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Chicago legend and well known collaborator of Derrick Carter (Red Nail Kidz), returns with a brilliant full length listening experience. Tapping into his roots, Chris delivers a deep and melodic 11 track banger. Currently being supported by Mark Farina, JT Donaldson, Diz, DJ Heather, DJ Sneak, and many more.

• This slice of Louisiana deep Southern soul has taken on a life of its own since Dave Godin included it on his first “Deep Soul Treasures” CD, and the single has shot up to well over three figures in value.

• In 2021 the song is the subject of a cover version by the-name-to-drop Lady Blackbird and we felt it was about time that it was reissued in its original format.

After a 5 year hiatus, Tel Aviv based artist Naduve, returns to Cocktail d’Amore Music with Hypogeum. Each of these tracks facilitates its own special part in the life of party. Starting off on a hypnotic and forward driven note Echo Wave Bay leads dancers perfectly into hypnosis with its trance inducing melodies which wave upward and downward. Title track Hypogeum begins to pull on the heart strings with its soft synths floating over pastel textures before giving way to the aptly titled FX Jungle, a deep trip into the low lying canopies of your imagination. Ending where we began Thursday Gem explores the same cyclical themes as Echo Wave but in a subdued fashion making it a perfect choice for winding down any raucous party.

As songwriters we spend a lot of our lives trying to bottle up a feeling into a song, and often, the biggest feelings, the best ones... the complicated, detailed, messy, incredible ones... just aren’t going to fit. Line by Line is our recognition of that... of how one song just isn’t enough to capture it all, but how we’re just going to keep writing, futilely and lovingly, anyway". - JP Saxe ABOUT JP SAXE Toronto-born, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter, JP Saxe always finds a way to cut beyond the surface, tapping into a deep connectivity with universal emotion and human experience. His powerful duet with Julia Michaels titled “If The World Was Ending,” led to his late-night TV debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last November. JP and Julia also performed the song while quarantined for The Late Late Show With James Corden. Idolator proclaimed the song ‘packs a strong emotional punch,’ and PEOPLE Magazine praised the song as a “beautifully stripped back piano ballad.” JP has also amassed fans at The FADER, following his single “Women Who Look Like You”, featuring rapper Guapdad 4000. In February, JP released his anticipated six-track debut EP, Hold It Together. TIME Magazine praised the project for “exploring the weird – sometimes lovely – sometimes painful – emotions that bubble up in relationships” and included “3 Minutes” off the EP in their ‘5 Best Songs of the Week’ roundup. Over the last year, JP completed a nationwide summer/fall tour with Noah Kahan and joined Lennon Stella on her European tour.

Introducing Jackson + Sellers and their debut album Breaking Point, on ANTI records. Jade Jackson and Aubrie Sellers, two rising stars who aligned during the pandemic to write one of the most compelling duo albums of the last decade. Drawn together by instant chemistry, cosmic forces and their ability to write intuitive romantic breakup songs for each other, their album is a window into the dissolution of two different relationships and the formation of another: a perfect, platonic, creative union. United in their desire to write a record that reflected their expansive musical interest from 70s rock to raucous roots to indie pop, their LA written, Nashville recorded album is a masterclass in unexpected vocal har?monic convergence. With Breaking Point, Jackson + Sellers will establish themselves as two individual artists who together, share a deep friendship, musical kinship and the ability to craft tight singular pop rock songs that will embed themselves in your ears for the rest of time.

On his aptly-titled Mascot Records’ debut, What Happens Next, roots singer-songwriter and guitarist Davy Knowles boldly steps forward with timeless and cohesive songwriting; sleek modern production; and a lyrical, play-for-the-song guitar approach informed from soul, folk, rock, and blues. The 12-song album is just as influenced by The Black Keys, Fantastic Negrito, Gary Clark Jr., as it is Muddy Waters, Junior Kimbrough, and R.L. Burnside. It is a cohesive body of work rather than a collection of disparate songs. On What Happens Next, Knowles’s poetic songwriting, and his soulfully emotive singing steal the show. The 12-song body of work offers forth a peaks-and-valleys album experience winding through brawny riffs, jazzy blues balladry, and vintage soul before concluding with one of Knowles’s most personal songs released to date. Throughout it all, his guitar playing is brilliantly understated, his rhythm work is deft and dynamic—beefy on the rockers, and subtly supportive on the slower tunes—and his leads are economical but feature juicy blues bends and thick as molasses lead guitar tones."What Happens Next" is released on CD and digitally on October 22, 2021 and on vinyl on December 3, 2021 via Mascot Label Group/Provogue Records.

Black Flower is a vibrant, hypnotic mix of Ethio jazz, afrobeat, psychedelia and oriental influences, inspired by Mulatu Astatke, Fela Kuti and varied western musical traditions.

Limited version on smokey coloured vinyl.Black Flower is a vibrant, hypnotic mix of Ethio jazz, afrobeat, psychedelia and oriental influences, inspired by Mulatu Astatke, Fela Kuti and varied western musical traditions.

Anteloper is the electric brain child of jaimie branch (fly or die, high life) and Jason Nazary (little women, helado negro, bear in heaven). Branch and Nazary have been playing together as trumpeter and drummer for years, since meeting at the New England Conservatory of Music in 2002, but in this duo both musicians include synthesizers to push further into the spectral space ship ether. With deep rhythmic passages, telepathic improvisations and effortless melodic negotiations, Anteloper pushes forward, swinging its horns all the while. Originally released on cassette only, Anteloper's debut album Kudu was named one of the 'Best Albums of 2018' by Rolling Stone, Pop Matters, Nextbop, and Bandcamp. In his piece for Rolling Stone, Hank Shteamer said: "The album's collision of fractured beats and pealing, effects-heavy brass suggests a punk-minded update of Miles Davis' most thrillingly weird Seventies explorations, heard on albums like Get Up With It. This is music for serious immersion."

Malta-based stoner and grunge rock act A Broken
Design gear up for the vinyl-release of their latest
album, ‘Another Day In Hell’, via Argonauta
Records.
 The band’s much acclaimed debut album was
originally self-released in the middle of the
pandemic in October 2020, but will be now
reissued, for the first time ever, on vinyl.
 A Broken Design were formed in 2014 and feature
former band members of sludge metal
heavyweights Slit, doomsters Nomad Son and
electro rockers Kill The Action.
 With a mix of various alternative and heavy rock
influences, their 2017 debut EP ‘Halo Of Flies’
already showcased A Broken Design’s passion,
drive and skills to write catchy songs that deliver a
heavy dose of flat out grooves with a nostalgic oldschool grungy touch in a raw and rough sound.
 Their album ‘Another Day In Hell’ marks the band‘s
most mature and emotional record to date, delving
deep into a personal catharsis while the four-piece
broadens its sound to further sonic templates.
 For fans of Soundgarden, Los Natas, Life Of
Agony, Stone Temple Pilots, Queens Of The Stone
Age, Alice In Chains, I Mother Earth, Pist.On,
Mother Love Bone, Kyuss, Gruntruck.

“For me music is not a calculation, when I play I follow my intuition.
The creative impulse always comes from within me. Me and my
piano, they’re at the centre of my musical world.” - Joel Lyssarides
 For Joel Lyssarides, jazz is above all a language, a tool for
uniquely personal expression. He composed the pieces for ‘Stay
Now’ in a remote house in the forest, a good half-hour outside
Stockholm. And by preference at night, in silence, darkness and
deep concentration.
 The atmosphere of this place is audibly reflected in the music,
which is strongly influenced by space, sound and mood -
reinforced by the highly concentrated, differentiated, subtle
interplay of pianist Lyssarides with bassist Niklas Fernqvist and
drummer Rasmus Blixt.
 What these three young musicians have in common is their
capacity for great sensitivity and expressiveness. Their music is
based on a vocabulary that draws equally from European classical
music, jazz from both sides of the Atlantic and great songwriting,
with all its depth and accessibility.
 And yet this has nothing to do with crossover. Everything flows
and swings, nothing seems deliberate or contrived, one can hear a
natural understanding for the infinite possibilities of every note.
 This trio has the self-confidence to put the entirety of their efforts
into enhancing the expressiveness of the music. And it is in the
most intimate, quiet, focused and concentrated moments that the
most spectacular things happen.
 The album title ‘Stay Now’, therefore, is above all an
acknowledgement of quite how precious the here and now is.
These are the moments when we start to understand the true
value of present and past encounters. As we listen, we can let the
moment linger… and allow ourselves to sink blissfully and
unforgettably into it.

John Lodge, legendary bass player, songwriter and vocalist of The Moody Blues, and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, is to release a new live album entitled ‘The Royal Affair and After’. It features incredible new live recordings of all his Moody Blues hits, plus special tributes to all his bandmates, Graeme Edge, Justin Hayward, Mike Pinder and Ray Thomas. John is delighted to release this album, an album that encompasses the songs that he describes as being ‘the soundtrack of his life’, and continues in his deeply-felt quest to ‘Keep the Moody Blues music alive’. The album was recorded live in Las Vegas on ‘The Royal Affair Tour’, with additional tracks recorded during his subsequent USA dates. During the summer of 2019, Lodge was delighted to be part of the ‘The Royal Affair Tour’, with YES, Carl Palmer, Arthur Brown, and ASIA, and what followed was an epic summer. For John it was unique opportunity to bring his electrifying show to both long established fans, and to those new to the Moody Blues. The album comprises many of the incredible Moodies hits penned by Lodge, classics such as “I’m Just a Singer (in a Rock and Roll Band),” “Gemini Dream,” “Ride My Seesaw,” “Isn’t Life Strange,” and “Steppin’ in a Slide Zone”, plus the wonderful “Saved by the Music” from the Blue Jays album.

As funny as it may sound, Anaïs Mitchell has spent the past 15 years in some kind of hell. OK, not actual hell, but the multi-faceted world of Hadestown, a musical project she began in Vermont in 2006 that has grown into a Tony®- and Grammy®-award-winning Broadway phenomenon with touring editions now delighting audiences as far away as South Korea.

“I experienced so much joy working on Hadestown, but it just kept ramping up and up and requiring more and more attention,” Mitchell admits. “I had to become so single-minded and really put blinders on to my other creative life.” As it did for many artists, the COVID-19 pandemic unexpectedly offered Mitchell a blank slate to reconnect with her own music. The result is a new self-titled album made with close collaborators from Bon Iver, The National and her own band Bonny Light Horseman, Mitchell’s first collection of all-new material under her own name since 2012’s Young Man in America.

“I was nine months pregnant when the pandemic reached New York, so we made an 11th hour decision to leave and have the baby in Vermont,” Mitchell recalls. “We left the city and had the baby a week later, and then like everyone, we were in the midst of this unprecedented stillness. It felt like I could see behind me: oh, there’s New York City. There’s Hadestown. There’s my life with just one kid. A certain kind of stress and expectations. In Vermont, we moved onto my family farm and lived in my grandparents’ old house, with a new baby. I’d look at pictures on my phone from a few months earlier and wonder, whose life was that? This record, and the songs that are on it, came out of that time. I got into a flow again that I hadn’t felt in a really long time.”

Dubbed by NPR as “one of the greatest songwriters of her generation,” Mitchell is a master of the worlds of narrative folksong, poetry and balladry. Those talents are evident from the first moments of the new album, as Mitchell narrates what she calls “an unbearably romantic” trip over the Brooklyn Bridge colored by Bon Iver member Michael Lewis’ heartstring-tugging saxophone accompaniment. “Having left New York, I was able to write a love letter to it in a way I never could when I was living there,” she says. “It was like, fuck it. This is how I feel. There is nothing more beautiful than riding over one of the New York bridges at night next to someone who inspires you.”

Produced by Mitchell’s Bonny Light Horseman bandmate Josh Kaufman, the album proceeds to chronicle Mitchell’s reconnection with the Vermont roots that have been so formative in her life and music. “Bright Star” finds her making peace with the idea of being at peace in the familiar setting of her grandparents’ house, while “Revenant” was inspired by paging through a box of journals and letters belonging to herself and her grandmother — “a very pandemic activity,” she says. “That house is literally my happy place. I can picture myself as a kid, in this house, laying on the carpet with a sunbeam coming through the sliding glass door. There’s something about it that is really connected in my mind to my childhood and a very free, imaginative, creative time. “Revenant” has a lot to do with that house and reconnecting with my childhood self.”

Mitchell concedes that she tends “to be someone who thinks it has to be hard in order for it to be good or beautiful,” but that feeling has changed, partly thanks to her deep connection with musicians she’s met through the 37d03d collective established by The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. During the pandemic, some of those artists participated in a “song a day” writing group — an idea Mitchell says is usually “totally opposite of how I roll. But it really helped me to gain access to some kind of trust and intuition and flow. I began a bunch of these songs while doing that.”

“It unlocked something that allowed me to finish a bunch of songs I’d been sitting on, and feeling a bit paralyzed about how to finish them,” she continues. “Because no one was touring, it’s not like I was playing them for anyone before we were in the studio. In other times, I’ve trotted things out in advance. Here, it was like, here’s all these brand new songs. Let’s discover what they can be. That was really exciting.”

That discovery process took flight at Dreamland Recording Studios outside Woodstock, N.Y., which Mitchell describes as “this weird, janky, beautiful church - it’s my favorite studio in the world.” Kaufman, Lewis and Big Red Machine drummer JT Bates formed a core band around Mitchell, while Aaron Dessner and Thomas Bartlett joined the sessions mid-week on guitar and piano, respectively.

After the appropriate COVID tests came back negative, “it was a pretty extraordinary feeling to hug, kiss and share the same space playing together,” Mitchell says. “We went into that world for a week and didn’t leave the studio for any reason. I felt very safe with all those guys. It was warm and joyful.”

Mitchell says this environment brought out unexpected details in the material, which was recorded almost entirely live together in the room. “Sometimes we tried separating things out, like vocals, but we always ended up back in the room together,” she says. Indeed, after spending the better part of a day recording overdubbed versions of “Little Big Girl” that nobody loved, the musicians gave up and tracked it again live. “We got so frustrated that we went in and I was like, I’m just going to sing this as hard as I fucking can. It felt like that’s what the song wanted to be,” Mitchell says. “It felt like all those songs wanted to be recorded as live as possible.” The exception to the rule was Nico Muhly's arrangements for strings and flute, which were added from New York City afterward.

Mitchell will debut the new material during various headline tours in the U.S. and Europe in 2022, at which she’ll be accompanied by players from the album. On stage, she can’t wait to further hone the sights, sounds and scenes that bring the songs to such vivid life. “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to write in the voice of other characters, especially with Hadestown. It’s fun for me, but these songs are not that,” she says. “Weirdly, they’re all me. The narrator is me. That’s why it felt right to self-title the album. It felt like after so many years of working on telling other stories, now here are some of mine.”

As funny as it may sound, Anaïs Mitchell has spent the past 15 years in some kind of hell. OK, not actual hell, but the multi-faceted world of Hadestown, a musical project she began in Vermont in 2006 that has grown into a Tony®- and Grammy®-award-winning Broadway phenomenon with touring editions now delighting audiences as far away as South Korea.

“I experienced so much joy working on Hadestown, but it just kept ramping up and up and requiring more and more attention,” Mitchell admits. “I had to become so single-minded and really put blinders on to my other creative life.” As it did for many artists, the COVID-19 pandemic unexpectedly offered Mitchell a blank slate to reconnect with her own music. The result is a new self-titled album made with close collaborators from Bon Iver, The National and her own band Bonny Light Horseman, Mitchell’s first collection of all-new material under her own name since 2012’s Young Man in America.

“I was nine months pregnant when the pandemic reached New York, so we made an 11th hour decision to leave and have the baby in Vermont,” Mitchell recalls. “We left the city and had the baby a week later, and then like everyone, we were in the midst of this unprecedented stillness. It felt like I could see behind me: oh, there’s New York City. There’s Hadestown. There’s my life with just one kid. A certain kind of stress and expectations. In Vermont, we moved onto my family farm and lived in my grandparents’ old house, with a new baby. I’d look at pictures on my phone from a few months earlier and wonder, whose life was that? This record, and the songs that are on it, came out of that time. I got into a flow again that I hadn’t felt in a really long time.”

Dubbed by NPR as “one of the greatest songwriters of her generation,” Mitchell is a master of the worlds of narrative folksong, poetry and balladry. Those talents are evident from the first moments of the new album, as Mitchell narrates what she calls “an unbearably romantic” trip over the Brooklyn Bridge colored by Bon Iver member Michael Lewis’ heartstring-tugging saxophone accompaniment. “Having left New York, I was able to write a love letter to it in a way I never could when I was living there,” she says. “It was like, fuck it. This is how I feel. There is nothing more beautiful than riding over one of the New York bridges at night next to someone who inspires you.”

Produced by Mitchell’s Bonny Light Horseman bandmate Josh Kaufman, the album proceeds to chronicle Mitchell’s reconnection with the Vermont roots that have been so formative in her life and music. “Bright Star” finds her making peace with the idea of being at peace in the familiar setting of her grandparents’ house, while “Revenant” was inspired by paging through a box of journals and letters belonging to herself and her grandmother — “a very pandemic activity,” she says. “That house is literally my happy place. I can picture myself as a kid, in this house, laying on the carpet with a sunbeam coming through the sliding glass door. There’s something about it that is really connected in my mind to my childhood and a very free, imaginative, creative time. “Revenant” has a lot to do with that house and reconnecting with my childhood self.”

Mitchell concedes that she tends “to be someone who thinks it has to be hard in order for it to be good or beautiful,” but that feeling has changed, partly thanks to her deep connection with musicians she’s met through the 37d03d collective established by The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. During the pandemic, some of those artists participated in a “song a day” writing group — an idea Mitchell says is usually “totally opposite of how I roll. But it really helped me to gain access to some kind of trust and intuition and flow. I began a bunch of these songs while doing that.”

“It unlocked something that allowed me to finish a bunch of songs I’d been sitting on, and feeling a bit paralyzed about how to finish them,” she continues. “Because no one was touring, it’s not like I was playing them for anyone before we were in the studio. In other times, I’ve trotted things out in advance. Here, it was like, here’s all these brand new songs. Let’s discover what they can be. That was really exciting.”

That discovery process took flight at Dreamland Recording Studios outside Woodstock, N.Y., which Mitchell describes as “this weird, janky, beautiful church - it’s my favorite studio in the world.” Kaufman, Lewis and Big Red Machine drummer JT Bates formed a core band around Mitchell, while Aaron Dessner and Thomas Bartlett joined the sessions mid-week on guitar and piano, respectively.

After the appropriate COVID tests came back negative, “it was a pretty extraordinary feeling to hug, kiss and share the same space playing together,” Mitchell says. “We went into that world for a week and didn’t leave the studio for any reason. I felt very safe with all those guys. It was warm and joyful.”

Mitchell says this environment brought out unexpected details in the material, which was recorded almost entirely live together in the room. “Sometimes we tried separating things out, like vocals, but we always ended up back in the room together,” she says. Indeed, after spending the better part of a day recording overdubbed versions of “Little Big Girl” that nobody loved, the musicians gave up and tracked it again live. “We got so frustrated that we went in and I was like, I’m just going to sing this as hard as I fucking can. It felt like that’s what the song wanted to be,” Mitchell says. “It felt like all those songs wanted to be recorded as live as possible.” The exception to the rule was Nico Muhly's arrangements for strings and flute, which were added from New York City afterward.

Mitchell will debut the new material during various headline tours in the U.S. and Europe in 2022, at which she’ll be accompanied by players from the album. On stage, she can’t wait to further hone the sights, sounds and scenes that bring the songs to such vivid life. “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to write in the voice of other characters, especially with Hadestown. It’s fun for me, but these songs are not that,” she says. “Weirdly, they’re all me. The narrator is me. That’s why it felt right to self-title the album. It felt like after so many years of working on telling other stories, now here are some of mine.”

CELESTE have been breaking the outer boundaries of heavy music for over fifteen years. When they first evolved from the Lyon hardcore punk scene, they were absolutely brutal and entirely unique, delivering extremity on their own terms that they pushed further and further with each successive album. “We just wanted to get darker and more violent,” says drummer Antoine Royer, until 2017’s Infidèle(s) saw the incorporation of a more melodic streak. Their most focussed record yet, it was tremendously received, critically adored, and backed with the band’s biggest shows to date.

Its follow-up was always going to be something radical. Even by their own inordinately high standards, however, new record Assassine(s) is one hell of a step forward. Even if this album still contains cyclonic walls of guitar, of battering rhythm, and passages of blissful, rushing release. it’s unlike anything the band have ever released; embracing a modern and forward-thinking production, they're just as complex but more direct, diverse and accessible than before. “Our leitmotif here was to open our minds,” says guitarist Sébastien Ducotté. “We made a real effort to think outside of our box.”

During lockdown CELESTE’s members were forced to each write individually. “We each went further into our personal, inner views of what the songs were,” says bassist and vocalist Johan Girardeau. When eventually they began sessions under producer Chris Edrich, it was gruelling. “We ended up exhausted, physically and mentally” says Johan. “There was no break in two weeks. We didn’t see the sun at all during that time. Every night we were so tired that we didn’t enjoy being together as much as we’re used to.” Nevertheless, in the same way the hardships of isolation led to richer and more complex songwriting, it’s that relentlessness that led to the record’s razor-sharp edges.

Above all else, CELESTE are innovators. Whether by pioneering French avant-garde metal when they formed at the turn of the millennium, by making their boldest leaps despite being seven albums deep into their career, or using two years away from live shows to tightly finetune their stagecraft, they refuse at all costs to rest on their laurels. There can be consequences to this instinct – fans of the band’s older work might be thrown off by their constant shifts of pace – but they’re throwing caution to the wind. A bit of backlash “would be a good thing, because it would mean that we’ve really changed,” says Guillaume . “It's not disrespectful, it's just that we never made music to please people, but just to enjoy what we're doing.” In the end, CELESTE are a band so forward-thinking that they can only be judged on the strength of their latest work. And when it comes to a record as bold as Assassine(s), they’ve hit a whole new peak entirely.

Tara Nome Doyle is a 24-year old singer-songwriter with Norwegian-Irish roots. In April 2018 her first release, the song Down with You came out. Since then it has been streamed more than four million times. More singles and an EP called Dandelion followed. In January 2020 her debut album Alchemy was celebrated by the German press (“… like Kate Bush singing songs by Nick Cave at Berghain”, SPIEGEL). TND’s second album, Værmin, will be released in January 2022 on Modern Recordings. The album was produced by Simon Goff, a Grammy-award winning producer (for his work for Hildur Guðnadóttir’s Chernobyl score), violinist and engineer.

TND likes to collaborate: In spring 2021 she co-wrote an original song with Isobel Waller-Bridge (Fleabag) for the upcoming Netflix feature film Munich - The Edge Of War. In July 2021 the EP The Moments We Keep, which she co-wrote and co-produced with the Italian pianist Federico Albanese, came out on Mercury KX. In late 2020 TND released recordings with Malakoff Kowalski (Bad Dreams) and 1k Flowers (Clemency). TND has also collaborated twice with Max Rieger (Die Nerven; producer of e.g. Caspar and Drangsal).

On Væermin TND tells a tragic love story, rich in symbolism and nuances, orchestrated with piano, violin and synthesizer and sometimes pulsating beats – and with singing that is both intense and varied, sometimes angelic, sometimes rough and threatening. Væermin is touchingly beautiful – and yet it also celebrates the supposed ugliness that lives in all of us and that we like to suppress and ignore. All songs are named after animals that are considered undesirable pests: leeches, caterpillars, snails and worms. Væermin celebrates their beauty and thus also asks a political question: What would happen if we welcomed these vermin instead of rejecting them? Wouldn't we then arrive at a much richer, balanced relationship with ourselves, to a more differentiated relationship to the world around us and to other people?

Værmin is a grand, wise, deeply moving album. And the songs get stuck in your head immediately, pulling you into their depths: existential music by an extraordinary artist.

Russell Marsden and Emma Richardson first started writing songs together in their teens after meeting at school in their Southampton hometown. Forming Band of Skulls 17 years ago with drummer Matt Hayward, they went on to make five acclaimed studio albums together. Now, the pair have temporarily stepped away from Band of Skulls to focus on a new musical project they’ve been dreaming about since their earliest songwriting days.

The album covers the full breadth of human emotions, mining deeply into songs about human connection, vulnerability, loss, change, love, identity and forgiveness – as well as the future and hope. It’s vast in scope, something magnified by its grandiose cinematic feel that leans towards the soaring jazz arrangements of the 40s and 50s. The album’s strings were scored and directed by Tom Edwards, who had worked with Band of Skulls previously when he’d reimagined several of their songs. “When Tom sent back the first song, ‘Outsider’, it was a jaw-dropping moment for us to see what he’d done with it,” Emma says. “We challenged him to take inspiration from the incredible composers and arrangers from the 40s and 50s jazz era

Watford quartet The Spitfires are extremely pleased to announce that their second album ‘A Thousand Times’ will be released on 26th August 2016 via Catch 22 Records. The album is the follow-up to the critically acclaimed debut ‘Response’ which saw the band enter high in the UK Album Charts and reach #6 in both the independent and vinyl charts, with their recent single ‘So Long’ charting at #1 in UK Vinyl Singles Chart. Building on the success they’ve managed to establish so far, ‘A Thousand Times’ looks certain to cement their reputation as one of the most vital young bands of their generation. Their work ethic and powerful song-writing mixed with their acute social commentary and lack of mainstream industry support has made this fiercely independent band one of the most popular underground success stories in the UK today. This DIY attitude and independent spirit has earned them a dedicated following and sold out shows across the whole of the UK and Europe. Across the 10 tracks on ‘A Thousand Times’ it’s possible to detect a sharper, deeper vision for the band and a more honed song-writing craft than we’ve previously seen.

Martin Rude & Jakob Skøtt Duo released 2 albums in 2020: The Discipline of Assent & The Dichotomy of Control. For the third installation in their Stoic opus, they join forces with Tamar Osborn on saxophone & alto flute. Similar to their first 2 albums, Rude & Skøtt improvised a tidal wave of ideas and grooves in the studio of Causa Sui’s Jonas Munk, the perks of which were shipped to the UK for Osborn’s overdubs of echo-drenched sax and wah-flute. An improvisation rippling across time & space, merging a river of constantly in flux head-on improv, as well as making room for floating harmonies and studio-wizardry. Playful, experimental and explorative, the trio ventures into a free wash of exotica drenched in deep modal jazz-vibes - with splashes of something more futuristic and modern. But contrary to what the title suggests, there are also roaring waves of energy, sizzling funky grooves to complement the ambient undercurrent. It’s a record akin to the library & film music of the 60’s and 70’s and an ode to the willful river of experimental moderation. Far in. Bios: Tamar Osborn: Saxophonist, composer and multi-wind instrumentalist is the creative force behind modal jazz ensemble Collocutor (On The Corner Records). She is a long-standing member of the Dele Sosimi Afrobeat Orchestra, performs and collaborates regularly with Sarathy Korwar, Jessica Lauren, Emanative, Ill Considered and DJ Khalab, and is an in-demand session musician. Martin Rude: Multi-string instrumentalist & lead singer in Sun River, as well as stand-in bass player in Causa Sui. Jakob Skøtt: Drummer in Causa Sui with a slew of side projects on El Paraiso, as well as responsible for the label’s visuals.

One concerned with illness (no, not that one) and recovery. Inside to outside. Darkness into light. A way through the woods. The Doozer aka Simon Loynes is now seven LPs into a subterranean solo voyage begun in 2007, and to those of us who have followed it, the songs that make up Convalescence could be seen to embody a kind of late style - ultra-lucid, pared-down, precise; seemingly simple in form, richly complex in effect. Where The Doozer’s last outing, 2018’s Figurines (FTR360), showcased his songs at their most propulsive and and electrified, Convalescence is a more hushed, hermitic, even claustrophobic affair - dispensing with percussion almost entirely, the focus is tight on Loynes’ voice and plangent acoustic guitar, with occasional daubings and interludes of wheezing keyboard, all recorded to Tascam 246 4-track cassette in Edinburgh, Summer 2019. For a considerable chunk of time, health issues had left Loynes unable to sing. On this record you can hear him rediscovering his voice: its unique grain, its responsiveness, its capacity for creating and sustaining emotional ambiguity, for oscillating elegantly between whimsy and woundedness. As with previous Doozer albums, there’s an arcadian impulse at the heart of Convalescence: a sense of exile, or withdrawal, from ‘The Garden’ - and the need to return. The idea that, in your lowest ebb, you might recover your sense of self somewhere in the pastoral landscape of your memories. We're told the shadow of Malcolm Lowry looms large over the record – Lowry the void-chaser, the great misadventurer. Does Convalescence report from the abyss? If so then it's with a coolness and control, a lightness of touch, that conceals as much as it reveals. But beyond the neurosis, the ironic deflections, the flashes of matter-of-fact bleakness (“there isn’t time / there isn’t love”), there lies a deep, Lowry-ish romanticism, and a rejection of pessimism: even at its lowest ebb, Convalescence gestures towards an immense and loving truth – and knows that the possibility of that truth is far more interesting than the numerous ways in which it might be denied. A co-release with Feeding Tube Records USA.

Young LA star, Justin Jay, has already caught the ears of DJs and fans worldwide and released on the likes of dirtybird and Culprit. Last year, Jay shared an EP of deep house gold on Shall Not Fade sister label Lost Palms. Now he returns on their bass-oriented sublabel Time Is Now.

Hypnotized EP is a fun, breaks heavy romp featuring rave powerhouse trio Denham Audio and a remix by jungle mainstay Tim Reaper. From the off the energy is high, the title track rolling out pitched vocals and dramatic drops. "I Know" is ever more frenetic, breaks cascading over one another to a fever pitch, while Denham Audio collab "Swarm" brings out 303s and dramatic sub bass wobbles for a tour-de-force of hardcore dance vibes. Rising lofi house producer Angelo Jsn gives a euphoric, breathless edge to "Burgundy", an emotive space age trance number. Tim Reaper's untameable refix of "Swarm" keeps the heart racing to the end.

South Africa is in fact the only country in the whole African continent that has developed a strong Jazz tradition. Initially influenced by the great American stylists, (Ellington, Gillespie...) South Africa gradually developed its own soulful style based on a distinctive taste for melody and a deep sense of groove. Masterfully selected from the so-called Golden Age of the genre, (late Fifties / early Sixties), this compilation represents the best introduction to the work of a large and varied body of musicians and composers who inevitably developed their music as part of the historical Anti-Apartheid struggle, and as means of self expression in the dark times of exile. Kippie Moeketsi, Hugh Masekela, Dollar Brand, Chris McGregor, Dudu Pukwana, Mongesi Feza, Barney Rabachan, Nick Moyake and of course the queen Miriam Makeba are just some of the main voices represented here. A bunch of true warriors. in one word: A must!

Martina Topley Bird’s new studio album ‘Forever I Wait’, features collaborations and arrangements from Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack, Euan Dickenson, Rich Morel, Christoffer Berg, Benjamin Boeldt and Tiadiad.

'Forever I Wait' is Topley-Bird’s fourth long awaited studio album and her very first self-produced and curated piece of work to date. The album, set for a digital release on September 10th, with a vinyl LP available to pre-order now, captures an extensive journey confronting, exploring, analysing and reflecting on the devastating fragilities of life as it ultimately seeks to make peace with what life is.

A sentient and sensual presence framed Tricky’s trip-hop pioneering white label debut release, Aftermath. Hauntingly unique and immediately recognisable, that voice became the defining timbre of a new music movement. Behind this voice was mysteriously soft-spoken, London-born Martina Topley-Bird, whose exquisite voice came to inspire and infuse other pioneering artists across all genres.

“It’s a trip through different emotional states and frequencies, mostly dark, from insecurity and desire, all the way through to serenity and acceptance with themes that resonate from my young teens all the way through till today. Things that I’ve seen and things I’ve felt and worked through, although sometimes I sense them trying to return”

“Forever I Wait”, as the title alludes, was written and re-written over a long period of time.

“I had to change my way of relating to music and the music industry in order to make the record I wanted to make.…and that took time. And I took the time I needed. I started in London, moved and lived in America for the first time in my life, then briefly moved back to London and finished the record in Spain.”

“After trying to work on a new record for a couple of years, I came to a realisation that in order to move forward I had to separate the concept and vision I had for this record from me as a person. I had to shift my perspective. That was a big personal win and the beginning of “Forever I Wait.”

'Forever I Wait' leans on a multitude of tense sounds, dubby atmospherics and natural instrumentation to demand the listeners attention leading to over two decades of observations, experiences and musical sacrifices. It is a bi-product of the new perspective featuring carefully selected and tailored supporting arrangements from a handful of collaborators including Robert del Naja (Massive Attack), Rich Morel (Deep Dish), Christoffer Berg (Fever Ray) and Benjamin Boeldt (Adventure).

A truthful expression of desire and heartache “Forever I Wait “Is Topley Bird’s most precise and accurate album to date.

After more than a year of strengthening our bodies through workout, our poetic endeavors via the discovery of our inner worlds, and also the life of plants and mushrooms, insects, arachnids, birds and wild mammals, after a year and a half that saw us in lockdown, shattered around the planet, after one a and a half year in which we deepened our production skills and also the meaningfulness of our work, Cómeme returns to a new planet with new music.

The beginning is this unique collaboration between Medellín based musician and DJ Julianna, and Matias Aguayo aka “The Don” himself.

In this deep therapeutical exploration of rhythm and sound, these artists established a magical dialogue on distance, leading up to this EP called “Que si el mundo”, roughly translated: “What if the world”.

Between soulful industrial expressions, emotional breakdowns but also discoveries free of any grids and algorithms, Julianna and Aguayo have created a beautiful piece of work, intense as the movements that we had to experience mentally and economically. “Que si el mundo” is state of the art electronic music of today, a work that is both introspective but also extremely open to the outside world and the universe. Compositions reminiscent of Coil, Angelo Badalamenti, Closer Musik, Steve Pointdexter or Mark Broom, shaped this EP that can be considered a short album in its conceptual layout and narrative. Let’s dive into it...

A1. Hiedra
One of the more danceable tunes, ideal for both a sensual warmup or the very late night to the rising sun sensitivity, is polyrhythmical melancholy and hypnotic inevitability, slow dance, deep trance.

A2. Primer Paso
A fat, slick and modern synth sequence, accompanied by heavy drumming and celestial drops that seem to fall onto the body of the listener or dancer, this post EBM stomper is a manifestation of elegant minimalism and reason. As if Liaisons Dangereuses reincarnated in a cloudy forest, to then pause towards the end of the track, with sentimental and gloomy synth chords that open the view towards the horizon.

B1. Que Si El Mundo
The title track keeps up the more melodic approach - somewhere between ambient, avant- garde and late night jazz. Morphing melodies that are both disturbing and soothing at a time encounter smooth free jazz drumming with drums that seem to have travelled from the sixties to today’s world.

B2. Bajo Tierra
This track continues the deep drumming experience that this record means, between laid back rides and intense taikoesque drumming. Distorted dark pads and subterranean choirs build up to a heavy sadness and intensity. Again, a therapeutical track to send those demons fly.

B3. Micelio
A more hopeful conclusion of the EP is “Micelio”. Open chords, soothing and melancholic, spread over profound drum grooves of champed and house. Nothing seems as it was before. A new life has begun.

Combining our favourite tracks from Situationism Records latest 2 part compilation, where ‘2UP 2DOWN’ met the 'In The Bag' series, we are releasing a special 12" vinyl sampler of only previously digitally released grooves…

Javonntte 'Soul People' – released digitally earlier this year on his 'JMarsFrank EP' is an Amp Fiddler style groove of pure soulful underground Detroit badness …enough said!

Laroye’s 'Best Girlfriends' (Soulful mix) - released digitally last year - is a lovely Rhodes laden bumping kinda groove. Nice and heavy organ driven chunkiness, bringing an infectious swing around those urgent vocal samples. Some pretty tasty synth solos in there too.

BRS 'Night To Remember' - released digitally as a single last year, is a classic BRS house groover, with deep chords over an irresistible 4/4 shuffle with rhythm guitar, meandering flute and boogie bass, building and keeping you locked until that vocal bursts through to finish the job.

Mike 'Agent X' Clark’s 'Journey Thru Afroism' was an exclusive for the compilation and is as the title suggests a true journey into Mike’s world of Afroism with cleverly hypnotic sampled chants over a deep tribal style groove and soaring synths and hints of jazz.

Pure product of the Neapolitan scene, Fabrizio Fattore turns up on Cosmocities Records with his third solo effort. Comprised of two originals on the A-side, and two bespoke revamps from Vince Watson on the flip, this new EP from Fattore draws a direct bridge betwixt the idyllic coastal flow of Italian boogie and straight out pulsating alien disco, sure to keep galaxies bouncing in good order.

Clocking in first is the vibey, otherworldly 'Lyle' - a cross-pollinated ode to the healing power of laid-back, 80s-informed house, bristling with shimmering Casio synthlines and Cuban jazz-friendly pianos and drums. Heliotropic by nature, Fattore's sound sits half-way loungey summer atmospherics and trailblazing post-kosmische jaunts. Then comes 'Island Goddess', casting more of a Sino-Caribbean flavoured spin on the dance floor with its obsessive miss-mash of processed chimes and prismatic webwork of steel pans.

On the B-side dwell two versions of 'Lyle' by true house legend Vince Watson, each of which deliver in their own right. If you’re after a proper classy, straightforward roller, bound to take dancers into a ravishingly deep but rousing trip, then the 'Watson Reshape' fits the bill like a glove, whereas the 'Balearic mix' does exactly what's written on the tin - ushering you into a sense-soothing haven, where keyboard-laden escapism and Afro-style rhythms meet the elegance of muted chamber music.

Bonfido Disques is delighted to welcome Elado (Razor 'n' Tape, GAMM) to the family. For this superb solo expedition the original party starter, record collector and decks aficionado delivers three exotic disco gems for the body, soul and dancefloor on a limited 12" vinyl.

Looking at Dan Andriano's catalog, one might assume that making new music is old hat for the veteran vocalist, songwriter, bassist and primary member of the beloved Chicago punk outft Alkaline Trio
Decades into his prolifc career, though, Andriano is just as in love with the process as he was in those early days of sweaty clubs and cramped vans.

On Andriano's new Epitaph Records album, Dear Darkness, that unceasing passion is evident on this solo, self- produced project, which follows his 2015 release (as Dan Andriano in the Emergency Room) Party Adjacent, fnds Andriano venturing into deeply personal lyrical territory while also pushing the limits of just what his unclassifable sound can be.

2024 Repress

Cool - gelassen - überraschend: Volume 15 dieser superlativen Serie wurde wieder von Compost’s Mentor Michael Reinboth zusammengestellt. Das pralle Paket birgt 21 Tracks, davon 8 exklusive unveröffentlichte Delikatessen und gibt es als 4-LP / 2xCD. Viel Vergnügen.

Die exklusiven Tracks kommen von: Area (schätze, man kennt seine brillianten Innervisions Veröffentlichungen), Arnau Obiols & KAYYAK (schwer von Gilles Peterson gefeatured, ihre EP “Chang‘an” war in seiner 2021 top 5 Liste), Ron Deacon (gehört zur Workshop-Crew mit Move D, Even Tuell and Kassem Mosse), Class Compliance, oh man was für ein Hammer Track, Mille & Hirsch (Operatoren des feinen Polish Records - Labels), All Is Well (dahinter steckt natürlich Fred Everything), Ben Sturm (ein neues Talent aus Leipzig’s viraler Underground Szene) und Oliver Kieser (bestens bekannt als Teil von Kieser & Velten mit einigen Platten auf G-Stone).

Gut, schön, wie immer, fast alle Tracks sind wunderbare Hybride, perfekt für jedes eklektische Set, aber auch für den entspannten Genuss von Wein, Bier, härterem oder grünem Zeug. Vielleicht besonders zu erwähnen wäre der Esa Williams Remix von Bantu Clan Vs Sarabi and Kevin Yost’s Original Mix von “Another World”, die gab es so in den Versionen bisher nicht auf Vinyl.

Diverse Magazine haben die Future Sounds Of Jazz als eine der besten Compilation - Serien aller Zeiten gewählt. Wir sind geschmeichelt. Mit dem Start der Reihe 1995 wurde das Genre Future Jazz quasi aus der Taufe gehoben, unetabliert.

Superb Deep house and disco house electro EP !

Just a few months after releasing their acclaimed second album Still Life, Los Angeles indie-pop band Massage returns with Lane Lines a six-track EP out in early 2022 on Mt. St. Mtn. (Cindy, Flowertown, Blues Lawyer) that finds the quintet expanding on their Sarah-meets-Creation Records sound with new touches of soft psychedelia, Feelies-ish frenzy and Haçienda-era escapism. The band didn’t plan to follow Still Lines so quickly. But after the pandemic further delayed that multi-year project, Alex Naidus (guitar, vocals, former Pains of Being Pure at Heart), Andrew Romano (guitar, vocals), Gabrielle Ferrer (keyboards, percussion, vocals), David Rager (bass) and Natalie de Almeida (drums) leapt at the chance to make music together again in real life and started gathering on random summer evenings in the tiny rehearsal-space studio of producer-composer Andrew Brassell (Susanna Hoffs) with no clear goal in mind. Lane Lines is the surprise product of those informal sessions — a flash of pent-up creative energy that serves as both a companion piece to Still Life and an exploration of textures and influences that didn’t quite fit the full-length but have always been deeply embedded in the band’s DNA, with new echoes of 1980s artists that sought to refract the 1960s through their own skewed prisms: Flying Nun, the Paisley Underground, The Feelies covering The Beatles, “Second Summer of Love” New Order. “The songs on Still Life and Lane Lines seem to straddle the line between indie and pop without exactly being ‘indie pop,’” Romano says. “To me they feel more like descendents of ‘college rock’ a moment that lasted from about 1986 to 1991, right before the underground and the mainstream converged, when it seemed like any scrappy indie band might stumble across a hit.” The EP begins with the new single version of Still Life standout “In Gray & Blue,” which along with previous singles “Half a Feeling” and “Made of Moods” is part of a trio of songs written during the first days of lockdown and later added to the album. But while brief lulls in the pandemic allowed Massage to record the other lockdown tracks in the studio, the LP version of “In Gray & Blue” was entirely DIY a GarageBand demo emailed around for overdubs and ultimately “mixed” by Romano himself.

The 18th offering from Instinct features four different acts, each with their own take on moving the dancefloor. Pinder P has a funky house/UK garage flavour to it but laced with wonderfully deep bass heavy and shaky enough to dislodge fillings. Papa Nugs' 'Super Beagle' delves even further into the raw aesthetics of early hardcore and especially the reggae-tinted futurism of Shut Up & Dance, Ragga Twins and Hype. DJ Crisps has arguably the least retro sound, relying on very steady and sturdy, more US garage-slanted beat foundations, before the EP is rounded off with the bubbling, skippy 'Only You' from Yosh, re-connected with a subtle reggae flavour to its UKG swagger.

"When I was approached to participate in Monsterland I was immediately attracted to the idea of working on a series where horror, science fiction and gore could converge. I had never done music for a project like this before and the sole idea of venturing into some new playground immediately sparked my interest. And just after reading the first two episodes I realized I had to get involved in the project.

Several things connected with me deeply. I found in the stories elements that reminded me of the “magical realism” that I grew up with in Latin America through writers like Horacio Quiroga and Gabriel García Márquez. Also, the idea of tapping into a landscape in which fear and horror have a metaphysical quality connected to the psyche of the characters appealed to me.

Working with Juan Luquí was key in making this score. His capacity to deeply understand my vision and his masterful skills add another dimension to Monsterland. A land of monsters so human in nature, that in many instances seemed extremely and frighteningly familiar."

Composed by Gustavo Santaolalla
Artwork by Matt Ryan Tobin
Manufactured in Czech Republic

Newly remastered audio.
LP pressed on black vinyl & housed in a gatefold jacket.

Willie Nelson’s 1996 album Spirit is an emotional concept album illustrating the forlorn tale of a man abandoned by the great love of his life. We follow him down the path of loss as he confronts grief, gets back on his feet, and eventually finds solace in acceptance. While producing Spirit, Nelson assuredly knew the commercial risks behind releasing an album this melancholic. After all, in 1973 he himself wrote: “sad songs and waltzes ain’t selling this year.” Beloved by those familiar with Nelson’s deep catalog, Spirit largely slipped through the cracks in the mainstream, but remains highly revered amongst critics and fans alike.
Backed by legendary country fiddler Johnny Gimble (of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys), sister Bobbie Nelson on piano, and his longtime touring guitarist Jody Payne, the song-cycle is anchored by lilting Spanish-inspired instrumentals that absorb a lonesome gravity when placed next to ballads that tug at even the most unwavering heartstrings. Likened to Bob Dylan’s Time Out Of Mind or Waylon Jennings’ Right For the Time, Spirit sees Nelson maturing most gracefully: he trades rousing sing-alongs and saloon tunes for gut-wrenching lyrics and instrumentation of greater precision and skill, proving this release as deep and as challenging as his career-defining albums released twenty years before.
Originally released by Island Records in 1996, Spirit is newly remastered and housed in a gatefold jacket. This is a chance to own this unique album in its most beautifully presented form.

Miles Kane is back with brand new album 'Change the Show', set for release on 21st January 2022 via BMG.
Following a chance “no frills session” with psych-rock duo Sunglasses For Jaws at the band’s Hackney studio, Miles’ fourth solo album ‘Change the Show’ really began to take shape. “I saw myself in their energy, but also their taste and their knowledge of music,” Miles explains. “It was the first time I’d felt old!”
Opening with the honest soft croon of ‘Tears are Falling’, the album is a joyous ride from start to finish and features a surprising, but spectacular appearance from Grammy-nominated singer Corinne Bailey Rae for a duet on ‘Nothing’s Ever Gonna Be Good Enough’. ‘Don’t Let It Get You Down’, the first track released from the record, is Miles Kane at his very best: energetic, infectious and full of swagger, the track opening with a sample from fellow Wirral alumnus Paul O’Grady. It's an album that best represents Miles himself: charmingly authentic, and like nothing else you'll hear in pop music today.
“This album was born out of an intense period of self-reflection; having all this unexpected time on my hands,” Miles said of the last 18 months. “I wrote songs about big highs, big lows, daydreams, true friends and deep feelings. I learnt to let the future unfold of its own accord, while staying true to myself and that has led to what feels to me like a really uplifting album!”
A record for fans both new and old, ‘Change the Show’ is the Miles Kane album we’ve all been waiting for. The apotheosis of his previous works, incorporating those classic rock and glam influences, but focusing more closely on Motown, soul, and Fifties R&B.

Emigrate. The one-time project has become more than that. Much more. The three studio albums, EMIGRATE (2007), SILENT SO LONG (2014) and A MILLION DEGREES (2018), prove that squarely behind Emigrate stands Richard Zven Kruspe – an extremely creative mind who needs the freedom to explore his music and his vision in ways outside of Rammstein. With Emigrate there are no limits, no barriers. Everything is possible, nothing held back, and it’s this ethos that underlines THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY, the new studio album, set for release on November 5th. THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY is a special jewel indeed, with the nine featured songs bringing together ideas that Richard has collected across the last two decades. Industrial Rock, Rock with electronic elements, however you choose to describe it, there’s no question that the songs here always contain a strong sense of melody, as rousing as they are deep. At one stage, it seemed that the tracks might be part of a bigger project – a vinyl box set of the first three albums with an additional LP included. On this bonus LP would be a selection of unreleased songs dating from 2001 right through to 2018. In the end, however, this material was considered too precious to sit beneath the ‘bonus’ heading, so THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY was born... Richard reacquainted himself with his hard drives, coming across ideas, songs and lyrics that deserved to be brought into the light, material too good to remain in the archives. He threw himself fully into the task at hand, as he always does, working on the basis that "A good idea remains a good idea”, and if he felt that there was more to be gained he was open to taking another look at the arrangements and the lyrics; new parts were also recorded here an’ there, after which the entire mix was given a fresh polish, ensuring that the nine songs have a contemporary yet timeless coat of paint. This time, Richard tried to keep things as simple as possible, allowing the creativity to flow, keeping his sights firmly set on pure, raw Emigrate songs. Says Richard: "These songs were created at a certain point in my life, but ideas don't have an expiration date. Sounds, lyrics and themes, on the other hand, do." "Freeze My Mind", for example, is one of the first Emigrate songs ever written, going right back to 2001. Now, 20 years later, it sounds fresh, of the moment, yet Emigrate through & through, something that is true of the album as a whole. Some of the elements are forged in a familiar heat, but these are married to new ways of working, new influences and challenges.

Unrelenting but utterly charismatic across four tracks, Valerie Ace's debut EP blends her lived experience intertwined with today's increasingly complex politics of club culture with a thirst for experimentation, unpicking and subverting the strains of toxic masculinity that still run deep through contemporary culture. This is first-rate dancefloor discourse with little room for chin-stroking.

A LOST RECORDING OF UNTAMED APPALACHIAN MUSIC.
160 gram black vinyl LP in gold & black color reverse-board jacket. Co-release with Jalopy Records.
In 1972, the renowned and singular folk musician Roscoe Holcomb left his home in rural Daisy, Kentucky and embarked on a west coast tour with Mike Seeger in 1972, which included a performance at The Old Church in Portland, Oregon - a beautiful Carpenter Gothic church built in 1882. Decades later, two particular reels were discovered deep within a pile of 1/4” tape in a shadowy corner of the KBOO Community Radio archives in Portland. Incredibly, those tapes contained the sole surviving evidence of a strikingly intimate and raw performance by Roscoe Holcomb, whose cascading and haunting banjo, guitar and voice echoed and saturated the room and hushed audience.
In contrast to Roscoe’s rarely documented (and at times restrained) live performances at folk festivals and television programs, Roscoe seems to have felt more familiar and spiritually moved in the old church that night. Heard here are standout versions of Appalachian folk-blues classics such as Single Girl, John Henry, East Virginia Blues, Swanno Mountain and more. Once cited as Bob Dylan’s favorite singer, Roscoe Holcomb appears at the peak of his powers here, showcasing his immense vocal talents on an extended acapella version of “The Village Churchyard”. The recording itself is warm and mysterious, sounding like the room itself is alive with the spirit, while the rumbles of trucks and hints of city sounds peek through the walls from the outside streets.

This recording is dedicated to nomads, space travelers, free spirits that visits earth for a brief time to make a mark here on their way to other worlds. They leave traces on tram wagons, walls and in our minds in our cities before moving on into the unknown. Especially one.

A slow build up to a jungle crescendo is how “Iris” develops. This is a fine example of how Fontän effortlessly makes crossover music – no compromises needed in neither end of the spectrum, this music flows naturally. The dreamy music box-sounding intro of “Mast” falls into a deep half beat where warm E-bow guitars and sweeping synthesizers carries the music higher and higher away from the ground.

These two tracks are a peaceful homage to all the cosmic kings and queens that have spent time here on earth. Safe travels!