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First Word Records are proud to present the debut single from Above The Clouds (aka kidkanevil & Magic Manfred) with their instrumental take on an MF DOOM classic, 'Arrow Root'

One of the original First Word roster, UK Producer/DJ and all-round laptop music geek kidkanevil has developed a distinctive and progressive sound over the years, gleefully exploring the beats and bleeps of the electronic music universe to international recognition. Leeds born, sound system bred and raised on a (un)healthy diet of video games and anime, his solo work inhabits the curious space between bass frequencies and otaku culture. But as a devoted teenage backpack rap nerd, somewhere in the back of kid's mind was a lingering desire to reconnect with his first love, hip hop.

Not long after moving to Berlin he joined a studio space in graffiti plastered Kreuzberg, where he met multi instrumentalist wizard Magic Manfred; a disciple of all things boogie, disco, funk and soul. Born and raised in Berlin, and currently a touring musician for many an act, Manfred's musical map joins the dots from piano lessons at four, to starting a band with his teenage friends, leading him to his true calling - the bass - via the club vibrations of his hometown, which introduced him to the world of DJing and production, and a stint studying in the explosive London jazz scene to finalise his Jedi training.

Bonding over their mutual love of '90s hip hop, a friendship and musical kinship developed, coupled with a desire to honour past eras but push things forward, Above The Clouds was born; named after their joint favourite DJ Premier beat, with a touch of irony regarding their basement based studio of a windowless variety.

kidkanevil explains "We did a number of covers to sort of get warmed up and in the pocket, of which 'Arrow Root' was one. I actually interviewed DOOM once, mask and all, and I always regretted I forgot to ask him about the original sample. It's been one of my favourite DOOM beats forever and it came up in conversation one day, then manifested pretty quickly into a session. It came together with relative ease and quickness, which is usually a good sign. Manfred worked out the chords and I remade the drums in about the same time frame. Mario is an exceptional saxophone player based in Berlin, so a few text messages later she came by the studio and nailed the entire thing on her first take. And that was that, our humble tribute to the supervillain!"

This one is backed up on the flip side with 'Tram Delay Beat'; a low slung neck-snapper teasing more of what's to come.

This is the first single from the duo, with a long player now in the works…

Above the crowds, above the clouds, where the sounds are original, infinite skills create miracles…

Releasing four of the biggest dance tracks of 2018 and crowned as the #2 Beatport Artist Of All Time, Dresden born disco-house producer Purple Disco Machine has quickly become one of the most prolific and sought after producers in the industry.

Following on from hit Club Sweat singles ‘Dished (Male Stripper)’, Body Funk and Emotion, Purple Disco Machine returns with ‘In My Arms’.

Der für den BRIT und den Ivor Novello Award nominierte Singer-Songwriter Tom Grennan wird sein mit Spannung erwartetes drittes Album "What Ifs & Maybes" am 16. Juni 2023 veröffentlichen. "What Ifs & Maybes" zeigt Tom Grennan auf dem Höhepunkt seiner Kreativität. Es ist zweifellos das größte, mutigste und beste Album seiner erfolgreichen Karriere. Vor kurzem beendete Tom seine erste Headliner-Tour mit einem außergewöhnlichen Konzert in der Londoner O2-Arena, bei dem er über 180.000 Zuschauer in ganz Großbritannien
und Europa hatte.

"Receive” is the fully improvised fourth album from I Am An Instrument. It follows up on a series of 3 elegant and melodic recordings by a finely tuned and talented group of musicians at the height of their powers.

For I Am An Instrument ( IAAI) the focus is always on the music and this fourth album is no exception. This session was performed and recorded live to an enchanted and attentive crowd at “All-Dayer” Copenhagen, taking place halfway through a free 12 hour Sunday session of dancing and listening in an audiophile environment.

While picking up on tempo, compared to previous recordings, this record also reveals the polyrhythmic dance dynamic central to the improvised style these fresh players have developed amongst themselves. ‘ Receive’ is an elegant and powerful celebration of music and melody evolving in the seconds as they pass.

Extremely Limited Black Screen-Printed Jacket / Glow in the Dark Ink / Red Insert Printed Sleeve 7Inch Black Vinyl
Hidden Revealed is one of Joaquin Joe Claussell Aliases which features a more Experimental Cosmic Jazz Side of Joaquin garnering just as many music supporters as his other aliases.

Sold out on our Bandcamp in only a few days; we are now offering copies of this highly sought-after record to our distribution partners. This is an Extremely Limited Specially Packaged 7" Black Screen-Printed Jacket using Glow in the Dark Ink. The record itself is housed in a special Red Insert Sleeve which is also printed. Musically Speaking this concept showcases the cosmic Jazz side of Joaquin Joe Claussell. All human musicians, no computers. Joaquin has been featuring these compositions in his DJ sets for quite some time now garnering inspiring crowd response.

Folk isn"t exactly a genre and it isn"t always an aesthetic, it"s the lore that"s curled around the roots of myths, ballads and anecdotes, burying itself just inches beneath the surface of contemporary culture. On their debut album, Canzonieri brush away some of the dust from Western civilization, excavating forgotten sonorities, philosophies and motifs to figure out what impact this knowledge might have on a chaotic, apocryphal modern reality. Processing familiar acoustic instruments and utilizing an arsenal of idiosyncratic self-built devices, acclaimed artist Emiliano Maggi and musical artist Cosimo Damiano - both members of Italian surrealist quartet Salò - survey the uneven, challenging landscape that surrounds them, calling attention to the conflicts and illusions that underpin art in all its forms. They take a widescreen view of centuries of musical evolution, juxtaposing simplicity and complexity, past and present, city life and the pull of nature to distill the essence of folk - emotional histories that are whispered from person to person.

VERY LIMITED 2025 REPRESS ON BEAM OF LIGHT VINYL .

Everything changed for The Beths when they released their debut album, Future Me Hates Me, in 2018. The indie rock band had long been nurtured within Auckland, New Zealand’s tight-knit music scene, working full-time during the day and playing music with friends after hours. Full of uptempo pop rock songs with bright, indelible hooks, the LP garnered them critical acclaim from outlets like Pitchfork and Rolling Stone, and they set out for their first string of shows overseas. They quit their jobs, said goodbye to their home town, and devoted themselves entirely to performing across North America and Europe. They found themselves playing to crowds of devoted fans and opening for acts like Pixies and Death Cab for Cutie. Almost instantly, The Beths turned from a passion project into a full-time career in music.

Songwriter and lead vocalist Elizabeth Stokes worked on what would become The Beths’ second LP, Jump Rope Gazers, in between these intense periods of touring. Like the group’s earlier music, the album tackles themes of anxiety and self-doubt with effervescent power pop choruses and rousing backup vocals, zeroing in on the communality and catharsis that can come from sharing stressful situations with some of your best friends. Stokes’s writing on Jump Rope Gazers grapples with the uneasy proposition of leaving everything and everyone you know behind on another continent, chasing your dreams while struggling to stay close with loved ones back home.

"If you're at a certain age, all your friends scatter to the four winds,” Stokes says. “We did the same thing. When you're home, you miss everybody, and when you're away, you miss everybody. We were just missing people all the time.”

With songs like the rambunctious “Dying To Believe” and the tender, shoegazey “Out of Sight,” The Beths reckon with the distance that life necessarily drives between people over time. People who love each other inevitably fail each other. “I’m sorry for the way that I can’t hold conversations/They’re such a fragile thing to try to support the weight of,” Stokes sings on “Dying to Believe.” The best way to repair that failure, in The Beths’ view, is with abundant and unconditional love, no matter how far it has to travel. On “Out of Sight,” she pledges devotion to a dearly missed friend: “If your world collapses/I’ll be down in the rubble/I’d build you another,” she sings.

“It was a rough year in general, and I found myself saying the words, 'wish you were here, wish I was there,’ over and over again,” she says of the time period in which the album was written. Touring far from home, The Beths committed themselves to taking care of each other as they were trying at the same time to take care of friends living thousands of miles away. They encouraged each other to communicate whenever things got hard, and to pay forward acts of kindness whenever they could. That care and attention shines through on Jump Rope Gazers, where the quartet sounds more locked in than ever. Their most emotive and heartfelt work to date, Jump Rope Gazers stares down all the hard parts of living in communion with other people, even at a distance, while celebrating the ferocious joy that makes it all worth it -- a sentiment we need now more than ever.

The Southern Fold wurde 2014 in Kilkenny, Irland, von Sänger/Gitarrist/Songwriter Emlyn Holden gegründet. Die Band integriert Elemente aus Country, Blues und Gospel in einen Folk-/Roots-Sound und findet Einflüsse von so weit her wie Hank Williams, Nirvana und alles dazwischen. Holden griff mit zehn Jahren zum ersten Mal zur Gitarre, als er Elvis Presley hörte, und war in seinen frühen Teenagerjahren völlig in die alten Sun-Aufnahmen vertieft. Über die Roots-Rocker Creedence Clearwater Revival und den Punkrock schuf er sich eine vielseitige Inspirationsquelle. Die Entdeckung der Alt-Country-Pioniere Uncle Tupelo und Wilco brachte Country zurück in sein Songwriting und führte ihn auf den Weg zu The Southern Fold. Ursprünglich als Duo im Stil von Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris gestartet, enthielt die erste EP der Band - "A True Ascension from the Wayward Path" aus dem Jahr 2016 - fünf eigene Songs sowie ein Cover von "Where Did You Sleep Last Night". Es war eine reduzierte Folk-Country-Nummer, gepaart mit sehr persönlichen Texten und zusätzlicher Instrumentierung durch Klavier, Cello und E-Gitarre. Es folgten einige Jahre intensiver Konzerttätigkeit, und bis zum Erscheinen des Albums "Bible Fear"s" im Jahr 2019 hatte sich die Band zu einer vollständigen fünfköpfigen Band entwickelt, die einen eher Folk-Rock-orientierten Sound hervorbrachte. In dieser Post-Covid-Zeit erlebten wir den Aufstieg der Southern Fold aus der Asche mit einigen neuen Singles ("Nothing to Fear" und "Before the Fall"), die 2024 im Eigenverlag veröffentlicht wurden. Zu Holden in einer neuen Live-Besetzung gesellen sich der ehemalige Blackbird & Crow-Gitarrist Stephen Doohan, die aus Mauritius stammende Madeline Leclezio am Gesang, der kanadische Schlagzeuger Gregor Beresford und der ehemalige Midnight Union Band-Bassist Brian McGrath. Diese Kernbesetzung spielte einige äußerst gut aufgenommene Konzerte bei den Kilkenny Roots 2024, im Whelan"s, Dublin mit den Frank and Walters und bei der britischen Ramblin" Roots Revue im April 2025.

Over the past near-decade, Lancashire's medieval metal phenomenon WYTCH HAZEL have been honing an uncommonly wholesome, rustic and devotional brand of timewarped hard rock that's all their own, with 2016's Prelude and 2018's II: Sojourn summoning to mind fevered images of Robin Hood and his Merry Men grooving to Jethro Tull and Thin Lizzy. Yet within moments of pressing play on their third LP, III: Pentecost, the musty mystical minstrelsy takes a back seat in favour of a rich, sumptuous, anthemic late-night drivetime vibe, passionately embracing the most high-end smash-hit classic rock and metal circa its late 1970s heyday. "I thought I put a lot into the second album, but this album has been an absolute obsession," stresses the band leader, Colin Hendra. "Every aspect had to be as good as possible. We've gone back and forth, Ed was tinkering with it for months on end. There's quadruple tracking going on with the rhythm parts, then we've doubled, tripled and quadrupled all our lead parts to get that richness and fullness of sound, all meticulously planned with pages and pages of organisational notes. It wasn't just `get in the studio and see how it goes!'" he laughs. "One day I did 14 hours of vocal recording. All vocals are double-tracked, I can't express how much hard work that is. The last album feels like a breeze compared to what we've done with this - and I don't plan on ramping it down!" Musically there are gorgeous self-professed touches of Black Sabbath, Blue Öyster Cult, AC/DC and early Scorpions_"With the soloing I was trying to go for Michael Schenker" beams Colin_while the scampering headbanger I Will Not initially took a nod from Angel Witch, who Hendra was helping out on second guitar back in 2015 when the track was composed, before studio treatment made it sound "a lot more Wytch Hazelly". But perhaps the most lateral comparison is to a band from the opposite spiritual realm, with Archangel an explicit homage to Swedish faux-Satanic devil cult Ghost. "I find them fascinating, Ghost; musically great, the songwriting is spot-on," enthuses the frontman. "We share an intrinsic connection, with Bad Omen honcho Will Palmer being the person who discovered us both. "Music is created for all, it's a common grace for everyone," he affirms, "which is why the music that shows the glory of God the most, in my opinion, is not music created by Christians. It's Black Sabbath!"

Debut single from forthcoming full length out in May 2019. The first time we heard Bobby Oroza, it was his slow moody ballad 'This Love', that perked the world's ears and made a name for the dapper crooner that calls Finland his home. Since it's release, 'This Love' has become somewhat of an underground hit, the soundtrack to car shows and swap meets in the West Coast, numerous movies and TV shows, and it even made it to Earl Sweatshirt's most recent mixtape. This new single from Bobby Oroza picks up the tempo and showcases another side of his range with a record sure to move bodies and nod heads. The A side 'Your Love Is Too Cold' is a stomper that blends the groovy soul drumming of early Motown records with guitar that could have been lifted from a James Bond

soundtrack. Bobby pleads over the track of his decision to call it quits and keep it quits. The B side 'Deja Vu' finds Oroza leaning again into the B side ballad stylings that made him a name to check for. Heavy duty drums lay down the canvas on which Bobby's vocals paint the picture of a relationship that has come to a fork in the road. The Cold Diamond & Mink production and backing band are tight as ever and this is sure to be another classic with the slowie fans.

Corbin (FKA Spooky Black) makes captivating, honest, and raw music that harkens back to the days when the singer-songwriter’s artistic vision prioritized vulnerability over image. The St. Paul, Minnesota native came to prominence during the rise of the SoundCloud gold rush, helping to influence the new generation of Gen Z songwriters. Songs such as the haunting portrait of addiction “Diazepam”, and his battle with insecurity and instability in relationships “ICE BOY”, showed off his ability to connect with the plight of modern adolescence. But it was the internet-breaking, classic ballad of yearning “Without You”, that inspired a generation of disaffected and abandoned adolescents, serving as a soundtrack to make the alienated feel a little less alone. He’s attracted some of the biggest names in music, featuring on songs with Chief Keef, Trippie Redd, and The Kid Laroi, among others. With his latest record, Crisis Kid, Corbin dials back the angst in favor of an intimate vocal style that sounds like he’s reading his diary from a candlelit cabin. A more polished and refined version of Corbin resurfaces as he contemplates collective suffering, generational trauma, and the quest to find hope during the bleakest timeline, offering a voice for the voiceless.

Re-Release auf transparent gelbem Vinyl