quête:dandelion

Pick a Piper is a Toronto-based electronica duo featuring Caribou drummer Brad Weber and vocalist–songwriter Sophia Alexandra. Their music pairs catchy, ethereal vocals with warm synths, upbeat percussion, and a distinctive sense of sound design that feels both grounded and vulnerable.
The duo’s live show is an intoxicating blend of vibrant physicality and immersive lights and visuals, creating an experience that is both danceable and hypnotic. Pulsing with momentum, vocally driven and haunting, it radiates a charisma that unites the band and audience in cathartic release.
Their new album "Dandelion", explores how we exist in the space between opposing feelings while calling for resilience and the courage to recognize that growth is possible and inherently beautiful, even in life’s most difficult experiences. The record employs skippy beats, bass-heavy kicks, warm subs, hyperactive percussion, woozy synths and organic textures, delivered with a lovingly human-curated feel.
Pick a Piper has toured across Europe, the US, Canada, Guatemala, and Colombia, and has shared the bill with Bonobo, Gold Panda, Blue Hawaii, Do Make Say Think and Ghetto Kumbe.

Ella Langley, who has redefined the next wave of country music with her magnetic, unmistakable voice, and fearless songwriting, has announced her highly anticipated sophomore album Dandelion, out April 10 on SAWGOD/Columbia Records. Co-produced by Ella, Miranda Lambert and Ben West, this 18-track album, which features her #5 Billboard Hot 100 hit “Choosin’ Texas,” is one about growth, and carries a deeper symbolism of hope, healing, and resilience. In Ella’s own words: "I've thought about this record every single day for the last year and a half, and I'm so excited to finally say: 'Welcome to Dandelion.’"

Gatefold Sleeve and on sea blue 180 GSM vinyl. Recorded as an instrumental by Tractor in Rochdale in 1971 and originally released on LP in 1972 “Shubunkin” has now been sampled by LA band Broken Bells (Danger Mouse/ Brian Burton and James Mercer, the lead vocalist and guitarist for the indie rock band The Shins) as the basis of their track “To Anyone a Ghost”. Julian Cope writes about the Tractor track “Shubunkin” : ...“Then, one night in mid 1972, John Peel played a track that was more mysterious than almost anything I had ever heard. It was the music I thereafter wanted played at my funeral and was most certainly the sound of a soul approaching the canopy of heaven as it left the earth for the last time.” ..“without the proper printed Dandelion label there to guide me, I left a blob of marker pen on the side that began with ‘Shubunkin’ and that became the ultimate beginning to any LP in my collection.” Originally Issued in late 2019 as a vinyl LP as a protest against Rochdale Boroughwide Housing’s plans to knock down four of the Seven Sisters/College Bank Flats- these blocks of flats were home to Tractor’s drummer in the 1970s as well as their manager Chris Hewitt and Andy and Liz Kershaws’ dad and a whole host of poets, musicians, tv producers etc. Many Tractor numbers were worked out in these flats prior to recording at various studios around Rochdale and Heywood. All songs written by Jim Milne and Steve Clayton. Jim Milne -vocals guitar (and bass most tracks), Steve Clayton -Drums and Percussion, Dave Addison- bass on Northern City. The album now starts the way Julian Cope always wanted to run.

Don Van Vliet is Captain Beefheart. 1000 only numbered 180 gram vinyl LPs gatefold sleeve purple vinyl. Sleeve design by legendary Led Zeppelin designer Steve Hardstaff (Jacuzzi). When Don Van Vliet sent these reels of tape to North West promoter Roger Eagle in the 1970s to make sure they got released in the UK they became stuff of legends.

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"Flower power psych pop that’ll blow you away! Exploring the jangly folk and garage sounds of the late ‘60s, the Superfine Dandelion picks a wide variety of colorful folk, country and jug band influences and puts a psychedelic tint on their all-original compositions. Our favored stereo mix, pressed on blue vinyl!

Formed in 1967, this Phoenix, AZ band would only last for a year before parting ways, leaving behind just one album – a fate many Mainstream artists ultimately faced, no matter how quality their style and sound was. The Superfine Dandelion features Mike McFadden (formerly of the garage rockin’ Mile Ends) and Rick Anderson (founding member of the Tubes) showcasing the sound of the Summer of Love – kaleidoscopic, sunny & groovy!

“While the cheeriest cuts have the sunny folk-pop/rock feel of, say, some of the L.A. folk-rock issued by the Dunhill label (‘Don't Try to Call Me’ recalls P.F. Sloan) or the Monkees, their self-titled LP had a good deal of sub-Jefferson Airplane folk-psych-rock, with plenty of minor chords, harmonies, and wistful lyrics. Then ‘Janie's Tomb’ and ‘It's Raining’ have a jokey jug band vibe, like a cross between the Charlatans and the Lovin' Spoonful.” – Richie Unterberger (AllMusic)"

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“Dandelion” blooms a previously undiscovered and unknown sweet spot between 60’s psychedelia and 70’s power-pop, equally pastoral and street-wise, every note tuned to moving and astounding melody. “Dandelion” offers lush arrangements of unforgettable, legend-making songs, performed entirely by Daniel himself.

Repress!

Having already released a handful of singles on NICE UP! it seemed like high time for Nottingham's Origin One (aka Kevin Thomson) to step up with his debut album. Written and produced over the space of around 2 years in the artists own Deeper Than Roots studio, the album represents a wider spectrum of roots and reggae influenced music, taking the foundations of this music and applying a modern style and sound to it, traversing dancehall, bashment, grime, jungle and dubstep along the way.

DJ DIE SOON is the apocalyptic alter-ego Daisuke Imamura, whose performances of masked malice have been a fixture in the Berlin underground for the past decade. His latest record My Brothel The Wind takes inspiration from Sun Ra at his most grotesque, conjuring a distorted phantasmagoria with an eclectic crew of compatriots like Rully Shabara, Sara Persico, and longtime collaborator Kiki Hitomi. Film director Hiroo Tanaka’s visual contributions in the album art, poster, and music video complete the album’s narrative, telling a story not of villainy but of phantom caprice in a dying world.
My Brothel The Wind shows DJ DIE SOON as an alchemist of distortion, transmuting the club-forward beats of his 2020 debut Kappa Slap and the seething horrorscapes of DIEMAJIN, his 2022 collaboration with Tokyo vocalist MA. Imamura’s obsession with noise stems from his upbringing in Tokyo, where he grew up hearing the deafening roar of trains every day. “The buildings were really tall, so the sounds reflected so much and it was so loud that you couldn’t even have a conversation on the phone. Hearing this noise every minute when living in this flat, it became a normal thing,” he says. While most would content themselves with avoiding loudness, DJ DIE SOON seeks to unpack its visceral potential.
DJ DIE SOON’s subterranean productions form a monstrous gestalt with the eclectic contributions of his network of co-conspirators. “Unfinished” and “Directions” are pulsating chimeras that highlight animalistic vocalizations from Hitomi and Shabara; Italian MC Franco Franco’s verses snake underneath the noisy onslaught. The tectonic textures of “Dandelion Crackers” are courtesy of multi-instrumentalist Laure Boer’s handmade stone synth. Sara Persico’s mangled vocables hang as fleshy reminders of human fragility on “SAQ4IME”; in the Hiroo Tanaka-directed music video, the track’s sonic uncanniness is made cinematic, with an ambient dread that references Hiroshi Teshigahara’s 1964 psychological thriller Woman in the Dunes.
While Sun Ra’s intergalactic Moog reached for the stars, DJ DIE SOON plunges into the depths of hell. “Everybody, Shake Your Body, We Chill At Party” feels like the sonic equivalent of a wax museum burning to the ground, rigid smiles melting into the fire. Rather than a vision of the future, My Brothel The Wind is a laugh-cry of despair in the face of a Hadean present. DJ DIE SOON confronts the world with a new hand-made mask, reborn in the ashes.

Für Kevin Morby ist das ,kleine Weite" der weite Himmel, das einfache Leben, seine Herkunft aus dem Mittleren Westen und alle Pflichten, Bescheidenheit, Vertrautheit und Isolation: das Land, die Menschen und die Teile davon, die in ihm stecken. ,Der Mittlere Westen hat etwas Unbeabsichtigtes Musikalisches an sich: Zikaden, die in den Bäumen zirpen, ein vorbeifahrender Zug, eine Tornadosirene, die losgeht", erklärt Morby. ,Wenn man genau hinhört, gibt es diese fast unheilvollen Geräusche unter dem weiten Himmel - seine Hässlichkeit und seine Schönheit und wie beide oft gleichzeitig zusammenwirken. Und obwohl der Mittlere Westen technisch gesehen keine Ödnis ist, ist er meine Ödnis." Little Wide Open ist der Titel von Kevin Morbys achtem Studioalbum, produziert von Aaron Dessner. Im Sommer 2024 hatte Dessner Morby gebeten, The National bei ihrem Konzert im Londoner Crystal Palace Park zu unterstützen. Kurz darauf wandte sich Dessner, der gerade eine Glückssträhne hatte, nachdem er Alben für Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran und Gracie Abrams produziert hatte, wandte sich an Morby und teilte ihm mit, dass er gerne sein nächstes Album produzieren würde. Anfang 2025 begannen sie mit den Aufnahmen in Aarons Long Pond Studio in Stuyvesant, New York, und beendeten sie im September desselben Jahres. Das Album, an dem eine Vielzahl von Mitwirkenden wie Dessner, der mehrere Instrumente spielt, Amelia Meath, Andrew Barr, Justin Vernon, Katie Gavin, Lucinda Williams, Meg Duffy und anderen, wurde von Morby als dritter Teil einer Trilogie nach ,Sundowner" (2020) und ,This Is a Photograph" (2022) beschrieben, in denen er seine Zeit im Mittleren Westen nach seiner Rückkehr nach Kansas City dokumentierte. Dieses Mal wertet Dessners Produktion Morbys Aufnahmen auf, ohne dabei den Fokus auf die Songs selbst zu verlieren. Es gibt eine neu gewonnene Zuversicht und Klarheit sowohl in Morbys Songwriting als auch in Dessners Produktion, die an Tom Pettys Klassiker Wildflowers aus dem Jahr 1994 erinnert. Da Morby mittlerweile hauptsächlich in LA lebt, hat sich die Atmosphäre, die Little Wide Open durchzieht, gegenüber seinen Vorgängern etwas verändert. Wie Rachel Kushner in ihrem Begleittext zum Album über Morby schreibt: ,Es geht um Zeit, um das Gefühl, dass er sich von der Nostalgie und dem verlorenen, aber schönen Kampf, an der Vergangenheit festzuhalten, gelöst hat. Er hat akzeptiert, dass die Zeit unaufhörlich fließt und man sie nicht aufhalten kann. Stattdessen hat er das Gefühl, dass er auf ihr reitet. Er ist Passagier der Zeit."

'Yara Asmar’s new album presents 11 pieces recorded over the past year between the small town of Alfred in upstate New York and Beirut. These sometimes fragile and tentative sound sketches reflect the times as Yara steps out, as if onto ice, into a new life on a new continent during a time of tragedy, turmoil and upheaval. She works with unfamiliar instruments, new materials and new sounds to build on her intimate style; homemade mechanical music boxes and a personal archive of family recordings form the backbone of its delicate textures. Asmar explores the peculiar resonance of the metallophone and her collection of deconstructed toy pianos, and guides her music into ever more surreal territories. The result is a work that is dreamlike, fragmentary and strangely timeless.'

naemi follows last year’s excellent Erika de Casier-starring »Dust Devil« with a genius new album of ultra-catchy, perfectly executed shoegaze diamonds, powered by Ulla on drums and additional vox, flutes and extra vocals by Baptist Goth, and fuzz guitar by Kouhei.

»Breathless Shorn« is the Berlin-based Kansas-born producer's most compelling move thus far, featuring 11 perfectly fuzzed songs that almost completely shake off any electronic remnants in favour of a light-touched act of MBV worship. naemi has long nurtured an obsession with vintage dreampop and shoegaze, but until now they mostly blurred those influences with dubby ambience and delicate, heart-slicing production. On »Breathless Shorn« they completely re-draw their outlines, bristling with a much looser energy in a mode that feels like a big step up - more impactful, full of easy swagger and a bona fide emotional resonance.

Distorted, tremolo-bent guitars, boxy drums, electric bass and delirious multi-tracked vocals are the backbone here, mostly sounding like they could have been lifted off Kevin Shields' »Ecstasy and Wine« sessions. naemi's attention to detail is remarkable; no longer leaning on electronic masking or the influence of '90s British slacker rawk or twee pop, instead deploying the genuine article, with ambient music left as just a faint note wafting in the background.

After numerous releases on his Dub Junction label and two lead singles on the subsidiary SUPERCHIP label, Simma presents his debut LP: SIMMA ENTERS THE GAME. Featuring guests Natty Campbell, Danny T, Tenor Youthman, Dandelion, Who Knew, Indra MC & Nina Girassóis.

Welcome to BM-18 the biokinetic realm created by Dana Kuehr, a lush audio environment where organic and synthesized matter coalesce. As we float disembodied above this verdant pixel plain, Dana offers us shifting repetitions and sequences in disguise, each track a landscape within a world created in the utmost detail, from the minute bleeps and chirps to the enveloping and bumping bouncy basslines. Flickering drums explode like dandelion seeds in a breeze, searching for a place to lay, grow, and flourish. Sounds are captured (fingers tapping, rain patter, Belgian parakeets released from a '70s zoo, vocal oohs and ahhs) and hybridized with patterns, samples, and musical manoeuvres (jungle breaks, west coast hip hop, layered drums, IDM crunch and twinkle, reverb, delay, '90s R&B, underwater video game soundscapes). As in any imaginary sphere, there are characters who exchange and converse: rivers, coasts, clouds, lakes, echoes of dolphins, and peaceful frogs. Amidst their complex chatter, the sounds of BM-18 extend an invitation to dance, to feel our bodies alive and present, to acknowledge the impulse of movement and the pulsing heartbeats of each track. An ode to the Taoist consideration that all creatures live together in mystic unity, co-evolving and feeding each other, Dana brings together cloud ethereal with earth pounding, and like an orca's tail upon a restless sea, it slaps!!! All tracks written and produced by Dana Kuehr between April 2020 and November 2021 in Brussels, and mixed by Dan Piu at Checkpoint Charly Studio in Zurich between November 2021 and March 2022. Mastered and cut by Stefan Betke at Scape in Berlin. Original artworks by Camiflage and text by Ailsa Cavers. A1 was first digitally released on Ojoo Music. Dana thanks Michiel, George, Jakob, Camiel, Ailsa, Tania, Victor, Jill, Karen, Daphne, Arne, Oscar, Joe, and Gwenan for the love and inspiration. True voyage is return!

Leeds-born folk-rocker John Trevor Midgely, alias Beau, was known for his deft twelve-string guitar work, his poignant voice and distinctive song-writing, which brought him onto the roster of John Peel’s Dandelion label in 1969. His self-titled debut album is arguably his best and includes the outstanding single ‘1917 Revolution,’ said to have inspired America’s smash, ‘Horse With No Name,’ the LP ably demonstrating that all the artist needed was his voice, his guitar, and his individual approach to song writing, the work bearing his haunting hallmarks throughout. In short, an unjustly obscure release that is ripe for current reappraisal. Including 2 Bonus Tracks

In the spring of 1971, somewhere between Brussels, Paris and a collective pop fever dream, Le Monde Fabuleux Des Yamasuki landed on vinyl. It sounded like nothing else then and it still does not today. More than half a century later, Sdban Records proudly presents a reissue of this singular cult album, available from April 3, 2026 on vinyl.

The album was produced by Jean Kluger and written both by Jean and Daniel Vangarde (aka Bangalter, later the father of Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk), who were alreadywell ahead of their time, long before electronic music rewrote the rules of pop culture.

Released under the name Yamasuki, also referred to as The Yamasuki Singers, or The Yamasuki's, the project was never intended as a conventional band. It was a studio-born fantasy, a concept album disguised as a pop record. What began as a standalone single quickly expanded into a full-blown pan-cultural pop opera that ignored genres and common sense with joyful abandon.

Musically, the album sits at a delirious crossroads. Psychedelic pop collides with funk rhythms, samba and bubblegum melodies, full of chants and choruses in a phonetic pseudo-Japanese, written with the help of a dictionary. Kluger and Vangarde famously recruited a children's choir to perform the vocals, and for added spectacle, they brought in a Japanese judo grandmaster, whose ritualistic shouts and battle cries erupt throughout the record.

Several singles were released. One of them, Yamasuki, with accompanying dance move, appeared in the United Kingdom and France on John Peel's Dandelion label, a fitting home for a record that thrived on the margins of pop culture. Its B-side, Aieaoa, proved even more potent. In 1975, the song was reborn as A.I.E. (A Mwana) by Black Blood, an African group recording in Belgium, this time sung in Swahili. That melody would travel even further. Aie a Mwana became the debut single of English pop group Bananarama, and in 2010 it resurfaced once more as Helele, an official song of the FIFA World Cup, recorded by South African singer Velile Mchunu with Danish percussion duo Safri Duo. That version became the most widely known incarnation of the song. With Jean Kluger directly involved, it was less a cover than a continuation of the original idea.

The album's afterlife did not stop there. Over the years, Yamasuki has been quietly sampled, covered, and featured across media far beyond the realm of novelty pop. Kono Samourai was sampled in The Healer by Erykah Badu (2007), produced by Madlib, while Yama Yama has found its way into recent pop culture as well: appearing in the television series Fargo, on Angus Stone's project Dope Lemon, and on the 2008 Late Night Tales compilation curated by Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders. Proof, if any were needed, that this strange little record carries a deeper musical DNA than its playful exterior might suggest.

This new reissue of Le Monde Fabuleux Des Yamasuki proves the renewed interest and respect for this cult album, faithful to the original spirit while finally giving it back the physical presence it deserves. In an era obsessed with genres and algorithmic neatness, Yamasuki still laughs, dances and karate-kicks its way past definitions. It reminds us that pop music can be playful without being disposable, strange without being cynical and joyfulwithout explanation. The world of Yamasuki was always fabulous, we are just lucky it found its way back to us!