in procrastination.

One listen and you'll want to dive in.

Fans of the deeply entrancing, nautically and narcotically-enhanced cuts of Dennis Wilson or Michael Nesmith’s The Prison will be instantly mesmerised by the sheer beauty of "The Swimmer". After tracking Danny down, we wanted to know more. How does something so magical come about? The man himself answered thusly:

"At the time I was running many miles on the Sanibel Island beach and doing a bit of swimming in the Gulf Of Mexico. Keeping my mind busy on a long run, I imagined a “what if” movie scene. Almost every run or swim someone is sitting there on the beach watching what goes by. Back at my desk I started finger picking some chords and the picture in my head showed up. I punched in a rhythm loop and the song was on its way.

Adrian Belew and I had the same manager Stan Hertzman so I was listening to some of Adrian’s work. I was a huge fan of Joni Mitchel and the unusual chord changes and melodies in some of her songs. All of this influenced the sound on “The Swimmer”

I had a support band at the time living in my house on Sanibel Island so we practiced a lot. We came up with an arrangement of the song and we took across the bridge to John McLane’s Important Studios and recorded it. I played finger picking acoustic guitar and sang, Tim Miller played drums, Jeff Holck played fretless bass, Dave Dust played lead guitar and John McLane played keyboards and sang harmony."

Our deep thanks must go out to Jon Tye (MLO / Seahawks / Ocean Moon) for first hipping Be With to this stunner. We returned the favour by giving him the keys to the stems and requesting a strung out remix to go on the flip - he returned having conspired with Pete Fowler to conjure a cosmically copacetic rerub with the subtropical chug of the "Seahawks Swimming Through Space Remix".

Putting together the artwork for this 12" release was an enjoyable process. It was nice to be able to flip the original sleeve for the Beach Life album by using previously unseen photos, sent to us by Danny. We wanted to create something that looks like it would've gone with the LP sleeve. We think we've cracked it. Simon Francis remastered Danny's original audio and Cicely Balston's precise cut for Alchemy at AIR Studios ensures this 12" sounds appropriately outstanding. The immaculate Record Industry pressing will ensure this previously lost masterpiece stays forever found.

Re-Release des Aphex Twin-Albumklassikers von 1996. Nagelneue Auflage auf 180g Vinyl mit Downloadcode.

It has been some five years since US ambient maestro zake dropped the first volume of his Orchestral Tape Studies. We're glad to finally have the second instalment in the series available because there has rarely been music as cathartic and soothing as this on our shelves. It's made from drones, field recordings and richly layered movements of fragmented orchestral loops.

It is heavily inspired by the sound of the greatest minimalist symphonic composers and orchestras of the last 100 years and comes in several different colours.

This version is a transparent rose vinyl LP and download code.

On their sophomore effort Tusky, surrealist duet Robbie & Mona ascend beyond the lo-fi scrawlings of their debut album to something altogether more grandiose. Between the lights down drama of sprawling opener ‘Sensation’, to the ‘roll credits’ coda of closer ‘Always Gonna Be A Dead Man’, Tusky exists as a glitzy, lucid journey playing out before the listener.
While debut album EW captured William Carkeet and Ellie Gray as they were finding their feet with one another, creating Tusky was a wholly symbiotic process from day one. “We got better at knowing what each other wanted,” William offers. “This was the album that we were trying to make from the beginning.”

Simultaneously evoking multiple eras of music, the album drifts through worlds of synth pop, jazz, trap, drill, ballroom waltz and leftfield electronica, with the scatterbrain sound palette melded by a peppering of instrumental motifs and William’s addiction to sampling sounds across multiple tracks. “I wanted there to be this weird dimensional thing going on,” William explains, “where songs from the album are playing in multiple places.”

The record sees an expansive cast of musicians assembled, with a much heavier focus on live instrumentation than previous outings. Alongside the expected fare of crackly synths, samplers and drum machines, Tusky gets its glossy sheen from a rich tapestry of jazz drums, double bass, grand piano and saxophone.

Most of the tracks are laden with improvised saxophone from Campbell Baum (Sorry, Broadside Hacks) and Ben Vince (Housewives, Joy Orbison), much of which was scrambled by William in post-production, lifting scraps from one song and layering them atop an entirely different track. Elsewhere, session musicians were cherry picked, including Bingo Fury, his drummer Henry Terrett, and a string ensemble led by Caelia Lunniss and Jo Silverston (Spindle Ensemble).

Most surprising is a rap feature from Monika (of South-East London collective Nukuluk), who brings album centrepiece ‘Mildred’ to new heights with a fiery verse on pain. Aside from being the most unlikely addendum to a sombre piano ballad, it demonstrates Robbie & Mona’s natural state of playfulness, forever following emotions and sensuality over any notion of traditional compositional boundaries.
Many of Tusky's tracks owe their inception to cinema, be it the soundtrack to Betty Blue, the glowing films of Wim Wenders, or the surprising parallels between La Belle Et La Bete and Bad Boys. Equally, much of Robbie & Mona's new-found sense of tension and spectacle comes from William’s recent work soundtracking independent filmmakers, while Ellie gave greater priority to threading a narrative through her stream of consciousness writing style.

In all its majesty, Tusky celebrates creativity with creation. “If you begin to see fiction as real, you can reincarnate and become different things. You can grow,” Ellie implores. “Nothing stays the same. You can shed old characters in yourself. There’s great joy in that.”

Post-rock band Ativin (Secretly Canadian, Polyvinyl) returns from a 19-year hiatus with Austere, the group’s most expansive and cinematic work to date and first album for Fonoradar (EU)/Joyful Noise Recordings (US). Eschewing the explosive and aggressive playing that characterizes their earlier work, Austere finds the guitar duo of Daniel Burton (Early Day Miners) and Chris Carothers (Hunting People, Grizzly Daughter) enlisting Chris Brokaw (Codeine, Come) on drums for a more stripped down and skeletal sound. The result is a work of beauty that will undoubtedly evoke a wide range of emotions in those who hear it. Recommend If You Like: Slint, Tortoise, Low, Codeine, Early Day Miners, Pedro The Lion * First Ativin record in 19 years * Recorded by Steve Albini * Secretly Canadian and Polyvinyl alumni

Nothing compares to Lewis Taylor and nobody crafts a "B-Side" quite like him. Indeed, his long deleted B-Sides are the stuff of legend. So, gathered together for the first time on one slice of wax, we present The Damn Rest: an album's worth of B-Sides from the era of the 1996 Lewis Taylor ("Damn") album. More off-the-wall and abstract than the album proper, these rare, underheard tracks burst with Lewis's uncompromising genius. A lot more experimental, the music is still drop dead beautiful. The Damn Rest is the essential bridge between Lewis Taylor and Lewis II.

Lewis Taylor's self-titled masterpiece from 1996 was to be originally called Damn. You can see the word right there on the from cover. However, concerns over distribution in the US scuppered this desired title. When thinking about what to call this collection of essential B-Sides from the era of that first album, we thought The Damn Rest would be appropriate. But these tracks aren't simply throwaways or outtakes, as Lewis himself states: "each little group were recorded specifically for the release of each 'single'." These B-Sides were simply the next thing to happen after self-titled, and before Lewis II. In other words, you need this!

The collection opens with "Asleep When You Come", the A2 on the original "Lucky" 12". It's a slow-mo string-drenched soul offering, cast in cinematic soft-focus with a vocal performance from the heavens set against wonky, shuffling drums and delicate instrumental flourishes. Beautiful. Also from the "Lucky" single, "You Got Me Thinking" may actually be Lewis' funkiest moment and is definitely one of our favourites, a great, gently psychedelic funky club track, that's for sure. Next, the gorgeous, meandering "I Dream The Better Dream" is just sheer, metronomic bliss, with shades of Stevie Wonder. Just ask D’Angelo, who included the track on his Feverish Phantasmagoria show for Sonos. Not only a celebrity-fan-favourite, it's Lewis's, too: "My favourite has always been this track. In my fantasy it’s what early Soft Machine would’ve sounded like if Marvin Gaye was their lead singer."

As we move to the B-sides from the "Whoever" single, the first to feature is "Pie In The Electric Sky / If I Lay Down". It's a brilliantly sprawling classic. A head-nod funk workout in two parts; part psychedelic heavy soul jam, part breezy Marvin-esque near-instrumental of the deeply lush variety. It needs to be heard to be believed. Astonishing! Flip over for "Waves", a shimmering, dramatic, sweeping string-led fan favourite. The climax of the song is just too stunning for words. It's followed by the deep wyrd-soul of "Trip So Heavy" the final, dizzying track from the "Whoever" single and another celestial funk delight featuring strings, organ, twisted bass and heavy drums. From the "Bittersweet" 12", "A Little Bit Tasty" is a building, schizophrenic soul-jazz epic that starts out with Lewis performing a call and (distant) response with himself over a gentle mid-90s drum loop before snatches of heavy, crunching metal guitars blast apart the otherwise neat song structure. Ultimately, it's unarguable that The Damn Rest is worth it for the inclusion of the jaw-dropping "Lewis III" alone. A dazzlingly lush and stunningly sophisticated prog/soul hybrid that owes as much to "Pet Sounds" as "What's Going On" with arrangements that grow and unfold in layers. Just sparkling.

A compilation like this feels like one of those promo-only rarities they used to give out to a select few back in the good old days, so when it came to the artwork it only made sense to follow what Cally Callomon (head of Island’s art department) had done for the singles and promos back in the 90s. He even did us some fresh scribbles of “The Damn Rest” to match his handwriting that’s all over the first album and its singles. We hope you like it as much as the music contained within. Simon Francis’s vinyl mastering ensures these classic recordings sound as great as they deserve to. The record has been cut by Cicely Balston at Air Studios and pressed at Record Industry. We've lost Prince. We still have Lewis.

A kind of hush pervades throughout Standards Vol VI, the latest release by The National Jazz Trio of Scotland, the ironically named project helmed by Falkirk’s musical polymath, Bill Wells, that is neither a trio, nor a jazz band. If this collection of ten covers probably comes closest to the latter in its late night renditions of actual standards, the presence of long-term NJToS member and collaborator Aby Vulliamy as the record’s lone vocalist adds to its solitary air. This follows Standards Vol IV (2018), which featured fellow NJToS co-founder Kate Sugden as primary vocalist, while Gerard Black, a member of the group since 2016, took centre stage in similar fashion on Standards Vol V (2019). Wells has long been a fan of Vulliamy, both of her work as a viola player with numerous collaborators, and as a singer.

Vulliamy played viola on Everything’s Getting Older, Wells’ 2011 collaboration with Arab Strap vocalist Aidan Moffat. Wells went on to play melodica on Vulliamy’s solo record, Spin Cycle, released on Karaoke Kalk in 2018. With the intent of producing the saddest heartbreak record ever made, Wells sourced a back catalogue of miniature epics, reinterpreting each tale of everyday yearning to make a canon of melancholy loungecore designed for nights in alone, if not always lonely. Beyond the concept of isolation behind Standards Vol VI, practical concerns added to the affair, with Wells recording backing tracks at home in Glasgow, while Vulliamy added her voice from her home in Yorkshire. The result on Standards Vol VI is a thing of quiet beauty that sees Wells and Vulliamy reimagine a panoply of pop classics in their own aloof sounding image.

Shades of Margo Guryan and Claudine Longet abound in Vulliamy’s delivery over Wells’ woozy, low-slung guitar and piano, with samples culled from a session with Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake. Little electronic percussive clicks and hisses lend things an even more otherworldly air on a record bookended by opener, Donovan’s proto hippy classic, Catch the Wind, and Dixieland miniature, Careless Love. The eight points in between take in a first half led by The Beatles’ normally jaunty We Can Work it Out, flipping the loveable mop-tops’ perky optimism for something more soul searching. This is followed by I Wish You Love, Albert Beach’s English language version of French songwriter Charles Trenet’s evergreen, Que reste-t-il de nos amours. The Bee Gees lost classic, To Love Somebody, is up next, with more impossible to answer questions coming in Why Can’t I?

The latter is a Rodgers and Hart composition that first appeared in the duo’s 1930 Broadway musical, Spring is Here, in which the show’s two heroines commiserate each other over their shared loneliness. Wells stumbled on the song in a tatty Rodgers and Hart songbook, which, like its subjects, had been left on the shelf before he and Vulliamy brought it in from the cold. The second half of Standards Vol VI leads with Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s much covered evocation of a pre dating app era from their 1964 hit musical, Fiddler on the Roof. This is followed by Billy Rose and Dave Dreyer’s showbiz staple (with Al Jolson also taking a credit), Me and My Shadow. While made famous by showbiz double acts ranging from Frank and Sammy to Robbie and Jonathan, here it flies decidedly solo. Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael’s Skylark comes next, a song inspired by Mercer’s yearning for Judy Garland. We hear ya, bub. The most downbeat take on Bacharach and David’s The Look of Love you’re ever likely to hear comes next, ushering in the short farewell of Careless Love, before the lights are turned out forever. Yeah, well. Whatever gets you through the night…

Shamanic call from the ethereal field where all shapes fluidly come to one. Inspired by the multilevel constant dynamics of slowed down and pushing forward energies of one frequency.
“Diamond Director” with clear edges and smooth surfaces turns slowly glittering like the transparent stone under the sun or the spots in the club.
“Ruby Director” is steady colored going deep into a simpler way of movement without losing its pressure of serious laziness.
“Shayde's remix” means the state of trance after the glitter of the turning diamond occupying the personal view with little sparkles.
“Dan Bay's remix” is the consequence of the deep slowed down original bringing the slow pressure back to faster laziness again.
“Le Rubrique's remix” as a fusion of the two originals shows how different similarity can be and rolls up everything in a new way.

Wie 'Strange Weather' von 1987 ist 'Easy Come Easy Go' eine Cover-Sammlung, die Faithfull in verschiedenen musikalischen Settings präsentiert und dabei Songy von Merle Haggard, Smokey Robinson, Duke Ellington, Randy Newman, den Decemberists und Morrissey interpretiert. Mit einer umwerfenden Gästeliste, darunter Antony Hegarty , Rufus Wainwright, Teddy Thompson, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Jarvis Cocker, Jenni Muldaur, Sean Lennon, Warren Ellis, Nick Cave und Keith Richards. Zur Stammband dieses Sets gehören Marc Ribot, Greg Cohen, Jim White, Rob Burger, Doug Weiselman, Steve Weisberg, Barry Reynolds u.a. Das stilistische Ausufern dieser 12 Songs ist unglaublich. Zum Beispiel ist der Album-Opener, ein Cover von Dolly Partons 'Down From Dover', mit der kompletten Band und 18 Gästen vertreten! Faithfulls charakteristische, tiefe Stimme zeigt sich in hervorragender Form und nimmt einen mit auf Reisen durch Liebe, Lust, Tragödie und Sehnsucht. Gatefold 180 Gr. Doppel-LP (Weißes Vinyl)!

Lewis Taylor's legendary magnum opus: The Lost Album. "Now you're talking. That's my favourite LT album. Unlike all of the others, there isn't anything about it that embarrasses me." Straight from the genius's mouth. What can we say about this? Well, it's the most requested record ever at Be With Towers. The Lost Album was the intended follow-up to his first album but Island rejected it for fear of "confusing" the marketplace and its conception of Lewis as a soul artist. Their loss. It's a breezy sunset masterpiece.

The genesis of this incredible record needs unpicking a bit. Lewis stopped promoting the first album after a year and went home to record a completely different record that was the most un-R&B album you could probably ever hear: "I pushed in such an extreme direction the other way with what eventually became The Lost Album. It was a knee-jerk reaction to a perceived ‘trapped in R&B’ feeling I was going through at the time. Some people around me were in favour of it and others weren’t. In the end I think I lost confidence in it and did Lewis II instead." We did at least get Lewis II, which is a remarkable album, and he kept Island happy...for a bit. Not long after, Lewis was dropped. And what was to become The Lost Album could've been...er...lost. Forever.

Thankfully, however, Lewis and longtime partner Sabina Smyth revisited those scrapped demo tracks in 2003. They decided to re-arrange, re-record and then self-release them. So it was that the brand new version of The Lost Album finally dropped in late 2004. It's sheer perfection, and we don't say that lightly. The Lost Album was a fully 50/50 collaboration between Lewis and Smyth. As well as production, Sabina did a lot more writing on it, from the melody to "Listen Here" to the chord sequence for "Let's Hope Nobody Finds Us." Thankfully, Sabina is credited this time around.

No, it's not straight up "soul music" in the vein of his previous work. Yet, in its perfectly formed suite of one dozen songs, The Lost Album is dripping in soul. It's so warm, so effervescent and so alive with possibilities. It features deep, fresh imprints on well-loved, accessible sounds. It's a proper 70s style double album. Just one listen and the musical influences on The Lost Album are fairly self-explanatory, as Lewis recently told us, but it's always nice to hear that, in case we were in any doubt, he was definitely channeling Love, Yes, Brian Wilson, CSN, Laura Nyro and, of course, Todd Rundgren. The influences don't end there: "I’m particularly fond of my bass playing on that album, there’s a lot of Chris Squire going on which is cool."

Deep orchestral opener "Lost" is a sublime, harp-laced, string drenched gem, a cinematic, melancholic Axelrod-esque mini-epic that simply beguiles. Written by Smyth, it evokes Donny Hathaway's celestial "I Love The Lord, He Heard My Cry" from Extensions Of A Man. The only problem is the brief 90 seconds running time. It segues into the classic Brian Wilson-meets-power-pop-rock splendour of "Listen Here" which, with its outstanding extended harp-licked beatless intro, sounds like the younger cousin to Boston's "More Than A Feeling". We then drift into the ringing guitars of classic 70s rock anthem "Hide Your Heart Away". It's Lewis's personal favourite, "especially the multi-tracked guitar solo – I was listening to Boston at the time, which was fun." A-ha!

A new version of the heart-stopping, shoulda-been-a-massive-pop-hit "Send Me An Angel" opens Side B before the arrival of, in Lewis's completely correct words, "the clear standout, "Leader of the Band"; the perfect distillation of everything that album was trying to achieve." Soaring, piano-led Rundgren-esque power pop that makes the hairs on the back of your next stand on end. Truly, otherworldly. This is pure pop for now (and then) people. The simple jangly brilliance meets experimental prog-rock of "Yeah" sounds like simultaneously like prime CSNY and late 90s Radiohead (if they'd had a slightly more accessible bent and could write better tunes).

Oh, you wish The Beach Boys had continued writing amazing songs beyond Holland? Well, allow us to point you in the direction of the downlifting stunner "Please Help Me If You Can" and the warm textures and brilliant atmospherics of goosebump-inducer "Let’s Hope Nobody Finds Us". Words can't really describe the sheer beauty of these songs. So we'll stop trying. Just listen. Listen, listen, listen. Closing out this remarkable side of music, the accidentally Balearic "New Morning" should be blasting out at every sunrise set in Ibiza, this summer and forevermore.

The final side opens with the vaguely Beatlesey "Say I Love You". It's just classic, soaring pop-rock songwriting and should strictly be canonical. It's that good. The sassy, Stonesy swagger of "See My Way" injects enough rock'n'roll attitude to compensate for the rest of record's peace-loving, AOR sun-dappled vibe whilst album closer, "One More Mystery", emerging out of the rubble of the previous track, comes on initially like a Baroque-Pop George Harrison before piling crunching drums and screeching guitar solos atop the dreamy harmonies til close.

When asked what it means to have these records available on vinyl for the first time, Lewis is in no doubt: "It’s great and it’s really nice to be able to offer fans a different listening experience. There’s a whole other dimension with vinyl that taps into that whole nostalgia thing, well for me anyway. Something about the physical aspect of pulling it out of the sleeve and putting it on, it does tend to make you feel like you’re more engaged."

Lewis was adamant that he wanted all new artwork for The Lost Album vinyl sleeve and his brief was just the sort of classic tropical-beach-at-sunset you’d want to see on the front of a record that sounds like this. On the finished sleeve, the beach at sunset is just where we start out, before heading up through the painterly clouds and heading out into the stars. And yes, the lettering is a definite subtle nod to all those in-between-period Beach Boys bootlegs we all love. Simon Francis's sensitive mastering combines with Cicely Balston's precise cut for Alchemy at AIR Studios so the album sounds appropriately outstanding. The immaculate Record Industry double LP pressing will ensure this previously lost masterpiece stays forever found.

Santana's self-titled debut album announces the arrival of a new Guitar God. Made during the legendary bandleader's most fruitful and creative period, the classic 1969 set functions as an accessible entry point into the tangy worlds of Latin music by way of an intoxicating blend of Afro-Cuban percussion, jazzy tempos, exotic leads, bluesy riffs, and psychedelic accents.

Indeed, separation between Carlos Santana's fluid fills, spicy solos, and broiling grooves and pianist Gregg Rolie's soulful Hammond organ runs allows the music to come alive with a newfound freshness and radiance. Songs simmer, with each passage bursting forth with vibrant colour. Just like the equally essential follow-up Abraxas, Santana also lays claim to one of the biggest (and unfortunate) production gaffes in music history.

For nearly four decades, copies were produced with the left and right channels reversed, meaning that everything was placed in a backwards manner. This even extended to compilations on which individual songs from Santana were included. Rest assured that, in addition to boasting reference audiophile sonics, this 180g 45RPM 2LP set gets all the specifications exactly right. And with a record of this magnitude, you want everything to be perfect.

Bound by natural chemistry and earthy spirituality, the record's innovative synthesis of myriad styles goes beyond anything that came before – as well as nearly everything that's followed. Playing with the finest band that the iconic guitarist ever had, Santana doesn't water down any exotic roots or simply incorporate mainstream Western styles into a Latin framework. This is a true hybrid, responsible for opening up borders, transcending cultural divides, and, most importantly, exhilarating the senses.

Released just weeks after the band blew minds at Woodstock, the groundbreaking record stands alongside Miles Davis' Bitches Brew and Jeff Beck's Beck-Ola as a pillar of rock fusion. Featuring the Top Ten radio smash "Evil Ways" and jam favorite "Soul Sacrifice," it hasn't aged a day. Hear like never before why Rolling Stone says Santana is #149 on its list of the Greatest Albums of All Time.

Verbz & Mr Slipz have been jumping on the train (52m, 0 changes) between Croydon and Brighton to reconnect on ‘Where It Started’; a 10-track EP that does everything (and more) you have come to expect from the duo.

Shimmering with nostalgia, but with one eye firmly on the next motive, ‘Where It Started’ offers a front row seat to the trials and tribulations of Verbz & co. doing what they did (and still do) to thrive and survive on the streets of Croydon, expertly scored by the meditative swing of Slipz’ 100% sample-free production.

Think classic hip hop aesthetics, beautifully reincarnated; chunky MPC drums, deeply personal multi-syllables, tales of loss, heartache, learning the hard way but coming back stronger. 5 x vocals and 5 x Instrumentals, Where It Started’ is a 50/50 deep dive into the hearts and minds of Verbz & Mr Slipz; perfectly poised as a duo, the EP is an unmissable trip down memory lane.

Whenever Bill Evans sat down at the Piano to play, the world sat up, listened and
was carried away by the thoughtful and melodic sounds he achieved at the Keyboard,
with a style that was seductive and instantly recognisable. In 1955 he began playing
gigs at the Village Vanguard Jazz Club in New York where he met Thelonious Monk
and Miles Davis. Davis was among the first to appreciate the special qualities of the
young Pianist when the Trumpeter recruited him to play on Kind Of Blue, the 1959
album hailed as a milestone in Jazz history. This aptly named 'Platinum' collection
showcases the best of his recordings from the late 1950s and early 1960s; Autumn
Leaves, Blue In Green and Someday My Prince Will Come. Bill's unique combination
of Classical and Jazz influences is displayed on such songs as Waltz For Debby and
the sublime Peace Piece.