quête:de de mo

At the start of this summer, following a three-year hiatus for Daphni (punctuated only by his first ever collaborative Daphni track ‘Unidos’ alongside Sofia Kourtesis), he dropped ‘Sad Piano House’. The track represented something of a continuation in the Daphni catalogue, its roots growing from Cherry’s ‘Cloudy’ and its subsequent Kelbin remix, something in that song’s makeup having a profound effect when played on dancefloors by Snaith and countless others. ‘Sad Piano House’ deployed more intangibly irresistible bendy piano to equally satisfying effect and continues to achieve similarly rhapsodic dancefloor saturation.
Though a sizeable gap for Daphni releases, between Cherry and Butterfly however of course sits Honey, the latest Caribou album and one that saw the more instantaneous and dancefloor leaning traits of Daphni peaking through the cracks more than ever before. This blurring of the lines leads to an intriguing collaboration in Butterfly’s lead single ‘Waiting So Long (feat. Caribou)’. An unlikely duo - in that both artists are the same man, Dan Snaith - ‘Waiting So Long’ is not so much an identity crisis, ego trip, or the result of a chemical spill in the Snaith laboratory. It’s simply a track that Snaith felt for the first time belongs to both aliases, and might appeal to fans of both. He has never sung on a Daphni track before, and did not set out with the intention to do so this time, and yet this strange billing was born.

Daphni music has always been Snaith’s way of hitting directly to the core of the dancefloors he spends so much of his time playing to, and those dancefloors have been steadily expanding as his name grows, with the music following suit. This album however also draws from further back with a definite kinship to the very first Daphni album, the invigorating bag of ideas that was Jiaolong.
Butterfly is a showcase of the wonderful variety and surprising twists and turns that made that album such an exciting new prospect and that still to this day make Snaith such an intriguing DJ. There are more heavy hitters here, tracks that fill those dancefloors better than anyone, like ‘Clap Your Hands’ which picks up the energy of ‘Sad Piano House’ and flips it, exposing the gritty and intoxicating underbelly of Snaith’s hitmaking side, while retaining the playful urgency that runs through all of his work of late. Meanwhile ‘Hang’’s comic-strip horns are unpinned by gleeful force, unrelenting and thrillingly unshakeable. Elsewhere though comes a clutch of other tunes that might creep out somewhere more off the beaten path, a path Snaith has never stopped seeking in amongst his larger billings. ‘Lucky’ is squirmy and elusively intoxicating, ‘Invention’ skitters down meandering, inviting corridors, ‘Talk To Me’ grumbles and broods in the murk, and ‘Miles Smiles’ could roll on endlessly, so confident in its groove. There are no obvious peaks in these tracks or unifying moments, in fact many of them really have no business being on the dancefloor at all, and yet in the right setting, they could be the most fun to be had all night.

One such club is a good microcosm for the ethos of Butterfly as a whole. “Around the time I was finishing up this album I played a long set in a club called Open Ground in Wuppertal, Germany.” Snaith recalls, “It’s kind of, in one sense, the platonic ideal of the kind of club I’d want to play in. Every single decision has been taken, at great expense, with the aim of making the perfect sounding medium sized club room. But on top of it being the perfect acoustic environment it also is run by an amazing collection of people in a way that gives it a sense of community that dance music at its best provides. It is an absolute pleasure to play in that room to a crowd of people who come from all over. Playing in there you feel like you can play anything, and I played works in progress of pretty much every track on this album in my set there. Don’t get me wrong, I love playing a short set at a festival or in a more raw warehouse kind of club where you bang it out and only really functional music works but on record I guess the point of these Daphni records is to keep in mind a more expansive idea of dance music where the parameters are broad and the church is broad. I think that actually, putting really functional stuff next to weirder tracks (both on an album and in a dj set) might be the thing that’s still most interesting to me.”
This is the feeling that’s most palpable on Butterfly, and in every single time you see Snaith DJ. Right from the inception of the Daphni alias - and even before that – the thrill of trying stuff out, pushing at the boundaries has always been there and on Butterfly is present in all its twists and turns. It leaps all over the place and yet it hangs together, never feeling like a grab bag of dancefloor utilities but rather a distillation of all the strings to Snaith’s bow, exhilaratingly human and unified by one singular concept – simple and joyful exploration.

Originally dropped in 1980 as part of Taking Care of Business, The Ted Coleman Band's only album, this 7" captures that sweet spot where jazz-funk meets rare groove perfection. 'If We Took the Time' is pure sunshine - think Roy Ayers on a slow afternoon, Billy Wooten in full cosmic flow, with shimmering vibraphones, velvet basslines and vocals that radiate soul from the Garden State to the cosmos. On the flip is the liquid and lively smooth and sexy delight 'Can You Feel It ' with buttery vocals and more cosmic bliss. Two glorious sounds.

A chance meeting in Mexico City set Points of Inaccessibility into motion. When Ibero-American composer Rafael Anton Irisarri crossed paths with Dutch media artist Jaco Schilp at MUTEK in 2024, a conversation about how technology shapes perception revealed an unexpected common ground. Schilp invited Irisarri to a spring 2025 residency at Uncloud, the Utrecht-based collective he co-founded, where Irisarri's sound began to take form amid an environment shaped by Schilp’s visual research.

The Uncloud studio was located inside the former Pieter Baan Centre, a forensic psychiatric prison where suspects of violent crimes were once confined. Its long history of silence and containment shaped the atmosphere in which the project developed. Within this setting, Irisarri coaxed long bowed-guitar tones through a network of pedals and looping systems. The raw gestures thickened into a vaporous and architectural field of sound. Schilp processed the material through a custom point-cloud software patch that produced images in continuous flux. The visuals flickered, dissolved and reformed like memories that resist coherence, functioning as a digital Rorschach that reflected the observer’s own perception.

Amid these spectral echoes, the project evolved into an examination of how the past persists within present signals. Memory endures as residue and interference, continually shaping perception even when its source has faded.

Schilp’s visual process required a continuous stream of sound in real time. Irisarri improvised throughout the residency, generating material that allowed the visuals to develop in parallel. Once back in his New York studio, he began shaping the recordings by carving pathways through the improvisations and mapping selected passages into MIDI. This process allowed him to build outward from the bowed-guitar material with minimal overdubs, adding Prophet 5 textures, Moog bass and strings that expanded the harmonic field while keeping the original performances at the center. To refine the structure, Abul Mogard provided editorial input, working with Irisarri’s stems to guide transitions and strengthen the overall pacing. The material, originally created under conditions of immediacy and constraint, evolved into a fully realized work through careful revision, patience and sustained reworking.

The title engages the geographic concept of the Poles of Inaccessibility, locations defined solely by their distance from all surrounding points. Irisarri adapts this idea to the conditions of digital life, where new forms of inaccessibility arise through the informational enclosures that structure perception. What appears to be a fully connected network often produces a deeper kind of separation, one shaped by the filtering logic of the systems that mediate experience. In this sense, the digital sphere mirrors its geographic counterpart. We inhabit spaces saturated with signals, yet the possibility of genuine contact becomes increasingly remote.

At its core, Points of Inaccessibility considers what can be understood as the new rituals of capitalist realism. Irisarri uses the term digital shamanism to describe the forms of simulated connection that organize contemporary life. These systems promise comfort through algorithms, influencers and AI interlocutors, yet they often reproduce the same conditions that generate loneliness in the first place. What appears as connection becomes the echo of connection, a sequence of gestures that imitate solidarity while withholding it. Like the geographic poles, these rituals are defined by distance. They pull us into environments where everything is illuminated, yet meaningful proximity becomes increasingly rare. In this sense, the work approaches a hauntology of the present, a reflection on futures that have stalled and intimacies that have been thinned by the algorithmic infrastructures that surround us.

This thematic tension unfolds across the album’s four movements. Faded Ghosts of Clouds introduces the work with textures that rise and dissipate in slow cycles, creating an atmosphere that resists clear definition. Breaking the Unison occupies a pivotal position in the sequence and focuses on the moment when the individual and the system fall out of alignment. Its shifting patterns trace the scattering of signals that once suggested connection, revealing the instability at the heart of contemporary perception. Signals from a Distant Afterglow forms the center of the album and features vocals by Karen Vogt, whose presence enters the sound field like a fragile transmission shaped by distance and delay. The closing piece, Memory Strands, follows motifs that appear, recede and briefly intersect before returning to quiet. Across these movements, the album outlines a landscape in which emergence and disappearance continually inform one another.

Listening to Points of Inaccessibility is an encounter with a sound field that is constantly in flux. Elements surface briefly, shift position and recede, creating a sense of motion that resists stable interpretation. The music moves between closeness and vastness, carrying traces of memory while withholding a clear point of resolution.

The album’s visual identity completes the project’s conceptual arc. In Mexico City, where Irisarri and Schilp first met, Daniel Castrejón transformed stills from Schilp’s point-cloud visuals into the cover image. The final artwork captures a single suspended frame of the digital material, a moment extracted from a field that is normally in constant motion. Its surface recalls the texture and abstraction found in the work of Catalan artist Antoni Tàpies, where material presence and erasure coexist within the same plane.

What emerges is a work that examines the tension between technological systems and human presence. Points of Inaccessibility asks whether connection is still possible within environments shaped by mediation and delay, or whether we have become isolated points within the very networks that promise proximity. What possibilities for relation persist within environments organized by algorithms and interruption? And how are we meant to understand presence when so much of it is constructed at a distance?

Points of Inaccessibility will be released on BioVinyl on February 6, 2026, with audiovisual performances planned throughout 2026.

Mastered by Stephan Mathieu
Artwork by Jaco Schilp
Design and layout by Daniel Castrejón
Artist photo by Iulia Alexandra Magheru.

“Short Story” is the new album by Restive Plaggona. Eight new tracks of industrial techno beats and raw atmospheres. Over the course of 40 minutes the album takes us through different territories and landscapes of immense bass weight sound, sometimes dark and raw, sometimes droning and minimal, always energic.

Restive Plaggona is the music project of the Corfu-based artist Dimitris Doukas, known for his heavy and deep industrial soundscapes with subtle traces of darker forms of techno music. Dimitris is a particularly productive musician, having released more than a dozen records including his own imprint Several Minor Promises.

Water can retain or wash away memory; flowing or freezing. It gives life and shapes earth, while frozen imprints of an ancient past are waiting to melt – back into sound or fluid motion, or simply to dissipate and disappear. For their split release, Yoichi Kamimura and Olli Aarni offer two distinct reinterpretations of a performance recorded live at the Temppeliaukio Kirkko – a church in Helsinki built directly into solid rock and bathed in natural light – meditating on glacial landscapes and water cycles, using shared field recordings that bifurcate into two sonic visions of “ice journey”.

Yoichi Kamimura’s extensive recordings formed the bedrock of the original performance, notably from time spent on Suomenlinna Island just outside Helsinki in 2021, aiming to capture the remnants of the glacial movements that formed the area’s geology. Elsewhere, the voices of ringed seals, underground waterways of Kyoto, and icy rivers in Lapland from Kamimura’s library float in as well. “The small, charming, and gentle islands floating in the Baltic Sea—some with little cottages and restaurants—reminded me of the drifting ice in the Sea of Okhotsk between Japan and Russia,” describes Kamimura. Fragments of a Christmas choir creep in too, recorded at the church on Suomenlinna Island. Titled Kōri no ryokō , Kaimimura’s reinterpretation of the performance emphasises a shared future across all icy sea regions of the world: thawing ancient memories and the threat of disappearing entirely.

On Jäämatkailu, Olli Aarni presents his own expansive reworking of the same source material, heavily processed alongside his own field recordings from Vantaanjoki river and Suontee lake in Finland. “I was thinking about the processes of erosion, water carving rock, the prehistoric glaciers over the landscape in my own environment,” explains Aarni. The soundscape hums with both intimate details and macrocosmic flow, and a submersible bass rumble hinting at an iceberg far below the tip, morphing at time scales beyond human comprehension.

Side A is composed by Yoichi Kamimura using field recordings of drift ice (Shiretoko, Hokkaido, 2019–2022), the Lake Biwa Canal (Kyoto, 2020), the Therme Vals baths (Vals, 2017), spring water (a fountain next to Saint Benedict Chapel, 2017), a Christmas choir (Suomenlinna Church, Helsinki, 2021), ice in the Juutuanjoki River (Inari, 2021), and recordings from Yoichi’s and Olli’s concert (Temppeliaukion kirkko, Helsinki, 2021), KORG iPolysix, and KORG minilogue xd.

Side B is composed by Olli Aarni using the aforementioned sounds + field recordings of the river Vantaanjoki and the lake Suontee, sampled sounds, and a computer.

In 1999, on December 23 to be precise, the electronic music landscape changed forever. On that day, the now legendary Icelandic band múm released their debut album “Yesterday Was Dramatic – Today Is OK”. The thing is though, back in the day, hardly anybody realized. It was Christmas after all, people were busy with potentially more important things and didn’t pay attention to some kids selling records on Reykjavík’s high street. Little did those shoppers know.

Thankfully, those 10 tracks weren’t overlooked for long. On the contrary: the album went on to become one of the most influential building blocks of what back then was called electronica and today is considered an art form playing a crucial and important role in shaping and defining the rich electronic music culture of the 21st century. Now, 20 years after the record dropped onto planet Earth, Morr Music is re-issuing the remastered album with its original artwork, adding newly commissioned re-works: A note-for-note representation of “Smell Memory“ by Kronos Quartet (with additional drums by múm’s Samuli Kosminen), a gentle reinterpretation of “Random Summer” by acclaimed pianist and composer Hauschka and an otherworldly new version of “Ballad Of The Broken String” recorded by label mate Sóley. Additionally, four remixes produced in the early 2000s are made available for the first time ever on vinyl here.

In 1999, electronic music was in full bloom. The dance floors were thriving worldwide.Yet the concept of using electronic sounds in acoustic-based productions (or vice versa) was still in its infancy. Many producers were trying, most of them failed. The results felt often forced, fabricated, unimaginative, random and forgettable. New ideas require new mindsets after all. With “Yesterday Was Dramatic – Today Is OK”, múm established a new approach in music production. Instead of setting a fixed agenda and working with a distinct hierarchy for their sonic palette, Gyða Valtýsdóttir, Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir, Gunnar Örn Tynes and Örvar Smárason let each instrument and sound source be true to itself, creating an ever-evolving universe of sonic bliss. Listening to the album in 2019 still makes every music lover’s heart jump. Combining Drill-and-Bass-inspired beat-chopping, future-informed DSP-programming, ethereal vocal work, indie rock’s boominess, folk music’s soulful brittleness and a lofty feeling for melody and arrangement, the album is a rare example of musical transcendence and remains impossible to categorize.

Many of the ideas formulated and recorded for the album quickly became an integral part of the canonical self-conception musicians around the world were and still are aspiring to. How these ideas really came about, though, is not known – the dynamics, the struggles, the qualms, the sudden realization of having achieved something which might actually stick. Maybe that is a good thing. Örvar Smárason remembers that most of the album “was recorded in a tiny, sweaty room in the summer of 1999 with carpenters banging nails around us, but sometimes we put on headphones so we couldn’t hear them.” It is a good thing they did. As is often the case with classics, all one can do is listen closely and let the magic sink in – again and again.

Born to Dominican and Brazilian parents, xavi grew up bouncing from place to place, picking up inspiration wherever he landed. His first love was baile funk, but he was raised on classic hip-hop, eventually notching up production and songwriting credits for Vince Staples, Demi Lovato and Ariana Grande. But the major label life wasn’t giving; sick of the industry, he headed back to São Paulo to soak up the atmosphere and connect with artists on the ground. Before long, he started uploading quickfire bangers to SoundCloud – at this point there are over 350 of them on his feed – an »evolutionary playlist« in his own words, bursting with ideas.

»balança e paixão« is his debut release, proper, a 12-cut snapshot of chaotic, trailblazing, turbulent genius – bending thrashed rhythms into relentless vocal chops from a laundry list of young brazillian MCs. Built on ear-zizzing »tuin« hits and razor’s edge cuts, he creates hypnotic ripples that wedge themselves between São Paulo’s weirdo fringe (artists like JLZ and Iguana) and the percussive, MC-heavy sound of funk ritmado, one of the contemporary scene’s most vital and recognisable strains. Crucially, you can hear a Photek-like approach to space in his productions too, filling the gaps with metallic clangs to lend his rhythms their own unique dimension. The flipside takes it slower, deeper. On »sei q tu gosta« (I know you like it), DJ Leal Original and MC Vuk Vuk’s voices are transformed into ghosted sibilances next to xavi’s sonar pings and woodblock hits with an almost avant-dancehall slant, like some choice Equiknoxx dub, while on »cuidado bandida« (be careful bandit), he deploys bone-rattling trills that bite down on atmospherics that wouldn’t be out of place on Akira Yamaoka’s »Silent Hill« OST.

Explicit isolation is the third album by the international collective E/I, led by composer and percussionist Szymon Pimpon Gąsiorek. The group’s seven core members came together while studying at Copenhagen’s Rhythmic Music Conservatory and the Royal Danish Academy of Music. For this latest release, they are joined by Slovenian musicians Samo Kutin (hurdy-gurdy) and Kaja Draksler (organ), alongside Danish tuba player Rasmus Svale.

The three compositions distill sound down to its essential elements, drifting freely through space. The material is minimal, moving in the geological rhythm of endless cycles of tension and release, formation and dissolution, density and lightness. Pimpon acts here more as a guide than a creator with a master plan. He is a navigator, leading us to the most crucial moments where sonic emissions merge into vibrating drones, building to an inevitable leap—an explosion after which the particles rearrange themselves once again. It feels like futuristic temple music infused with intergalactic spiritual jazz, the extensions of drone music, and acoustic ambient textures, all highlighted by the jolly grin of the navigator.

“I wrote the scores and asked each of the musicians to record their parts individually. What’s interesting for me about doing it this way is that it removes the element of immediate interaction and introduces a factor of randomness. I then edited and mixed it myself, also adding my own parts. Previously, it was strictly acoustic music, and the recordings were ‘live,’ meaning they were captured in one room at the same time, with no subsequent edits.” Pimpon has also incorporated electronics, which make the album even more airy and organically complement the sounds of the hurdy-gurdy and organ, recorded in Trboje, the small Slovenian village.

Allowing yourself to find meaning or beauty in the mundane is an act of generosity, Whether it’s seeing a smiling face in an electrical outlet socket, or discerning cosmic design amidst the forest floor detritus, it comes from a place of kindness to yourself and senses – and openness to hidden spirit of the world. These tracks came together during a period of intense personal change for adaa, rooted in a fruitful reflection on the connections between spirit and body, “feeling my flesh so I can feel and understand my spirit,” as adaa puts it. The sense of a crossover and clash of multiple connected realities – on-screens, on-line, on-earth, off-world, after-life – unites adaa’s multifaceted productions.

Ostensibly an assemblage of found sounds. scribbled thoughts and poems from diaries, and musial snippets, the album's scattered production reflects adaa’s own many mirror worlds. Field recording sit behind most tracks, alongside VST synths, guitars, and a variety of voices, from adaa’s own mangled vox to EVP samples taken from YouTube (recorded sounds believed to be spirits or paranormal activity), all processed to varying degrees.

While the music was mostly produced either in adaa’s studio in Providence, Rhode Island, or in bed, the field recordings bring the outside world in. The result of walks in the woods, hum of roads and highways, hiss of beaches, warmth of walks with friends and past lovers “around the East Coast”. It sits behind tracks like ‘sight’ where a lilting piano lin bobs atop a pond of rustling and distant whistles. Is that birdsong? Or ghosts? Saccharine hyperpop arpeggiation crossfades sharply into noise guitar squall. Angelic demon voices yawn into a hefty crescendo. Pure drones duet with gales of undefinable field sounds.

“Sometimes I feel like a seed in frosted soil,” says adaa. “If i choose to be optimistic.”

A house is something that is so deeply temporary, yet it can hold so much energy. How do we carry or leave behind those energies while transitioning into new spaces? How does each space we occupy for some time shape us and how do we tear ourselves away from it and its influence once it’s time to go? These are some of the core questions behind CC Sorensen’s new album for mappa, ‘Phantom Rooms’ – it’s a record about movement, change, transformation, family, juxtapositions… but most of all, home.

CC Sorensen was reflecting a lot on their childhood home in rural Kansas, USA while working on this music. The album could be characterised by a familial, chamber feel and both of CC Sorensen’s brothers, Ryan and Nyal Ruehlen, make an appearance on ‘Phantom Rooms’, among other instrumentalists. Using a wide palette of sounds – CC Sorensen alone in charge of keyboards, software instruments, voice, electronics, percussion, trumpet, guitar and field recordings, in addition to guests on pedal steel, voice, chimes, saxophone and drumset – the American musician crafts music as mysterious as it is inviting. The idea behind it would be almost surrealist – ghostly rooms in houses where we live – if we all didn’t know exactly what CC Sorensen means. Home isn’t something concrete, but it’s also not just an abstract concept. It’s a space beyond space; home in itself is a phantom room we enter. And what enables us to enter is the object of exploration here.

CC Sorensen’s approach is playful – tracks like “Beat Bot” and “Plastic Portals” are almost fun – but also contemplative. They make thoughtful, meandering chamber music intertwined with field recordings and electronics. Reeds, strings and percussion often set the atmosphere – sometimes airy, gentle, at other points more insistent – as the music grapples with departure, instability, deep reflection and imagined future spaces. Especially in the closing “Bexar” there’s a tangible yearning for a stable home, a longing to rekindle and keep ablaze this beautiful familial connection to a physical place. It’s both music that invites to reflect and music that in itself reflects; desires, hopes and dreams.

To decay is also to transform. Rusting metal is the visible traces of passing time, as the oxidation process accumulates dampness in our atmosphere and imprints it as unpredictable patterns onto hard iron and steel. Working in construction for a year now, Kensho Nakamura sees rust all the time, clambering up ageing chunks of material. Normally discarded as waste, Nakamura began discerning beauty in the phenomenon, organically spiralling around and consuming some of the very hardest of manufacturing stuffs into unique new forms.

‘Electric Rust’ continues the conceptual electronic composition mode of Nakamura’s previous works with a series of fractured musical dioramas. These scurrying notes, sparse hums, and quivering bleeps explore the topics of rust and the accumulation of time. The music ticks like a clock, drips like a tap, and manifests unknowable inorganic shapes. Recognisable musical snippets of bells, pianos, or murmured voices are buried inside counterintuitive synthetic rhythms and tension.

On ‘wet air’ piano notes tinkle and pipes gargle, digital detritus tap dances and arpeggios stumble. On ‘unique faces’, idle marimbas and malfunctioning animalistic squeaks flounder. This is music from the promethean space between being forgotten and being conceived. ‘Electric Rust’ is a topography of a world of rust, where corroding structures evolve into new — and beautiful — patterns of life.

Inspired by witnessing the broken tension and renewed possibilities of a laptop breaking down at a gig – not to mention the void left behind by the sudden end of a relationship – Pentu’s latest release is a jump-cut menagerie of musical moments. Sewn together into ‘And I Saw My Devil And I Saw My Deep Blue Sea’, these fifteen tracks continue the London-based producer’s active departure from the soundscapes and song structures that dominated their previous writing style. These disparate pieces slice themselves off into sudden silence, or veer into unpredictable sidebars, hopping from hyperactive instrumentals to beautifully deconstructed YouTube samples. Described by Pentu as “emotionally intuitive to write”, this is music by and for the endlessly scrolling modern mind – “navigating the world alongside the splintered, interruptive emotional hyper realities of social media.”

The sudden silences, drones, and interruptions are perhaps less surprising than the guitar-based textures of metal & shoegaze woven into several vital passages by Pentu. The result is a collage that encapsulates the erratic feeling, not only of a relationship’s end, but simply of navigating online mediascapes.”I found myself realising that my phone, the constant interrupter of nothingness and silence, was both a cause of depression (reliving memories, dating apps) and a relief from it (creating new friendships, distractions, also dating apps)”, says Pentu.

Pentu’s attempt to overcome content overload by actively curbing his setup of laptop-guitar--synth does little to reduce the scope of this album’s sonic palette. YouTube vlog samples (from videos with next-to-no views) are an attempt to recontextualise and dramatise material that “would have otherwise been throwaway moments lost in the internet”, adding staccato moments of reality to Pentu’s beautiful and jarring album-length paean to overstimulation.

Inspired by the soundtrack from the motion picture American Graffiti, this 3LP collection captures the sound of late night cruising, jukebox romance and early rock ’n’ roll rebellion. Spanning doo wop, rockabilly and classic pop, the set brings together era defining hits from the mid 1950s to early 1960s, featuring timeless favourites by Chuck Berry, The Beach Boys, Dion, Little Richard, Sam Cooke, The Platters and many more. Pressed across three vividly coloured vinyl records, red, blue and yellow, this set is both a nostalgic listening experience and a striking collector’s piece, celebrating the golden age of American rock and pop in authentic style.

The Coasters were, in the opinion of noted rock writer Dave
Marsh, ‘the funniest group in rock’n’roll history’, while author and
historian Arnold Shaw described their music as ‘ebullient,
energising, entertaining, expressive and danceable.’ High praise
indeed - and as this album confirms, well deserved. the
Coasters’ songs are more famous than the group themselves.
Their music will endure forever, a fact underlined by the
Broadway-staged musical revue Smokey Joe's Café that
received seven Tony nominations and won a Grammy Award.
The Coasters’ hits were a large part of the score.

Introducing Self Portrait, the latest chapter from the endlessly inventive one-man force Ryan Adams — a brand‐new, 24-track album that brings together fresh, unheard originals alongside spellbinding reinterpretations of classics by R.E.M., New Order and more.Capturing restless creativity and emotional depth across the two dozen songs, this bold collection once again proves why Ryan Adams is one of the most distinctive voices in modern music. Self Portrait shows Adams at his finest – poignant, unpredictable and sonically rich. For long-time fans, it’s another essential chapter in a prolific career, for newcomers, it is the perfect entry point into the world of Ryan Adams. This project isn’t just another album from Ryan Adams—it’s a dual‐mission: hear where he’s been, and where he’s going.

When you listen to birds, they usually talk about food, sex/family, or anxiety. If they knew about the true nature of humanity's cruel and exploitative relationship with birds, they would be discussing rebellion. Humanity's current trajectory about birds is to cause the extinction of one-third of all bird species by the end of this century.

This record crystallises the borders between memory, beauty, and anxiety. At the core is an amalgam of all the birds we have met and heard, their sounds synthesised from a blend of memories. Esthetically it simulates the qualities of bird sounds, hitting similar frequential sweet spots. There is a great variety of birds captured here, from high to low frequencies, from solo voices to groups, from birds standing on their own to complex world-building, where the bird voices are part of an ecosystem, becoming one of the instruments.

You could stop there, enjoying this record on a musical level, but it invites us to do one step further, to consider reconfiguring our relationship with the Earth and its inhabitants. To question our impact, and to ask why we need synthetic bird music. Is it just a visionary endeavour or is it because we are failing at fostering a world in which organic birds and other creatures can thrive?

32 artists from the whole world, including our favourite artists from Eastern Europe, have contributed to this compilation both with new and previously released music. Their music is ordered from dawn to dusk and into the night. For many of the artists it's their first time on mappa, but some have previously released an album with us.

This one already has created a nice little stir with the soul crowd, and rightly so.

The A side "Is It Still Good For You" is a wonderful Modern soul chugger that oozes that late night club feel. Simple in its melody and production but bounces along so soulfully. Great vocals but the late Johnny Kemp with the group on some killer backing harmonies.

Kinky Foxx could be described as an ever changing funk machine with nuts and bolts that remained strong over time. This band planted its roots in the Bahamas where the name "Kinky" was given to Joseph Foxx and teaming up with his Brother Donny Foxx formed the musical group named, "DER KINKY FOXX"!!! The two Foxx Brothers added members Kevin Bassett-Guitar, Johnny Kemp-Vocals, and Burnis Stubbs-percussion performing clubs and concerts in the Bahamas. Moving to New York City Kinky Foxx changed members to compete with the major funk venue during the early 80s. Acquiring Dan Atherton Sr. AKA "The Slammin 'Drummer", Larry Robinson-Keyboardist, Timmy Allen-Bass, Kevin Robinson-Guitar these musicians combined forces with Johnny Kemp, Kevin Bassett, and Burnis Stubbs to form the New York City based "Original" Kinky Foxx from '79 to '81, burning up the famous Cellar Club in NYC, the mecca for Black Funk entertainment. With a front line of top musical talent some members moved on to follow solo recording and production careers and contracts. To fill lead gutiarist and Bass guitarist vacancies Jerry Powell was added on guitar,and Leslie Booker was added on bass. In 1982 Kinky Foxx added Vincent Lilly on lead vocals and Curtis Styles on Keyboards.The Foxx released the hit song "So Different" on Sound of New York records in '83 and embarked on a Canadian experiment leaving the US to play briefly in Montreal, Quebec at Club Checkers. The rest is history as the band became so popular in Quebec and Ontario they could have been called Canadian residents, usually working 6 nights a week and 11 months out of the year from '83-'91 . Dan Atherton moved on in '83 to pursue a career as The "Slammin Drummer" for hire, and was sought after by a barrage of major artists,touring with Bobby Brown,New Edition,Levert,Teddy Riley and Guy,Cameo,and Atlantic Starr. Tyrone Govan aka "King" moved in as the Foxx Drummer in '83 and remained with the group until the band went their separate ways in the mid 90's. The Foxx's last performance in the States was in North Carolina on tour and backing Prince's sister Tyka Nelson in the 90's. Currently the band has sparked interest once again writing and recording new material and is forming a reunion show which will eventually lead to additional performances with other recording acts and headline shows.

Smoove returns with two unstoppable dancefloor heaters on this explosive new 45!

On the A-side, Push It Good delivers a brilliant rework of the iconic Push It, powered by heavy breakbeat drums and infused with vintage ’60s soul flavor — a guaranteed crowd-mover.

Flip it over and Smoove keeps the momentum going with Scandalized Lifetime — a masterful fusion that rebuilds sampled layers from Sugar Bear’s 1989 classic, interwoven with multitrack elements from Talking Heads. The result? Pure dancefloor gold — a certified champion!

Andrew Weatherall never wakes up in the morning and decides to start a new album that day. Instead, recording music is a continuous process usually working with different collaborators and seeing where the muse takes him. Somewhere down the line the rewards of a collaboration will coalesce into a body of work between thirty minutes and an hour long and he will put a call into the Rotters' team to say he has a new release ready to go.

We were visiting the studio catching up on new tracks in various states of readiness when he offered up some remixes of tracks from his recent "Ruled by Passion…" he'd been sent by fellow musicians. Tim Fairplay, Andrew's partner in The Asphodells, Sean Johnston from A Love From Outer Space and Scott Fraser live and work in the area and all popped in at various points.

Andrew's black book reads like the who's who of contemporary music but rather than plunder it for remixers he'd let drop the idea of a remix with friends and neighbours. These plus a couple a swaps with musical friends who were new to the concept of remixing, gave Andrew an hour of music he thoroughly enjoyed listening to.

It goes without saying none of the tracks are duds but our ears always prick up when Justin Robertson's take on "Beglammered" ups the heart rate or Daniel Avery's own unscrewing of "… the Axis" ruffles the neck hairs. We've stopped arguing in the office about which is the best track. They all are.

After following Luke Blair's work for approaching two decades from his 2007 debut as Lukid on Actress' Werk Discs, we're humbled to present a new album on Death Is Not The End. Following relatively hot on the heels of 2023's Tilt (his first in 11 years, not counting his work with Jackson Bailey under the Rezzett guise) Underloop brings Blair's innate knack for building loops and sound structures further to the surface, while allowing his ear for emotional expression to be dialled up a notch. Those fortunate enough to be familiar with Lukid's work as a DJ will be aware of how distinct his ability is to seamlessly disappear into loop-based abstraction and back again seemingly without blinking, and often Underloop feels much like a collection of the sludgey interludes and foggy sketches that underpin his sets. Blending apparently ramshackle melodies and textures and pulling them together into an undeniable whole, Blair's tendency for pairing the simple and the indescribable with an understated vigour is fully on show here.

Written and produced by Luke Blair. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi.