Suche:dead years

First time on vinyl
10th Anniversary of the Breaking Bad TV Series
5 x 10' vinyl in 5 different jackets, 1 relating to each season
Each 10' is the same colour, Strictly Limited Edition Albuquerque Crystal Coloured (transparent with a hint of turquoise) Vinyl!
Lift off box-set with Breaking Bad logo on front with special drip-off varnish
Exclusive Breaking Bad Poster & Pollos Hermanos plastic ID badge
Booklet with exclusive pictures and extensive liner notes by Thomas, the musical supervisor of Breaking Bad
One run only of this very exclusive BOX-SET
Individually numbered the manufacturing qty for Worldwide is est 4000 with 800 for the UK - we could get some more
PLEASE ORDER BY 12.00 TUESDAY 25 SEPT TO BE GUARANTEED YOUR QTY
Available worldwide
Weight ESTIMATED 950g
All the essential Breaking Bad songs by Badfinger, Calexico, Far East Movement, America, Fever Ray, Apparat, Whitey, Knife Party, The Peddlers and others
Various dialogies by Walter, Jesse, Skyler, Mike, Gus, Saul and many more
This release will be heavily promoted on social media, including the social media accounts of Breaking Bad (facebook, over 11 million followers!!!).

MOV proudly presents the OST - BREAKING BAD (MUSIC FROM THE ORIGINAL SERIES) 5 x 10' BOX-SET!

A TOP PRIORITY RELEASE with WORLDWIDE RIGHTS!

So far only the score music has been released on vinyl and now finally, for the very very first time, the original soundtrack music is released on vinyl!

Breaking Bad is widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time and celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2018.

The legion of fans have been waiting for this to be released for a long time. There will be a huge demand for this exclusive BOX-SET!

This release was never released in any other format (CD, vinyl, digital) before and will only be available on vinyl!

OST - BREAKING BAD (MUSIC FROM THE ORIGINAL SERIES) is presented in a beautiful Lift off box-set with Breaking Bad logo on front with special drip-off varnish. The box-set includes a selection of defining songs, devided in five 10' records on coloured vinyl, each representing a season with accessory artwork. The numbered box-set also includes a booklet, poster and Pollos Hermanos plastic ID Badge. Next to all essential Breaking Bad songs by Badfinger, Calexico, Far East Movement, America, Fever Ray, Apparat, Whitey, Knife Party, The Peddlers and others, the 10' records also include various dialogies by Walter, Jesse, Skyler, Mike, Gus, Saul and many more. The box-set is a ONE-RUN-ONLY and is STRICTLY LIMITED!

Breaking Bad is an American neo-western crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. The show originally aired on the AMC network for five seasons, from January 20, 2008 to September 29, 2013. The series tells the story of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a struggling and depressed high school chemistry teacher diagnosed with lung cancer. Together with his former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), White turns to a life of crime by producing and selling crystallized methamphetamine to secure his family's financial future before he dies, while navigating the dangers of the criminal world. The title comes from the Southern colloquialism "breaking bad", meaning to "raise hell" or turn toward crime. Breaking Bad is set and filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Walter's family consists of his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) and children, Walter, Jr. (RJ Mitte) and Holly (Elanor Anne Wenrich). The show also features Skyler's sister Marie Schrader (Betsy Brandt), and her husband Hank (Dean Norris), a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent. Walter hires lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), who connects him with private investigator and fixer Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) and in turn Mike's employer, drug kingpin Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito). The final season introduces the characters Todd Alquist (Jesse Plemons) and Lydia Rodarte-Quayle (Laura Fraser).

Breaking Bad is widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time. By the time the series finale aired, it was among the most-watched cable shows on American television. The show received numerous awards, including 16 Primetime Emmy Awards, eight Satellite Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, two Peabody Awards, two Critics' Choice Awards and four Television Critics Association Awards. For his leading performance, Cranston won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series four times, while Aaron Paul won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series three times; Anna Gunn won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series twice. In 2013, Breaking Bad entered the Guinness World Records as the most critically acclaimed show of all time.

incl. 2 posters

Five years in the making, label boss Emmanuel aimed to deliver what for him was the very best selection of artists and people he could ever imagine in one single roof. We have repacked and redesigned our very first compilation after the great first run. 20 artists, 5 records, 1 box.

The Box is a meticulous work of one entire year, every artist of the 20 selected delivered something that connects deeply with the label and the reason why they are part of it. The study goes beyond when artists get different colors of palettes and a different surface to paint, their known soundscapes come with something freer than the usual approach that they did in their singles.

This is a pinnacle for a label that always placed music in front of everything but kept the design and the aesthetics on a top-level each release, each year. ARTS V.

93 minute collection of the electronic, ambient, prog, and kosmische side of the 80's-90's Paul Chain catalogue. Paul Chain is widely revered in the Doom Metal underground, and rightly so, but this collection aims to highlight the many 'other' sides to his work. Anyone interested in NWW list or Mutant Sounds should investigate. Officially licensed collection bringing these gems to back to vinyl for the first time in 30 years.

Numbered edition of 300 copies.

Residing in Rio de Janeiro, Vasconcelos Sentimento is a self-taught composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist. A mosaic of lo-fi breaks, cosmic ambient jazz and wonky chromatic funk, the eccentric Brazilian DIY wizard’s debut album Furto beautifully pieces together a huge range of seemingly disparate sonic elements. Calling himself an “amateur euphoric sound researcher”, he has no formal training in either music theory or production, and it’s simply by following his ear that has led him to creating his debut album for Far Out Recordings.

It was his fascination with his fellow countryman, the enigmatic, psychedelic 70s folk artist Jose Mauro, that led the young Vasconcelos Sentimento (real name Guilherme Esteves) to first make contact with Far Out. Coincidentally living in the same region as Mauro, Sentimento managed to track him down and put label boss Joe Davis in touch, after Davis had spent years of what felt like hopeless searching for the man many assumed dead.

When Joe and the Far Out team heard Guilhermes’ own music, there was a sense of shock. “It was unlike anything we’d heard before, but it also sounded curiously at home on Far Out. Like it had taken little pieces of different releases from the catalogue, and all the music from the ‘60s onwards that influences everything we do, and recreated all that magic in such an exciting new way”.

Indeed, Sentimento is not afraid to admit what he himself sees as acts of theft. (Furto=Theft in Portuguese). But while the debate surrounding the ethics of sampling is a never ending one, Sentimento’s music - while it does contain the odd sample, including an interview with Joe Davis himself, “One For The Masta Digga”) - steals in an entirely different way. His creative process involves an intensive period, in which he’ll listen to just one artist or song over and over, for days and weeks on end. Then he’ll head to his rudimentary bedroom studio, which, as he puts it, is “built for speed”, hit record and “blurt” whatever comes out. “I never spend more than a day working on any one song idea”...

Picasso once said “lesser artists borrow; great artists steal”. And it’s through this process of ‘Furto’ that Vasconcelos Sentimento has somewhat ironically cultivated a sound that is unmistakably his own.

Furto is due for vinyl, CD and digital release on 30th July 2021, via Far Out Recordings.

Power punks, Hot Milk, have announced their second EP, ‘I JUST WANNA KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I’M DEAD” via Music For Nations.

It follows the success of the band’s first EP, 2019’s ‘Are You Feeling Alive?’, a fizzy collection of gutsy emo-pop which established them as one of the most exciting new bands in the UK. Their 2019 was a whirlwind year that saw them tour with Foo Fighters, Deaf Havana and You Me At Six, as well as playing some of the UK’s biggest festival stages.

The band were formed in 2018 by vocalist and guitarist duo, Han Mee and Jim Shaw, two friends who met working behind the scenes in the Manchester music scene. Yet they yearned to be in a band themselves. “We got to the point where we were why not? What else have you got to lose?” says Jim. “We thought, we can go for this or we can get to 60 and know we didn’t do right by ourselves.”

Debut EP, ‘Are You Feeling Alive?’, which was penned during a drunken songwriting session, was an effervescent refusal to settle for second best in life. “We’ve both realised that life you don’t get another face,” Han continues. “You get one face and then you’re done, and you will never exist ever again.”

That sense of not letting life slip through your fingers is at the core of Hot Milk’s punk-indebted ethos. And having taken a leap of faith to grasp their platform, the band, completed by bassist Tom Paton and drummer Harry Deller, aren’t about to let it go to waste. “Art is about your interpretation of your own experience,” adds Jim. “The first EP was written five years ago. We’ve grown up and realised who we are and what the world is like right now.”

‘I JUST WANNA KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I’M DEAD’, which was produced by Jim Shaw, is another vivacious call to arms, rammed with sharp hooks and huge, catchy choruses, to encourage everyone, everywhere, to follow their dreams. But elsewhere, the lyrics are more personal, with the band bottling the anxieties and frustrations of their everyday lives. ‘Woozy’ openly tackles depression, ‘Good Life’ takes on societal corruption and the distribution of wealth, while elsewhere the band address the pursuit of happiness in a modern world.

“These songs are honest,” says Han. “I have nothing to hide. Everyone’s on antidepressants these days. It’s the world we live in, it makes people sad. Capitalism. Is it broken? 100 per cent. I’m angry that the fact that we’re sold a world that actually doesn’t make your inner peace happy. Humans need love and community and a lot of the time, there is no love and the community has dissolved.”

“The anger resides in us at the unfairness of the world,” adds Jim. “Online communities are all about flexing and battling your peers to look or sound a certain way that is better than everyone else. It’s constant and it’s dangerous. You’re teaching kids that to be content, you have to be best. It’s a question again. Are you really living?”

“We’re angry, both politically and existentially in terms of the system we now live in. But also, we’re angry at the fact that we’re sad quite a lot,” continues Han. “But we’re trying to not just sit there and take it. We’re trying to fix it, by building a family through this band.”

Walk into any Hot Milk show and you will feel that sense of community. Through their honest lyrics and inclusive approach, the band say their aim is to create an “aggressively space safe” where fans are empowered to be themselves, “authentically and unapologetically”, as well as opening up a dialogue for people to talk. That will become clear later this year when the band get their chance to air the new material. This summer, they will return to Reading and Leeds Festivals, this time to play the main stage, as well as embarking on a headline UK tour in September. And believe, when the times comes to finally get back into those sweaty pits, these new songs will provide the perfect, life-affirming soundtrack.

“Life is fragile,” says Jim. “You can’t take things with you, but you can make the best memories. That’s the most important thing in life. Your currency is your memory.” “What you can take with you is something that absolutely makes the blood pump round your veins and gives you goosebumps,” agrees Han. “That’s what this band is to us. It’s our passion. That’s what this EP is about.”

In 1970, Kevin and David met whilst they were working in the Labour Exchange Office on Aytoun St, Manchester. Both played guitar and had been searching for other musicians who played atmospheric music. Kevin had been playing in small clubs in Manchester and David performed in a few local bands. One evening, they jammed together at Kevin’s family home, and quickly realized that their playing blended together to form the basis of the sound they had been looking for. In the late ‘70s, the music scene in Manchester was bursting with new bands and music.

However, Kevin and David had little in common with the local acts, being disciples of a more meditative approach. They followed a path of their own, reaching for an otherworldly sound that they heard from artists like John Martyn, David Crosby, Erik Satie, Terry Riley, Eberhard Weber, Alice Coltrane, and Ralph Towner. They experimented combining their acoustic guitars and David’s bass with various effects pedals and techniques to try and achieve a warm and expansive sound that rides the line between ambient, jazz, and psychedelic folk Music.

Towards 1981, they had written eleven songs and accompanied a few with Moog synthesizer laid down by Rob Baxter. All were recorded on cassette decks in their simple home studios. They named this collection of music “Light Patterns”, after a poem Kevin had written. With Light Patterns complete, they set out to find a label to represent their music. They started playing a few gigs in Manchester; Band On The Wall, the Gallery, and other venues, such as Rotters which local promoter Alan Wise had organized. They set up with small amps along with their effects and played as though they were back at home. As Kevin remarks, “It was unusual, to say the least, to play such venues in a low volume chilled out way. However, people listened, often in shocked curiosity, and some even asked for tapes.”

Peter Jenner, of Blackhill Enterprises, eventually picked up the album for his new label, “Sheet”. Peter had managed lots of experimental bands and solo artists, including Pink Floyd in their early Syd Barrett days. He always favored outsiders! The tapes were taken to Strawberry Recording Studios in Manchester, who were surprised when Kevin and David walked in with just a couple of home-produced cassette tapes. Fortunately, they liked them and agreed to master the album. It was then sent to Portland Recording Studios in London for final mastering to vinyl. George Peckham, aka “Porky”, did the pressing with a personal message in the deadwax; “Kaftans, Candles and be Cool Man”. The artwork for the album cover was done by the late Barney Bubbles, a truly visionary artist.

After the album’s release, the pair continued to play together regularly until David moved away from the city. Kevin still resides near Manchester in the rolling hills outside of the city. He continues to experiment with dreamy music in his loft, and we are set to share a selection of his ethereal archival and current compositions in the coming months. David lives a quiet life in a small coastal town in the South, he likes to sail and is an avid cricket fan. We’re excited to make Light Patterns accessible again for the first time in nearly 40 years, remastered from the original tapes. As the original press release said, “Put the album on, lie back and enter the land of no floors”.

Keplar re-issues the fourth album 'Chessa' by Dan Abrams' project Shuttle358 on vinyl for the first time. The double LP edition includes 3 previously unreleased tracks from the same recording sessions back in 2004, as well as an extended artwork with unseen photographs by Dan Abrams.

While undoubtedly associated with the microsound and 'clicks & cuts' movement around the turn of the millennium, on 'Chessa' Shuttle358 left behind the classical rhythmic patterns of the genre and shifted further towards warmer territories, meandering between modern digital minimalism and the soft tones of ambient music. Counter to his microsound synthesis approach on Frame (2000), Abrams created Chessa by writing software that manipulated samples from his unreleased songs, guitar pieces, and vintage japanese films sampled from video tape. In particular, a special granulating technique was written and performed at intentionally low sample rates that gave the uniquely fragile, yet dense sound to the album. Over fourteen tracks Abrams arranges slowly evolving sonic entities of unfading elegance. Strayed and hazy melodies pulse and cascade, elongated but brittle harmonies shimmer and disappear, echoing far-off in the rounded corners of the mind. The patient and detailed way Abrams combines the broken with the beautiful in creating organic collages of sound that retain the euphonic essence of a song, makes this piece of work so powerful and timeless, sounding just as relevant today, as it did 17 years ago.

Under modern scrutiny in Abrams latest studio, he refocused the original recordings to emphasize the elements most important to the original vision. The final mastering and vinyl preparation was done in collaboration with Stephan Mathieu, vinyl was cut by LUPO.

From the original press release in 2004 by Taylor Deupree:

Without a doubt Shuttle358 has become one of the most admired artists to emerge from modern electronic music’s sea of musicians. From the humble beginnings of a demo CD in 12k’s mailbox to 4 critically acclaimed CDs, Dan Abrams is, to some, the one credited for bringing a warmth and human touch back into what has often been considered a very cold, sterile genre. It began with 1999’s Optimal.lp (12k1005), a groundbreaking debut release that immediately defined the Shuttle358 sound; a hybridization of the then-emerging “microsound” genre with Eno’s true ambient explorations. In 2000 Abrams outdid himself with Frame (12k1011) by honing his sound design and exploring production techniques at rates that made his “now” quite brief and creating what was to become one of the most sought-after CDs in the 12k catalog.

Chessa is the third release from Abrams’ Shuttle358 moniker on 12k and he continues to do what he does best: attempt to move microsound away from the world of theory and towards absolute real life. Like his photographs, Chessa is music about, and to be listened to in, unexpected places. It is a narrative, a simple slice of life that plays out through the incidental photography of the cover artwork. To achieve this Abrams fuses irregular granular sound particles, like the movements of everyday life, with a deliberate melodic base that captures emotion and simplicity.

LTD. BLUE SEAGLASS WAVE TRANSLUCENT VINYL

Last spring, Devendra Banhart and Noah Georgeson started to make a record that was like nothing they had made before _ an ambient album that would be both a haven from a suddenly terrified world and a heartfelt musical dialogue between two artists who have been friends and collaborators for over two decades. Refuge is an album of profound meditative beauty which offers the listener a much-needed sense of peace and renewal. But while it was recorded in 2020 its roots go back much further _ all the way to the start of their friendship and, beyond that, to the shared sounds and ethics of their childhoods. Devendra grew up in Venezuela while Noah, six years older, is a native of Nevada City, California. But as they got to know each other, they realised that they had a similar history in the New Age subculture of the 1980s: a world of meditation, Eastern music, the Bhagavad Gita and The Whole Earth Catalog. Childhood memories were coloured by the aromas of health food stores and the sound of New Age labels like Windham Hill Records. Noah, whose production and mixing credits include Joanna Newsom and the Strokes, came on board as co-producer of Devendra's 2005 album Cripple Crow and they have been working together ever since. It was while making Devendra's 2019 album Ma that the pair finally decided to make their ambient record. Despite complicating logistics, 2020 created an emotional craving for music with this contemplative, therapeutic quality. Inspired by both memories of the past and the needs of the present, Refuge is an act of companionship and generosity which gives the listener room to breathe. "We're hoping to create a sense of comfort and coming back to the moment," Devendra says. "It's really important to have a little bit of space between us and our anxieties and impulses. What you do with that space is up to you." Dorian Lynskey May 2021

’Angelo lost his shit over it. Aaliyah’s 3rd favourite track of all time is on it. David Bowie rocked up with it to a TV interview, declaring it “the most exciting sound of contemporary soul music”.

In 1996, Lewis Taylor released his self-titled masterpiece. A true modern classic, it’s an album that was years ahead of its time. Forget 25 years ago, it could easily have been made in 2021. An effortless blend of neo-soul, sophisticated pop, smart grooves and laid-back white funk, it enjoyed rapturous reviews from critics and music legends alike. But the album never managed to make an impact and given what was likely a token vinyl release at the time, the original records have long since been near-impossible to find. Lewis Taylor’s Lewis Taylor remains a holy relic for some and criminally unknown to most.

Lewis Taylor’s impeccable influences created a dazzling sonic palette: the LP as a whole suggests the visionary brilliance of Prince; the vocal stylings evoke the yearning power of Marvin Gaye; the effortless guitar playing shares the virtuosity of Jimi Hendrix; the haunting tones conjure Tricky; the innovative production and engineering invite comparisons to studio mavericks like Todd Rundgren and Brian Eno; the multi-layered, complex harmonies flash on Pet Sounds-era Brian Wilson; the dark, drama is reminiscent of both Scott Walker and Stevie Wonder; the complex arrangements create textures and moods with the feel of Shuggie Otis on Inspiration Information; the bold experimentation is akin to progressive artists like Faust and Tangerine Dream; the atmosphere is in conversation with Jeff Buckley’s Grace… and we could go on. That might all sound like marketing hyperbole, but not as far as Be With is concerned. It is a genuine wonder how an album this good could’ve passed so many people by.

But despite all the reference points, the similarities are really only skin-deep because the album sounds truly original. It occupies its own distinct, strange universe that feels dark and brooding one moment, bright and joyous the next. Ultimately, Taylor sounds like Taylor.

Although you wouldn’t know it from the credits, the album wasn’t the work of Lewis alone. Sabina Smyth gets an executive producer credit on the original sleeve, but in fact she worked with Lewis on the production and arrangements, did a lot of the backing vocals and she co-wrote Track, Song, Lucky and Damn with Lewis.

Lewis clarified all this in a Soul Jones interview with Dan Dodds in 2016. He explains how not giving Sabina the credit she was due at the time was an unfortunate consequence of where his head was at and he’s now trying to set the record straight.

Together they created an exquisite and sensually-charged record, with a freshness to the writing that makes the songs catchy, melodic-yet-deep and sometimes even funky. The music is predominantly guitar-led and a mixture of organs and synths, live drum loops and electronic percussion make for a sort of modern soul backing orchestra.

On the surface the album is gorgeously laidback, but beneath the lush, sometimes slick, production there’s a murkiness in the seriously gritty funk/hip-hop instrumentation. Lewis Taylor can be a claustrophobic listen. Even its one-word, often seemingly throw-away track titles add to the sense of unease. In its most positive moments, there’s still a sense that things aren’t quite right. The magic comes from this compelling tension.

The languid, strutting “Lucky” is a sensational opening statement. Sinuous electric guitar winds around the shaking percussion with a killer bass line rattling your bones, and Lewis’s voice is sublime. Its six-and-a-half unhurried minutes manage to distill the work of Marvin, Al Green and Bobby Womack because yes, it’s *that* good. Up next is the tough, dusty drum and jazzy, unsettling psych-guitar workout of “Bittersweet”. Aaliyah described it the “perfect song”, which says it all. By turns loping and soaring, tightly coiled and blasting free, 25 years on its discordant, swaggering majesty still sounds like future R&B.

The swinging, blue-eyed funk of “Whoever” oozes sophisticated sunshine soul for hazy days before “Track” sweeps in. The music tries to lift us up, beyond the reach of the vocals trying to drag us back down as Taylor sings “my mood is black as the darkest cloud”. The spare, dubby electro-soul of “Song” closes out the first half of the album with barely contained dread as it creeps towards the lush, synth-heavy coda.

The smouldering “Betterlove” eases us into the second half, coming on like a languorous response to the call of “Brown Sugar”, before sliding into the shuffling, softly-rocking “How”. Somehow the remarkable “Right” manages to both warm things up and smooth things out even more. Taut yet luxurious, it’s definitely not wrong.

“Damn” was to have been the album’s title track and you might also be able to hear its influence on D’Angelo’s Voodoo, maybe most obviously in the chaotic closing moments of “Untitled (How Does It Feel)”. Building to a screeching wall of noise that suddenly cuts dead, “Damn” sounds like the natural end to the album, with the celestial a cappella “Spirit” serving as a heavenly reprise.

When it came to the sleeve, art director Cally Callomon heard Taylor’s music as “sideways off-camera glances at a plethora of influences he had” and wanted to interpret that visually: “I went off into night-time London to see if I could find his song titles in off-beam low-fidelity photographs. I even found a shop called Lewis Taylor”. With a slide for each of the album’s ten tracks, nine of them are on the inner sleeve and the slide for “Damn” makes the front cover. It should’ve been the album’s title, but concerns over distribution in the US scuppered this.

One of UK soul’s most fascinating artists, Andrew Lewis Taylor is an enigmatic figure and a hugely under-appreciated talent. A prodigious multi-instrumentalist who got his start touring with heavy blues/psych outfit the Edgar Broughton Band, he released two albums of psychedelic-rock as Sheriff Jack before Island signed him on the strength of a demo alone. But Taylor was destined to be one of those artists unable (or unwilling) to be pigeonholed and despite the best efforts of Island’s publicity department the music never sold in the quantities it needed to or deserved to. Island eventually let him go in the early 2000s and in June 2006, Lewis Taylor retired from music.

Typical for the mid-90s, this CD-length album was squeezed onto a single LP for its original vinyl release. Simon Francis’s fresh vinyl mastering now spreads out the ten tracks over a double LP so nothing is compromised. And as usual, the records have been cut by Pete Norman and pressed at Record Industry. The original artwork has been restored at Be With HQ and subtly re-worked to work as a double.

This sprawling psychedelic soul opus really is a forgotten should-be-classic. We know that there are those of you who know, and as for the rest of you, we’re a bit jealous that you’re getting to hear Lewis Taylor for the first time.

Bjarki’s bbbbbb records welcomes its first-ever non-electronic project as Icelandic rock band Skrattar joins the label to unveil their thirteen-track album, ‘Hellraiser IV’.

Four-piece outfit Skrattar can be described as cigarette rock with an electronic vibe that makes your upper lip sweat. Having already developed a loyal fanbase in Iceland as a powerful live act with an energetic and provocative stage presence, the band now look further afield to global horizons as they reveal their latest album, ‘Hellraiser IV’.

With the release of ‘Hellraiser IV’, bbbbbb broadens its catalogue beyond dance and electronic music. While the label’s primary focus will remain electronic, several other genres will also feature - the connecting factor being that the music is Icelandic, experimental and fresh... the best that grassroots has to offer.

‘Good music should be heard, and this is my take on delivering probably the best music coming from Iceland at the moment. It’s an honest, wild love story of true friendship and creativity coming together in one album’ - Bjarki

‘Hellraiser IV’ contains thirteen tracks written over three years, with the oldest songs composed the year the band was founded, 2016. In 2019, when a good foundation for an LP had been laid as the band gained followers and honed its sound, they locked themselves in the studio until they completed the album. With many of the tracks composed in the dead of night, containing both lyrics written over a long period as well as improvisation, the final product is a record made by them from A to Z, in line with the band’s endearing DIY ethos.

‘Skrattar’ is Icelandic for a specific type of demon that you can’t control, but in Swedish, it means ‘to laugh’ - with laughter involved across many of the tracks on ‘Hellraiser IV’ as if to mock the dualism of seriousness. Their subject matter is chaos and anarchism - but their humour and satire are never far away. The music is an ode to the eternal void, while at the same time laughing in its face.

In addition, a remix album will be released digitally alongside Hellraiser IV, reimagined and reworked by a host of fellow musicians, producers, and artists. Among them, label regular Kuldaboli, bbbbbb boss Bjarki, DJ Flugvél og Geimskip, russian.girls, KGB and Anton Newcombe - the founder of The Brian Jonestown Massacre.

LTD. BLUE SEAGLASS WAVE TRANSLUCENT VINYL

Last spring, Devendra Banhart and Noah Georgeson started to make a record that was like nothing they had made before _ an ambient album that would be both a haven from a suddenly terrified world and a heartfelt musical dialogue between two artists who have been friends and collaborators for over two decades. Refuge is an album of profound meditative beauty which offers the listener a much-needed sense of peace and renewal. But while it was recorded in 2020 its roots go back much further _ all the way to the start of their friendship and, beyond that, to the shared sounds and ethics of their childhoods. Devendra grew up in Venezuela while Noah, six years older, is a native of Nevada City, California. But as they got to know each other, they realised that they had a similar history in the New Age subculture of the 1980s: a world of meditation, Eastern music, the Bhagavad Gita and The Whole Earth Catalog. Childhood memories were coloured by the aromas of health food stores and the sound of New Age labels like Windham Hill Records. Noah, whose production and mixing credits include Joanna Newsom and the Strokes, came on board as co-producer of Devendra's 2005 album Cripple Crow and they have been working together ever since. It was while making Devendra's 2019 album Ma that the pair finally decided to make their ambient record. Despite complicating logistics, 2020 created an emotional craving for music with this contemplative, therapeutic quality. Inspired by both memories of the past and the needs of the present, Refuge is an act of companionship and generosity which gives the listener room to breathe. "We're hoping to create a sense of comfort and coming back to the moment," Devendra says. "It's really important to have a little bit of space between us and our anxieties and impulses. What you do with that space is up to you." Dorian Lynskey May 2021

It has almost been three years since Foxing released their fan and critically acclaimed album ‘Nearer My God’, selling 1,468 LPs first week and solidifying the band as one of the brightest up and coming voices in indie and alternative. The band will begin a new chapter with their new album and Hopeless debut ‘Draw Down The Moon’. An album about cosmic insignificance that was inspired by games such as Dungeons and Dragons and Zork, ‘Draw Down The Moon’ was produced by Andy Hull of Manchester Orchestra. For fans of American Football, Modern Baseball, Manchester Orchestra.

A desperate, desert-baked Midnight Highway of Lost Souls, Cuckolds, Wastrels, blistering Righteous Anthems and delirious Apocalyptic Fever-Dreams. This sublime collection of knowns and unknowns, battered Nashville legends and forgotten backwoods-poets features tales of Grisly Barroom Homicides, Jilted Lustmords, Grim Divorcees in Bedlam and Fiery Suburban Infanticides. Often originally waxed and distributed in unrewarding amounts, these Troubled Troubadours sing of Cowardice, Infidelity, Spurned Lover's Suicide Pacts, Tortured Jailbirds, Vengeful Inebriates and dubious Parenting Skills.
Years in the making – ‘Hillbillies In Hell’ (Volume XII) presents 16 timeless tribulations - Sinful Seductresses, Grinding Poverty, Nihilistic Murderous Horrors, Satan's Eternal Maze of Hardships and Temptations and God's blazing Light of Redemption.
A dank yet at times uplifting stash of marginal 45s - some of these sides are impossibly rare and are reissued here for the very first time. All for your prurient listening pleasure…

. Elton Britt - Lost Highway
, Porter Wagoner - Fairchild
, Justin Tubb - The Great River Road Mystery
, Sanford Clark - It's Nothing To Me
, Johnny Paycheck - You'll Recover In Time
, Stonewall Jackson - Somebody's Always Leaving
, Porter Wagoner And Dolly Parton - The Party
, Buddy Starcher - When Payday Comes
, Tommy Curtis And Bill Taylor - Devil's Stumbling Block
, Jody Reynolds - Devil Girl
, Henson Cargill - Going Backwards
, Lorrie Collins - Another Man Done Gone
, Bobby Braddock - Revelation
, Stonewall Jackson And The Brentwood Children's Choir - That's All This Old World Needs
, The Speer Family - You Can't Run Away From God
, The Singing Rambos - When Payday Comes",Witness...

Various Artists ‘In Bed With Marina’
Classic Indie/Chamber-Pop
2LP MA90 (Marina Records) £15.50
Deal: B/C: 4015698905656

THIS ONE MISSED THE DEADLINE FOR THE OFFICIAL RSD LISTINGS BUT WILL BE AN **UNOFFICIAL RSD DROP 2 ** RELEASE...LIMITED +NON-RETURNABLE..

Celebrating its 25th anniversary, this classic Marina compilation from 1996 makes its first appearance on vinyl. Packaged in a deluxe gatefold cover, In Bed With Marina features track-by-track notes, lots of photographs, two vinyl-only bonus cuts and a gorgeous poster.
Enjoy 24 stunning tracks on two groovy LPs incl. many unreleased cuts and exclusive contributions by Edwyn Collins, Shack, Teenage Fanclub, The Pearlfishers, Cowboy Mouth, The Bathers, Harpers Bizarre, Sugartown, Paul Quinn & The Independent Group, Jazzateers, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Malcolm Ross, The Secret Goldfish, and many others.

Erased Tapes debut. Wait, what? How? Anyone who has seen
the trail blazing sonic pioneer live will know Nils likes to
deadpan a joke. Graz is in fact the first studio album he
recorded for the label back in 2009, that somehow remained a
secret… until now.

Nils Frahm has quietly changed the musical landscape,
reincarnating the centuries old figure of a pianist-composer for a
new generation of music fans. As Nils’ word-of-mouth popularity
grew and grew, so did the pop-culture profile of his instrument. He
founded Piano Day with a team of like-minded friends in 2015 to
help that process, some years releasing an album of piano
recordings to celebrate one of humankind’s greatest inventions.
Graz is one such record; an unheard snapshot of a young Nils
recorded at Mumuth, the University of Music and Performing Arts
Graz, in 2009 as part of the thesis Conversations for Piano and
Room produced by Thomas Geiger, which received an award in
the Classical Surround Recording category at the 127th AES
Convention in New York.
Whilst at the time it was decided to keep the grand piano
recordings from the Graz sessions locked away and instead focus
on his close mic’ed, dampened piano explorations which would
become his acclaimed studio album Felt in 2011, two of the pieces
— most notably Hammers — lived on as part of his live set, and
were expanded on and re-recorded as part of his breakthrough
2013 record Spaces (a collage of field recordings from concerts
which broke the Fourth Wall and included audience coughs). Over
his mercurial career, Nils has pushed and pulled at the boundaries
and parameters of his prolific work like that. He’s physically
changed his piano (the softened prepared strings of Felt) played
with a modified body (Screws recorded with 9 fingers and a broken
thumb) played with scale (Solo recorded on the 3.7 metre high
Klavins M370) and with the different layers of formats (last year’s
Tripping with Nils Frahm nested his studio setup inside a live
performance, concert film and live album). Now with Graz he has
found the final frontier for play: time itself and his own discography.
Graz is a moment of time at the very beginning of Nils’ quiet
revolution. The essential genius is already evident; the harmonic
language of classical, and the immediacy of jazz. Nils seems to
pull down each idea moment by moment, gently, to not scare away
the muse. He describes: “sometimes when you hear a piano, you
might think it’s a conversation between a woman and a man. At
the same time, it can hint at shapes of the universe and describe
how a black hole looks. You can make sounds that have no relation
to anything we can measure.”

Named after the 80's classic adventure movie "The Goonies", French pop punkers, Chunk! No Captain Chunk's music vacillates between two different extremes, folding high octane, crazy catchy pop-punk melodies into pummeling and potent hardcore. It's been 6 years since their last album release Get Lost, Find Yourself (2015). Since then the band did release "Blame It On This Song" (2016) which will be packaged into their next studio album, Gone Are The Good Days. Promo: Online support from Kerrang!, Rock Sound, Dead Press, Bring The Noise. Print features confirmed in UPSET & Rock Sound. Kerrang! Radio Playlist – 4 weeks in a row. Slam Dunk UK Festival 2021

Amsterdam producer Kaap steps forward on his own De Lichting imprint with three twisted jams of deep and playful techno. The passionate gearhead, known for his dubby takes on house and techno, started his Working Titles playground back in 2017 by running a niche cassette outlet Yield on the side. In late 2018 he merged into the prolific De Lichting collective and is a frequent guest on Indigo Aera's AEX series. After many years of hard work, Kaap's new solo EP is surfacing, and it's worth the wait. Over the course of three tracks, Kaap shows high levels of creativity. The first track 'Razor' is a bouncy bass wobbler, its rubbery acid lines and crispy percussion make it an ideal party starter. Title track 'Omen' reaches for deeper grounds, a deep and murky groover enlightened by tactical bleepy rhythms. Kaap's love for dub-techno triumphs on the lengthy b-side as a closer on this EP. With over ten minutes of hazy atmospheres and mesmerizing pads, it builds and builds towards the rolling fields of euphoria.

Recorded during the thick of the Covid lockdown, Kevin, Tony, & Eric hunkered down in their studio and turned their energy inward. With all live shows and future tours canceled, Brainstory had no other outlet besides their rehearsal space which had been converted into a makeshift studio. Stepping up to the obstacles of the moment, they recorded and produced an EP of brand new music. They were already highly skilled musicians two years ago, but time in the studio with Leon Michels producing Buck and playing alongside bands like Holy Hive and Chicano Batman had a profound effect on them. Their ears have developed, their ethos and their drive has matured, their musicianship is full-blown; hence the name of the EP, Ripe. Ripe is a seven song journey into who Brainstory are as people and as a band. They are lighthearted and fun but never anything less than dead serious about their artistry. In choosing to record a mostly instrumental record, they have departed from their 2019 debut Buck and are showing more of their Jazz roots. Ripe pulls from Jazz, Hip Hop, 70s Funk, 60s Soul, and life in Southern California in the year 2021. Kev's intro to the EP is a testament to their thing, his goofy and charming "let's go baby_.less go baby" is welcoming and fun and then "Scissors" drops - serious as can be. The first vocal number we hear is "Seasons", a song about maintaining through the challenges of 2020 that would make Roy Ayers proud. "Long Day" and "Rogers" are drenched in reefer and psychedelia and promise a moment away from reality if listened to in headphones. "Bye Bye" is another stone cold ballad from the group that is destined to be a staple in sweet soul sets around the globe. Ripe is a welcome ray of sunshine as we all shake off the darkness of 2020 and will hold fans over while they finish recording their full length sophomore album due out in 2022.

COLORED VINYL IS TRANSPARENT WITH ORANGE & GREEN SPLATTER. Recorded during the thick of the Covid lockdown, Kevin, Tony, & Eric hunkered down in their studio and turned their energy inward. With all live shows and future tours canceled, Brainstory had no other outlet besides their rehearsal space which had been converted into a makeshift studio. Stepping up to the obstacles of the moment, they recorded and produced an EP of brand new music. They were already highly skilled musicians two years ago, but time in the studio with Leon Michels producing Buck and playing alongside bands like Holy Hive and Chicano Batman had a profound effect on them. Their ears have developed, their ethos and their drive has matured, their musicianship is full-blown; hence the name of the EP, Ripe. Ripe is a seven song journey into who Brainstory are as people and as a band. They are lighthearted and fun but never anything less than dead serious about their artistry. In choosing to record a mostly instrumental record, they have departed from their 2019 debut Buck and are showing more of their Jazz roots. Ripe pulls from Jazz, Hip Hop, 70s Funk, 60s Soul, and life in Southern California in the year 2021. Kev's intro to the EP is a testament to their thing, his goofy and charming "let's go baby_.less go baby" is welcoming and fun and then "Scissors" drops--serious as can be. The first vocal number we hear is "Seasons", a song about maintaining through the challenges of 2020 that would make Roy Ayers proud. "Long Day" and "Rogers" are drenched in reefer and psychedelia and promise a moment away from reality if listened to in headphones. "Bye Bye" is another stone cold ballad from the group that is destined to be a staple in sweet soul sets around the globe. Ripe is a welcome ray of sunshine as we all shake off the darkness of 2020 and will hold fans over while they finish recording their full length sophomore album due out in 2022.

At the end of 2016, after ten years and seven albums, Nick Thorburn quietly decided to put an end to Islands and retire from music. There was no announcement or farewell, only two shows at Webster Hall in New York and the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the band’s widely adored debut album Return to the Sea. “This seemed like a perfect time to put a cap on things and close out the circle,” Thorburn says. He switched focus, selling and producing a pilot television script, creating a graphic novel with preeminent comics publisher Fantagraphics, and scoring a few films and the occasional BBC radio show. Thorburn’s years-long leave of absence resulted in a kind of rock and roll Rumspringa, with Nick unable to shake the bug for making records. After a sudden burst of creativity from a few weeks of working in his kitchen studio, Thorburn had written dozens and dozens of songs informed by everything from late-70s avant-disco to Thea Lim’s time-travel novel An Ocean of Minutes, and would write dozens more over the next year and a half, almost all with a clear focus on rhythm and groove. Thorburn decided that if he was going to make another Islands record, he’d do it without a deadline. He also wanted to work with outside producers, which would be his first time since 2009’s Vapours. He reached out to that album’s producer, Chris Coady (Beach House, Yeah Yeah Yeahs) , and asked Islands drummer Adam Halferty and guitarist Geordie Gordon to join him in a recording session at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles. “At the time I still wasn’t sure what this new music was going to be, or if coming back to Islands even made any sense,” says Thorburn. “But once we started playing, it quickly became clear this would be the next Islands album

A HANDPICKED COLLECTION OF HIS GREATEST MUSICAL WORKS FROM FILM & TELEVISION, FEATURING MUSIC FROM NOMADLAND, THE FATHER, INSIDIOUS, THIS IS ENGLAND & MANY MORE

"The most syncable modern composer" Synchtank

The new collection Cinema features 28 breath-taking pieces that take the listener through Ludovico's incredible musical journey working in film & television, and includes two previously unreleased tracks** (see tracklist below)
Includes music from films and series such as the Golden Globe & BAFTA Award-winning and Oscar favourite Nomadland, another BAFTA Award-winning and Oscar favourite The Father, This Is England, I'm Still Here, Insidious, Dr Foster, Sense8 & many more
"I felt like he Ludovico and the character of Fern were walking in parallel; their shared love of nature connects them, and I knew then his music would fit perfectly with our movie" Chloé Zhao on Nomadland
Award-winning scores such as Fuori Dal Mondo (Oscar nominated, Echo Klassik award) and Sotto falso nome (Avignon Film Festival) are also included
Einaudi has become the biggest streamed classical artist of all time. His beautifully evocative music lends itself so perfectly to use in films, tv & advertising and has the incredible ability to provoke and enhance emotion.
This is why for many years directors have been using it to complement their images and continue to do so.
Famous fans & collaborators include Shane Meadows (This Is England, Dead Man's Shoes), Russell Crowe (The Water Diviner, Gladiator, Les Miserables), Chloé Zhao (Nomadland), Ricky Gervais (Derek), Eric Toldedano (The Intouchables), Clint Eastwood (J Edgar), Casey Affleck (I'm Still Here) & Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan).

The Future Sound of London celebrate 25 years of their biggest chart hit. "We Are Explosive" came from their 1996 Top 40 album "Dead Cities". Here it's been recreated, re-imagined, reinterpreted the original song into 11 new mixes on this exclusive Record Store Day vinyl release. There are only 1500 copies and each are individually numbered.

Tape / Cassette
Canaan Balsam is an electronic composer and musician based in Edinburgh. He uses field recordings, found sounds, hardware and a range of software to create immersive soundscapes. His work explores the dead space between ambient and new age music; the liminal zone between the harshness of industrial and the beatific serenity of devotional music.
Responding to the context where ever-expanding modes of communication seem only to blur the line between connectivity and solitude, Canaan often returns to the theme of loneliness in his work - how it can grow and metasta- size, until it becomes incommunicable, resistant to empathy; an alien host overtaking the body. Cruise Utopia was recorded over the last 3 years and it's his first solo work.
Balsam has collaborated with several contemporary artists including Cosima Cobley Carr and Calvin Z Laing, as well as experimental musician Dan Mutsch, and has performed in an iteration of Damo Suzuki's Sound Carriers. Canaan's sound work has featured at the Radiophrenia Festival at CCA in Glasgow. His audiovisual work has been exhibited at the Embassy Gallery in Edinburgh. He is also part of the Scottish sound art and collective Optic Nerve.

The band’s most experimental album, Anthem Of The Sun was an unprecedented mix of studio and live recordings stitched together to create a hybrid. More than fifty years later, it remains a pinnacle of psychedelic music. It also marked a departure for the band, as they began to channel their creativity into longer jams on songs like “Alligator” and “Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks)” – two live staples of the Dead’s early days. During this period, the band included: Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann. The LP features a remastered version of the 1971 mix, mastered by Grammy®-winning engineer David Glasser from the original analog master tapes.

Dead Can Dance members Lisa Gerrard and Jules Maxwell have teamed up under a new guise with James Chapman (MAPS) to create a studio album, titled ‘Burn’.
The record began its journey more than seven years ago, when Lisa met Irish theatre composer Jules Maxwell before working together for the first time. ‘Burn’ is set for release on 7th May 2021 via Atlantic Curve. Speaking about the origins of the album, Lisa Gerrard explains, “It is with great pleasure that I share this collaboration with Jules Maxwell. Jules and I began our creative journey with Dead Can Dance. We realised that we could connect through improvisation and that musical exploration continues to evolve with this present work.” Although this record is a new release, its beginnings go all the way back to 2012 during that year’s Dead Can Dance world tour. Originally brought in as a live keyboard player, Jules Maxwell helped create a new song with Lisa Gerrard called ‘Rising Of The Moon’, which was performed as the final encore of each show. By the time the tour finished in Chile in 2013, a strong affinity had begun to develop between the two of them and further opportunities to collaborate with each other resulted over subsequent years. In 2015, when Maxwell was asked to submit songs for the Bulgarian choir The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices (Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares), he approached Gerrard to co-write material and travelled to Australia to work with her in her home studio. The pair came away with four new songs for that release, as well as the building blocks for this new venture together.

Van Morrison will release ‘Latest Record Project: Volume 1’ on May 7th on Exile/BMG. His 42nd record and his most dynamic and contemporary album in years, ‘Latest Record Project: Volume 1’ is a 28-track delve into his ongoing love of blues, R&B, jazz and soul

Ryley Walker currently resides in New York City. But his latest LP is a Chicago record in spirit. The masterful Course In Fable, the songwriter’s fi@h solo effort,
draws from the deep well of that city’s ferCle 1990s scene, when bands like Tortoise, The Sea and Cake and Gastr del Sol were reshaping the underground,
mixing and matching indie rock, jazz, prog and beyond.
Walker spent his formaCve years in Chicago, absorbing those heady sounds and finding ways to make them his own. Even though he emerged at first in folkrock
troubadour mode, it makes sense that he’s arrived at this point; each LP has grown more intricate and assured, his influences disClling into something
original and unusual. To put it simply: Course In Fable is Walker’s best record yet, full of acCve imaginaCon and endless possibiliCes.
Last October, Ryley went straight to one of the primary architects of the Chicago sound to make the LP. John McEn:re, Course In Fable’s producer/engineer/
mixer, can rightly be called a legend for his work with Tortoise, Stereolab, The Red Krayola, Jim O’Rourke and countless others over a prolific career that now
spans more than three decades. Seeing his name in an album’s liners is preVy much a trademark of quality.
Another Windy City exile, McEnCre is based on the west coast these days, working out of the Portland, OR studio he’s dubbed Soma West. On the seven songs
here, he delivers the signature shimmering and prisCne sonics he’s become known for over the years. But McEnCre was also inCmately involved with Course
In Fable’s overall creaCve process. “I told him to take the mixes and have at it,” Walker says.
The result is a rich, immersive affair — a headphones record if ever there was one. Course In Fable’s songs are twisty, labyrinthine things, stuffed full of ideas
(Walker half-jokingly calls it his “prog record”). But no maVer how complex it gets, the album is never overwhelmingly busy. Wiry guitars melt into gorgeous
string secCons (arranged by Douglas Jenkins of the Portland Cello Project). Tricky Cme signatures abound but feel as natural as can be. Melodies o@en dri@ in
unexpected direcCons but remain downright hummable. Like Walker’s beloved Genesis, the pop element is never too far from the surface even when shit
gets weird. (And speaking of weird, Ryley says that in addiCon to Genesis, much of the album’s inspiraCon comes from “Australian extreme scooter riders on
YouTube and balding gear heads on Craigslist.” Go figure.)
To help put together these various puzzle pieces, Ryley assembled a band made up of several longCme collaborators. Bill MacKay (another Chicago mainstay)
and Walker have made two excellent instrumental duo records of interlocking guitars and warm give-and-take — a rapport very much in evidence
throughout Course In Fable. The freakishly talented drummer Ryan Jewell has performed with Walker for years now in a variety of seangs, from
straighborward song-centric sets to blown-out improv extravaganzas. Bassist Andrew ScoJ Young (Tiger Hatchery, Health&Beauty) has logged many miles on
tour with Walker; he and Jewell are frequently astonishing, a buoyant-but-always-locked-in rhythm secCon, able to navigate someCmes dizzying turnarounds
with apparent ease. Listening to the interplay between Walker and these musicians and you might be fooled into thinking they’d spent a year roadtesCng
Course In Fable’s songs. But it all came together relaCvely fast, thanks to demos, rehearsals and the kind of musical empathy that comes from years of
playing together.
Beneath the wondrous interplay, you’ll find some of Walker’s most personal – if sCll typically crypCc — lyrics, hinCng at some of the trials the songwriter has
been dealing with in recent years. Balanced with necessary doses of dark humor and oddball poetry, Course In Fable feels most of all like a life-affirming
record, fresh air in the lungs, sun on your skin. “Fuck me, I’m alive,” Ryley sings at one point, a moment of both disbelief and pure joy.
Walker has released his albums on a who’s-who of independent labels over the past decade — Tompkins Square, Dead Oceans, Thrill Jockey and Drag City
among them. This Cme around, he’s doing it DIY-style, puang Course In Fable out on his own Husky Pants imprint. You’re in good hands. This is an album that
sounds great (mastered by Greg Calbi), looks great (artwork by Jenny Nelson and design by Michael Vallera). It probably even smells great. Whether you’ve
been onboard since the beginning or are new to the Ryley Walker universe, you’re in for a treat.

Jump Salty contains the first songs by Pinhead Gunpowder, recorded
thirty years ago but sounding just as fresh today. This compilation
of singles and compilation tracks is back on vinyl for the first
time in over a decade! Originally a CD-only release on Lookout!
Records, this has been re-cut at 45rpm for the first time and comes
on limited indie-exclusive translucent gold vinyl! Sonically this LP
is a confluence of the bands from which members Aaron Cometbus
(Crimpshrine, Cleveland Bound Death Sentence, Sweet Baby), Billie
Joe Armstrong (Green Day, The Longshot), Sarah Kirsch (Fuel,
Baader Brains, Mothercountry Motherfuckers), and Bill Schneider
(Monsula, Uranium 9 Volt, Dead Sound) hail from.

When Nkrumah Jah Thomas hit Number 1 on the
Jamaican Charts in 1976 with his debut single
‘Midnight Rock’ on Alvin Ranglin’s GG label it gave the
new DJ a theme song and an entry into the world of
music. Within three years he had launched his
Midnight Rock label and, alongside more music under
his own name, he produced a series of classics by the
likes of Tristan Palmer, Anthony Johnson, Early B and
many more.
In 1997 he signed a deal with Acid Jazz’s Roots label
and since then his career as a producer has been
developed and anthologised; the release of a series of
archive King Tubby and Scientist mixes, the use of his
masters to be sampled by Nas (on ‘The Don’), Protoje
and others, plus reissues of his classic albums.
To celebrate 40 years of Midnight Rock, Thomas went
back into his tape archive to unearth another 10
tracks, either with original vocals or guest names
brought in.
Behind original rhythms recorded at Channel 1, Tuff
Gong and others, featuring the Roots Radics and The
Midnight Rock Band and mixed in places like King
Jammy’s and Tubby’s we are presented with a line-up
of stellar talent - Linval Thompson with the plaintive ‘I
Can Be Your Man’, the forthright Super Cat on ‘Me
Glad She Gone’ and Luciano on the rare ‘Good Thing
Goin’ On’. They are joined by Courtney Melody,
Pinchers and Joesy Wales, Daville and more. Keeping
the circle complete, Thomas appears on two tracks,
including the future classic ‘Sounds A Go Dead
Tonight’ with Junior Vibes.

Blackened Blues with Doom and Punk influences, Black Totem’s Deathrock is overflowing with superstition, vice and horror. Up to no good since 2008, Black Totem are notorious road-dogs of the Finnish underground, cutting their teeth and scraping their raw knuckles in a slew of live shows through the years. The band has shown promise since the early days releasing two EP’s and a self-titled debut album, which won an award for Best Rock Album at the Turku Music Awards in 2016. With their new album “Shapeshifting,” Black Totem are downright lycanthropic, breaking out of their enigmatic origins and taking on a much more unadulterated form. Their catchy, raucous Blues songs, with wild, untamed backing vocals and horror-soundtrack keys, give a distinctly Finnish lizard-disco hysteria to their fortified sound, coming across like a blood-bath in a moonshine distillery. Howling at the moon, with lungs of bile, Danzig/Misfits/Samhain influences are fleshed out with the Doom-laden riff-war of Celtic Frost, Venom and Darkthrone. Together with the catchier urban song-craft of the Black Keys, this cauldron of Black Totem’s magic formula makes “Shapeshifting” a familiar, yet heavily enjoyable natural genre-clash of their own.

Island of the Hungry Ghosts is a hybrid documentary that moves between the natural, human and spiritual worlds. Located off the coast of Indonesia, the Australian territory of Christmas Island is inhabited by migratory crabs traveling in their millions from the jungle towards the ocean, in a movement that has been provoked by the full moon for hundreds of thousands of years. Poh Lin Lee is a trauma therapist who lives with her family in this seemingly idyllic paradise. Every day, she talks with the asylum seekers held indefinitely in a high-security detention centre hidden in the island's core, attempting to support them in a situation that is as unbearable as its outcome is uncertain. As Poh Lin and her family explore the island's beautiful yet threatening landscape, the local islanders carry out their "hungry ghost" rituals for the spirits of those who died on the island without a burial. They make offerings to appease the lost souls who are said to be wandering the jungles at night looking for home. This album presents the original score Aaron Cupples created for the film. Rich in texture and harmonics, the music is characterized by the bespoke instruments and recording techniques employed in its creation. The soundtrack also features sound recordist Leo Dolgan's vivid field recordings. All captured on Christmas Island, the four pieces recall insect choruses, strange and ominous bird calls, erupting blowholes, fire, ocean, and Buddhist prayers for the dead. The album is mastered by Rashad Becker, featuring design by N MRE 08. *LP comes with an obi strip, a booklet containing stills from the documentary & liner notes, as well as a postcard granting access to the full film*

"...a swirl of the bedrock elements that make up modern music, his LP lifts from Soul, Funk and Hip-Hop to create this ode to Detroit House."
A NATION OF MILLIONS

EARLY SUPPORT FROM ALEXANDER NUT ("Tight beats from Snips as always. Dexters Pain is my fave here. Big ups"), KARIZMA ("Proud to hear a friend grow musically, great work on the album my friend...Full Support. K'), RED RACK'EM, SK VIBEMAKER

SNIPS delivers the first vinyl release on Houseology. The Barbershop LP is a tongue in cheek play on the production techniques Todd Worsnip aka Snips normally uses when making his Hip-Hop work. This 8 track LP is meeting of the two worlds of House and Hip-Hop tapping into Snips' raw ability to find the best cuts and chops needed for any genre.

DJ Snips began his career at legendary London record store Deal Real', where he ran the open mic night alongside British host and comedian Doc Brown, Snips' years at Deal Real saw him DJ'ing alongside performances from several US heavy hitters including Kanye West, Mos Def and the Black Eyed Peas.

Snips' knack for manoeuvring through a wide range of Hip Hop oeuvres has seen him play around the world, Specifically in NYC where he has been a guest at legendary parties including Everyday People, Bible Study, Mobile Mondays and Ginny's Supper Club. As well as being a regular in NY, Snips has also headlined events in The Philippines, Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, The Netherlands, Qatar, France, Norway and Spain. When Snips isn't touring or on the Club circuit, he's known for churning out beats for some of the most talented MCs on both sides of the Atlantic. His production work includes tracks for several major US recording artists including M1 (Dead Prez), Capadonna (Wu Tang), Sean Price.

Work on the Houseology record label allows Snips the opportunity to articulate himself even more so within his skilled production, by drawing a definitive line between the House/Hip-Hop relationship which has existed for years.

The three players in Chicago’s Moontype orbited each other for years before they came in phase. Bodies of Water, their debut album for local label Born Yesterday, documents travel, insecurity, friendship, and the titular element—all of which are representative of the band members’ strong connection to place and to one another. “Being rooted in the landscape became important to me while studying geology, which completely changed how I think about the world,” offers songwriter, vocalist and bassist Margaret McCarthy of the album’s central themes. The arrangements themselves feel like open-hearted negotiations; sparse fingerpicking gives way to saturated tube-screaming as naturally as the changing of tides. Over twelve tracks, Moontype revels in the woozy concoction of its many influences, but always lands on punchy hooks, shifting between arrangements both spacious and mystifying without abandoning their conversational warmth.

Conservatory students at Oberlin College’s prestigious music program, each member focused on exploring different sounds. Guitarist Ben Cruz, who came up on classic rock shredding and migrated into jazz performance, admired the indie pop of Fountains of Wayne, the groundbreaking composition work of pianist Vijay Iyer, and the genre-morphing folk of heavy hitters like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. He played in several projects alongside Emerson Hunton, who’d drummed from age six and entrenched himself in the Twin Cities improvised music scene before even heading to college. Margaret—who grew up outside of Boston playing piano, singing in choirs and writing on guitar—spent her time creating knotty, riot grrrl-and-hyperpop inspired songs for bass and voice, as well as noise soundtracks for art installations. Inspired by artists like Adrianne Lenker and Gillian Welch, she recorded the EP bass tunes at home in an apartment over the town’s optician, releasing it upon graduation. A week later she migrated even farther west to Chicago, where Ben and Emerson had already enmeshed themselves in several projects, from avant garde ensembles to a country group.

Ben was instantly impressed by Margaret’s songs, at once “challenging and unlike anything I had played before.” The duo decided to try performing together, but knew this special music would be even better fortified with drums. Emerson was the obvious choice—as Ben puts it, “He’s our great friend and also the best drummer we know. Who else do you call?” Moontype-as-trio gigged around town, eventually embarking on a first fall tour in Emerson’s Prius. On that trip, they felt the music morph into something living, and the care and trust between them intensified. They decided to put together songs for a record, recorded at the end of 2019 with Jamdek Recording Studio’s Doug Malone, a dependable collaborator whose patient process perfectly captured the magic of their newfound familiarity. While Margaret’s skeletal demos still informed the bulk of Moontype’s full-band debut (some of which are re-recordings of bass tunes cuts), the resulting arrangements are songs reborn and strengthened by the three musicians’ absorption of one another’s ideas.

On Bodies of Water, Margaret’s soothing, unadorned alto is often peppered by the gliding, eerie harmonies of her bandmates. “We love the act of singing together,” explains Ben, who describes it as “connecting and grounding and wholesome.” The push-pull search for common ground characterizes the instrumentals as well. Round basslines occupy higher octaves, trading space with guitars chugging in lower registers, and all the while drums break apart and glue back together in idiosyncratic grooves that never lose the pocket. Of the complicated rhythms that sometimes result: “Any mathy moments are based on how the lyrics fall naturally, which feels like it frees us up from having to stay in one time signature,” says Emerson. “Rhythmic elements never feel like they’re being added in, more like they’re already there and we just float on through.”

Touring’s restlessness informed these songs, but so did the DIY scene that welcomed Moontype to Chicago—including, according to Margaret, the “wild harmonies” of Ohmme, the “deadpan explanatory rock” of Ratboys, and the “luxe math rock pattern music” of The Knees. Working at beloved venue Sleeping Village inspired Margaret’s observational vignettes; “We are sitting at the desk and you are mixing all the bands,” she reports in the middle of the dextrous folk hammer-ons of “3 Weeks,” gently admitting, “I am trying to have fun and I am trying to get paid” in a world of bikes, trucks, and velvet. “About You,” a robust power-popper written about a post-gig romp around Richmond with artist Bebé Machete, opens with a Phair-ian quip: “Looking at you with my fuck me eyes / Do you wanna get inside of mine?” Meanwhile, the spectre of lost camaraderie looms over “Ferry,” an atmospheric and anthemic standout that questions, “If I’m not your best friend / then who am I to anyone?” Alongside water, this preoccupation with friendship is a focal concern lyrically, but the palpable love between Moontype’s players is essential in communicating that desire for connection, and all three members are dedicated to exploring sound and meaning organically and together. Care and generosity are at the core of Moontype, and Bodies of Water is a clever album full of insightful music, as cosily enveloping as it is incisively honest.

With a history 50+ years in the making, Tower of Power has been a funk
institution since 1968, knocking out hits like “What is Hip,” “So Very Hard
to Go,” “This Time It’s Real” and “You’re Still a Young Man” while lending
their soulful sound to collaborations with Santana, the Grateful Dead, Elton
John, Huey Lewis, Justin Timberlake and everyone in-between.
50 Years of Funk & Soul - Live at the Fox Theater captures their storied career
with no-holds-barred victory lap concerts in Oakland, CA, performing their full
spectrum of life-affirming funk and soul hits to sold out audiences in 2018.
Available as a 3-LP set, 2-CD/1-DVD package, standalone DVD and digital audio configuration, these historic performances include alumni special guests
Chester Thompson, Lenny Pickett, Francis ‘Rocco’ Prestia, Bruce Conte and Ray
Greene. PBS will celebrate the 50th anniversary with a 60 minute airing of the
performance beginning February 27.

Sun Milk was recorded in two months, a much quicker process than the three years spent on their previous release, Flowers. The band recorded the album at the Pharmacy, Vroom’s home studio in Toronto, located above an actual pharmacy. It was the first album to be recorded after Little Kid solidified their live lineup, with Boothby, Vroom, and Germain having played together for over two years. Every song except “Like a Movie” began as a full-band live take, with overdubs performed democratically, with both Boothby and Germain layering guitars. It was also the first record to feature Lunn’s vocals, who joined the band shortly after the album’s release.

The result is a deeply affecting document of personal crisis, mirroring the dramatic changes in Boothby’s life—a breakup, living alone for the first time, beginning a new career. The lyrics have less Christian content and more personal overtones than other Little Kid records. “It was a relief when these songs came out,” says Boothby, “processing recent changes in my life, trying to take ownership of my identity and choices.” This lends a confessional warmth to the songs, a feeling of reconnecting with an old friend, sharing stories. Highlights include the off-kilter opening track “The Fourth” and the lovely, meandering “Ugly Moon.” The centerpiece of the album is “Slow Death in a Warm Bed.” A meditation on why people stay in flawed relationships, the song builds in calming repetitions until the guitars explode in the last minute, climaxing in a full-fledged distorted freakout. It’s one of the most beautiful and harrowing songs in Little Kid’s catalog.

The drifting, gentle “Dim Light Coming Down” features some of Boothby’s best lyrics. The narrator describes a person seeing “the likeness” of their own dead father “floating high above the road,” a mystical encounter rendered in the most plainspoken of terms. But Boothby quickly undercuts the moment: “But you'd been drinking when you saw him/And your mind was moving slow/Like your ears were full of cotton/So what he said you'll never know.” It’s a thwarted encounter that becomes more powerful for that very fact. Just before the song reaches its slow-building climax, Boothby sings, “Coming down/There’s a bright light/A gentle sound/Opening wide.” The transcendence does finally arrive, but it’s in the coming down, the hangover, the regular life that comes after the big moment. There's little wonder why it's become a live staple for the band.

The record is a high point in a remarkably consistent career. Looking back at Sun Milk, Boothby believes it’s one of the strongest in Little Kid’s oeuvre. “It’s probably my favorite,” says Boothby. “In general, I love slow songs, and this album is full of them. I like the structure of seven long songs—can’t think of too many albums with only seven songs. It gives the album an interesting flow.”

2023 Repress


it’s happening again: dj, producer and dial records co-owner lawrence produced his fourth album for mule musiq. and once more, another very special one. the berlin-based artist wrote nine new arrangements specifically for “studio mule”, the new audiophile listening bar that mule musiq's head-honcho toshiya kawasaki recently opened in shibuya, tokyo. it features an exquisite vintage hi-fi sound system, a small record shop, craft liquor and beer as well as an extensive natural wine collection. “toshiya's wine and listening bar was the inspiration for the project. i followed the idea of listening to music in this (for me imaginary) place on a magic vintage sound system, slightly drunk with an always special drink in my hand! the music is therefore also very eccentric and “tipsy”, improvised on acoustic instruments, synthesizers and computer, combined with recordings i did in berlin's central tiergarten park.” lawrence acknowledges the imaginative superstructure above his new album and his mode of operating during the recordings. the records is called “birds on the playground” and features deep pulsating music, that unfolds its true absorbing character when the auditor listens care-fully to the detailed storytelling of lawrence. like always his tunes got a special, radiant pulse, that somehow is a signature sign of most of his productions. playful cosmic grooves, light-hearted, crafted with love and yet freshly unset-tling in some moments. his arpeggiated melodies remind partly on the music of hans-joachim roedelius. in other sec-onds they display a jazzy spiritual character and drift into meditative areas, that sound to a degree like long forgotten japanese folk music spheres. as “birds on the playground” isn’t aimed straight for the dancefloor, the overall coating of the music is a relaxed, cautious one, that goes beyond the average definition of ambient music. each track builds up gracefully, in order to present a mesmerizing musical architecture, that offers new sound dimensions with any fresh listening turn. as the record is made for mule musiq`s latest public space enterprise, everyone who is close-ly connected to the label was involved.

mule musiq’s core artist kuniyuki was in charge for the mastering. and the labels visual draw-er stefan marx painted the cover artwork. “when i saw the record cover for the first time, i had to think a bit of an extremely funny new year's eve party from over 10 years ago, when stefan and i founded the imaginary band “the dead sea”. this record would have been a wonderful soundtrack to the bustle during that night.” lawrence reveals.

it must have been a party beyond hysteric spheres, where all guests dance and talk dearly at the bar, while the music slows down their body functions enough to hear a sound that takes everybody away to a place, that must have been home in that very moment.

Clear vinyl LP (VIRUS500LPX) is for Indies only and is very limited.

Political punk rock legend returns with a much needed current situation skewering. First release in six years! Features supergroup of members of UK Subs, The Mob, Victims Family, Triclops and more!

Hot on the heels of five viral video singles, Tea Party Revenge Porn, the first full album since 2014 by Jello Biafra And The Guantanamo School Of Medicine, is finally here! This is very strong stuff. Hear the inimitable Mr. B skewer the place the country has put itself in like no one else would or could as he and The Guantanamo School Of Medicine capture the full power of their live shows on disc as never
before.

Only so many artists have a track record of lyrics this good, and back it up with music as good or better. It’s usually one of the other, but rarely this fierce, thanks to the wall of sound production of the mysterious Marshall Lawless, with Kurt Schlegel at the board this time. Co-conspirators now feature both string-titans of longtime AT mainstay Victims Family: guitarist Ralph Spight (also Freak Accident) and wonder bassist Larry Boothroyd (also Triclops, Brubaker); plus drummer / metal percussionist Jason Willer (UK Subs, Nik Turner, Charger, The Mob).

So as germs and police riots rage, there’s no better primal scream therapy than a long-awaited new Jello Biafra album. From Dead Kennedys to Lard to the now-classic albums with the Melvins, DOA, NoMeansNo, Mojo Nixon; and of course, The Guantanamo School Of Medicine, Tea Party Revenge Porn is right up there with all of it.

Devin Townsend brings to you the Devolution Series: a grouping of oddities and interesting material that he would like people to hear, but that aren’t necessarily a ‘major release’. The series will include all the quarantine songs and concerts, as well as various live shows from the past few years. The first release, “Devolution Series #1 - Acoustically Inclined, Live in Leeds”, is a remixed and remastered version of the ‘Live in Leeds’ show that was originally included on the Empath Ultimate Edition as video asset. A cool acoustic show that deserves to be heard, now availble as audio version.

Calgary songwriter Chad VanGaalen’s new album, ‘World’s Most Stressed Out
Gardener’, is a psychedelic bumper crop. A collection of tunes that does away with
obsessiveness, the anxiety of perfectionism, in favour of freshness and immediacy -
capturing the world as it was met while recording alone at home over a period of
years. “Don’t overthink it,” VanGaalen told himself again and again, despite the
push/pull love/hate of his relationship with songwriting. “I’m always trying to get
outside of the song - but then I realize I love the song.”
This is a record that gleams with VanGaalen’s musical signatures: found sound,
reverb, polychromatic folk music that is by turns cartoonish and hyperphysical - like
ultra-magnified footage of a virus or a leaf. Apparently, the album began life as a
“pretty minimal” flute record. (There’s only a vestige now, on ‘Flute Peace’, one of
three instrumentals.) Later it became an electronic record “for a while” and finally,
“right at the last second,” it “turned into a pile of garbage.” The good kind of
garbage: glinting, useful, free. Music as compost - leaves and branches ready to be
re-ingested by the earth, turned into a flower.
Throughout these 40 minutes, VanGaalen floats from mania to solace to oblivion,
searching for zen in all the wrong places. “Turn up the radio / I think we’re dead,”
he sings on ‘Nothing Is Strange’; or, on the inside-out rocker ‘Nightmare Scenario’:
“You’re stressed out when you should be feeling very well.” The singer’s mental
landscape is rotting and redemptive, beautiful in spite of itself - and his soundscapes
reflect this fertile decay.
He has been influenced by his instrumental work on TV scores (Dream Corp’s third
season began this fall) but still “nothing can really replace the human voice,” he
admits. Like Arthur Russell or Syd Barrett, it’s VanGaalen’s vocals that shine a path
through the swampland - from the cello-lashed ‘Water Brother’ to ‘Starlight’’s
krautrock pipe-dream.
These days, VanGaalen cherishes the privacy of the studio, the capacity to wander
around, get distracted, and “move at the speed of life.” Whereas once he would
obsess over mic techniques, now he puts the microphone in the same place every
time - trying to capture a song quickly, the idea at its heart. He’ll act on his
infatuations - for the flute, a squeaky clarinet, his basement’s copper plumbing
(remade into xylophones for ‘Samurai Sword’) - and then he’ll try to get out, “veering
away from responsibility,” before he overdoes his stay.
In the end, it’s like gardening. You have to live with your horrible decision-making;
the weather’s going to mess with you if it wants to; and if you plant a hundred
heads of broccoli, “now you gotta eat a hundred heads of broccoli - or watch them
go to seed.” But mostly VanGaalen just tries to be a deer: “I remember seeing some
deer come out in the Okanagan Valley once,” he says, “watching them wait for a
sunbeam to hit a perfect bunch of grapes - and then eating them right out of the
sunbeam. I’d recommend that.”
Initial LP copies pressed on clear with gold, red and blue high melt coloured vinyl.

Back in 2015, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the BBC broadcast of Delia Derbyshire & Barry Bermange’s “Inventions For Radio: The Dreams”, The Eccentronic Research Council released their own super-limited edition cassette soundtracking the recalled dreams (and nightmares) of friends, artists, actors, musicians, scientists, poets and filmmakers. The release was called “The Dreamcatcher Tapes Volume 1”. Five years on, and with a large part of the planet under lockdown and with nowhere to go but within their imagination, the ERC put a call out once again to music collaborators, nurses, teachers, truck drivers, writers, journalists and shop workers to upon waking, record their dreams straight into their phones and to then send them to the ERC to soundtrack. And thus, Volume 2 of The Dreamcatcher Tapes was born!

How did you make the album during lockdown?
“We got around 26 dreams sent to us via email over the space of a couple of weeks then Dean Honer my partner in The ERC and I revved up the old analogue equipment and would record music and collage sounds to the dreams (remotely) from our home recording studios and bounce them back and forth to each other till they were done. It was a really good way to work actually, sometimes I didn’t even have to put on any trousers!” says ERC/ Moonlandingz founder Adrian Flanagan. Why a second volume of The Dreamcatcher Tapes? “I was really interested to see how the enforced lockdown and the removal of people’s basic needs such as human contact and hanging out in close proximity to friends was affecting the dreams of my friends, peers and those at the very front line of this horrible pandemic”, Adrian continues. “The Important shared experiences for people’s mental health such as going out to gigs, the pub, the cinema etc. ”It was an interesting experiment. Nurses dreaming of inadequate PPE and having to use blow up Elvis costumes to protect themselves. Teachers dreaming of zombies and lots of people dreaming about sex - where the hair of Greek sorceress’s Circe meets bouncy castle breasts and where other dreamers dream of serial killers or seeing dead family members, or taking baby elephants for a walk, or having discos for one in the middle of the ocean and so much more. I’m really proud of this record. It’s psychedelic in its truest most cerebral form”

Who’s on “The Dreamcatcher Tapes Volumes 1 & 2”? Who are the dreamers?
“Although our long time collaborator Maxine Peake wasn’t on the very first tape (her dream ended up on LTD edition split 7” ERC single we did with Pye Corner Audio) - she was the first dream that we soundtracked when I came up with the idea of doing the concept record. However, on the new vinyl and tape box set - she opens volume 1. Across the 2 volumes there’s film maker Carol Morley, Andy Votel from Finders Keepers records, John Doran from The Quietus (who also wrote the albums brilliant sleeve notes), acclaimed writers Benjamin Myers & Adelle Stripe, musicians such as Evangeline Ling from the group Audiobooks, Lias Saoudi from my ‘semi fictional band’, The Moonlandingz and fat white family, Sidonie from The Orielles, journalists /writers Wyndham Wallace (he wrote lee Hazelwood’s brilliant biography) and Daniel Dylan Wray amongst a whole array of musician friends, eccentrics and people with actual proper jobs!”

Why did you chose Castles in Space for this release?
“Jim Jupp at Ghost Box records suggested them to me so I looked into them and saw they were doing loads of really great strange little bespoke electronic record releases. I think that because this is a very niche limited run release, it required a label that was willing to treat it like a piece of art and not a throwaway mass produced commodity. So making sure the packaging was special, the artwork was bang on point and the sleeve notes were written by a writer we like all were very important to us. “It was also important that we could turn it around from the finished recording to being in people’s hands really quickly as Dean and I have another ten projects between us on the boil - and so far, Castles in Space have been true to their word. It’s an artists label done with love and there’s not many of them about anymore - believe it or not.“

“The Dreamcatcher Tapes Volumes 1 & 2” is an immense collaborative achievement which makes for a thoroughly compelling, and gloriously disorientating listening experience.

It is released as a double coloured vinyl LP in deluxe gatefold sleeve w/insert and a highly limited deluxe double cassette box set. The album is released on March 19th, 2021.

“Nothing ever really disappears,” Cassandra Jenkins says. “It just changes shape.” Over the past few years, she’s seen relationships altered, travelled three continents, wandered through museums and parks, and recorded free-associative guided tours of her New York haunts. Her observations capture the humanity and nature around her, as well as thought patterns, memories, and attempts to be present while dealing with pain and loss. With a singular voice, Jenkins siphons these ideas into the ambient folk of her new album.
An Overview on Phenomenal Nature honors flux, detail, and moments of intimacy. Jenkins arrived at engineer Josh Kaufman’s studio with ideas rather than full songs — nevertheless, they finished the album in a week. Jenkins’ voice floats amid sensuous chamber pop arrangements and raw-edged drums, ferrying us through impressionistic portraits of friends and strangers. Her lyrics unfold magical worlds, introducing you to a cast of characters like a local fisherman, a psychic at a birthday party, and driving instructor of a spiritual bent.

Jenkins’ last record, 2017’s Play Till You Win, confirmed the veteran artist’s talent. Evident of Jenkins’ experience growing up in a family band in New York City, the album showcased her meticulous songwriting and musicianship, earning her comparisons to George Harrison and Emmylou Harris. Jenkins has since played in the bands of Eleanor Friedberger, Craig Finn, and Lola Kirke, and rehearsed to tour with Purple Mountains last August before the tour’s cancellation. Her new record departs from her previous work in its openness and flexibility, following her peripatetic lifestyle. “The goal is to be more fluid, to be more like the clouds shifting constantly,” she says. The approach allowed Jenkins to express herself like she never has.

On album opener “Michaelangelo,” before the heavy drum beat and fuzz guitars enter, Jenkins sings quietly “I’m a three-legged dog, working with what I’ve got / and part of me will always be looking for what I lost // there’s a fly around my head, waiting for the day I drop dead.” Phenomenal Nature thrives in this dichotomy between ornate sonics and verbal frankness, a calming guided tour to the edge. Later, on “Crosshairs,” amid lush strings, she sings conversationally: “Empty space is my escape / it runs through me like a river / while time spits in my face.”

“Hard Drive,” the third track and album centerpiece, opens with a voice memo Jenkins recorded at The Met Breuer: a guard muses about Mrinalini Mukherjee’s hybrid textile and sculpture works, which were then on display in a retrospective titled Phenomenal Nature. “When we lose our connection to nature, we lose our spirit, our humanity,” she explains. Stuart Bogie's saxophone & Josh Kaufman's glittering guitar make way for Jenkins' spoken word which constellates scenes from her life, gradually building and blossoming as she recreates a meditation guided by a friend who incants, “One, two, three.”

Sounds of footsteps and bird calls run through the album’s glittering conclusion, “The Ramble.” Meditative and bright, it recalls how Jenkins felt while writing and recording her new material: “Everything else is falling apart, so let’s just enjoy this time,” she said. If Phenomenal Nature has a unifying theme, it’s the power of presence, the joy of walking in a world in constant flux and opening oneself to change.

Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube Records are pleased to announce ‘DATALAND’, a collaboration between Dead Sea Apes, Black Tempest and Adam Stone achieved mainly through internet data transfer during the Covid lockdown of 2020. Insistent, evolving electronic sounds encounter a variety of guitars and percussion, from the clockwork kosmische of 'Lost Hours' to the stumbling nosie dub of 'Shop Soiled', while Adam Stone's words meditate on life in the post-industrial west, our increasingly atomised and data-driven society and its logical conclusion in a corporatised dystopia.
'Dataland' is a meditation upon the average existence of a 'developed-world' human in the early 21st century. Whilst not struggling with the harsh physical demands of industrial labour as we did in the recent past, our plight continues to embody the melancholia and confusion of alienation. Under the bewildering complexity of rationalised social and economic systems, we may indeed have become unwitting prisoners within, what the sociologist Max Weber termed, "the iron cage of bureaucracy" - tripping the minutes away in a daily pantomime of data-driven surrealism. This six song collection is a fusion of electronica, monologue, 'real drums' and guitar, and was recorded at various locations in sad old England over the last two years or so. An almost psychedelic sense of puzzlement, nausea and fatigue accompanies being lost in the omnipresent number-generating machines and anti-human modelling systems that now run our world. This is the realisation that defines the essence of the album - that your life is now only as real as what is displayed on the screen of your constant technological companion.

As a rock icon and filmmaker with a unique vision, ROB ZOMBIE has continuously challenged audiences as he stretches the boundaries of both music and film. He has sold more than fifteen million albums worldwide, and is the only artist to experience unprecedented success in both music and film as the writer/director of eight feature films with a worldwide gross totaling more than $150 million.
ROB ZOMBIE has achieved great success in the music industry, first as a member of the multi-platinum band WHITE ZOMBIE and later as a solo artist with even greater results collecting numerous multi-platinum and gold albums along the way including Hellbilly Deluxe, The Sinister Urge and Educated Horses. In 2013, the seven-time GRAMMY® nominee released his fifth solo album, Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor, on his Zodiac Swan label through UMe. The album debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 and spawned two Top 10 Active Rock singles, “Dead City Radio and the New Gods of Super Town” and Zombie’s spin on GRAND FUNK RAILROAD’s anthemic “We’re An American Band.”
In April 2016, ZOMBIE released his 6th studio album, The Electric Warlock Acid Witch Satanic Orgy Celebration Dispenser. The album debuted at number six on the Billboard Top 200 making it the sixth consecutive release to debut Top Ten. Produced by Zeuss, it was recorded and mixed at Goathouse Studios. A full return to form by the rock icon, The Electric Warlock… features John 5 (Guitar), Piggy D (Bass) and Ginger Fish (Drums).
October 2020 sees the release of the first new ZOMBIE track and video in over four years — “King Freak: A Crypt Of Preservation And Superstition” off of the forthcoming full-length album entitled The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy. A classic ZOMBIE album through and through with high-energy rages like The Eternal Struggles of the Howling Man and Get Loose to heavy-groove thumpers like Shadow Of The Cemetery Man and Shake Your Ass-Smoke Your Grass. This new slab of ZOMBIE madness hits in early 2021
For the past two decades ROB ZOMBIE has also directed dozens of music videos for himself as well as other artists including Ozzy Osbourne. ZOMBIE was also the first self-directed artist to win an MTV Video Music Award. He’s also directed a special episode of CBS’s CSI: Miami, two Comedy Central specials, and uncharacteristically macabre commercials for various brands.

I’ve known Alex Bleeker my entire life. Well, okay, maybe not since I was born, but there’s no doubt that I’ve shared a fair bit of memories with him over the years. We’ve acted in high school productions of Shakespeare together, gone on late-night diner runs, argued about which Weezer album is the band’s best, and swapped mutual appreciation for the music of Yo La Tengo on car rides careening around the snaky suburbia of our hometown. Just like his Real Estate bandmates Martin Courtney and Julian Lynch, we attended high school in the New Jersey enclave of Ridgewood, a place where sticky summer days yielded cool nights with a glow so nocturnal that you can practically hear the fireflies buzzing off of this sentence alone.

Indie rock—a type of music that can easily be made or listened to in someone’s garage—often dominates teenage suburban preoccupations, and both Alex and I were no exception. You can hear this legacy of listening on his new album Heaven on the Faultline, which departs from his last full-band outing as Alex Bleeker and the Freaks, 2015’s Country Agenda. Whereas that album had a more full-bodied explicitly folk-y feel, Heaven on the Faultline finds Bleeker getting back to his homespun roots over the course of its 13 songs, from the jangly guitar pop of New Jersey heroes the Feelies and YLT’s hushed, acoustic reveries to the open-hearted folk rock that marks so much of the Grateful Dead’s early catalog.

Written and recorded over the last several years, Heaven on the Faultline’s songs were initially recorded straight to GarageBand in Bleeker’s bedroom before receiving further studio refinement in co-producer Phil Hartunian’s Tropico Beauty space in Los Angeles. With contributions from Confusing Mix of Nations’ Josh Da Costa, Cameron Stallones of Sun Araw, singer-songwriter Kacey Johansing, and Parting Lines’ Tim Ramsey, Heaven on the Faultline achieves a warm and intimate feel that defines Bleeker’s mission for the album: “I wanted to capture the moment in which I fell in love with making music to begin with. This is music for myself—me getting back to music for music’s sake.”

The unsteady times we live in certainly creep into view on Heaven on the Faultline. The deceptively easygoing “D Plus” was written on the day of President Donald Trump’s inauguration with the cursed event in mind, while the anxiety of climate change hovers just above the lovely guitar loops of “Felty Feel.” “The album is very much about dealing with the anxiety of a sense of impending doom,” Bleeker states while discussing the album’s portentous vibes. “When is the hammer going to fall? How do we go forward in the face of such anxiety and experience the complexity of life?”

Tough questions with few answers, but try not to stress too much. It’s possible to experience such existential doubt while also enjoying the simple pleasures that life has to offer, and that ethos is square at the heart of Heaven on the Faultline. It defines who Alex Bleeker is, too, and is one of many reasons why I’m proud to have known this special person and artist for so long.

Larry Fitzmaurice

Horse Time is the first release from Phonopsia's new label - Horse Category. As a statement of intent for the sounds to come, this debut record shows the breadth of Phonopsia's craft in the studio looking to not be limited by genre or tempo. Across the EP he delivers a slow techno track with housey leanings, a room shaking minimal techno track, up-tempo electro wigged out with oddball elements, and a down-tempo finale that abuses time. Phonopsia has been making and playing music for a good number of years and was Sud Electronic resident from 2007-2009 and regular guest for Bleep43 from 2002-2010.

Clive Phillips, Dominic Goodman, Peter Blundell are Mosquitoes, a somewhat inscrutable London-based outfit in operation for something close to seven years now, and have released music across a host of celebrated and broad-minded underground labels. Give or take the occasional interview in the less-straight parts of the music press, this is as much formal biography as their music has thus far allowed, for there's something essentially unknowable at the centre of what makes Mosquitoes what they are. So murky is their early history in fact, the first two self-released Mosquitoes records seemed to disappear from sight before really becoming visible. As more records have emerged, those first communications accumulate new meanings, acting as vital documents in tracking the evolution of a band who stand at the vanguard of contemporary British music.

The second of these records, recorded to tape in summer 2016 and first released as a single-sided 12" under the name MOS-002, is arguably the first true iteration of Mosquitoes. Now fittingly renamed Mosquitoes for its reissue as a dubplate-style 10" on World of Echo on 5th March, these five cryptically titled, shape-shifting tracks, see the trio embrace a near-genre-less fluidity, and in doing so express a unique combination of both freedom and intent. By design or instinct, Mosquitoes stand at their own inverted rock nexus, presenting a music that's turned inside out, and in doing so, music that twists the listener the same way.

In that sense, Mosquitoes plug into a long lineage of DIY savant iconoclasts, those outliers who would deny orthodoxy in order to excavate new languages and ideas - The Dead C, This Heat, the anti-formalism of No Wave, David Toop's General Strike. As such, Mosquitoes rely on a musical pluralism in order to take it apart - you must know how something is made before you reassemble it anew. Labelling this an EP may possibly underplay the breadth and ambition of what's on show. Later records would arguably be more cohesive, but what stands as particularly startling with this early work is their fearless and all-encompassing dive into the avant garde. Consider the anti-rockism of the scorched earth 90s re-imagined through a distinctly avant filter of free jazz and dub aesthetics. And it's the latter which perhaps shapes Mosquitoes most, dub the perfect vehicle for the articulation of such wilful anti-formalism. Make no mistake, this is music that's unafraid to be tough, to demand something of the listener and to not ask permission. And to bear witness to a rejection of formalism so aggressively pursued is to be reconciled.

Country music has chased piety, poetry, and much else, but The Social World is unapologetic hardcore, beer-sodden country music reduced to its core values. No faking. No pretension.
Spare, unornamented, and straight from the heart, the songs on the “Social World” of Rodger Wilhoit are all that’s holy and true in beerhall country music. The instrumentation is only as full as it needs to be. The singing is careworn and deeply sincere. There’s nothing tentative or lukewarm in Wilhoit’s music. It isn’t going to meet you halfway.
It seems that there’s always more to discover. Most copies of Social World and Rodger’s singles were probably sold off the bandstand 40 or 50 years ago. They were among the thousands of records by local artists on local labels sold off local bandstands all across the country. Most ended up in garage sales, thrift shops, or landfill. But every so often, an artist will be resurrected, and find a new audience. Rodger Wilhoit is one such singer. At a time when most mainstream Nashville country music sounds so contrived and empty, it takes an artist like Rodger Wilhoit to remind us what it’s really all about.

Lost Horizons release their new album ‘In Quiet Moments’ via Bella Union. The album features a stellar array of musical guests including John Grant, C Duncan, Marissa Nadler, Porridge Radio, Penelope Isles, Karen Peris (the innocence mission), Tim Smith (Midlake), Ren Harvieu and many more.
In 2017, Simon Raymonde and Richie Thomas had both abstained from making music for 20 years until they united as Lost Horizons and released a stunning debut album, ‘Ojalá’ - the Spanish word for ‘hopefully’ or ‘God willing.’
“These days, we need hope more than ever, for a better world.” Thomas said at the time. “And this album has given me a lot of hope. To reconnect with music.... And the hope for another Lost Horizons record!” Thomas’ hopes had a mixed response.
On the plus side, the new Lost Horizons album ‘In Quiet Moments’ is an even stronger successor to ‘Ojalá’ with another distinguished cast of guest singers and a handful of supporting instrumentalists embellishing the core duo’s gorgeously freeflowing and loose-limbed blueprint that one writer astutely labelled, “melancholydelia.”
On the minus side, any hope for a better world, as Earth continues to freefall toward political and social meltdown. Then, to make matters worse, as Raymonde and Thomas buckled down to create the improvised bedrock that Lost Horizons is built on, the former’s mother died. At least Raymonde had a way to channel his grief.
“The way improvisation works,” he says, “it’s just what’s going on with your body at the time, to let it out.”
Raymonde (bass, guitar, keyboards, production) and Thomas (drums, occasional keys and guitar) forged ahead, creating 16 instrumental tracks to send to prospective guests. When he did, Raymonde suggested a guiding theme for their lyrics: “death and rebirth. Of loved ones, of ideals, at an age when many artists that have inspired us are also dead, and the planet isn’t far behind. But I also said, ‘The most important part is to just do your own thing, and have fun.’”
Lost Horizons’ melancholy-delia also feels buoyed aloft by airy currents, informed in part by Raymonde and Thomas’ former respective bands: the legendary Cocteau Twins and Dif Juz. Their former bands were labelmates on 4AD in the mid-80s, which is how they first met.
“I think ‘In Quiet Moments’ is more in the direction of where we’re going,” Thomas concludes. “People have retreated into their lives and, in those quiet moments, reflected on the world, how we fit in and who we and trust. Maybe the next album will be about rebellion! But the road is long and winding. We just need to express ourselves in how we feel at the time.”
Coloured vinyl 2LP (disc one green, disc two blue) in PVC outer sleeve with printed text, 350gsm wide spined sleeve on uncoated/reverse board, 16pg booklet on standard paper with contributions from all featured artists and digital download code.

MSG is a legendary name. After two phenomenal records under the guise of Michael Schenker Fest, a true guitar hero is returning to his roots. By forming Michael Schenker Group (MSG) back in 1979, Michael Schenker laid the foundations for one of hard rock’s most glorious solo careers of all times. And while nobody expected anything less from a former guitarist for Scorpions and UFO, it’s close to impossible mentioning everything Michael has built over the past 50 years, or the countless people he influenced or played with. This, truly, is the stuff that hard rocking myths are made of.

“I never looked back,” is how Michael dryly sums up an extraordinary career. Due to this mindset, he only realised much later what a huge impact his playing had made on the world of metal and hard rock. Very few guitarists can be cited as a primary influence for the likes of James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Dave Mustaine, Dimebag Darrell, Slash or Kerry King. However, to understand Michael Schenker means to understand one primary thing: he’s not here to be worshipped or adored, he’s not here to get rich, he’s here to play. And at 65, he’s doing it with the same swagger, verve and dizzying artistry as always. “I’m still 16 in my head,” he laughs.

Right in time for his 40th anniversary as a solo artist and his 50th birthday as a musician, he resurrects the immortal Michael Schenker Group. “Immortal” is also the name of his new album, recorded by likely the strongest line-up in his long history. Its a lightning bolt of an album that sounds fresh, bloodthirsty and agile. “Immortal” showcases the gargantuan vocal talents of Chilean hard rock prodigy Ronnie Romero (Rainbow), backed by singers Ralf Scheepers (Primal Fear), Joe Lynn Turner (ex-Deep Purple) as well as Schenker’s brother in arms, Michael Voss (Mad Max) who again produced the record alongside Michael Schenker – flawlessly, punchy and at full steam as if their very lives depended on it.
Next to Michael Schenker caressing his iconic black and white Dean Flying V, we hear bass player Barry Sparks (Dokken), keyboard player Steve Mann as well as the three drummers Bodo Schopf, Simon Phillips (ex-Toto) and Brian Tichy (ex-Whitesnake) pumping gallons of fresh blood through the tracks. And that’s not all, keyboard wizard extraordinaire Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater, Black Country Communion) gives the listener a baptism of fire in the blistering, heavy hitting opener “Drilled to Kill”, powered by Ralf Scheepers’ unbelievable vocal tornado.

Michael Schenker doesn’t live to play, he plays to live, and there’s no better way of summing up his relationship to his music than this – now for half a century and counting. The most emblematic representation of this relationship is the monumental closing track “In Search Of The Peace Of Mind”, a new recording of the very first song he ever wrote. “I composed this track in my mother’s kitchen back when I was 15,” he looks back half a century and smiles broadly: “The solo is just so perfect, I wouldn’t change a single note even today. This is the most important song of the last 50 years for me. It’s what started it all.”
When it finally got released in 1972 on the Scorpions’ debut “Lonesome Crow” Schenker had already moved on to UFO. What followed were several decades of pure hard rock ecstasy on and off stage, featuring a rotating cast of stellar players, always pressing the pedal to the metal. Now, in 2020, he reaps what he sowed. Alongside many of his peers, friends and contemporaries, he is celebrating 50 years of hard rock – fittingly with an album that is something like a zeitgeisty reminiscence of everything he’s ever done. The massive midtempo smasher “Don’t Die On Me Now” sees Joe Lynn Turner going all in, Ronnie Romero works his magic in “Knight Of The Dead” while Michael Voss cuts a grand figure before the microphone as well as behind the mixing desk on the furious second single “After The Rain”.
Towering above them all, Michael Schenker and his guitar prove they’re truly and utterly invincible. The celebrated icon pulls out all the stops – including his legendary “howler”, the fabled magnet he’s used on his fingerboard for a while now. And here’s yet another thing that’s just so archetypically Schenker, when bringing up his fiery and dedicated performance on “Immortal” he nonchalantly shrugs it off: “I simply played from the heart, as always.” This, dear Michael, is the understatement of the year – all the more so for a record that is already one of the top contenders for hard rock/metal album of the year.

MSG is a legendary name. After two phenomenal records under the guise of Michael Schenker Fest, a true guitar hero is returning to his roots. By forming Michael Schenker Group (MSG) back in 1979, Michael Schenker laid the foundations for one of hard rock’s most glorious solo careers of all times. And while nobody expected anything less from a former guitarist for Scorpions and UFO, it’s close to impossible mentioning everything Michael has built over the past 50 years, or the countless people he influenced or played with. This, truly, is the stuff that hard rocking myths are made of.

“I never looked back,” is how Michael dryly sums up an extraordinary career. Due to this mindset, he only realised much later what a huge impact his playing had made on the world of metal and hard rock. Very few guitarists can be cited as a primary influence for the likes of James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Dave Mustaine, Dimebag Darrell, Slash or Kerry King. However, to understand Michael Schenker means to understand one primary thing: he’s not here to be worshipped or adored, he’s not here to get rich, he’s here to play. And at 65, he’s doing it with the same swagger, verve and dizzying artistry as always. “I’m still 16 in my head,” he laughs.

Right in time for his 40th anniversary as a solo artist and his 50th birthday as a musician, he resurrects the immortal Michael Schenker Group. “Immortal” is also the name of his new album, recorded by likely the strongest line-up in his long history. Its a lightning bolt of an album that sounds fresh, bloodthirsty and agile. “Immortal” showcases the gargantuan vocal talents of Chilean hard rock prodigy Ronnie Romero (Rainbow), backed by singers Ralf Scheepers (Primal Fear), Joe Lynn Turner (ex-Deep Purple) as well as Schenker’s brother in arms, Michael Voss (Mad Max) who again produced the record alongside Michael Schenker – flawlessly, punchy and at full steam as if their very lives depended on it.
Next to Michael Schenker caressing his iconic black and white Dean Flying V, we hear bass player Barry Sparks (Dokken), keyboard player Steve Mann as well as the three drummers Bodo Schopf, Simon Phillips (ex-Toto) and Brian Tichy (ex-Whitesnake) pumping gallons of fresh blood through the tracks. And that’s not all, keyboard wizard extraordinaire Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater, Black Country Communion) gives the listener a baptism of fire in the blistering, heavy hitting opener “Drilled to Kill”, powered by Ralf Scheepers’ unbelievable vocal tornado.

Michael Schenker doesn’t live to play, he plays to live, and there’s no better way of summing up his relationship to his music than this – now for half a century and counting. The most emblematic representation of this relationship is the monumental closing track “In Search Of The Peace Of Mind”, a new recording of the very first song he ever wrote. “I composed this track in my mother’s kitchen back when I was 15,” he looks back half a century and smiles broadly: “The solo is just so perfect, I wouldn’t change a single note even today. This is the most important song of the last 50 years for me. It’s what started it all.”
When it finally got released in 1972 on the Scorpions’ debut “Lonesome Crow” Schenker had already moved on to UFO. What followed were several decades of pure hard rock ecstasy on and off stage, featuring a rotating cast of stellar players, always pressing the pedal to the metal. Now, in 2020, he reaps what he sowed. Alongside many of his peers, friends and contemporaries, he is celebrating 50 years of hard rock – fittingly with an album that is something like a zeitgeisty reminiscence of everything he’s ever done. The massive midtempo smasher “Don’t Die On Me Now” sees Joe Lynn Turner going all in, Ronnie Romero works his magic in “Knight Of The Dead” while Michael Voss cuts a grand figure before the microphone as well as behind the mixing desk on the furious second single “After The Rain”.
Towering above them all, Michael Schenker and his guitar prove they’re truly and utterly invincible. The celebrated icon pulls out all the stops – including his legendary “howler”, the fabled magnet he’s used on his fingerboard for a while now. And here’s yet another thing that’s just so archetypically Schenker, when bringing up his fiery and dedicated performance on “Immortal” he nonchalantly shrugs it off: “I simply played from the heart, as always.” This, dear Michael, is the understatement of the year – all the more so for a record that is already one of the top contenders for hard rock/metal album of the year.

MSG is a legendary name. After two phenomenal records under the guise of Michael Schenker Fest, a true guitar hero is returning to his roots. By forming Michael Schenker Group (MSG) back in 1979, Michael Schenker laid the foundations for one of hard rock’s most glorious solo careers of all times. And while nobody expected anything less from a former guitarist for Scorpions and UFO, it’s close to impossible mentioning everything Michael has built over the past 50 years, or the countless people he influenced or played with. This, truly, is the stuff that hard rocking myths are made of.

“I never looked back,” is how Michael dryly sums up an extraordinary career. Due to this mindset, he only realised much later what a huge impact his playing had made on the world of metal and hard rock. Very few guitarists can be cited as a primary influence for the likes of James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Dave Mustaine, Dimebag Darrell, Slash or Kerry King. However, to understand Michael Schenker means to understand one primary thing: he’s not here to be worshipped or adored, he’s not here to get rich, he’s here to play. And at 65, he’s doing it with the same swagger, verve and dizzying artistry as always. “I’m still 16 in my head,” he laughs.

Right in time for his 40th anniversary as a solo artist and his 50th birthday as a musician, he resurrects the immortal Michael Schenker Group. “Immortal” is also the name of his new album, recorded by likely the strongest line-up in his long history. Its a lightning bolt of an album that sounds fresh, bloodthirsty and agile. “Immortal” showcases the gargantuan vocal talents of Chilean hard rock prodigy Ronnie Romero (Rainbow), backed by singers Ralf Scheepers (Primal Fear), Joe Lynn Turner (ex-Deep Purple) as well as Schenker’s brother in arms, Michael Voss (Mad Max) who again produced the record alongside Michael Schenker – flawlessly, punchy and at full steam as if their very lives depended on it.
Next to Michael Schenker caressing his iconic black and white Dean Flying V, we hear bass player Barry Sparks (Dokken), keyboard player Steve Mann as well as the three drummers Bodo Schopf, Simon Phillips (ex-Toto) and Brian Tichy (ex-Whitesnake) pumping gallons of fresh blood through the tracks. And that’s not all, keyboard wizard extraordinaire Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater, Black Country Communion) gives the listener a baptism of fire in the blistering, heavy hitting opener “Drilled to Kill”, powered by Ralf Scheepers’ unbelievable vocal tornado.

Michael Schenker doesn’t live to play, he plays to live, and there’s no better way of summing up his relationship to his music than this – now for half a century and counting. The most emblematic representation of this relationship is the monumental closing track “In Search Of The Peace Of Mind”, a new recording of the very first song he ever wrote. “I composed this track in my mother’s kitchen back when I was 15,” he looks back half a century and smiles broadly: “The solo is just so perfect, I wouldn’t change a single note even today. This is the most important song of the last 50 years for me. It’s what started it all.”
When it finally got released in 1972 on the Scorpions’ debut “Lonesome Crow” Schenker had already moved on to UFO. What followed were several decades of pure hard rock ecstasy on and off stage, featuring a rotating cast of stellar players, always pressing the pedal to the metal. Now, in 2020, he reaps what he sowed. Alongside many of his peers, friends and contemporaries, he is celebrating 50 years of hard rock – fittingly with an album that is something like a zeitgeisty reminiscence of everything he’s ever done. The massive midtempo smasher “Don’t Die On Me Now” sees Joe Lynn Turner going all in, Ronnie Romero works his magic in “Knight Of The Dead” while Michael Voss cuts a grand figure before the microphone as well as behind the mixing desk on the furious second single “After The Rain”.
Towering above them all, Michael Schenker and his guitar prove they’re truly and utterly invincible. The celebrated icon pulls out all the stops – including his legendary “howler”, the fabled magnet he’s used on his fingerboard for a while now. And here’s yet another thing that’s just so archetypically Schenker, when bringing up his fiery and dedicated performance on “Immortal” he nonchalantly shrugs it off: “I simply played from the heart, as always.” This, dear Michael, is the understatement of the year – all the more so for a record that is already one of the top contenders for hard rock/metal album of the year.

Much has changed in the musical life of renowned composer and director John Carpenter since 2016's Lost Themes II. Following the release of that album, he went on his first-ever concert tour, performing material from the Lost Themes albums, as well as music from his classic film scores. He re-recorded many of those classic movie themes for 2017's Anthology album, working alongside son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies. The following year, he was asked to executive produce and compose the music for the new Halloween movie directed by David Gordon Green, which promptly became the highest-grossing installment in the series. Now, he returns with his first album of non-soundtrack music in nearly five years, Lost Themes III: Alive After Death. Underpinning Carpenter's renaissance as a musician has been his collaboration with Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies. They've composed and performed as a trio throughout this entire run, on studio albums, on soundtracks, and onstage. Here, the trio reaches a new level of creative mind meld. Richly rendered worlds are built in the interplay between Davies's guitar and the dueling synthesizers played by the Carpenters. "We begin with a theme, a bass line, a pad, something that sounds good and will lead us to the next layer," John says of the trio's process. "We then just keep adding on from there. We understand each other's strengths and weaknesses, how to communicate without words, and the process is easier now than it was in the beginning. We've matured." Whereas the original Lost Themes album came as a pleasant surprise after years of relative silence from Carpenter, the third installment sees him in the midst of a resurgent moment as a cultural force. The 2018 Halloween score gave his music its biggest audience in decades, and the world he releases his new album into is one that has, at long last, given him the credit he deserves as a founding father of modern electronic music.

Much has changed in the musical life of renowned composer and director John Carpenter since 2016's Lost Themes II. Following the release of that album, he went on his first-ever concert tour, performing material from the Lost Themes albums, as well as music from his classic film scores. He re-recorded many of those classic movie themes for 2017's Anthology album, working alongside son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies. The following year, he was asked to executive produce and compose the music for the new Halloween movie directed by David Gordon Green, which promptly became the highest-grossing installment in the series. Now, he returns with his first album of non-soundtrack music in nearly five years, Lost Themes III: Alive After Death. Underpinning Carpenter's renaissance as a musician has been his collaboration with Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies. They've composed and performed as a trio throughout this entire run, on studio albums, on soundtracks, and onstage. Here, the trio reaches a new level of creative mind meld. Richly rendered worlds are built in the interplay between Davies's guitar and the dueling synthesizers played by the Carpenters. "We begin with a theme, a bass line, a pad, something that sounds good and will lead us to the next layer," John says of the trio's process. "We then just keep adding on from there. We understand each other's strengths and weaknesses, how to communicate without words, and the process is easier now than it was in the beginning. We've matured." Whereas the original Lost Themes album came as a pleasant surprise after years of relative silence from Carpenter, the third installment sees him in the midst of a resurgent moment as a cultural force. The 2018 Halloween score gave his music its biggest audience in decades, and the world he releases his new album into is one that has, at long last, given him the credit he deserves as a founding father of modern electronic music.

You could think of the collection of tracks here as a library record of sorts, and each track inhabits its own universe. Tropical fits various moods and situations, and it could soundtrack any number of activities at home or on a dancefloor - whether real, imaginary, or hallucinated. Strangely enough, it sounds like it could have been constructed from obscure Italian library breaks, when instead every instrument has been played and panned, several times over, across magnetic tape.

The genesis of many of these tracks began when CV Vision moved to Berlin in 2014. His flat had a small chamber where he could fit a drum set, so he treated the walls with foam, and in true DIY style, dived headfirst into recording these tracks. It was the natural next step on an audio adventure that first began when CV Vision picked up the guitar in his teens, and a couple years later started recording with friends in his home town of Bayreuth. Fast forward ten years and here is his debut - a culmination of practising chops and learning instruments, mastering recording techniques and fine-tuning the CV Vision sound.

It’s a sound that condenses elements of acid rock, psych soul, library funk and new wave oddities into a movie soundtrack for your mind. It’s a journey from ‘60s west coast LSD-drenched excursions to ‘80s synth and post-punk mutations. Tropical is a plunge into another time, another music you can simply swim around in and explore.

Side A opens up with Tropical Tune In, which rides in on a clave and a warm wind, blowing a distinctly herbal aroma and recalling exotica dons like Les Baxter and Martin Denny. Following on with the aural equivalent of a sea breeze through your mind, Spaziergang am Meer blows away the cobwebs and conjures some nice library moments like Stringtronics or F eelings . Next, Ba_c_k(Lava) bounces out of a cold wave post-punk melting pot and crashes through the speakers like a blazed Zebedee, with some sweet eastern synths for added flavour, before the rolling bass licks of Der Böse Schamane take us into another dimension, landing somewhere between a psych rock freak out and a Black Ark dub session. Mr Maze channels the arpeggiators of synth outsiders like Mort Garson and Bruce Haack, creating a glorious interlock of robotic electronics and freakbeat vocals. The side comes to a close with the guitars of Der Strand (außer Rand und Band) letting loose like syrupy springs, and setting a languid mood like the bedroom scene in Bedazzled (1967 version). Side B kicks off with Parallel Universum, which comes through like a woozy krautrock workout, all ducking synths with big chord shifts to create an epic deranged beehive of a soundtrack. Im Land der Ameisen evokes the spirit if not the sound of White Rabbit, when logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead, before waking up and wandering through the side alleys of Marrakech with the West Coast Pop Art Ensemble and the Electric Prunes, as Ritual (No. 4) blares out the speakers of passing tuk tuks. Ein Wasserfall plumbs the deep synth depths, like Raymond Scott in scuba gear, modular rack strapped to his back delivering oxygen as he swims between connector cables and seaweed forests through a watery underworld. Banana King sounds like a lost soundtrack to Donkey Kong or Mario Cart, if the cart radio was tuned into a synth

documentary hosted by James Pants, while Das Kloster am Berg takes the baton from Brenda Ray and her Naffi cohorts, all dubbed-out niceness and post punk swagger. The LP closes out with Tropical Drop Out, a dreamscape rather than a wake up call, coaxing you deeper into the trek across the desert of your mind.

And that’s Tropical in its essence: capsules from another time, snapshots of another sound, messages from another mind - all in the service of inducing the visions in your head.

written by Max Cole

At last, a vinyl re-press of the hard-to-find Classic New Beat tracks from N9 !

For years, the vinyl 12 inches from the French Techno-house & New Beat label N9 were nearly impossible to find, and devoted Oldschool Fans kept asking for represses.
Thanks to a joint venture with fellow Belgian label Fenix Fire Records, the wait is over!

Here’s a deluxe 2x12' compilation, on 180g marbled red vinyl in a beautiful gatefold package.

With 11 tracks spanning from the origins in 1990 to the rebirth since 2005, N9's most wanted releases are here, remastered by French sonic wizard André Dalcan, ready to get turntables at the right 33+8 mood, and get the white glove raised again!

Parlophone Records are pleased to announce the release of IRON MAIDEN’s new double live album Nights Of The Dead - Legacy Of The Beast, Live in Mexico City on November 20th. Containing over 100 minutes of classic Maiden music and available in multiple formats, Nights Of The Dead - Legacy Of The Beast, Live in Mexico City was recorded during the band’s three sold out arena shows there in September 2019 and is a celebration of their Legacy Of The Beast World Tour which began in 2018 and will finish next Summer in Europe.

Iron Maiden founder and bass player Steve Harris comments,

“When the final leg of our 2020 Legacy tour this summer had to be cancelled due to the COVID pandemic, the whole band was very disappointed and deflated and we know our fans felt the same. We’d been really looking forward to bringing the show to even more countries and although we’ve been able to reschedule most of our European own-shows for 2021, we thought we’d take a listen to the recordings from the tour so far and see if we could create a definitive live album souvenir that everyone, everywhere could enjoy. I’m very pleased with the results, especially as this set list includes songs which have never made it to a live CD before, such as For The Greater Good Of God, and other older songs like Where Eagles Dare, Flight Of Icarus, The Clansman and Sign Of The Cross which haven’t been included in our live set releases for many years.

We’ve never released a live album from Mexico before and I think this recording does justice to the passion and joy of our Mexican fans who always give us such a fantastic welcome whenever we play there.”

It was 1977, there may well have been “knives in West 11”, but at a student’s hall of residence in Leicester, a packed room of cross legged intellectuals were about to witness the debut of The Disco Zombies; Andy Ross on vocals and guitar, Geoff Dodimead on bass, Johnny ‘Guitar’ Hawkins on guitar and Andy Fullerton on drums. They were loud, fast and they had some witty one-liners.
The four-piece became five with the addition of Dave Henderson from The Blazers, a chirpy power pop punk quintet, who were part of a burgeoning scene in the city that included The Foamettes, Dead Fly Syndrome, Wendy Tunes, The RTRs, Robin Banks And The Payrolls and many more. Wine bars, canteens and bowling alleys in pubs were the home of this phenomenon until Subway Sect and The Lou’s arrived for The Great Unknown Tour. They needed a local band for support and the Disco Zombies obliged.
Record Shop owner - and now Mayor Of Mablethorpe - Carl Tebbutt was keen to ride the punk rollercoaster and decided to launch Uptwon Records with a Disco Zombies EP. Recorded in Chester in one four hour session, it included The Blazers’ ‘Top Of The Pops’ and Andy’s ‘Time Will Tell’, ‘Punk A Go Go’ and ‘Disco Zombies’.
Carl had done a deal with a one-stop music production company who went bust almost immediately and the record was shelved. Unperturbed the band pressed on and recorded a session at the local radio station, ‘TV Screen Existence’ being the only track that survived. A tour of Leicester – five pubs in five days – was the end of that era and the band without Johnny ‘Guitar’ who had another year to do at Uni, relocated to London taking with them The Foamettes’ guitarist Steve Gerrard who wisely returned to Leicester and become part of The Bomb Party. Steve was replaced by Mark Sutherland in what was to become the recognised line up of The Disco Zombies for several years, playing lots of London gigs from The Hope And Anchor to The Moonlight Club, North London Poly to the Scala.
By 1978, there was an eruption of small DIY indie labels and Andy Ross launched South Circular Records to release the band’s debut single, ‘Drums Over London’ - an ironic stab at people’s hostility to the arrival of other cultures, a piss-take of Spear And Jackson-wielding Tory attitudes. John Peel played it regularly until Rock Against Racism complained even though Peel explained that it was actually supporting their views. Ho hum. South Circular wasn’t to last but Dave Henderson launched Dining Out. Dave and Andy journeyed to Ipswich to record the debut EP from the Peel-approved Adicts, the plan being to follow it with a Disco Zombies’ single and regain momentum. ‘Here Comes The Buts’ was the second Dining Out release, featuring the breakthrough Dr Boss drum machine; it was greeted with great enthusiasm in some quarters, although strangely it was likened to The Cramps meets Neil Young in NME.
Dining Out was always just one step ahead of going out of business and even though the follow up had been recorded - ‘The Year Of The Sex Olympics’, backed with ‘Target Practice’ and ‘New Scars’ – it never saw the light of day as the money finally ran out.
Somehow, Dining Out had a second lease of life and Andy wanted to record a new track for a new release amid 45s from The Sinatras, New Age and Spit Like Paint. By now, the Zombies had been through their dark post punk phase and ‘Where Have You Been Lately Tony Hateley’ was a clever upbeat anthem which told the tale of the nomadic footballer. The test pressing gained many Peel minutes but by the time it was ready to release, the band had finally split up. It eventually saw the light of day on the Cordelia label’s ‘Obscure Independent Classics’ album. Very fitting.
So, it was 1980: Mark Sutherland opened a studio in Bow, Dod got a day job, Andy Fullerton already had one. Andy and Dave went a bit experimental in Club Tango; Andy eventually discovering Blur for Food which he started with The Teardrop Explodes’ David Balfe, while Dave flirted with Worldbackwards.
In 2011, the drum machine line up descended on Mark’s studio, rehearsing for a show at the Bull And Gate. They recorded two of their lengthier tracks – ‘Night Of The Big Heat’ and ‘LHO’ powered by a waning Dr Rhythm – these were pressed as an extremely limited edition ten-inch. A few years later Andy Fullerton returned to the fold recording three more originals ‘Hit’, ‘Lenin’s Tomb’ and ‘Paint It Red’ for an even more limited edition ten-inch in 2018 and a show in October that year at The Dublin Castle.
Since then, meandering lunchtime discussions in restaurants that were popular in the ‘70s (Joe Allen, Café De Pacifico, etc) have led to arguments about the lost tracks – ‘Man From UNCLE’, ‘I Need You Like I Need VD’, ‘Throwaway Line’, ‘I Thought You Were Only Joking’, ‘London Nights’, ‘Cosmetics For China’, ‘When Doo Wop Hit Hampstead’. It’s only a matter of time. Until then.....

Under the impression of the racially motivated murders on 19 February 2020 in Hanau, her hometown, the visual artist and musician Michaela Meise recorded the piece "Cemalim" by the Turk Erkin Koray in German translation. The production of the song was supported by the Städtische Galerie Nordhorn and the NS-Dokumentationszentrum München, both of which have included the work in their exhibition programmes this year.

Erkin Koray is a representative of the psychedelic Anadolu-Rock and published "Cemalim" as an arrangement in 1973. The original composer, Rafik Başaran, came from the Cappadocian town of Ürgüp, which is also mentioned in the song. "Cemalim" means, translated into German, "My darling Cemal", and is a lament for the dead. Meise wrote the German text based on the translation by Fatih Alasalvaroglu, who also comes from Hanau.

Besides the mourning of nine young people, solidarity with the relatives and friends of the murder victims is urgently needed. They have organised themselves in the "Initiative 19 February Hanau" - on their website you can find information about what support they would like to receive.

Most of the concert programme of the last two years included anti-fascist songs and was a reaction to the increasing right-wing populism. Folk songs, hits and chansons of the 1960s, published in July 2018 on the album "Ich bin Griechin" (Martin Hossbach), dealt with the experience of the Second World War, told of the longing to leave home or the experiences of a seasonal worker. The songs were composed by the anti-fascist Mikis Theodorakis, the musician Barbara, who survived the Shoah with her family in the underground, and George Moustaki and Alexandra, who crossed both national borders.

Unter dem Eindruck der rassistisch motivierten Morde am 19. Februar 2020 in Hanau, ihrer Heimatstadt, hat die bildende Künstlerin und Musikerin Michaela Meise das Stück »Cemalim« des Türken Erkin Koray in deutscher Übersetzung eingespielt. Die Produktion des Liedes wurde von der Städtischen Galerie Nordhorn und dem NS-Dokumentationszentrum München unterstützt, die beide das Werk in ihre diesjährigen Ausstellungsprogramme aufgenommen haben.

Erkin Koray ist ein Vertreter des psychedelischen Anadolu-Rock und veröffentlichte »Cemalim« im Jahr 1973 als Bearbeitung. Der ursprüngliche Komponist, Rafik Başaran, stammte aus der kappadokischen Stadt Ürgüp, von der auch im Lied die Rede ist. »Cemalim« bedeutet, ins Deutsche übersetzt, »Mein Liebling Cemal«, und ist eine Totenklage. Meise schrieb den deutschen Text auf Grundlage der Übersetzung von Fatih Alasalvaroglu, der ebenfalls aus Hanau kommt.

Neben der Trauer um neun junge Menschen ist Solidarität mit den Angehörigen und Freunden der Mordopfer dringend notwendig. Sie haben sich in der »Initiative 19. Februar Hanau« organisiert – auf ihrer Website finden sich Informationen, welche Unterstützung sie sich wünschen.

Meises Konzertprogramm der letzten zwei Jahre umfasste anti-faschistische Lieder und reagierte somit auf den zunehmenden Rechtspopulismus. Volkslieder, Schlager und Chansons der 1960er Jahre, erschienen im Juli 2018 auf dem Album »Ich bin Griechin« (Martin Hossbach), verarbeiteten die Erfahrung des Zweiten Weltkrieges, erzählten von der Sehnsucht, die Heimat zu verlassen oder den Erfahrungen eines Saisonarbeiters. Die Lieder stammten vom Antifaschisten Mikis Theodorakis, der Musikerin Barbara, welche die Shoah mit ihrer Familie im Untergrund überlebte, sowie von George Moustaki und Alexandra, die beide nationale Grenzen überschritten.
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The next one, Relaxer!

Climate of Fear follows up Soft Boi’s debut LP with a mammoth drop: 12 tapes ripped straight from the first two years of Berlin parties. Released one per month, the series moves from Izabel’s shivering chug through Nkisi’s deadly anarcho-gabber psychedelia, Polar Inertia’s sleek techno throb and DJ Python & Mad Miran’s impromptu closing b2b.

Relaxer tosses his hat in the ring for Climate's fifth installment with a mini-album of studio works. "Hedonic Fatigue" opens with the delirious 20 minute "Fatigue Suite," a white knuckle slow dive that will leave you gasping. Rippers "Upstairs & Inside" and "Strictly II" are counterbalanced with the languid "World Pulse" and misty "Jim's Day." Come sway in the breeze, right on the edge of violence. Out Dec 2020.

Elena Colombi
Polar Inertia
Nkisi
Bruce
Relaxer
Bambounou
Shanti Celeste
Karen Gwyer
Vladimir Ivkovic
Izabel
Terekke
Mad Miran b2b DJ Python

It’s time for another dose of Classic Symptoms and this time get ready for an NHS trip back to the years of 2003-2006.
The fourteenth instalment of the exclusive release series which sees extremely limited vinyl presses of Hospital classics, has drawn for four untestable originals from Logistics, Q-Project, London Elektricity and Danny Byrd.
First up is Logistics’ 2006 liquid-funk anthem ‘City Life’ originally featured on his era-defining debut album ‘Now More Than Ever’ supported by legendary figures including Fabio & Grooverider, LTJ Bukem and Andy C. Hypnotizing piano loops and deadly subs keep things rolling on this exemplary slice of fast soul funk.
Drum & bass all-star Q-Project is up next as his timeless banger ‘Obsession’ gets a 2020 vinyl revival. Originally supported by the likes of High Contrast and Friction, ‘Obsession’ still receives widespread rotation to this day as its unforgettable melody and groove assert it as a certified dance music destroyer.
“Fast Soul Music” is the brainchild of Hospital head-honcho London Elektricity and was initially featured on his 2003 album ‘Billion Dollar Gravy’. A clear cut example of the much loved loungecore sound, the uplifting London Elektricity classic influenced styles and the legendary Hospital “Fast Soul Music” compilations for years to come.
Signing back to Hospital Records in 1999, Danny Byrd’s musical endeavour has been commendable to say the least. “Soul Function” represents the classic sounds of Danny Byrd with 2005 dancefloor energy. Garnering support from pioneers such as Bryan Gee and Total Science, Danny Byrd’s drum & bass style continues to go unmatched.
Don’t sleep on securing your extremely limited press of four Hospital classics from the 2003-2006 era. This one is for the serious collectors - once they’re gone, they’re gone.

Heavyweight LP Picture Disc in a Deluxe PVC bag with flap.

The album opens with an abandoned soundtrack to a recent Hollywood movie, leading into an expansive score for Dutch National Ballet which premiered at the re-opening of the Stedilijk Museum Amsterdam in front of Queen Beatrix, with synths and live strings offering a sinuous melancholic path.

Side Two explores a deep sense of intimacy and reverberant space. Baltik Kitlab introduces a throbbing variation on chamber techno, with soft shuffling rhythms. The album concludes with a contemplative, cloistered and emotional piano piece, Dead Letter Office, with a strong emotional pull.

It’s music that is tender, elegant and heartfelt. The Signal of a Signal of a Signal is a mature work of contemporary electronica from an artist who has been re-inventing himself for nearly the last thirty years.

The Signal of a Signal of a Signal was originally released in an extremely limited CD box set on Touched Music in December 2019. It was accompanied by new albums from FSOL, Locust, Anders Llar and others. The box set sold out in 10 minutes and raised more than £10,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support in the UK. Interest in the album continued and so here is a special edition on heavyweight vinyl in deluxe PVC bag with flap, with all new artwork. It’s an exceptionally personal and fragile release, woven in with the deaths of his entire family to cancer. The album is both a rhetoric of mourning and a celebration of music to empower.

Only 21 years of age when this was recorded, Olafur hails from the suburban Icelandic town, Mosfellsb?r, just a few kilometres outside Reykjav?k. He as immersed himself completely in the world of delicate symphonic compositions in a near weightless orchestral undertaking. Mixing strings and piano with loops, ambiance, electronics and beats, his music fits into the Erased Tapes catalogue like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle. Debut album 'Eulogy for Evolution' took the listener on a journey, representing different periods in life, from birth to death. The first pressing of the follow-up EP 'Variations of Static' sold out on his winter tour already and will now be available in stores. While keeping the classical foundations of his debut album, here Arnalds incorporates crackling electronics and the dead voice of a machine; like vague memories of tradition lost within the digital age we all live in. It comes with a voucher for a free digital copy of the 'Erased Tapes Collection I' compilation to celebrate the label's 1st anniversary. The 10" is a super limited clear vinyl issue, we are getting 100 copies only.

The MUSHROOM HOUSE compilation is a collection of balearic, afro and cosmic tracks that have been released on Toy Tonics EPs over the last 5 years. Original tracks and remixes by friends of the label: Auntie Flo, Rebolledo, Hyenah, Daniel Avery, WhoMadeWho & DJ Koze, Munk … and there is also legendary italian cosmic DJ Baldelli featured.
All these tracks are exclusively produced for Toy Tonics. A few had been already released before on Gomma records. The now sleeping indie-electronica label that was the „mother“ of Toy Tonics. It’s fun to see that these tracks seem not to get old. They sound still fresh and ace. Like the DJ Koze remix of WhoMadeWho or Munk’s Nigerian Jam. Now they all come together on double vinyl. Vinyl comes Including the new 60 page TOY TONICS MAGAZINE no 1.

• Original 1996 compilation by Gene acts as a fine album in it’s own right
• Featuring early tracks such as ; ‘For the Dead’, ‘Be My Light, Be My Guide’, early live performances from Glastonbury, Radio 1 Session and The Forum and stand out cover versions of ‘I Say A Little Prayer’ and ‘Don’t Let Me Down’
• Double LP pressed on 180g Heavyweight vinyl, with original artwork and printed inner sleeve
• Inspired by the songs of The Smiths, The Jam and The Faces, Martin Rossiter’s literate vocals and Steve Mason’s fluid guitar lines were perfectly complemented by the intuitive rhythm section of Kevin Miles and Matt James. They released four studio albums and a collection of B-sides and radio demos between 1995 and 2001, were named Best New Act at the inaugural NME awards in 1995, and went on to score 10 Top 40 hits.

Reissue of Mort Garson’s long-out-of-print soundtrack for the 1970 experimental film Didn’t You Hear?
•One of the first-ever all-electronic film scores
•Remastered from the original master tapes

Six years before the release of his landmark Mother Earth’s Plantasia LP, composer and arranger Mort Garson met experimental film director Skip Sherwood, who was interested in an electronic score for his new movie, Didn’t You Hear? While not much is known now about the exact nature of their collaboration, we have Garson’s magnificent score as a record of those heady, early days after his lifechanging discovery of the Moog synthesizer. Notable for being one of the earliest screen appearances by a young Gary Busey, Didn’t You Hear? also boasts one of the first-ever all-electronic movie scores. Though the score was first released in 1970, it sounds as adventurous and futuristic today as it must have then. Originally available only in the lobby of the theater at screenings of the movie in Seattle, the soundtrack LP went out of print shortly after the film’s release. It has been a sought-after record for collectors of Mort Garson and early electronic music ever since. Sacred Bones is honored to reissue Didn’t You Hear? as it was meant to be heard, taken from the original master tapes and given a pristine remaster by engineer Josh Bonati.

ABOUT MORT GARSON: Morton S. “Mort” Garson was a Canadian-born composer, arranger, songwriter, and pioneer of electronic music. He is best known for his albums in the 1960s and 1970s that were among the first to feature Moog synthesizers. His best known album is Mother Earth’s Plantasia, a 1976 Moog album designed to be played “for plants and the people who love them.” Sacred Bones Records has undertaken the project of giving official, licensed reissues to key releases from Mort Garson’s catalog, with the intention of bringing these bold masterpieces to a 21st century audience.

Six years before the release of his landmark Mother Earth’s Plantasia LP, composer and arranger Mort Garson met experimental film director Skip Sherwood, who was interested in an electronic score for his new movie, Didn’t You Hear?

While not much is known now about the exact nature of their collaboration, Here's Garson’s magnificent score as a record of those heady, early days after his life-changing discovery of the Moog synthesizer. Notable for being one of the earliest screen appearances by a young Gary Busey, Didn’t You Hear? also boasts one of the first-ever all-electronic movie scores. Though the score was first released in 1970, it sounds as adventurous and futuristic today as it must have then.

The next one, NKISI

Climate of Fear follows up Soft Boi’s debut LP with a mammoth drop: 12 tapes ripped straight from the first two years of Berlin parties. Released one per month, the series moves from Izabel’s shivering chug through Nkisi’s deadly anarcho-gabber psychedelia, Polar Inertia’s sleek techno throb and DJ Python & Mad Miran’s impromptu closing b2b.

Climate's third release in its tape series is a writhing hardcore masterclass from Nkisi. Recorded the same night as Elena Colombi's entry, it offers an inverted counterpart to that set's languid grooviness. Nkisi wrings a supple and hypnotizing atmosphere from the most astringent and defiant selections, using the 170+ bpm kick drums and scythe-like percussion to envelop the listener. Creation and destruction merge in a fluid void state. NSFW.

East London-born music legend and all round boundary-breaking innovator, Dizzee Rascal, today announces the release of his 7th studio album, entitled ‘E3 AF’ and new single ‘L.L.L.L (Love Life Live Large)’, out via Island Records.

This new release marks the genesis of a new era for Dizzee and is the first album wholly written, recorded and produced in the UK in over a decade. ‘E3 AF’ is a 10-track layered, purposeful statement of intent, rooted in Dizzee’s inedible ties to both east London and Black British music’s legacy. He sound is sharper, stronger and more self-assured than ever, and it is obvious that he has poured the creative energy of the past few years into ‘E3 AF’ as a body of work. First single, L.L.L.L (Love Life Live Large), features Tottenham born MC Chip and kicks open the door with the force of a steel toe capped boot. Chip, adds another thwack of bravado to the rumbling, Dizzee-produced beat. ‘E3 AF’ confirms Dizzee’s status as an artist still very much in his prime, sonically it draws on the infectious pace of grime and resolutely forward-thinking UK rap. From one song to the next, you are taken on a journey through Black British musical excellence. Ice-cold UK drill drips on Smoke Boys-featuring ‘Act Like You Know’ (produced by MK the Plug) and Eastside pulses with pure grime courtesy of Chubby Dreadz and Platinum 45. Self-produced opener ‘God Knows’ (featuring P Money) and high-octane ‘You Don’t Know’ pull from dubstep, grime and drum ‘n’ bass while threatening to wreak havoc with your speakers. By the time Alicai Harley’s warm up vocals float over sunny syths on the deeply personal ‘Energies + Powers’ (produced by Steel Banglez), the album practically radiates heat. Dizzee Rascal is a unique artist that has inspired many for multiple generations. From his 2003 debut album release, the Mercury Prize-winning ‘Boy In The Corner’ to date, Dizzee has continued to push expectations and boundaries. He is British musical royalty. Every album that followed stacked up another marker of success. Between 2004 and 2017 all album releases blasted firmly into the Top 10 Official album chart, won awards, critical acclaim and amassed Dizzee a huge following of devoted fans. ‘E3 AF’ is set to confirm Dizzee Rascal’s status as the master at the top of his game.

Climate of Fear follows up Soft Boi’s debut LP with a mammoth drop: 12 tapes ripped straight from the first two years of Berlin parties. Released one per month, the series moves from Izabel’s shivering chug through Nkisi’s deadly anarcho-gabber psychedelia, Polar Inertia’s sleek techno throb and DJ Python & Mad Miran’s impromptu closing b2b.

Climate of Fear's second installment in their tape series comes from Polar Inertia: a one hour masterclass of HD ice burn techno. Recorded live, the set shows PI in full command of their craft, lunging forward with deadly intent while opening up to moments of shivering awe. The full roster is as follows:

Elena Colombi
Polar Inertia
Nkisi
Bruce
Relaxer
Bambounou
Shanti Celeste
Karen Gwyer
Vladimir Ivkovic
Izabel
Terekke
Mad Miran b2b DJ Python

A 38 minutes exorcism, dionysac sexyness fueled with romanticism, made of mechanical incantations mixed with spectral vocals of forgotten imaginary tribes, words from a physicist (Incomprehensible Image), and mystical breathings… To remind you that music is demanding your soul and body, fully.

A master irritator, disclosing this talent all the way, down to every chosen title, for the album itself and all of its components (would you put Milk in Water ?). As repetitive or minimalist music may already make some of you feel nervous, it seems more accurate to talk here about primitive music – notwithstanding a non violent anarchism. But those are only words and vain attempts to attach TLT to a region or a family. Neither the burden of classical European music legacy, which eventually lead to pop music, seemed to interfere with his wild mind, and if it is no surprising to hear Bach in German electronic music, there is here a clear statement that you are out of this sirupy prison…

For D.W. is a sorcerer. He’s been empirically learning the speaking of trance with years of touring and experimenting with all kinds of audience and venues, from clubs to museums, from Mongolia to Brazil, from his performances with his bands Kreidler or Toresch to solo ones, sustained by a steady limited set up, as the one used when he’s recording : one MPC, rudimentary synths, few effects and a mixer. No sound engineer on stage as only he knows his secret language… Raw dubmaking, leaning towards hip hop, indubitably underlining here a significant distanciation from his previous industrial inspirations. The bewitchment of this record is operating with no warning from the very first seconds until the last epiphany of Sales Pitch.

He is using his knowledge of techno, psychedelism (Inverted Sea), UK bass (Jumping Dead Leafs), only to bring you out of it. We all tend to be slaves, without even being conscious about it, and a balance must be existing between being a slave and showing off. Mr. Weinrich’s answer is unsettling because it is an utter call to this balance, in our world of black and white and political correctness. There is no morality in music… Don’t expect anything else than an unaccountable liberating immediate experience. Don’t expect any kind of music because you are already in the past or the future… From his recording technique mainly relying on one takes, his adoration of mistakes and jeopardy, to the core essence of repetitive music, it is all here about being in the present. No ears no glasses.

Recumbent Speech, Ezra Feinberg’s second album, opens with a lament. Named for the Robert Frost poem, “Acquainted with the Night” was written during one of the many devastating spectacles of injustice under our current regime. Repeating flutes and synths beam out of a low-end darkness, reflecting a collective sense of loss and alienation. Rising slowly, thickening with guitars and strings, “Acquainted with the Night” lifts off, and so too does the album from there. The second track, “Letter to my Mind,'' features the dynamic interplay of Feinberg's guitar with the loose and playful drumming of Tortoise's John McEntire, both pushing and pulling atop a looping bass figure. "Palms Up" begins with a lockstep pulse recalling early Terry Riley before jumping into an Ashra-like jam with Afrobeat accents. Side B opens with "Ovation," a tryptic with McEntire on drums which sets a wide lens onto a sweeping landscape, with soaring flutes, wordless vocals, and a hypnotic bassline played on a humming fretless that recalls classic ECM jazz-fusion. The piece plunges into an ambient, interior space before reemerging with a guitar solo fried through an old Space Echo effects processor, conjuring lidded Pompeii-era Pink Floyd. The album's title-track finale, "Recumbent Speech," features the magical pedal steel of Chuck Johnson. Unwinding atop a Balearic analog synth pattern, Feinberg stretches textures of Fender Rhodes and acoustic guitar around Johnson’s lyrical steel, with nods to Japanese ambient legend Hiroshi Yoshimura, as well as Cluster & Eno. Recumbent Speech refers to the possibilities, pleasures, fears, and fantasies that occur the moment the noise dies down, when we are recumbent, in repose but still awake, still speaking, and still aware of ourselves as part of the maddening world. Ezra Feinberg is a guitarist, composer, and psychoanalyst living in Jackson Heights, NY. Feinberg was the founding member of the San Francisco psychedelic rock collective Citay, releasing albums on Important Records and Dead Oceans throughout the 2000s. After relocating to NYC, he issued his first solo record, Pentimento and Others, on his imprint Related States and on cassette on Stimulus Progression in 2018. The release, his first since Citay folded in 2012, earned praise from numerous music outlets including Paste Magazine, The Wire, Stereogum, Vice, and Aquarium Drunkard. In recent years, Feinberg has performed and toured near and far with Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Steve Gunn, Alexander Turnquist, Cruel Diagonals, Daniel Carter, Jonas Reinhardt, Christopher Tignor, Kath Bloom, Robbie Lee, High Aura’d, Glasser, Ava Mendoza, Buck Curran, Real Estate, and many others, and has ongoing studio collaborations with Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and Arp, contributing both guitar and songwriting to the last Arp album Zebra.

Working with sonic archetypes rather than genres, in recent years Moscow's Pavel Milyakov has transcended the average practices of what one might call "the electronic music scene" and built his personal artistic universe where the visual and time-based arts are blended into one another. His new conceptual album PSY X, a collaboration between Gost Zvuk and Buttechno's own imprint Rassvet, can be understood as a collection of audio, video and graphic documents fused together in a homogeneous form. Profoundly rethinking the interactions between various media, Pavel utilizes a vast variety of creative tools and technologies - from generative music algorithms to laser equipment - to create (in)determinate "environments", rather than simply "tracks" or "pictures". The result is simply stunning: a meticulously crafted visual container that encases kinetic, alluring and deeply immersive music from one of Russian burgeoning scene's most vivid voices.

Rival Consoles is 21-year old IDM-smith Ryan Lee West from Leicester in the Midlands of England. After having supported his city neighbours and label comrades Kyte on an extensive European tour in November 2008, West locked himself away all winter to finish his first full-length album, set to see the light of day in mid 2009. In the meantime fans of his debut 'The Decadent EP' will be pleased to hear that on February 23, 2009 Erased Tapes Records will release an exclusive 4-track 7" single / download bundle ? Rival Consoles' take on classical music entitled 'Helvetica'. Instead of X-Box versus Playstation, here West plays classical against dance music! Influenced by impressionists like Claude Debussy and modern electronic artists such as Autechre and Daft Punk, Ryan Lee West created a unique signature sound for Rival Consoles. A playful and brutal mix of electronic beats, emotive piano melodies and warm synth string arrangements. Ryan repeatedly performed at the Tate Britain Museum in London where he drew over 2000 visitors into his unpredictable, yet detailed sound drawings. He was the first to represent Erased Tapes Records at the British Music Week 2007 in Cologne, Germany. Limited to 500 copies only: with download code. Album due later in the year, and it will be one of the years hittest tips...

Scand resident Steve Allman brings together the fast-paced sounds of Detroit and London electro in his debut EP on EON Records.
A key part of London’s longest running electro night Scand for ten years, the south London producer has played alongside the genre’s most important figures The Advent, Detroit in Effect
and Andrea Parker included - delivering consistently high velocity all vinyl sets. Allman’s approach to the dancefloor comes out in its full majesty here on Brainwave. Driven with analogue bass from the Novation Bass Station 2 that’s central to his studio set up, the EP is an uptempo booty moving selection of tracks. Sonically the EP is an expression of Allman’s ear for fast-paced 90s era Detroit electro and the UK’s rave edged take on the sound calling upon freaky synth work, heavy bass patterns and eerie rave stabs to colour the release. What we hear on Brainwaves across the three original tracks is pacey, buoyant and sub-weighted - a record ready to be played loud when the systems are turned back on. Closest influence and mentor Sync 24 drops a bomb of a remix for the title track Brainwave, weaponising it a step further adding a deadly acid scrawl.

2x12"

Parisian label Another Moon are pleased to announce the imminent release of the second collaborative album by Scott Monteith aka Deadbeat and Paul St Hilaire aka Tikiman entitled 4 Quarters of Love and Modern Lash. When asked about about the album's motivations and production process, Monteith had the following to say: “I first heard Paul's voice back in 1996 when I stumbled upon the first Burial Mix 10 inch in a local shop, and it would be no exaggeration to say it has echoed in my mind ever since. We began working together in 2008, and it's fair to say the experience of performing and learning from him has left an indelible mark on my artistic process and my outlook on life in general. He is possessed of a truly electrifying spirit. I’ve had a folder on my hard drive called “For Tiki” for 14 years now, for those more often than not late night studio moments when I stumble upon a rhythmic or musical phrase and hear that unmistakable voice bubbling up in my mind. When that folder fills up with enough of those little magic moments I know it's time to call him, though strangely enough, he more often than not ends up calling me around those times. Such is his deep universal awareness.” “I wrote the initial sketches for what would eventually become this new album over the course of last year to a large extent as a way of trying to process what I perceived as a creeping darkness and sickness in both my own life and the world in general that desperately needed exorcising. When I received his initial responses I nearly fell off my chair. It goes without saying that Paul is a lyricist and poet second to none, and anyone familiar with his enormous body of work can attest to that. And yet, there was something in these latest pieces that hammered the proverbial nail clean through the wood. They perfectly captured this sense of rising tension, of a world that was getting almost psychedelically weirder and darker by the day, and both held a mirror up to this and offered some much needed release. Little did we know, nor could we possibly have imagined, that by the time the record actually hit the shelves, things would get exponentially weirder and darker still.” “It is my great hope that at some point in the coming months we will be able to get back on the road and share these new pieces with people in a live setting, as performing with Tiki is truly one of my greatest joys, and I think it’s where the fire in our work together truly burns brightest. In the meantime, it is my great hope that these 4 long form meditations might provide a little solace for people in their isolation, be it quietly, eyes closed lying on the coach, or cranked up, full on raving in their living rooms.”