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2023 repress! clear with pink vinyl.

Beach Fossils' sophomore album, Clash the Truth, is modern post-punk triumph that's left a lasting impression on the music scene it was born out of. After releasing their self titled debut and the beloved EP, What a Pleasure, songwriter and composer Dustin Payseur began recording dissonant and introspective demos reflecting on his southern upbringing and young adulthood in New York. The tracks that would eventually make up Clash the Truth involved Payseur taking his songwriting in a new direction, employing jagged instrumentals, existential lyrics, and socially conscious subject matter. The darker themes of Clash the Truth still come out vibrant through bright guitar tones, locomotive drumming, and Payseur's inventive home recording techniques. Referencing the sounds of Factory Records releases, New York's no wave scene, and 90's avant-pop, Beach Fossils expanded their sound past the perimeters of bedroom dream pop.

††† (Crosses) —Chino Moreno (Deftones) and producer/multi-instrumentalist Shaun Lopez — release their anticipated new album Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete. on October 13th with notable features from EL-P and Robert Smith.



The arrival of Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete. will follow the band's critically acclaimed EP PERMANENT.RADIANT, which recently received a new spin on the duo's PERMANENT.RADIANT.REMIXED. The reimagined release contained remixes from a noteworthy list of electronic innovators including Hudson Mohawke, suicideyear, AWAY, and Machinedrum.



With new single “Invisible Hand,” Moreno and Lopez embark upon a new chapter filled with merciless creations as they continue making music without compromise.

Soul Jazz Records’ Holy Church of the Ecstatic Soul: Gospel, Funk and Soul at the Crossroads 1971-83 draws upon the extensive links between black American gospel music and soul music, showing how the sensibilities of gospel artists such as Shirley Caeser, Dorothy Norwood, Andrae Crouch and others crossed over into secular soul music during this period.

The album was first available as a (sold out) ltd.edn. coloured vinyl for RSD23 and is now available as a black double vinyl + download edition and also for the first time on CD.

Many of the most successful soul artists - from Aretha Franklin to Al Green, The Staple Singers to Sam Cooke - all drew upon their upbringing in the church for their musical inspiration. This album discusses how important the links between the black church and soul music were in creating soul music and spotlights some of the many important (and also little-known) gospel artists who walked this line between sacred music and soul, funk and disco in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Holy Church of the Ecstatic Soul shows how sacred gospel music was at home with Stevie Wonder, Blaxploitation-style funk and produced music celebrated both in New York’s underground discos (The Paradise Garage, Studio 54, etc) and later sampled by the likes of Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg and Mary J Bilge.

Works for the Ever Present Orchestra Vol. II continues Black Truffle’s documentation of the late work of legendary American experimental composer Alvin Lucier, who sadly passed away in 2021 at the age of 90. Like the first volume of the series, the two works recorded here were written for The Ever Present Orchestra, an ensemble founded in Zürich in 2016 to perform Lucier’s work exclusively. At the core of the music Lucier wrote for the ensemble is the electric guitar, an instrument he began to explore in 2013. Played with e-bows, in these works electric lap steel guitars take on roles akin to the slow sweep pure wave oscillators heard in many of Lucier’s works since the early 1980s. This strikingly elegant pair of compositions would serve as an ideal introduction to Lucier’s late music for a listener as yet unfamiliar with its graceful exploration of beating patterns and other acoustic phenomenon.

The two pieces have quite different characters, exemplifying Lucier’s ability to harvest a remarkable range of musical results from closely related compositional procedures and concerns. In Arrigoni Bridge (2019), Lucier uses a technique familiar from earlier works such as Still Lives (1995), where sine waves traced the shapes of household objects. Here, three lap steel electric guitars (played by Oren Ambarchi, Bernhard Rietbrock, and Jan Thoben) follow the form of the Arrigoni Bridge that connects Middletown and Portland, Connecticut. The bridge’s two enormous steel arcs become slowly sweeping pitches, alongside which alto saxophone (Joan Jordi Oliver Arcos), violin (Rebecca Thies) and cello (Lucy Railton) sustain long tones, creating a variety of audible beating patterns depending on their distance from or proximity to the guitars. With its stately pacing, warm middle register tones, and rich timbral variety in the sustaining instruments, Arrigoni Bridge is a beautiful example of compositional reduction producing immersive results. Flips (2020), on the other hand, is more austere. Scored for two lap steel electric guitars (Rietbock and Thoben), double bass (Ross Wightman) and glockenspiel (Trevor Saint), the two acoustic instruments played with bows, the piece zooms in on the range of a major second (two semitones). The two guitars sweep in opposite directions within the range, crossing every four minutes; the double bass and glockenspiel sustain long tones, producing beats of different speeds determined by their distance from the guitar tones. This limitation of the tonal range means the music is often dissonant and forces the phenomenon of audible beating to the surface, resulting in a paradoxical music composed entirely of long tones yet alive with pulsating rhythm. Exemplifying Lucier’s ability to uncover near-infinite complexity within seemingly simple materials, Works for the Ever Present Orchestra Vol. II is a fitting tribute to one of the major figures of the experimental music tradition and a testament to the continuing power of his work.

For more than a decade, Bert Dockx has been one of the most prolific and versatile musicians in Belgium. A masterful guitarist, gifted songwriter, and innovative composer, crossing boundaries between avant-garde rock, customized blues, and instrumental jazz, with bands such as Flying Horseman, Dans Dans, and Ottla, singing in his native Dutch as Strand, or solo under his birth name, and now as the Bert Dockx Band. Ghosts is his fifteenth (!) album on the Ghent-based label Unday Records.

Two years after the crash, Bert Dockx presents his new Bert Dockx Band and Ghosts, an album of rebirth and transgression, one of many firsts. Dockx never dedicated this much time to meticulously crafting each song. For the first time, he entrusts a finished record to a complete outsider. Never before has he reached out so far into the outside world.

The relaxed and positive atmosphere during the recordings is magnified in what Dockx calls 'my best guitar playing ever', and the deep, powerful use of his voice in its natural range. 'I had fun making this album,' says Dockx, 'and I really hope it shows'.
'There's no escape now/ I'm inside of the storm', Bert Dockx sings on his new album, the first with the Bert Dockx Band. 'I smile, I cry/ I die, I'm born/ I'm in love'. Ghosts is the culmination of a two-year odyssey, from hitting rock bottom to flourishing into new heights. An album of rebirth and transgression, a record of milestones and many firsts. Never before has Dockx turned so deep inside in order to reach out to a world beyond himself.

The album is mastered by US producer Philip Weinrobe. Weinrobe previously worked with Arianne Lenker, Indigo Sparke, and Kings of Convenience, and is praised by Dockx for his 'infallible intuition and great inventiveness'. This occasion marks the first time he hands over a finished record, permitting an outsider's perspective during the final mix.

'Ala Mai' is the second studio album from New Zealand's dynamic metal powerhouse, Shepherds Reign. Shepherds Reign’s unique blend of music, muscle and mayhem, is a supreme listening experience crossing genres, cultures and myriads of other borders. Early press has been glowing, with a 9/10 rating from Distorted Sound, 4.5/5 from Metal Epidemic and Classic Rock mag stating "Beneath the band's groove-metal bedrock lies a capacity for world-beating melodies"

The Art of Surrender marks a return to life, sown from primal impulses and hard-won emotional truths. Unrestrained melodic rapture soars above a relentless kick drum, speaking a need to move, to dance, to love. The music is as ambitious as its origins are personal. Tignor plays with scale, crafting multi-movement epics alongside one-minute miniatures. The smallest, most fragile violin gestures, where the finger barely touches the string to extract natural harmonics exist side by side with angular, exotic melodies, asymmetric rhythms, and rapid-fire string crossings. On this LP, Tignor digs even more deeply into the violin and its technicolor reimaginings under his electroacoustic treatments. Christopher Tignor is a composer, violinist, lecturer, and software engineer. His emotionally charged scores and unique focus on live, performance-based electroacoustic practice has won acclaim within both the classical and experimental communities across 10 LPs on the Western Vinyl and New Albion record labels. He creates the live performance software he uses, shared freely. As a composer he has written and recorded work for ensembles including The Knights, A Far Cry string orchestra, and Brooklyn Rider string quartet, performing alongside them at premiere venues including Carnegie's Zankel Hall. As a string arranger he has worked with Helios, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, John Congleton, This Will Destroy You, Meshell Ndegeocello, and several other artists at the boundaries of popular music. This music breathes, swoons and swoops elegiacally, in the same way a crack symphony might on a good night." MAGNET // "A bulwark against the ambient clatter of everyday life...sheer technical mastery" BANDCAMP (ALBUM OF THE DAY) // "Tignor creates a muttered hum of activity that burbles at the fringes of an internally focused halo of sustained, glowing chords, and the effect is powerful." NPR // "Making computers coexist in harmony with acoustic instruments in a live setting is more easily imagined than achieved. But Christopher Tignor, a young composer and performer shaped as much by his work in downtown nightclubs as by his formal education at Bard College and New York University, proves that it can be done." THE NEW YORK TIMES // "Absurdly talented"

Includes an alternate take of 'Looking Good tonight ' appearing for the first time ever on vinyl.

"Blues for a Reason stands out from much of the work of the period." - The Penguin Guide to Jazz

"It's strange to think that two of the greatest stars of "cool jazz," Chet Baker and Warne Mash, would never record together, given that they were nearly the same age, and that they both rose to fame in Los Angeles around the same period.

However, that would have been the case if Gerry Teekens, founder of the Criss Cross label, had never had the bright idea of bringing them together in 1984.

Surprisingly, they would end up cutting their only collaborative album, Blues for a Reason, in Monster, The Netherlands!" - **** AllMusic

Lucky number 17? You better believe it. We here at Brown Acid have been scouring the highways and byways of America for even more hidden stashes of psych/garage/proto-punk madness from the so-called Aquarian Age. There’s no flower power here, though—just acid casualties, rock stompers and major freakouts. As always, the songs have been officially licensed, and all the artists get paid. Kicking off this trip, Grapple’s “Ethereal Genesis” is a heavy psych gem from 1969 written by J. Bruce Svoboda, a.k.a. Jay Bruce, formerly of The Hangmen and The Five Canadians (who were actually the same San Antonio band). The latter’s 1966 garage favorite “Writing on the Wall” has been endlessly covered, but Grapple were never heard from again. With a guitar riff that blatantly rips off Sabbath’s “Black Sabbath,” Image’s mostly instrumental lysergic obscurity “Witchcraft ’71” (originally unveiled that very year) also boasts a horror-movie organ intro, a voodoo drum break and some championship chanting. Private press heads might recall late Image drummer John Beke from his ’80s reemergence with country rockers Crossfyre. Stone Hedge were a seven-piece rock band out of Michigan with a penchant for Creedence and anthropomorphism. “Smokey Bear” is their 1972 tribute to the official mascot of the U.S. Forest Services—not to mention the A side of their sole single—and it recalls the kind of organ-drenched swamp jam that soundtracked many a Burt Reynolds flick back in the day. If you think being a Southern rock band from Milwaukee doesn’t make much sense, that’s probably why Crossfire changed their sound along with their name—to Bad Boy—after signing with United Artists. Bad Boy’s severely underappreciated second album, Back To Back, is a 1978 hard rock jewel, but you can hear their boogie-woogie roots on this rare 1975 single. With a band name like Primevil and song title like “Too Dead To Live,” you probably expect some gnarly proto-metal riffage. Instead, you a get a harmonica-drenched, soul-infused rock rave-up from 1972. Primevil would release their sole LP two years later: Entitled Smokin’ Bats at Campton’s, it’s a reference to their trusty singer, harp player (and bat smoker?), Dave Campton. Brown Acid regulars already know Pegasus from their appearance with “The Sorcerer” on our Seventh Trip. “Ready to Rave” is the flipside to that 1972 single, in which they explain how they like their whiskey cold and their women hot. It’s another killer glimpse of what might have been if these one-and-done Baltimore hard rockers had been able to keep it together. One of two obscure singles released by Texas musician Bobby Mabe in 1969 (the other appears under the name The Outcasts), “I’m Lonely” delivers a heavy dose of vocal soul to the otherwise psych-garage presentation. Fans of fellow Houstonians the Moving Sidewalks—whom Bobby and his Outcasts may well have gigged with—will especially dig this one. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, may not be known as a cultural mecca, but they did give us Truth & Janey. This deadly hard rock trio delivered their holy grail full-length, No Rest for the Wicked, back in 1976. “Around and Around” is a Chuck Berry cover that originally appeared on a 1973 single the band released under the earlier name Truth. Originally released in 1973, “High School Letter” is the debut single from San Diego rock squad Glory. This infectious bonehead cruncher features future Beat Farmer Jerry Raney and the original rhythm section of Iron Butterfly in bassist Greg Willis and drummer Jack Pinney. Glory is what they got up to after their former bandmates left for L.A.’s garden of Eden. “Jack the Ripper” is a mercilessly bootlegged Cleveland classic from 1978 with a serrated punk edge and vocals that recall Mick Blood of Aussie savages the Lime Spiders. Or maybe it’s the other way around—the Lime Spiders formed the year after Strychnine carved off this lethal paean to the infamous Whitechapel slasher of olde.

'In 1972, trumpeter Baikida Carroll and some of his colleagues from the Black Artists Group (more precisely saxophonist/flutist Oliver Lake, trombonist Joseph Bowie, drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw and trumpeter Floyd LeFlore) took the advice of their friends in the Art Ensemble Of Chicago and left their native Missouri to come and discover the bright lights of Paris for themselves. The following year they would even get the chance to record their only album which would rapidly attain mythical status and a collector’s item: “In Paris, Aries 1973”.

Therefore, it was not surprising that they crossed paths with Jef Gilson in the capital. He was always on the lookout for new artists for his recently formed Palm label and had been active on many fronts in jazz since the end of the 50s. The French bandleader / pianist / composer / sound engineer had already recorded, in the preceding months other American musicians who would go on to have great careers: Byard Lancaster, Keno Speller, Clint Jackson III, Khan Jamal... Gilson therefore offered Baikida Carroll the chance to record his first album under his own name, which would be the 13th release on the label. Carroll logically asked Oliver Lake to join him. He also recruited Manuel Villaroel, a young Franco-Chilien pianist from the group Matchi-Oul, who had already released an album on Futura in 1971 and would release another on Palm in 1976. The group was completed with the addition of Brazilian percussionist Naná Vasconcelos, who had just released a well-received album on the Saravah label. They were ready to enter the studio for the 3rd, 4th and 5th June 1974.

The first side of the album is divided into two long tracks which send free jazz back to its long-lost African roots. The opener “Orange Fish Tears” indeed rolls out a jungle of percussion of all sorts and sizes -the whole group is involved- which weave and mix together reaching a point where all bearings are lost, lending a sense of wonder to the majestic entry of the brass and woodwinds, flying suddenly out from the undergrowth. “Forest Scorpion” (sic) is a real voodoo ceremony where a venomous percussive groove backs the fiery solos from keyboards and saxophone in a furious trance. A warning; after these two tracks listeners are physically and emotionally wiped out!

The other side is more introspective. Deliberately using dissonance and repetition, “Rue Roger” -the only composition by Oliver Lake- in a long dialogue between trumpet and saxophone, could almost remind us of Terry Riley in his favourite ballpark. “Porte D'Orléans”, the fourth and final track on the album, has the group back to their old tricks in a long hallucinatory jam which owes as much to the contemporary music of György Ligeti as to the most angst-ridden Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack music (remember the heavy chords which beat through “Planet of the Apes»).

With these two sides, and in under 45m, Baikida Carroll and his musicians show just what they can do, from cerebral to charnel without ever simplifying things. This is an essential album if you are a fan of free-wheeling avant-garde music from the Art Ensemble of Chicago to Sonic Youth and including Shabaka Hutchings and Rob Mazurek. For those with good taste, in other words.'

Sublime ethereal minimalism from Hiroyuki Onogawa on this retrospective compilation album for
Mana, the first dedicated release and remaster of his soundtrack compositions.

The album August in the Water: Music for Film 1995-2005 plots a decade of Onogawa’s compositions for films by the renowned filmmaker Gakuryū Ishii (formally known as Sogo Ishii). Ishii’s leftfield and trailblazing cinema has proven highly influential - Crazy Thunder Road (1980) is frequently cited as the starting pistol for the Japanese cyberpunk genre - and unfathomably difficult to source outside of Japan. This, coupled with the mysterious and artistic nature of the films, has seen him build a cult-like following. Most of his oeuvre remains undistributed outside Japan, though Third Window Films has recently taken great strides toward making some titles available internationally.

This retrospective publication, sequenced into an album by Onogawa himself, spans a fertile period of collaboration with Ishii, through soundtracks for three remarkable films: August in the Water (1995), Labyrinth of Dreams (1997), and Mirrored Mind (2005). Each feels texturally and sensually linked with the spiritual, ambient, dreamlike quality that lingers in Onogawa’s music.

The sound Onogawa conjures for these films is elegant and patient, often minimal or essential in form, but saturated in a poetic emotion and atmosphere that feels strange and otherworldly, touched by the metaphysical in subtle ways. Boundaries are crossed between New Age and science fiction, locating a blissfulness, melancholy and paranoia within the same spectrum, and moving toward an enchanting sense of mood and colour.

It’s notable that the compositions on this album straddle the millennium, and the mix of divine and uncertain themes in the music carry that currency. New listeners might hear links to Mark Snow’s compositional work for the X-Files and Millennium, or other celebrated future-facing and future-fearing Japanese anime or cyberpunk.

Onogawa’s music adds great depth and tenor to the sensory experience of the films themselves, but it stands just as strongly as a listening experience on its own terms, a virtuosic example of ambient that changes in hue when turned in the light. Remarkably, and in similar circumstances to Ishii, Onogawa’s work has never been widely available outside of (always highly enthusiastic) underground fan posts, usually sourced from extremely limited and private CDs limited to Japan. This retrospective seeks to remedy that, and hopes to achieve recognition for Onogawa as one of the great composers of the last three decades.

Onogawa continues to work in film, both in the creation of soundtracks, and now as a producer and director. He composed the music for Koji Fukada’s Harmonium (2016), which won the Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as for Fukada’s A Girl Missing (2019). As a director, he received the Grand Prize for Best Short Film in the Noves Visions category at the Sitges Festival in 2022 for Flashback Before Death (Guu), co-directed with Rii Ishihara.'

Auf "Off The Grid" verschmelzt traditionelle Rhythmen mit elektronischer Musik.

"Off the Grid" ist eine Reise, die die Entstehungsgeschichte von Tanzrhythmen aus Afrika mit der elektronischen Tanzmusik der heutigen Clubs und Festivals verbindet und afrikanische Folklore und Geschichten mit Rap, Jazz und Hip-Hop verknüpft. Die beiden kreativen Köpfe hinter Onipa - Tom Excell (Nubiyan Twist) und Kweku Sackey (K.O.G. & the Zongo Brigade) - haben zusammen mit Finn Booth am Schlagzeug und Dwayne Kilvington (alias Wonky Logic) an den Synthesizern eine lebensbejahende und höchst originelle Klangwelt geschaffen

Experimental Rock / Abstract Hip-Hop / Post Industrial music Pascal Bouaziz used to be the singer and leader of French rock band Mendelson, and "Bruit Noir" (Black Noise) is his side project. This is a completely new venture, a departure from everything he's done over the last 20 years, bringing together hard-hitting lyrics and biting sounds. Boaziz has improvised lyrics over music by drummer Jean-Michel Pirès, who has played with Bed and Married Monk, a blend of the stripped-down clarity of Pérec's A Man Asleep and the stormy punk of Suicide. Crossing the boundaries of the politically incorrect, Bruit Noir offers a raw, hard-hitting album, where the sincerity of the words blends with the intensity of the compositions.

It is with great fanfare that we proudly announce the return of the esteemed improvisational chainsaw blues trio Young James Long. Young James Long formed in Dallas in 2003 with a weekly residency at a local (and appropriately named) dive bar called Muddy Waters. PW Long (guitar, vocals) and Kirkland James (guitar) had known each other socially since the 90s when Long was fronting Quarterstick Records’ Mule, and James was playing with Tenderloin. Long would go onto make a series of incredible solo records under his own name and that of PW Long’s Reelfoot and James would play with Alejandro Escovedo (among many others) before their paths finally crossed again. They recruited Taylor Young (Hi-Fi Drowning, Young Heart Attack, The Polyphonic Spree) on drums and a raw, blues-punk-rock-and-roll band emerged fully formed, songs flying out of them with enthusiasm and ease. They recorded the You Ain’t Know The Man EP with their friend (and eventual Grammy winner) Stuart Sikes not long after. The EP came out via Southern Records in 2007, and thanks to the tasteful ears of the people this side of the pond, a European tour followed. If you saw that tour, you’ll agree that it felt like the band were really hitting their stride. However, here we are in 2023, so what happened? Answer: geography - the age-old enemy of creativity. One member left Texas and the others (being the extremely able and skilled musicians that they are) were perpetually wooed away to play in other bands. Everyone’s got bills to pay, right? And with that, things just kind of fizzled out. Long even insists he quit playing music around 2010. One of the most recognisable voices in underground music: out of the game. Incredible. Inconceivable.
Then, last year we at Wrong Speed got an email asking if we’d be interested in some new music Young James Long had been working on. We thought it might be a joke. They sent some mixes through, and it became very quickly apparent that it was anything but. Turns out the trio had started chatting about music again in 2020 (before the world had other plans) and had finally made their first full-length album Orogeny in the summer of 2021. Orogeny sounds live and thrillingly immediate, as though all obstacles between their delivery and your ears have been removed and discarded as irrelevant. There is no filler, no treading of water at any point. Amps buzz, songs teeter on the edge of collapse, you feel like you’re sitting in the middle of the band as they play and it’s a pretty sweet place to be. The album contains a whopping 17 songs, most under 2 minutes long. They don’t want to waste your time, or most importantly (after sixteen years away), theirs. If you’re familiar with Long’s previous bands, you’ll know he has a rare gift for pairing extreme volume with extreme tenderness and it’s thrilling to find that gift present and correct after over a decade away. And that voice – holy shit, that voice. He can go from a Beefheart howl to the sweetest country baritone in the space of a single line. In James and Young he’s found the perfect foils, a power trio of instinctive and soulful musicians able to conjure shining gems of magic out of the grit and the dirt. Young James Long is risen from the ashes – it’s a miracle!

Tibi Dabo returns with ‘Overture’, a from his forthcoming Crosstown Rebels album, with remixes from Map.ache and Aline Umber.

A label favourite having dropped his ‘Isla’ EP on Crosstown Rebels back in 2022, ahead of his much-anticipated debut LP comes this third superb taster from it. The superb ‘Overture’ is an eight-minute gem with super smooth percussion and elastic grooves, with wispy sci-fi chords and gentle synth modulations. It’s full of future feels and catchy drum funk that is sophisticated and smartly detailed with chopped-up vocal fragments.

First to remix is Liepzig’s Map.ache, co-founder of Kann Records and half of Manamana. His take builds with fatter drums that are just as infectious, while rippling synth loops weave in and out as flashy basslines cut loose, and balmy pads add extra cosmic absence to a hypnotic mix of the heady and the physical.

Aline Umber, a collaborative live project from French composers, producers and DJs Aline Brooklyn and Aman Umber, are second to remix. They run the Airfunk label and are no stranger to playing cult spots like Rex Club in Paris. Their ‘23% Eventide’ mix is a blissed-out and synth-laced trip with subtle, smeared chords and starry-eyed keys that have you gazing off into the distance as you get lost in the warm drums.

A multi genre-busting release that has transcended most dance scenes from Modern Soul, Rare Groove, Crossover and Boogie to become perhaps the most in-demand '80s record on the current collectors scene.

The popularity of "Don't Send Me Away" was recently confirmed when a YouTube clip of Garfield himself, performing "Don't Send Me Away" at a Paris record stall in late 2018, went viral with over 2,000,000
views to date.

Ben Sterling joins Damian Lazarus’ renowned Crosstown Rebels imprint, partnering with Caitlyn Scarlett for ‘Don’t Truss’.

Building on the release of arguably one of the tracks of 2022 with his remix of Tiga’s iconic ‘Mind Dimension 2’, UK hotshot and Planet X boss Ben Sterling has made 2023 another year of raising the levels, with his debut on Solomon’s Diynamic becoming an instant summer anthem in the midst of his busiest summer to date. Adding yet another huge label debut to the mix, he continues to showcase his range across house music as Damian Lazarus invites him to Crosstown Rebels for the first time, partnering with singer/songwriter Caitlyn Scarlett for ‘Don’t Truss’ on the revered imprint.

A rolling and crisp production with Scarlett’s alluring and hooky vocals at its core, it’s easy to see why ‘Don’t Truss’ has become a stand-out track from Sterling’s own sets across the globe over the past 12 months. Fusing tightly programmed percussion, warped murmurs, and a slinking, snaking groove, it’s a track crafted for the dancefloor, moving crowds unison and leaving a lasting impact. On the flip, ‘Bring Me To The Surface’ is a groove-led and bubbling cut that keeps the energy levels with skittering drums, acid-dipped basslines, resonant synths and yet more vibrant vocals.

If the name of this collection of traxxx offends you, move on — there’s no hope for you here. If, on the other hand, Toribio’s salacious fun-pun cracked your cool exterior, here’s an introduction to a set of bangers that helps exemplify New York’s increasingly exuberant dancefloor, and what producer/DJ Cesar Toribio brings to it. His is a ribald, rhythmic take on dance music, neither for the weak of musical character (purists need not apply) nor for the weak of ass (-shaking). In fact, the proof is right there, in Toribio’s label’s and monthly party’s name: Bring Dat Ass. This command is not optional, but *the* key ingredient for a good time.

The five songs Toribio has created for “Tongue In Cheeks,” BDA’s first release, comprise a horny melting pot of tribal house and Linn-drum plug-ins, minimalist synth textures and basslines, hi-hats reminiscent of electro and freestyle classics, some of which are infused with New York’s Latin club history and futures. The lead-off track, “No Pare,” is based on the producer’s 808-driven reinvention of the call-and-response hook from Proyecto Uno’s 1993 merengue-house smash “El Tiburón,” marking the first time the group has ever cleared a sample of this Nuyodominican classic. We predict that “No Pare” will be a Fall 2023 monster.

Guest vocal appearances by The Illustrious Blacks and Maluca, cornerstones of different dance-floor scenes in a city currently hitting peak-energy levels, show the breadth of Toribio’s regard for community: There is a lot of crossover to how the punky Dominicana MC from Washington Heights chooses to slang-tastically “Werk It Out,” and how the Neo-Afro-Futuristic-Psychedelic-Surrealistic-Hippys Monstah Black and Manchildblack infuse a dollop of booty into “Work Dat Shit.” And the two different metallic beats point at seemingly separate parts of Toribio’s musical heritage uniting. There’s no formula, but if there was, it would be: Make it sexy. Make it (consensually) grindy. Make it funny to the point of ridiculous but so funky that the laughter becomes more fuel to the joyous momentum propelling the movement. Then make it home — or try to.

Cesar Toribio’s home is, originally Tampa — and the DR, where he’d spend summers with family. He was a drum-corps prodigy who went to Berklee to become a jazz drummer and be like Gil Evans. He idolized Miles’ orchestral arranger’s work as much as Dilla’s beats, but then discovered house music, so it was a wrap. The 2021 band album Toribio made under the name Conclave — which included his sister Sharin and musicians from such great projects as Standing On the Corner, No Regular Play and Irreversible Entanglements — unearthed the work of a singer-songwriter-arranger-producer of immeasurably nuanced, soulful jazz-house music. But when Toribio started DJing more and more, he decided to listen to the devil on his shoulder who told him to Bring Dat Ass. As Cesar damn-well knows, it’s the devil who has the better jokes and holds the better parties, so his ears perked up. “Tongue in Cheeks” is the music Toribio says he made to play at these parties, because he can’t find it anywhere else. It’s hard to disagree.