Buscar:d minds

By the late 1980's Ton Lebbink was a well respected figure in Amsterdam's alternative scene: he was the drummer for the Amsterdam post punk group Mecano, a true punk poet and worked as a bouncer at Amsterdam's main music venue Paradiso. He released two solo albums, both in his unique narcotic style: laying absurd Dutch wordplay over stripped down frigid instrumentals. As the decade came to an end, Ton - already well in his forties - moved away from the often destructive and dangerous nightlife. After a series of odd jobs Ton started as a fitness instructor at an Amsterdam gym called Splash. Meanwhile, the 90's brought the latest musical craze to Amsterdam: House music began to flourish through clubs like RoXy, iT and Mazzo. With House being the ideal score for his fitness classes, the once well known cult figure faded into anonymity at a 120 beats per minute. His musical endeavours were focusing more on finding the right beats for aerobics exercises with self-devised exercise - eventually leading Ton to bootleg some of them on cassette tapes himself. In parallel to this radical shift, Ton did not stop making music. On the contrary, piles of demos showed high activity but in a direction no one was looking. Inspired by music to move to, Ton recorded hours of music that activated the body while staying true to his playful mindset. Discarding his voice as an instrument, the Roland W-30 sampler became his tool to communicate. Gathering vocal snippets from close friends, barflies and pets, a repertoire developed where witty repetitiveness could exist. Going through a vast collection of demos, pictures and many anecdotes, Rubber has been able to create an EP that gives insight into Ton's overlooked 90's era. Three playful dance tracks by Ton Lebbink taking his complete own take on the Amsterdam House revolution of the 90's. Full of inventiveness: hip-shaking grooves, hypnotic beats and rousing vocals. Tracks to move to and tracks to groove to. Essential dancefloor workout tunes for you and me. Ah yeah!

'Following on from her critically acclaimed debut “SAWAYAMA”, Rina Sawayama’s highly anticipated new record “Hold The Girl” sees Rina once again juxtapose intimate storytelling with arena-sized songs, creating another ambitious and original album to excite fans and critics alike.

Written and recorded over the last year and a half, Rina once again teamed up with longterm collaborators Clarence Clarity and Lauren Aquilina as well as enlisting help from the likes of the legendary Paul Epworth (Adele, Florence & the Machine), Stuart Price (Dua Lipa, The Killers, Madonna) and Marcus Andersson (Demi Lovato, Ashnikko) for their magic touch.

The product of Rina and these collective minds coming together is an album which melds influences from across the pop spectrum and is a bold and honest statement of Rina’s personal evolution; coming to terms with her own past and the jubilation of turning to the future.

The first album of Web Web is very uncut, raw, live and direct. Oracle is the first output of a German Supergroup. Check the musician credits below and you'll get the score. The initial idea was to record a spiritual-jazz type of album, with all its imperfection as far as intonation, sound, influences of tunes... just like from their big jazz-heroes in the 70ies (e.g. Strata East, Black Jazz).

Web Web's idea was to record a jazz jam session while to found and proclaim being a fictive band, a formation, which did not exist, while telling people, it would be a secret jam session recording of the Seventies. The prompt problem they were facing: Oh, we never would be able to play concerts, doing interviews, or placing photos on sleeves or post likeness images online. So they decided to reveal their real identities:

Web Web are: Roberto Di Gioia (Piano, Synth, Percussion), Tony Lakatos (Tenor- and Sopranosaxophone), Christian von Kaphengst (Upright Bass) and Peter Gall (Drums).

Roberto Di Gioia (Mastermind of Web Web): - The four of us set up very close in a big room, so we could hear and feel each other the best way. The music became more intensive, improvisations became more dynamic and it was impulsive .

The album Oracle' was recorded on one day, only first takes were used!

We want to keep the burning spirit and the loose vibe we had during the recording session. And we play concerts the wild and free way we recorded this album. Web Web will be on tour 2018, but playing a few concerts in 2017.
Furthermore, one main decision to blab their real identities was: The second Web Web album is recorded in June (with guests like the famous and unique Gembri-player and multiinstrumentalist and singer Majid Bekkas from Morocco).
Both albums were engineered, recorded and mixed by Jan Krause (Beanfield, Poets Of Rhythm).

Roberto Di Gioia: - Tony was tuning his Soprano too high, and his (overdubbed) tenor way too flat!
My synthesizers were somewhere in between...HA! We exactly had the sound we had in our minds, we had it exactly there were we wanted it: a bit of Sun Ra here, a bit of Horace Tapscott there. On some tunes Tony's soprano just sounds like a trumpet, since due to his weird tuning the soprano develops different frequencies in relation to other instruments.

Oracle' is the first live jazz release on Compost. Produced by Roberto Di Gioia and Michael Reinboth.

Roberto Di Gioia has been working with numerous jazz-legends, such as Woody Shaw, Art Farmer, James Moody, Johnny Griffin, Charlie Rouse, Clifford Jordan, Clark Terry, Roy Ayers, Gregory Porter and many more.

From 1990 to 2008: member Klaus Doldingers Passport. As a pianist he made recordings with Udo Lindenberg (MTV-Unplugged, 2011), Charlie Watts ( Music Of The Rolling Stones , 2005), Console ( Reset The Preset , 2003), The Notwist ( Shrink 1998, Neon Golden , 2002). Since 2007 he is working together with Samon Kawamura and Max Herre as KAHEDI: Max Herre ( Hallo Welt , 2012), Joy Denalane ( Gleisdreieck , 2017), u.v.m...His own group MARSMOBIL (produced by Peter Kruder) will release his fourth studioalbum in winter 2017.

Tony Lakatos originates from the world famous Lakatos-familiy from Budapest, Hungary. His father was a famous violinist, as well as his younger brother Roby. He started playing saxophone when he was 15 years old. Tony studied at the Bela-Bartok-Conservatory in Budapest, and made his degree in 1979. Since then he played on over 350 jazz albums (!!), to name a few: Al Foster, Kirk Lightsey, Randy Brecker, George Mraz, David Witham, Terri Lyne Carrington, Anthony Jackson. Tony was a member of Jasper Van´t Hofs PILI PILI. Since 1993 he is working with the HR Radio-Bigband as a soloist.

Christian von Kaphengst learned the piano at the Peter-Cornelius-Conservatory in Mainz when he was 6 years old. From 1988 to 1995 he studied upright-bass at the - Musikhochschule in Cologne. He was touring with his own Jazzquartett - Cafe du Sport to Pakistan, India, Turkey and West-Africa. Since 1999 he regularly plays with Patti Austin and The New York Voices in Europe. Von Kaphengst played with the greatest musicians, such as Randy Brecker, Nat Adderley, Roy Hargrove, Joe Sample, Charlie Mariano, Katja Ebstein, Xavier Naidoo, Roachford, Yvonne Catterfeld.

Peter Gall won some important German awards already when he was a youngster, like - Jugend Jazzt . He was touring with the famous - Bundesjazzorchester conducted by German jazz legend Peter Herbholzheimer. He studied at the Berlin University Of Fine Arts and at the Jazz Institute Berlin with John Hollenbeck. Gall made a masterclass at the Manhattan School Of Music with John Riley. He has been working with Seamus Blake, Ben Street, Gabriel Rios, Jasmin Tabatabai, Thomas Quasthoff, Peter Fessler.

“We’ve been reflecting on the relationship between our innerworlds and outerworlds,” says Soccer96’s Danalogue. “How our minds shape our experience and our experience shapes our mind. How caring and nurturing our innerworlds can improve our relationship with our outer experiences. We see the creation of music as the bridge between these two worlds.”

Betamax, who makes up the duo along with fellow Comet is Coming member Danalogue, describes their latest album as “spiritual combat music to steady us through the stormy changes of the outer world.”

For this album the pair co-wrote with The Colours That Rise, Tom Herbert, Salami Rose Joe Louis, Simbad and Rozi Plain.

From the exhilarating electronic charge and propulsive rhythm of ‘Crystal Pyramid’ to the almost cosmic drum n bass of ‘Speak More of Love’ feat The Colours That Rise, the album takes in a vast array of sounds and styles, from jazz to electronica, while never really sitting comfortably within easy genre categorisation. “We are searching for particular spontaneous energies that feel fresh and resonant,” Betamax says. “The hope is that when we reach this experience the music can penetrate the mind and affect the deepest mental processes.”

Tony Wright, Frontmann von Terrorvision und Laika Dog, schafft es auf seinem dritten Soloalbum, bedeutungsvolle, melancholische und zu Herzen gehende Texte mit unvergesslicher akustischer Perfektion zu verbinden. 'The Anti Album' ist sein bisher ambitioniertestes Werk, auf dem er seine Identität als Singer/Songwriter gefunden hat. Die Songs fühlen sich an wie eine tiefgründige, aufeinander aufbauende Reflexion seines bunten Lebens in als auch außerhalb der Musik.

Tony Wright, Frontmann von Terrorvision und Laika Dog, schafft es auf seinem dritten Soloalbum, bedeutungsvolle, melancholische und zu Herzen gehende Texte mit unvergesslicher akustischer Perfektion zu verbinden. 'The Anti Album' ist sein bisher ambitioniertestes Werk, auf dem er seine Identität als Singer/Songwriter gefunden hat. Die Songs fühlen sich an wie eine tiefgründige, aufeinander aufbauende Reflexion seines bunten Lebens in als auch außerhalb der Musik.

New single by Pittsburgh, PA-based band The Commonheart. "They pay soulful tribute to the soul gods without disrespecting their exhumed remains." - No Depression Live and in the studio, the Pittsburgh-based collective is offering feel-good positivity, Golden Rule messaging, and sweat-soaked performances that nimbly ease through blues, vintage soul, and rock. The band is bonded by familial-like ties and a desire to foster spiritual uplift. Among its ranks are female backup singers, drums, bass, guitar, a horn section, and keyboards. Out front is Clinton, a lightning bolt charismatic frontman with dynamically expressive pipes that effortlessly traverse bluesy pleading, and honeyed balladeering. "Hustler" is an anthem for perseverance. Told thru the eyes of a street hustler's mindset; this song offers their interpretation of what it takes to make a living in this world thru the hardest times. The narrative runs parallel for anyone that's finding their way thru life with grit, fearlessness & drive. The new album, produced by Steve Berlin, saxophonist, keyboardist, and record producer, best known as a member of the rock group Los Lobos, entitled 'For Work or Love' will be released on September 16th, 2022.

Calibre - "I first came across Adam's work via a remix I did of 'She Rocks, I Roll' back in 2019, the vibe was melancholic and leaned toward my own bluesy take on things. When 'Dissolve In The Rain' hit my inbox, I instantly connected with the guitar and vocal, in particular the lyrics, and felt it could be merged with a piano idea that I had. Merging these worlds created an arrangement for two sections; a lyrical passage that leads to harmonised vocals, and then an improvised and layered section, accentuated by Adam's lyric and guitar. It was a real pleasure to watch it almost make itself. The worlds combined lead to something nostalgic but new, it's a wonderful meeting of musical minds."

Chelou - "From a weird set of demos that I sent him around four years ago, Calibre picked the most obscure, and that's when I knew he got it! The idea that an artist like him heard something in my acoustic music that sparked him to transform it into a track like this, has blown me away. The piano and harrowing pace is something that I would have never created, it's fucking gold."

Double LP documenting a realtime collaboration between Terrence Dixon (Metroplex/Tresor/Rush Hour) and Jordan GCZ (Off Minor/Minimal Detroit/Rush Hour). Finally the full results of these special sessions see the light of day (a ltd edition 12" of exclusive tracks owas released in 2020).
BIG TIP!

"In September 2019, Motor City techno legend Terrence Dixon made a rare trip to Europe. He was introduced to Jordan Czamanski AKA Jordan GCZ, a serial collaborator and electronic music improviser best known for his work as part of Juju & Jordash and, alongside David Moufang and Gal “Juju” Aner, as Magic Mountain High.

The pair hit it off immediately, so Czamanski powered up his studio and the pair began to jam. Over the following five days, the pair improvised extensively, stopping only periodically to drink coffee and discuss music, life and much more besides. While in the studio, they barely uttered a word to each other, instead responding almost psychically to the rhythms, grooves, riffs and musical motifs the other was spinning into the mix.

The results of these surprisingly magical 2019 studio sessions are showcased on Keep In Mind, I’m Out of My Mind, the pair’s first joint album and Dixon’s most significant musical collaboration since the Detroiter’s 2018 hook-up with German techno and ambient veteran Thomas Fehlmann.

In keeping with the project’s improvised roots, the six-track set is notable for its immediacy, pleasing looseness – it was mostly created using outboard equipment including synthesizers, drum machines and effects units – and sonic fluidity. It offers a neat, symmetrical blend of the two producers’ trademark styles, with Czamanski’s attractive chords, melodies and jazz-flecked motifs rising above hypnotic, cymbal-heavy rhythms that have long been the hallmark of Detroit’s sci-fi-fuelled techno sound.

This unique and appealing, dancefloor-focused sound ripples through album opener ‘Fretless’, an ultra-deep chunk of heady liquid techno, and the breathless bustle of ‘Operation Delete’, where bubbly synthesizer motifs, cascading ambient electronics and urgent bass cluster around a killer broken techno groove.

It’s there, too, throughout the surging, deliciously percussive ‘Space Chime’, an alien-sounding concoction that sounds like it was beamed down from some distant galaxy, the warming-but-intoxicating minor key swirl of ‘Axis Mundi’ – a two-part slab of techno psychedelia full of trippy electronics, dystopian jazz riffs and intergalactic intent – and the pitched-down, mind-altering oddness of closing cut ‘Above Ground’, when the pair goes all-out in pursuit of leftfield techno perfection.

Created from scratch in a few days by two of electronic music’s most accomplished improvisers, Keep In Mind, I’m Out of My Mind is an exemplary meeting of musical minds and sonic sensibilities."

Matt Annis

Comes with insert with photographs by Atelier Fantasma (Jop Verberne).

One of the UK’s most consistently inventive production minds of recent times, Lil Silva has perhaps one of the most varied resumes in the world. Causing a seismic effect on the world of club music with smashes such as ‘Seasons’ and releases with the likes of Night Slugs, production credits for a diverse range of artists such as Adele, BANKS, Mark Ronson and serpentwithfeet, and a collaborative project with George FitzGerald as OTHERLiiNE even before factoring stellar solo releases under the Lil Silva moniker using his own vocal, he has continuously combined a broad range of influences to create a transformative, varied discography. After the release of ‘Backwards’ last month alongside Sampha, today Lil Silva announces his long awaited debut album, Yesterday Is Heavy.

Over 10 years in the making, ‘Yesterday Is Heavy’ is a cumulative product of an already remarkable career filled with highlights. An album about stepping out: outside of a comfort zone, and, for Lil Silva, outside of himself. It’s a debut album of heft and heart, but most of all hope – and trusting the process. Buoyed on by the encouragement of long-time collaborators like Jamie Woon and Sampha early in his career (they both implored him to commit his own voice to record), and bolstered by incomparable session experience working with Mark Ronson, Adele and more, the Lil Silva story that started aged 10 in Bedford is beginning full circle. Created primarily in the town he grew up in (and continues to live now), the pervading solace of home courses through the project, while providing the thrilling moments of sleight of hand that Silva has always been capable of.

As he so often does, Lil Silva shares the spotlight with an astonishing international cast of guests. He fuses well-versed modern legends in the shape of Sampha, Ghetts, and Little Dragon with rising stars serpentwithfeet, Charlotte Day Wilson and Skiifall to thrilling effect, the whole time never allowing his deftly dynamic yet considered touch to be outshone throughout. The album has also been created with musical direction from Louis Vuitton musical director and BBC Radio 1 tastemaker Benji B, as well as creative direction from award winning visual artist BAFIC. It’s with the opening track ‘Another Sketch’ however, where his singular talent introduces itself.

With a visual directed by UKMVA Award winner Fenn O’Meally, ‘Another Sketch’ is a prime example of the vast array of talents that Lil Silva possesses. A video that transcends generations of Black Britons (featuring Lil Silva’s own family as well as Sampha), ‘Another Sketch’ focuses on the subject of time. Looking at generations of black britons as monuments, the visual centres on the idea that despite time being able to wear down your appearance, what’s inside of you can never depreciate. The main centrepiece of this is heritage, with archive and newly recorded footage showing Silva’s family and friends enjoying the same activities they did generations ago, spliced with footage and voice notes from one of the lands of his dual heritage, Jamaica. The track itself focuses on a central theme of actions, their consequences and changing our inevitable future, with Lil Silva’s stunning falsetto shining alongside background vocals from serpentwithfeet and an instrumental that initially opens minimalistically before gradually unfurling to unveil elements of his electronic beginnings; a thumping hip hop infused beat and swelling melodic embellishments.

With ‘Yesterday Is Heavy’, Lil Silva reaps the rewards of over a decade of influence to create the debut album he’s always imagined. Simultaneously riding the line between pertinent storytelling and virtuosic production, ‘Yesterday Is Heavy’ charts the story of one of UK music’s unsung heroes taking his time to build something that is truly timeless. Yesterday Is Heavy, but tomorrow is forever.

After the release of "Acoustic Adventures - Volume One", most of the second chapter consists of faster tracks like 'Black Sheep', the all-time live classic 'FullMoon' and 'Flag In The Ground'. But SONATA ARCTICA wouldn't be SONATA ARCTICA if they played it safe: 'San Sebastian' or the closing track 'Victoria's Secret' manage to spread a completely new, refreshing feeling to the listener; a feeling that is best experienced in front of a stage, of course!
To complete this particular saga and finally celebrate the kick-off of their next, repeatedly postponed 'Acoustic Adventures' tour to uplift the Corona-shaken Finnish and European mainland minds. But first: come into the living room, sit back and follow SONATA ARCTICA on their stripped-down but no less exciting journey into the world of acoustic music...!

For the next instalment in our split series, we handed the reins over to two producers whose work has kept us continually inspired over the last few years. At the helm of the A-side, Berlin big-room havoc-wreaker AMOTIK puts on the burners right away with two riotous jams that scream nothing but sonic aggression. On the flip, the mysterious, genre-unbound Janice sweeps us into his psychedelic, non-formulaic techno mindset. True to AMOTIK's minutely balanced, well-integrated blends of punishing kick drums and sunken harmonics, metronomic destroyer "Narangi" swings the pendulum sharp and clean, from deep down a thick sludge of reverb-soaked, FX-topped percussive armada to bleeps n' bloops barrage fire, whereas quake-inducing tides of 909 thunder hail down upon the dance floor with unrelenting frenzy. The dusty bone-bruiser "Hara" picks up the torch and it's in no calmer mood. A slowed-down, breaks-loaded churner, this one relies on a fine engineering of lo-freq moves and pure hardware-processed filth to establish a murky motel, cinematic narrative of sorts. Up with the fracturing wares, here's Janice rocking the flip upside down with the aptly-titled "Mass Formation Hypnosis". Doing what's written on the tin, the faceless producer rushes us headfirst into the boiler for a thorough, unfaltering brainwash. Smelling of leather, grease and coal, this one's bristling with a delectably rugged palette of unambiguous electronics: an ultimate shelling of chest-rattling drum work, in-your-face bass uppercuts, trumpeting stabs and menacingly altered vox. The final salvo, "Names and Excuses", tops it all off on an ominously droney tip, flinging us right away into the frothing mouth of a deadly machine giant, hurtling and tumbling down mazy bowels of washed-out ambient techno via rhyzomatic gutters of brooding abstract motifs and no-frills heavyweight pound. Hectic. ''XVII'' comes adorned with a duly outstanding frame to shine, and will be pressed on 180g audiophile quality vinyl. Once again a way for RYC to openly declare its aspirations and goals, in letting people know that quality, passion and love for the music is all that matters.

Unstoppable Ukrainian metalcore unit SPACE OF VARIATIONS ascend to the next level of mind-bending modern metal on their upcoming, in-your-face full-length, IMAGO, out March 18, 2022. Following their 2019 Napalm Records debut, the XXXXX EP, the unbridled outfit breaks new ground and transcends all expectations with their exciting and undeniably fresh second studio album. IMAGO’s multifaceted, cathartic delivery seamlessly mixes gut-punching hardcore riffs and catastrophic breakdowns with colorful electronics, brutalizing vocals and, at times, trance-like synth – exploring elements of djent, hip-hop and even hyperpop influence along the way. The album’s addictively erratic, emotive atmosphere echoes their spontaneous live performance; having previously toured with modern metal giants JINJER, the four-piece relentlessly smashed European stages while captivating each listener with futuristic stylings reverberating the likes of Bring Me The Horizon, Architects, Norma Jean and LANDMVRKS. Furiously crashing opener “SOMEONE ELSE” sets free the uncompromising spirit of SPACE OF VARIATIONS – instantly breaking down genres and placing a forceful exclamation mark at the start with smashing instrumentation and a feverish vocal and lyrical assault by Dmytro Kozhukhar and Olexii Zatserkovnyi. Devastatingly heavy “1M followers” takes no prisoners from the first second and features a hefty appearance from former Asking Alexandria vocalist Denis Stoff, resulting in a fearless, addictive metalcore banger. Tracks like eponymous “IMAGO” and intense mid-tempo “Serial Killer” emphasize the multifaceted nature of SPACE OF VARIATIONS with sporadically scaled-back instrumentation and emotion turned to 10. On the contrary, previously released penultimate post-hardcore dystopia “Ultrabeat” delivers bone-crushing beats and is by far no stranger to the band’s devotees. Closing with an insane verse from Ukrainian rap sensation ALYONA ALYONA, the track undeniably marks a milestone in the unit’s soon-to-be revered history while representing the seething desire to expand all limits of songwriting and creativity. This mindset embodies SPACE OF VARIATIONS and their sonically boggling ode to the future, IMAGO. 1. SINGLE - EN Unstoppable Ukrainian metalcore unit SPACE OF VARIATIONS steps up its game with hard-hitting opener “SOMEONE ELSE” from the upcoming full-length album IMAGO. Previously touring with modern metal giants JINJER, the five-piece already smashed numerous stages across Europe. “SOMEONE ELSE” promises aggressive screams, charging transitions and deadly synth parts straight to your face. Stay tuned for this futuristic metal monster called SPACE OF VARIATIONS! 2. SINGLE - EN Unstoppable Ukrainian metalcore unit SPACE OF VARIATIONS drifts off into distant universes with their second single “vein.mp3” from the upcoming full-length IMAGO. Previously touring with modern metal giants JINJER, the five-piece already smashed numerous stages across Europe. Like a bestial alien, "vein.mp3" goes wild with its shattering drums, thudding bass, heavily distorted guitars and evil screams. Beware of this musical demon called SPACE OF VARIATIONS! 3. SINGLE - EN Unstoppable Ukrainian metalcore unit SPACE OF VARIATIONS reveals its album title track “IMAGO” from the upcoming full-length IMAGO. Previously touring with modern metal giants JINJER, the five-piece already smashed numerous stages across Europe. With melodic, yet distorted and heavy riffing, booming drums and deep growls, "IMAGO" proves itself as SPACE OF VARIATIONS’ anthem! 

Universally credited as the band that invented grindcore, it's no
exaggeration to say that Napalm Death are one of the most important
acts in metal history
Earache Records' third ever release (MOSH003), classic debut album 'Scum' had
an immediate, seismic impact in 1987 and its influence can still be felt far and
wide today. To celebrate its 35th anniversary, this essential album is repressed
with a limited-edition Blue colour sleeve. An absolute 'must have' for any heavy
metal collector. Pressed from the original master tapes, the album has been
specially recreated using 'fdr' – full dynamic range mastering - allowing the
music's nuances to shine through and giving the classic album a more ferocious
and dynamic sound, enabling the listener to immerse in the full audio heaviness
like never before.
LP Tracks: Multinational Corporations / Instinct of Survival / The Kill / Scum /
Caught in a Dream / Polluted Minds / Sacrificed / Siege of Power / Control / Born
On Your Knees / Human Garbage / You Suffer / Life? / Prison Without Walls /
Point of No Return / Negative Approach / Success? / Deceiver / C.S. / Parasites /
Pseudo Youth / Divine Death / As the Machine Rolls On / Common Enemy / Moral
Crusade / Stigmatized / M.A.D / Dragnet

Universally credited as the band that invented grindcore, it's no
exaggeration to say that Napalm Death are one of the most important
acts in metal history
Earache Records' third ever release (MOSH003), classic debut album 'Scum' had
an immediate, seismic impact in 1987 and its influence can still be felt far and
wide today. To celebrate its 35th anniversary, this essential album is repressed
with a limited-edition Blue colour sleeve. An absolute 'must have' for any heavy
metal collector. Pressed from the original master tapes, the album has been
specially recreated using 'fdr' – full dynamic range mastering - allowing the
music's nuances to shine through and giving the classic album a more ferocious
and dynamic sound, enabling the listener to immerse in the full audio heaviness
like never before.
LP Tracks: Multinational Corporations / Instinct of Survival / The Kill / Scum /
Caught in a Dream / Polluted Minds / Sacrificed / Siege of Power / Control / Born
On Your Knees / Human Garbage / You Suffer / Life? / Prison Without Walls /
Point of No Return / Negative Approach / Success? / Deceiver / C.S. / Parasites /
Pseudo Youth / Divine Death / As the Machine Rolls On / Common Enemy / Moral
Crusade / Stigmatized / M.A.D / Dragnet

Universally credited as the band that invented grindcore, it's no
exaggeration to say that Napalm Death are one of the most important
acts in metal history
Earache Records' third ever release (MOSH003), classic debut album 'Scum' had
an immediate, seismic impact in 1987 and its influence can still be felt far and
wide today. To celebrate its 35th anniversary, this essential album is repressed
with a limited-edition Blue colour sleeve. An absolute 'must have' for any heavy
metal collector. Pressed from the original master tapes, the album has been
specially recreated using 'fdr' – full dynamic range mastering - allowing the
music's nuances to shine through and giving the classic album a more ferocious
and dynamic sound, enabling the listener to immerse in the full audio heaviness
like never before.
LP Tracks: Multinational Corporations / Instinct of Survival / The Kill / Scum /
Caught in a Dream / Polluted Minds / Sacrificed / Siege of Power / Control / Born
On Your Knees / Human Garbage / You Suffer / Life? / Prison Without Walls /
Point of No Return / Negative Approach / Success? / Deceiver / C.S. / Parasites /
Pseudo Youth / Divine Death / As the Machine Rolls On / Common Enemy / Moral
Crusade / Stigmatized / M.A.D / Dragnet

The Italian magician comes back home with a stellar LP. This is his first album, but it’s a very mature piece, carefully crafted, where all his main influences and genres live in perfect harmony. Dub, house, breaks, acid, ambient, progressive… you name it. Instant classic.

Perpetual Doom is proud to present a special double-LP from Mountain Brews. Spearheaded by Jake Longstreth, Los Angeles-based painter and co-host of Apple Music’s Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig, Mountain Brews was founded around a vital American tradition: sippin’ cold ones to the “tasteful palette of seventies rock.” Full of warm melodies and guitars that evoke a Mojave glow, Mountain Brews occupy the sunny spot right between the studio-slick hits of early Eagles and the laidback jams of the Grateful Dead. And now that their four previous EPS are available in a single package, there’s nothing left to do but grab a seat, turn up the music, and crack one open.

Mountain Brews are pros at keeping things loose and light. Recorded by the same group of old pals that make up a LA based Grateful Dead cover band, Richard Pictures—including Longstreth, Aaron Olson, Ryan Adlaf, and John Nixon—these seventeen tracks celebrate the early seventies’ spirit of easy-going collaboration. You can hear it when a guitar slide greets the opening strum on the title track, an assuming ode to the pleasures of drinking and hiking: “As we get to the top of the mountain, there’s a view,” Longstreth sings. “Take a load off and crack a few mountain brews.” And while the song boasts virtuoso playing worthy of Desperado, the vibe is less barstool machismo than six-pack camaraderie.

It’s a self-aware R&R mindset that pulses through tracks like “You Eagled,” which ponders both a great golf score and the trials of becoming “classic,” and “It’s My Masterpiece,” with its tightly coiled licks and breezy nonchalance with regards to inevitable civilizational demise. Sure, the Brews know there’s a down for every up. “Raised in a Place” and “Big Bummer Hotel” acknowledge that even the chillest California cowboys get the middle-aged blues, resurrecting the heartland synthesizers of late eighties Don Henley and Bruce Hornsby to find a little meaning in the madness. And Ezra Koenig and Danielle Haim contribute vocals to help “The Worst Margarita of My Life” go down just a little easier.

These four EPs were recorded between 2019 and 2021 in various bedrooms and studios across California. “Uphill From Here” brings it all back around as guitarist Aaron “Bobby” Olson sings about meeting Jake on the trail once again: “And it’s all uphill from here,” he sings. “We may have to stop and down these beers.” But whether it’s uphill or down, Mountain Brews makes it clear—the journey is better with company.

First thought, best thought. Until the next thought: a guiding principle for No Age in the 16ish years they've been around. Constantly responding to their own streams of consciousness with reductive flexibility, they've taken the basic duo of guitar and drums with vocals WAY farther than anyone listening in halcyon Weirdo Rippers days could have guessed. Expounding on those larval possibilities, they've zig-zagged in serpentine precision, in and out of the teeth of the wringer - ranging outside and back in again, as befits the present thought. And now, six albums into it, these principles have led them to make People Helping People. Composed in their studio of ten years in the "pre pandemic" times, then an eviction from said space, and finished deep in the midst at their new basecamp: Randy's Garage. It starts with an instrumental, too. First counter-intuition, best counter intuition! Nearly five minutes prelude Dean's debut vocal interjection - a zoom in from the upper atmosphere, Randy's guitar clouds pulsing with radiation, paced by spare, percussive accents. When the first song with singing ("Compact Flashes") bounces in on an insane synthetic beat, the only recognizable sound of No Age is a sputtering of enchanted clicks and creaks - muted guitar strings and drumkit rattlings that cycle for a full minute before voice song and snare fall into place. This is the sound of People Helping People: No Age, deep in the lab, scraping available nuclii together to see what new compound they find next. Erasing the starting points, reordering the pieces and beginning anew. It's an everyday mindset - and as the first No Age album recorded entirely by No Agee, People Helping People is a broadcast of entirely lived-in proportions. Side one ricochets expertly back and forth between magisterial instrumentals and sing-song forms cut up on the mixing desk, as with the undeniable hitness of "Plastic (You Want It)", winningly rewired to MIDI-mangled beat squelches. They don't really land on a straight up punk-style riff until it's almost time to flip the side, and even once they've got off on a run of rockers on side B, their aesthetic choices continuously reframe the norms, enhancing their inherent power. People Helping People finds their disparate desires operating in perfect sync; prolegomenic weirdness fused immaculately to classic rock propulsion, transforming the energy pouring out from their hands and feet with electronics. Dean's lyrics are like pieces taken off the belt at the factory and put together into a John Chamberlin-esque sculpture, meant to sit out in the rain. Randy's guitars, collaged into arrangements that reflect, again, boundless curiosity and exquisite restraint. This is People Helping People: unpretentious, suspicious, inviting, confident, left field. The most accurate display of the No Age ethos put to record. Yet!

Vessels promise an escape from responsibilities towards the landscape, they facilitate our avoidance of conscientiously feeling our attachment to the mainland. The visual nothingness of deep water and clean horizons fools the brain and delivers a treacherous feeling of independence.

We ignore the truths expressed by landscapes, so we mould them into urban projects for our strange desires. We clean up the irrationalities by which nature constructs itself. Then we look up to the skies, where the abstractions we have to draw in our minds should reside and inspire us.

We peer into the various shades of blue above the waters, the emptiness guarantees possibilities of our abstractions becoming realities. The apathetic stare into neat, straight horizons transforms our ancestral landscape into dirt and danger, when looking back to it.

To be on a ship under quarantine, is an upside down experience, for the promised escape has turned into a forced paralysis. The Lima flag (? - ? ?, in morse code), presented on the outer sleeve of this record, indirectly demands of all passengers to stay aboard and contemplate their escape from the land they now desire to return to.

These four piano pieces could be considered as a classical sonata (allegroadagio-scherzo-rondo). In a recital they are accompanied by four video pieces by artist Karl Van Welden. We picked the videos out of his extensive archive, choosing images intuitively while listening to the piano music. The theme of ships relating to quarantine thus came unannounced but of course, we were in the middle of the pandemic at the time.

Solastalgia was already waiting as a title for the new album before march 2020. I first came across the word in Underland, a book by Robert Macfarlane (2019). He defines the word as "The unhappiness of people whose landscapes are being transformed about them by forces beyond their control". These forces and this unhappiness are, I believe, what constitutes the modern human. Solastalgia, about the music We haven't found them yet, the words to talk to each other about the worrying signs of climate change. Feeling worried when walking on autumn leaves in the beginning of August should be completely normal. But how do we communicate about it? We don't want to be just the next hysterical doomer.

With this music I try to focus on the climate pain itself, gently inviting the listener to investigate their latent feelings of unease and growing concerns about the environment. As in real life, we circumvent the real issues because they are just too big, there are no words, no expressions yet.

This album tries, in four different attempts, to carve out a path towards communicating about a deeper pain that eventually will connect us all. My general method is to start with a comforting melody, full of fake nostalgia, which, after changing gear to autodestruct mode, morphs into a painful question mark.

The first part sets off with an idyllic melody, accompanied by repeated notes, as a far, muted echo of an alarm. The melody starts to explain itself painfully into a dissonant whirlwind in the high register, sounding not unlike Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit bravura. In the second piece a warm Beatles like melody (And I love her) gets confronted with the weird hippie mantra of a later Lennon song War is over, if you want it. Sentences get reduced to syllables and result in lonely notes that crash and shiver under the burden of too much meaning. Like Shostakovich's latest work, the Sonata for viola and piano.

The descending melody of Bach's Erbarme dich, Mein Gott is echoed in the upper and lower voicings of the third piece, juxtaposed to a typical, threatening Ennio Morricone Western dotted rhythm accompaniment. This rhythm eventually evolves into citing the 1972 Captain Beefheart early ecological warning song Blabber and Smoke (there's a big pane/pain in your window, it's gonna hang you all,... dangle you all). Towards the middle of the piece, the music explodes and the three layers get dispersed all over the keyboard in a virtuosic maelstrom towards another painful question mark. The bitter answer is going back to business with a barely noticeable citation of the first notes of the RZA's Liquid Swords album.

The final piece is some kind of mantra, the same 7/4 pulse all throughout the piece. The dampers of all A's and B's on the keyboard are released by the middle pedal, thus sustaining an ever present resonance. Melodic cells alternate in shifting quantifications with small, bell like percussive cluster playing. While composing this piece an image crept up: walking out of the church on Sunday morning, tolling bells enthusiastically moderating the churchgoers' small talk in the local dialect. Apparently I have tried to evoke this kind of conversation, but injecting it with fictitious alarming conversation topics, the contemporary.

Frederik Croene (August '22)