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With this new remix EP, The Lovers explore different shades of disco and house through a carefully balanced and personal approach.

The opening track sets the tone with a playful and hypnotic groove, built around arpeggiated patterns and a steady modern rhythm. A female spoken vocal, instantly recognizable from Italian television culture of the 1980s, takes center stage, while a smooth saxophone line adds a sensual, cinematic layer.

The second cut moves into deeper emotional territory. Beginning with a restrained atmosphere, the track slowly builds tension through a rebuilt bassline and a solid house pulse, eventually opening into a more expansive and powerful moment on the floor.

A warmer disco-driven piece follows, focused on groove and feeling. The original spirit is preserved, while a heavier low end gives the track new confidence and presence within a contemporary club setting.

The EP closes with an elegant house reinterpretation inspired by French pop sensibility. A melancholic melodic theme and subtle references to tango shape the final moments, blending emotion and rhythm with a refined sense of flow.

A concise collection of remixes for selectors drawn to groove, memory and understated elegance.

raum…musik welcomes Giuliano Lomonte for its 120th release with Moonlight EP — a three-track journey cross-sectioning house and techno with hints of 90’s progressive trance, combining precise rhythmic control, atmospheric depth, and club-focused energy. Tools built for tension, release, and maximum dancefloor impact.

The EP opens with “Drynation”, a ten-minute prog-tech-house roller built on hypnotic grooves, rolling low-end, and evolving percussive patterns and synth textures, locking the floor in with a steady pulse and a masterful play of tension and release. “Moonlight” shifts into deeper, proggy techno territory, weaving subtle percussive motifs over a simple interchanged kick-and-bass foundation. Fluid and restrained, the track unfolds slowly, with minimal drum variations and gently filtered synths, creating an elegant sense of forward motion. Closing the EP, “One Step Ahead” balances stripped-back tribal house energy with rolling grooves, detailed percussion, and warm pads, resulting in a deeper cut that is precise, functional, and full of understated character.

With Moonlight EP, Lomonte confirms his mastery of tension, texture, and subtle movement, delivering a record that reinforces Raum…Musik’s reputation for high-quality, dancefloor-ready music while highlighting his signature blend of rhythm, refinement, and subtle progression.

After decades spent shaping the sound of southern Madagascar and becoming one of the defining voices of tsapiky, Damily returns with Fanjiry, his most intimate and focused record to date. Known for electrifying village ceremonies and carrying the fever of Toliara across continents, he takes a sharp turn — not away from trance, but deeper into its core.

Recorded in just three days at Studio Black Box with analog wizard Peter Deimel, Fanjiry strips the tsapiky band down to a single guitar and a single heartbeat. Damily plays alone, yet fills the space completely — bass, rhythm, melody, pulse, and breath merging into a dense and vibrating sound. Every riff is architecture, every harmonic a door opening onto memory, childhood landscapes, and nights where music heals, binds, and exhausts the dark.

There is no nostalgia here, no museum of tradition. Fanjiry is a new frontier for tsapiky: raw, precise, suspended between earth and sky, born from craft and necessity. The title — the last star before dawn — captures its essence: a quiet moment before the world awakens, where a single guitar can hold an entire history and still point forward.

Scupltures is composer and pianist Derek Hunter Wilson’s third solo album, an ode to the ancient and contested shorelines of the Pacific Northwest. Deeply embedded in place, the six longform pieces that make up the album reflect the artist’s journey through grief (including losing his father) and the passage of time, each one built upon loops created from extended sessions with harpist Joshua Ward. Like the foggy, moss-encrusted locations that inspired the album, Sculptures has a timeless feel to it, shadowed by the rumblings of a colonial system in decay.

Award-winning poet Mathias Svalina composed a poem for the album, entitled “A Dream for Sculptures”. It is reproduced on an insert that accompanies each LP.

Derek Hunter Wilson is a composer and multi-instrumentalist based in Portland. He has released two solo albums on Beacon Sound (Travelogue, 2017; Steel, Wood, & Air, 2019), as well as a collaborative album with Location Services entitled Wake (2022). In 2018 he collaborated with visual artist Gregory Euclide for his Thesis Project label, resulting in a split 10" with Spanish musician Rauelsson. He has additionally worked with poets Zachary Schomburg and Brandi Katherine Herrera for several sound and performance pieces, and has performed live on the West Coast and in Berlin, sharing the stage with artists such as Colleen, Amulets, Patricia Wolf, Pulse Emitter, and Liima.

After decades spent shaping the sound of southern Madagascar and becoming one of the defining voices of tsapiky, Damily returns with Fanjiry, his most intimate and focused record to date. Known for electrifying village ceremonies and carrying the fever of Toliara across continents, he takes a sharp turn - not away from trance, but deeper into its core. Recorded in just three days at Studio Black Box with analog wizard Peter Deimel, Fanjiry strips the tsapiky band down to a single guitar and a single heartbeat. Damily plays alone, yet fills the space completely - bass, rhythm, melody, pulse, and breath merging into a dense and vibrating sound. Every riff is architecture, every harmonic a door opening onto memory, childhood landscapes, and nights where music heals, binds, and exhausts the dark. There is no nostalgia here, no museum of tradition. Fanjiry is a new frontier for tsapiky: raw, precise, suspended between earth and sky, born from craft and necessity. The title - the last star before dawn - captures its essence: a quiet moment before the world awakens, where a single guitar can hold an entire history and still point forward.

(Early support by Ben Klock, DVS1 & Rene Wise) DHÆÜR makes his debut on Dustin Zahn's Enemy Records with 4 stripped down Techno tools ranging from "relentless and heavy" to "grooving and introspective." Each track offers a different approach to minimalistic Techno, all rich in moody atmospherics.

In classic A1 fashion, "Bayes Theorem" is the heaviest track on the record. Throbbing sub bass meshes together with pedaling hi hats while vocal chops and modulating synth work cover the top end. It's sinister and pounding, yet retains a sense of groove without becoming too aggressive. "Perception" closes the A side with a deeper and more introspective approach. The bass fills in only where necessary,leaving the pads and bleepy synths to do all the heavy lifting.

"Scanning" kicks off the B-side, defined by a rolling bass line and moody chord stabs. It gives the dance floor exactly what it needs and nothing more. The record comes to a close with "5th Avenue." It's deep, steady, rolling, and dripping in polymeter synth pulses. Brief glimpses of vocal phrases offset the darkness, giving it a bit of funk and playfulness...making it essential for deeper late night sets.

Yamila presents her second album on Umor Rex, Noor. Following Visions, Yamila returns with a work that merges nature-experience listening with expansive musicality. Noor was born from her time in an ecologist community, where she sought refuge in stillness, learned from animals, and tried to forget the human. In this communion with nature, she discovered a new compositional approach: reducing acoustic noise to allow unheard voices to emerge, transforming music into a possibility for interspecies dialogue.

Since ancient times, sound has been used to care for herds, to call across distances, to communicate with the non-human. Noor reimagines that ancestral role in a contemporary language, where epic harmonies collide with delicate micro-tonalities, and where rhythm unfolds not only as pulse but as movement for the body, a natural extension of Yamila’s work with dance companies and choreographers.

Her voice is interwoven with electronics and the resonant strings of Echo Collective, creating sonic landscapes that radiate intensity and fragility. At times monumental, at others almost whispered, Noor oscillates between composition and spontaneity, structure and suspension.

The album unfurls as a dialogue between the organic and the artificial, where sound grows like a sprout breaking through hard soil. Yamila’s music here is not only to be heard, but to be inhabited: a choreography of air, vibration, and resonance. Noor is both shelter and revelation, a reminder that music can still be epic, luminous, and deeply human, while listening beyond the human.

All music and voices by Yamila Ríos. Recorded at Destelheide by Christophe Albertijn. Strings by Trio Echo Collective (Violin: Margaret Hermant, Viola: Neil Leiter), (Cello: Stijn Kuppens), (Arrangements: Pierre Slinckx). Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studio, NY. Photos by Assiah Alcázar. Design & layout by Daniel Castrejón.

Shall Not Fade welcomes Pugilist for SNF140 "Maternal".

If you don't already know (and love!) Pugilist's prolific output, you need to get to know! The Naarm/Melbourne based DJ, producer and Rinse resident has released on Martyn's 3024, Melbourne's killer Modern Hypnosis, Silent Era's Of Paradise, Samurai, Rupture, ZamZam, J:Kenzo's Artikal, Sub Basics' Temple of Sound, Whities/AD93, Al Wooton's Trule, Banoffee Pies, Best Intentions and now his own buy on sight Ruff Kutz imprint.

'Maternal' is four blissey dubwise house blurring cuts. Embracing, medicinal, lush & corrective. Vibrations for heads and feet.

'Title track 'Maternal' is deep grooving infectious and honeyed house. Hypnotic, pulsating with head-meltingly warm padwork. 'Bona Fide' sees Pugilist team up with UK duo Mystic State. Drums sidestep with jazz swing while graceful piano and an ensemble of pads are topped with an introspective vocal sample dialing for your subconscious. The B1 'Anomaly' is a stepper - FWD charging drums backed with sub low pulses all brought together by trumpet echoes and woozy melodics. Finally comes 'Marigold', a soulful jungle excursion > early hours business, caressed nostalgic percussion, brushed rhythms, fleeting guitar licks and undulating vibes.

White Elephant announce their debut album “World Elephant Day”, the sound of time, trust and total freedom.

A project forged over ten years in Crazy P’s Nottingham studio, blending dancefloor DNA with intimate musicianship.

White Elephant began as a no-agenda weekend in Crazy P’s Nottingham studio, where Chris “Hot Toddy” Todd, Jim “Ron Basejam” Baron and Ben “BJ” Smith discovered an effortless musical union. Over the next decade, their collaboration slowly evolved into a debut album shaped by warmth, trust and lived experience rather than deadlines. Blending Crazy P’s dancefloor DNA with tender musicianship, the record moves between glowing disco grooves, 80s-bright sparkling pulses and intimate acoustic moments. It’s reflective without being nostalgic, playful yet deeply human. White Elephant is three friends rediscovering the joy of making music simply because it feels good.

White Elephant announce their debut album "World Elephant Day", the sound of time, trust and total freedom. A project forged over ten years in Crazy P"s Nottingham studio, blending dancefloor DNA with intimate musicianship. White Elephant began as a no-agenda weekend in Crazy P"s Nottingham studio, where Chris "Hot Toddy" Todd, Jim "Ron Basejam" Baron and Ben "BJ" Smith discovered an effortless musical union. Over the next decade, their collaboration slowly evolved into a debut album shaped by warmth, trust and lived experience rather than deadlines. Blending Crazy P"s dancefloor DNA with tender musicianship, the record moves between glowing disco grooves, 80s-bright sparkling pulses and intimate acoustic moments. It"s reflective without being nostalgic, playful yet deeply human. White Elephant is three friends rediscovering the joy of making music simply because it feels good.

KIK is the new project of two core strategists of sonic enigma HHY & The Macumbas: Jonathan Uliel Saldanha & João Pais Filipe. Ditching acoustic instruments in favour of drum synthetics & tightly controlled sound design, the duo's debut album NIGHTSHIFT focuses on off-kilter club tracks that thwart 4-on-the-floor flavours whilst maintaining trance-inducing extended cycles. If the devil is in the details, this is all about the spectromophology of the details.
Beginning with moving morse code blips in an odd time signature We Can't Dance announces the characteristic unlife of the album's pulse. Once the kick enters, syncopations progressively accumulate into a weave of interacting rhythmic lines. Smoke Machine's groove is reminiscent of the riddims Saldanha explores in his HHY & The Kampala Unit, adding scintillating pads and snippets of blitzed out laughter.

The album's third track, Proff, hearkens back to the initial pulse, displaced and pitched down in register. Here's a more meditative temperament on display, where the regular geometries of the club have been moved into higher-order structures. Segments rise & fall into earshot. Deepening the meditative mood, Back Room explores a short melodic leitmotif anchoring the track's wander- lust.

The rhythmic assault continues in Tactical Gear, bringing further experiments into polyrhythmic contours exacerbated by preci- sion movements of echo & delay. Limping can be heard as a what-if sonic fiction taking Autechre-inspired abstractions through Durbanoid Gqom terrains. The album closes with its longest track, Night Shift, that segments into shifting sound worlds.

Drawing from industrial grit, cybernetic percussion and the eerie fluorescence of after-hours energy, NIGHTSHIFT exists in the liminal space between body music and abstraction——a soundtrack for phantom warehouses and malfunctioning machines. This isn’t just music; it’s an immersive sonic environment, a journey into the heart of deconstructed dancefloors.
For fans of Rian Treanor, Proc Fiskal, Jlin and Lorenzo Senni.

Most recently, HHY has been collaborating with Nyege Nyege through projects such as Kampala Unit and Arsenal Mikebe, performing live with the ensemble alongside Valentina Magaletti, and producing records for artists like Fulu Miziki, as well as collaborations with Phelimucasi, Rey Sapiens, Kingdom Choir and others. He also released Camouflage Vector: Edits From Live Actions 2017–2019 on the label, a live album featuring two tracks with Adrian Sherwood.

Previous collaborations include Tunnel Vision with Badawi (released on Tzadik), the HHY & The Macumbas album Beheaded Totem on House of Mythology, and Fujako (Wordsound, with MC Sensational), along with double-bill shows with acts such as Clipping and Death Grips.

On Hungry Animal, Luke Temple continues to trace the invisible lines between the personal and the cosmic _ between what we feel, what we observe, and what we inherit simply by being alive. The album reunites Temple with Doug Stuart (bass) and Kosta Galanopoulos (drums), the core of his Cascading Moms ensemble, whose instinctive chemistry anchors the record's balance of rhythmic precision and melodic drift. Together they shape a sound that feels handmade and fluid, delivering sharp observations in soft focus. The album opens with "Clean Living," a tenderly libidinous groove, unraveling purity myths and self-discipline _ less a confession than a celebration of the futility of striving for perfection in a flawed world. From there, "Echo Park Donut" shifts into the memory of an unsettling vignette drawn from a violent incident outside Temple's Los Angeles home. The band moves with a quiet pulse beneath the story, suggesting both detachment and the surreal intimacy of fear. The title track, "Hungry Animal," grounds the album's broader questions: how well can we really know one another, or ourselves? Temple's lyrics circle around the idea that we are animals among animals, driven by instinct and affection alike. It's both playful and philosophical, one of the record's emotional centers. Temple's bandmates bring an understated mastery to these pieces. Stuart's melodic, infectious grooves converse fluidly with Galanopoulos's drumming, which breathes life into each song even as it gently propels them forward. The trio's interplay feels both weightless and deeply rooted _ commanding the listener's attention and empathy without ever forcing it. With Hungry Animal, Luke Temple and the Cascading Moms create a world where reflection becomes rhythm and consciousness gains texture _ a record of quiet revelations and deliberate grace.

With their upcoming sixth studio album, “What A Time To Be Alive” , The Lone Bellow embarks on a bold new chapter while honoring the deep bonds that have defined their journey. Written collaboratively for the first time with their full touring band—founding members Zach Williams, Brian Elmquist, and Kanene Pipkin joined by drummer Julian Dorio and multi-instrumentalist Tyler Geertsma—the album channels the raw, ecstatic energy of the band’s live show into a dynamic collection of songs that pulse with warmth, honesty, and human connection. Recorded live in Muscle Shoals, AL, after a writing retreat in a converted Kentucky firehouse, the album is both a celebration and a reckoning: of friendship, loss, love, and resilience. From the gritty, Stones-tinged opener “After The Rain” to the soul-stirring closer “What A Time To Be Alive,” the record captures the joy and vulnerability that have long defined The Lone Bellow’s sound—lush harmonies, heartfelt lyrics, and genre-blurring arrangements steeped in folk, rock, and gospel. The album’s creation was marked by setbacks, including the theft of early recordings, but the outpouring of support from their fanbase reaffirmed what the band has always known: their music is a shared experience. That spirit echoes throughout the album, whether in anthems like “Common Folk” and “I’m Here For You,” or in intimate reflections like “You Were Leaving” and “Night Goes Black.” Since their acclaimed 2013 debut, The Lone Bellow has appeared on The Tonight Show, Austin City Limits, and The Late Show, topped Americana charts, and headlined storied venues from Carnegie Hall to the Ryman Auditorium. But with their next album, they reaffirm their commitment not just to making music, but to building community—on stage, in song, and around the table.

Under a sky of short days and long nights, Notta Records from Finland unveils Dog Sleep, a deeply immersive EP by Cyclic/Random. Known for crafting slow-burning, atmospheric excursions at the intersection of dub techno and deep, dubbed-out house, Cyclic/Random extends the labels mission of a warm, hypnotic winter soundtrack.
Across the EP, soft-focus chords drift like snow over steady, smoked-out grooves, basslines pulse with understated weight, and echoes curl around the edges of the stereo field. These are tracks built for long, nocturnal sessions, the moments when the outside world is frozen and the dancefloor feels like a shelter. Dog Sleep is intimate yet expansive, perfectly tailored for winter: crackling dub house, deep dub techno and distant ambient textures that invite you to slow down, sink in and dream with your eyes open.

Finnish dub-techno craftsman TM Shuffle, head of Vuo Records, resurfaces with a deep and distilled EP that goes straight for the late-night heart of the dancefloor. Rooted in Tampere’s raw, analog dub sound, his productions have long balanced weight and warmth, smoked-out chords, rolling low-end and subtle shuffle that keeps the groove in constant motion.
The lead track “Kellari” dives into basement mode: pressure-cooker drums, slow-burning stabs and a humid, lived-in atmosphere that feels equally at home on a huge system or in headphones at 4 a.m. On the second original cut, TM Shuffle links up once again with long-time collaborator Monoder, the alias of Jussi-Pekka Parikka, known for his dubbed-out explorations on labels like Statik Entertainment and Pakkas-Levyt since the early 2000s. Their joint track stretches time, letting echo, tape hiss and distant melodic fragments float around a rock-solid groove, channelling years of shared studio language into one focused, hypnotic flow.
On the flip, Anton Kubikov (SCSI-9) steps in with a lush reinterpretation of Kellari. A true Russian techno veteran with a catalog that spans Kompakt, Force Tracks, Mayak and beyond, Kubikov melts the original into a widescreen, dream-state trip, soft-focus pads, gentle yet insistent percussion and that unmistakable rolling pulse that made his work so enduring. The remix doesn’t just extend the track; it opens a new dimension, turning the basement pressure into a slow-rising, celestial drift.
Pressed on limited coloured vinyl, this EP is built for selectors who like their dub techno deep, human and timeless, a record that will quietly live in bags for years and keep resurfacing whenever the room calls for true late-night elevation.

Brooklyn based baritone saxophonist Jonah Parzen-Johnson presents his new work "Imagine Giving Up" on Helsinki's We Jazz Records. The album, to be released on 17th January of 2020 sees Parzen-Johnson move into new domains of sound as he uncovers newfound energy and pulse in his music.

In addition to the sonically rich analog synth elements that accompany his earlier solo saxophone work, Jonah has layered heavily sound designed samples of his own saxophone to create truly one of a kind percussive snaps, reverberant basses, and warbling leads. At it's core, the music remains deeply devoted to almost vocal sounding melodic lines and patiently developed compositional ideas.

A compact set of 6 originals, "Imagine Giving Up" is Jonah Parzen-Johnson's most ambitious album yet. While taking a step away from the previous world of "ambient jazz", his new music stems from the use of drone-like sounds for baritone saxophone, a style which is uniquely his own. Electronics are blended in for good measure, creating a coherent vision of abstract jazz with depth. As with all of Parzen-Johnson's releases, the music comes with a deeper narrative which he will continually explore in live performance.

The manifesto for the album reads as follows: "Only a few people can really start over. Everyone else is left to struggle down the path they were assigned. The option to give up, to choose your own path, is power, and, hopefully, a call to action: take a risk to help someone." "Imagine Giving Up" by Jonah Parzen-Johnson, will be available via 'We Jazz Records' on violet and black vinyl versions, CD and digitally.

As the fifth chapter in the band's discography, " The Neonai" arrived at a critical juncture in Lake of Tears' career, marking both an end and a reluctant new beginning. Released in 2002, three years after the melancholic masterpiece Forever Autumn, the album came to life under less-than-ideal circumstances.

Despite the commercial and critical success of its predecessor (the band's best- selling album to date) Lake of Tears found themselves adrift, unsupported by their label at a time when the world expected them to rise higher than ever. Instead of world tours and deserved recognition, the band withdrew, disillusioned, and made the difficult decision to put all activities on hold. But one last obligation remained: to deliver a final album to Black Mark Productions. What could have been a soulless, contract- bound release turned out to be anything but. "The Neonai" pulses with haunting melodies, infectious refrains, and a deeper embrace of keyboards and electronic textures, without ever losing the emotional gravity and sorrowful beauty that define Lake of Tears.

If this album was truly written "in haste," then let us hope Daniel Brennare continues to compose under pressure, for rarely has urgency sounded so inspired. As with the previous vinyl releases, we do not single out any specific tracks. Each song, like every Lake of Tears album, carries its own unique charm, its own shade of shadow and light. "The Neonai" is not simply a continuation, it is a transformation, an echo from a band caught between endings and new beginnings. Another gem in the band's catalogue, a masterpiece where the doom/ gothic equation tilts gracefully in favor of the latter. A deeply cherished album, long adored by Lake of Tears' devoted followers, who have waited patiently for 23 years to finally see it released on vinyl. After all, every ending is but the beginning of something new. And as we've said before: The end for Lake of Tears has not yet come, and we truly hope it won't come for a long, long time.

As the fifth chapter in the band's discography, " The Neonai" arrived at a critical juncture in Lake of Tears' career, marking both an end and a reluctant new beginning. Released in 2002, three years after the melancholic masterpiece Forever Autumn, the album came to life under less-than-ideal circumstances.

Despite the commercial and critical success of its predecessor (the band's best- selling album to date) Lake of Tears found themselves adrift, unsupported by their label at a time when the world expected them to rise higher than ever. Instead of world tours and deserved recognition, the band withdrew, disillusioned, and made the difficult decision to put all activities on hold. But one last obligation remained: to deliver a final album to Black Mark Productions. What could have been a soulless, contract- bound release turned out to be anything but. "The Neonai" pulses with haunting melodies, infectious refrains, and a deeper embrace of keyboards and electronic textures, without ever losing the emotional gravity and sorrowful beauty that define Lake of Tears.

If this album was truly written "in haste," then let us hope Daniel Brennare continues to compose under pressure, for rarely has urgency sounded so inspired. As with the previous vinyl releases, we do not single out any specific tracks. Each song, like every Lake of Tears album, carries its own unique charm, its own shade of shadow and light. "The Neonai" is not simply a continuation, it is a transformation, an echo from a band caught between endings and new beginnings. Another gem in the band's catalogue, a masterpiece where the doom/ gothic equation tilts gracefully in favor of the latter. A deeply cherished album, long adored by Lake of Tears' devoted followers, who have waited patiently for 23 years to finally see it released on vinyl. After all, every ending is but the beginning of something new. And as we've said before: The end for Lake of Tears has not yet come, and we truly hope it won't come for a long, long time.

As the fifth chapter in the band's discography, " The Neonai" arrived at a critical juncture in Lake of Tears' career, marking both an end and a reluctant new beginning. Released in 2002, three years after the melancholic masterpiece Forever Autumn, the album came to life under less-than-ideal circumstances.

Despite the commercial and critical success of its predecessor (the band's best- selling album to date) Lake of Tears found themselves adrift, unsupported by their label at a time when the world expected them to rise higher than ever. Instead of world tours and deserved recognition, the band withdrew, disillusioned, and made the difficult decision to put all activities on hold. But one last obligation remained: to deliver a final album to Black Mark Productions. What could have been a soulless, contract- bound release turned out to be anything but. "The Neonai" pulses with haunting melodies, infectious refrains, and a deeper embrace of keyboards and electronic textures, without ever losing the emotional gravity and sorrowful beauty that define Lake of Tears.

If this album was truly written "in haste," then let us hope Daniel Brennare continues to compose under pressure, for rarely has urgency sounded so inspired. As with the previous vinyl releases, we do not single out any specific tracks. Each song, like every Lake of Tears album, carries its own unique charm, its own shade of shadow and light. "The Neonai" is not simply a continuation, it is a transformation, an echo from a band caught between endings and new beginnings. Another gem in the band's catalogue, a masterpiece where the doom/ gothic equation tilts gracefully in favor of the latter. A deeply cherished album, long adored by Lake of Tears' devoted followers, who have waited patiently for 23 years to finally see it released on vinyl. After all, every ending is but the beginning of something new. And as we've said before: The end for Lake of Tears has not yet come, and we truly hope it won't come for a long, long time.

As the fifth chapter in the band's discography, " The Neonai" arrived at a critical juncture in Lake of Tears' career, marking both an end and a reluctant new beginning. Released in 2002, three years after the melancholic masterpiece Forever Autumn, the album came to life under less-than-ideal circumstances.

Despite the commercial and critical success of its predecessor (the band's best- selling album to date) Lake of Tears found themselves adrift, unsupported by their label at a time when the world expected them to rise higher than ever. Instead of world tours and deserved recognition, the band withdrew, disillusioned, and made the difficult decision to put all activities on hold. But one last obligation remained: to deliver a final album to Black Mark Productions. What could have been a soulless, contract- bound release turned out to be anything but. "The Neonai" pulses with haunting melodies, infectious refrains, and a deeper embrace of keyboards and electronic textures, without ever losing the emotional gravity and sorrowful beauty that define Lake of Tears.

If this album was truly written "in haste," then let us hope Daniel Brennare continues to compose under pressure, for rarely has urgency sounded so inspired. As with the previous vinyl releases, we do not single out any specific tracks. Each song, like every Lake of Tears album, carries its own unique charm, its own shade of shadow and light. "The Neonai" is not simply a continuation, it is a transformation, an echo from a band caught between endings and new beginnings. Another gem in the band's catalogue, a masterpiece where the doom/ gothic equation tilts gracefully in favor of the latter. A deeply cherished album, long adored by Lake of Tears' devoted followers, who have waited patiently for 23 years to finally see it released on vinyl. After all, every ending is but the beginning of something new. And as we've said before: The end for Lake of Tears has not yet come, and we truly hope it won't come for a long, long time.