Aufgenommen 1963, ist das Album nicht nur als zeitloses Meisterwerk der Bossa Nova relevant, sondern
auch ein Evergreen dieser überwältigend schönen, melancholischen Musik. Jobim, der zu den Begründern
der Bossa Nova gehört, nahm für sein Verve-Debüt seine damals noch jungen Hits “Corcovado,” “The Girl
from Ipanema”, “Agua de Beber” u.a. auf. Er ist an Gitarre und Piano zu hören, Claus Ogerman liefert
subtile Arrangements.
Worldwide renowned for his artwork, Brooklyn based artist / producer Dom Dirtee’s debut album THE HARDCORE COMPOSER is OUT NOW everywhere on the legendary Duck Down Music. It boasts 10 songs of all-original music composed and played by Dom Dirtee and features only heavyweight MCs like Lil Fame (of M.O.P.), Paul Wall, Termanology, Millyz, Planet Asia, Nems, UFO Fev, Anoyd, Illa Ghee, and more.
Brazilian songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, and pianist/guitarist Antônio Carlos Jobim, known in Brazil as Tom Jobim, was a primary force behind the creation of the bossa nova style. Moreover, his songs (most of which had lyrics by poet, diplomat and bohemian Vinícius de Moraes) have become true classics and have transcended the genre, as they continue to be played and recorded by countless singers and instrumentalists within Brazil and throughout the world. This release contains a representative collection of Jobim's songs in classic versions performed by some of the most remarkable bossa nova artists, and in many cases presenting Jobim himself as accompanist, conductor or arranger. 180-GRAM VIRGIN VINYL - 17 TRACKS - LIMITED EDITION
Upon examining the eventful life of Can bassist Holger Czukay,
one might conclude that this intrepid musician was a loner. His
turbulent career exuded an enduring eccentricity governed by a
boundless free spirit. Yet Czukay, who passed away
unexpectedly last year at the age of 79, constantly emphasized
that his creativity was always contingent upon a musical
partner, whether that was a skin-and-bones counterpart or an
anonymous manifestation that interacted with him through
radio waves or, as happened later, the internet. Nonetheless,
most of his partners were of flesh and blood.
His oeuvre, which is in itself cinematic in nature, boasts a cast
worthy of a Martin Scorsese film. Only the most interesting
character actors were cast: Brian Eno, Phew, Rolf Dammers,
David Sylvian, Annie Lennox, Jah Wobble, his Can bandmates...
the list could go on and on.
Many of these masterpieces are now out of print, so Groenland
Records, who already released the highly acclaimed
retrospective 'CINEMA' to mark the occasion of Holger's 80th
birthday at the beginning of the year, has taken it upon
themselves to release reissues of Holger's music in order to
make it accessible once again.
Heavyweight psychedelic improvisers EarthBall are back with their third and most monstrous record to date: ‘Outside Over There’, released on Upset The Rhythm (Nov 7th). Born from the haunted basements of Nanaimo, Canada, the quintet thrives on spontaneity, shaping improvisation into jagged hallucinations and ecstatic eruptions.
Recorded live-off-the-floor in 2024 in Jeremy, Izzy, and Kellen’s basement, and mixed by drummer John Brennan, ‘Outside Over There’ is an album that feels both summoned and inevitable. Each track lands with uncanny purpose, as if uncovered rather than written.
The opener, 100%, features a cameo from comedian and English icon Stewart Lee, who lent his blessing for the band to use a fragment of his stand-up. The album was mastered by John Dieterich (Deerhoof), with liner text contributed by longtime comrade John Olson (Wolf Eyes). Olson describes the album in his unmistakable style:
“This eight-track odyssey unfolds like a dreamscape, where whispered incantations brush against the shadowy fringes of the cosmos, and wild, Cézanne-inspired rock anthems erupt like geysers of color in the midst of a western warm and wet rain storm… culminating in the sprawling eleven minute masterpiece, ‘And The Music Shall Untune The Sky,’ aptly dubbed the Earth Crusher. A creation so utterly deconstructed and intertwined with the pulse of nature itself that if AI was called upon to conceive ‘Outside Over There’ anew, it would just spit back, “F.U. in Tree Font”. An enchanting invitation for even the flat-earthers to join the circle, if only just a little.”
EarthBall’s trajectory has been relentless. Their 2024 album ‘It’s Yours’ was praised by The Quietus as “fully aggressive and fully life-affirming,” and by The Wire as "a boisterous mind-melting album”. The band’s live double set LP ‘Actual Earth Music Vol. 1 & 2’ (2025) captured blistering performances: a performance opening for Wolf Eyes at the Fox Cabaret, and a Café OTO improvised throw-down featuring Chris Corsano and Steve Beresford. These releases on their own confirm them as one of Canada’s most vital experimental exports, not to mention the impressive self-released discography on their Bandcamp. The band’s reach has stretched far beyond their west coast roots with a UK tour May 2024, plus this past June, EarthBall closed Montreal’s Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival alongside Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Raven Chacon. This November they will perform at Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht, with a European tour to follow (tour dates below). Outside of EarthBall, each member carries their own torch. Jeremy Van Wyck, founding member of the legendary Shearing Pinx, has toured extensively, released over 100 records, and has been a vital force in the Vancouver and West Coast underground for the past 25 years. He and Isabel Ford (Izzy) play together not only in EarthBall, but also in Psychedelic Dirt, Shearing Pinx, Behaviours, and Crotch.
John Brennan collaborates widely, including recently with Endlings (Raven Chacon and John Dieterich), Evichen (Victoria Shen), Francesco Fonassi, Plan Your Future (with Greg Saunier of Deerhoof), Brennan/Corsano duo and Physics with John Dieterich. Kellen Maclaughlin performs with KVMP and Ora Corgan, while saxophonist Liam Murphy is a west coast staple, playing with the best across Vancouver Island and the mainland. On three of the tracks of ‘Outside Over There’, the band is joined by their comrade Justin Patterson, who also plays with Brennan in the duo Modale. This cross-pollination fuels EarthBall’s sound - a collective improvisation, psychically overdriven, and grinding into bloom.
Outside Over There’ is more than an album though, it is a ritual, a gathering of sound at the forest’s edge; where feedback, saxophone screams, and ecstatic vocals dissolve the boundary between chaos and clarity. EarthBall invite you into their circle, to share in the joyful terror of spontaneous creation. ‘Outside Over There’ will be released on November 7th through Upset The Rhythm digitally and as a limited blue-in-black vinyl LP.
On his sixth LP In Another, Toronto-based, Japanese-born, musician and composer Masahiro Takahashi (髙橋 政宏) continues the collaborative expansion of his sonic universe that listeners witness on his 2023 release, Humid Sun. Here he enlists a rotating ensemble of ten guest artists from Toronto’s vibrant music community, including his labelmate Joseph Shabason, who also serves as the album’s co-producer and engineer.
Spurred by his longtime admiration for chamber pop spanning the High Llamas and Free Design to the Beach Boys, Takahashi deviates from the underlying processes of his past two outings, trading Ableton sequences for lead sheets, focusing on creating robust melodic and harmonic foundations first. This difference is audible straight away; the album opens with a dialog between upright piano and plucked double bass that’s so gentle and transparent you can hear the breath of the players.
On his sixth LP In Another, Toronto-based, Japanese-born, musician and composer Masahiro Takahashi (髙橋 政宏) continues the collaborative expansion of his sonic universe that listeners witness on his 2023 release, Humid Sun. Here he enlists a rotating ensemble of ten guest artists from Toronto’s vibrant music community, including his labelmate Joseph Shabason, who also serves as the album’s co-producer and engineer.
Spurred by his longtime admiration for chamber pop spanning the High Llamas and Free Design to the Beach Boys, Takahashi deviates from the underlying processes of his past two outings, trading Ableton sequences for lead sheets, focusing on creating robust melodic and harmonic foundations first. This difference is audible straight away; the album opens with a dialog between upright piano and plucked double bass that’s so gentle and transparent you can hear the breath of the players.
On his new album Chott, German-Tunisian producer and composer Taroug confronts his origins. Named after the Chott El Djerid, a vast salt lake in southern Tunisia, the ten-track album revolves around personal history and the search for identity. Chott is a conceptual work shaped by contrasting atmospheres, from minimalistic melancholy to raw, bass-heavy intensity. It blends traditional instruments with contemporary electronic text- ures, drawing lines between past and present.
Personal materials—such as vocal samples from family members—add layers of intimacy and cultural depth, most notably on the title track, featuring an original Arabic poem spoken by Taroug’s father, and on 1995,
a song reflecting on early childhood memories in Tunisia. Beyond these intimate dimensions, he works with sonic imagery that captures the sensory experience of heat and landscape in pieces like Saraab and Sirocco. In Nakhla, recordings of palm trees transformed into repetitive movements evoke scenes of southern Tunisia’s palm plantations, where organic and mechanical sounds converge.
For the artwork, Taroug once again collaborated with architect and designer Marie Brosius, assembling an experimental collage from old personal photographs of Tunisia that visually echoes the album’s themes of heritage and remembrance.
Across the past decade, KAS has established herself as a unique voice in experimental electronic music, a composer and synthesist whose work dissolves the boundaries between ambient electronica, contemporary classical, composition, and immersive sound design. Her new album “Ruin: It’s Not Just Music” arrives with a distinctive gravitational pull. The record moves with greater physical force, placing rhythm and impact at the centre of its architecture, revealing a more confrontational and embodied dimension of KAS’s musical language.
The first single “Ruin” arrives May 22nd, with the full album released October 2nd via SOMEONE SPECIAL the new label co-founded by KAS.
Where much of KAS’s earlier work explored harmonic environments, the forthcoming album is built around tension and release. Inspired by the sound of drum and bass, breakbeats fracture through dense fields of synthesis, percussive patterns and her signature melodic fragments – motions that feel closer to the kinetic language of club music than the meditative spaces often associated with her past catalogue. The result is a body of work that feels both recognisably hers and newly charged, music that moves through the body as insistently as it engages the mind.
For listeners who first encountered KAS through the glowing synthesis of “Ears” (2016) or the intricate experimental pop of “The Kid” (2017), this direction may feel initially surprising, yet the shift has been quietly unfolding across the past several years. KAS’s practice has steadily expanded beyond the expectations placed upon experimental electronic artists, moving between orchestral composition, audiovisual installations, film scoring, and large-scale commissions while retaining the unmistakable sonic signature that defines her work.
The 2022 albums “I Could Be Your Dog / I Could Be Your Moon” (2022) and “Let’s Turn It Into Sound” (2022) explored a deeply immersive approach to composition, expanded her reputation and instinct for constructing detailed sonic ecosystems while continuing to blur the lines between experimental electronics and contemporary pop structures. KAS’s most recent output has continued to widen that field including the rhythm oriented electronic album “Gush” (2025) and her return to more orchestral roots with “Thoughts on the Future” (2025). Together these releases underscored the breadth of her practice.
Her prolific collaborators and creative partners have ranged from Patti Smith and Suzanne Ciani to Danny Elfman, Tycho, Glass Beams, RY X, Caribou, Four Tet, Reggie Watts, and Max Richter, while her compositions have appeared in projects with Apple, Chanel, Meow Wolf, the BBC Orchestra, and major film and television productions.
On “Ruin: It’s Not Just Music”, that vocabulary becomes more kinetic than ever before. The record draws energy from jungle, drum and bass, and dance-floor focused electronic music while retaining the intricate synthesis and tonal curiosity that have defined KAS’s work from the beginning. The result is a record that feels equally at home within club culture, contemporary composition, and the experimental spaces that have long championed her artistry.
On May 27th KAS will present a major performance at London’s Barbican Centre alongside the London Contemporary Orchestra, marking the ten-year anniversary of her landmark album Ears. The evening will trace the arc of her creative evolution while also introducing material from the new album.
What an unbelievable record. From the wild cover to the iconic breakbeats, Roots from Ian Carr’s Nucleus is one of the dopest albums we know. This is seriously thick, funky-prog jazz-rock heaven. Originally released on Vertigo in 1973, other than a couple of versions at the time for other territories, Roots was never re-pressed since so it’s gone on to become another one of those impossible to find records.
Maybe it was a little too out there for the time, but it’s aged very, very well indeed and this Be With re-issue, re-mastered from the original analogue tapes, shows off just why this deserves to be back in press.
Genius trumpeter and visionary composer Ian Carr was one of the most respected British musicians of his era. He was a true pioneer and saw the potential in fusing the worlds of jazz with rock, just as Miles Davis and The Tony Williams Lifetime did in the US. In late 1969, following the demise of the Rendell-Carr quintet, and tiring of British jazz, Carr assembled the legendary Nucleus. Regarding music as a continuous process, Nucleus refused to “recognise rigid boundaries” and worked on delivering what they saw as a “total musical experience”. We can get behind that.
Under bandleader Carr, Nucleus existed as a fluid line-up of inventive, skilled musicians. This constant evolution and revolution was all part of the continuous musical exploration and discovery that took jazz to new levels.
Working together with producer Fritz Fryer and engineer Roger Wake, the seven compositions by Carr, Brian Smith and Dave MacRae that make up Roots flirt with perfection, and Nucleus at that time made up of the cream of 1970s UK jazz with Brian Smith on tenor saxophones and flutes, Dave MacRae on piano and electric piano, Jocelyn Pitchen on guitar, Roger Sutton on bass, both Clive Thacker and Aureo De Souza on drums and percussion, Joy Yates delivering the vocals and of course Carr on trumpet.
The spellbinding title track immediately renders the album indispensable. Riding the illest of loping breakbeats, “Roots” is low-slung, doped-out heist-funk. An absolute monster. If it sounds familiar then that’s likely down to it being sampled by Madlib for Lootpack and Quasimoto’s “Loop Digga”, as well as by a whole host of beat manipulators. “Roots” conjures prime instrumental hip-hop / beat music, only 20 years ahead of its time. Truly, these are the roots. Through sinuous bass, twinkling keys and a hypnotic guitar riff, a smoky brass motif weaves its way into a gloriously deep haze around Carr’s solos. “Roots” is over 9 minutes long, but there’s not a single wasted second, not surprising given that this is a condensed version of an originally 40 minute long commissioned composition.
The soothing vocal fusion delight of “Images” follows. Meticulously constructed, with gorgeous flute work from Brian Smith, with Joy Yates’ silky vocals and Dave MacRae’s Rhodes never sounding better. The cool, driving “Caliban” closes out the first side. Originally the third movement in a four part commission to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday it stands up on its own, all robust rhythms and blended brass. Keyboard colour and Carr’s trumpet are splashed across the funk drums and basslines (and there’s even some bamboo flute). This really is fusion: the elements of jazz and rock coming together in beautifully synthesis.
Side two opens in riotous fashion with the short, thrilling samba of “Wapatiti”. Next up, “Capricorn” forms a smoothed-out, jazzy constellation. Mellow and dreamy, its twinkling percussion and languid horns slowly build the vibe before head-nod drums and a killer bassline enter the fray. With a distinct heaviness that Black Sabbath would’ve envied, “Odokamona” is a venomous slice of riff-soaked jazz metal (yes, you read that right), elevated by Carr’s wah-wah horns.
The album closes with MacRae’s exceptionally cosmic “Southern Roots and Celebration”. Very much in conversation with Weather Report, it opens as a languorous, spiritual jazz of chiming keys and serene guitar that turns slowly, gorgeously into a mid-paced, brass-laced banger. It’s another sure-fire party starter and the sound of the band having a righteous blast, building an ecstatic chaos that ends with Yates screaming.
And of course we need to talk about Keith Davis’ cover for Roots. Perhaps the coolest record cover of all time? Certainly one of the most bonkers. Just your run-of-the-mill high-gloss, acid-tinged airbrush dystopian/utopian living-room party scene. Consider this your chemical flashback trigger warning.
Front-and-centre the hip-to-death green robot holds court with their giant ball of yellow barbwire wool, hooked up to… something(?) being teased out from under the stairs (probably best not to ask). A thoroughly zoned-out, long-legged Pop Art party-goer lounges half-plugged in to the painting behind her as a pair of legs flail into shot from the the top of the stairs opposite. We won’t even begin to guess what the chap’s up to in the middle, but the view out of the windows is rather nice, and someone’s already got the hoover out ready to tidy up. All of the Nucleus sleeves are something special, but this particular one? Crikey.
This Be With edition of Roots has been re-mastered from the original Vertigo master tapes, Simon Francis’ mastering working together with Pete Norman’s cut to weave their usual magic with these wonderful recordings. The crazy cover has been restored at Be With HQ as the finishing touch to this long overdue re-issue.
DjRUM"s DJ-Kicks mix brings together his work as a DJ, producer and composer. Built around four new original compositions and exclusive contributions, "Flip" by Skee Mask and "Clonk Dual" by Clark, the release was developed from live vinyl mixes that were subsequently edited, collaged and expanded with overdubs. The mix moves between ambient, breakcore, classical music, punk, acid and experimental electronic sounds, combining a wide range of styles into a continuous sound collage.
‘I have always been drawn to those ambiguous territories between beauty and terror, and the Trinity test is their epitome: magnificent, sublime, terrifying, annihilating. A destructive power that, somehow, only love can compare with.’
The prescriptive art and performance of Berlin based, French producer, Julienne Dessagne, has concluded with a starkly beautiful reimagining of Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game.
As Fantastic Twins, her continuing creative manifestation for music and performance, has released an array of electronic art for the body and mind. A sonic exploration of dual characters shaped through experimental pop, cinematic electronics and the outer edges of techno.
First appearing on the cult Hippie Dance label, before establishing a long and warm collaboration with Keith McIvor aka JD Twitch and his inspiring Optimo Music label, as well as her own House Of Slessor label, this release comes full of mythology and symbolism.
Immersive sound design, narrative tension, and emotionally charged atmospheres, the origin of the project – Wicked Game (Trinity Version) – was composed for a live performance at the Beta Biennale Of Architecture Of Timișoara in September 2024 and given a limited digital release soon after.
The impact on the artist and the music was multi-layered:
‘While recording this cover, images of the Trinity nuclear test, as reimagined by David Lynch in Twin Peaks (Season 3 / Episode 8) kept resurfacing, almost on a subliminal level, suggesting another wicked game: humanity’s love affair with science and technology, driven by the same mix of desire fascination and inevitability that animates Chris Isaak’s original song.’
Approached by Emotional Response, this updated “vinyl” edition is re-recorded / remastered and comes with new interpretations by Julienne herself, as well as remixes by Aho Ssan and Optimo (Espacio).
Dessagne offers a spectrum of mixes and moods; the centrifugal ‘Trinity Version’ a sweeping cinematic masterpiece, between beauty and terror, the artist transmits the aesthetics of sublime; while ‘Thousand Suns Version’ fuses industrial and techno soundscapes for a beatdown reimagining; the melancholia ‘Atomic Love Version’, where the beautiful vocals are matched with a glitchy, clipping ambience; and the finale, the ‘Core Version’ shines a personal, drifting odyssey.
The accompanying remixes see Aho Ssan (Niamké Désiré), composer and sound artist, his remake merging a love of darkcore drone with moments of uplifting energy, the ‘Core Version Aho Ssan Remix’, a fusion of craft and Dessagne’s vocals.
To close, taking up the Optimo remix mantle, Jonnie Wilkes embraces the propulsion, his ‘Thousand Suns Version Optimo (Espacio) Remix’, offering brooding, electro-driven percussion that overflows with emotion and completes this stunning, evolving, organic and singular remake.
David Norland is an Emmy-nominated English composer, known for his scores for drama and documentary, alongside his experimental choral and electronic music. Bringing stories to life through sound, he received critical acclaim for his debut solo album ‘Glam Tear Stain’ (2019) and is set to release follow-up album ‘La Source’ in June 2026 via Denovali Records.
Relocated back to his London home after many years in Los Angeles, and free from years of drug and alcohol problems, recent commissions for two choral works allowed Norland to return to the innocent origin of his musical world, and his experience as a parent prompted a lot of outward reflection. What kind of world are we leaving to our children?
Inspired by his score to the forthcoming silent black and white film ‘Carousel’ (2026), Norland found other music emerging that refused to be ignored. The film’s director opened the door to an entirely free scoring process – no temp music, no expectation, no guidelines, just pure intuitive expression. ‘La Source’ draws on this experience, alongside his childhood as a touring chorister, the honkytonk upright piano in the north-east London bedroom of his early 20s, his early recording experiments with a TASCAM 4-track cassette recorder, and his intense preoccupation with bells, flutes, stone architecture, and mysticism.
From the haunting, choral beauty of ‘E-Car Soul’ to the breezy album title track, Norland blends minimalist classical structures with electronics. A unified tapestry of blended voices, harmonies and textures, ‘La Source’ is a deeply emotional and melancholic journey for Norland. “In the end, I’m looking to find meaning through the music, like when I was a kid singing in choirs. But I get the most sense of meaning through transcendent experiences, rather than anything intellectual or dogmatic. I have to feel it, not think it. I’m trying to make work that’s luminous, wondrous, shimmering and strange, so I can keep having those experiences,” says Norland.
On his inspiration for the album, Norland adds, “I love making patterns in things and finding patterns. That’s why minimalism was so enticing to me, the patterns are so explicit. I love word play and anagrams. The big sadness coming through as I was making the record is this clarity over the future of my kids. Everything else is a complete distraction. This incredible nurturing planet and its ecosystem are being rapidly destroyed, and the forces destroying it are relentless and punitive. And they seem to be fine with consigning our children to live in an ever-more-hostile wasteland. You can’t pretend that’s not coming, if you do I think you’re lying to yourself. And perhaps eventually it will be the fact that people love their kids that will stir wider fear and action. It’s hard to think of anything more connected to the idea of spirit.” The result is the reflective, ecstatic, mystical and sad world of ‘La Source.’
Norland’s screen work includes the award-winning documentary Anvil! The Story Of Anvil (2008), directed by Sacha Gervasi, and since 2010, he has composed much of the music for US broadcasting giant ABC’s primetime news documentaries. His work for ABC is broadcast in the US and around the world on a daily basis.
In 2012, he was the music supervisor for Hitchcock (2012) featuring Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren & Scarlett Johansson and in 2017, he teamed up once again with Gervasi for the score to November Criminals starring Chloe Moretz and Ansel Elgort. The following year, he composed the score for the Emmy-nominated HBO film My Dinner With Herve, starring Peter Dinklage and Jamie Dornan.
Norland will be performing the score of Carousel later this year, and the score itself will be a forthcoming release on Denovali. 2026 will also see the release of documentary All Permits Secured, a valentine to the history of EDM, featuring Norland’s score.
Trumpeter, rapper and sonic wanderer Pan Amsterdam has carved out one of the most distinctive voices operating at the intersection of jazz and hip-hop today.
Pan Amsterdam is a musical enigma wrapped in an enduring riddle. His creator is a jazz musician from Houston who’s found fame working with Detroit punk rock God, Iggy Pop, and British indie royalty, Metronomy, and now makes shapeshifting, adventurous hip hop out of the music’s spiritual home, New York.
He’s an irreverent character born out of frustration and named after a misunderstanding, yet one who’s on the verge of releasing his fifth album of truth-slaying, genre-crossing rhymes and beats. The result is a catalogue that feels both deeply rooted in Black American musical tradition and completely untethered by convention.
Pan Amsterdam returns with ‘Panarama’, his fourth full length album and a bold reassertion of his hip hop identity, released via Def Pressé. Created by Houston-born, New York-based musician and composer Leron Thomas, the record finds Pan Amsterdam embracing the harder edges of his sound while continuing to blur the lines between jazz improvisation, abstract rap, punk attitude, and experimental production
Written as a response to contemporary life and the endless cycle of information, conflict and distraction that defines modern culture, ‘Panarama’ unfolds as a stream of consciousness journey through hyper-normalised realities. Across sixteen tracks, Thomas navigates social commentary, personal reflection, absurdist humour, and cultural critique, delivering his observations with the same spontaneity and freedom that have become central to the Pan Amsterdam project
Lead single ‘Szechuan Beef’, produced by acclaimed collaborator 1FS, serves as one of the album’s defining statements. Built around Thomas’ signature free-flowing delivery, the track explores the overwhelming nature of contemporary life, where domestic conflict, social division, entertainment scandals and political discourse become flattened into a constant stream of content.
In Thomas’ own words: “My stream of consciousness style comes quite naturally to me due to the conditioning of scroll down culture where everything, no matter how minor or extreme, is hyper normalised.”
Elsewhere, the track ‘Vanilla Ice’ was written in response to widely publicised ICE killings and the speed at which tragedy is absorbed and forgotten within online culture. Thomas channels the anxiety and emotional disorientation of endlessly consuming information, allowing his thoughts to unfold in real time as social commentary collides with everyday digital noise. The result is both deeply personal and sharply observational, reflecting the fragmented reality of modern life. Other album highlights include the cinematic, Interpol-esque opener - ‘Old Friend’ complete with shimmering guitar lines and an far-reaching introspective, no-filter vocal as Thomas teams up with Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and Brad Truax (Interpol) across multiple tracks, often the production traverses left-field indie territory, but always maintaining Pan Amsterdam’s unique musical identity throughout. For the hip hop purists and beats lovers there are plenty of riches to discover from the clever nostalgic sample flips of ‘Cutlery’, the sleepy lofi of ‘Shuriken’ and the wonky LA beat scene / early Flying Lotus era beats of ‘Drunken Noodles’ - all boasting quick witted lyricism. ‘Deep Fried Shiney Things’ explores early electro and industrial sonics while album finisher is an upbeat new wave / indie band cut which sees Thomas take a break from rapping, but of course never letting up on the sharp observations nonetheless
While his previous record explored more alternative territory, ‘Panarama’ marks a deliberate return to rap, as Pan Amsterdam explains:
“I just wanted to do a rap album again.I enjoyed making my last album, but I felt like rapping again. I like to have the freedom to move in between musical worlds that suit the current state I’m in. Frequency accommodating frequency.”
This philosophy runs throughout the album. Tracks move effortlessly between jazz-inflected arrangements, experimental beats, punk energy and underground hip hop aesthetics, allowing ideas to evolve organically rather than conforming to traditional structures. Thomas describes himself as an improviser first and foremost: “I think like an improvisor. That’s how my albums pretty much move. It’s improvisation.”
Featuring additional contributions from Spice Programmers, AnOtter and Mr. Shn, ‘Panarama’ presents a wide-ranging cast of collaborators while remaining firmly rooted in Thomas’ singular creative vision. The record embraces contradiction, humour and unpredictability, capturing fleeting thoughts and observations with the same freedom and spontaneity that define jazz improvisation itself.
A musical enigma wrapped in an enduring riddle, Pan Amsterdam has built a reputation as one of contemporary music’s true outsiders. The project emerged from frustration, experimentation and artistic freedom, with Thomas drawing equally from his background as a jazz musician and his collaborations with artists including Iggy Pop and Metronomy. Operating from New York while carrying the spirit of Houston’s musical heritage, Pan Amsterdam has developed a distinctive voice that sits comfortably between avant-garde jazz, underground hip hop and experimental music.
Reuniting with Def Pressé for ‘Panarama’, Thomas explores what he describes as the more hardcore side of his artistic identity:
“They let me do anything and everything I wanna do so long as it’s on audio, and I need that freedom. What may verbally be perceived as vulgar to one group of people may be very thoughtful and a poignant description of the times that we’re presently in, so I’m glad that I’m part of a label home that understands that.”
Produced by François Tétaz and Luke Howard and recorded primarily at Melbourne's Synth Temple, Tina Arena's Way Of The World reimagines “True Faith” (New Order), “Way of the World” (Max Q / Michael Hutchence), “Enjoy the Silence” (Depeche Mode), “Ordinary World” (Duran Duran), “Torno Bambina” (Ada Mori) and “Cayendo” (Frank Ocean) through stunning orchestral arrangements, prepared piano, analogue synthesis and electronic textures.
Rather than traditional cover versions, these are complete artistic reimaginings that reaffirm Tina Arena as one of Australia's most expressive and enduring vocalists. Of first single “True Faith”, Tina says: “Making the deliberate choice to focus on the lyric of true faith was musically revelatory for me. It presented a blank musical canvas with endless vulnerability and space for me to explore.”
François Tétaz, a Grammy and ARIA-winning producer known for his work with Gotye, Kimbra and Architecture in Helsinki, contributes synthesisers, Rhodes, prepared piano and drum machines throughout, while pianist and composer Luke Howard shapes the EP's restrained, cinematic language. The pair are joined by an ensemble including the Budapest Art Orchestra, Peter Knight, James Rushford, Mindy Meng Wang and orchestrator Felix Watson, giving the collection its rich, orchestral backbone.
The EP announcement lands amid a landmark 50-year career anniversary for Tina — one of Australia's highest-selling artists of all time, having sold more than 10 million albums worldwide.
Marcos Valle is one of those artists you simply can't overlook if you have even a passing interest in Brazilian music. Whether your taste leans toward bossa jazz, samba, psychedelic folk, or modern soul, Valle has surely recorded a great album for you. By the late 1960s he had already released enough outstanding records to secure a place among the greatest Brazilian artists of all time, but fortunately his career didn't stop there. He has continued recording fabulous albums over the following decades, right up to the present day. Widely regarded as one of the finest recordings in Marcos Valle's catalog, Vento Sul (1972) represents a pivotal moment in his artistic evolution, revealing a composer unafraid to reinvent himself and push the boundaries of Brazilian popular music. From the hypnotic title track to highlights such as "Democústico," "Revolução Orgânica," "Paisagem de Mariana," and "Pista O2," the album remains a breathtaking achievement whose influence continues to resonate more than five decades later. This reissue shines a well-deserved spotlight on a landmark recording -- an essential chapter in Brazilian music and an indispensable addition to any collection of psychedelic, progressive, jazz, or MPB classics. Pressed on 180g vinyl.
Colombian accordionist and composer Aníbal Velásquez began his recording career in the early 1960s. It was precisely during this early stage of his discography that he recorded the irresistible "Mambo loco," a much rawer, more hypnotic, and more percussive version than the one he would release years later on Discos Fuentes. Vampisoul completes this single with the version that Peruvian group Los Continentales, fronted by superb guitarist Pancho Acosta, recorded of "Tiro al blanco," one of the most iconic songs by Colombian group Afrosound.
Plush shag carpeting, jazz flutes, analogue synths, funk grooves, exotica, and sultry, Italian-style vocalising: Erotica 70 is the new album from Larry Manteca, known for their inventive, tongue-in-cheek reimaginings of classic Italian soundtrack aesthetics.
This time around, the Milanese collective sets its sights on the distinct sonic landscape of 1970s commedia sexy—a film genre that, for better or worse, defined an era and fed richly into the cinematic education of Larry Manteca’s members.
Through this lens, Erotica 70 also becomes a way of celebrating Piero Umiliani in his centenary year—a composer whose name is closely linked to the erotic comedies of the time.
The nod to Umiliani is baked right into the details, starting with the choice of vintage gear like the Eminent synth and the Wurlitzer electric piano. These instruments deliver that particular blend of jazz, groove, electronics, and sensual charm that made the golden age of Italian film music so unique.
Standout track “Lando” is a joyful, playful homage to actor Lando Buzzanca, who starred in numerous films scored by Umiliani, including the iconic 1973 comedy La schiava io ce l’ho e tu no (My Darling Slave).
Larry Manteca is spearheaded by multi-instrumentalists Alessandro Paiola and Riccardo Danieli, flanked by the cinematic flute of Carlo Pelsa, the swinging drums of Andrea Quattrini, and the magnetic vocals of Valentina Castelli and Alessandra Maria Manzoni.
Recorded across various studios in Northern Italy, Erotica 70 is the imaginary soundtrack to an Italy that no longer exists, recreating its atmosphere while rendering it in full, vivid colour. It’s a record whose music seems to come straight out of a provincial cinema, a smoky late-night club, or a long-lost 70s film. But while it looks back to a bygone era, it does so only to bring it straight into the present, making the past sound surprisingly fresh and contemporary.
A new producer-led project from musician and composer Nitzan Dana, Islands on Tape arrives with Dust Conspiracy, a cinematic and deeply textured three-track EP balancing vintage exotica, library music, psychedelic groove and modern beat culture.
Previously known for his work with psychedelic post-rock outfit Meuban, Dana created Islands on Tape as a separate artistic identity, a space to explore instrumental composition and studio experimentation through a more personal lens. Across the EP, he draws on a wide palette of influences, from Sven Wunder and Maston to exotica pioneer Les Baxter, alongside the sample-driven worlds of Madlib and MF DOOM. The result is a record that feels loose and organic in spirit while remaining intricately arranged and carefully constructed throughout.
Recorded across just three sessions with a close circle of collaborators, Dust Conspiracy draws together live drums, flute, percussion, surf guitars, Farfisa organs and atmospheric textures into a sound equally indebted to 1960s soundtrack music, dusty hip-hop production and classic exotica records.
Opening track “Dust Conspiracy” began with a bassline inspired by late-night listening sessions and crate-dug hip-hop production. Initially built around sampled drums, the piece evolved into a fully live recording featuring drummer Lotan Yaish (El Khat, Şatellites) and percussionist Ron Avidan. Swirling organs, creeping rhythms and heavy cymbal work give the track the feel of a lost 1970s espionage soundtrack, smoky, hypnotic and cinematic.
Blending cinematic soul, psychedelic groove, exotica and rhythm-heavy instrumental production, Dust Conspiracy introduces Islands on Tape as a richly detailed new studio project, equally suited to late-night headphone listening, imagined film sequences and dusty, atmospheric dancefloors.
With Parallel Commutator, released via Turkish imprint Oroator, CZN presents two extended compositions, each unfolding over fifteen minutes. The project brings together percussionist and sculptor Joao Pais Filipe, composer and drummer Valentina Magaletti, and producer Leon Marks in a practice where percussion is approached as both instrument and material.
The Dutch composer and conductor, born in 1993, has assembled a powerful collective with his "hugely inventive and fast- thinking" (UK Jazz News) Brainteaser Orchestra, uniting the vanguard of the current Amsterdam scene - including guitarist Teis Semey , saxophonist Kika Sprangers , drummer Jamie Peet , violinists George Dimitriu and Yanna Pelser , trombonist Nabou Claerhout , clarinetist Federico Calcagno, and bassist Alessandro Fongaro. This lineup has been making international waves, highlighted by invitations to major European festivals and a recent performance alongside Pat Metheny at the North Sea Jazz Festival. Now comes Tonepool Paradox, the orchestra's second album, commissioned to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Amsterdam's legendary BIMHUIS. Wybenga's compositional approach radically breaks with big band conventions. His process mirrors that of a hip- hop producer: he records solo improvisations by his musicians, chops the material into pieces, and uses these fragments as samples to build entirely new tracks. Wybenga layers jazz, electronics, and contemporary classical music without ever sounding academic or overintellectualized. For Tonepool Paradox , he expanded this concept internationally, bringing in guests such as Berlin-based saxophonist Otis Sandjo, Parisian violinist Theo Ceccaldi, singer Lizz Wright , and hip- hop vocalist Pink Oculus . Mixed by Grammy winner Nic Hard (Snarky Puppy), the sound brings together the diverse musical styles of everyone involved, juxtaposing the angular lines of the horns with sweeping, melodic string passages.
Celebrating the 30th anniversary of its original release, Night Song returns in a special edition on rose leaf green coloured vinyl. A Grammy Award nominee, the album captures the extraordinary meeting of the legendary Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Canadian guitarist, producer and composer Michael Brook, whose atmospheric soundscapes provide the perfect setting for Nusrat’s ecstatic, transcendent vocals.
With Nusrat’s legacy continuing to reach new audiences following the landmark 2024 release of the unearthed archive recording Chain of Light, Night Song remains one of the defining cross-cultural collaborations of its era. This anniversary edition includes a printed inner sleeve with updated liner notes and photographs.
Accomplished trumpeter, composer, bandleader and educator, Kamal Abdul-Alim has been actively involved in creative music for decades. He has toured Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and the United States. He has recorded with all kinds of bands, large and small, and performed in festivals all over the world. “He takes the postbop of the 50s and free-form jazz of the 60s and turns it into an even balance of fine textures. Alim, who is highly underrated, has one of the most beautiful tones and concepts of jazz. A master of improvisation, he knows the art of weaving different ideas, whether they stem from Manhattan’s lower East Side or Europe” (Hugh Wyatt, New York Daily News). “Dance” was recorded in 1983 but first released on vinyl in 1987. Rhythm section includes drummer Idris Muhammad. Original pressings are extremely rare and expensive. “Brotherhood” is a much sought after track on the jazz dance scene. There is a high demand for this title again on vinyl and pressings are limited to 1000 copies, all individually hand numbered.
Mutant, in partnership with Universal Pictures, and Back Lot Music, are proud to present the premiere physical media release of 3x Academy Award®-Winning composer Ludwig Göransson's original soundtrack to Christopher Nolan's forthcoming motion picture The Odyssey.
The Odyssey, is a mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new IMAX® film technology. The film brings Homer’s foundational saga to IMAX® film screens for the first time and opens in theatres everywhere on July 17, 2026.
The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack from The Odyssey is available to order on 3x 140gm Black vinyl and 2x CD set.
A much needed repress of French ambient composer and lifeguard Roméo Poirier's cult debut record, Plage Arrière. Released with updated artwork, by London imprint Kit Records.
Plage Arrière is a deep sea meditation on a constellation of Greek beaches across three islands. Trumpets, echo-clicks and Harold Budd-esque shimmer piano whirl together on these sand-caked missives, tumbled and re-engineered by their surroundings like seaglass. Poirier evokes the sub-aqeaous ambitions of Jürgen Müller, or Jan Jelinek inspecting a coral reef.
Compiled onto one vinyl album for the first time, Landlocked (Numbers, 2026) presents Hallucinator’s 1999 debut album originally released under Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald’s label Chain Reaction. Writing much surrounding the culture of what would be later considered ‘Dub Techno’ and its’ primary distribution center, Hard Wax, leads one down roads of shifting primary sources and decades old overheard smoke break recollections. Maybe brevity primes the listener to the paralinguistic to approach the sound on its terms; focusing on how things are uttered and not what.
This theory will remain unconfirmed. Hallucinator original press release left us with three or so gestures to consider over the years since:
“A new act on CHAIN REACTION”s distinct productional thesis. HALLUCINATOR are 3 people from he UK/London and this their first release ever- that’s all what the artists want to let us know…. This record is dedidacted to the memory of Stephen Lawrence!”
The first gesture is one of personnel. Since ’99, we’ve gotten to learn a bit more about the artists behind the Hallucinator project. All London-based, all writers, composers, and sound-designers— Anna Piva, Edward George, Trevor Mathison. These three seem to flow between parameters as aesthetic tactic and tacit structure to the work itself. For example, other collaborative shapes have come from this lineup including Flow Motion (Piva, George and Mathison) as well as the now defunct Black Audio Film Collective of which George and Mathison are founding members.
The second gesture is in the second line of the previous press release, “distinct productional thesis.” Much of Landlocked’s affect and sequencing seems to suggest an emotional study of entropy at the level of sediment. Rhythms play with space and capacity through polyvalence. The production chose subtractive vertigo, often switching and bringing back in elements that vanished from the track 6 minutes ago. Dubbing out so much of a track, one begins to associate sound akin to memories held in the experience of running your hand across a concrete block as a child. Felt (re)memberance in lieu of narrative tale. Using textures that flicker between colour and percussion, Hallucinator’s 12-tracker of loudspeaker perception music might be a mediation on the psychic wake of the Cold War. Intermittent strata of ambience and groove convects an active margin rifting event underneath a scorched geology of power in Western Europe. Again, this is all grapevine hearsay.
But it’s silence that voices the third gesture. The album’s sparse application of the written word touches on the ennui paradox of being landlocked on an island. Stuck. Trapped in the psychosis of occidental hypercentricism. A looping silence of Black British tragedy: “to the memory of Stephen Lawrence”. 18 year-old Lawrence was stabbed to death at a bus stop in southeast London by six white men in 1993. The rift of grief and implicit reiteration of modern subordination left by this hate act went legally silent for almost two decades until Lawrence’s killers were ultimately sentenced to virtually life in jail in 2012. Only six years removed at the time of Hallucinator’s initial invocation of rememory, the mind-numbing accretion of what Black Studies Professor Denise Ferreira da Silva might call “unpayable debt”, finds demonic ground across Landlocked, forming an aural sense of what continues to be refused.
The album ventures through spaces of overactive non-happenings: ‘Red Angel’’s factory floor dub flashes between smokestack and jungle visions, or the halfway mark’s stilted breath of ‘Dusk’ lending its mood to the sort of sedated dreams built from daily life under colony rule for instance. That linked rhythm links us back to our linked fates across Black and Brown folk is real, thus the syncopated signals through this work behave on the level of transnational radiotelegraphy, sounding out its windswept tension of a body negotiating a meat-grinder schema of linear production and wage for others to know that unspeakable thing can be broadcast in every drum tongue.
As the silence continues to reverb, we return to the sort of meaning-making that cannot be told but felt. Soothing to some, disturbing to others. Landlocked, a Rorschach test for a crumbled empire.
Vega Records proudly presents "Mercy Of Time," a breathtaking new collaboration between Grammy Award-winning producer, DJ, and songwriter Louie Vega and acclaimed South African composer, singer, songwriter, and multidisciplinary artist Msaki.
Widely regarded as one of Africa's most powerful and influential musical voices, Msaki has earned international recognition through her award-winning solo work and celebrated collaborations with Black Coffee, Sun-El Musician, and Prince Kaybee, including the multi-platinum anthem "Fetch Your Life." A South African Music Award winner, recipient of the prestigious 2022 Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Music, and Basadi in Music Songwriter of the Year, Msaki's artistry has resonated with audiences around the world. Her songwriting and vocal contributions to Black Coffee's Grammy Award-winning album further cemented her place among the continent's most revered contemporary artists.
Born from a creative meeting of musical minds, "Mercy Of Time" brings together the extraordinary talents of Msaki, Louie Vega, and renowned Cuban pianist, composer, and producer Axel Tosca. Written by Msaki, with music composed by Louie Vega and Axel Tosca, the song is elevated by the unmistakable rhythmic touch of internationally respected producer and dj Manoo, whose infectious drums provide the heartbeat of the record.
At its core, "Mercy Of Time" is a deeply moving and uplifting composition that blends deep songwriting, rich musicianship, and powerful rhythms into a timeless musical journey. Msaki's evocative lyrics and captivating vocal performance intertwine seamlessly with Axel Tosca's virtuoso musicianship and Louie Vega's signature production style, creating a sound that transcends borders, cultures, and genres.
Rooted in soul and infused with African Electronic and global influences, "Mercy Of Time" speaks to resilience, hope, healing, and the wisdom that comes with life's journey. The song beautifully captures the spirit of collaboration between artists from different corners of the world, united by a shared commitment to authenticity, artistry, and musical excellence.
With all forces combined, "Mercy Of Time" is poised to resonate with audiences across dance floors, airwaves, and listening spaces worldwide. A powerful fusion of soulful expression, world-class musicianship, and timeless rhythm, the release stands as a testament to the creative magic that happens when visionary artists come together.
Acclaimed, Swedish composer, producer and live artist Sebastian Mullaert, and Georgian electronic artist Tamarma (Tamara Davitashvili), are set to release the deeply personal and genre-fluid album ‘Holds the Sky’ on the 25th September via Awesome Soundwave, the label curated by Christopher Coe and Carl Cox.
Spanning ambient, experimental and alternative electronic forms, alongside a set of dancefloor-oriented reworks that expand the project’s sonic spectrum, at its core, the album is the result of an unusual artistic convergence that traces back to 2020. Tamarma entered Mullaert’s successful In Bloom mentorship programme on a scholarship, and over a year-long deep exploration of album creation, her work revealed a rare clarity and emotional depth.
One piece in particular became the catalyst. Developed further through Mullaert’s 4 step studio process, it unfolded into a full length album collaboration. What began as a single composition has since grown into an album that documents an organic and intuitive exchange between two distinct artistic voices.
The result is less a collection of tracks than a continuous unfolding; a dialogue shaped by trust, listening and shared curiosity. Rather than aiming for a fixed genre position, the album operates as a living process: a meeting point between tradition and experimentation, between voice and synthesis, between two artists allowing something larger to emerge through their collaboration.
With compositions such as the chiming ‘Being Colours’ and hypnotic ‘Holds The Sky,’ Mullaert and Tamarma have created a body of work that resists easy categorization. The album moves through intimate, meditative passages and more rhythmically driven moments, always anchored in a sense of presence and emotional immediacy. The flickering beats of ‘Winnow’ and ambient manifestations of ‘Lost In Dimension’ and ‘Field of Us’ add a sense of tranquillity, stillness and convergence.
Tamarma’s voice carries both a personal and cultural depth throughout the album, while remaining fluid and responsive to the moment. The result is a sound that feels both intimate and spatial, where voice, texture and atmosphere are closely connected. Her Georgian musical heritage combined with Mullaert’s open-ended electronic exploration, allows something beautiful to emerge, shaped by listening, space and a sense of something larger than either artist alone.
Widely celebrated in the electronic music community, Mullaert has spent the last three decades moving beyond the boundaries of electronic music, from shaping the sound of cult duo Minilogue to creating the fully improvised global platform, Circle of Live, which has seen him perform and collaborate with artists such as Mathew Jonson, Âme, Amp Fiddler, Aurora Halal, Speedy J, Sam Barker, Dorisburg, Move D, Sleep D, Kuniyuki, Pantha du Prince, Leafar Legov, Wayne Snow, Laurence Guy, VRIL, Neel and Erika.
Initially making a name for himself in the world of techno, his performances have moved fluidly between environments, from underground spaces including Berghain’s Panorama Bar to festivals around the world, and venues including the Barbican, London, where he has appeared alongside artists including Joep Beving, Laura Misch and JakoJako. Platforms such as ARTE have featured his performances, placing his work within a broader European cultural context, while support from Resident Advisor and Boiler Room reflect his continued presence within the core of electronic music culture. He has received a Swedish Grammy and the P3 Guld award from Swedish National Radio.
His 2020 album ‘Natthall,’ developed in collaboration with Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich and performed with Subchamber Ensemble, saw Mullaert enter the world of contemporary composition, and merged electronics with chamber music and improvisation. The album was later named among the top post classical releases of the year by BBC Music Magazine.
A new documentary film by Ableton, set for release this summer, captures Mullaert’s Circle of Live project through a performance at Brighton Dome in the UK, featuring Mullaert and electronic artists Clark and Rival Consoles. The film offers a rare insight into the inner workings of collective improvisation at a high artistic level, further cementing Mullaert’s role as a leading voice in contemporary live electronic practice.
Tamara's background is rooted in the landscapes and traditions of Georgia. Raised near the Caucasus Mountains, classically trained in piano and shaped by years as a jazz vocalist, her work carries traces of Georgian polyphonic singing and a strong connection to nature and place. Her transition into electronic music is not stylistic but transformational; a recontextualisation of heritage into new sonic forms.
‘Holds The Sky’ will be available on vinyl and digitally on the 25th September via Awesome Soundwave. The digital release includes three exclusive album track reworks from Mullaert.
Wewantsounds is delighted to continue its Ziad Rahbani reissue program with Ana Moush Kafer, a classic album by the Lebanese legend Ziad Rahbani, recorded at his By-Pass Studio in Beirut during the height of the Lebanese Civil War in 1985. Showcasing Rahbani’s signature blend of Arabic music infused with touches of jazz-funk and bossa nova, the album has attained cult status over the years. Originally released on cassette, it has never before been available on vinyl. Newly remastered, this edition features the original Relax-In cassette artwork from 1985 and includes new liner notes by Mario Choueiry of the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris.
Ziad Rahbani, who passed away in 2025, remains one of the most influential figures in modern Arabic music and a cultural icon in Lebanon. A musician, composer, pianist, producer and playwright, he helped modernize Arabic music over five decades. The son of composer Assi Rahbani and singer Fairuz, he shaped her late 70s–80s recordings producing Wahdon and Maarifti Feek, while building a major solo career with classics such as Abu Ali and Houdou Nisbi, which have become cult favourites for a new generation of DJs and music lovers.
Released in 1985 in Lebanon, Ana Moush Kafer stands as one of Rahbani’s key achievements. Recorded at his By-Pass Studio during the Lebanese Civil War, it blends Arabic melodic traditions with jazz-funk, bossa nova and Western arrangements. Originally cassette-only, it became one of his most revered releases. Throughout the album, Rahbani’s writing reflects the turbulence of wartime Beirut with a blend of sharp social observation, political satire and melancholy. It captures a moment in Lebanese cultural history where experimentation, satire and popular song intersected, giving the album its enduring influence among music lovers.
Sung by Rahbani and Sami Hawat, alongside Beirut-based musicians, the album features both Western and traditional Arabic instruments. It balances refined arrangements with lyrical irony, social commentary and political reflection, which remain deeply resonant in today’s context in Lebanon.
One of the highlights of the album is the song “Shou A’ada Ma Bada,” with lyrics by Joseph Harb, which reveals a clear bossa nova influence, while the closing track, “Al Mokawama Al Watania Al Lobnani,” offers a deeply human view of war, avoiding patriotic cliché in favour of a nuanced perspective rooted in lived experience.
As Mario Choueiry observes in his liner notes, “Ana Moush Kafer stands as one of the high points of modern Arab political songwriting, yet transcends its historical and geographical context through the universal relevance of its themes and the timeless quality of its music.”
Forty years on, Ana Moush Kafer remains a landmark of Arab music. Wewantsounds presents it on vinyl for the first time, newly remastered and featuring original artwork. This long-awaited reissue restores one of Ziad Rahbani’s most important works to circulation, reaffirming its place as a defining statement in modern Arabic music.
a 1. Ana Moush Kafer 5:03
b 2. Shou Hal Ayyam 5:46
c 3. A'anitham 4:37
d 4. Shou A'ada Ma Bada [3:45]
[e] 5. Yessa'ed we Yea'en [5:05]
[f] 6. Bi Halyawmayn [3:46]
[g] 7. Bharf Esheen [1:12]
[h] 8. Bhaneek [5:34]
[i] 9. Al Mokawama Al Watania Al Lobnani [3:06]
[a] 1. Ana Moush Kafer [5:03]
[b] 2. Shou Hal Ayyam [5:46]
[c] 3. A'anitham [4:37]
[d] 4. Shou A'ada Ma Bada [3:45]
[e] 5. Yessa'ed we Yea'en [5:05]
[f] 6. Bi Halyawmayn [3:46]
[g] 7. Bharf Esheen [1:12]
[h] 8. Bhaneek [5:34]
[i] 9. Al Mokawama Al Watania Al Lobnani [3:06]
[a] 1. Ana Moush Kafer [5:03]
[b] 2. Shou Hal Ayyam [5:46]
[c] 3. A'anitham [4:37]
[d] 4. Shou A'ada Ma Bada [3:45]
[e] 5. Yessa'ed we Yea'en [5:05]
[f] 6. Bi Halyawmayn [3:46]
[g] 7. Bharf Esheen [1:12]
[h] 8. Bhaneek [5:34]
[i] 9. Al Mokawama Al Watania Al Lobnani [3:06]
[a] 1. Ana Moush Kafer [5:03]
[b] 2. Shou Hal Ayyam [5:46]
[c] 3. A'anitham [4:37]
[d] 4. Shou A'ada Ma Bada [3:45]
[e] 5. Yessa'ed we Yea'en [5:05]
[f] 6. Bi Halyawmayn [3:46]
[g] 7. Bharf Esheen [1:12]
[h] 8. Bhaneek [5:34]
[i] 9. Al Mokawama Al Watania Al Lobnani [3:06]
[a] a1. Ana Moush Kafer [5:03]
[b] a2. Shou Hal Ayyam [5:46]
[c] a3. A'anitham [4:37]
[d] a4. Shou A'ada Ma Bada [3:45]
[e] b1. Yessa'ed we Yea'en [5:05]
[f] b2. Bi Halyawmayn [3:46]
[g] b3. Bharf Esheen [1:12]
[h] b4. Bhaneek [5:34]
[i] b5 Al Mokawama Al Watania Al Lobnani [3:06]
[a] a1 | Ana Moush Kafer [5 03]
[b] a2 | Shou Hal Ayyam [5 46]
[c] a3 | A'anitham [4 37]
[d] a4 | Shou A'ada Ma Bada [3 45]
[e] b1 | Yessa'ed we Yea'en [5 05]
[f] b2 | Bi Halyawmayn [3 46]
[g] b3 | Bharf Esheen [1 12]
[h] b4 | Bhaneek [5 34]
[i] b5 | Al Mokawama Al Watania Al Lobnani [3 06]
[a] a1 | Ana Moush Kafer [5 03]
[b] a2 | Shou Hal Ayyam [5 46]
[c] a3 | A'anitham [4 37]
[d] a4 | Shou A'ada Ma Bada [3 45]
[e] b1 | Yessa'ed we Yea'en [5 05]
[f] b2 | Bi Halyawmayn [3 46]
[g] b3 | Bharf Esheen [1 12]
[h] b4 | Bhaneek [5 34]
[i] b5 | Al Mokawama Al Watania Al Lobnani [3 06]
[a] a1 | Ana Moush Kafer [5 03]
[b] a2 | Shou Hal Ayyam [5 46]
[c] a3 | A'anitham [4 37]
[d] a4 | Shou A'ada Ma Bada [3 45]
[e] b1 | Yessa'ed we Yea'en [5 05]
[f] b2 | Bi Halyawmayn [3 46]
[g] b3 | Bharf Esheen [1 12]
[h] b4 | Bhaneek [5 34]
[i] b5 | Al Mokawama Al Watania Al Lobnani [3 06]
If you don't know 'Clouds' then, quite naturally, you'd have to be living underground. The work of Venetian composer Gigi Masin went mostly ignored until Music From Memory's early-2010s reissue campaign pulled him and his ingenious ambient works out of the murk, among which many salvages include his now calling-card, 'Clouds'. Re-pressed astonishingly through P-Vine of all labels, this soul-quelling masterwork - first recorded in 1989 for a split release with Charles Hayward and mostly forgotten until said reissue - appears here at two various RPM speeds. The tune really does invite speeding up and slowing down at your leisure, especially if you're a dance music DJ's DJ who wants to prelude a set with a moment's iconic lushness.
Season Two continues with its fifth edition - a shift south this time, from KiF's English hedgerows to the island of Lutruwita, Tasmania, and the work of Soda Lite.
A gooseberry plant took root in the sand between the bricks of Alex's back patio - nutrient-deficient leaves and all - and fruited regardless. That's most of the appeal: "I'm drawn to species that survive in the interstices of human industrialisation." The husk itself carries the same idea, shielding the berry until it's ready to be let go.
Past Soda Lite records - Earthbound, Aqua Solar Cura, Vale & Stone - built outward from field recordings first. Here that flipped: you can't field-record a plant, only the noise around it, so only two tracks (Vibrant Matter and An Sí Gaoithe) carry field sound at all. The rest came from narrowing to a single species instead of the wider non-human world, and "trying to create and replicate sound and energy on the level of the plant and its perceptive world."
Two more things worth knowing. ‘Bryn Celli Ddu’ takes its name from a Neolithic burial chamber in Wales, aligned so the summer solstice sunlight reaches its back wall - the sun turning up again as its own recurring character. And ‘An Sí Gaoithe (Return)’ is a reworking of a Vale & Stone title, old fragments reprocessed into something new - "a bit like composting."
Soda Lite is the recording project of Alex Last, a gardener and composer working from Lutruwita on unceded Palawa land. Their music moves through field recordings gathered directly from the island's own biomes - coastline, forest, alkaline lake bed - alongside slow, warbling synth work, built less as backdrop than as document: proof of a specific place, at a specific time, being listened to closely. Past records have taken their titles and themes from geology and land relationships as often as botany - Aqua Solar Cura, Earthbound, Vale & Stone - so a plant with its own mineral-adjacent etymology (soda, found in dried alkaline lakebeds; lite, from the Greek for stone) suits the pairing.
Dark Entries is Elbow Deep in the Hoopla thanks to J.D. Slater. Legendary actor, director, and composer J.D. Slater is sometimes known as “the Lou Reed of gay porn.” Slater cut his teeth in the New York punk scene, even opening for the Talking Heads and Blondie at CBGB with his project Frenzy. A true polymath of the erotic, he co-founded Raging Stallion Studios with Chris Ward in 1999, which has remained a prolific outlet in the world of gay pornography. Elbow Deep collects the scores from three late 1990s fisting-focused Club Inferno films: At Arm’s Length, Hand Over Fist, and Heads or Tails. Never before released, these works show Slater digging deeper into the electronic music production techniques that were blossoming in that era, like loop-based sampling. Says Slater, “Suddenly I could have access to every instrument in the world. My whole concept of sound and structure evolved with the technology.” The works here are trance-inducing groovers, laced with acid and dosed with brooding ambience. Check out the Gregorian vibes on “Grand Fuck,” the legato lurch of “Stallion Funk,” or the frosty atmospheres of “At Arm’s Length.” Elbow Deep in the Hoopla comes with an insert featuring an interview with J.D. Slater. Starkly sexy, these tracks remind us of Slater’s creed: “The main rule for writing a porn score is to remember what you are writing for.”
Dark Entries is Filling Your Silence with the help of J.D. Slater. Legendary actor, director, and composer J.D. Slater is sometimes known as “the Lou Reed of gay porn.” Slater cut his teeth in the New York punk scene, even opening for the Talking Heads and Blondie at CBGB with his project Frenzy. A true polymath of the erotic, he co-founded Raging Stallion Studios with Chris Ward in 1999, which has remained a prolific outlet in the world of gay pornography. Having spent years in front of and behind the camera, 1999’s Filling Your Silence was his debut as maestro. This album collects the soundtracks from the first two Raging Stallion films - Sexpack One and Sexpack Two - to bring us nine tracks of sleazy beats and trance-like moments of pure ecstasy. Album opener “Seduction” begins with the iconic synthetic pan flute, one of the defining sounds of the 1990s, before pulling us along with its wild grooves.
Halfway through its nine-and-a-half- minute course, it breaks down to bust out a jazzy electric piano vamp. “Running with Scissors” ups the tempo with some crunchy breakbeats to undergird its portamento-laced lead synth. Elsewhere, like on “Mercy” and “Mercy (2nd Movement),” we see Slater embracing a bleep-adjacent sound close to early Nightmares on Wax or 808 State. Filling Your Silence’s endless grooves pursue that oceanic feeling. This record comes with a one-sided insert that includes archival Raging Stallion press materials. In the words of the Bay Area Reporter, Filling Your Silence is “quite possibly the best music for sex ever written.” A bold claim, but we can’t help but agree.
""Early Morning"" is the result of an intimate, personal experience within Mexican territories. It unfolds as an open-ended narrative, suspended in vast and indefinite environments where sound merges with the landscape.
Trumpet and electric keyboard act as the central forces within the composition, guiding its emotional core. Around them, additional elements are woven in through subtle interventions-reinforcing, dissolving, and reshaping the piece. The result is a form rich in suspense, positioned between electroacoustics and contemporary experimental music, maintaining a strong focus on timbre, spatial perception, and the relationship between acoustic sources and real-time processing. Jacopo Buda (born in 1994) is a trumpeter, composer, and sound artist. In addition to his work as a musician, he is an artistic director for experimental music festivals within the Italian underground scene and has been the co-curator, alongside Demetrio Cecchitelli, of The Cave hosted by Casa Madiba (Rimini) since 2021.
Surprise Chef’s album Frogs In A Pond is an examination into, and an expression of, a shared human experience. Based in Australia, the quintet found inspiration from European film composers working in the late 60s and early 70s. The music expresses musical themes with a cinematic landscape of moods and feelings that evoke emotion without the listener having watched the film for which the music was composed, pushing boundaries that dictate a unique perspective to their music.
Surprise Chef’s album Frogs In A Pond is an examination into, and an expression of, a shared human experience. Based in Australia, the quintet found inspiration from European film composers working in the late 60s and early 70s. The music expresses musical themes with a cinematic landscape of moods and feelings that evoke emotion without the listener having watched the film for which the music was composed, pushing boundaries that dictate a unique perspective to their music.
In the realm of past-life regression hypnotherapy, there is a concept known as “Life Between Lives,” wherein a sacred exchange of energy occurs between two souls in the spirt world, helping a spirit fully understand and forgive a being who hurt them in a past life. This exchange – called “passing the cup of sorrows” – became the unexpected inspiration for William Basinski’s first new album in six years.
While sinking deeper into the daily abyss of our collective negativity bias, William Basinski stumbled upon a video describing the spiritual hypnotherapy exercise known as “passing the cup of sorrows.” Fixed on the glow of a screen that projected mounting anxiety and cynicism at a seemingly interminable pace, Basinski found the testimonials of this fascinating therapeutic practice to be profoundly moving. He sat at his piano, translating the transformation of those traumatic memories of past lives into cathartic tears of the present day.
Channeling the quiet curiosity and asymmetrical patterns of pioneering 20th Century composer, Morton Feldman, Passing the Cup of Sorrows is a single 40-minute piece that employs a solitary piano and subtle electronics to truly haunting effect. It recalls fragments of traumatic memories and projects them as fractals in a slow-moving soft focus that’s as eerie as it is enlightened.
In the realm of past-life regression hypnotherapy, there is a concept known as “Life Between Lives,” wherein a sacred exchange of energy occurs between two souls in the spirt world, helping a spirit fully understand and forgive a being who hurt them in a past life. This exchange – called “passing the cup of sorrows” – became the unexpected inspiration for William Basinski’s first new album in six years.
While sinking deeper into the daily abyss of our collective negativity bias, William Basinski stumbled upon a video describing the spiritual hypnotherapy exercise known as “passing the cup of sorrows.” Fixed on the glow of a screen that projected mounting anxiety and cynicism at a seemingly interminable pace, Basinski found the testimonials of this fascinating therapeutic practice to be profoundly moving. He sat at his piano, translating the transformation of those traumatic memories of past lives into cathartic tears of the present day.
Channeling the quiet curiosity and asymmetrical patterns of pioneering 20th Century composer, Morton Feldman, Passing the Cup of Sorrows is a single 40-minute piece that employs a solitary piano and subtle electronics to truly haunting effect. It recalls fragments of traumatic memories and projects them as fractals in a slow-moving soft focus that’s as eerie as it is enlightened.
If the name The Midnight Hour isn't immediately familiar, the music almost certainly is. Ali Shaheed Muhammad is a founding member of A Tribe Called Quest, one of the most beloved groups in hip hop history. Adrian Younge is the Los Angeles-based composer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer who has shaped the sound of some of the most critically admired records of the past two decades. Together, they have been architects of the sound that serious listeners point to when they try to describe what great music feels like.
The music they had been making together had a life of its own. By 2018, it had become The Midnight Hour: their self-titled debut album, recorded to tape with a live rhythm section and a full orchestra, and released to widespread acclaim. In 2020, the duo were deep into sessions for a second album. But then the world shut down, the recordings were shelved. The album never came and remained unfinished and unheard. But now, via their Jazz Is Dead label, The Lost Tapes have been unearthed
If the name The Midnight Hour isn't immediately familiar, the music almost certainly is. Ali Shaheed Muhammad is a founding member of A Tribe Called Quest, one of the most beloved groups in hip hop history. Adrian Younge is the Los Angeles-based composer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer who has shaped the sound of some of the most critically admired records of the past two decades. Together, they have been architects of the sound that serious listeners point to when they try to describe what great music feels like.
The music they had been making together had a life of its own. By 2018, it had become The Midnight Hour: their self-titled debut album, recorded to tape with a live rhythm section and a full orchestra, and released to widespread acclaim. In 2020, the duo were deep into sessions for a second album. But then the world shut down, the recordings were shelved. The album never came and remained unfinished and unheard. But now, via their Jazz Is Dead label, The Lost Tapes have been unearthed
Tokyo-based producer aus debuts on Squama with his new album Mere Meer.
Grounded in the question of how a specific environment can emerge through voice and memory, rather than through recording of an objective reality, the album stands in the tradition of modern Japanese Ambient and Kankyo Ongaku.
aus is the solo project of composer, producer, and curator Yasuhiko Fukuzono. His music is characterized by a precise combination of cinematic strings, acoustic instrumentation, and concrete sound design derived from everyday life.
In recent years, he released music on EM Records, WRWTFWW and his own flau imprint. As a remixer, he put his touch on tracks by Matthew Herbert, Tenniscoats and Craig Armstrong, among others.
His sonic research also extends beyond traditional formats into spatial sound installations and site-specific works, collaborating with experimental figures like Ulla, Li Yilei, and Hinako Omori for institutions such as the Tokyo National Museum.
Much of the album consists of sketches made with synthesizer and voice. Sampled from social media clips, field recordings or a heavily processed version of Fukuzono's own vocals, the voice became a central element of the record. "I have long been interested in the relationship between words and melody.", aus says. In his former work as a speech therapist, he witnessed patients with severe dementia or aphasia, who all of a sudden could recall lyrics when they were sung with familiar melodies. An experience that left a deep impression on him.
During the Covid years, when hearing voices of friends and family sometimes was the only way to feel connected to the outside world, aus began reflecting on the connection between voice and environment. "Every voice represents an encounter with a person, but it's also an encounter with a place."
Unable to travel as freely as before, that limitation became part of his method: rather than just recording actual field material capturing the real world, he would write and perform melodies that simulate a sense of place - an imagined room, an imagined street.
"My interest lies not in the dichotomy between artificial and environmental sounds, but in how they collectively shape a single perceptual field."
By observing and mapping our world, aus creates his own and his new record is a prime example of that process.
Chicago producer and composer Will Miller’s Resavoir has established a strong following at the intersection of jazz, electronic music, and beat-driven production, with more than 9,000 vinyl records sold and 82M+ streams across the project’s first three albums. Resavoir’s 2019 self-titled debut received an 8.2 from Pitchfork alongside broad international critical acclaim, with ongoing support from Gilles Peterson, Lefto, Anthony Valadez, Somewhere Soul, Andrew Jervis and Lovie, plus airplay on BBC 6 Music, KEXP and NPR. Recent recognition includes placements on NPR, KMHD and New Commute’s Best Albums/Songs of 2025, while Resavoir has toured extensively in the UK and Europe and opened for Khruangbin, BADBADNOTGOOD and Kassa Overall.
Above The Clouds finds Resavoir moving further into electronic territory, combining jazz improvisation with dreamy synthesizers, booming drums, smeared samples and electronic instrumentation. Recorded through loose studio sessions with longtime collaborators Lane Beckstrom and Jeremy Cunningham, with contributions from Kenneth Leftridge Jr. and Gregory Uhlmann, the album incorporates wind synthesizers, samplers, guitars, electronic drums and woodwinds into a fluid, groove-oriented sound. The album follows Resavoir’s growing presence across editorial and playlist platforms including Apple Music, Spotify, TIDAL and Delicieuse Musique, with US and EU/UK touring planned for Fall 2026.
Chicago producer and composer Will Miller’s Resavoir has established a strong following at the intersection of jazz, electronic music, and beat-driven production, with more than 9,000 vinyl records sold and 82M+ streams across the project’s first three albums. Resavoir’s 2019 self-titled debut received an 8.2 from Pitchfork alongside broad international critical acclaim, with ongoing support from Gilles Peterson, Lefto, Anthony Valadez, Somewhere Soul, Andrew Jervis and Lovie, plus airplay on BBC 6 Music, KEXP and NPR. Recent recognition includes placements on NPR, KMHD and New Commute’s Best Albums/Songs of 2025, while Resavoir has toured extensively in the UK and Europe and opened for Khruangbin, BADBADNOTGOOD and Kassa Overall.
Above The Clouds finds Resavoir moving further into electronic territory, combining jazz improvisation with dreamy synthesizers, booming drums, smeared samples and electronic instrumentation. Recorded through loose studio sessions with longtime collaborators Lane Beckstrom and Jeremy Cunningham, with contributions from Kenneth Leftridge Jr. and Gregory Uhlmann, the album incorporates wind synthesizers, samplers, guitars, electronic drums and woodwinds into a fluid, groove-oriented sound. The album follows Resavoir’s growing presence across editorial and playlist platforms including Apple Music, Spotify, TIDAL and Delicieuse Musique, with US and EU/UK touring planned for Fall 2026.
Brussels composer and organist Sander De Keere debuts on Phantom Limb with evocative, elegant new works for solo church organ The Manual Stop, mosaicking patterns of minimalism, IDM, electronic, and sacred music with utmost symbiosis and reverence for the instrument. Recorded entirely on a centuries-old Contius baroque organ at the historic St. Catharina Church in the town of Wondelgem (Ghent, Belgium), The Manual Stop is described by Sander De Keere as “an homage to the organ’s ancient craftsmanship and sonic experiment in itself.” While remaining in keen veneration to the instrument, its heritage, and its spiritual gravitas, De Keere’s works employ the church organ as the centrepiece of a broad compositional superstructure coloured by the influence of many contrasting music.
The Malian virtuoso, indisputably one of the most creative talents of his country, deserved his solo career decades ago. In May 2026, we released his debut solo album SOBRA DANCE featuring his wife Mariam Kouyate on vocals. The groovy and variated electric album, went straight to the top lists of World Music Charts Europe and Transglobal World Music Chart as well as selected for TOP OF THE WORLD by SONGLINES. Gaoussou's solo debut got several 5 star reviews.DJANGO BLUES is a tribute to Gaoussou's father and childhood teacher, who's nickname is Django. On this album the talented guitarist and composer goes deeper into the roots of Malian Dessert Blues, with the variations from the Arabic soundscapes from the north.In Senegal, Gaoussou is nick named "The new Ali Farka Toure". But even though Ali Farka was one of Gaoussou's greatest inspirations, Gaoussou has developed an unmistakable style of his own. He breathes music and goes to his studio every day to work. He uses his composing to reflect, and as a ventilator when things are hard -they often are in his country of contrasts- and as a love declaration to life itself. He is a true Mandingue, a Griot, peaceful and kind, as the philosophy preaches.Accompanying such legends like Toumani Diabate and Kasse Mady Diabate, Gaoussou Kouyate, with his beloved village 'Sobra' as his middle name, has long proven his level. Yet his name has been relatively undiscovered. The trio performed a memorable concert at Dakar Music Expo, led by their producers, Dudu Saar and Lucy Duran. What started being noticed internationally through this exceptional trio was Gaoussou's composing skills.The electric SOBRA DANCE album was released first, to contrast and give space to the acoustic GUITARI BARO album. Now comes the time for DJANGO BLUES. This great album features Gaoussou's band as well as an exceptional Moroccan Ribab- Amazigh violin master and singer, Aziz Ozouss.
Composed over a period of twenty years, these four electroacoustic pieces by Ivo Malec reflect the richness of his sonic universe and reveal the unique power of his musical writing. His strength lies in an ability to harness emerging sounds and techniques (ranging from complex editing to early computer music and electronic synthesis) and develop them through an exploratory approach, giving rise to musical ideas of rare clarity. This sense of determination, not only in terms of the future of sounds but also of musical forms, is what makes Ivo Malec an essential composer on the contemporary music scene and a key figure in the GRM’s repertoire.
François Bonnet, Paris, 2025
Following the international praise for their 2024 debut album Where Did You Go?, Sandman Project return with Hearts Forever, the first album entirely composed, arranged and produced by guitarist, composer and bandleader Tal Sandman. Rooted in psychedelic groove, Middle Eastern musicality, funk, jazz and desert rock, it is a record driven above all by a wider spiritual belief in music as a force for connection.
If Where Did You Go? introduced Sandman Project as a borderless, brass-heavy outfit with a cinematic sound, Hearts Forever takes that vision somewhere more intimate and self-assured. Written following Tal's move from Jaffa to Leipzig, the album reflects a period of personal and creative transformation. Arriving in Germany without knowing whether she would find the right collaborators, she gradually assembled a new band through recommendations from fellow musicians, discovering a group capable of bringing her musical vision to life. For Tal, the music is not about drawing neat lines between styles or traditions. It is about taking inspiration from wherever it appears and reshaping it into something honest and alive. "If music touches my heart, it inspires me", she says. "So much music already exists, but what we are doing is creating something new out of inspiration. You take the ingredients and make a new thing".
This is the quiet force behind Hearts Forever. Almost entirely instrumental, the album deliberately leaves space for listeners to find their own stories within it. Without lyrics, the music is never confined to one language, nationality or identity.
Following support for Where Did You Go? from All About Jazz, DJ Magazine, Bayern Radio, Greedy For Best, Pipelines Magazine, Ban Ban Ton Ton and Laurent Garnier, Hearts Forever finds Sandman Project entering a new chapter: more confident, broader in vision and more deeply rooted in Tal Sandman's own creative voice. Rich, restless and full of feeling, Hearts Forever is music for uncertain times; a record about holding on to innocence, choosing compassion and believing, however quietly, that connection is still possible.
Long Distance Operators (LDO) is a collaboration between the Australian musician Hugo Race and the Belgian violinist Catherine Graindorge. Hugo Race, singer, songwriter, producer and author, has a long and wide-ranging history, from the trans-global Dirtmusic and his groups True Spirit and Fatalists to his origins in the 80's Melbourne post-punk scene with Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds and The Wreckery. Catherine Graindorge, violinist and composer, is known for her solo work and collaborations with International artists such as Iggy Pop, John Parish, Pascal Humbert (16 Horsepower), Simon Huw Jones (And Also The Trees). She also plays and composes for theater and cinema. The music of LDO is an intensely atmospheric dreamweave of violins, electronics and Hugo's darkly evocative voice. The duo explores metaphysical lyrics, experimental sounds and retro-baroque orchestrations in a romantic, song-based context.
Long Distance Operators (LDO) is a collaboration between the Australian musician Hugo Race and the Belgian violinist Catherine Graindorge. Hugo Race, singer, songwriter, producer and author, has a long and wide-ranging history, from the trans-global Dirtmusic and his groups True Spirit and Fatalists to his origins in the 80's Melbourne post-punk scene with Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds and The Wreckery. Catherine Graindorge, violinist and composer, is known for her solo work and collaborations with International artists such as Iggy Pop, John Parish, Pascal Humbert (16 Horsepower), Simon Huw Jones (And Also The Trees). She also plays and composes for theater and cinema. The music of LDO is an intensely atmospheric dreamweave of violins, electronics and Hugo's darkly evocative voice. The duo explores metaphysical lyrics, experimental sounds and retro-baroque orchestrations in a romantic, song-based context.
Animative is new work by composer, producer, saxophonist and synthesist Josh Johnson (SML, Jeff Parker ETA IVtet, Flea and The Honora Band), his third album under his own name, and his first for International Anthem/Nonesuch. The album further advances Johnson deep into a territory he has been exploring for years: live-processed electro-acoustic takes on deconstructed rhythmic jazz. The ten track album - co-produced by Johnson and Paul Bryan, featuring contributions from Meshell Ndegeocello, Macie Stewart, Marquis Hill, Ben Lumsdaine, and more - is a marvel of electro-acoustic innovation that combines compositional brilliance and technological ambition into a mesmerizing blend of skeletal soul-jazz, post-bop, electronic minimalism, and dreamy ambience.
Animative is new work by composer, producer, saxophonist and synthesist Josh Johnson (SML, Jeff Parker ETA IVtet, Flea and The Honora Band), his third album under his own name, and his first for International Anthem/Nonesuch. The album further advances Johnson deep into a territory he has been exploring for years: live-processed electro-acoustic takes on deconstructed rhythmic jazz. The ten track album - co-produced by Johnson and Paul Bryan, featuring contributions from Meshell Ndegeocello, Macie Stewart, Marquis Hill, Ben Lumsdaine, and more - is a marvel of electro-acoustic innovation that combines compositional brilliance and technological ambition into a mesmerizing blend of skeletal soul-jazz, post-bop, electronic minimalism, and dreamy ambience.
Ma Ze Music is just seven releases deep but is already overdelivering on expectations. This latest offering is a second from Yanuka, which is the solo project of acclaimed keyboardist, composer and producer Tomer Zuk. Here he hooks up with Elran Dekel on 'Where Is My Love' for a gently psyched-out and global soul and downtempo fusion that pairs textured guitar riffs with cartoon boings, conscious vocal musings and a blend of romantic and heart-aching moods. It's warm and intimate and then Ma Ze's regulars UV & Nenor take care of the flip with 'Where Is The Dub' which strips the original to a hazy, slow-motion dub.
Bo Harwood (1946–2022) was one of those behind-the-scenes figures of American independent cinema: a self-taught musician, composer, sound editor, sound mixer and songwriter.
Harwood started out as the lead singer and guitarist of a Southern California rock band before a chance meeting with John Cassavetes changed the course of his career. He scored his first feature, The Bach Train, in 1969, and later joined Husbands as an inexperienced assistant in the editing room. He gradually became Cassavetes’s sound editor, music supervisor, composer and sound mixer, eventually working across six of his films, from Husbands and A Woman Under the Influence through The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Opening Night and Love Streams.Harwood’s music is inseparable from the peculiar emotional universe of those films: strange, romantic, funny and often devastating.
Harwood and Cassavetes worked closely and instinctively together, developing music in the process of making the films. The surviving master tapes reveal something of this exchange: alongside finished pieces are improvisations, experiments and conversations, capturing the two of them working through ideas in real time. Harwood’s compositions were often recorded as rough “scratch tracks”, with Cassavetes preferring their immediacy and vulnerability to more polished arrangements.
This nine-track LP brings together some of that work. There is something wonderfully intimate about hearing these recordings outside the films: the songs stand on their own, while retaining the rawness and emotional charge that made Harwood’s collaboration with Cassavetes so distinctive.
A small document of a remarkable and largely overlooked body of work.
Few have dared to record all twenty of Philip Glass’s piano Etudes in their entirety. Even fewer have attempted to remix them. Vanessa Wagner’s 2025 album, Philip Glass: The Complete Piano Etudes, crowns a longstanding passion for Glass’s compositions. While it focuses less on the dialogue between composer and producer that she cultivated with Murcof on Study Of The Invisible, Inland, and Statea, Glass’s music resonates deeply within the world of contemporary electronic music. This EP, part of InFiné’s “Versions” series, passes the baton to a new generation of composer/producers who radically reinterpret these unique piano pieces: Aho Ssan, Carmen Villain, Cucina Povera & Tauceti.
Vanessa Wagner’s album of Philip Glass’s Piano Etudes received unanimous critical and public acclaim, both in France and internationally. This success earned the pianist a nomination for the 2026 Victoires de la Musique Classique. Following numerous sold-out concerts across France, Vanessa Wagner is currently continuing her tour around the world. She will also serve as curator of the Folle Journée de Nantes in 2027 and 2028.
Hanne Lippard and Renato Grieco's Today's Special is a suite of language works synthesising melody and diction that integrates the literary and the audible in a repertoire of songs that bask in the melody of voice and the punctuations of structured composition. Working with methods of reduction rather than opulence in both tonal composition and rhetoric, each piece pegs the poetic to the musical with compositional schematics and methods. It is important to state that there is little to none improvisation here, instead, the duo set up matrices, rules and structural links that facilitated meaningful locus of exchange between their two practices. Lippard's texts are a collection of new and previously completed works. In these, as is typical for her work, she enjoys the easy pleasure of wordplay, iterative language, and decontextualised anecdote, as in opener Portrait of a Betrayal, a piece about the loss of a phone and the way it haunted the owner who dropped it, based on a lived experience. Grieco's instrumentation works with Lippard's language art as a form of acoustic typography. "I studied graphic design and I think about how you can express typography through voice," she says. "Renato's use of the viola da gamba becomes like an underline, or a font's brushstrokes, in ways that feel typographical." In this, the classically-trained composer Grieco often finds and echoes the pitch movements of Lippard's voice, intonation mirrored and revealed, linguistic meaning doubled and shadowed by plucked, strummed or bowed strings. His main instrument is the viola da gamba, the instrument considered closest to the human voice for its tonal range and ability to mimic inflections and timbre, and here he brings it even closer to the voice, building systems by which it moves with and around Lippard. He also plays piano and Wurlitzer, and joins her in speaking on Receiver and in conversation for final track The Black Rose. "Hanne's voice is an artist's voice, embodied as the artwork itself," he says. "But where my approach is from the perspective of a composer, hers is around rhetoric and language. We worked towards each other in this sense, Hanne finding a space to welcome my voice, and me designing an acoustic space to enhance her vocal persona." In some tracks the structural connections are obvious - the matched tumbling delivery and stepped pitches of voice and piano in Aficionado sounding like two tipsy friends descending a staircase. In others, like the triptych of tracks Three Rungs Ladder, structured with rules derived from nursery rhymes, or cumulative song (akin to the 12 Days of Christmas). For the Colour 1 and Colour 2 pieces, the duo worked from palettes of colours connected to clusters of harmonies, which underlined the power of the word and its articulation. The absurd Labradorable personifies a people pleaser, A Story About Being Blue is an imagined playful monologue from the Deep Blue supercomputer - requesting in sing-song stop motion to be called Debbie, and Larry - as Grieco echoes in factual reportage. Hurtbeat unpacks and recomposes a tweeted non-apology by a Russian art collector about owning a piece of racist art, Grieco shadowing Lippard's generating a third `drop-shadow' performer from the resonances between the duo, typographic re-articulation of the source material. The Receiver includes lines from Robert Ashley's Improvement (Don Leaves Linda), Ashley existing as a spiritual parent of sorts to the practices contained on Today's Special, and here interpolated as if he is being quoted and written through within the audible world of the piece in a palimpsest of borrowed sentences. Closing track The Black Rose contains its own self-aware comedy, a lightly distorted conversation sourced from a Reddit thread about whether black roses exist, recorded as if it were an internet radio or a low budget podcast, the casual exchange stilted in the delivery of platitudes as scripted speech. Today's Special was developed in person over the course of a series of small residencies - at Deutsche Akademie Rom Villa Massimo, Rome; Fondazione Morra, Napoli; Callie's, Berlin. In these limited periods that rarely stretched beyond a week, Lippard and Grieco developed strategies for the works, keeping tightly locked to musical concepts. This, for Grieco, is about maintaining a solid, meaningful connection within the compositions, and committing to everything having a purpose for existing within the work. Each element pulls its weight; has something to say, literally and metaphorically speaking. In the same way that Lippard's work leaves nowhere for her to hide, he wants the music to exist with its own naked purpose: "It's is about exposing nudity via reduced materials," says Grieco. "This is a form of courage we want to embrace. Once we take off everything, it needs to be extremely precise to maintain a connection with the audience. We have a lot of tools to hide behind now, to protect ourselves and our identities as artists, performers, and in life more generally. It's something I don't want to do. I want extreme reduction: no hiding."
Los Angeles-based producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Dexter Story returns with his sixth album, T'som (pronounced sawm), a deeply personal work inspired by the spiritual practice of fasting. Meaning "fasting" in the Afro-Semitic languages Tigrinya and Amharic, as well as in Arabic, Tsom represents a time of prayer, reflection and discipline across northeast Africa. Guided by this tradition, Story draws on the musical heritage of the Horn of Africa and musical traditions of the Middle East to create a spiritual jazz album that reflects on devotion, transformation and the power of letting go. Working with frequent collaborators Carlos Nino, Sudan Archives, Kamasi Washington, Jimetta Rose and Kibrom Birhane, the album touches on themes of reflection, inner poise and a quest for deeper connections, bound by explorations of traditional rhythms from the Horn of Africa. Named after jazz saxophone legend Dexter Gordon, Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, music director and producer Dexter Story is one of the key figures in the city's vibrant creative music scene. Renowned for his genre-defying approach, he has collaborated with an extraordinary range of artists, including Carlos Nino, Madlib, Kamasi Washington, Build An Ark and Gaslamp Killer. His acclaimed solo albums Wondem and Bahir, released by Soundway, established him as a distinctive voice at the intersection of jazz, African music and contemporary production. Most recently, Story produced Mulatu Astatke's acclaimed studio album Mulatu Plays Mulatu, further cementing his reputation as one of today's most sought-after creative producers and musical collaborators.
Los Angeles-based producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Dexter Story returns with his sixth album, T'som (pronounced sawm), a deeply personal work inspired by the spiritual practice of fasting. Meaning "fasting" in the Afro-Semitic languages Tigrinya and Amharic, as well as in Arabic, Tsom represents a time of prayer, reflection and discipline across northeast Africa. Guided by this tradition, Story draws on the musical heritage of the Horn of Africa and musical traditions of the Middle East to create a spiritual jazz album that reflects on devotion, transformation and the power of letting go.
Working with frequent collaborators Carlos Niño, Sudan Archives, Kamasi Washington, Jimetta Rose and Kibrom Birhane, the album touches on themes of reflection, inner poise and a quest for deeper connections, bound by explorations of traditional rhythms from the Horn of Africa.
Named after jazz saxophone legend Dexter Gordon, Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, music director and producer Dexter Story is one of the key figures in the city's vibrant creative music scene. Renowned for his genre-defying approach, he has collaborated with an extraordinary range of artists, including Carlos Niño, Madlib, Kamasi Washington, Build An Ark and Gaslamp Killer. His acclaimed solo albums Wondem and Bahir, released by Soundway, established him as a distinctive voice at the intersection of jazz, African music and contemporary production. Most recently, Story produced Mulatu Astatke's acclaimed studio album Mulatu Plays Mulatu, further cementing his reputation as one of today's most sought-after creative producers and musical collaborators
Finnish-American guitarist Raoul Björkenheim and Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love join forces on their new album PING, released by We Jazz Records on 30th October on LP, CD and digital formats. Recorded in Helsinki, the album finds the seasoned duo firing on all cylinders and delivering a remarkable set of contemporary free music.
PING brings together nine excursions beyond “guitar + drums” and way beyond “free jazz”. That being said, those are still good touching points for the music that is wild, imaginative, raw, yet also at times delicate and introspective. Friends and collaborators for decades in groups such as the lauded Scorch Trio, Raoul and Paal have the history and the trust to create memorable and original improvised music that stuns and moves the curious listener.
Raoul Björkenheim (b. 1956) is a Finnish-American guitarist and composer who has been creating original music for the past four decades living in New York City and Helsinki, where he is presently based. Describing his on-going work as investigative guitarism, he is best known for an expressionistic and lyrical guitar style. Björkenheim’s eclectic discography numbers 50+ albums, ranging from ambient soundscapes to visceral free jazz, from duo to big band. His large-scale works for symphony orchestra have yet to be recorded, and he has also composed scores for over ten films and dance productions. Björkenheim has collaborated musically with Bill Laswell, Toshinori Kondo, William Parker, Mats Gustafsson, Hamid Drake, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, Gerald Cleaver, Henry Kaiser, Lukas Ligeti, Morgan Ågren, Paul Schütze, Edward Vesala and Juhani Aaltonen, for the labels ECM, Rune Grammofon, Cuneiform, Tum Records and Long Song records. Björkenheim has been awarded various prizes including the Emma prize for best jazz recording of the year, and been nominated three times for the Nordic Music Award.
Paal Nilssen-Love (b. 1974) is a Norwegian drummer, composer, bandleader, and producer known for his central role in Scandinavian free jazz and improvised music. Since the mid- 1990s, he has appeared on more than 280 albums, including 70 released through his label, PNL Records. He has performed with influential groups including Atomic, The Thing, Peter Brötzmann’s Chicago Tentet, Scorch Trio, and Frode Gjerstad Trio, and collaborates regularly with artists such as, Ken Vandermark, Akira Sakata, Otomo Yoshihide, David Murray, Arto Lindsay and more. Paal Nilssen-Love’s fascination with traditional and experimental music has taken him around the world. Since his first visit to Ethiopia in 2009, he has built strong connections with musicians and artists in Addis Ababa, leading to collaborations, performances, teaching, and artist exchanges with Norway. Since his first trip to Brazil in 2013, he has returned regularly, developing collaborations with artists and musicians across the country. His musical explorations have also brought him to Tsugaru and Aomori in northern Japan, where he has developed an interest in the region’s traditional music. Nilssen-Love is also an active organizer and educator. He started both Oslo’s all-Ears festival, the Blow Out festival and FRAM Kunstfest, and has led workshops internationally and in Norway.
'Palle Mikkelborg (b. 1941) - a spiritual jazz legend, acclaimed composer, trumpet player and electronic music pioneer - is back in the studio recording his first solo album in more than 25 years. Working with him as a producer is Jakob Bro, with whom he has recorded the great ECM albums Returnings with Jon Christensen and Thomas Morgan, and Strands with Marilyn Mazur.
'"When Palle decided to stop touring and performing live, I suggested that we sit down together and listen through the many MiniDiscs and DAT tapes he had tucked away, hoping we might find a new direction for making music together. We went through everything - recordings of orchestras and choirs, soundscapes, and so on - material he had worked on throughout his career,” says Jakob Bro. “I can still remember the first time we said it out loud. Suddenly, it made perfect sense in my mind: a solo album. An album devoted entirely to Palle - his sound, his vision, his voice. It felt like something the world truly needed.”
'This final opus sees Palle Mikkelborg re-interpret and record his own orchestral works and two pieces by Per Nørgaard and Thomas Laub as 'meditations' on solo piano, trumpet and flugelhorn mixed with soundscapes and guest performances by longtime collaborators Helen Davis, Jakob Bro and Thomas Li.
'As a soloist his sound on trumpet and flugelhorn is both much loved and familiar after decades at the forefront of Nordic Music, but on Light one is struck by the weight Palle Mikkelborg has given his soundscapes and the grand piano. Forever curious on what's ahead, the album underlines his spiritual and ever-seeking approach to free improvisation, classical composition, choral works and experimental sound landcapes.'
Yr Knives is a Chicago instrumental quartet built around two very different guitar voices. The band came together sideways: composer Paul Karner wanted guitarists Andrew Trim and Brian Sulpizio to play disparate parts on a recording of his own, and when the two finally rehearsed together, a band fell into focus. Trim leads the groups Hanami and Retroreflector; Sulpizio is the constant behind Health and Beauty. Anchoring them are two Chicago mainstays, bassist Douglas McCombs (Tortoise, Eleventh Dream Day) and drummer Quin Kirchner. Two of them come up as rock and roll players, two as jazz players, and the music lives in how closely they listen across those languages.
Their debut, Begin Yr Singing, centers on two overdriven guitars merging into something neither could produce alone, over a rhythm section that can lock a groove or let it drift. The result is exploratory but grounded, "a searching music," in Trim's words, that asks questions it doesn't always answer and shifts from one performance to the next. Recorded live in a single room at Chicago's Palisade studio with Nick Broste engineering and mixed by Cooper Crain with Sulpizio, the six tracks draw on Sonny Sharrock, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Albert Ayler, Erik Satie, and Television. The band has toured supporting The Messthetics.
More than five decades into one of Brazilian music's most remarkable careers, Joyce Moreno returns with a new collection of songs that reflect the warmth, lyrical sophistication and innovation that have made her one of Brazil's most defining musical voices.
Produced by Joyce Moreno alongside her husband and longtime collaborator Tutty Moreno, the album finds the Rio-born singer, guitarist and composer at her most reflective. Across nine beautifully crafted songs, Joyce pairs intricate guitar work, lyrical intimacy and effortless swing with the musical curiosity that has defined her work for more than half a century.
Invited into the studio by Roberto Menescal at just sixteen years old, Joyce emerged during a transformative period for Brazilian music, releasing her self-titled debut in 1968. She soon established herself as one of Brazil's pioneering female songwriters, writing unapologetically from a woman's perspective at a time when few women were afforded that voice. Her song “Me Disseram” sparked national debate, while later works including “Feminina” cemented her reputation as an artist unafraid to challenge convention.
While some of her politically charged songs were censored during Brazil's military dictatorship, Joyce continued to write with honesty and independence. After studying journalism in the late 1960s, her gift for observation and storytelling became an even more defining feature of her songwriting. Over the following decades she released a succession of acclaimed albums, including the now-classic Feminina and Água e Luz, earning widespread recognition both in Brazil and internationally. Antônio Carlos Jobim would later describe her as "one of the greatest singers", while generations of musicians have drawn inspiration from her fearless artistry and enduring originality.
That same artistic fearlessness remains at the heart of her latest work. The album brings together an exceptional ensemble of Brazilian musicians. Tutty Moreno's expressive drumming underpins Joyce's vocals and guitar throughout, while Jorge Helder's bass, Lula Galvão's guitar and Marcos Nimrichter's warm Fender Rhodes create a sound that is both intimate and expansive. Contributions also come from the legendary Toninho Horta, alongside José Arimatéa, Teco Cardoso, Nailor Proveta, Josué dos Santos and Raphael Sampaio, whose additions add colour and texture without overshadowing Joyce's understated brilliance.
Throughout the album, Joyce balances quiet reflection with effortless rhythmic vitality. “Chovendo na Horta” serves as both a heartfelt dedication and a celebration of Joyce's enduring musical connections, featuring the unmistakable guitar of Toninho Horta. Elsewhere, “Aldeia de Ogum” receives a fresh new arrangement by Nailor Proveta, revisiting one of Joyce's most beloved compositions. Originally released in 1980, the track has enjoyed a remarkable resurgence in recent years, embraced by a new generation of listeners and became an underground favourite among DJs including Floating Points, Four Tet and Danilo Plessow. Now a staple of Joyce's live performances, this reimagined version brings renewed energy to a song that continues to transcend generations.
At seventy-eight, Joyce Moreno continues to write with the same curiosity, generosity and quiet innovation that have defined her career from the very beginning. "For me, it's never too soon to try something new, either in music or in life," she reflects - a philosophy that gives both the album and its title their enduring sense of optimism. This latest album is neither a retrospective nor a reinvention, but the work of an artist who continues to refine her voice with remarkable grace, proving that her most compelling music remains firmly rooted in the present.
Following the album's release, Joyce Moreno will embark on a European tour this November, bringing her celebrated live show to audiences across the UK and Europe. A rare opportunity to experience one of Brazil's most influential and enduring artists in concert, the tour showcases a songwriter whose voice, virtuosity and musical vision remain as compelling today as ever.
Jakob Bro, Brian Blade, Craig Taborn, Chris Cheek, Jesper Zeuthen, Anders Christensen, Larry Grenadier & Marcus Gilmore, playing compositions by Paul Motian and Jakob Bro.
The album was recorded in a single session at New York’s Power Station with engineer James Farber, following a week-long residency at the Village Vanguard.
‘Danish guitarist and composer Jakob Bro is celebrated for his pure reflective expression and penchant for celestial textures, effortlessly distilling and refining quiet sonics. At the Village Vanguard, he leads an impressive group – featuring two bassists and two drummers – for a nearly week-long residency.
‘The perfectly poised, ambient-leaning soundworld that characterizes Bro’s compositions was discomposed and distended by this octet, probing thrilling sounds and providing ample opportunity to create spontaneously. It was an exhilarating jazz night with some of the most esteemed players out there.’ ()
In C is a musical piece by the composer and performing musician Terry Riley. As one of the first minimalist compositions, it was a response to the modern music that dominated the scene in 1968. It is considered a masterpiece in the genre and served as an inspiration for many composers, classical and otherwise.
The pieces consist of repeating cells and different rhythms, loosely based on the musical structures he had heard and loved in north African music. In total, the compositions consist of 53 short musical phrases. The thing that makes In C so enduring, is that once all its conceptual ideas are stripped away, it's a seriously hypnotic piece of music, full of energy.
Emmy Award-winning composer Bear McCreary returns to the Outlander universe for another score, this time for the spin-off Blood of my Blood. This next chapter in the time travellers saga premiered in August 2025 and serves as a prequel to the critically acclaimed Outlander series.
Set in 18th century Scotland and England during the World War I, the series focuses on the lives and courtship of the parents of Jamie Fraser and Claire Beauchamp. McCreary masterfully brings the tale alive by blending classical music with folk and traditional Celtic.
The soundtrack of Outlander: Blood of my Blood is available as a limited edition on transparent vinyl and includes an insert.
Wayne Shorter stepped out as a Blue Note artist on his masterful 1964 label debut Night Dreamer, a sublime set that signalled the arrival of one of the most important saxophonists and composers in jazz history. Timeless Shorter compositions are given transcendent performances by a quintet with Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman, and Elvin Jones. This Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition is stereo, all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.
Tronic return with part 5 of the More Than Machine series going back to our roots, Electro has always been our passion, and we’re here to give it the massive spotlight it deserves. Our new VA brings together iconic producers Christian Smith / Wehbba / Ian O'Donovan and next-gen visionaries Alexander Kowalski / PJay for a master class in modern electro. Every track is a certified weapon, hand-picked to send shockwaves through clubs from Berlin to Tokyo.
Italian sound artist Giulio Aldinucci returns with his 5th album on Karlrecords: "Materia" is unsurprisingly a truly masterfully composed and sound-designed ambient masterpiece that adds perfectly to a series of critically acclaimed albums like “Disappearing In A Mirror” (2018) or “Shards Of Distant Times” – some of which made it onto several year’s best lists.
Giulio Aldinucci is an Italian composer and sound artist from Siena, Italy. His work focuses on ambient and experimental music, blending field recordings, electronic processing, and acoustic elements. Active since the early 2000s, he has released several solo albums on international labels including Karlrecords, Home Normal, and 99chants. His compositions often explore themes of memory, perception, and the relationship between sound and place.
Aldinucci's music is characterized by immersive, multilayered textures and meticulous attention to sonic detail. He constructs expansive soundscapes by integrating processed environmental recordings, choral elements, instrumental timbres, and subtle harmonic shifts. His style draws from both the aesthetics of contemporary ambient and the techniques of electroacoustic music, resulting in works that are at once atmospheric and conceptually grounded. The interplay between organic and synthetic sound sources is central to his approach, blurring the boundaries between the natural world and the constructed sonic environment.
His works have been presented at international festivals. He has also created art installations and multidisciplinary performances. In addition to his solo output, Aldinucci has collaborated with a wide range of musicians and artists, developing projects that intersect sound art, composition, and performance.
Aldinucci about "Materia": "Materia focuses on the idea of sound as a matter, which can be shaped into complex forms by removing excess material from the sound mass.The album originates from the dichotomy between accumulation and subtraction, creating compositions out of frequency-dense audio material in order to unearth what is “hidden” inside the raw sound mass. Unlike sculpture, in music time can be matter too by shattering sounds into milliseconds andrecompose them with a different fragments order, going beyond the traditional notions of rhythm and duration.“
'Hive Mind are excited to have worked with Rio de Janeiro based label QTV, to bring you this retrospective from the cosmic joker of contemporary Brazilian music, Negro Leo.
'The music on this retrospective, which draws together songs from his 14 albums, EPs and singles released since 2012, ranges widely and wildly across genres and styles, from the urgent and angular no-wave inspired punk-funk of Niños Heroes or Ilhas de Calor, through the psychedelic hoedown of Noite Invertida or the beautiful and delicate Esferas and on to the maximalist hyperpop of more recent works like RELA or Desejo de Lacrar. Negro Leo consistently confounds, confuses, disturbs and provokes.
'His music is explicitly and fiercely Brazilian and draws on the history of black Brazilian music for inspiration - Gilberto Gil and Tropicalism, Itamar Assumpção and the Vanguard Paulista, Funk Carioca, the Boi's rhythm from the northern carnivals, the samba of the streets and the country - it's all thrown into the mix, along with free-jazz, noise and various chunks of non-Brazilian pop. Leo's music and songs serve as an essential documentation of the country's rapidly shifting social fabric in the digital age, a time in which the country and its people feel lost in a "jungle of pixels".
'Some of these surreal songs can feel overwhelming at times, like a wall of noise full of unfamiliar sounds and rhythms, but there's an unapologetic punk spirit behind it all, alongside a genius composer. It's worth pushing through the that sense of overwhelm to the place where the beauty and complexity of the composition and songwriting shines.'
EPILOGUE is the culmination of more than four decades of music-making by Japanese composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Ken-ichiro Isoda, an album in which environmental sound, electronics, contemporary classical composition and memory converge into a deeply personal late-career statement. Isoda moved through video-game music, film composition, classical production, Okinawan music, television and collaborative projects, continually developing an approach in which acoustic instrumentation, field recordings and electronics could coexist naturally.
His collaborative album Interwoven with aus, released through WRWTFWW, further demonstrated the openness of a musical philosophy Isoda describes as being rooted in fluctuation, imperfection and organic movement.
EPILOGUE brings those threads together while refusing to function simply as a retrospective. The album consists largely of older compositions that Isoda has returned to, reconstructed and reinterpreted from the perspective of the present.
Opening track “TANEKOMA” refers to the Izu Robin, a rare bird native to Hachijō-jima, the volcanic island where Isoda lives. Its song, recorded by Isoda in the mountains, becomes part of the composition itself. Placed at the beginning of the album, “TANEKOMA” becomes both document and prayer.
Elsewhere, “Circulation 2” develops from a work created around the relationship between forest, sea and the movement of water. Flutist Dogen Kinowaki replaces Isoda’s original piano melody with a performance that gives the piece a distinctly Japanese sense of place. Kinowaki also appears on a newly reimagined version of “Beach of the Pliocene”, one of Isoda’s most recognised compositions.“STEPS”, first composed for film in 2008, looks back toward the electronica of that period. For this definitive version, Tsutomu Sonoda of maya ongaku provides vocals, bringing new emotional and lyrical depth to a piece Isoda had wanted to properly complete for more than a decade.
The title track from Isoda’s 1991 New Age album “Yume no Sazanami” is similarly reconsidered. Originally recorded with a small chamber orchestra, the new arrangement replaces elements of the harp and cello with layers of nylon-string guitar performed by Tatsuro Murakami. Perhaps the album’s clearest meeting point between past and present is “WATERWAYS.”The mysterious European ambient artist Aiko Takahashi, transforming an abandoned demo into what is simultaneously the oldest and newest work on the album.
“A Flowering Tree,” written for film in 2013, is reconstructed around multi-tracked flute performances by Dogen Kinowaki. Isoda carries that association into his own arrangement, allowing the piece to function as another quiet meditation on memory, loss and hope.
The album closes with “EPILOGUE” —less a grand conclusion than a moment of acceptance. Isoda chose it as the album’s title piece to hold what he describes as the complex emotions that accompany the twilight of a life spent making music. EPILOGUE is not simply a look back. It is the sound of older music continuing to move, change and breathe in the present: a lifetime of ideas distilled into Isoda’s own form of pure music, shaped by memory, collaboration, nature and the world immediately outside his home on Hachijō-jima.
Après le Gobble SP 04, nous sommes fiers de vous présenter le Gobble SP 05 !
Pour ce nouvel opus, nous avons une nouvelle fois sélectionné des morceaux inédits de Tieum, produits à l’origine dans les années 90/2000. Des tracks choisies avec soin pour composer un EP à son image, rempli de cette énergie et de cette identité qui ont marqué toute une génération.
Un grand merci à Tieum pour sa confiance et pour nous permettre de ressortir de ses archives ces morceaux qui nous ont bercés tout au long de notre jeunesse !
Un véritable voyage dans le temps pour tous les amoureux du hardcore gabber oldschool.
Après le Gobble SP 04, nous sommes fiers de vous présenter le Gobble SP 05 !
Pour ce nouvel opus, nous avons une nouvelle fois sélectionné des morceaux inédits de Tieum, produits à l’origine dans les années 90/2000. Des tracks choisies avec soin pour composer un EP à son image, rempli de cette énergie et de cette identité qui ont marqué toute une génération.
Un grand merci à Tieum pour sa confiance et pour nous permettre de ressortir de ses archives ces morceaux qui nous ont bercés tout au long de notre jeunesse !
Un véritable voyage dans le temps pour tous les amoureux du hardcore gabber oldschool.
While there have been countless performances, recordings and releases of Glass's works, this is the first time that an entire album is devoted to new studio recordings of his original film scores. Over the past decades Philip Glass has become a household name in contemporary music thanks to his prolific activity and output across many music genres, including operas, concertos, symphonies and music for theatre. He has also systematically sought out collaborations with musicians and artists from all over the world. Due to his highly idiosyncratic and distinctive style, the American composer has been considered one of the frontrunners of minimalism in music, even though he himself regards his work rather as music with repetitive structures, in a continual search to integrate harmony, melody and rhythm into a single musical expression. In 2025 he received the World Soundtrack Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to the art of film music.
Underpinned by spoken folktales stretching from Indonesia to Poland, a new collaborative EP from Warszawa/Berlin-based Jerzy Mączyński and London-based Flora Yin-Wong arrives via Accidental Meetings. Demons rising from the wind, unknown beings lurking in the forest — the record conjures a landscape built from heady layers of saxophone and the tormented strings of zither, harp and kemence.
Recorded across two intense studio sessions, the EP also features idiosyncratic contributions from London-based guest vocalists and musicians Aga Ujma and Laila Sakini.
Flora Yin-Wong is a London-born experimental sound artist and writer of Chinese and Malaysian heritage, known for weaving field recordings and traditional instruments. Her album Holy Palm (Modern Love) and book Liturgy (PAN) cemented her as a singular voice in experimental music today.
Jerzy Mączyński is a Polish saxophonist, producer and composer whose jazz training feeds into genre-melting work spanning kosmische, prog, industrial techno and minimalism. One of his collaborations being a record of free jazz and rhythmic cubism with Chicago's Hieroglyphic Being.
Rio de Janeiro producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Fabio Santanna returns with Copa Astral, an eight-track journey through modern Brazilian boogie, disco and Balearic grooves. Released by Rio’s Onda Boa, a label founded by Joutro Mundo, the album captures the warmth of the city's sunlit days and the cinematic glow of its nights, blending lush synths, live horns, percussion and rich vocal arrangements into an unmistakably Brazilian sound.
Opening with the slow-burning title track, introduced by the unmistakable cry of a cuíca, Copa Astral sets the mood before unfolding into the rolling grooves of "Ponto de Areia" and the Afro-Brazilian pulse of "Odoya Beat". Elsewhere, "Nesse Tempo" drifts into dreamy nostalgia, while side B moves effortlessly through the carefree boogie of "Jabuticaba", inspired by Brazil's beloved fruit; the warm, enveloping feeling of longing in "Senti Saudade"; the seaside romance of "À Beira Mar"; before closing with "Cantagalo", a heartfelt tribute to the neighbourhoods, memories and spirit that continue to shape Santanna's music.
Inspired as much by Rio's beaches as its neon-lit avenues, Santanna draws from Brazilian boogie, 1980s cinema, vintage record sleeves and classics such as Junior Mendes' Copacabana Sadia, filtering those influences through the city's unique rhythm. Produced at his Copacabana studio with live brass, percussion and vocal harmonies, Copa Astral is both timeless and contemporary - an album equally at home on the dancefloor, by the ocean or during a late-night drive along the coast.
Limen brings together two artists whose musical paths converge around a shared sensitivity to listening, resonance, and the evocative power of sound.
Recorded at Ritmo e Blu Studio during a five-day residency between spring and summer 2025, the album emerged from a series of spontaneous encounters free from predetermined structures. The pieces preserve their original form, retaining the immediacy and temporal flow of the dialogues as they first unfolded.
Subsequent interventions were conceived not as revisions, but as an exploration of the open spaces already present within the recordings—deepening what remained unspoken and extending resonances without altering the music's natural evolution.
The title, derived from the Latin word for “threshold,” reflects the nature of the project itself: a place of passage between improvisation and composition, silence and vibration, memory and imagination. Limen inhabits a suspended territory where listening becomes an experience of openness, presence, and transformation.
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Lino Capra Vaccina
Lino Capra Vaccina is one of the most distinctive voices in Italian experimental music. A percussionist, composer, and pioneer of minimalist and meditative sound practices, he first emerged in the early 1970s as a founding member of the influential group Aktuala, whose visionary fusion of ancient traditions, improvisation, and contemporary research anticipated what would later become known as world music.
Over a career spanning more than five decades, Vaccina has cultivated a unique artistic language centred on vibration, resonance, and the transformative power of sound. His landmark 1978 album Antico Adagio remains a touchstone of European minimalism, while his collaborations have included figures such as Franco Battiato, Juri Camisasca, Markus Stockhausen, Keith Tippett, Paolo Tofani, and many others.
Whether working with percussion, piano, electronics, or voice, Vaccina's music seeks a state of suspension and contemplation. His compositions unfold as immersive sonic environments whereancient echoes and contemporary sensibilities meet, inviting listeners into an experience that is at once intimate, spiritual, and timeless.
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Luca Formentini
Luca Formentini is an Italian composer, sound artist, and improviser whose work unfolds at the intersection of experimentation, atmosphere, and deep listening. Active since the late 1990s, he has developed a highly personal language in which guitar, voice, field recordings, and electroacoustic processes become tools for exploring memory, perception, and the expressive potential of sound itself.
His music resists easy categorization, moving freely between ambient, contemporary composition, improvisation, and sound art. Throughout his career he has released numerous solo works and collaborated with a wide range of internationally acclaimed musicians, including Holger Czukay, Robert Rich, Markus Stockhausen, Steve Jansen, Theo Travis and Steve Lawson.His recordings have appeared on labels across Europe, Asia, Australia, and the United States.
Rooted in a practice of attentive listening and sonic exploration, Formentini creates evocative musical landscapes that invite reflection rather than certainty, opening spaces where silence, texture, and resonance become as meaningful as melody itself.
Three late works by Éliane Radigue, composed in intimate dialogue with singular instrumental voices Charles Curtis and Dafne Vicente-Sandoval, reveal the extraordinary technical control and sensitivity required to realize Radigue’s radically reduced sonic language. Presented here for the first time on LP, these works stand as a landmark document of the composer’s late acoustic practice, where microscopic shifts in tone, texture, and resonance become the music itself.
Éliane Radigue (composer)
Dafne Vicente-Sandoval (bassoon)
Charles Curtis (cello)
MARGOT is a violinist, composer and producer defined by a deeply emotional orchestral language shaped by classical training and a highly personal approach to string writing. She has collaborated with artists including Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and St. Vincent. Trained from the age of four in North Florida, she moved to New York at nineteen, where her musical world expanded through collaborations and exposure to new scenes, alongside the discovery of artists such as Radiohead, Sigur Rós and Björk via their string arrangements. In 2020, she met pianist and composer Juan Villacrez in Colombia, leading to the creation of the instrumental album The Apartment on Third Street (over 13 million streams) and a long-term creative collaboration.
Her new album The Villain presents a major new artistic statement: a cinematic, immersive instrumental work unfolding across ten movements, shaped by profound personal loss and recorded live in Colombia with a minimum of takes and no overproduction. The physical edition of the record is designed by NYC-based artist Bráulio Amado (known for his work with André 3000, Harry Styles, Frank Ocean and Róisín Murphy), reinforcing the album’s position as a complete visual and sonic object. MARGOT’s writing, violin playing and emotional depth resonate throughout, particularly through arrangements in which she layers her own performances, creating a sound world that is at once intimate, restless and constantly evolving.
*Originally pressed in 2021 - this is a brand new master and cut.**
In partnership with Analogue Foundation, Oshu Records is proud to present the exclusive vinyl repress of "Laroyê" in a thick cardboard tip-on gatefold jacket on 2x 180g vinyl.
Acclaimed Hungarian, Berlin-based producer, composer and pianist Àbáse (AKA Szabolcs Bognár) returns, sharing a special, 5 anniversary remaster of his breakthrough project 'Laroyê'. Releasing on Friday 1 May via Bridge The Gap & Oshu Records, this sensitive exploration of Afro-Brazilian culture originally began as an audio diary, documenting Szabolcs’ travels and collaborations in Brazil through a collection of voice memos, fragmented beats, sketches and field recordings. As his journey progressed, and his collaborations and research deepened, the music project started to take on its own life:
"Laroyê evolved through weeks and months of research and collaborations into the album that it is now. That means that all the sessions were done in different apartments, small studios, often with borrowed equipment, which all adds to the character, but makes the creation of a coherent sound a challenge. Benjamin Tierney, Erik Breuer and Analogue Foundation did an incredible job with the mixes and with this new remaster. I truly believe that we are able to hear the tracks in a new light, with even more depth and clarity."
Coming from the West African Yoruban language, Àbáse stands for "collaboration" – a key element of the music perfectly encapsulated on 'Laroyê'. Recorded in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, Àbáse spent five months working with diverse artists, from young talents to veterans of the Brazilian scene including Letieres Leite, Luciane Dom, Dofono d'Omolu, Afrojazz and more. The album explores the rich heritage of afro-brasilian culture through samba, MPB and Candomblé, mixing these with broken beat, hip hop and afrobeat, creating a contemporary homage to the classic Brazilian sound. Szabolcs shares:
"Despite already leading and managing musical projects that are close to my hearth, I always felt that one day I would like to start a solo project, where I could take full responsibility for the artistic direction and the music would reflect a truly personal vision. In 2017, I decided to take five months to fulfil a childhood dream and travel to Brazil to expand my creative horizon and expose myself to new influences."
An album standout is the bass-heavy, afro-brazilian ‘Agangatolú, which Àbáse describes as "best exemplifying the story and concept of Laroye as a collaborative effort - a research project exploring the rich heritage of Afro Brazilian culture through my own lens." The track features singers and percussion players Jadson Xabla and Gabriel Santana - two artists based out of one of the oldest terreiros (houses of worship) in Bahia, whilst drummer Jorge Dubman is an integral part of one of the most famous afrobeat bands from Salvador IFA. The contributions of one of Szabolcsoldest collaborators - Hungarian flautist Fanni Zahar - also made the track a full-circle moment.
On a quest for cosmic grooves of unity, Àbáses music pulls from an eclectic blend of global reference points, including modal jazz, Hungarian folk, West African, Brazilian, hiphop and underground electronic music. His work has drawn widespread critical acclaim from the likes of MOJO, Songlines, Soulection and The Guardian, and been supported by key tastemakers including Gilles Peterson, Jamz Supernova and BAMBII. As a keyboard player, Szabolcs has also collaborated with the likes of Wayne Snow, Dele Sosimi, Patti Smith, Emmanuel Wilkins, Gulty Simpson and Zeitgeist Freedom Energy Exchange.
'Laroyê' (2026 Remaster) will release on Friday 1st May via Bridge The Gap & Oshu Records.
A torrent of brilliance released from the fingertips. The art of the piano trio by a giant of arrangement.
In 1968, Norio Maeda, the genius arranger once described as being able to “write different scores with his right and left hands at the same time,” welcomed his close musical allies Takeshi Inomata and Tatsuro Takimoto and took on the piano head-on in his first piano trio work as a pianist. This album brings together the refined melodies of the new mainstream style that led the jazz scene at the time, experimental elements using prepared piano, and even a strikingly inventive recording approach in which as many as seven microphones were placed inside the piano. With the outstanding structural power of a composer and arranger and the sharp instincts of a performer woven together at a high level, this is an important work that deserves to be engraved in the history of Japanese jazz.
Hiromasa Suzuki, the hidden force behind Hiroshi Suzuki’s ""Romance"" and Jiro Inagaki’s ""Breeze,"" gathered a superb lineup of musicians and perfected the crossover sound on this masterpiece.
Hiromasa Suzuki was a composer, arranger, and keyboardist who played an active role not only in jazz, but also across the wider Japanese music world, including kayoukyoku, film, television, and commercials. From the late 1960s through the mid-1970s, he was deeply involved in works by Terumasa Hino, Akira Ishikawa, Jiro Inagaki, and others during their most cutting-edge periods, fully demonstrating his remarkable skill. His innovation, always one step ahead of the times, reached a kind of culmination in this work, recorded in 1976. Featuring young Shuichi “Ponta” Murakami, Akira Okazawa, and Masayoshi Takanaka, this is a masterpiece of pre-fusion and crossover.
Ezra Feinberg's third album Soft Power sees the composer-guitarist enlist an impressive array of fellow musicians including Mary Lattimore, David Moore (Bing & Ruth), Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Robbie Lee and share the life affirming lead single 'Future Sand'.
Defined by its abundance of melodies, repeating figures and ecstatic improvisations, Soft Power exudes an enlightened and transformative spirit to empower the listener. Feinberg, a practising psychoanalyst and former founding member of the San Francisco psychedelic collective Citay (Dead Oceans / Important Records) resides in the artistic enclave of upstate New York's Hudson River valley. Initial recordings emerged in the late summer of 2020, before added synthesis with collaborator John Thayer (Arp, Sunwatchers) during early 2021. Soft Power follows previous albums 'Recumbent Speech' (2020) and 'Pentimento and Others' (2018).
Feinberg artfully transcends the listener to an enriched place, his compositions distinguished by the deep humanity that lies at their core, plugging the listener into a state of wide eyed being, open and alive. Soft Power then is Ezra's own mantra but also one of power giving - a colourful catharsis translated into music.
Feinberg's music always speaks to the listener, but Soft Power, in whispering, speaks loudest.
"Much like everyday life, I wanted to convey these very plain, simple, tranquil, nearly quotidian aspects, but each piece contains this arc in which that form expands, is broken out of, so what starts out like a painting of flowers in a seaside motel turns into a riot of color and sound, or you feel slipped into a dream that feels like it could go on forever"
Faitiche presents the debut solo album by cellist, sound artist, and composer Topu Lyo: “quiet scenes from tokyo” brings together sixteen miniatures for solo cello and tape echo that oscillate between abstracts drones and rhythmic pizzicato sketches – all recorded at Topu’s Tokyo apartment. The constant traffic noise from a nearby highway has become an accompanying soundtrack for his compositions and can be heard on the recordings. Topu’s playing is marked by a distinctive idiom oriented more towards abstract electronic studio effects than classical technique.
The artist spoke to Jan Jelinek about his work:
JJ: A solo cello album may seem like an odd fit for a label that has to date released only music that is electronic in the broadest sense. But I think “quiet scenes from tokyo” complements the Faitiche repertoire exceptionally well. Its sixteen miniatures showcase the cello in all its complexity: the bowed passages sometimes recall a tape feedback drone; the pizzicato playing conjures up the percussion recordings of Moondog; and the abstract textures might be mistaken for the product of a granular sampler rather than rapid finger work on the cello. I’m constantly surprised by just how rich and varied this album is – without ever losing the charm of its sketch-like quality. Could you say a few words about the making of your album – first of all, from a rather technical perspective: what production tools did you use, and why?
TL: My production tools were very sparse. Just a solo cello and my Roland 301 Space Echo, which I only used at the end, running everything through it during mixing, tape only. After years of working with electronics, pedals, and synthesizers, moving to Tokyo pushed me toward minimizing my setup. But my aesthetics shifted too, toward simplicity. I wanted to strip everything back to just the acoustic cello and see how far I could push it — replicating some of my favorite electronic effects through extended technique: slow portamento, LFOs, filters, detune, noise. I’d also been listening to a cassette of ocean sounds for years. When I moved to Tokyo I was horrified to find myself living directly across from a freeway. Eventually the freeway started sounding almost identical to the ocean — and that ended up playing a prominent part in the recording.
JJ: That’s super interesting: mimicking electronic production as a compositional idea for the cello! You say the sound of the freeway is crucial to the album: I, too, tend to interpret steady traffic noise as a positive soundscape – do we hear the freeway on the album? I can also hear other field recordings, for example on “a street car with announcements”. Can you say a bit about how these field recordings influence your playing?
TL: Yes, you can hear the freeway on the album! The freeway is most prominent in “old trees in lonely spring”, “yuyake koyake”, and “the moon” (you can clearly hear individual cars). When I first began recording I had my balcony door shut tightly, but after a while I began leaning into the highway sound and slowly opening the door little by little to control the amount of noise. “streetcar with announcements” was a moment I was recording and a car passed by making announcements in the background. I loved how it sounded! Same thing with “yuyake koyake”, and later I realized that every day at 5pm the same song plays to mark sunset, telling children it’s time to go home. Having this bedrock of sound puts less pressure on me to put music on top or to play more notes.
JJ: It’s astonishing how much this differs from what I’d imagined: I’d been picturing peaceful landscape recordings, but had never thought of a freeway. Which goes to show how open to interpretation traffic noises are. So the room by the freeway had a major influence on the album – how are you going to perform it live?
TL: The contrast between the freeway and the beautiful landscape in my head couldn’t have been starker. I too was imagining a beautiful landscape in which to create the album, but somehow it still worked out. I've been going back and forth a lot on live shows and I think the most honest way is to have it the most stripped down. I was thinking of using traffic samples etc., but I think the duet really comes from the background sounds from every unique venue/environment. So as it stands, I’ll just be doing acoustic solo cello.
The music on ‘Remanens’ is the result of a commission by Art Cinema OFF off and B.A.A.D.M to score the short silent film ‘Positano’ made by french actor and filmmaker Pierre Clémenti in 1969. The film itself is an ever-shifting series of glimpses, without much context, of a family vacation to the island Positano. The short cuts are similar to a dream or obscured, residual memories where chronology has fallen apart.
The score was reworked into album format on ‘Remanens’, the title being the Swedish word for remanence. The word has several meanings, most commonly residual magnetism left behind in a material. It is consequently used when referring to residue on magnetic tape, as well as data remanence, which is the residual digital data that remains even after attempts have been made to erase a hard drive. The music was reworked with remnant traces of memory in mind, of the film, but also of how glimpses of memories from another life, when the future was undecided, can make a person feel – and how it can unveil one’s own traces of what the future felt like.
Linus Hillborg (b. 1989) is a Swedish composer, musician and multidisciplinary artist based in Stockholm. His diverse creative practice spans experimental music across both electronic and acoustic realms, as well as compositions for film, theatre, and interactive installations. In 2021 he released his acclaimed solo-debut 'Magelungsverket' through Moloton, derived from the installation 'Orphan Works' which he built with an obsolete computer game engine. In 2023 he released 'Four Works' through Kali Malone and Maria W Horn’s label XKatedral, which featured a series of instrumental works by himself and Theodor Kentros.
A quiet intensity permeates Chantal Michelle’s music, like a veiled flame. Even at its most spare and delicate, an undulating tension unsettles the ear through wavering microtonal interference and uncanny spatial juxtaposition. She takes seriously the mandate of the composer to foster new relationships between various types of sounds, bringing together disparate field recordings, instrumental stems, and the sounds of circuitry in unheard configurations. Resolution is elusive, in its place a sense of oblong cyclicality and prickly uncertainty. When the veil is pulled back, we find more depth, more complexity, and more mystery.
Unit of Heart, Michelle’s second album of 2026, presents two interrelated pieces that highlight diverging compositional modes. Here she brings in two key collaborators: Patrick Shiroishi, who contributes flutes and saxophones throughout, and poet Funto Omojola, whose words and voice bookend the title composition. Both compositions unfold gradually, but where the album’s a-side “Sudden Oceans” presents a minimal tonal palette focused entirely on the subtle grain of wind instruments, “Unit of Heart” proceeds linearly, moving through passages of synthesizer, environmental recordings, and full-cheeked wails of saxophone. Both encourage a state of focused listening as the scope of the music deepens and widens.
“Sudden Oceans” allows the listener to hover in rippling currents of air, breath overlapping breath in a shimmering patchwork. All flutes and saxophones on the piece are played by Shiroishi, which are molded by Michelle into a pattern that resembles the flow of tidal waters, surging and receding moment to moment as the tonal density increases. Expansive and recursive, it reflects both the restorative awe and eerie disquiet of encountering the sublime. The first and last sounds we hear are the gentle rush of unmediated breath as Shiroishi connects and disconnects from his flute.
Michelle’s skill at presenting the familiar as preternatural comes to the fore on “Unit of Heart, ” one of her most ambitious works. Omojola’s voice begins with a melody that could be a lullaby, but as it’s bounced around the stereo field it takes on a haunted quality. Their poem, reprinted on the LP’s inner sleeve, hints at a similar type of transformation: “I mean this is where our mouth turns saliva into spears only a throat can recognize. ” Pads of downy synthesizer billow and are subsumed by a discordant ringing. The climactic section features atonal electronics and field recordings, first of water and then the evening call of insects, processed in such a way to transform them into pulsating bursts of noise. What we think we know about the world, what is elemental, can change with even the slightest adjustment of the lens.
Lower the drawbridge, raise the gates. Texas-based composer Graham Reynolds (A Scanner Darkly, Before Midnight, Hit Man) returns to the world of The Portcullis with a brand-new LP of music. This deluxe edition brings together the original album and The Portcullis Expansion Pack across two LPs, housed in a die-cut slipcase.
Following the original album’s release in May 2026, the Expansion Pack ventures deeper into a medieval world of knights and merchants, almoners and thieves. Percussive medieval textures, fretted guitars, brass fanfares, atmospheric strings and piano reshape dungeon synth into something vividly Reynolds’ own: an imagined soundtrack steeped in folklore, fantasy and adventure.
What began as an investigation into Reynolds’ family lineage, tracing his name back to Launceston Castle, has grown into a world extending beyond the record.
Released via Fire Records as part of the Weird Walk Record Cult, the deluxe edition arrives alongside an expanded dice game and a special Portcullis porter created with Skipton Brewing Company.
“One of the most unique and addictive albums of 2026 so far” - Loud and Quiet
“Of all the RPG-infused dungeon synth, medieval ambient records released this year, Graham Reynolds’ will be the finest.” - Loud And Quiet
“Ominous, stark environment that rumbles with sounds evocative of the natural world, in both its beauty and despair” - The New York Times
“A work of great scope, subtlety, and powerful suggestion. (…) Prepare yourself for an immersive experience, full of color and personality.” - Time Out
We are so excited to welcome back Tigerskin with a brand-new Album. This 12” is the vinyl version
showcasing six deep, euphoric and banging tracks taken from the full album.
The digital album features twelve brand new tunes by Alex Krüger and delivers his 3rd studio album as Tigerskin.
“Image” not only continues his search for the ultimate dance floor deepness, and contrary to just imitating his own “best selling” club grooves, it rather displays his ongoing artistic progress as a producer and composer of electronic music.
Opposed to his 2013 album “All Those Goodbyes”, which musically rooted in the early 90s and included a ton of collaborations with friends and long time partners, “Image” focuses more on Alex’s general musical roots and shows his compositional preferences. Apart from a few samples, this time around it doesn’t feature any co-productions at all nor did Alex use crazy or special gear to create the tunes. Many sounds are coming from natural and acoustic sources. Expect 80s New Wave references or spooky Wagner-esque bits to pop up next to dusty downbeat interludes. Euphoria next to relaxation. Tigerskin’s journey leads him from ironic comments on the present times via deep, occasionally melancholic or dark and hypnotic material up to the final tune, a homage to the infamous German brothers, Thomas and Klaus.
Tigerskin’s love for experimentation and cross-genre diversity on “Images” is more tangible than ever before.
Composer and multi-instrumentalist Amir ElSaffar has achieved international renown for his work combining the Maqam of Iraq and the Arab world with jazz. With Ashwaaq, he displays a new facet of his work with a composition for string quartet, santur, and vocalist Khaled AlHafez, a master of the musical tradition of Aleppo, Syria. This dialogue between AlHafez’s warm voice and interpretive style that blends rigor and grace and string quartet explores the microtonal resonances of the maqam and the possibilities of a polyphony rooted in Arab traditions.
The texts come from Turjuman Al-Ashwaaq (Translator of Desires) a collection of mystical and ecstatic love poems written by the revered 12th century Sufi mystic, Ibn Arabi, and explore the universal power of love, the inner quest, and the search for unity in the diversity of the world.
Ashwaaq is a captivating moment of celebration, where poetic and musical heritages intersect beyond cultural and disciplinary boundaries.
Other Plans is the fifth full-length album by Swedish composer, producer, and vocalist Daniella Ljungsberg, and her third release on ORTHODOX. Returning to her early training in Baroque and Renaissance music, Ljungsberg reimagines these formative influences through the electroacoustic language she has developed over the years. Across seven tracks, harpsichord, double bass, bassoon, and trombone intertwine with modular synthesis, field recordings, and digital processing, moving between intimate songwriting and minimalist composition. Swedish folk echoes, Baroque sensibilities, and meticulous sound design dissolve into a singular musical landscape shaped by memory, nostalgia, and imagination. Created in a time of uncertainty and disorientation, Other Plans carries a delicate tension between melancholy and hope, transforming the act of looking back into a means of moving forward.
Long before streaming services, podcasts, or even the compact disc, there was Tellus—a radically ambitious publication that imagined recorded sound as an exhibition space. Founded in 1983 in downtown New York, Tellus transformed the humble audio cassette into a magazine, commissioning and publishing new works by musicians, composers, visual artists, poets, writers, choreographers, and performers who were reshaping the boundaries of contemporary art. Each issue invited listeners into a world where no wave, industrial music, spoken word, Fluxus performance, electroacoustic composition, downtown pop, conceptual art, and avant-garde experimentation could coexist on equal footing. More than forty years later, Earth Libraries proudly presents TELLUS: The Audio Cassette Magazine Anthology Vol. 1, the first comprehensive anthology devoted to the groundbreaking publication. The story of Tellus begins, fittingly, at the Rum Runner Bar on Canal Street. There, in 1983, visual artist Joseph Nechvatal, curator Claudia Gould, and composer Carol Parkinson conceived an entirely new kind of publication. Portable cassette players were transforming how people experienced music, and the trio saw an opportunity to use the cassette itself as a curatorial medium—one capable of circulating work that traditional record labels, galleries, and magazines simply couldn't accommodate. Early recordings by Sonic Youth and Liquid Liquid sit alongside works by James Tenney, George Brecht, Takehisa Kosugi, Carol Parkinson, Y Pants, Live Skull, Shelley Hirsch, Lenny Pickett, Paul Dresher, Gregory Whitehead, and dozens of other artists whose work helped define one of the most fertile creative communities of the era. For Earth Libraries, restoring Tellus represents a continuation of the label's commitment to preserving overlooked musical histories. Working from the original cassette masters, every recording on TELLUS: The Audio Cassette Magazine Anthology Vol. 1 has been carefully restored and newly mast
Rekombinant is the solo project of Rome based composer and sound artist Alfonso Montagnese. Blending electroacoustic composition, analogue electronics, magnetic tape and sound design, his work explores the physical qualities of sound, embracing imperfection, transformation and degradation as expressive compositional tools.
Borrowing its title from the physical principle of parity symmetry, the album is less interested in scientific theory than in the possibility that an identity may endure even after profound change. Sound is treated as matter, it is stretched, reflected, saturated, compressed and displaced, yet never entirely separated from its origin.
Magnetic tape is the medium through which this question unfolds. Magnetic tape does not preserve sound faithfully, it reshapes the sound. It compresses, saturates, colours and gradually erodes it, producing not a copy but another state of the same material. Every recording becomes both document and transformation.
Most of the instruments used throughout the album were selected from more recent generations of electronic equipment compared to previous works. Their character is not defined by nostalgia, but by their functional and sonic qualities: instruments chosen for how they behave under pressure.
The album consists of fourteen compositions, each one approaching sound as a material in continuous state of alteration and was conceived within what feels like a new Middle Ages, one that is still unfolding. An era marked by increasing fragmentation, uncertainty and the erosion of shared cultural references. The music does not illustrate this condition; it absorbs and inhabits it.
Throughout these fourteen pieces, sound continuously changes its appearance without abandoning its identity. What remains after every inversion, every saturation and every layer of magnetic degradation is not certainty, but persistence.
Parity Symmetry is Conserved is ultimately an exploration of that persistence: the fragile possibility that memory, identity and human experience may continue to exist, even after passing through irreversible transformation.
We are finally ready to unveil one of the most exciting projects we have worked on in our label's history: a new release by legendary disco project Hudson People, best remembered for their essential classic "Trip to Your Mind" - which just received its anniversary issue on our label!
Now it's time for "Hold On" - a brand-new single featuring several mixes based on an original recording from the late 1980s, with the completely unheard yet incredibly soulful voice of singer Rickey Owens, whom composer and producer Reginald Hudson worked with at the time.
When we first got in touch with Reg Hudson several years ago, we were originally interested in releasing his "Shake It - Make It Loose" album, which he recorded with John Davis (later known as one of the real voices behind Milli Vanilli). While talking about John Davis (RIP) and other great GI singers such as Karl Keaton, Reginald Hudson immediately mentioned Rickey Owens as one of the best singers he had ever worked with.
Of course, we had never heard of him, as none of his music had ever been released. But when Hudson showed us some old demos and sent us the original DAT recordings, we were immediately hooked.
"Hold On" was recorded in or around 1988 with a simple drum machine and keyboard accompaniment - essentially a demo intended to be recorded properly in a better studio. But the vocal performance was simply stunning, complete with beautifully recorded ad-libs. Owens had a truly remarkable, clear voice with an incredible amount of soul. Luckily, Hudson had his old DAT tapes digitized several years ago, so the acapella recordings survived in excellent shape.
We immediately reached out to several producers to create reworks of the track. The 12" EP compiles some of the most club-friendly of these new mixes - but there is more to come…
First up is Thomas Redfern, a senior producer, professional studio musician and keyboardist from London, UK. His version is a catchy, funky yet deep House track that could easily become a favourite on dancefloors around the globe. Redfern also blessed us with a dub mix that takes things even deeper.
But it gets even catchier on side B of the vinyl. Tom Quick sped up the tempo, added filters and delivered a rework that could make fans of Chromeo, Daft Punk, Stardust and any late-'90s French House afficionado go completely nuts. Yes, we mean it! With a fresh twist on the original, the track has a massive club appeal that we hope both DJs and dancers will dig.
The vinyl single is completed by a mix from German legend DJ Friction, whose version is based on synth layers from the Tom Quick mix. Friction added new drums and bass, giving the track the distinctive modern electro boogie funk vibe he is known for. His mix brings to mind classics such as Shannon's "Let the Music Play" and works of Freestyle's Tony Butler.
The vinyl 12" with 4 mixes is released on The Outer Edge's brand-new sublabel, 1st Floor Records, which focuses on more dancefloor-oriented material. More mixes are available digitally and should not be missed.
PR Feedback:
„Killer“ – Gilles Peterson
„Disco, deep house and boogie all in there! Superb!“ – Groove City Radio
„Dope!!“ – DJ Craze
„The boogie mixes are so good!“ – Selvagem
„Awesome and Huge Package“ - Leon El Ray
„Wow, Trip to Your Mind is so good and this is a real grower“ - Ibiza Sonica
„Really liking the Balearic & Redfern Mix, thanks!“ – Mystic Bill
„Both Thomas Redfern mixes are ace!“ – Deeper Shades of House
The modern day torch carriers of electric Brazilian jazz-funk. Fans of Azymuth, Marcos Resende, Antonio Adolfo and Cesar Mariano look no further !
Ultracooked infuses the Sao Paulo trio’s deep understanding of Brazilian music history with their consummate musicianship and infectious joy of playing. Their distinctly electric jazz-funk flavour rises to the top, as they pay homage to some of their musical heroes and teachers.
Where previous albums nodded to the lineage of Azymuth, Antonio Adolfo, Cesar Camargo Mariano and Marcos Resende, Ultracooked walks ! ! straight up to the greats and shakes their hands. Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso are here, with fresh versions of Espresso 2222 and Odara respectively. Garoto - the great choro guitarist and composer whose harmonic imagination quietly laid the ground for bossa nova - is here too, and honoured with a deconstructed reading of "Jorge do Fusa".
Recorded in the wake of the passing of both João Donato and Hermeto Pascoal, each has a song on the album named after them. Listen to Caixa Cubo and you can see why, their playfulness echoes Donato’s mischievous cheek, while their creative openness is clearly Hermeto inspired. But with both “Hermeto” and “Dontao” each featuring the sampled voice of the late masters themselves, the songs read more as conversations than eulogy. Caixa Cubo carry forward these legacies with care.
In good company, Zé Leônidas, who lit up 2023's Agora, returns to sing on "Expresso 2222", "Essa é Pra Tocar no Rádio" and "Cortejo", while guitarist Edson Woiski brings his sinewy sound to those Gil interpretations and to "Cabaré", before adding his voice to the closing chorus.
Ultracooked was produced by Caixa Cubo alongside Frederico Pacheco, who recorded and mixed the album at O&O Studios in São Paulo, with mastering by Casper Sutton at Gearbox Studios in London.
Dutton Ranch is a Paramount+ series set in the world of the Dutton family, expanding the story and legacy of the family-owned ranch first introduced in Yellowstone. The series takes viewers back to Montana, where the Duttons face new challenges as they fight to protect their land and their way of life. The first season introduces a new chapter in the Dutton story, bringing together a new generation of characters and further exploring the world of the Yellowstone universe.
The original score is composed by Brian Tyler and Breton Vivian. Tyler is a well-renowned Hollywood composer, known for blockbuster scores including Iron Man 3, Avengers: Age of Ultron, The Mummy and several films in the Fast & Furious franchise. Together with Vivian, he also created the music for Yellowstone, 1883 and 1923. Vivian has become closely associated with the Yellowstone universe, having co-composed the scores for the series.
The soundtrack of Dutton Ranch is available as a limited edition on brown vinyl and includes an insert with liner notes by the composers.
Ralf Hildenbeutel is an award-winning producer and film composer. His style is shaped by his eclectic background as of his classical education in piano and composition and his obsession for electronic music since the late '80s.
In the 1990s he collaborated with Sven Väth on Väth's major albums, released a countless number of club classics and founded his electronic live-project Earth Nation. He has been touring across Europe and playing at the Montreux Jazz Festival, London's Brixton Academy, Tribal Gathering Universe and others.
In that time he also produced various remixes for artists such as Anne Clark, Robert Palmer, Enigma and Yello and was awarded with the "Viva Comet" as Best Producer from Germany's music TV channel VIVA. His film music for the movie "Hommage á Noir" received the golden medal at the New York Festivals in 1996.
At the end of the '90s and first years of the 2000s it was the time for new directions and Hildenbeutel started focusing on artist-related productions and songwriting. He founded the production company Schallbau with Stevie B-Zet and A.C. Boutsen. They produced and co-wrote for artists such as Laith Al-Deen, Andreas Bourani, Yvonne Catterfeld, and Simon Collins (son of Phil Collins). That time they archived several top-ten entries and gold or platinum records.
In 2010 Hildenbeutel moved away from pop productions and focused on film music. He worked on feature movies such as "Vincent will meer" ("Deutscher Filmpreis", 2012 – German Film Academy Award) and international productions such as the Italian mini-series "Maltese".
His film music for the short movie "Momentum" (by Boris Seewald) received various awards such as "Cinedans" and a nomination for best music at the Newport International Filmfestival in the UK in 2014. In 2017 he won the "Goldene Reiter" at the esteemed Filmfest Dresden for his score for the movie "Eine Villa mit Pinien".
Hildenbeutel currently works on several international and German productions. He also collaborated with Chris Liebing on Liebing's latest solo album "Burn Slow", which has been released worldwide on Mute Records.
'Space Between' is the debut album of The Hague based Belgian vocalist/ composer Sam Nera. This experimental indie pop album is characterized by Sam's soft repetitive vocal phrases, shifting layers, and melodic, hypnotic soundscapes that clearly echo her background in jazz.
Available in the following Territories: Wordwide minus Japan & Korea
NOTON is pleased to announce12 Conversations, a collaborative album by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto to be released on 18 September 2026.
The partnership between the legendary musician and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto and the German artist Carsten Nicolai (aka Alva Noto) has produced some of the most distinctive and enduring works in contemporary electroacoustic music. Beginning with Vrioon in 2002, the artists spent more than two decades fusing and expanding their disciplines, with Sakamoto's evocative, sustain-drenched piano compositions finding their counterpart in Nicolai's skilful and sensitive electronic detailing.
Each successive project further deepened their artistic dialogue: from the five studio albums of the V.I.R.U.S. series (Vrioon, Insen, Revep, Utp_ with Ensemble Modern, and Summvs), to their score for Alejandro G. Iñárritu's The Revenant; Glass (2017), a wholly improvised performance inside Philip Johnson's iconic Connecticut landmark, in which the pair fixed contact microphones to the glass walls, playing the architecture itself as an instrument; and Two (2019), a document of their live performance at the Sydney Opera House.
Across these works, their distinct approaches achieved a rare synthesis, a brilliantly sustained dialogue between piano and electronics, Sakamoto's warmth and melodic finesse meeting Nicolai's abstract electronic formalism to invoke a mesmeric quietude as deeply satisfying in its melodic resolutions as in the merger of its filmic romanticism and meditative subtlety.
12 Conversations brings together musical exchanges recorded in November and December 2022. Rooted in the same creative period that gave rise to Sakamoto's final solo album 12, these recordings were not originally intended as a standalone release. It was only after the completion of 12 that Sakamoto and Nicolai decided to present these exchanges as a work in their own right.
The album reflects the vitality and curiosity that defined more than two decades of shared inspiration: fluid, exploratory, and forward-looking. Created with openness and trust, it captures a creative process in constant transformation - sounds expanding, altering, and evolving through attentive listening.
Conceived as the continuation of an artistic dialogue extending beyond the physical, 12 Conversations honours Sakamoto's wish that these encounters should exist beyond the archive, offering an enduring testament to one of contemporary music's most revered collaborations.
Carsten Nicolai writes:
"A heavy breath can be heard in the recordings. Yet this work is not about remembrance but continuation, vitality, curiosity, and the spirit of experimentation that shaped an artistic relationship over decades.
The twelve pieces we exchanged in November and December 2022 possess extraordinary density: sounds expanded, altered, recontextualized. Initially, every intervention felt almost inappropriate. Yet this was part of our openness and trust: adding, shifting and radically yet softly transforming.
Even in these final exchanges, plans for future projects continued to take shape, mindful of finite yet firmly believing in the power of new ideas. We chose the name Conversations, which has become a space of memory and vision, where past, present and future intertwine.
For a long time, releasing this music seemed impossible. The loss felt too sudden, and the emotional connection too profound. As time passed, it became clear that these twelve musical encounters should have life outside the archive. To honor Ryuichi's wish, these pieces are now being released as the continuation of a dialogue that extends beyond the physical."
The first single, Conversation 3, will be released on Tuesday, July 14, 2026. The second single, Conversation 6, will be be released on Wednesday, August 26, 2026.
12 Conversations will be available worldwide on vinyl, CD and digitally. A Japanese edition will be available on Ryuichi Sakamoto's commons.
Following the success of Under Tangled Silence last year which peaked at number one in the Dance Albums charts and peaked at 9 on the Albums Chart staying in for 21 weeks, DjRUM returns to Houndstooth with a 15 minute continuous EP pressed to side A and a custom etched picture disk on Side B.
Felix (DjRUM) was a child prodigy as an instrumentalist and his advanced musicality has always been prominent in his music, but here he has put himself front and centre as a composer. And this sense of exposure as a performer interweaves with an unflinching emotional openness too. Where sometimes electronic production as advanced as this can use intellect and techniques as shields from soul-baring, this is the sound of someone who can boldly say “I feel things, I cry all the time, and I'm not afraid to say it or show it in the music.” But this doesn’t mean there’s a move away from the soundsystems and dancefloors where Felix made his name as a uniquely innovative vinyl DJ, this EP encapsulates his musical upbringing weaving in percussive elements across the stereo field to create a truly mesmerising listening experience.
Naná Rizinni is a São Paulo-born drummer, producer, and composer whose work sits at the intersection of progressive electronics, jazz improvisation, and Brazilian rhythmic traditions. After relocating to London in 2020, Rizinni further expanded her distinctive sound, drawing on influences ranging from contemporary UK experimental jazz to forward-thinking electronic music. A respected collaborator and session musician in Brazil, she has performed with artists including Tiê, Johnny Hooker, Ana Cañas, and Thiago Pethit, and has appeared at major international festivals such as Lollapalooza, Rock in Rio, SXSW, and Primavera Sound.
Her new album,Epiblast, is a deeply personal and sonically adventurous statement. Written and co-produced with saxophonist and producer Mark Cake, the album explores themes of transformation, grief, new parenthood, and self-discovery through a rich blend of acoustic and electronic textures. Combining expansive sound design, intricate rhythmic interplay, modular synthesis, and Brazilian musical foundations, Epiblast draws comparisons to artists such as The Comet Is Coming, corto.alto, Mark Guiliana, and Richard Spaven while maintaining a unique voice of its own. Available on vinyl and digital formats, Epiblastshowcases Rizinni's most fully realized artistic vision to date and positions her as a compelling new voice within the global contemporary jazz and experimental music landscape.
ORUMA is a trio formed by Ola Rzepka (drums, zither, percussion), Artur Rumiński (electric guitar) and Mat Barski (electric guitar). At its foundation is the musical dialogue previously developed by Rumiński and Barski as a guitar duo and documented on the albums “On the Margin” and “At the Junction”. Their encounter with Ola Rzepka during Kraków’s Kakofonie series opened this music to a new sense of dynamics, pulse and
collective form.
ORUMA’s music exists at the intersection of free improvisation, noise, experimental postrock and post-kraut repetition. It avoids the conventional division between soloist and accompaniment. Instead, two electric guitars and drums gradually abandon their individual roles to form a single, constantly shifting sound organism — moving from silence, open space and isolated gestures towards dense masses of sound.
The trio’s debut album consists of five pieces: “Satellites”, “Stranger”, “This Mountain Is Alive”, “A Rough Plan For Nostalgia” and “Hyperborea”. Together, they form a coherent journey: from distant signals and the first moment of contact, through friction and increasing physical intensity, to an expansive fourteen-minute finale.
Ola Rzepka
Drummer, pianist, composer and performer. She graduated from the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice, where she studied at the Faculty of Composition, Interpretation, Education and Jazz. She was also a scholarship student at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen, studying piano and percussion. She teaches piano improvisation at the Wojciech Kilar State Music School Complex in Katowice and runs her own music lessons and workshops. As a composer, she collaborates with acclaimed theatre directors in Poland, Germany and Switzerland. Her musical collaborators have included Raphael Rogiński and Antoni “Ziut” Gralak. She has performed her original music at numerous avant-garde, popular, jazz, improvised and contemporary music festivals across Poland and Europe. In Jazz Forum magazine’s 2024 Jazz Top critics’ poll, she was named among Poland’s leading drummers.
Artur Rumiński
Guitarist and member of bands including Furia, Thaw and ARRM. He also composes and improvises under his own name and performs in the experimental duo Marmur, which he co-founded with Macio Moretti. He has released several solo albums on labels including Antenna Non Grata, Gusstaff Records, Zoharum and Szara Reneta.
Mat Barski
Guitarist associated with the Kraków and Tricity music scenes. His projects include the duo Ekotonika, the Rumiński / Barski duo. He has released albums through Gusstaff Records and Antenna Non Grata. Alongside music, he works in motion design and visual postproduction. He is a member of the Kraków-based Skład Solny Association, where he coorganises concerts and exhibitions.
This November, Brownswood Recordings will release Mek Do & Mend, the debut album from self-taught producer, multi-instrumentalist, composer and artist Wonky Logic. Although his name may not yet be familiar to everyone, Wonky Logic (AKA Dwayne Kilvington) has spent the past two decades quietly becoming one of the UK's most respected musical collaborators. His career has moved comfortably between London's jazz, electronic and contemporary music scenes, performing and recording with artists including Nala Sinephro, Yussef Dayes, Nightmares On Wax, Shabaka Hutchings and Emma-Jean Thackray. Alongside his work as a producer and composer, he's been musical director for projects with Eddie Chacon, John Carroll Kirby and I.G Culture's LCSM, scored the feature documentary Zandra With A Zed, contributed music to A24's The Smashing Machine, and continues to lead music workshops with young people, refugees and people experiencing incarceration.
Far more than a collection of compositions, Mek Do & Mend is a deeply personal reflection on the people, places and experiences that have shaped Kilvington throughout his life. It's the story of growing up on a Leeds council estate, where music became both a creative outlet and a way of understanding the world. Making music often meant working with whatever was available: a second-hand keyboard, a makeshift studio desk or ageing equipment that simply had to last a little longer. The title itself came from a conversation with his mother, capturing the resourcefulness that defined his upbringing and continued into the making of the album itself, which was written and produced to a tight deadline around touring, family life and Kilvington's work as a musician and educator.
Built from material spanning more than fifteen years, Mek Do & Mend brings together some of Wonky Logic's earliest compositions alongside brand new pieces written during the making of the record itself. Childhood ideas sit alongside music conceived only months before recording, creating an album that draws together a lifetime of writing rather than documenting a single moment. Running throughout are voice notes from family members, teachers, friends, mentors and collaborators—not simply as interludes, but as a reminder that no creative life is ever self-made. Rather than telling his own story outright, Kilvington invites listeners to discover him through the people who've shaped him: an aunt remembering him playing in church as a child, lifelong friends recalling early experiments making beats together, fellow musicians from different stages of his career and his mother describing him in her own words. Together they reveal the invisible network of relationships, philosophies, communities and experiences behind the music. "The album exists somewhere between being a biography and an autobiography," says Dwayne. "The biography is in the voice notes and how other people see me. The autobiography is in the music."
That same philosophy extends to the musicians who appear on the record. Every contributor has played a meaningful role in Wonky Logic's life beyond the studio. Long-time collaborator Luke Wynter, Steam Down drummer Benji Appiah, partner Vanessa Rani, Jonathan Enser, Joe Bristow, Brother Portrait and Nubiya Imani all feature not simply because of their musicianship, but because they form part of the album's story.
Across its fourteen tracks, Mek Do & Mend moves effortlessly between dynamic jazz arrangements, pulsating broken rhythms, delicate, twinkling piano passages, interstellar synth textures and elegant brass lines. Album opener and first single 'Strange Attractor' begins with a shimmering introduction before unfolding into an exhilarating surge of rhythm and momentum. Named after the mathematical concept of the same name, it serves as the conceptual point of origin for the album. Written when Kilvington was just seventeen, the composition reflects the idea that even the most unpredictable lives are guided by hidden patterns that often only become visible with time. Second single 'A Thousand Hands' features the unmistakable vocal tones of Brother Portrait, whose cerebral lyricism drifts over a low-slung, constantly shifting groove as woozy synth lines ebb and flow overhead. At its heart, the track celebrates the family, friends, mentors and collaborators whose often unseen influence shapes who we become, echoing the album's belief that every achievement is, in some way, a collective one. LP focus track 'BAME (Beyond All Marginalised Expectations)' is a lush, spiralling composition, brimming with both emotion and resolve. Reclaiming an acronym long imposed on racialised communities in the UK, the piece transforms it into a statement of possibility rather than limitation: a defiant rejection of stereotypes and a refusal to let identity be defined by other people's expectations.
The album itself only exists because other people believed in it. Isabel Gracefield made the RAK sessions possible, Rick David brought the record together with his characteristically thoughtful mix, and Gilles Peterson committed to releasing it on Brownswood before hearing any of the music. Away from the stage, Kilvington works with the charity Finding Rhythms, writing and producing original records with people experiencing incarceration, while also leading workshops with Arts Train and Dovetail Orchestra.
Recorded live in a single day in Studio One at RAK, Mek Do & Mend was mixed by Rick David through an analogue Cadac console before being mastered by Stuart Hawkes at Metropolis. The aim wasn't nostalgia or audiophile perfection, but to create a record people could return to throughout their lives, discovering something new with each listen.
As Dwayne puts it: "I don't want this body of work to be reduced to a jazz record. It's more like a novel about life told through music."
The 2013 action-adventure game The Last Of Us was originally published in 2013 by Sony Computer Entertainment and was developed by Naughty Dog. The game is played in a third-person perspective and the player controls Joel, a smuggler who is escorting the teenager Ellie across a post-apocalyptic America. The game received critical acclaim, with praise for its narrative, gameplay, visuals, sound design, characterization, depiction of female characters. The Last Of Us became one of the best-selling video games, selling over 1.3 million units in its first week. The game won multiple Game of the Year awards and has been cited as one of the greatest video games ever made.
The Last Of Us also received acclaim for its score, which was made by composer Gustavo Santaolalla. Santaolalla is also known for his work on Brokeback Mountain and Babel, for which he both won the Academy Award for Best Original Score. The Argentinian composer also created the music for the series Jane The Virgin and Netflix’ Making A Murderer. His soundtrack to The Last Of Us was his first in the video game industry. In 2020, he also returned to compose the music to the sequel, The Last Of Us Part II.
The soundtrack of The Last Of Us: Season 1 is available as a limited edition of 4000 individually numbered copies on yellow marble vinyl. This 2LP is packaged in a deluxe gatefold sleeve with linen laminate finish. It includes printed innersleeves and an 8-page booklet with liner notes by writer and creative director Neil Druckmann.
Across time and beyond genre, this is an audio component test record that continues to earn universal acclaim. Drop the needle and unleash the fateful grooves etched into its tracks.
The rediscovery of this album—originally produced as a test record for high-end audio systems—stands as one of the great rewards brought about by the rare groove movement. The project was led by the visionary Katsunori Ishida, who would later become renowned as a producer, composer, and arranger for numerous television and film soundtracks. Gathering an exceptional line up of musicians including Shuichi “Ponta” Murakami, Akira Okazawa, Mikio Masuda, Kenji Ohmura, and Tantan, Ishida crafted a sound that is both tight and sophisticated.
Tracks such as “Cool Head” and “Son Of Pin Head” showcase grooves that are at times as powerful as a hammer blow, and at others as thrilling as a rushing torrent. The musicianship, precision, and dynamic energy throughout are simply outstanding. Today, thanks to its remarkable level of craftsmanship and commanding presence, this album is recognized as a true masterpiece, admired and celebrated far beyond the boundaries of any single genre.
Katsunori Ishida’s vision of true crossover music reaches its peak. Powerful grooves and striking sound define the resurrection of Zerosen’s legendary first album.
Zerosen was a group led during the 1970s by Katsunori Ishida, who would later gain recognition as a producer, composer, and arranger of numerous television and film soundtracks. With a fluid lineup and only a brief period of activity, the group disappeared almost as quickly as it emerged. The only recordings left behind were two albums originally produced as audio component test records. Yet these recordings would later gain worldwide attention as landmark examples of Japanese rare groove.
Remarkably, this debut album already presents a fully realized concept and sound. Highlights include the rolling groove and vibrant keyboard work of “Scramble”, the hard-driving beat of “Circuit”, and the mellow Caribbean-infused groove of “Majo no Sasayaki”. There is not a weak moment to be found.
Outstanding arrangements and performances generate a groove of exceptional power, while the album’s origins as an audio component test record contribute to its vivid and dynamic sonic character. Here lies crossover music in its truest sense—a timeless fusion of musicianship, groove, and sound quality.
Continuing the Hyperspace instrumental ambient series tradition are two ensembles: Mindstreams, and the duet Squash and Biscuit. This LP features a full side for each artist and is pressed in lavender vinyl. Mindstreams is a vocalized ambient bed of sound by JP Berreondo and Stefanie Naifeh. From opera to avant-garde, neo-cabaret to singing world music in 15 languages, Naifeh journeys through a colorful mosaic of music. She began her classical training at the age of 8, performed with the San Francisco Opera in the children's choir in Carmen, and majored in opera at UCLA. She later formed the avant-garde, neo-cabaret band, The Underthings in 1987. Squash and Biscuit is a Los Angeles based husband/wife team featuring composers Shuwen Zhao and Brian Griffith. Recorded live from 2020-2021, each piece serves as a short investigation into the world between sound and music using found sounds, musical samples, instrument recordings, and voice manipulation. Limited to 300 copies
NEXT WORLD SOUND SERIES vol. 5 continues the line of experimental compilations featuring one side of an artist exploring their individual take on the ambient genre. Pressed in clear green vinyl.
Knox Chandler is an American musician, producer, arranger, and visual artist whose career spans over four decades. He has worked with The Psychedelic Furs, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Cyndi Lauper, R.E.M., Depeche Mode, Grace Jones, and Dave Gahan, among others. After a decade in Berlin, where he developed his layered guitar technique called Soundribbons, he returned to the U.S. and settled on the Connecticut shoreline.
ANNA HOMLER, is a vocal, visual and performance artist based in Los Angeles. She has performed and exhibited her work in venues around the world. With a sensibility that is both ancient and postmodern, Homler sings in an improvised melodic language. Her work explores alternative means of communication and the poetics of ordinary things.
Anna is accompanied by: Jeff Schwartz, a very active Los Angeles-based improvised and experimental double bassist. He leads the Present Quartet, Intangible, and the Soapbox; performs with a variety of ensembles and orchestras; and has written books on music for SUNY Press and Routledge.
David Javelosa a composer, producer, recording artist and technologist based in Mar Vista California. Performing on modular, electronic instruments, he has created soundtracks for many of the major game platforms, and most recently has been performing with Microwave Buddha, a retrospective of his synth pop work in the 1980's.
Originally created in 1987 as an image album for a luxury Sanyo air-conditioner, Get at the Wave stands as one of the most surprising and enduring works of Japanese ambient music. Recorded using synthesizers and natural field recordings, the album was designed to transport listeners far from the heat and noise of urban life — into open water, gentle wind, and unhurried space. Takashi Kokubo's mastery as an acoustic environment designer is present in every texture, blending electronic composition with an almost physical sense of atmosphere and place. Intimate, expansive, and quietly radical, Get at the Wave is an essential document of kankyō ongaku - and one that sounds more necessary than ever. The remaster and artwork of this vinyl edition were made by the artist. Takashi Kokubo (born 1956) is one of Japan's most influential ambient composers and acoustic environment designers. A pioneer of kankyō ongaku since the mid-1980s, his sound design work has reached virtually every corner of Japanese daily life - from the national mobile phone earthquake alert to the sign tone for iD e-money and the melody call tone for NTT DoCoMo. In 2020, he was included in the Grammy-nominated compilation Kankyo Ongaku (Best Historical Album), cementing his place as a foundational figure in environmental music worldwide.
Mohammad Syfkhan is back with his second album for Nyahh Records. This collection of new recordings marks a hug milestone in Mohammad’s career as it’s the first album that features all original compositions. And with a full band! We had the great help of Syrian Cellist and composer Naseem Alatrash to help with the string arrangements. The resulting record is a beautiful journey into a timeless Middle Eastern and North African sound akin to the likes of Fairuz or Umm Kulthum with a fast Kurdish Dabke tempo.
I Love You Ireland is an incredibly personal album for Mohammad. The title alone, much like his debut ‘I Am Kurdish’ is as personal as it it’s political. To express such love for a place in music is saying, thank you for making me and family feel safe. Thank you for taking us in. A stand out track titled ‘Ah Yu Donia’ is Mohammad’s first real public moment of grieving for the loss of his son at the murderous hands of Isis. In this song he asks God why he was taken. Trying to figure the sense in the actions of fundamentalists. The strings sections are sad, but not morbid. Acting like a release or companion to the horrific reality of losing a child.
‘Al Huriya’ is Mohammad’s first attempt at using an Irish rhythm known as a Reel, as appose to his usual Middle Eastern rhythms. Again, this is a beautiful way for Mohammad to give thanks to all the musicians and supportive people his has met in Ireland since 2011.
WHO IS MOHAMMAD SYFKHAN
Mohammad Syfkhan is a Kurdish/Syrian Singer and Bouzouki player. He began
playing music in 1980 while he was in college studying nursing. When he got
his degree in 1983, Mohammad moved to the city of Raqqa, Syria where he
began working as a professional singer and started his own band, The Al-Rabie
Band which played concerts, parties, weddings and festivals all over Syria. The
Al-Rabie Band were a much sought-after group. Their live sets included Kurdish, Arabic, Turkish and some Western songs as well as Mohammad’s own original material.
Mohammad continued to play with his band while also working as a surgical
nurse until the war broke out in 2011. This unfortunately brought tragedy to
Mohammad’s family when one of his sons was killed by Isis thus threatening
the lives of the rest of his family. His family had no choice but to leave their
home and seek safety in Europe. Three of Mohammad’s sons were resettled in
Germany while Mohammad, his young daughter and wife were taken in by
Ireland. Mohammad has spoken at length of his confusion and despair with
fundamentalists and how their message is a far cry from the teachings of love
and understanding that he considers the true message of Islam.
Portugal-based percussionist Gabriel Ferrandini spent years honing his skills in various free jazz ensembles, where he demonstrated his absorption of the styles of pioneering rhythm liberators like Sunny Murray and Milford Graves while forging his own energetic and agile sound. During this time, Ferrandini performed with everyone from Evan Parker and Alexander von Schlippenbach to Thurston Moore and Dirty Beaches' Alex Zhang Hungtai. At some point, the percussionist grew restless and began taking a more compositional approach, using his drums as primary sources from which to produce spectral tones and timbres via electronic manipulation.
In Ferrandini's hands, cymbals become generative instruments with endless reverb tails and choir samples are distilled into vapor. With its subtle evocations of light and color and meticulous editing, Romance suggests an almost cinematic scale. The strings and grainy synthesizer of "Crying Game" lend an air of giallo dread to the deep sub-bass rumbles; "Afters Lisboa" processes cymbal crashes through a Leslie speaker to create a siren-like Doppler effect; "Fallen Angels," one of the few tracks to feature Ferrandini's mostly untreated percussion work, stacks layers of reverb effects of varying lengths (an old Autechre trick) to add friction and give the spatialized sounds a dissociative quality. Album highlight "Cova da Vaporwave" utilizes creative sidechaining, warbly VHS-like tones and drums amplified through a Fender Twin to gather apocalyptic momentum.
Romance is a formidable artistic statement, establishing Ferrandini as one of the most vital composers on the contemporary avant-garde music scene. He is influenced by Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo, whose passionate yet dissonant chromatic approach can be detected throughout the album's seven uncanny tracks.
Born in West Palm Beach, Florida, to a mother of Indian and Congolese heritage and a father of Slovak and Belgian descent, Siân grew up between Belgium and New York before finally letting her travelling wings come to rest in Paris. What could have become a story of fragmentation instead became a source of creative strength. Singer, songwriter, composer and photographer, Siân has always turned borders into bridges.
She first honed her voice in the jazz clubs of Paris and New York, performing alongside renowned artists such as Richard Bona, Jon Batiste and Mike Stern. Yet her path has always extended far beyond the stage. For nearly a decade, she led cultural initiatives with women and children living through exile, violence and poverty across India and Southern Africa, weaving together music, photography and artistic transmission as tools for dialogue and empowerment.
The true turning point came when she discovered the kamele ngoni, the West African harp whose ethereal sound seemed to echo something long buried within her. The instrument became her musical alter ego—the invisible thread binding together her many inheritances. Guided by Malian master Abou Diarra, Siân embarked on an inward journey towards her African roots. Yet this return to her origins was never an act of retreat into identity. Instead, it gave rise to a body of work that remains profoundly open to the world, where Africa enters into conversation with jazz, folk, soul, alternative pop and the rhythms of Brazil.
Along the way, she has crossed paths with remarkable artists including Rogê, Chico César, Fatoumata Diawara, Lokua Kanza, Flavia Coelho, Thomas de Pourquery and Philippe Baden Powell. On stage and in the studio, Siân continues to shape a musical universe that refuses labels. Like artists such as Björk, Joni Mitchell and Laura Mvula, she moves forward as an explorer, guided not by genre but by intuition.
Today, Siân stands as one of the most distinctive voices of the new Francophone music scene an artist capable of uniting musical sophistication with emotional power, introspection with collective celebration, depth with an irresistible urge to dance.
Animal — The New Album
With Animal, produced by British musician Tom Excell (Nubiyan Twist, Africa Express...), Siân delivers her most intimate and assured work to date. Every song feels like a shedding of skin, a quiet metamorphosis, exploring self-acceptance, femininity, the freedom to be oneself, cultural heritage, and the reconciliation of one's own imperfections.
From Stereotype, a fearless manifesto against the expectations imposed on women, to the title track Animal, an anthem celebrating the beauty of imperfection ("I've turned my cracks into a crown"), the album gives a voice to everyone who refuses to fit into predefined boxes. In Terre, je danse sur toi, featuring Fatoumata Diawara, Siân pays tribute to Mother Earth and to the roots that unite us all. Oh! Congo, recorded with Lokua Kanza, reconciles her cultural heritage with an ancestral homeland that feels both distant and intimately familiar. En équilibre, with Flavia Coelho, embraces the exhilaration of risk and the courage to leap, while Put a Mask and I Could Kill confront hidden wounds and the invisible violences that quietly shape who we become.
In ADé, Siân addresses Adenomyosis as though speaking to an unwanted housemate. "My body is your battlefield," she sings, giving voice to an intimate shadow lodged deep within herself. This bittersweet lullaby transforms a pain so often left unspoken into an act of profound tenderness towards oneself.
The album also holds a rare treasure: Reste tel(le), an unpublished text by Pierre Barouh, the founder of the Saravah label. Never before set to music or performed, this elusive poem of free love finds new life through Siân's voice, becoming a dialogue across time between two artists united by the same devotion to freedom, métissage and openness to the world.
Driven by Tom Excell's vibrant Afro-pop pulse, the spiritual breath of the kamele ngoni, organic arrangements and deeply personal songwriting, Animal is an album of liberation. It invites us to lay down our masks, embrace our contradictions and reconnect with the free, instinctive and powerful animal that lies dormant within us all. More than a collection of songs, it is a radiant manifesto for the richness of identity, the passing on of memory, and reconciliation with oneself.
Animal is not simply the title of an album, it is a declaration of independence. An invitation to live fully, unapologetically, and without instructions.
A citizen of the world, travelling freely between continents, languages and memories, Siân Pottok delivers with Animal her most personal, and perhaps her most universal work to date: an album that reminds us that our fragilities, our roots and our differences are, beyond doubt, our greatest strength.
— Christophe Tison
RADYO BOMBERO - ABOUT THE LABEL
Radyo Bombero is the record label founded by acclaimed filmmaker, author, DJ and record collector Fatih Akin. Born out of his personal passion for vinyl and film music, the label will initially focus on soundtracks from his films: previously unavailable works will be released on vinyl for the first time, while out-of-print titles will return as carefully produced reissues. Its inaugural release is the soundtrack to Akin's new film Geister, scheduled for release in November 2026. Further projects are already in development.
ABOUT THE RELEASE
MALAKOFF KOWALSKI - GEISTER
ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK
Composed by Malakoff Kowalski, the soundtrack to Fatih Akin's Geister is the inaugural release on Radyo Bombero.
Born in the United States, raised in Hamburg and now based in Berlin, Kowalski is a composer, pianist and multi-instrumentalist whose work moves between film music, contemporary classical composition, theatre and pop. He composed the music for eleven films by Klaus Lemke, as well as for productions including Schweigend steht der Wald and Stasikomödie. His solo work has been released by MPS and Sony Classical, and he has collaborated with artists including 2raumwohnung, Igor Levit, Chilly Gonzales and Nils Frahm. His sound combines elegiac melodies with a warm, cinematic atmosphere and a subtle sense of unrest beneath the surface.
For Geister, this distinctive musical language meets Fatih Akin's vision of a deliberately anachronistic and romantic score: a tribute to Ennio Morricone's great love themes that plays a defining role in the film's tragic love story and atmosphere.
LP 1 contains Kowalski's complete original film score.
LP by JUGGLERZ opens up a second musical world, bringing together four productions by the internationally successful Jugglerz on a four-track 12-inch disc at 45 RPM: the film's title song Ya Mami, performed by Aya Samra; Mood by Cloudee, Milaa and Jugglerz; Tip by Jugglerz, Limitlezz, Maureen and Demarco; and Beirut Nights Riddim. The four tracks bring Arabic tarab and contemporary Levantine pop together with hip-hop, urban beats and dancehall rhythms.
FATIH AKIN ON RADYO BOMBERO
"Radyo Bombero is on the air. Don't miss a tune!
"
Music is - alongside cinema and literature - a fundamental source of inspiration for me. Having grown up in the 1980s, the way I listen to music has hardly changed: I buy records, listen to them carefully and then copy them onto a portable device. It used to be a Walkman, then an iPod - today it is my smartphone with my playlists.
I do not use Spotify or any other streaming services. Why that is, I do not know. In most other areas, I try to keep up with technological developments. Not with music. I like unpacking a record, cleaning it before listening, holding the sleeve in my hands and reading who worked in the studio, who wrote the music and where the record was made. These things interest me. And they lower my cortisol levels.
Music plays a major role in my films. It is not that, as a director, I want to impose my favourite music on the audience. The music must always serve the story. In Head-On, for example, it tells us something about the characters and their biographies. Crossing the Bridge - The Sound of Istanbul is the musical portrait of a city. Its music tells us about the people who live there: where they come from, the cultures they brought with them and how those cultures have merged with local traditions. The Cut was conceived as a Western, and the music had to help reinforce that idea.
Geister tells a tragic love story. The music was meant to be gloriously anachronistic. And romantic. Just like the light and colours, it had to shape the atmosphere of the film. My films are often about cinema itself, and Geister is no exception. Its music is a tribute to Ennio Morricone's great love themes.
In Malakoff Kowalski, I found the perfect creative partner. He immediately understood my idea and realised it brilliantly. That made it all the more painful when I was told by the music industry that there could be no soundtrack release for Geister because soundtracks were too expensive to produce and would simply sit on the shelves.
It is not as though I am a spoiled child who absolutely has to have a lollipop. But this music is simply too good to withhold from the audience. The idea that there would be no soundtrack release felt like a great injustice.
Then several friends and collaborators advised me to release the record myself. No sooner said than done. But Radyo Bombero is not a one-off project. Geister is only the beginning.
Finally, I have the opportunity to gradually release all the soundtracks from my films that have remained unavailable. Soundtracks that were previously released but have since gone out of print will also return as reissues.
Hainbach's soundtrack to Amrum is already in development, as is a double album featuring the unforgettable German pop songs from The Golden Glove. And, finally, a vinyl soundtrack to Head-On.
Fatih Akin
London-based French artist, composer and vocalist Vanessa Bedoret returns with her second
album, About Time, released via Scenic Route.
Across 11 tracks, About Time moves between intimate vocal-led songs, glitching electronics haunting soundscapes and moments of catharsis. Bedoret’s classical training remains at the heart of the record, underpinning an approach that brings together spectral vocals, strings, guitar and experimental electronics with a striking sense of compositional clarity.
Written through a period of significant change in Bedoret’s life, the album explores transition and our shifting perception of time - how some moments disappear almost instantly while others seem to stretch indefinitely.
About Time follows Bedoret’s 2024 debut Eyes and marks a significant step forward for an artist whose work moves fluidly between classical composition, experimental electronics and songwriting. Alongside her solo work, Bedoret has collaborated with Astrid Sonne, Blackhaine , Space Afrika and Mark William Lewis.
Following the critically acclaimed Fantômes… Futurs, praised by FIP, France Inter, Radio Nova, ARTE and International jazz press, double bassist and composer Kham Meslien returns with Vévés électriques, a deeply immersive second album where memory, landscape and improvisation merge into a singular sonic journey. Joined by Laurent Bardainne, Roger Raspail, Naïssam Jalal and David Neerman, Meslien expands the intimate language of his double bass with subtle loops and organic textures, weaving together echoes of Iceland, the Caribbean and imagined territories. Blending spiritual jazz, contemporary classical influences and ambient soundscapes, Vévés électriques is an invitation to drift beyond geography and into a profoundly personal exploration of emotion, identity and freedom.
Set upon an oil-smooth sea, an immense range of directions opens up before Kham Meslien for “Vévés Électriques”, his second album after “Fantômes… Futurs.”
With only his double bass and bow as vessel and sextant, a distant journey nevertheless begins to take shape. Vibrations and the striking of strings against wood quickly trace lines and winding paths across the surface of the water—so many routes to follow before leaving them behind, allowing the outward journey to become an inward voyage as well.
After an improvisation intended to shed light on the course ahead, isolated lands came into view: the shores of Iceland, the lands of the far north, places cut off from the rest of the world by vast expanses of water. Islands battered by a harsh climate that can only be endured by drawing warmth from deep within oneself.
Then the Caribbean arc appeared. The archipelago, a setting for joyful and unsettling experiences, takes Kham back to a childhood from which the passing years have carried him away. Rather than following the conventional channel of the music of these places, the West Indies emerge through memories whose colors are still vivid.
Through the morning mist, Roger Raspail’s percussion locks into the same frequencies of the groove. Double bass and struck skins then become companions on a road that intersects with Laurent Bardainne’s saxophone. Carrying a dreamlike message, David Neerman’s vibraphone also joins the narrative to write a few chapters of its own, while others are enchanted by the flute and voice of Naïssam Jalal, or struck by the metaphorical rhymes of rapper Rocé.
On the surface, through the themes along which the pieces navigate, landscapes slowly reveal themselves and change shape as the shore draws nearer or recedes. Straying from the marked course and allowing oneself to drift, breaking free from pure acoustic sound by adding loops first played live and then sampled, allows Kham to explore the depths. The depths of the ocean, as well as those of his soul. To enter a world of improvisation that reveals itself even as he explores it. Examined up close, feelings become shells to pick up and hold to one’s ear, so that they can be felt intensely until they take material form.
This sea, which had appeared peaceful, became the stage for a succession of stories and images, which then accumulated to give birth to a larger narrative.
Mercury Prize-shortlisted, MOBO Award-winning drummer, composer and producer Moses Boyd returns with his first album in six years. Since the release of his critically acclaimed album, Dark Matter, Boyd has continued to push at the boundaries of contemporary jazz. Songs For Sinners is a deeply personal body of work that explores the push and pull of faith as something profoundly human – a force capable of comforting, dividing, unsettling and restoring in equal measure. Across an ambitious, vocal-led collection that fuses gospel, jazz, soundsystem culture, Caribbean rhythms, 808s and soaring choir harmonies, Boyd expands the language of contemporary jazz into something entirely his own. It’s a record that draws from the church he grew up in, the London soundsystem culture that shaped him, and the freedom of improvisation, asking what sacred music can sound like when it’s no longer confined by convention.
Mercury Prize-shortlisted, MOBO Award-winning drummer, composer and producer Moses Boyd returns with his first album in six years. Since the release of his critically acclaimed album, Dark Matter, Boyd has continued to push at the boundaries of contemporary jazz. Songs For Sinners is a deeply personal body of work that explores the push and pull of faith as something profoundly human – a force capable of comforting, dividing, unsettling and restoring in equal measure. Across an ambitious, vocal-led collection that fuses gospel, jazz, soundsystem culture, Caribbean rhythms, 808s and soaring choir harmonies, Boyd expands the language of contemporary jazz into something entirely his own. It’s a record that draws from the church he grew up in, the London soundsystem culture that shaped him, and the freedom of improvisation, asking what sacred music can sound like when it’s no longer confined by convention.
Available again for the first time since 1970, Lobo’s melancholy masterpiece epitomizes the experimental evolution of MPB. With new liner notes by Edu Lobo.
Released in 1970, Cantiga de Longe is a defining record in the career of Brazilian singer, composer, and guitarist Edu Lobo and a significant contribution to Música Popular Brasileira (MPB). Created during Brazil’s military dictatorship, the album reflects the subtle, poetic strategies that artists use to convey meaning while subject to censorship. Rather than overt protest, Lobo expresses longing and introspection through refined musical language and evocative lyrics.
Musically, the album captures the sophistication of MPB at the turn of the decade. A foundation of acoustic guitar blends with jazz-influenced harmonies and elegant arrangements. The sound is both intimate and expansive: delicate vocal lines unfold over complex progressions, supported by understated rhythms, rooted in Brazilian traditions. Lobo’s controlled yet expressive vocal delivery keeps the lyrical nuance at the forefront.
A key element of the album’s texture is the involvement of Hermeto Pascoal. His imaginative instrumental contributions add subtle harmonic color and atmospheric depth, enriching the refined arrangements and enhancing the sense of openness.
Thematically, the album explores memory, distance, solitude, and time—personal reflections that resonate with the broader climate of uncertainty that dominated Brazil in 1970. This remains one of Lobo’s most mature recordings, exemplifying the emotional depth and artistic subtlety of Brazilian popular music in a creatively fertile era.
Bassist, composer and arranger Bill Lee (who is the father of celebrated Director Spike Lee) helmed numerous Strata-East projects, but this is the one that most stands apart. The Descendants of Mike and Phoebe is a one-off 1974 album uniting Lee with his siblings Cliff Lee, Grace Lee Mims and Consuela Lee Moorhead under a name that pays honour to their enslaved ancestors. Elements of jazz, gospel, soul and blues are threaded into a work of complexity but spirituality, with nimble, dancing grooves next to more pensive explorations. It's a sought-after rarity from the label's catalogue that has been freshly remastered for this reissue. Essential Strata-East history.
