Buscar:count

I’d clocked this kid coming in to the shop over the last 6 months, quiet, serious, head down, digging through ALL the records, intently listening and then buying and scurrying off… Not the most chatty BUT he did let slip he was making music, and then it made sense, he was in the shop for one reason and one reason only… to find music he could use to make his own music. The kid is 17 this is the start of his musical journey. I suppose its been a Bristol thing for a long time, maybe its the same in other cities but here there’s been people taking other people’s music and bending it to their own will for a long time, making it their’s but also somehow making it OURS, it always seems to sound like its from here… So when ZEE asked if he could play me some music he’d made it wasn’t a surprise that it sounded like it came from here, the darkness, the clever twists and turns, soulful but heavy… I said it sounded like ’Shoegaze Hip-Hop’ which he seemed to like… So here’s three tracks that I hope you dig them as much as I do…. Tom Friend (Friendly Records).

Dark, brooding hip-hop instrumentals that joins the dots between Company Flow, The Bug and Dilla. A killer vibe from tipped new West Country producer, ZEE! Limited gold vinyl copies available in an edition of 100 — don't miss!

This is an album made during a crucial period in South Africa’s history during which there was a palpable feeling of a slow turning towards the collapse of the apartheid state side by side with an increasingly well-organised culture of resistance through the formation of the United Democratic Front (UDF) and various affiliated bodies. However, as a result, there was increased pushback from the state security establishment, a turning to dirty tricks and the formation of hit squads whose members murdered and tortured many of our friends and created chaos throughout South Africa as well as neighbouring countries.

This album is situated in this political environment however it took advantage of the new do-it-yourself music technologies available at that time. Technologies that made it possible to make and release records without interference from traditional record company executives. Two musician friends of mine pooled their resources after their respective bands had broken up. Ivan Kadey (National Wake) and Lloyd Ross (Radio Rats) built an 8-track recording studio control room and fitted it out in a second hand caravan and called it Shifty. They parked it in a garage attached to the only house left in a demolished and derelict mining village near Soweto on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
All the work on this album was completed there, mainly after hours and mostly alone where I enjoyed an exhilarating freedom to develop a whole new set of musical skills and ideas, incorporating my love of a wide range of music I’d grown up with. Influences of 1970s progressive/kraut/and psychedelic rock combined with mbaqanga bass styles, early reggae/dub and Indian tabla rhythms. Stockhausen, early Zappa and Holgar Czukay were radio text and shredding influences, and Chris Cutler’s band Henry Cow & Art Bears helped me see a way to political expression. Mostly though was the exciting post-punk and no-wave music coming through to us from Europe and America: bands like This Heat, the Mekons, Raincoats, Sonic Youth and Pere Ubu were immensely important to me as was my reading from the period: J.M.Coetzee’s first 3 novels are strong influences on Free State Fence; the stark landscape, superstition, ritual, and sexual repression are in many of his settings. JG Ballard was a constant presence throughout that period, especially whilst living in such a surreal environment, surrounded by mine dumps, but mostly I think the whole French post-modern philosophical movement—Derrida, Foucault and of course, Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation—set out a new sense of possibilities, possible ways to express oneself, ways to think, and ways to try and analyse the political intersection of public and private life. Most important at that time was the influence of sound recordings I had made and experiences garnered from working as a sound recordist on documentary films. These financed my work and later the studio and were consistent employment throughout the 1980s. Film work also enabled me to experience much of South Africa that was hidden from most. The track Independence Day is a good example; drawn from some time spent in the rural homeland of Venda. This then was the first full length Kalahari Surfers album, completed in summer of 1984 it was taken to EMI pressing plant but rejected by the cutting engineer as being ""political, pornographic and anti religious"". Chris Cutler at Recommended Records took up the challenge and released the album through his label. He wrote the original liner note

Unreleased electronic / jazz / madness from two titans of jazz and experimentation: JOHN SURMAN and KARIN KROG.

I could now write a load of blown up puffery about how amazing this is, but everyone does that, and a lot of the time it’s all a load of bollocks. But basically this was sent to me by Karin / John when I asked if they had anything hanging about that had not been released. This came through and blew my tiny mind. Like something from prime Annette Peacock “Pony” period. Here is what John Surman said…

John Surman writes:

Back in 2012/13 there had been some talk about a big futuristic open air urban dance/theatre production for about 80/100 actors/dancers with lasers and all kinds of lighting effects on different stages. I was invited to get involved and, together with Ben and Karin, we eventually decided to get to work on some ideas. I think that the original plan was that in performance there would be a mixture of live music and electronica.

Not altogether surprisingly, bearing in mind the complexity of the project, it never moved forward and developed into anything more than an interesting idea. It was probably over ambitious & I guess the funding never came through.

The only information I that I can find relating to the production refers to two silent movies made in 1927/1928 by the filmmaker Eugene Deslaw, entitled `La Marche Des Machines´ and `Les Nuits Électriques.These were clearly intended to act as inspiration for the project.

After months turned into years it became obvious that the project was going nowhere, and so the recorded music laid around gathering dust until Johnny Trunk asked Karin if she had any interesting music that he might be interested in releasing. One thing led to another and so, finally, Electric Element found a home!

For anyone interested in the equipment used this will have to be an approximation since the memory might be playing tricks. Karin was probably using a Yamaha Rex50 f/x unit, a Roland VT-3 Voice Transformer and an Oberheim Ring Modulator. I was playing Bass Clarinet and Contrabass Clarinet through various f/x units together with a Yamaha WX5 wind synth. All the instruments and voice were also processed through Ben´s equipment. After writing this I asked Ben for his recollections and he came up with the following:

John, Karin and I created this music in 2 or 3 days in the winter of 2013 at their studio in Oslo, Norway. I followed up with another 2 or 3 days of mixing, editing and post-processing . We kept a collaborative, improvisational and free-form approach to the sessions. I grew up immersed in music such as Cloudline Blue, the 1979 duo album of Krog/Surman, and this felt like a similar approach. I have mixed sound for many of their live duo concerts and I would use effects and electronics as an

accompaniment and counterpoint to the performed music. The relation of organic and artificial sound sources in music has always fascinated. In this case, I used some contemporary digital signal processing to introduce my own aesthetic into the conversation, in particular using granular synthesis to recombine small 'clouds' of sound into alternate forms. Some of the software tools I used included Ableton Live, Max/MSP and Reaktor.

2025 Repress

The Godfather of Hardcore, Marc Acardipane, needs no introduction. His outstanding releases over the past 30 years speak for themselves. He has been instrumental in helping to create electronic music history, with countless well-known productions which have been unsurpassed by any other artist of this calibre. His timeless masterpieces have been and always will be heard at hardcore raves spanning the circumference of the Planet. With "9 Is A Classic", "Slaves To The Rave", "Pitch-Hiker", "Stereo Murder" and "We Have Arrived", just to name a few, he clearly proves who's the boss. "The Most Famous Unknown" is a well compiled collection of Marc's music, which showcases a mere portion of what he has composed and produced since the early nineties! The vinyl and digital selection of "The Most Famous Unknown" features remixes by Body Sushi a.k.a. VTSS & Randomer, Dasha Rush, Gabber Eleganza feat. Delirio, Jasss, Kilbourne, Minimum Syndicat, Nina Kraviz, Perc, Solid Blake, Stranger, Umwelt and VTSS, which all deliver excellent interpretations of tracks they have chosen to revamp. All original tracks have been re-mastered to the highest possible standard of quality.

Civilistjävel! x Mayssa Jallad’s ‘Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels (Versions)’ is a radical response to Mayssa Jallad’s 2023 original LP, a lyrical account of epochal events in Beirut at the dawn of Lebanon's civil war. ‘…(Versions)’ sees Civilistjävel! (aka Swedish producer Tomas Bodén) apply a stripped, dub methodology to Mayssa's rich stems, refracting the Arabic source through the hazy prism of Northern European electronica. Retaining ‘Marjaa…’s deep spatial framing and vaporous, shifting nature, traces are lifted and set down in a new landscape: a ghost of a ghost. Informed by Tomas' singular strand of ambient, minimalist, dub techno, ‘… (Versions)’ recalls the reductive, shimmering pulse of pioneering Berlin-based practitioners Basic Channel/Chain Reaction, but with the parameters stretched into the ether. Where versions typically focus on a rhythm, here the anchor is the tone and texture of Mayssa’s voice, around which a new world has been constructed. Disembodied and liminal, it conjures an eerie panorama that feels like a postscript to the original, further emphasizing the geopolitical events that have had such devastating effect in Mayssa’s homeland of Lebanon since that record’s release. ‘Marjaa…’ (tr. ‘reference’) combined Mayssa Jallad’s two main vocations: music and urban research/architectural history. The album was co-written with Fadi Tabbal and based on Mayssa's Historic Preservation master's thesis (‘Beirut’s Civil War Hotel District: Preserving the World’s First High-Rise Urban Battlefield’). The thesis examined a 5-month conflict that took place within Beirut's skyscraper-laden luxury hotel district of Minet El Husn near the start of the Lebanese Civil War. Addressing a post-war generation who have never been taught this difficult history, ‘Marjaa…’ was an attempt to process trauma, and “a call to protest for the renewal, rather than the recycling of the political class that once destroyed the country and holds us, to this day, hostage of its violence.” Often perceived as a mysterious, shadowy presence, Civilistjävel! has come increasingly to the fore in recent years through a consistently dazzling stream of records, released both anonymously and via Fergus Jones’ FELT imprint, often appearing with scant information and tracks for the most part untitled. Having featured tracks from ‘Marjaa…’ on mixes, and included the album in his picks of 2023, in early 2024 Tomas asked Mayssa to provide vocals for a track on his album ‘Brödföda’. Mayssa remembers, “Tomas asked me to choose one of the tracks he was working on. I was in Boston at the time, so I took a walk and chose a track. I wrote the lyrics at the public park, wondering if I was the only one around that was losing sleep over the genocide in Palestine and the war in South Lebanon. I went back to the apartment and recorded the vocals on my phone, while listening to the track on headphones. Tomas reworked it with the voice and sent it back. I liked it immediately.” Despite the geographical distance from Beirut to Uppsala, Sweden, where Tomas resides, Mayssa’s contribution sounds very much at home in Civilistjävel!’s atmospheric, contemplative sound-world. Tomas’ request was reciprocated by Mayssa soon after, resulting in the spectral, glassy ambience of ‘Etel, Kharita (Version)’. This was followed by an invitation to work on more tracks, which Tomas immediately embraced, intensively jamming out versions live to two-track tape in downtime between travelling. If not entirely dissimilar to his regular working practice, the immediacy of it was unusual. Much was improvised live with just a keyboard (not tethered to a grid), and a restricted set-up that largely forbade later edits - only the rhythm tracks are programmed. A sharp conceptual thinker and composer, Tomas takes creative liberties with Mayssa’s songs in a way that is deeply felt and sympathetically aligned, whilst unashamedly outside of the original context of the record. The voice is leaned into as an instrument, without the clear, specific details of language, and this axis provides an uncertain, amorphous footing - structure is often suggested or hinted at, before disappearing or collapsing into fog, and folding back into the message within the song. A somewhat unprecedented source for an album of versions, even those familiar with ‘Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels’ may at points struggle to hear the songs these versions are rebuilt from, despite the vocal narratives remaining virtually intact. The light has shifted; eroded buildings are foregrounded; fragments of memories appear in chiaroscuro. Signs and signifiers have been replaced. Shorn of the original's warm guitar, ‘Baynana (Version)’ feels like an ominous visitation, the sun no longer visible. ‘Holiday Inn (March 21 to 29) (Version)’ is a molten, clattering invocation. The beat-less tracks nod towards the cold, otherworldly sound-scaping of late '90s isolationism. More propulsive and embodied, ‘Holiday Inn (January to March) (Version)’ and ‘Kharita (Dub)’ are strobing, iridescent techno - lithe, shifting and mutating with almost implausible finesse. A stunning addition to Civilistjävel!’s growing catalogue, ‘…(Versions)’ is a luminous counterpoint to ‘Marjaa…’, and a welcome reminder of how incredible that record remains.

2025 Repress

The Godfather of Hardcore, Marc Acardipane, needs no introduction. His outstanding releases over the past 30 years speak for themselves. He has been instrumental in helping to electronic music history, with countless well-known productions which have been unsurpassed by any other artist of this calibre.

His timeless masterpieces have been and always will be heard at hardcore raves spanning the circumference of the Planet. With 9 Is A Classic, Slaves To The Rave, Pitch-Hiker, Stereo Murder and We Have Arrived, just to name a few, he clearly proves who's the boss. "The Most Famous Unknown" is a well compiled collection of Marc's music, which showcases a mere portion of what he has composed and produced since the early nineties!

The vinyl and digital selection of "The Most Famous Unknown" features remixes by Body Sushi a.k.a. VTSS & Randomer, Dasha Rush, Gabber Eleganza feat. Delirio, Jasss, Kilbourne, Minimum Syndicat, Nina Kraviz, Perc, Solid Blake, Stranger, Umwelt and VTSS, which all deliver excellent interpretations of tracks they have chosen to revamp.

All original tracks have been re-mastered to the highest possible standard of quality.

GOLLIWOG is billy woods' first album in two years, preceded by 2023's Maps, his second collaboration with producer Kenny Segal. That nimble travelogue has little in common with woods' newest work, despite the fact that Segal shows up a couple times in the credits. GOLLIWOG is a haunting collection that weaves horror, humor, surrealism and Afropessimism into a cinematic tapestry, aided and abetted by a murderer's row of producers. African zombies, time traveling trap cars, malevolent ragdolls and a dying Frantz Fanon are just a few of the revelers in woods' danse macabre. GOLLIWOG features production from The Alchemist, Kenny Segal, EL-P, Conductor Williams, Preservation, Messiah Musik, Sadhugold, Ant (Atmosphere), Shabaka Hutchings, Steel Tipped Dove, DJ Haram, Willie Green, Jeff Markey, Saint Abdullah, and LA-based experimental jazz trio Human Error Club. Meanwhile, woods is joined on the mic by Backwoodz labelmates ELUCID and Cavalier, along with rappers Bruiser Wolf, Despot, Al.Divino, and singer-songwriter Yolanda Watson. GOLLIWOG is another triumph in the woods oeuvre, as layered and compelling as anything he has ever done. A black carnival pitched in a muddy field overnight, empty rides whirring and clattering in the dark.

Hackney Electronica come to Dark Entries with the Synaptic Shadows EP, featuring 5 cuts of acidic rave-inflected wave. Quinn Whalley (Paranoid London), Unai Trotti (Cartulis Music), and Margo Broom (Hermitage Working Studios) formed Hackney Electronica during COVID era. Trotti and Whalley were spending countless hours digging through records and making music during lockdown. As their sound took shape - heavy and hypnotic - they invited Broom to join, cementing the motley trio. The five pieces on Synaptic Shadows explore themes of altered states, late-night cityscapes, and the fine line between pleasure and paranoia. Each track pulses like a memory from the backstreets of Hackney, where the night transforms the city into an electrified maze of fleeting highs and inevitable crashes. The anxious grooves on “H.E. Nuestro Circuito” and “Whispers from the Depths” channel 1980s DIY electronics onto the contemporary dancefloor, while “Efecto Perfecto,” “The One”, and “Nueva Ola” offer breakbeat-laced electro that will keep you dancing until dawn. Housed in a sleeve designed by German Bardo, Synaptic Shadows is more than just a debut release, it’s a journey through the flickering alleys of the mind, where tension and transcendence intertwine.

Greville returns to Mad Habitat, consorting with the enigmatic Lonely Voices to realize a four-song suite steeped in vivid acoustic psychotomimesis. Each track is underpinned by Greville’s unerring sensitivity to sonic texture and atmosphere. The snappy, febrile drum programming of “I Miss Terry” is a deft counterpoint to the thrumming bassline. The chords of “Purgatory” swirl around the stereo field like hypnopompic hallucinations. On the flip side, vocals bleed in and out of the mix, spectral and elusive, threading through both tracks. “Electric Push” follows the monologue of “Dad’s Folk,” nudging it into even more surreal territory. It evokes a chance encounter between Ifach-era Baby Ford & the occult industrialism of late-period Coil.

The Dark Flowers beguile with their dark take on country music" ROLLING STONE. THE DARK FLOWERS release their second album `INDIAN SUMMER' with Paul Statham bringing together a unique collection of collaborators, JIM KERR, GABRIELLA CILMI, DAVID J, THE ANCHORESS and SHELLY POOLE in June 2025 on Loki Records via Cargo.With 2014 debut album. `Radioland', songwriter and producer Paul Statham brought together a group of guest vocalists for a collection inspired by Sam Shepard's `Motel Chronicles'. Featuring an all-star cast of Jim Kerr, Peter Murphy, The Anchoress, Shelly Poole, Dot Allison, Kate Havnevik and Helicopter Girl, the album was characterized by MOJO as "a perfect album for a lonely winter night" (4/5). The new album sees Statham, a member of Post Punk band B-Movie, and co-writer with a host of well-known artists including Dido, Kylie, Peter Murphy and Simple Minds retain his principal role in the project as both producer and songwriter. Once again, Shepard's prose plays a key role with `Hawk Moon', the companion volume to `Motel Chronicles', an additional source of inspiration. Jim Kerr from Simple Minds continues his involvement with 3 tracks as does Welsh songwriter and multi-instrumentalist The Anchoress. David J from Bauhaus/Love and Rockets is also a featured artist along with Gabriella Cilmi turning in 2 dark and beguiling tracks. The project is completed with Shelly Poole (from country/folk band Red Sky July and a long-time friend and co-writer on 3 songs.

The Dark Flowers beguile with their dark take on country music" ROLLING STONE. THE DARK FLOWERS release their second album `INDIAN SUMMER' with Paul Statham bringing together a unique collection of collaborators, JIM KERR, GABRIELLA CILMI, DAVID J, THE ANCHORESS and SHELLY POOLE in June 2025 on Loki Records via Cargo.With 2014 debut album. `Radioland', songwriter and producer Paul Statham brought together a group of guest vocalists for a collection inspired by Sam Shepard's `Motel Chronicles'. Featuring an all-star cast of Jim Kerr, Peter Murphy, The Anchoress, Shelly Poole, Dot Allison, Kate Havnevik and Helicopter Girl, the album was characterized by MOJO as "a perfect album for a lonely winter night" (4/5). The new album sees Statham, a member of Post Punk band B-Movie, and co-writer with a host of well-known artists including Dido, Kylie, Peter Murphy and Simple Minds retain his principal role in the project as both producer and songwriter. Once again, Shepard's prose plays a key role with `Hawk Moon', the companion volume to `Motel Chronicles', an additional source of inspiration. Jim Kerr from Simple Minds continues his involvement with 3 tracks as does Welsh songwriter and multi-instrumentalist The Anchoress. David J from Bauhaus/Love and Rockets is also a featured artist along with Gabriella Cilmi turning in 2 dark and beguiling tracks. The project is completed with Shelly Poole (from country/folk band Red Sky July and a long-time friend and co-writer on 3 songs.

2.0 is the fourth studio album by DIAMOND-selling Country artist Brett Young. Produced by Jimmy Robbins (Maren Morris, Thomas Rhett) and Dann Huff (Faith Hill, Rascal Flatts), the 11-track collection features Young’s signature Caliville style mixed with driving Classic-Country instrumentation of banjo, pedal steel and mandolin, offering a unique sonic backdrop to this new chapter.

From the underground to festival main stages, they’ve built their reputation on sheer force of will, crushing live shows, and an unshakable foundation of heavy riffs and harder work.
Now, with their fourth studio album “Where Only The Truth Is Spoken”, Sheffield’s finest step into a new league. Recorded in California at Dave Grohl’s legendary Studio 606, the album was tracked through the iconic Neve 8078 console, the same desk that captured game-changing records like Nirvana’s “Nevermind,” Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours,” and Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers.” For a band that’s always pushed forward without compromise, it was the perfect setting to carve out a record that represents everything Malevolence stands for.
The album marks a new level of songwriting precision without sacrificing the band’s trademark weight. Working alongside Grammy Award-winning producer Josh Wilbur (Lamb of God, Gojira, Trivium), the result is Malevolence at their most punishing, urgent, and anthemic.

From the underground to festival main stages, they’ve built their reputation on sheer force of will, crushing live shows, and an unshakable foundation of heavy riffs and harder work.

Now, with their fourth studio album “Where Only The Truth Is Spoken”, Sheffield’s finest step into a new league. Recorded in California at Dave Grohl’s legendary Studio 606, the album was tracked through the iconic Neve 8078 console, the same desk that captured game-changing records like Nirvana’s “Nevermind,” Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours,” and Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers.” For a band that’s always pushed forward without compromise, it was the perfect setting to carve out a record that represents everything Malevolence stands for.

The album marks a new level of songwriting precision without sacrificing the band’s trademark weight. Working alongside Grammy Award-winning producer Josh Wilbur (Lamb of God, Gojira, Trivium), the result is Malevolence at their most punishing, urgent, and anthemic.

The Wandering Hearts are a British Americana-Folk band known for their enchanting harmonies and heartfelt songwriting influenced by the likes of Simon & Garfunkel, Fleetwood Mac, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and have a similar sound to The Lumineers and First Aid Kit. Their new album, Déjà Vu (We've All Been Here Before), is a beautiful re-work of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's 1970 hit album of the same name. Recorded in one week in Joshua Tree, Taurus Rising Studios. This isn't an album out to besmirch the original, but to become a loving companion without being an overly reverential copy. With a band as distinctive and exciting as The Wandering Hearts, a note-for-note facsimile was never an option. One listen to how The Wandering Hearts have taken Déjà Vu's ten songs to new places and reimagined it over 50 years later, and it's clear this is a very bold, very new work by one of Britain's most accomplished Americana artists.

A Colourful Storm proudly presents a remastered first-time vinyl editions of Lone Capture Library's modern-day DIY environmental masterpiece, All Natures Most Mundane Materials. "Environmental"? While this certainly wasn't recorded for dinner party ambience nor was it commissioned by Harrods, it does document a haphazard wander through the English countryside, feeling the air and the earth, detaching oneself from confinement and attempting to make sense of it all. Its protagonist is Rory Salter, London's restless improvisor extraordinaire, who has contributed to dozens of solo and collaborative releases in an ecosystem branched from his Infant Tree private press. Under his alias Malvern Brume, he is responsible for some of the most enchanting sides of contemporary concrète that's graced our ears: dérives revealing beauty and curiosity within London's urban banality. And while we'd argue that Lone Capture Library applies this approach but seeks the peculiar within the pastoral, there also lies a certain hermetic recklessness, with its disruptive details and discarded sonic bric-a-brac.

"I'd walked from Swindon to Avebury and back, which is about a 21-mile round trip. I'd been a muppet and did the whole thing down the A4361, which is not a road suitable for walking on - there was a lot of jumping into the hedges to avoid lorries. Turned out, there was a really nice walk across the fields I could have done instead. But maybe that sums it up quite well. Instinctive and very impulsive. The day following, I was at home and recorded it in single takes, improvised and straight to the tape. There was a good deal of significance for me in walking to the stones, passing the Hackpen Horse, being in the landscape and dealing with some brain rot after being stuck in a house, anxious and depressed. There was a sense of freedom and detachment. It was all about the materials of the earth and the body and fucking the brain off for a bit - just wanting to move between places. I dunno, it's all very cliché."

Danny Wagner wirkte wie ein Rock- oder Country-Künstler und lieferte 1968 auf Imperial das hervorragende Soul-Album "The Kindred Soul Of Danny Wagner" mit frühen Streicherarrangements von Gene Page ab. Daraus erscheinen nun zwei Klassiker direkt hintereinander auf einer 7". "I Lost A True Love" ist ein gefragtes, basslastiges Northern Soul-Meisterwerk. Ebenso beeindruckend und noch nie vorher auf 7" erschienen ist "This Thing Called Love" auf der Flip.

Black Truffle is thrilled to announce Spilla, the second album from Nantes-based Ensemble Nist-Nah, 48 minutes of music for Gamelan, drum kits, wood and metal percussion instruments, and plucked strings that will surely count as one of the most electrifying records you hear this year. Founded by the Australian drummer/percussionist Will Guthrie in 2019, continuing the explorations begun in solo form on Nist-Nah (Black Truffle, 2020), the ensemble (eight or nine core members with occasional guests) has been consistently active in the half-decade since: composing, rehearsing, recording and touring Europe (with a mass of equipment in tow) to great acclaim. Spilla tracks the continuing evolution of the project since the recording of their first album, Elders (Black Truffle, 2022). The two sides of this record document two different iterations of the group, and the members' compositional input has increased: each side contains one piece by a member other than Guthrie. It has become clearer than ever that Ensemble Nist-Nah is not an attempt at a European Gamelan ensemble but rather a hybrid percussion ensemble that uses instruments from a Javanese Gamelan alongside other percussion to perform original music informed by a variety of South East Asian music but also by everything from free jazz to contemporary hip-hop: while Nist-Nah and Elders both featured traditional Javanese pieces, on Spilla the only tune not generated by a member of the group is by Guthrie’s long-time musical hero and occasional collaborator Roscoe Mitchell.

The two short pieces that open the record could almost be the two sides of a wild 7” selected to show off what the Ensemble can do. On opener ‘Gerak Maju’, intricately skittering open-snare patterns bounce over clanging metal, chiming bell-like tones and deep gong hits, adapting the rhythm-register connections heard in traditional Gamelan musics—where the lowest pitched sounds are heard least frequently—to a cut-up breakbeat straight off Feed Me Weird Things. ‘Strollabout’ then moves into an entirely different realm of meditative repeating patterns, performed entirely on Chinese, Javanese and Vietnamese gongs. The remaining seven pieces, ranging from three to twelve minutes, offer up a wealth of different percussive, compositional and arrangement possibilities. On ‘Ghostly Klang’, two drumkits mirror each other’s moves, bouncing hats and snares across the stereo field in a way that recalls On the Corner and the jittering hi hat patterns of trap, while slow moving melodies on the tuned instruments add a sense of majesty contrasted by scurrying details in resonant wood. The epic closing track presents a take on Roscoe Mitchell’s ‘Uncle’, performed by the Art Ensemble of Chicago on their classic Urban Bushmen live album. Where the Art Ensemble used Mitchell’s dirge-like melody as a jumping off point for virtuosic improvisational flights, Ensemble Nist-Nah rethink the piece as a near-static dialogue between the monumental, slow-moving sequence of unison tuned percussion notes and a textural cloud that grows in richness and intensity from whispering cymbal rolls into a mass of gong overtones and bowed metal.

Beautifully recorded and mixed, Spilla arrives in a sleeve decorated with core member Charles Dubois’ drawings of cymbals and gongs. Against the backdrop of a wider musical landscape dominated by over-produced electronic slop and bland harmonic wallpaper, Ensemble Nist-Nah stands out as a reminder, vital and unpretentious, of the joys and possibilities of human beings playing instruments together.

'This exclusive re-issue of “Brighter Side of Blue” is limited to only 300 copies on baby blue heavyweight vinyl, with an individually-numbered obi strip, and bespoke essay from Amy Campbell.

This was one of our albums of 2023 (Double J agreed, too making #16 in their Album Of The Year Countdown). Released in mid-January, it soundtracked our late Australian summer. It’s not a record that’s easily pigeon-holed. Is it alt-country, with a nod to Gillian Welch? Is it classic rock, mined from a similar vein that Chrissie Hynde has drawn from? Is it indie-folk, a lighter, brighter Jen Choler? You tell us.

‘Brighter Side of Blue’ was recorded in Bellambi in the Illawara throughout 2022. Featuring Cecil Coleman from Body Type on drums, and Russell Fitzgibbon (who also released Skeleten’s ‘Under Utopia’) on bass and co-production, it’s a beautiful shiny record that glistens like the sea in that part of Australia, a place where the waves meet ancient escarpment.

Impressed is proud to present Brenton Thwaites—renowned actor, writer, and now accomplished songwriter—with his debut Album Searching For The Man. The announcement follows his recent iconic role in the Paul Kelly-inspired film How to Make Gravy. While filming Titans in Toronto, Brenton dove into music, recording Searching For The Man with producer Justin Abedin. The album weaves together styles from blues and folk to singer-songwriter and country. Brenton’s songs offer an intimate glimpse into his journey to and from Hollywood, life on the road with his family, and the rollercoaster of highs and lows that define it.

Fun Fun was an Italian Euro disco band produced by Dario Raimondi Cominesi and Alvaro Ugolini. The group was fronted by models, while the vocals were recorded by

original singers Antonella Pepe, Angela Parisi, and Ivana Spagna. Spagna left after the release of their first album in 1983.

Their breakthrough came with the hit “Happy Station (Scratch Remix),” by Ben Liebrand which climbed the charts in several European countries, including the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium.

The track became a staple in the hottest discos of the era. The Greatest Fun compilation album brings together their biggest hits, including “Happy Station (Scratch Remix),”

“Give Me Your Love,” “Baila Bolero,” and “Living in Japan.” Additionally, the album features the Fun Fun “Mega Hit Mix,” a special mix by

Dutch producer and DJ Martin Boer of 2 Brothers on the 4th Floor fame, along with many more Euro disco tracks.

For Wilkes-Barre's One Step Closer - the concept of home is complicated. "I've never felt so distant in my life," vocalist Ryan Savitski screams on the lead single "Pringle Street," a place in his hometown that binds the album's lyrics to both a precise location and feeling of displacement. On their first ever full-length album and debut for Run For Cover This Place You Know, the band offers a modern coming-of-age story about growing up and grasping both the known and the unknown. One Step Closer started in 2016 and in their short five years, Savitski, along with drummer Tommy Norton, bassist Brian Talipan and guitarists Ross Thompson & Grady Allen have come into their own as a modern hardcore mainstay. Their 2019 EP 'From Me To You' countered existing trends in exchange for a more melodic sound in the vein of bands like Turning Point and Title Fight. They went on to open for Have Heart at the band's now legendary reunion shows that summer, and joined bands like Knuckle Puck and Turnstile on tour before pausing to write their debut album. This Place You Know grapples with the weight of themes like isolation, depression, and loss - all amplified by driving bass lines, em-phatic guitar riffs and unwavering drumming performed by the band. From the first moments of album opener "I Feel So," the stakes are made clear by the anchoring lyric 'this place you know, sometimes it hides the truth and lets people go" - One Step Closer is attempting to resolve the unresolvable anguish of moving on from everything you once knew.

"Bookends" bildet soetwas wie das Herzstück des am 20. Juni erscheinenden Albums. Die weitläufige Ballade zollt ihrem verstorbenen Freund Riley Gale Tribut, ehemals Sänger der Band Power Trip. Sie ist auch inspiriert von John Careys Buch "Eyewitness To History", einer Sammlung von über 300 historischen Augenzeugenberichten zu prägenden Ereignissen der menschlichen Geschichte. Zu Bookends erscheint ein Video von Caity Arthur. "Im Video geht es um Tod und Absolution, wie der Tod eines der wenigen sicheren Dinge im Leben ist, der große Gleichmacher, nolens volens", so Arthur. "Es untergräbt aber auch das traditionelle Narrativ vom Tod als verzweifelte Leere und porträtiert ihn mit seinem halluzinogenem Sixties-Ensemble stattdessen als euphorische Übergangserfahrung samt TV-Pop-Performance und Taschenspielertricks, während Megs Lyrics den Tod in all seinen Formen beschwören." Für "Scratch It" hat Meg Remy mit Gitarrist Dillon Watson eine Band zusammengestellt - ursprünglich für einen einmaligen Festivalaufrtitt, aufgrund der guten Chemie schließlich gleich für ein ganzes Album. Mit Watson an der Gitarre, Jack Lawrence (The Dead Weather, The Raconteurs, Loretta Lynn) am Bass, Domo Donoho am Schlagzeug und Jo Schornikow und Tina Norwood an den Keys entstand "Scratch It" innerhalb von zehn Tagen in Nashville. Zwischendurch schaute auch Mundharmonika-Legende Charlie McCoy vorbei, der bereits mit Elvis, Bob Dylan und Roy Orbinson gearbeitet hatte und seine Künste für einige Songs einbrachte. Die Authentizität der analog produzierten Songs ist unmittelbar, ein Zeugnis der Chemie zwischen allen Beteiligten, Remy klingt relaxt wie kaum je zuvor. Das Album verwebt Country, Gospel, Garage Rock, Soul, Disco und Folk, während sich Remy in den Lyrics mit Patti Smith auseinandersetzt, mit junger Liebe, Mutterschaft, Macht-Dynamiken, der Kraft von James Brown, verstorbenen Weggefährten, dem Goldrausch am Yukon - oder dem eigenen nach einer Tequila-getränkten Nacht. Dabei lässt sie wie immer auch ihren beißenden Humor spielen.

After the explosive Comme à la radio, infused with the free jazz energy of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Brigitte Fontaine and Areski Belkacem released six albums together or separately between 1972 and 1977. Their music, often stripped down to voice, guitar, and percussion-or performed a cappella-stood in stark contrast to the orchestrated French pop of the time. This minimalist and spontaneous approach highlighted the poetic power of the lyrics and the intimacy of the melodies, earning them recognition in the counterculture and underground scenes. By the end of the 1970s, Fontaine sought to make her work more visible without losing its originality. The Baraka album marked this transitional moment, initially recorded in a home studio without external musicians. Its title (meaning "blessing" in Arabic) hinted at a desire for success. Mixing introspection, absurd humor, and bold stylistic choices, the album was technically ambitious, featuring stereo duets and layered vocals, and lyrically rich, tackling everything from metaphysical themes to playful nonsense. However, the project ultimately veered off course. After moving the recordings to the massive Studio Davout and bringing in producer and guitarist Martial "Mimi" Lorenzini, the album lost its original intimacy. Overproduced arrangements clashed with the simplicity of Fontaine and Belkacem's initial intent, resulting in an album-renamed Les églantines sont peut-être formidables-that the artists later disowned, refusing to allow its commercial release. Recently rediscovered demo tapes, stripped of their bombastic layers, reveal the raw, emotional core of the songs-showcasing the duo's voices with a rare authenticity. These recordings bridge a missing link in their discography, between their experimental lo-fi years and their later, more accessible work. Decades on, Fontaine and Belkacem remain defiant originals, never settling into a formula, always evolving, and continuing to shake the foundations of French chanson.

Hampus Lindwall’s Brace for Impact might just be the first album of post-internet pipe organ music. It’s an album of five new contemporary classical compositions, all performed by the composer himself on the 78-stop grand organ at St. Antonius church in Düsseldorf, Germany. Featuring the electric guitar of SUNN O)’s Stephen O’Malley on the title track. A highly visceral forty-five minutes of music with undeniable elemental power.
As 2024 came to a close, in New York and Paris chords rang out from thirty-two-foot pipes for the first time in half a decade. Following twin fires in 2019, the grand organs at the cathedrals of St John the Divine and Notre-Dame, amongst the largest instruments in their respective countries, had finally been restored. The news was justly celebrated in the international press, but the incidents were far from isolated. In England, the city of Norwich hailed the return of its cathedral’s five manual organ in 2023 and just two years earlier York Minster heralded a “once-in-a-century” refurbishment of its own 5,000-plus pipe instrument. Meanwhile, further organ restoration projects are ongoing at churches in Liverpool, Bradford, Bristol, Winchester, and Washington DC. Significant as they are to their respective communities, they’re also emblematic of a wider rebirth for one of humanity’s oldest musical instruments.
The organ is having a moment. Over the last few years, albums by the likes of Kali Malone, Ellen Arkbro, Anna von Hausswolff, FUJI|||||||||||TA, and Áine O’Dwyer, as well as projects in the visual arts by Sollmann Sprenger, Cory Arcangel, Massimo Bartolini and many other talented artists, have given a new prominence to the old ecclesiastical stalwart. The pipe organ bears historical traces which stretch back to the third century BC. But that doesn’t mean it can’t speak to a contemporary moment haunted by algorithms and networked culture. Hampus Lindwall’s Brace for Impact is an album of organ music for today.

Originally released on seven-inch by the tiny PRM label in 1986, ‘Witches’ was the product of a sister-brother song writing team whose music was mostly recorded in the front room of a terraced house in Nanpean, a small industrial village in Cornwall, England’s most south-westerly county. While the single was infectious and dancefloor-ready, it sold in limited quantities at the time.

Zenana’s story can be traced back to the early 1980s, when singer-songwriter Anita Tedder founded the all-female trio as a vehicle for her socially conscious and politically charged songs, with a burning desire to put strong depictions of women front and centre. To bring Zenana to life, she joined forces with her brother Mike, an early adopter of electronic music who had built a small studio in his Cornish home, and recruited two fellow bandmembers, Penny Griffiths and Ruth Elder.

This specific release is a limited reissue that the band created in 2023 and holds three more songs ; The Final Winter, The Touch Of Woman & When The Comet Comes. This issue comes with an 8 page booklet including background stories as well as historical photographs.

There’s a particular magic that happens when seasoned producers with global roots come together under a shared ethos - not for hype, but for connection. That’s precisely what MISINGO represents. A cross-continental studio experiment born out of Covid-era isolation, the group spans hemispheres and histories: Yorkshire's Doorly, L.A. legend Gary Richards (aka Destructo), and Australian duo Colour Castle. Their debut offering, Give You Love, lands via UK House Music institution Hard Times Records, and it’s as emotionally resonant as it is built for the floor.

Anchored by a slow-burning acid line and moody, immersive synthwork, 'Give You Love' carries the DNA of classic house without feeling like pastiche. DJ Rae’s smokey vocal, recorded in Doorly’s Ibiza studio, sets the tone - raw, intimate, immediate. Gene Farris enters with a gravelly, magnetic counterpoint, flipping the call-and-response into something spiritual. It’s a record that feels both new and deeply lived-in, a jam session from afar that somehow lands with unity and purpose.

For the remix suite, Hard Times dig into family ties and deliver a heavyweight lineup that spans generations of dance music lineage.

First up, DJ Pierre, the Phuture pioneer himself, brings a Wild Pitch revision that is pure summer sleaze and shimmer. Glistening keys, kinetic snares, and a syrup-thick bassline collide in a mix that’s tailor-made for golden-hour sets and open-air systems.

DJ Romain brings that New York swing. All velvet chords, stabbing pianos, and organ swells that spiral skyward. It’s gospel-house energy that doesn’t need to shout to be heard, a reminder that soul still moves the dancefloor.

Closing out the package is Charles Lavine of Soul Clap fame, whose Boston-bred funk sensibility steers things into new territory. He strips back the mix, lets Rae’s vocal ride the groove, and injects a subtle bounce that turns heads and hips in equal measure.

With 'Give You Love', MISINGO and Hard Times haven’t just released a single, they’ve bottled a moment: one born of distance, stitched together with soul, and destined for collective release on dancefloors worldwide.