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“I feel like there are two sides of me,” says the Nashville-based singer-songwriter and guitar virtuoso known as Sunny War. “One of them is very self-destructive, and the other is trying to work with that other half to keep things balanced.” That’s the central conflict on her fourth album, the eclectic and innovative Anarchist Gospel, which documents a time when it looked like the self-destructive side might win out. Extreme emotions can make that battle all the more perilous, yet from such trials Sunny has crafted a set of songs that draw on a range of ideas and styles, as though she’s marshaling all her forces to get her ideas across: ecstatic gospel, dusty country blues, thoughtful folk, rip-roaring rock and roll, even avant garde studio experiments. She melds them together into a powerful statement of survival, revealing a probing songwriter who indulges no comforting platitudes and a highly innovative guitarist who deploys spidery riffs throughout every song. Because it promises not healing but resilience and perseverance, because it doesn’t take shit for granted, Anarchist Gospel holds up under such intense emotional pressure, acknowledging the pain of living while searching for something that lies just beyond ourselves, some sense of balance between the bad and the good. Featuring: David Rawlings, Allison Russell, Jim James, Micah Nelson

“More than anything, I wanted to make an album that was generous, that was useful,” says Ben Folds. “I want you to finish this record with something you didn’t have when you started.” Indeed, Folds’ masterful new collection, What Matters Most, isn’t so much a statement as it is an offering, an open hand reaching out to all those wounded and bewildered by a world that seems to make less and less sense every day. Recorded in East Nashville with co-producer Joe Pisapia, the album marks Folds’ first new studio release in eight years, and it’s a bold, timely, cinematic work, one that examines the tragic and the absurd in equal measure as it reckons with hope and despair, gratitude and loss, identity and perspective. The songs are bittersweet here, hilarious at times, but often laced with a quiet sense of longing and dread: a text message goes unanswered; an old classmate descends into the dark depths of internet conspiracies; a relationship unravels in the middle of a lake. And yet, taken as a whole, the result is an undeniably joyful record that refuses to succumb to the weight of the world around it, an ecstatic reminder of all the beauty and promise hiding in plain sight for anyone willing (and present enough) to recognize their moments as they arrive.

After a string of two dozen brilliant albums beginning in the 1950’s, clarinetist, saxophonist, flutist,
composer and arranger Jimmy Giuffre stopped recording. For nearly ten years he focused solely on
live performance. This album, Music for People, Birds, Butterflies and Mosquitoes, marked his return
to the studio after his self imposed hiatus. Known for developing forms of jazz which allowed for free
interplay between the musicians, Giuffre began his career as an arranger for Woody Herman’s big
band in the late 1940s. Playing primarily saxophone, he became a central figure in the West Coast
cool jazz scene of the 1950’s, with the Lighthouse All Stars in Hermosa Beach, CA. In the late 50’s, he
began working within different configurations of the trio format, on what he called “blues-based folk
jazz.” A prime example being his piece "The Train and the River" famously featured in 1958 Newport
Jazz Festival concert film, Jazz On A Summer’s Day. The trio here is completed by drums and bass
with Giuffre trading seamlessly between tenor saxophone, clarinet, flute and bass flute. The twelve
original compositions are very much in Giuffre’s signature style. The melody explorations have an
eastern vibe, and are played in hushed tones with an almost chamber music like quality. From 1973,
originally on the Choice label, this album has been remastered and is being presented here as the
artist intended, with its original title, track order and album artwork, for the first time since its original
release. Remastered by Alex McCollough at True East Mastering. Vinyl cut by Jeff Powell at Take Out
Vinyl.

The earth rotates, seasons change_there is but one long day_ Time is a beguiling, indistinct entity_sometimes standing still, sometimes bending back upon itself with premonitions or memories of the future. Growing out of a pen pal style correspondence that took place over the course of a year, separated by the Atlantic Ocean, Gloria de Oliveira and Dean Hurley passed thoughts and music back and forth that would eventually form their collaborative album, Oceans of Time. The result is an aural tapestry of that exchange: woven from conceptual threads of the celestial within, mortality and the realm beyond stars. The duo's partnership is an effortless merge, yet it's the steady presence of de Oliveira's vocals that endows the record with its sense of potency. Throughout the album, there is an innate understanding of how a lyric across a chordal color can sharpen an emotional truth. Much like a sunbeam that pierces a spiderweb to reveal its intricacy, her lyric and melody are purposely aimed in order to illuminate the truths deep within oneself_a process that ties us all to the universal. The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, a professed influence, wrote about the truth as something that was inherently subjective, less about the concrete reality of what is believed and more about how it is experienced by the believer. Frequent David Lynch collaborator Dean Hurley sets the tonal and sonic landscape of each track on the album, lending a layered ether that envelops, frames and holds de Oliveira's vocals. With its impressionistic synths, shimmering guitars, and ethereal sonics, Oceans of Time at moments recalls the foundational dreampop of 4AD acts like Cocteau Twins and Lush. The album feels especially attuned to the connections between the physical and transcendental realms, and the best dreampop has a way of making the veil between two worlds feel just a little bit thinner. Oceans of Time is a key that has the power to release its listener from the handcuffs of reality, however briefly_

The earth rotates, seasons change_there is but one long day_ Time is a beguiling, indistinct entity_sometimes standing still, sometimes bending back upon itself with premonitions or memories of the future. Growing out of a pen pal style correspondence that took place over the course of a year, separated by the Atlantic Ocean, Gloria de Oliveira and Dean Hurley passed thoughts and music back and forth that would eventually form their collaborative album, Oceans of Time. The result is an aural tapestry of that exchange: woven from conceptual threads of the celestial within, mortality and the realm beyond stars. The duo's partnership is an effortless merge, yet it's the steady presence of de Oliveira's vocals that endows the record with its sense of potency. Throughout the album, there is an innate understanding of how a lyric across a chordal color can sharpen an emotional truth. Much like a sunbeam that pierces a spiderweb to reveal its intricacy, her lyric and melody are purposely aimed in order to illuminate the truths deep within oneself_a process that ties us all to the universal. The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, a professed influence, wrote about the truth as something that was inherently subjective, less about the concrete reality of what is believed and more about how it is experienced by the believer. Frequent David Lynch collaborator Dean Hurley sets the tonal and sonic landscape of each track on the album, lending a layered ether that envelops, frames and holds de Oliveira's vocals. With its impressionistic synths, shimmering guitars, and ethereal sonics, Oceans of Time at moments recalls the foundational dreampop of 4AD acts like Cocteau Twins and Lush. The album feels especially attuned to the connections between the physical and transcendental realms, and the best dreampop has a way of making the veil between two worlds feel just a little bit thinner. Oceans of Time is a key that has the power to release its listener from the handcuffs of reality, however briefly_

Repress!

Following his versatile Alone With Everybody EP, FD returns to The North Quarter with a stunning 16 track debut album: Better Days.

Largely written in a three month window, FDs (real name Freddie Dixon) new long player on The NQ undoubtedly brings the best of the Zurich-based/London-born producer. Better Days is an album that delivers a rare synergy of drive, harmony between subtle & raw and just sheer fun. A versatile yet coherent project drawn from a large pool of sketches, finalised in intricate detail with focused studio dedication.

Drawing influences from Dub, Jazz, Hip Hop, Soul and the Mid 90's Drum & Bass “GoldenAge”, Better Days bridges the gap between genres, as FD enlists carefully considered vocal collaborations. Manchester donny Fox shines on the dubbed out Better Man and Washington DC soul diva Cecily shows shades of Minnie Riperton on Sycamore. Meanwhile Ribs is lifted to one of the album's stand out tracks with Maverick Soul on the keys and the enigmatic Issac Rosie on the boards.

For some the better days in life are in their childhood memories: nostalgia-infused wonderings of the mind to a care-free time without today's online distractions. Although FD’s debut album 'Better Days' is inspired and informed by a period earlier in life, his best days musically are definitely in the present. To put it into the man's own words:

"I’ve been wanting to do an album for quite a while now, but the circumstance never felt right. Once I started working with The North Quarter that all changed – it feels like being part of a team all pushing in the same direction, all supporting one another, all wanting to do the best for each other. Once we’d done the first EP together, for me, it was only a question of when."

Renowned for his raw, blistering vocals and high-voltage guitar playing, the great Buddy Guy has remained a vital and current musician, moving blues forward without losing sight of its roots. He was a primary influence on blues-rock titans like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, as well as a pioneer of Chicago's fabled West Side sound, and a living link to that city's halcyon days of electric blues. This album presents him singing and playing some of his greatest hits backed by such outstanding figures as Junior Wells, Otis Rush, and Willie Dixon. "Buddy Guy was for me what Elvis was probably like for other people... My course was set, and he was my pilot." - Eric Clapton

“A piece of music never truly comes to An end. Revisiting a theme illustrates this idea that life goes on.” These are the words of Wayne Shorter, uttered in 2018 upon the release of Emanon, his final opus. On this record, the octogenarian uses dusky hues to shade in the passions of his youth - drawing and science-fiction, as well as the causes he has defended all his life - the fight against ecological upheaval and structural racism. This sentiment did not fail to resonate with Julien Lourau, who has reached a stage in life where he has begun to look back over certain pages written by the man he has always considered one of the masters of his trade. Five years later, this Parisian native has also chosen to revisit his glory days, offering reworked versions of specific tracks composed by his titular elder throughout the 80s. “When I play this music, I find myself back in my teenage bedroom. These are my standards, and they remind me of autumn in Rambouillet.” At that time, after practising his scales, Julien would also play Dungeons & dragons, and immerse himself in SF as well as heroic fantasy - epic influences which are not without a certain connection to the dreamworlds Shorter conjured up, as another fan of landscapes beyond the grasp of reality.

This album features four themes taken from Atlantis, which came out in 1985, and two from Joy Ryder, released three years later. To these, he has added a composition penned at around the same time for Sportin’ Life, the penultimate LP by Weather Report. This is rounded off by a tune taken

from Native Dancer, the record which, ten years earlier, in 1975, brought together this saxophonist who learnt his trade alongside Art Blakey, before joining Miles’ second quintet, and Brazilian Milton Nascimento.

“Between Native Dancer and Atlantis, Shorter did not release anything under his own name, but he took the time and care to really perfect his writing. Upon his return, he injected a very Brazilian form of subtlety into his compositions, especially rhythmically. And from a harmonic point of view, these themes are extremely sophisticated, and reveal truly singular colours. In fact, he decided to display the score as if it constituted the liner notes of Atlantis.”

Julien Lourau is a fan of every Wayne Shorter era, from his Blue Note days, where Mr Gone defined the bases of a truly unique repertoire, all the way to his final quartet - a reference like no other. He decided to focus on this “highly electric” period, which is not necessarily Shorter’s best known, nor his most widely appreciated - despite being a unanimous reference, Shorter has nonetheless never had a direct descendent. In Lourau’s line of sight there lies a desire to focus on typically South American tonic accents which characterise this repertoire, twinned with the ambition to switch up their actual sound “by attempting to open up onto a production highly influenced by eighties fusion". However, he admits that modifying the structures of these most unique of worlds constituted a fresh challenge. “There’s this labyrinthine harmonic system where you’ve no idea how it holds together, but where it’s actually impossible to touch the slightest element without the whole edifice wavering. It is in fact a very difficult thing to achieve!”

In order to successfully transcribe all this creativity free of obstacles, Julien Lourau once again called upon the help of Mathieu Debordes. From January 2023 onwards, Mathieu endeavoured to break down all the musical elements, on paper, before creating any actual music. The record was therefore constructed on the faith of these scores, without necessarily transiting through a creative residency - just two live gigs, to make sure the setup worked. Besides Mathieu Debordes and his synthesisers, Julien Lourau has assembled an ad hoc team by his side. On the bass, according to the track, we can hear erstwhile companion Sylvain Daniel or a new acolyte on the fretless bass, Joan Eche Puig.

Stéphane Edouard, on percussion, even dives headfirst into an unlikely proto-rap of sorts, on Pearl On The Half Shell (where, on the original version, Bobby McFerrin adjusted his interventions in a rather madcap style). Aesthete and drummer Jim Hart as well as pianist Leo Jassef also figure on this release - both were present on previous project devoted to label

CTI. “At sixteen, I wanted to sound like Michael Brecker rather than Ben Webster - that was equated with modernity in those days”, adds Julien with a smile, as for him, all this rings out a little like a logical next step, a joyful immersion into the fountain of youth. And if, for this record, he plays the soprano more than ever, the saxophone Shorter set in his sights on, he never tries to replicate an unattainable ideal note by note. What would be the point?

“Wayne Shorter is not just a saxophonist’s saxophonist. In fact, I don’t know a single person who has risen to challenge of his solos. I have not done it myself either, but on the other hand, I have retained a lot of his phraseology. His way of approaching the instrument reveals a more evanescent language, a work on colour and shape. Keeping this in mind has allowed me to gravitate towards certain elements, that in hindsight, I find echoes of in my work, even in Groove Gang.” Shorter etches out these phrases, creating a groove within which Lourau had traced subtle punctuation, managing, from a highly written base, to create fresh apertures, promises of a great escape. Emblematic of this standpoint, his regal version of Ponte de Areia, originally a wonderful dialogue between Milton Nascimento and Wayne Shorter. Here, the Frenchman takes liberties with the original melodies, without ever growing distant from the original spirit, extending one section with delicacy, offering a rubato development and then a groove “like a little suite”. Julien Lourau also renews with an accomplice from last century, Magic Malik, who lends his high-pitched vocals to the track. Though they had not recorded together for more than twenty years, the two of them got on as if they had only ceased collaborating yesterday, everything flowed naturally. The track was wrapped up in just one take, much like other themes, such as opener Who Goes There where the flautist deploys smooth, enchanted and smoky wisps.

Fundamentally, reflecting of the sleeve which features a child playing with a ball, image that could symbolise the sun just as much as the moon, Julien Lourau manages to translate the ambiguous candour which characterizes Shorter’s work - solar and crepuscular at the same time, that of a visionary and poet definitively situated outside of all chronology, but with whom Julien shares surprising and ‘timely’ coincidences. Shorter was born August 25, 1933, the same day as Julien’s father, “if we take time zones into account”, and who died on Lourau’s birthday, March 2, 2023. Should we take this as a random fact? Or could we not see here the sign of a destiny connecting the agnostic Frenchman to the man who, as a fervent Buddhist, believed in the transmission of his spiritual flow ?

Take the 101 north out of Los Angeles, and you'll pass by Agoura Hills, where the core duo of the band Dub Thompson grew up. Whatever you see in that town won't readily prepare you for the music they wrote while there, but you're free to look."Most everyone who's in a group who's our age lives on the Internet," says guitarist Matt Pulos. "The kinds of things that have shaped our band aren't anchored to any one time or place."Pulos and his bandmate, drummer Evan Laffer, are currently both 19 years old, and are putting that line of thought to the test; their musical influences travel from the Midwestern malaise of Big Black and Pere Ubu, to Kraut pioneers Can and Kraftwerk, while bowing to the British belligerence of The Fall and This Heat.Recording the album while living with Foxygen's Jonathan Rado at his rented house in Bloomington, the band had its first taste of a heavy Indiana summer, and all the humidity and insect life that buzzes along with it. "We woke up every day, ate hard-boiled eggs and stood on a porch," says Pulos of the experience.Their first collection of songs slyly unties the shoes of genre and convention, shapeshifts mischievously, and tramples on the promises delivered on the name itself.There are only eight songs on this rangy debut.Intense blasts of hook-filled noise rock ("Hayward!"), rocksteady marionette stomp ("No Time"), hypnotic bouts of doomy poetics ("Epicondyles"), outlandishly sexy groove rock ("Dograces"), and a number of other bite-sized forays into parts unknown are made manifest across 9 Songs. The vibes are strong here. Pulos sings and plays like he's working out long-standing grudges, pulling the most sinewy tones from an acoustic guitar and ripping huge chunks of demon flesh out of his electric. Laffer matches him step for step on the drums, an exacting presence behind the kit who pushes even the band's more placid moments into bouts of tension. Together they succeed in animating their musical ideas to startling, almost unnatural life. Reverb units, keyboards, samples and processing gluing everything together, saturated in the August heat and worn in until they sound second nature, it's like somehow you've been listening to these songs forever.

Five groups, one mythical studio - documenting the emergence of a generation!

The initial postulate was simple: five groups, one emblematic studio and 24 hours for each to imagine and record two unreleased tracks with one objective - the will to document a French jazz scene in the midst of renewal.

In these last few years, several innovative currents have shaken up the world of jazz and attracted new fans. They have bubbled up from Los Angeles, impregnated with hip-hop culture (Kamasi Washington, Terrace Martin, Thundercat), or from London, tinged with African rhythms (Nubya Garcia, Kokoroko, Ezra Collective). Meanwhile, in France, a new scene is emerging, carrying with it more of a dancefloor-oriented sound influenced by electronic music - an obvious kinship with the French Touch explosion of the late 90s.

Historically, every movement has been assimilated to a certain neighbourhood, to specific clubs where late at night, young guns stayed up to imagine the jazz of tomorrow - the Cotton Club for the jazz of the 20s, Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem for Be-Bop, the Black Hawk in San Francisco for West Coast jazz, Birdland in New York for Hard-Bop or a lot more recently, the Total Refreshment Centre which has been the playing field for the new London scene.

In Paris too, this new sound is associated with actual venues, places which have allowed these groups to form, create a repertoire and forge an aesthetic - Le Baiser Salé for Monsieur Mâlâ, La Gare/Le Gore for Photon, La Pêche in Montreuil for Ishkero, La Petite Halle for Underground Canopy and also le Duc des Lombards and le 38 Riv’ for Alex Monfort; it’s in a live context that this music will always continue to evolve.

Keeping this “live” spirit, with all its spontaneity, was actually the guiding line for the elaboration of this Studio Pigalle compilation. Each take was recorded in the most organic way possible, bringing all the musicians together in the same room to limit post-production alterations before the final cut was assembled, in just one day, by studio in-house sound engineer, Felix Rémy.

A feeling of urgency permeates a record guided by an artistic production taking care to crystalise the essence of this artistically free-range generation whose childhoods were rocked just as much by Bill Evans and Roy Hargrove as by J Dilla and Jeff Mills. One of the two tracks recorded is geared towards the dancefloor, and the other, more cosmic/ambient gives freer rein to individual interpretation.

There were therefore many possible ways of interpreting these guidelines for the five formations which number among the most distinctive on the current French musical landscape, and the occasion, for some, to rummage through their archives! With Transe (Mbappé) and Da Verdere (Vella), Monsieur

Mâlâ present us with two unreleased tracks issued from the very first rehearsals of the quintet reworked especially for this compilation. “Seen the aesthetic range of this group, it all worked out very naturally in the studio”, recounts keyboardist Nicholas Vella “Recording like they did in the sixties with all the channels live and working with small imperfections was a very interesting task, even when it came to the mix, we had to make do with the takes we had... “

“Our group is very recent, and with this session, in just two tracks, we had the opportunity to present the entirety of our musical universe,” says Photons pianist Gauthier Toux. “All too often, we assimilate this fusion between jazz and dance music to computers and post-production modifications. For “Dessine”, we kept the first take, and we must have recorded just three or four for the other track with more of a techno bent. In one day, we understood that we could play our entire repertoire live, from A to Z”.

“When the Komos label offered me this project, it immediately spoke to me”, remembers Alex Monfort “Straight away, I thought of “Since I Met You”, a track with a nine/four time signature which really is reminiscent of a new- soul groove, but with this extra cosmic vibe! I wrote the words to the chorus and Nina Tonji placed her voice on the track, adding her own verses. For “Tonight”, the up-tempo track, I wanted to head off in more of a hybrid direction inspired by Kaytranada or the Black Radio series by Robert Glasper. A cross-over between jazz and hip-hop which really does represent my world, and I also tried to place vocals centre stage (Emcee Agora)”.

“We truly resonated with the way Antoine Rajon imagined this compilation and the recording session”, confide Warren Dongué and Jérémy Tallon from Underground Canopy. “When arriving in this studio we felt as if we had gone backtothe70s! Inkeepingwiththespiritofthisera,heknewhowtoletus keep our spontaneity, without recording in too many takes, and that’s how we like to work”.

“We managed to adhere to the themes of the compilation without changing our instrumentation, we wanted to remain faithful to the sound of Ishkero on these new compositions and take them somewhere else” – says drummer TaoEhrlich -“Withoutaddinganyelectronics.Thesessionwassupervisedin a truly subtle and benevolent manner. From a human perspective, it was also a wonderful experience”.

Whether turned towards hip-hop, ethnic or electronic music, the artists featured on this Studio Pigalle compilation represent the eclecticism of a new generation in the process of writing the first chapters of its history. Open to experimentation, these artists continue to hold high an immutable love for improvisation and creation in the moment... another definition of the word Jazz!

Xavier Boyer, the lead singer of Tahiti 80 and one of the most distinctive voices in French indie pop, returns solo with a melodic and timeless new EP entitled "Soda Coda".

After "Tutu To Tango" (2007, under the name Axe Riverboy), "Some/Any/New" (2017), and not forgetting Tahiti 80's nine studio albums, Xavier Boyer has composed five songs navigating between soft rock, folk sounds and pop experimentation. "On previous albums, I'd done everything on my own, but this time I was looking for something more lively, more organic, more collective. I also wanted to exchange ideas with other musicians.

This mini-album (the vinyl version will include five alternative versions recorded on a 4-track cassette) was created with the help of three emblematic figures from the French music scene, Mehdi Zannad (Fugu, April March, A Girl Called Eddy) on keyboards, Laurent Blot (Le Superhomard) on drums and Stéphane Laporte (Domotic, Egyptology) on mix.

Recorded between tours and studio sessions with his main band, "Soda Coda" once again confirms his talent as a melodist and his appetite for sonic adventures. The power pop of "D Day" or the lyricism of "Children Of The Sun" would not be out of place on albums by Emitt Rhodes or Richard Swift (producer of Tahiti 80's "Ballroom" in 2014). "Oh Liza" is as smooth as an Elliott Smith novelty.

The singer assumes his influences: "My aim has always been to write timeless songs without pretending it's 1975, or 1998. I want my music to remain rooted in its time." "Read The Room" blends Jamaican music and avant-garde pop with its crystalline guitars and soaring synths, while "Soda Coda" brings a touch of Soul to the EP with its distorted piano and slap-back vocals.

More than a journey or a nostalgic trip, Soda Coda is a succession of luminous songs, and as Xavier Boyer sings on the eponymous track: "I'm singing something good, I can hear this tune lighting up my path".

A collection of structured piano improvisations and their surrounding sonic environments, an album in four parts: Songs From a Distant Summer | From November For Snow | Together Recorded between 2011-2013, the album was never intended to be a direct response to the seasons. The coincidence of the recordings having been made at points within the seasons was only pointed out at a later date by a friend. Alongside wishing to avoid any parallels or associations being drawn with Vivaldi’s masterpiece, the title - “The Seasons Are Not Four” - a line from a poem by Syrian poet Adonis , appeared to fit perfectly - recognising our relationship to time but also alluding to the impossibility of truly categorising it. Due to label arrangements and complications the majority of these recordings have remained unreleased for a decade. One notable exception being the piece “I Promise”, that went on to amass in excess of 24 million streams - an unfathomable prospect for a piano-less pianist recording a reunion between himself and a piano at a point of not having played one for several months. The Seasons Are Not Four serves as a sonic record of real-time responses to the character of a piano, to transient states of being and to disparate, fleeting moments in time - some will hear Summer in Winter, others- Autumn in Spring; distant conversation beyond the sounds of a hesitant human shuffling fingers against wooden keys, the ticking of a grandfather clock or the song of birds outside masking passing traffic. - ‘The Seasons Are Not Four, a week is not seven days, a year is more than it is, and less’ Adonis

Brontez Purnell has been making music since the ‘90s. The Southern-raised, Oakland-based American musician and writer has centered his queerness and Blackness in projects Gravy Train!!! and Younger Lovers as well as in his award-winning books ‘100 Boyfriends’ and ‘Since I Laid My Burden Down’. He is also a dancer, film maker and choreographer.
CRYSTAL CLEAR VINYL.
Hot on the heels of recent 7” singles for Sub Pop, PPM and his first solo electronic record ‘No Jack Swing’ (Dark Entries / Papi Juice), Brontez returns in DIY-punk band formation for a new album entitled ‘Confirmed Bachelor’, out Sept 15th on Upset The Rhythm. These twelve songs presented are of the no-time-wasted variety. Fuzzed-out pop songs, hotly delivered from the heart, often sassy, sometimes sappy, always snappy! Brontez’s band includes the multifaceted talents of Vice Cooler (who also produced and mixed the album), Sean Teves (of Younger Lovers) on drums, Kevin Preston (Prima Donna, Green Day) on guitar, Aaron Minton (Prima Donna) on piano and saxophone, and Laena Myers-Ionita on violin. The album was recorded in Los Angeles at The VCR earlier this year.
‘Bachelors Theme’ opens ‘Confirmed Bachelor’ and sets the scene perfectly with the heady, rush along swoon “That's when I heard the doctor singing to me, "Son; you got all those boys in love, I wish I knew what you were saying to them. Their storming castles are coming for you!” It’s a tour de force of bop and bravado. This is what the album does so well, it sweeps you off your feet first, making its lyrical disclosures all the more affecting.
‘Rude Life’ begins in lilting, measured contemplation. “You're the rudest boy I know, and I've a real rude life” confesses Brontez as the violin laces through his vocal. This is all shook up at the halfway mark though when the adrenaline kicks in and the drums pummel. ‘Sky Opens Up’ similarly dials up the tumbling, careening clamour and energy buzz. ‘Hellish Banger’ is more of slow dance meets grunge reverie. The album also boasts an amazing spiraling auto-tuned cover of The Amps ‘Bragging Party’. ‘No Cigarettes / Stay Monkey’ is pulse-grabbing rally of unadorned declarations split into two fleeting sketches.
‘Hey Boy’ and ‘Boy With Butterfly Wings’ are more reflective in intent, both yearning and unapologetically poetic. In fact the little details observed in the lyrics across the whole album are quietly elegiac; winter nights, electric bills, ticking clocks and many allusions to hauntings only lending pathos to the love-drunk / lovelorn axis of the record. ‘Confirmed Bachelor’ is a hot wonder, upbeat, witty and ever-lively only with a forlorn core, a resolute focus and defiant honesty. It’s a rare triumph, a record you can dance your Friday night away to, whilst the songs’ subtly work on your emotions from the inside out.
of it all. Jagged riffs, bubblegum bounce and Brontez’s vocal effortlessly racing to dizzying effect.

Reggie Soul real name Reginald Stone is just one of many illusive recording artists who had a very limited recording career for a handful of small independent Chicago labels then disappeared into obscurity, Reggie reputedly left Chicago in the mid 1970’s for the lone star state of Texas never to be seen or heard from again!

Reggie’s recording legacy is the sum total of 3, 45 singles two of which he recorded under the supervision of respected Chicago songwriter and producer Clarence Johnson., firstly the funk outing “I Got Jody” backed with the soulful “I Feel So Bad” for Red Balloon Records, “I Feel So Bad” was composed by Lee Sain who recorded his own version under the title of “Baby Don’t Leave Me” for the Broach label. Reggie Soul’s “I Got Jody” also came out as a B-side on Nation Time Records, the A-side was a version of the James Brown song “Soul Walkin’ but this side was credited under the mis-credited artist name of Reggie Smith?

Finally, Reggie’s third release “My World Of Ecstasy/Mighty Good Loving” was released on the Scott Brothers own Capri Records label in 1968. Both sides of the 45 were written by Reggie with Charles and Walter Scott, arrangements were provided by John Jackson and Bill McFarland who provided the horn section to many of the Scott’s future productions. The Scott Brothers of which there were several (all musicians) had begun their own careers during the late 1950’s recording under the group name of The Masquerades on the Formal label. Often referred to as The Scott Brothers Orchestra with Howard Sephus Scott at the head of their growing musical dynasty they formed their own company Capri Productions circa 1968, their initial recording productions were Fred Johnson (Shi-Lush Records) and the aforementioned Reggie Soul & The Soul Swingers. The Scott’s were also the house band in one of Chicago’s Southside’s most popular night clubs ‘The Bonanza Lounge on 7641, South Halsted. The Scott’s often used the Bonanza as a source of finding future artists for their labels, such as The Soul Majestics, Judson Moore, Bobby Jones & Duke Turner amongst others, they even recorded a live performance on The Bonanza Lounges’ resident comedian Randolph Browner which gained a release on the Shi-Lush label.

“My World Of Ecstasy” like several Capri 45 releases were heavily imported into the UK, often sold in soul packs before finding favour with aficionados of the Crossover Scene in the late 1980’s with it’s popularity still remaining high to the present day.

Soul Junction through their licensing deal with Scot-Tees Publishing would like to present the first release of their Capri Records series.

Started in the Winter of 2021 and completed in early 2023, “Lights Out On The Shore” is a 12 song cycle written and performed by Scott Reeder, drummer of the band FU MANCHU. Having treaded many stages and studios over the past 22 years laying the foundation for the titans of “fuzz-wah” rock over 5 studio releases and playing live with artists as varied as Orianthi and Social Distortion, Scott has stretched into a melodic heavy and lyrically dense area of songwriting, rich in harmony and memorable riffs. Collaborating with Grammy winning producer/engineer Ryan Mall (Dropkick Murphys, Old Crow Medicine Show/Gaslight Anthem), Reeder played all the instruments on the album and sings all vocals. Fu Manchu bandmate, Bob Balch, contributes lead guitars on all tracks except “Everything But Right” and the album closer, “As She Drifts,” which feature contributions from Mitchell Townsend (Matt Costa/Jack Johnson).

This limited edition 500 unit LP run is pressed on blue/black splatter and includes a full color insert featuring photos taken by Reeder himself. All tracks were mastered specifically for this vinyl release

For over a decade, Dean Johnson’s rustic tenor and simply strummed acoustic guitar have been perking up ears around the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Johnson has gradually built a devoted fan base — strictly through live performances and word of mouth — singing existential cowboy waltzes, ballads about wishing one could find a way out of heaven, honest confessionals, and other heartbreakers from a unique perspective. The phrase “hidden gem” would seem appropriate here, but it’s a misnomer when talking about Dean Johnson. He shines bright, in plain sight, and it was only a matter of time before people stopped to take a look. Dean’s gentle and passionate approach to songwriting has inspired many, and his work provides the listener the opportunity to believe once more that a song can be more than the sum of its parts. If you catch even a phrase of his melodies or the sobering tone of his voice, it waltzes its way into your heart like a letter written, signed, sealed, and delivered just for you. His debut album 'Nothing for Me, Please' (Mama Bird Recording Co.) was recorded at Mashed Potato Records in New Orleans with the help of Sam Gelband and Charlie Meyer, Dean’s bandmates in The Sons of Rainier; as well as Mashed Potato regulars Sam Doores (The Deslondes), Duff Thompson and Steph Green. The record is a hazy, relaxed daydream – anthems for those who know the sweetness and coldness of quiet moments, the power and the pain of love. Whether you’ve been waiting patiently these many for Dean to release these songs, or you’re just now coming across his work for the first time, the name Dean Johnson, much like his songs, won’t soon leave your mind.

First music in 10 years from cult favourites Dark Dark Dark.
B Side is a solo cut from the bands lead vocalist Nona Maie Invie.
10” EP limited to 500 in UK/EU.

Fans of contemporaries Weyes Blood (of which DDD multi-instrumentalist Walt McClements is now a full-time member) and Angel Olsen (in whose live and studio band Invie is now a staple) will find much to love in these songs, as well as the b-side, Invie’s solo piece, “For Now” which, not unlike Invie’s 2017 solo release under the moniker IN / VIA, makes use of seamlessly interwoven piano and swelling, liquid synthesizer.

Invie sounds a bit like an alternate dimension Sharon Van Etten here and elsewhere. The three song set has the understated intensity of Nick Cave’s The Boatman’s Call and the promise of emotional liftoff that characterizes Kate Bush’s The Sensual World. 

Dark Dark Dark’s rich history is punctuated by house shows and train hopping; touring as support for The National in Portugal;
playing both the National and TV on the Radio’s ATP Festivals, and years of indefatigable coast-to-coast U.S. touring. It’s a
history rich with recordings, including a pair of celebrated full-lengths produced by Tom Herbers (Low, The Cactus Blossoms),
three EPs, and a feature film score. Now, ten years later, –– surprise –– a new 10” single.

In 2013, when Dark Dark Dark released the What I Needed EP, anyone might have guessed it was a bridge between the previous year’s lauded LP Who Needs Who and the next big venture. The band had closed out 2012 as part of Australia's touring Harvest Festival, during which they stepped up to fill an unexpectedly vacant slot much later in the day, enchanting thousands of unsuspecting festival goers. Alas, after that, the band went silent.

The release of these new songs is certainly delightful and perhaps startling, as is the promise of more solo work from singer Nona Marie Invie. On the gorgeous and stately “Didn’t I Try,” Invie’s voice is elegant as ever, couched in the familiar sounds of Marshall LaCount’s distorted banjo and Mark Trecka’s rolling drums. The loping and haunted “Something Was There” follows –– a staple of Dark Dark Dark’s live sets in the last year of their touring.

Considering this band's history, their distinctive and dramatic sense of identity, this music is really and truly for fans of Dark Dark Dark.

Singer-songwriter Thom Morecroft releases his sophomore album, “Waiting For Leo.” Drawing inspiration from the rich songwriting style of 1970s folk-rock and infusing it with the distinctive aesthetic lens of Glasgow’s C86 scene, Morecroft delivers a captivating lo-fi experience that pays homage to the past while carving its own unique path. Think Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young meets the infectious energy of Teenage Fanclub’s “Bandwagonesque.” During the pandemic-induced lockdowns of 2020 and beyond, Thom embarked on a remarkable creative journey, offering his Patreon subscribers a new digital album every month. It is within these prolific collections that the songs for “Waiting For Leo” were born. With an abundance of time and the freedom to explore his creative impulses, Morecroft crafted a collection of songs that are reflective, philosophical, and deeply personal. Some look towards the future with hope, others reminisce about the past, while some capture the essence of the present moment, and a few wander into realms of pure fantasy. As Thom navigated the challenge of selecting the final tracklist, he honed and refined each composition, adding production elements and creating a cohesive sonic tapestry. “Waiting For Leo” is an album that manages to strike a delicate balance, emanating a sense of contentment and carefree spirit while simultaneously delving into themes of family, alcoholism, grief, and loss. The introspective nature of these songs, born out of a period devoid of external stimulation, allows listeners to embark on a thought-provoking journey alongside Morecroft. Reflecting on the album’s title, Thom shares, “The album is called ‘Waiting for Leo’ because the songs were written and recorded during the period before my partner and I discovered we were expecting our son. There is also the famous Samuel Beckett play called ‘Waiting for Godot,’ which I must confess I have never seen. Is it good?” “Waiting For Leo” stands as a testament to Thom Morecroft’s artistic growth and showcases his ability to merge captivating songwriting with a distinct sonic aesthetic. As listeners immerse themselves in the intimate world he has created, they will discover a tapestry of emotions that resonate deeply.

Bas Jan return with a polished and poignant collection of perfectly-crafted pop songs that retains their authentic indie edginess. 'Back To The Swamp' is a heady tussle between their incorrigible DIY ethics and new responsibilities. Serafina Steer, Charlotte Stock, Emma Smith and Rachel Horwood cast an examining eye over modern times, lost love, Tarot intuition and long days in an everyday swamp. Awash with lush chorale effects, orchestral hewn loops, pin sharp electronic beats and sublime harmonies. Back To The Swamp is filled with thought-provoking stories, it's a reflective worldview. It's a polished and poignant collection of perfectly-crafted pop songs that retains their authentic indie edginess. These new studio recordings feature more accomplished pop production; filled with cerebral one-liners that pluck at the senses. And, there's a nod to an eclectic mix of influences; The Pet Shop Boys, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Kate Bush, Heaven 17 and Jon Hassell by way of Brian Eno. Witches, Tarot readings, road signs, Salt-N-Pepa namechecks and a river all cried out, welcome to the swamp_ "Beautifully fractured art-pop" MOJO

"Stop Violence Against Women" has been the life-long credo from Rico Puestel and "Make A Way (For Women)" is a stomping protest of 11 minutes and 11 seconds that proclaims the fortitude of women! Playing this one out there is more of an solidary act than just "a track being played"...

What Rico himself has to say about it: "With my 2022 Friebe-projects 'Jenni' and 'Jenni II', I started to make a public appearance on this topic of violence against women musically. Back in childhood days, I already felt an intensely unjust manner and imbalance regarding women in society and an almost predetermined non-equality. The violence always seemed so ever-present, even in the smallest details of behaviour and the associated self-understanding of men within their deeper planted attitude towards. I always felt an honourable glory and profound importance in women that seems impeccable and unreachable for men. It's clear that men would just be memories and ghosts without women... Musically speaking, while grewing up with Gabba and Trance i. a. in the 1990s, I simply feel no charm to nowadays reflection on these times with productions and releases that somehow just sound insincere and scheming. I'm missing the real attitude, feel and groove that doesn't even care if it's Techno, House or whatever and I'm also missing some of the stylistic approaches as well as the spirit from the "Minimal"-era. Based on all those thoughts, "Make A Way (For Women)" became this clenched fist - raised for good!"

London based multidisciplinary artist and DAYTIMERS internal team member Zar (Arun) is returning once again in 2023, this time on The Tabula Rasa Record Company, to release his second EP: “Unfurl”.

It is the next expression of progression in sound for Zar, a movement further into, above and beyond the foundations laid down from his debut EP “Practice Makes Miracles” - which was listed on Bandcamps’ “Best Electronic Music of March 2023” and described by DJ Mag as “a striking solo debut that sets Zar out as an exciting prospect in the sphere of electronic composition.”

Sitting at that murky midpoint between UK Garage, Tech-House & Bass, the songs literally bloom outwardly, wrapping around the listener leaving trails of familiarity, and feature the tendrils of earworm worthy melodies that strike a balance between serene, uplifting, dense and thoughtful, all whilst resting upon deep thumping drums, clever vocal sampling and unconventional song structures. As a follow up to an already ambitious debut EP, Unfurl is an incredibly full-filling listen.

The Madlib Invazion Music Library Series . Entry #5: Dan Hastie and Terin Ector (Orgone) pick up where Piero Umiliani left off with Exotic Grooves and Lush Funk. This is the next up in a series of music library releases, with future volumes produced by DJ Muggs, Karriem Riggins and more. The Madlib Invazion Music Library Series was created by Madlib and Egon to give their creative friends a chance to stretch out and indulge in whatever type of music they wanted. This music was created for easy, one-stop clearance in film and television synchronization usage and for sampling. You can also enjoy these albums in the way that many do with the best of the best vintage library catalogs – listen, ponder, repeat.

The Beatles 1962 – 1966 & The Beatles 1967 – 1970 (2023 Edition) 6LP BLACK

These landmark compilations have introduced generations of fans to the incredible history of the most storied band in music. For its 50th anniversary, the collections have been expanded: ‘Red’ has 12 additional tracks, including for the first time some of George Harrison’s earliest songs and some classic Beatles versions of R&B and rock ‘n’ roll hits that were so influential on the band. ‘Blue’ has 9 additional tracks including “Blackbird” and “Glass Onion” including the last new Beatles song, “Now And Then” for a total of 21 new additions which are all compiled onto the 3rd disc, effectively creating a ‘new’ LP for each set.

Together the 6LP’s contain 75 tracks, 36 of which have new mixes for 2023. The inserts contains new sleeve notes by journalist and author John Harris. For current fans and future generations alike, the new 1962 – 1966 & 1967 - 1970 collections are a joyous celebration of The Beatles’ timeless musical legacy.

“I hope you die by my side, the two of us at the exact same time, I hope we die not long from now, the two of us at the exact same time”
By the time Molly Nilsson released History, she had already established a fledgling cult status built on homemade YouTube videos and home-burnt Cdrs. Writing from a distance, it’s clear that History is the first classic album in her canon and arguably a classic of the 21st Century underground music panorama.While the methodology on History hadn’t changed from Nilsson’s previous 3 albums – it was recorded solo at The Lighthouse, Nilsson’s home studio based on a Berlin crossroads – on this record the songwriting reached a new peak and the emotional scythe cut deeper. Here, Nilsson managed to combine a cosmic, outward looking perspective with an intimate knowledge of the human condition and its place in these turbulent times. In truth, no other songwriter has excavated the modern psyche so clearly and perfectly.
The tracklist to Nilsson’s fourth album reads as an early greatest hits for Molly Nilsson followers and also serves as the perfect entry point to a whole world the artist has been building for the last 10 years. In Real Life crystalises the millenial obsession with relationships built online, with a generation paying for the baby boomer’s excesses with their anxiety towards the harshness of every day life. It’s a call to arms for a generation who fell in love on Skype. On I Hope You Die, one of Molly Nilsson’s most iconic songs, the songwriter flips the song title into a tale of doomed romance, a relationship based on discommunications and the thrill of the other. It’s also one of the most heartfelt songs full of pathos written by anyone, an ode to obsession. Doomed romance, life lived on the flipside of day and the role of the outsider in society are themes that crop up through-out History. On
Bottles Of Tomorrow, the narrator is sweeping up, in love with the night and examining the remains a society leaves behind.
On City Of Atlantis, Nilsson veers from the plaintive balladry she had begun to make her name with, embracing trance-like synth and dance music details to create an unlikely anthem using the mythological city as a means to comment on the patriarchal rendering of history by power. With by now trademark panache, she turns complicated subject matter into a glorious song that transforms into an ecstatic pop moment.
Hotel Home, another Nilsson classic, paints loneliness not as a debilitating anxiety, but as a powerful to that propels the artist forward through her travels. It’s a song that hints at an endearing self-awareness also; the writer is never at home, living life on the road, content that “the world will find me when the time is ripe.”
There’s never been a greater time.

The Sad Clown Bad Dub series first started as a string of limited cassette tapes and CD-R's for Atmosphere to sell exclusively on tour. Since its inception in 1999, the Sad Clown series has seen over a dozen iterations in numerous formats, including rare 4-track demos, live recordings, a DVD of behind-the-scenes tour footage, a mixtape, 7” vinyl singles and more. To this day, one of the earliest volumes – Sad Clown Bad Dub 2 – still remains one of the most celebrated and coveted installments from the series.

Originally released in 2000, Sad Clown Bad Dub 2 was a rather stripped-down DIY release – a simple CD tucked behind an illustrated cover with handwritten tracklist and liner notes. The recordings were equally as rough, consisting of a dozen raw 4-track demos that hadn't been treated to any sort of mixing or mastering. Although Atmosphere initially produced only 500 copies of these CD's to sell on the road for extra cash, the buzz and the subsequent demand from fans eventually led the group to pressing more of the CD's, this time stamp- ing the cover art with the phrase "Authorized Bootleg" as a sly nod to those who'd been ripping and sharing the files. The unpolished nature of Sad Clown Bad Dub 2 was no deterrent from the appeal of its contents though.

Generally considered an underground classic in hip-hop circles, Sad Clown Bad Dub 2 is often mentioned as one of the standout releases in Atmosphere's extensive discography. It is a deeply introspective project that explores a range of complex thoughts and emotions, counter-balanced by occasional moments of darkly humorous sarcasm and wit. Slug's writing is sharp and insightful with a knack for turning his personal struggles into universal themes that listeners can relate to. Ant's production is minimalistic, moody, even eclectic in nature, full of atmospheric textures and unconventional rhythms. This release is very clearly one of the early stepping stones in developing their unique and distinctive sound together, helping to establish their reputation as one of the most innovative and boundary- pushing acts in hip-hop.

We're excited to reintroduce the legendary Sad Clown Bad Dub 2, digitally remastered from the original 4-track tapes and available on vinyl for the first time ever!

The last twelve months have been a whirlwind for Henry Counsell and Louis Curran, the men who make up Joy (Anonymous). Having established themselves during the Covid-19 era by playing impromptu meet-ups on London’s South Bank, they have graduated to bigger venues, travelled to far-flung locales and recorded their second album, Cult Classics, while maintaining the spontaneous energy and irrepressible joy that made their name. Their music revels in the euphoria of being alive and all the feelings, good or bad, that come with it. It invites us into a community, draws us close and promises the night of our lives.

Recorded over the course of a year, the blueprint for Cult Classics was laid down over a two-week span at Imogen Heap’s Round House in east London. Joy (Anonymous) invited friends old and new to visit - they’d record live instruments in jam sessions upstairs and then retreat to a second room to flip and loop and generally mess with the sounds, moulding them into sizzling dance tracks. “Loads of people were coming up to me like ‘I thought this was going to be a dance record?’” Louis says, remembering the quietly beautiful music they’d be recording. “I’d be like, don’t worry about that, just keep playing.” He’d send it back to people later and they’d be floored - “That was my bit and you’ve made it... jungle!”

It was an organic and creatively fulfilling approach, one that didn’t allow any of the music to get stale or stagnate. As they built the tracks from the sounds they’d collected, Joy (Anonymous) would weave the new songs into their famously improvised live sets, testing them, refining them, taking note of the audiences’ reactions. In a year punctuated by a lot of travel, they’d also incorporate the voices of people they met along the way - “Beazley’s Poem”, which opens the record, features the words of a man who was working security at a Fred Again show at New York’s Terminal Five. “He was basically doing the opposite of his job and being a hype man, climbing on the fence and ramping up the crowd - we ended up hanging out with him - like, who’s this legend?” Louis explains. “He just speaks really amazingly about his life, all these amazing thoughts and opinions - he started jumping on the mic when we were playing, preaching these amazing messages to the crowd, like that we all need to be nicer to each other. The first time we played the record in its entirety, he introduced us and that’s the recording we’ve used.”

Joy (Anonymous) remain dedicated to the spirit of spontaneity. They shut a street down with a surprise waterside party in New York. On a trip to Copenhagen they played an impromptu set in a cafe, which turned into a house party and a night-long good time. In Lithuania, they ended up playing in a decommissioned prison. It’s harder, perhaps, to keep that spirit alive now that they are operating more within the confines of the music industry but they will keep lugging their kit to wherever the party calls for as long as they can. “I think if we lose that, we’ve kind of lost what makes us us,” Henry says.

Bursting with multi-genre reference points and disparate influences, Cult Classics is very much a dance album. The samples we made ourselves or we took from music that is quite different to dance music, but we definitely wanted to shout out a lot of the dance influences that we love,” Henry says. They listened to a lot of Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx as well as The Prodigy (“more rage stuff”), taking songwriting tips from their dance forebears, but also recording bits that felt more like jazz and motown (see: A Place I Belong and the lovely album closer, You’re In Or You’re Out). Emir Taha’s gentle classical guitar runs like a thread throughout Cult Classics, washing into the undertones of the record, tying it all together.

The album follows the beat of a night out, from frenetic, sweaty movement to the gentler winding down as the dawn breaks. At times it is euphoric, celebratory and pure, whirling fun, at others it seeks the joy in the darker emotions that life throws our way. 404 is designed to encapsulate everything about the Joy (Anonymous) journey so far. Skittering beats and ghostly vocals give way to vibrating house chords: sirens blare as we approach a dubstep drop. It’s dramatic and wild, ratcheting up, seeming to settle then hitting you with an intense and frantic breakdown before the ghostly vocal returns to lull us back into the world. It has the feel of a hungry cat playing with a mouse, toying with it before letting it get away.

What sounds like someone playing the spoons on playful, housey How We End Up Here is actually Louis’ restless habit of clicking his rings on everything, one of a myriad of calling cards and easter eggs that day one fans will recognise. They rework Miley Cyrus and Swae Lee’s Party Up The Street into a French-electro-inspired future classic, adding a note of melancholy to a tune that you can imagine hearing blaring from every car on a summer drive. The lyrics on Cult Classic are generally reassuring, inspirational, originally drawn from Henry in stream-of-consciousness freestyles. You’re fine the way you are, they seem to say - the repeated “No need to try” of A Place I Belong, the assurance that “It’s in me all the time” on In Me All The Time. Even the summery but regretful Did You Wrong hints at the growth that is possible from less than ideal behaviour. For Joy (Anonymous), joy isn’t about just being “happy” all the time - it’s about relishing every element of your being.

The name ‘Joy (Anonymous)’ is taken from the work Henry did with Alcoholics Anonymous groups: it is a way to build a community around sharing joy. Their impromptu live sets are known as ‘meetings’; they encourage fans to share moments of joy to their website. They care deeply about the scene they’ve come up in and are determined not to leave it behind. Every show is another chance to reach out and connect with people who love to come together and revel in music as loud as it can go.

Support slots for Fred Again and The Streets, wild B2Bs with Fred and Skrillex, and a set at Four Tet’s Finsbury Park all-dayer this summer have given the duo the opportunity to live out childhood dreams and introduced their infectious live shows to new audiences at huge venues.

With an album as assured and joyful as Cult Classics on the horizon (and a killer collab with The Blessed Madonna coming up), they’re only going to reach higher heights. But the essence of Joy (Anonymous) remains on the South Bank. Between shows at Ally Pally in September, they dragged their camping chairs and gear back down to the banks of the Thames: and it just felt right.

Repress of the sold out Record Store Day release, this time on a different colour. Black Spiders – Those trusted and true sons of the north are back. “We knew the new album had to be special. We’ve been away for a while. The first album was a straight shot, the second on the rocks, with this new one we had to kick down the brewery doors!” Pete Spiby. Back in June of 2017, Sheffield rock beasts Black Spiders waved goodbye to an army of loyal fans with some sonically charged shows before retreating into the shadows. And then, in November of last year, with the world in the grips of the Coronavirus pandemic and after a long year of very little fun from out of the silhouettes they returned with ‘Fly In The Soup’, the first new Black Spiders music in 6 years. Exactly the feel-good shot in the arm the world needed, while we await that other vaccine. The seeds of the Black Spider return were actually planted last summer, when singer and guitarist Pete Spiby began taking to guitarist Ozzy Lister to start writing new material and before they knew it, they had amassed the best part of 40 songs in a very short period of time which they whittled down. And then the pandemic hit. “It’s certainly been a strange process, in unfamiliar territory,” explains Pete. “We started to look at how we could do it given the restrictions and not only that, but we had to replace our original drummer too. For us and probably most other bands, we would usually take a riff or song idea to a rehearsal and thrash it out ‘till we either had something or it ended up in the song graveyard! This time around we couldn’t do that, so myself, Ozzy and on occasion Adam Irwin (bass player) started to send ideas back and forth until we had something to work with in GarageBand. We got to a point where we had enough song ideas with basic structure to go into a studio. It was at this point when we had to look for a new drummer.” With former drummer ‘Tiger’ Si Atkinson unavailable to play, with a week or two of grooming, the band took a chance on Planet Rock DJ Wyatt Wendel to occupy the drum stool. “I've never joined or worked with a band in this way EVER,” laughs Wyatt. “2020 certainly made it surreal. “A Pete/Ozzy writing session at the beginning of the year had produced some promising results, but it felt like barriers were popping up everywhere,” explains bassist Adam Irwin. “We started talking about how we could use technology such as GarageBand to help, and slowly but surely the song writing gathered pace. It was time to hook up with our old producer Matt Elliss and try these new songs out in the studio. “Heading into the studio to record songs we’d written but never played together, with a drummer that we’d never met, is one of the stranger experiences I’ve had while being in a band. Thankfully, Wyatt has turned out to be an excellent addition, who despite his faults (loud, southern) has fit right into the band dynamic. Covid has made life really tough for so many of us in our industry. And yet, this new way of song writing has been liberating, this is the most consistent and prolific we’ve ever been, and I am immensely proud of this album.” Against all of the odds, Black Spiders have crafted an album that features 13 tracks of high-energy, feel-good rock n’roll contrasted by demonic doom that despite the disjointed, isolated way it was recorded. It sounds like a band, firing on all cylinders. “We had to dig down deep to pull out some gems and what would we want from Black Spiders,” questions Pete. War, vengeance, mental health, death, conservation & climate change, where are we from? Relationships, friendships, our flaws. Where are we going? Alien life and Mother Earth - some of which made the record.” Kicking off with the aforementioned ‘Fly In The Soup’ single, this 3rd ST long-player wastes no time in grabbing you by the scruff of the neck and dragging you through an album where good times, hooks and riffs are not in short supply, but the doom-drenched likes of ‘Wizard Shall Not Kill Wizard’ and the psychedelic groove of album closer ‘Crooked Black Wings’ give us an album of many moods and dynamics and a reason to be cheerful in 2021. And why does the album have no title? “It wasn’t hard picking a title for the album, as we decided that the focus should be on the band, not the album title, so we decided not to have one. Let the music do the talking....

2023 Repress

Reiko Kudo first debuted on the Tokyo underground music scene in 1980 with NOISE, a duo which apart from herself under her then maiden name Reiko Omura on voice, guitar and trumpet featured Tori Kudo on organ. Their only album TENNO (1980 on Engel) is probably one of the most outstanding and uncompromising records of all time.

Like other pioneering female producers from Japan such as NON (of NON BAND), PHEW and HACO, who had all begun their startling careers in the early days of the japanese Punk era, Reiko Kudo can surely be regarded as one of the most unique, uncategorisable and daring voices in the entire field of electronic and experimental music ever.

RICE FIELD SLOWLY RIPING IN THE NIGHT was REIKO KUDO's second album under her own name. It features TORI KUDO (MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ) and SAYA and TAKASHI UENO (TENNISCOATS) on various instruments. The recordings took place in 2000 at Reiko' s and Tori's house in the rural surroundings of Shikoku island.

All recorded music on this album sounds like it originates in a parallel dimension where time and key signatures simply don't exist, Some might describe this as outsider music, but this doesn't really begin to do justice to the quality of the tracks, there is nothing accidental or forced here, this is simply music created in a very different way. Yet again REIKO KUDO had conceived of something utterly beautiful.

"After producing the album "Souvenir de mauve" with Maher Shalal Hash Baz which we released on our label Majikick, the idea came to us, to release Reiko Kudo's work. For Reiko's work, we brought our recording equipment from Tokyo to Shikoku and recorded the entire album at her house.

The piano was positioned in a room with a high ceiling. We would set up our small recording equipment in the room and started to record. The basic tracks were recorded without any rehearsal and just a few overdubs were added on top of it. To have a distant sound on the recording, Tori played trumpet in the next room. The choir was standing outside the house, singing "Enya-totto, enya-totto" through the open window. It was early spring, I remember that it was still a bit cold and the members of the choir were freezing outside.

Reiko plays only at certain times of the day, so that we were able to complete only two or three recordings a day. Therefore we had plenty of free time. We went to a hot spring, to a cafe, or we tried pottery on a spinning wheel at Tori's workshop. It was a very rewarding time.

When this album was finished, we brought it to her to listen to. She said happily "I think this is the best work I have ever done." We felt that all our efforts were richly rewarded. Secretly, we thought the same, so we are delighted that this album will be re-issued." - Saya and Ueno (Tenniscoats), Tokyo 2018

Originally released on Majikick Records, Japan, 2000 Restauration and mastering by Detlef Funder at Paraschall Mastering, Düsseldorf. Vinylcut at Calyx, Berlin Translation by Miki Yui and Claus Laufenburg. Many thanks to Reiko Kudo, Tori Kudo, Saya and Takashi Ueno, Satoru Higashiseto.

"Spirit Power - The Best Of Johnny Marr" ist eine großartige Sammlung an Songs, die seine musikalische Bandbreite der ersten zehn Jahre von Johnny Marrs produktiver Solokarriere beleuchtet. Spirit Power enthält auch zwei brandneue Songs, die Johnny Marr zusammen mit seinem Co-Produzenten James Doviak produziert hat.

An Meilensteinen mangelt es Johnny Marr (The Smiths, Electronic, The The, Modest Mouse) in seinem bewegten Musikleben nicht - der Inspiration Award bei den Ivor Novellos, eine Oscar-Nominierung für seine Arbeit mit Hans Zimmer bei Inception, ein NME Godlike Genius Award zeugen von seinem Erfolg. Aber es ist das vergangene Jahrzehnt aufregender kreativer Begegnungen, die auf einen entscheidenden Moment für Johnny Marr im Jahr 2023 hinweisen - zehn Jahre inspiriertes Songwriting als Frontmann einer Band zu feiern.

Spirit Power wurde von Johnny Marr persönlich kuratiert und umfasst Songs aus vier britischen Top-Ten-Soloalben (The Messenger von 2013, Playland von 2014, Call The Comet von 2018, das Doppelalbum Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 von 2022), Non-Album-Single-Veröffentlichungen w, zwei brandneue Songs sowie eine Coverversion von Depeche Modes 'I Feel You', die zum Record Store Day 2015 veröffentlicht wurde. Die Deluxe-CD-Edition von Spirit Power wird fünf bisher ungehörte Demos und Raritäten enthalten: "Hi Hello" (Demo), "Somewhere" (Demo), "The Answer" (Crazy Face Version), "The Messenger" (Demo) und "Speak Out Reach Out" (Crazy Face Version).

"Spirit Power - The Best Of Johnny Marr" ist eine großartige Sammlung an Songs, die seine musikalische Bandbreite der ersten zehn Jahre von Johnny Marrs produktiver Solokarriere beleuchtet. Spirit Power enthält auch zwei brandneue Songs, die Johnny Marr zusammen mit seinem Co-Produzenten James Doviak produziert hat.

An Meilensteinen mangelt es Johnny Marr (The Smiths, Electronic, The The, Modest Mouse) in seinem bewegten Musikleben nicht - der Inspiration Award bei den Ivor Novellos, eine Oscar-Nominierung für seine Arbeit mit Hans Zimmer bei Inception, ein NME Godlike Genius Award zeugen von seinem Erfolg. Aber es ist das vergangene Jahrzehnt aufregender kreativer Begegnungen, die auf einen entscheidenden Moment für Johnny Marr im Jahr 2023 hinweisen - zehn Jahre inspiriertes Songwriting als Frontmann einer Band zu feiern.

Spirit Power wurde von Johnny Marr persönlich kuratiert und umfasst Songs aus vier britischen Top-Ten-Soloalben (The Messenger von 2013, Playland von 2014, Call The Comet von 2018, das Doppelalbum Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 von 2022), Non-Album-Single-Veröffentlichungen w, zwei brandneue Songs sowie eine Coverversion von Depeche Modes 'I Feel You', die zum Record Store Day 2015 veröffentlicht wurde. Die Deluxe-CD-Edition von Spirit Power wird fünf bisher ungehörte Demos und Raritäten enthalten: "Hi Hello" (Demo), "Somewhere" (Demo), "The Answer" (Crazy Face Version), "The Messenger" (Demo) und "Speak Out Reach Out" (Crazy Face Version).

Patrice Bart Williams, also known as Patrice, is a singer,composer, producer and director from Germany and Sierra Leone. His career took off in 1999 with the release of the Lions EP. In 20 years, he has released a dozen albums. His music is a blend of reggae, soul, punk, folk and hip-hop. Over the years,
he has established his own unique style. He settled in Jamaica in 2020 and decided to build a studio in the
middle of the forest. This atypical location became a meeting place for artists and inspired Patrice to explore new territory. The "Super Sundays", live concerts held on the studio rooftop, were attended
by artists such as Richie Spice and Jesse Royal. In 2022, Patrice unveiled the Super Album, an unplugged best of where he reinterpreted his greatest hits including 'Soulstorm', 'Hippies With Guns', and 'Burning Bridges'.
Patrice returns in 2023 with a new album entitled '9', marked by rebirth and the symbolism of the colour blue. This album is the result of seven years' work, a veritable introspection into the depths of his emotions. "I was born on the 9th, the day my grandfather passed away. The notion of rebirth has always been present in my life, from my very first day. For my ninth studio album, I took the time to withdraw, to rebuild myself. The last seven years have been devoted to self-discovery, and it's this inner journey that has given life to this album." - Patrice

The latest album release by acclaimed Norwegian band Erlend Apneseth Trio is made in collaboration with renowned experimental composer and vocalist Maja Ratkje. Their impromptu concert together in 2022 was a glorious kick-off for a five-day festival and was luckily put on tape. After reworking and reimagining the recorded material with their steady collaborator Jorgen Træen, the result is a refreshing take on improvisations-turned-compositions. Featuring innovative soundscapes with archival material and an engaging transitory state. Listening to the album is akin to being on a voyage of discovery, in and out of the dream state. From the very beginning, the listener is met by ancient voices on tape, surrounded by distorted and dispersed sounds. Like stars on a moonless night, the sounds fall in and out of perceptibility, most twinkling, some falling. You suddenly wake up on a speeding train. As it enters a tunnel, ghostly voices sing a lullaby. The music gradually unfolds from mesmerizing melancholia to a ritualistic blowout. The music always takes the route of the unexpected and reaches momentums which shows why this is one of Norway's most unique constellations. Orbiting sounds gather around and assemble themselves into scenes, forming uncanny rooms collectively dreamed up by the artists. The album's first track Tre Vegar follows an enthralling pathway layered with field recordings and intensified by noise, suddenly plunging into a delightful stream of chords fleeting in mid-air. The variety of sounds that make up this glorious and aptly named 'Collage' is astounding. Elemental sounds range from the howling wind and soft-bright ringing of sheep-bells to the timeless trickling of a small stream of water. Strings of many timbres soar over animated croaks and quacks, assembling into a swampy symphony. The well-balanced diversity of acoustic and electric sounds has become the band's trademark. It is ever-present, complementing and creating new improvisatory trails to follow. Erlend Apneseth: Hardanger fiddle Stephan Meidell: baritone acoustic guitar, live sampling, modular synth Oyvind Hegg-Lunde: acoustic & electronic drums, percussion, timpani Maja S. K. Ratkje: voice, electronics

Following on from the release of their fifth album, ‘Neanderthal Jam’, West Australian boogie masters DATURA4 are back with ‘Invisible Hits’, an album collecting unreleased out-takes and selected tracks
that were not previously available on vinyl. This superb collection of brilliantly crafted songs is only available on LIMITED CLEAR BLUE VINYL, and will delight fans of the band and newcomers alike. “If
you were lucky enough to grow up in the 60s and 70s, you know that the music coming out at that time had a certain vibe. We’re not talking about the bubble-gum pop that was prevalent on the AM stations of the day. This is that blues based, uber-overdriven, gritty sound that blasted on many a stereo. Australian rockers Datura4 have captured not just the sound, but that whole atmospheric ambience.” – AMERICAN BLUES SCENE

Heading to a new millennium, people in the 80s and 90s were looking for brighter days to come and Techno was the music of this utopic future, themed by rushed beats made by electronic instruments that resembled a new era of technology, endless excess and possibilities.

40 years later the world is more complicated and dystopian than ever as we face crises everywhere. Mental issues are a natural consequence of the troubled environments we live in and more people around the world suffer from them. At the same time, we haven't lost the appeal for euphoric and fast dancing, either to leave our problems behind or face them head-on on the sweaty dance floor.

This EP is dedicated to some of the feelings associated with the tribulations of mental issues. What seems like a dark take still points out that we are not alone, as music unites us being the source for help and change. Mental States 777_31 offers four sick cuts perfect for insane clubs - fast and furious like an attack, rushed and energetic embracing positivity in the darkness.

The Madlib Invazion Music Library Series . Entry #5: Dan Hastie and Terin Ector (Orgone) pick up where Piero Umiliani left off with Exotic Grooves and Lush Funk. This is the next up in a series of music library releases, with future volumes produced by DJ Muggs, Karriem Riggins and more. The Madlib Invazion Music Library Series was created by Madlib and Egon to give their creative friends a chance to stretch out and indulge in whatever type of music they wanted. This music was created for easy, one-stop clearance in film and television synchronization usage and for sampling. You can also enjoy these albums in the way that many do with the best of the best vintage library catalogs – listen, ponder, repeat.

Breezy headwinds, orange-tinged skies, hazy, serene bliss – just some of the profound feelings to be had on the latest release from Oath, a masterclass in melody and mood from one of the finest ever to do…..

Italian producer and DJ Jacy remains one of the stand-out musical characters from a dazzling ensemble of atmosphere builders who were so prevalent during the late 80s and early 90s. His craftsmanship is simply legendary, his music quite simply some of the finest to exude from this period of time, and of which is still making waves in the collective sands now. His dedication to the creation of emotive sweeps, gorgeous rippling tones and easy going, freeing atmospheres has remained a cornerstone of his sound, from the early days through to his excellent work on his imprint Home of House, along with sublime releases on Kalahari Oyster Cult and Hot Haus Recs. Jacy’s sound was broadcast to the world once again via Safe Trip’s ‘Welcome To Paradise’ compilations, where his inclusions were something that lingered long in the memory – an essential component of what is known as the ‘Dream House’ sound. It’s difficult to convey into words exactly how a Jacy record can take the listener, but perhaps it’s different for everyone – one thing can be agreed on though, it’s an experience like no other.

‘Night Fantasy’ is Jacy’s first EP in 4 years, and much like his other records, this one blesses us with warmth, delight and joy, in the softest and most subtle of manners. The title track, which opens up the record, greets the listener with a familiar drum pattern, one which then gives way to the rock-hard bass line, and then the pads arrive. Heavenly angelic in form, their presence is complimented by the arrival of the breathy vocal sample, which evolves to provide a wondrous narrative with the cascading synth line that comes soon after. As a combination its intoxicating, with the breakdown giving us time to get to know this mixture very well, indeed, before powering home with excellence. ‘Just Change’ comes on next, and this one opens up with that classic and explicitly dreamy chord sequence we all know and cherish, with Jacy allowing us to soak up this goodness before shifting the perspective to the rhythm. The interplay that occurs here between keys and drums is something different, before everything transitions into a sequence to close your eyes too. ‘Dat Tape’ shifts perspective to more of a swing in terms of the groove, with sweeping background pads doing much to tug at the heartstrings. The vocal sample is so very effective at crafting an audial narrative, inviting the listener to swim deeper into the goodness, with the subtle transitions doing much to keep things ticking over. Finally, we have ‘Come On’, and this one keeps a spacious feel between the keys and the drums, and it works ever so well. The bass line occupies the bottom ends superbly, with interchanges in chords and some ever-so-familiar vocal samples thrown into the mix – and its simply wonderful.

To convey deep set feelings is to have faith in musical dexterity, to understand the grooves in the record, to follow instinct and trust in the process and precedent. Jacy has always found the sweet spot in his music by following this approach, it seems, and this new record of his is an accumulation of a lifetime of dedication and passion to music and all of its many flavors. Soaring, effective melodic undulations and rapturous, fluctuating rhythms, coupled with atmospheres to drift into – what more could you wish for? Lets get lost within it once again….

Vladislav Delay presents the fourth EP in his "Hide Behind The Silence" series with five 10" releases coming throughout 2023. Intuitive and raw music, momentary and reflective, released on Ripatti's own label "Rajaton".

Stillness is a myth. Consider concepts such as ”still water”, or ”still air” for that matter. Go to a restaurant, ask them for a glass of still water, hold it against the light and see where we’re at. Even though the water itself has been captured and imprisoned in the glass, it never stops breathing. It’s filled with tiny particles, dancing. Everything can be explained on a molecular level, but since we’re not scientists – and even if you happen to be – it’s the natural world of perception that moves me.

Still air is very similar. A hot summer’s day with zero wind feels completely still. It’s the closest I have felt to complete stillness. Or for a more urban adaptation, imagine the same vibe inside a normal apartment. In those moments, revelations and mind- blowing experiences can be had with experiments in stillness.
Try this: Just sit down for a minute on a sunny day, making sure there’s enough natural light. Do absolutely nothing. Try not to breathe for a bit. (If you need a mental anchor, you can play Cage’s 4’33” in your head but nothing else.) Watch the tiny dots of dust dancing :..’ ̈.:; ́ ́*°.,’:,. ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈:,.’
The movement is crazy, but the feeling of stillness comes from witnessing how subtle it is. In (perceived) complete stillness, every act of microscopic mobility seems to speak volumes. Yet, it feels both reassuring and oddly threatening that the stillness is never complete. What if we would need absolute stillness? Or is it just enough that we can perceive something as such? Extremes attract, so for both water and air, extraordinary movement is equally fascinating. That is also a luxury item of sorts. For us to enjoy a very ”loud” body of water or air, we need to be safe, in enough control of the situation. So when you are, it’s worthwhile to pay attention and take it all in.
A rapid flowing free with extreme strength and just barely in control. Look at that water go! No still water on this one, only ”sparkling”. A windy day when birds seem surprised how hard it is to fly, but in the end they make it. Trees bend but don’t break. The wind shows you its movement but doesn’t hurt you. It feels friendly, like a big clumsy dog that doesn’t quite understand its size.
It’s beautiful to be a guest of the elements, but not at the mercy of them. A new kind of dialogue forms.

Q&A with Sasu Ripatti:

1) Tell us something about the EP series ”Hide Behind the Silence”, what’s the idea and what can we expect?

Exploration of inaction. Of many kinds. In arts and in personal life, or at bigger and more serious levels. Questioning myself as a human being as well as an artist. Acknowledging the growing activism all around, and the very clear need for it, and how it reflects my own inaction.
Musically speaking, after Rakka, Isoviha and Speed Demon, I finally found some relief, but more importantly lost the need to go musically ever more outward and intensive. I felt quite strongly certain periods/moods from the past and they made me revisit some musical ideas or states of mind I was exploring early on.
It’s about live moments being captured, not much premeditation or editing. More intuitive and raw, even though the end result (to me) feels and sounds quite introspective and calm. It’s not very ambitious. Momentary and reflective.

2) Your music doesn’t sound very silent. Does it come from somewhere behind the silence?

Oh, this time to me it sounds quite quiet and playing with space if not silence. I don’t know what’s actually behind silence, but I think silence is the source of everything. We just don’t understand it yet.

3) What kind of thoughts or experiences gave inspiration to this series?

Writing this in Nov ’22, it’s not a stretch to say the world has been really unwell. Sometimes, like Mika Vainio put it, the world eats you up. I feel a bit like that. And I try to hide in my studio and stay away from it all, but it’s getting harder by the day. I’ve been questioning myself and thinking if what us artists are doing is worth anything, and whether it’s just a selfish thing I’ve been doing for the past 25 years, running away from everything. I haven’t come to a conclusion yet.

4) Is it easy for you to be in silence, or around silence?

Absolutely. I not only hide behind silence but I also love silence. It’s only since I started going back to nature as a grown-up person that I sensed and was enveloped by silence, true silence. I have begun to appreciate it a lot. I think all the people should spend more time in silence.

All tracks composed and produced by Sasu Ripatti.
Artwork by Marc Hohmann, photography by Shinnosuke Yoshimori.
Mastering by Stephan Mathieu for Schwebung Mastering.
Vinyl cut by SST Brueggemann.
Publishing by WARP Music Ltd.

Repress!

In the mid-1970s, a force of nature swept across the continental United States, cutting across all strata of race and class, rooting in our minds, our homes, our culture. It wasn’t The Exorcist, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, or even bell-bottoms, but instead a book called The Secret Life of Plants. The work of occultist/former OSS agent Peter Tompkins and former CIA agent/dowsing enthusiast Christopher Bird, the books shot up the bestseller charts and spread like kudzu across the landscape, becoming a phenomenon. Seemingly overnight, the indoor plant business was in full bloom and photosynthetic eukaryotes of every genus were hanging off walls, lording over bookshelves, and basking on sunny window ledges. The science behind Secret Life was specious: plants can hear our prayers, they’re lie detectors, they’re telepathic, able to predict natural disasters and receive signals from distant galaxies. But that didn’t stop millions from buying and nurturing their new plants.

Perhaps the craziest claim of the book was that plants also dug music. And whether you purchased a snake plant, asparagus fern, peace lily, or what have you from Mother Earth on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles (or bought a Simmons mattress from Sears), you also took home Plantasia, an album recorded especially for them. Subtitled “warm earth music for plants…and the people that love them,” it was full of bucolic, charming, stoner-friendly, decidedly unscientific tunes enacted on the new-fangled device called the Moog. Plants date back from the dawn of time, but apparently they loved the Moog, never mind that the synthesizer had been on the market for just a few years. Most of all, the plants loved the ditties made by composer Mort Garson.

Few characters in early electronic music can be both fearless pioneers and cheesy trend-chasers, but Garson embraced both extremes, and has been unheralded as a result. When one writer rhetorically asked: “How was Garson’s music so ubiquitous while the man remained so under the radar?” the answer was simple. Well before Brian Eno did it, Garson was making discreet music, both the man and his music as inconspicuous as a Chlorophytumcomosum. Julliard-educated and active as a session player in the post-war era, Garson wrote lounge hits, scored plush arrangements for Doris Day, and garlanded weeping countrypolitan strings around Glen Campbell’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” He could render the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel alike into easy listening and also dreamed up his own ditties. “An idear” as Garson himself would drawl it out. “I live with it, I walk it, I sing it.”

But as his daughter Day Darmet recalls: “When my dad found the synthesizer, he realized he didn’t want to do pop music anymore.” Garson encountered Robert Moog and his new device at the Audio Engineering Society’s West Coast convention in 1967 and immediately began tinkering with the device. With the Moog, those idears could be transformed. “He constantly had a song he was humming,” Darmet says. “At the table he was constantly tapping.” Which is to say that Mort pulled his melodies out of thin air, just like any household plant would.

The Plantae kingdom grew to its height by 1976, from DC Comics’ mossy superhero Swamp Thing to Stevie Wonder’s own herbal meditation, Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants. Nefarious manifestations of human-plant interaction also abounded, be it the grotesque pods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers or the pothead paranoia of the US Government spraying Mexican marijuana fields with the herbicide paraquat (which led to the rise in homegrown pot by the 1980s). And then there’s the warm, leafy embrace of Plantasia itself.

“My mom had a lot of plants,” Darmet says. “She didn’t believe in organized religion, she believed the earth was the best thing in the whole world. Whatever created us was incredible.” And she also knew when her husband had a good song, shouting from another room when she heard him humming a good idear. Novel as it might seem, Plantasia is simply full of good tunes.

Garson may have given the album away to new plant and bed owners, but a decade later a new generation could hear his music in another surreptitious way. Millions of kids bought The Legend of Zelda for their Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1986 and one distinct 8-bit tune bears more than a passing resemblance to album highlight “Concerto for Philodendron and Pothos.” Garson was never properly credited for it, but he nevertheless subliminally slipped into a new generations’ head, helping kids and plants alike grow.

Hearing Plantasia in the 21st century, it seems less an ode to our photosynthesizing friends by Garson and more an homage to his wife, the one with the green thumb that made everything flower around him. “My dad would be totally pleased to know that people are really interested in this music that had no popularity at the time,” Darmet says of Plantasia’snew renaissance. “He would be fascinated by the fact that people are finally understanding and appreciating this part of his musical career that he got no admiration for back then.” Garson seems to be everywhere again, even if he’s not really noticed, just like a houseplant.

Following on from the Primal Scream frontman’s brilliantly-received previous release for Ace, ‘Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down’ (accolades included being short-listed for Rough Trade’s compilation of the year), Bobby Gillespie brings us another slice of the music that soundtracks his life. And in this case, it’s his touring life. Drawing on the experience of ‘the way that the noise and clamour of the road can tire you out, wear you down and frazzle your nerves to shattered fragments of jangled exhaustion’, these are the records Bobby turns to for solace, for comfort, for empathy and for resourcefulness.

The compilation features an introduction from the man himself, talking us through his personal choices as though he’s sitting cross-legged on the carpet going through records with you in his lounge. Also long-time cohort of the band, Kris Needs has written extensive liner-notes, serving up an intensive track by track insight and analysis.

Titled after and kicking off with the Willie Nelson track of the same name, ‘I Still Can’t Believe You’re Gone’ leads us through a darker and deeper exploration than its predecessor, featuring Nick Cave’s funereal version of ‘By The Time I Get To Phoenix’ and Ry Cooder’s sparse and beautiful reworking of ‘Dark End Of The Street’. And we get there via such greats as Bob Dylan, JJ Cale, Donnie Fritts, Crazy Horse, Lee Hazlewood, Al Green, Thin Lizzy and so many more.

In Bobby’s own words: ‘These songs are soul savers to soothe frayed and battered nerves and to ease and settle the heart. They work on me like medicine every time. I would like to share this wonderful music that has given me strength, joy and inspiration over the years with you the listener, so that you too might get the same feelings of protection and inspiration that I do whenever I listen to these songs. We're all travellers on some kind of road through this life, and we all need respite from time-to-time - the music on this compilation is soul food of the highest order - I hope you enjoy it.’.

Dagerlöff & Galner is a French duo that seeks to create its own vision of modern music, including elements of futuristic synths, Japanese video games, progressive jazz or epic and textured soundtracks. Their sound has a progressive touch that can recall the works of Aphex Twin or Oneohtrix Point Never. To be given the opportunity to set this masterpiece to music, the first cinematic venture into the occult, was a real treat for them. Presented in the style of a lecture, Häxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages is a Swedish silent documentary - horror film directed by Benjamin Christensen which was originally released in 1922 (in Sweden) and deals with witchcraft from antiquity to the film's contemporary period. The movie was released in the US in 1968. Witchcraft is carefully portrayed through illustrations from medieval books and audio-visual reconstructions. From the witches' sabbath to the interrogations of the Inquisition, the classical images come to life in disturbing spectral visions using all the special effects available at the time: overprints, models, jump cuts, stop motion, make-up and prosthetics. The film's soundtrack is divided in three parts, including the one by Dagerlöff & Galner. The duo enhances the heretical character of the work through dark pieces with constant intensity. This work of digital synthesis (choirs, orchestra, organ, analog modulars and tapes) allowed them to draw lines between tradition and modernity, like a film whose purpose remains as strong and relevant almost a century later. The film was re-released in a restored Blu-ray version by Potemkine in 2021, in a limited edition of 1666copies(sold out).